Rita Panahi: Dan Andrews ignoring best health advice on jab mandates

Daniel Andrews is belligerently sticking to a vaccine mandate policy that achieves little good, causes societal harm and is a massive inconvenience for businesses.

Throughout the pandemic Dan Andrews has claimed he follows the best available health advice.

Naturally many of us have been incredulous at this claim, given Victoria’s disastrous Covid-19 outcomes compared with the rest of the country and the eagerness of the state government to hide the expert recommendations.

Indeed right now the Labor government is using taxpayer funds in court action to overturn an order by Victoria’s privacy watchdog to release more than 100 pages of briefings. But I digress.

If the Premier really does act upon the best medical advice, then why is he ignoring the groundswell of expert opinion calling on Victoria to abandon vaccine mandates? Why is the Premier sticking stubbornly to a bad policy when many infectious disease experts are openly critical of the Victorian approach?

After being embarrassed by NSW and abandoning much of Victoria’s roadmap to follow the Dominic Perrottet plan, Premier Andrews is belligerently sticking to a policy that achieves little good, causes considerable societal harm and is also a massive inconvenience for businesses. It’s a policy built on spite, rather than sound reasoning.

Premier Daniel Andrews has enforced a jab mandate across Victoria. Picture: Sarah Matray

Immunisation policy expert, World Health Organisation adviser and professor at Sydney University Julie Leask argues we will not eliminate risk by locking out the unvaccinated from everyday life.

“To make the requirement ongoing is not proportionate to the harm it brings; for people’s travel and their everyday life. It can create these radicalisation effects, we see that in history,” Professor Leask said. “When you bring in hard mandates with severe consequences, some will dig in further, become more alienated, less trusting and less willing to comply with other things. It can actually give vaccination and primary healthcare a bad name.

“When we reach a sufficient level of vaccination, the value of locking people out is tiny, and we need to pull back and let unvaccinated people participate.”

Infectious disease physician and professor of microbiology at the Australian National University Peter Collignon posted: “Victorian government intends to extend the lockout of the unvaccinated throughout 2022. This is disproportionate to the risks the unvaccinated pose in a population that will reach at least 93 per cent two-dose coverage by year’s end.”

Infectious disease physician and former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth wrote: “It is now hard to find a prominent, legitimate vaccine expert in Australia who agrees with including 12-15-year-olds in government vaccine-related social restrictions.”

While NSW is on the verge of lifting mandates for all age groups, Victoria has implemented harsh restrictions on unvaccinated children as young as 12, banning them from most activities and locations from restaurants to retail outlets to entertainment venues. It’s cruel and unnecessary.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet was panned for dumping his state’s jab mandate. Picture: Gaye Gerard

The NSW government was criticised for announcing vaccine mandates would be lifted before the end of the year, hysterical commentators claiming that it would slow the vaccine rollout.

That prediction turned out to be bunkum, with the state continuing to outperform Victoria in every key Covid-19 metric. On Thursday NSW recorded zero deaths and 276 new cases from 74,926 tests while Victoria recorded five deaths and 1254 cases from 75,348 tests.

University of Melbourne epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely who has been among the more enthusiastic supporters of Covid-19 restrictions, believes at some point Victoria needs “to let people back into society” even though there may be outbreaks.

“Weighing everything up, epidemiologically, looking at societal factors and human rights, you can make a case for letting the unvaccinated out at 90 per cent.”

Epidemiology chair at Deakin University, Professor Catherine Bennett, said: “Once you get to 90 and 95 (per cent), you have such a small population of unvaccinated people who could contribute to transmission dynamics in a major way. It becomes even lower over summer as more people are exposed. There’s not enough to undermine what we’re trying to achieve or to overload hospitals.”

Incoming human rights commissioner Lorraine Finlay has called for a more rational, tolerant approach on vaccine mandates.

“Where governments do introduce vaccine mandates, and they are able to limit rights to protect public health … it’s really important they are justified, non-discriminatory and proportionate,” she said. “As vaccination rates go up, the need for mandates changes because the proportionality calculations change.”

It’s time for the Premier to accept his stupendously stubborn stance is at odds with expert opinion. He can give long-suffering businesses a boost by removing onerous vaccine passport requirements as we head into the festive season.

IN SHORT

We are precisely a year away from the state election and despite the Andrews government’s litany of failures, it will be re-elected, and comfortably, unless the opposition grows a backbone and begins to fight on its own terms. The Coalition has no hope of winning if they go into 2022 being a weak, Labor-lite version of the current government.