Rita Panahi: Premier’s hysteria does not match facts

When lockdown lifts, the mandatory mask mandate may remain. But why should Victorians be muzzled in the summer heat?

We live in a state of absurdity. How else does one explain the man responsible for botching Victoria’s COVID response – whose gross incompetence resulted in hundreds of avoidable deaths, multiple livelihood destroying lockdowns and failures so profound that they amount to the greatest public policy disaster in the state’s history – being in line for a leadership award?

The figures speak for themselves; the premier’s mishandling of the pandemic sees Victoria account for more than 90 per cent of Australia’s COVID deaths.

Then there’s the economic ruination with more than 600,000 Victorians still dependent on JobKeeper, a figure markedly higher than any other state.

Meanwhile, businesses and schools are closed, elective surgery is cancelled and demand for mental health services is surging.

Nominating Daniel Andrews for the McKinnon Prize in Political Leadership is either an act of sheer lunacy or an early April Fool’s joke to cheer up the depressed masses. And, lord do we need cheering up.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews locked down the state for a third time.

Even if Lockdown 3.0 ends we remain on the precipice of another one given the government’s lack of trust in its hotel quarantine and contact tracing programs, which only a week ago the premier claimed were the best in the nation.

Andrews and his underlings have made it clear that even if the lockdown lifts many restrictions may remain including the mandatory mask mandate. Why should Victorians be muzzled in the summer heat when outdoors and socially distanced? Where is the medical evidence behind the outdoors mask mandate and why won’t the government release it?

We are told to have blind faith in the advice of Victoria’s health bureaucrats even when their advice is at odds with that of leading epidemiologists and other medical experts with superior qualifications and experience.

Victoria’s chaotic COVID response is evident in the plan to again overhaul hotel quarantine, a mere two months after the program was relaunched.

The premier announced on Tuesday that Victoria will construct a purpose-built quarantine facility possibly on land near Avalon and/or Melbourne airports.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s hotel quarantine has out shone other state’s.

A year into the pandemic and Andrews still cannot bring himself to copy the NSW model that has worked in keeping the community safe while taking more overseas arrivals than any other state, and all without resorting to crippling lockdowns. NSW is currently taking more than 3000 overseas arrivals a week, more than the rest of the country combined, while Victoria has again suspended its program with the premier confirming on Tuesday that international flights will not resume on Thursday.

During that same press conference the premier again tried to scare the masses and justify his government’s insanely disproportionate response by claiming the UK strain is a game changer.

The premier’s language in describing the UK variant has consistently bordered on the hysterical: “A virus that is smarter, and faster, and more infectious … hyper-infectious variant moving at hyper-speed,” Andrews has claimed. “It is moving at a velocity that has not been seen anywhere in our country over the course of these last 12 months.”

And yet Victoria recorded only one case of community transmission on Monday and two on Tuesday.

The CBD has once again been decimated by lockdown. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, Professor Catherine Bennett, on Monday disputed the premier’s claims. “You’re talking about 11 per cent of close contacts with the other variant, with this variant it might be 14 or 15 per cent,” she said.

That analysis is backed up by data out of the UK with Public Health England figures showing someone with the UK strain will infect 14.7 per cent of close contacts, compared to 11 per cent for those infected with regular Covid.

Where there has been an undeniable surge is the number of people seeking help from crisis hotlines after the latest lockdown was announced.

Lifeline Australia chair John Brogden has warned that lockdowns have a “direct side-effect” on mental health.

“There will be no vaccine for the mental health pandemic that is happening in Australia,” he said. “What we are seeing now will continue for some years to come.”

Lifeline reported a huge jump in calls on Saturday equalling the third highest daily figure in the organisation’s 58-year history.

All of this may be food for thought for the judging panel of the McKinnon Prize who meet on Thursday to determine the winner.

But don’t be surprised to see Andrews win, after all the man with possibly the worst COVID response in the world who sent COVID-infected patients into nursing homes, NY governor Andrew Cuomo, not only won plaudits from media and Hollywood A-listers, wrote a book on leadership but also collected an Emmy for his “Masterful’ COVID-19 Briefings’’ where he lied and blamed everyone but himself.

Sound familiar?