Rita Panahi: Victorians deserve to know the long term strategy to COVID-19
It is foolhardy to assume a COVID-19 vaccine is certain given a successful one has never been developed for any coronavirus. Yet as the rest of the world moves towards herd immunity, Australia seems to have adopted a disastrous elimination strategy that will cripple us further, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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As Victorians endure the most draconian of lockdowns, among the harshest anywhere in the world, it’s time to ask our elected officials: what is the long-term strategy?
How is Australia going to cope if there is no vaccine in the next two years? It is foolhardy to assume that a vaccine is certain and imminent given a successful vaccine has never been developed for any coronavirus.
On Monday the World Health Organisation chief warned that there may never be a “silver bullet” for COVID-19. Scientists have tried and failed since the 1950s to develop a vaccine or cure for the common cold. The influenza vaccine is only effective 40 to 60 per cent of the time; some flu seasons the success rate has been as low as 19 per cent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Protection.
So if an effective vaccine isn’t developed and quickly, what will Australia do? Do Scott Morrison and the National Cabinet have a Plan B and at what point will they share that pertinent information with the nation?
The rest of the world is adapting, and whether they planned it or not, moving slowly towards herd immunity, while Australia has adopted something resembling an elimination strategy but without explicitly saying so.
If elimination is the goal then Australia, along with New Zealand, would have to remain closed to the rest of the world indefinitely to ensure the virus does not re-emerge.
That would be disastrous on a number of fronts with the human, social and economic cost outstripping anything we’ve seen thus far.
As Taiwan has shown, there is a better way, one that avoids COVID-19 deaths and limits damage to the economy. Despite the daily press conferences during this pandemic, the public has been largely treated like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed manure.
Where is the modelling behind the decisions?
Now more than ever we need parliament, both federally and in Victoria, to be sitting to examine the modelling and debate policies that have devastated so many lives and livelihoods. But there are some who become hysterical at any scrutiny of the poor decision making that has plunged Victoria into a state of disaster. Literally.
The Dan Andrews fan club is beginning to resemble a sad cult where anything other than blind devotion is tantamount to heresy.
On social media the #IStandWithDan hashtag trends regularly and is filled with the sort of zealotry, lunacy and misdirected rage one normally associates with crazy sects.
In the eyes of Dan’s devoted disciples he can do no wrong while Morrison, and bizarrely Peter Dutton and News Corp columnists, are somehow responsible for Victoria’s shambolic coronavirus response.
But some of us can remember less than a fortnight ago when Victorians were assured by the Premier that mandatory masks were “effectively our stage four”. Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said then further restrictions, such as the repressive measures implemented under stage four, would be ineffective.
“People have talked about stage four and a broader shutdown but the very places where we are seeing outbreaks, the very places where we are seeing transmission, are the places that would remain open if we went to a stage four sectoral shutdown,” Sutton said on July 25. And yet, here we are.
The catastrophe in Victoria isn’t due to bad luck, and despite Andrews appearing to turn Victorians against each other, it isn’t due to members of the public misbehaving.
Victorians aren’t any different to other Australians. If you were to believe Andrews, we have a second wave because Melburnians are uniquely reckless and stupid. Yes, there are some who deliberately defy restrictions but that has happened in every state and territory.
Last week I wrote about the absurdity of COVID-19 positive cases in Victoria being permitted to break quarantine to exercise. I’m happy to report that on Tuesday the Premier finally put at an end to that insanity. Those who are required to isolate for 14 days will no longer be allowed to leave their residence.
Victoria is in a perilous state because of the blunders of the state government, particularly the hotel quarantine program and now contact tracing failures. And yet a segment of the community seems to be in the thralls of Stockholm syndrome; the more Andrews and Sutton stuff up, the more they believe them to be infallible.
In the real world, exposing the truth is necessary, not divisive. Debate is essential, as is holding the powerful to account.
Once this crisis is over we need a royal commission into Victoria’s coronavirus response. Not an inquiry limited to hotel quarantine, held behind closed doors and without the participation of the premier, but a full, thorough and transparent investigation into Victoria’s botched response.
IN SHORT
Rugby star Israel Folau is copping abuse for not taking a knee for neo-Marxist group Black Lives Matter. It takes far more courage to be the lone player standing, instead of mindlessly kneeling for a divisive group who are clear about their anti-capitalist, anti-police agenda.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist