Rita Panahi: Covid report tells us what we already knew

Instead of a Captain Obvious report into Covid, objections should have been raised — when it mattered — to the overreach that saw families kept apart and the frail left to die alone.

The “Captain Obvious” report on Australia’s Covid-19 response told us nothing we didn’t already know.

Next, we’ll have an “expert” panel earnestly explain why water is wet and fire is ouchy.

One wonders why the panel took six months to reach conclusions that were obvious to anyone with a fully functioning brain more than two years ago.

Some of us were even warning about the health, societal and economic consequences of lockdowns and other Covid-19 measures back in April 2020 when the bulk of the media, together with politicians, academia and health bureaucrats, were busy whipping up maximum fear and hysteria in the community.

Those of us who criticised the draconian restrictions were labelled “granny killers” and “science deniers” despite the fact that it was emotion and politics, and not science, that saw our leaders make monumental, generation-defining mistakes.

The rich-listers, billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation, the John and Myriam Wylie Foundation and the Paul Ramsay Foundation, who commissioned the independent review would’ve been better off raising objections, when it mattered, to the overreach that saw state borders closed, families kept apart, children kicked off playgrounds and the sick and frail left to die alone.

Police patrol the streets of Melbourne during lockdown. Picture: Sarah Matray

Instead of using his considerable power to question some of the mad policies inflicted on ordinary Australians, Forrest decided in April 2020 to invite a Chinese Communist Party diplomat to a ministerial press conference unannounced.

Now, to be clear, I’m not disputing any of the conclusions reached in the Fault Lines review – chaired by Western Sydney University chancellor and former secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Peter Shergold, assisted by University of Queensland chancellor and former diplomat Peter Varghese, social entrepreneur and self-described “member of the TikTok generation” Isobel Marshall and prominent businesswoman Jillian Broadbent. I am merely pointing out that my son who is in year 10 could’ve delivered similar findings and in a more timely fashion.

Among the 97-page report’s findings were: “Rules were too often formulated and enforced in ways that lacked fairness and compassion … such overreach undermined public trust and confidence in the institutions that are vital to effective crisis response” and “it was wrong to close entire school systems, particularly once new information indicated that schools were not high-transmission environments.”

And this: “State leaders insisted on going their own way, emboldened by their constitutional prerogatives”.

Premier Daniel Andrews’ lockdowns inflicted untold pain and suffering on Victorians. Picture: Jason Edwards

The report also found that “significant mistakes were made” and policies, motivated by political considerations, were often implemented without full appreciation of the consequences and the inequalities in the community.

None of it is remotely surprising nor informative.

For those capable of critical thought there were strong voices, including leading experts in infectious diseases, pointing out that locking down healthy people was no way to deal with a respiratory illness that would become endemic – and we knew from early 2020 that coronavirus would become endemic.

I recall quoting renowned epidemiologists, including professor of medicine at Stanford University Dr Jay Bhattacharya, Oxford University professor Dr Sunetra Gupta and professor of medicine at Harvard University, Dr Martin Kulldorff.

They implored governments not to impose lockdowns to fight COVID-19. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,” they wrote. “Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice. Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.”

They were joined by thousands of other doctors, scientists and health professionals who signed the Great Barrington Declaration.

Instead of being listened to they were attacked, maligned and misrepresented.

For more than two and half years I’ve been quoting medical experts cautioning against harsh restrictions and warning that lockdowns would do more long-term harm than good. But you didn’t have to be an expert to see the disastrous unintended consequences of our Covid-19 response.

As I wrote in April 2020: “There’s been some focus on the mental health costs of the restrictions and the resultant job losses and economic hardship, but not much said about the loss of life we can expect because the world has become entirely preoccupied with one virus with a fatality rate that has turned out to be far lower than first feared.”

Now we are seeing a surge in excess deaths from the UK to Australia.

Only this week we learned that there’s been a significant jump in the number of alcohol related deaths and cancer specialists fear that missed screenings will see many patients die prematurely. And the median age of these deaths isn’t around 80 unlike deaths from or with Covid-19.

We don’t need more Captain Obvious reports, we need a reckoning.

We need accountability from the politicians and the public health bureaucrats who needlessly destroyed so many lives by playing politics and choosing to ignore the full impact of their policies.

If there are no real consequences for those who contributed to this period of madness then we’re at risk of having the entire catastrophe repeated the next time there is a new virus that’s any more virulent than the flu.