Project host Hamish Macdonald hits a nerve as Dr Chris Moy responds to Dr Nick Coatsworth
A high ranking member of the AMA has immediately hit back at Dr Nick Coatsworth’s criticism of suggestions to increase Covid restrictions.
The vice president of the Australian Medical Association has hit back at critics of the idea that Covid restrictions should be reimposed, saying the Omicron variant is cause for worry because of a lack of long term data.
Dr Chris Moy believes now is the time to pounce after NSW registered a new daily case record of 3057 on Tuesday.
His comments were in direct contrast to the federal government’s former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth, who said people calling for more Covid-19 restrictions would be proven wrong.
“There’s a fair bit of tension at the moment (among state leaders). We could control Delta with this but the chief health officers are saying we need to slow down,” Dr Moy said during an appearance on The Project.
“Omicron is new. We need to slow down, be careful. Work out where we stand and put in things like masks and QR code check-ins and also maybe reduce density limits while we slow things down.”
Dr Moy believes some of the public reluctancy towards new restrictions has come from the outbreak being so close to Christmas. He says the AMA has erred on the side of caution when it comes to the new variant and is considering the worst-case outcome of up to 200,000 cases per day by February, as modelled by the Doherty Institute.
“The AMA position is very much given Omicron and what we don't know about it and the concern that it could be more infectious and breakthrough our vaccines, it could create a very sharp peak in cases and then lead to a lot of people ending up in hospitals,” he said.
“Although we may be sounding like the Christmas grinch, I think the ultimate Christmas grinch would be a really terrible Omicron outbreak which we could have actually altered the destiny of earlier on.”
As Christmas travel starts to ramp up, so too is the pressure on our testing sites, with many around the country totally overwhelmed. It comes as NSW records another worrying record. @AMA_vice Dr Chris Moy is calling for a national approach to dealing with Omicron. #TheProjectTVpic.twitter.com/VD4v1ZZ0sY
— The Project (@theprojecttv) December 21, 2021
Dr Coatsworth has taken a different stance.
“The main difference in view is whether we need a light touch with restrictions,” he told news.com.au.
In South Africa, where the Omicron variant is believed to have sprouted, less than a third of patients admitted to hospital during the latest wave were suffering severe illness, compared with two-thirds in the early stages of the last two waves.
Dr Coatsworth questioned whether there was a need to take a more aggressive approach to restrictions, while others were more worried about the impact on the health system.
“It’s a public health ethics debate as much as a politics debate,” he said.
He also does not think it was as simple as Labor versus Liberal, or left versus right. Some believe a new clampdown so soon after the long-heralded “Freedom Day” will affect public trust in health authorities.
“I know plenty of people who consider themselves both progressive or centre left who do not believe in further lockdowns or tight restrictions,” he said.
When asked for his response to Dr Coatsworth by host Hamish Macdonald, Dr Moy was initially reluctant to engage. The question appeared to hit a nerve.
“I don't want to engage with Nick because I was the chair of the ethics committee and it's normally thought to be unprofessional to be engaging in disparaging comments about other doctors or other health professionals,” he said.
“He did, in fact, call our organisation a “peanut organisation” or something like that. I don't think it was quite as simple as that.
“Nevertheless, the flip-side is that where we are at the moment, most of the epidemiologists, including those at Doherty, are saying we should be taking this more seriously.
“We could get it wrong and it may turn out to be a storm in a teacup. But if it turns out to be something serious, we would have missed the opportunity and the idea you can make changes later really gets away from the fact the things do earlier make a difference later.
“And a lot of the epidemiologists, including Doherty and various others, are saying the same thing as the AMA.”
Australia’s chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly yesterday called for mandatory masks to be reinstated as the wave of infections grows in NSW and Victoria, two of the most vaccinated states in the country.
At the time of writing, almost 24 out of 25 of NSW’s eligible population is vaccinated.
Dr Coatsworth said the public was now demanding more definitive evidence that Omicron was going to be a burden on the health system.
“There’s a growing sentiment among Australians that people have made a lot of sacrifices in the last couple of years and they may not feel the evidence we have on Omicron justifies extra restrictions,” he said.
While Dr Coatsworth said critics had a right to express their views, the views of groups like the AMA had been consistently contrary to the NSW overnment.
“They’ve been very critical of the NSW government and they’ve ultimately proven to be wrong. They were wrong last Christmas and they’ll be wrong this Christmas as well.”
-- with Charis Chang
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