Susie O’Brien: Daniel Andrews must let go of egotistical ‘zero cases’ goal

The push for zero cases is killing our state’s soul and economy. So why is Daniel Andrews determined to keep us living as cave dwellers?

Premier Daniel Andrews needs to move on from his bid for zero cases. Picture: Ian Currie

Daniel Andrews’ egotistical bid to get Victoria back to zero cases will destroy this state.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is right that we have to move ahead and “deal with” Covid.

“Otherwise we stay in the cave forever,” he said.

So why does Andrews seem determined to keep Victorians living as cave dwellers, locked down and locked up?

While other Australian leaders are preparing for the next phase of living with Covid, Andrews continues to pursue an elimination strategy that’s endangering every Victorian.

Why doesn’t he realise that as vaccination numbers increase, rates of illness and death become more important markers of progress than overall case numbers?

Only a few days ago, Andrews insisted that the goal was to get back to zero cases. It’s impossible, and the push to do so is killing our state’s lifeblood, soul and economy.

Police patrolling a Melbourne street during the city’s sixth lockdown. Picture: William West

We’ve only got less than 500 cases, including 27 in hospital and 12 in ICU, and yet six million people are locked down, subject to the harshest restrictions in the world.

Yes, we needed a lockdown, but it’s going too far and there’s no exit plan in sight. The invasive, depressing, overreaching measures are locking us out of life and destroying our will to live.

We urgently need reassurance from Andrews that we will reopen cautiously as vaccination rates increase. He must not keep us locked up until we’ve met some improbably low number of cases.

As NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Monday, you can’t keep Delta out forever.

Berejiklian should — and could — have done much more to stem the Covid case numbers in her state. It beggars belief, for instance, that Sydneysiders are only just now being told to wear masks outside or that they’ve just closed garden centres.

However, she’s right that “every state will have to go through the transition back to normality”.

As chief medical officer Paul Kelly says, we can learn much from countries like the UK, which are some months ahead of Australia.

In the UK, restrictions were removed in mid-July and 76 per cent of people are fully vaccinated. There are no rules about how many people can meet, no social distancing and no rules on masks (but they are recommended in public crowded places).

Around 32,000 people tested positive on Sunday – an increase of 27 per cent since the lifting of restrictions.

But only around 50 people a day are dying – much less than the toll of 1300 a day at the peak of the pandemic. Hospital admission rates of around 1000 a day are fairly high but stable.

Protesters march through the streets during an anti-lockdown rally that descended into violence on Saturday. Picture: William West

In comparison, there are around 10,000 Covid cases in Australia, just over 500 people in hospital and 33 on ventilators. One quarter of us are fully vaccinated. Kelly believes restrictions can lift when vaccination targets are met, regardless of case numbers.

The UK experience illustrates the importance of keeping some large-scale restrictions such as mask-wearing in place, not just to limit the number of deaths, but to help reduce the hospitalisation rate.

At this point Berejiklian is telling people from NSW she’ll map out when schools will reopen and detail the freedoms for fully vaccinated people by the end of the week.

But we’ve had nothing from our Premier to give us the same level of hope.

The way we are living – barely existing, more like it – is not sustainable for much longer.

Businesses are dying, adults are lonely, desperate and struggling, and mental health problems are soaring among children who are losing hope of ever going back to school.

An empty Marine Parade in St Kilda on the weekend. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake

Parents are contacting me to tell me how desperate their children are.

There’s the girl in grade four who used to love learning who now wants to stop school altogether because remote learning is so stressful. The 10-year-old with a learning disability who now won’t get out of bed, and the 11-year-old who’s spending his days in tears, pacing in circles in his room.

There’s also the 13-year-old who tried to kill herself a few weeks ago. She wrote 18 letters to her friends to say goodbye and planned the date so it wasn’t anyone’s birthday.

Then she spent six hours in emergency waiting to be seen by a psychologist. The cases before her in the line were all teenage girls who’d tried to end their lives.

Stories like this are a vital reminder that lockdown can’t go on much longer. We need a path towards freedom. Getting kids vaccinated should be a priority, because we need to get them back to school next term at the latest.

We need to give them hope that they’re soon be out of their caves, and getting on with their lives.

— Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist