Rita Panahi: Premiers making a mockery of our road to freedom

We have passed the point where the Covid-19 “cure” is worse than the disease, especially for kids who are suffering more than ever.

The elimination strategy favoured by state premiers is wreaking untold hardship on millions of Australians suffering both psychological and financial pain. We have well and truly passed the point where the “cure” is worse than the disease. Only indiscriminate lockdowns are not a cure, just a destructive delaying tactic.

At best, lockdowns temporarily suppress the virus — but that comes at a steep cost. We can save hundreds, possibly thousands, of elderly and infirm lives every year by locking down during deadly flu seasons but, as a society we judge the cost to be too high, particularly when individuals can mitigate their own risk by having a flu jab.

By now every single at-risk individual in Australia should be immunised. Our vaccination rollout began late and slow but it has been under way for six months and there’s no shortage of AstraZeneca available. More than 15 million doses have been administered and just over 52 per cent of people aged over 70 are now fully vaccinated.

But, disturbingly, state premiers, including Mark McGowan, Gladys Berejiklian and Dan Andrews, are now talking about ongoing Covid restrictions even once the country reaches the ambitious 80 per cent vaccination mark.

Victoria Daniel Andrews has hinted that some restrictions may remain even after the nation reaches an 80 per cent vaccination mark. Picture: David Geraghty

Covid-19 can impact anybody but the risk to the young and healthy is significantly lower for all strains of the virus. For children, influenza remains more dangerous than Covid-19, a fact that seems to be lost in the current hysteria and crackdown on playgrounds and skate parks.

Much has been written about the tragic death of 15-year-old Osama Suduh in Sydney but as with so much of the relentless scaremongering that passes for Covid reporting a key detail was not apparent in some headlines, including one which read: “Youngest Australian Covid victim dies at 15”. You had to read deeper into the article to learn that the tragic victim had been hospitalised with pneumococcal meningitis, a life-threatening infectious disease. We do not yet know whether the Covid-19 infection predated his hospital admission and what impact it had on his death.

What we do know is that for youngsters there is a deepening mental health crisis with significant increases recorded in suicidal ideation, self-harm, eating disorders and other serious issues.

The Andrews government has not been forthcoming with data collected by the Victorian Agency for Health Information, warning doctors who received the report to “keep the information confidential” or “destroy it”. The Australian obtained a copy of the report, which showed a 51 per cent jump in the number of teenagers rushed to hospital after self-harming and suffering suicidal thoughts in 2021.

In the six weeks to March 28 there was a weekly average of 319 children and teenagers presenting at emergency departments.

Dr Stacey Harris, who has previously written to Premier Andrews about the mental health toll on kids, spoke out about what she’s now seeing in her Camberwell clinic, including treating five suicidal students in a single day.

“These kids that were once happy-go-lucky kids, high achievers, are harming themselves,” she said on 3AW. “Two of them ended up in hospital with self-harm wounds that needed stitches.”

Dr Harris believes the government is suppressing data and many doctors are scared to go public with what they’re seeing in clinics and hospitals. “None of them want to talk because their jobs are on the line, but they’re seeing it,” she said.

Children and families have now been banned from playgrounds.

If these lockdowns are to continue for weeks, and perhaps months, then one concession that state governments must make is to re-open schools. Doing something constructive to mitigate the damage to young people is the very least we should demand from the Andrews government.

There is a wealth of information from around the world showing schools are low-risk settings and with appropriate measures can be operated safely even during outbreaks.

But in the quest for Covid-zero we have created a dystopian nightmare where millions live under a strict curfew, where kids are robbed of months of schooling and police roam playgrounds to enforce despotic orders.

On Tuesday, Chief Commissioner Shane Patton was unapologetic about his officers patrolling playgrounds. To keep rogue toddlers from play equipment, temporary fencing has been erected at parks throughout Melbourne.

Instead of employing Chinese Communist Party-style measures we need dates, or at the very least firm vaccination targets, that correspond with the full restoration of our freedoms.

In theory that’s what the national cabinet has approved but premiers are already making a mockery of the four-phase plan, with talk of ongoing border closures, lockdowns and restrictions even once the country is 80 per cent vaccinated.

One lives in eternal hope that our political class belatedly come to the conclusion that elimination is not possible without keeping the country isolated indefinitely.

IN SHORT

The state government is stopping late-night public transport on Fridays and Saturdays to “stop the spread of coronavirus”. Tough luck for nurses, chefs and other shift workers who don’t have the luxury of a 9 to 5 job.