Rita Panahi: Victoria’s bad luck can be blamed on its leaders

Brett Sutton was aghast at criticism of contact tracing, but it’s not frontline workers we are angry with, it’s the leadership behind our disaster-prone response.

Just one week to flatten the curve, folks.

Victoria must be uniquely unlucky to have lockdown after lockdown after lockdown after lockdown, be responsible for 90 per cent of all Covid deaths in Australia, and accumulate more debt than any other state ... or perhaps we’re ruled by unaccountable imbeciles.

The finger pointing and gaslighting will hit fever pitch in the coming days as the Victorian government, and its ever reliable foot soldiers in the media, try to blame everything from the weather to the vaccine rollout for the latest lockdown.

We are asked to blindly support the same team that has repeatedly botched multiple elements of the state’s Covid-19 response, plunging Victoria into four lockdowns including one lasting 112 days.

Don’t ask too many questions or suggest that Victoria’s contact tracing has again failed, just shut up and do as you’re told.

That includes wearing a mask when outdoors, even when walking by yourself on a beach or strolling in the park in the two hours you’re allowed to leave your prison, er, I mean home, each day.

Don’t ask too many questions or suggest that Victoria’s contact tracing has again failed, just shut up and do as you’re told. Picture: Sarah Matray

Just how many of the millions infected with Covid-19 around the world caught it walking outdoors? You’d think by now there’d be some solid evidence for an outdoor mask mandate but you’d be dead wrong.

But that hasn’t stopped the state government and its crack team of public health bureaucrats from imposing this unnecessary measure on long-suffering Victorians from Mallacoota to Mildura to Portland.

And, in the interests of public safety, don’t you dare drive 7km from your house to your preferred supermarket. Those extra 2km in your car present all sorts of unacceptable risks – just don’t ask what they are because the brains trust in the Victorian government cannot provide satisfactory, evidence-based answers.

Where is the evidence that justifies school closures when we know the risk of children spreading the virus is dramatically lower than adults, and medical experts have repeatedly said face-to-face learning is safe?

Children have more to fear from influenza than Covid-19 and yet we have inflicted restrictions on them that are devastating not only to their academic progress but to their mental health.

You’d think by now there’d be some solid evidence for an outdoor mask mandate but you’d be dead wrong. Picture: AFP

As Australia’s deputy chief medical officer and infectious diseases specialist Nick Coatsworth explained this month, the research says schools are safe.

“Covid-19 is not the flu,” he wrote. “Far fewer children are affected by Covid-19, and the number of transmissions from children to children and children to adults is far less.”

The Victorian government claims to follow evidence-based health advice but is reluctant to share the data that supports its draconian measures.

If Victoria is just unlucky, then NSW must be the most blessed corner of the world given it has carried the greatest Covid risk, taking about half of the more than 250,000 people who have gone through hotel quarantine without ever resorting to city or statewide lockdowns to control outbreaks.

Of course, it has very little to do with luck and everything to do with competent leadership, efficient contact tracing and a proportional response not driven by panic.

Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton was aghast when questioned about the state’s contact tracing issues on Thursday.

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton was aghast when questioned about the state’s contact tracing issues on Thursday. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

“That’s an absurd proposition that contact tracing has gone wrong,” he said. “We’ve talked about what the contact tracing team have done here, it’s an extraordinary job.”

It took almost two weeks to realise they had the wrong Woolies, there are businesses, including Port Park Cafe in Port Melbourne, listed as “tier one sites” that were not contacted, and there are people who have been nowhere near an exposure site being told to isolate and test. If this is the system working, I’d hate to see what Sutton considers failure.

Not satisfied with his outburst, Sutton took to Twitter to complain further about the contact tracing regime being scrutinised.

“I think I’ve been pretty calm over the last 16 months and I hope I’ve always been respectful. But I will get fired up when contact tracers are attacked. They do extraordinary work and do it brilliantly. 10,000 contacts found! The false narrative hurts real people, mentally,” he posted.

No one is criticising the frontline workers, Brett. It’s the leadership behind Victoria’s disaster-prone response that is being criticised.

Let’s not forget Victorians were repeatedly told that contact tracing was working fine during the second deadly wave when it was failing the state and so defective that a major upgrade was implemented late last year.

We have been failed yet again.

If you still uncritically trust this lot then you deserve to be ruled by arrogant, authoritarian ingrates.

IN SHORT

Medical experts with far greater qualifications than those in the Victorian team, including renowned epidemiologist and infectious disease experts such as Stanford University Medical School professor Jay Bhattacharya and professor of medicine at Harvard University Martin Kulldorff, say the evidence shows lockdowns are not only ineffective but have devastating consequences.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist

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