Patrick Carlyon: Latest COVID response tinged with panic

Why does a single new COVID case prompt instant changes for millions of Victorians? The government overreach almost feels as traumatic as the threat itself.

A snap press conference tends to worry people who have regularly and repeatedly had their freedoms stripped in an instant.

Tensions were high before Premier Dan Andrews spoke late on Wednesday night. Was there another catastrophic failing? Were we going back into lockdown?

Not at all. A hotel quarantine worker had tested positive. He had been out and about in the days before he was found to be infected.

A list was produced of where he had been and when (why does every infected person seem to go to Bunnings?). There was no evidence, not yet anyway, that the man had spread the virus.

The story, then, was this: a single man contracted the virus from a hotel, then left the building. Not five men or 10. One man.

As Andrews said: “There’s no need for people to panic. There’s no need for people to be alarmed.”

So why was the government response tinged by alarm and panic?

At the “emergency” press conference, Andrews was said to announce “emergency restrictions”.

Masks were to be worn inside. No more than 15 people in homes. A pause on back-to-work schedules.

The rules were to be statewide. The people of Mildura, as with the people of Lakes Entrance, will not host big barbecues in coming days. They will wear masks when they pay for petrol.

Andrews dismissed fears of a lockdown scenario, though he reiterated his “abundance of caution” reasoning.

Masks were back on across Melbourne on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

But was the blanket response proportional to the risk? What does it foreshadow?

Thursday morning brought optimism. The man’s closest contacts were not infected. His “outstanding” co-operation had identified both his list of close contacts and the places he had visited.

Victorians who happened to overlap his movements dutifully queued to be tested.

There will probably be more cases, after almost a month without a community transmission.

Yet the signs were good. Contact tracing, finally, appears to be working as it should. One of the myths of 2020 was that Victoria had a competent tracing system. It did not.

Andrews has argued that the inconvenience of masks pales against the risks of an outbreak. Yet weren’t the risks being managed? Wasn’t the system, belatedly, working? Weren’t hundreds or thousands of people who shared theoretical daisy chains of contact with the man being directed to quarantine?

Andrews emphasised the infectiousness of newer strains of COVID-19, each labelled by its presumed place of origin.

The South Africa version, along with the UK strain, are “wildly” more contagious than the China prototype.

Yet the rhetoric and restrictions seemed misplaced for what was an outbreak that had so far consisted of one case.

Victoria’s decision-making has always seemed to lack wisdom.

Restrictions that are not absolutely necessary get enacted anyway.

In Victoria, it is as if the side effects of restriction “solutions” do not get properly considered.

To reduce risk, you must reduce freedoms, and the fear of perceived risk has always superseded the fear of unintended consequences.

There’s a price to that, as every Melburnian knows.

Victorians are still edgy from the privations of last year. For many, the memories are like bruises that will not fade.

The government overreach almost felt as traumatic as the threat itself.

Compare the willingness of the Andrews government to intrude with the responses of NSW, which has handled multiple outbreaks with minimal disruption.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has always looked pained in imposing restrictions, as if she has weighed the benefits of restrictions against the benefits of not imposing them.

Collectively, Victorians were model subjects last year.

We did what we were told. There was little resistance to measures, such as a curfew, which seemed so brutal in their blunt application.

We have seen overreactions elsewhere. South Australia was thrown into lockdown because an infected man lied about his whereabouts.

In Western Australia, border closures are swiftly announced, not because they are a proportional response, but because they are popular with fretful voters.

Queensland, too, has been regularly paralysed by handfuls of cases. It was almost surprising yesterday that authorities there did not declare Victoria a hot spot because of this single case.

Victorians have endured more than other Australians.

Authorities have had 12 months to learn from and refine responses. Systems and protocols have been honed, as they desperately needed to be.

So why does this single case, indeed a well-managed case, prompt instant changes for millions of people?

If there are more cases, will we face more restrictions that we do not need?

Will we, once again, suffer for an abundance of overcaution?

Patrick Carlyon is a Herald Sun columnist

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