Coronavirus: The problem with Australia’s early success

Australia may have had relative success in the fight against the coronavirus in comparison to other countries, but there is a “curse” to our success.

Just weeks ago the term herd immunity was being thrown around in Australia with predictable howls of outrage over how many people would need to die under this “strategy”.

The answer was around 150,000 under a do-nothing approach that allowed the virus to run rampant across the country.

The death toll to deliver immunity in Australia would likely climb even higher.

It’s the same tactic British Prime Minister Boris Johnson proposed just weeks ago, suggesting the country allow the virus to “wash through” the community before he ended up in an intensive care unit bed fighting for his life with a 50:50 chance of survival.

But Australia’s success in flattening the COVID-19 curve means there’s no chance of herd immunity.

That’s a good problem to have for two reasons. Firstly, closing borders has undoubtedly saved thousands of Australian lives.

Secondly, COVID-19 is such a new virus that scientists don’t even know if people infected become immune or can be reinfected. Herd immunity may not work at all.

But the “curse” of Australia’s success is this: the nation’s borders will need to stay closed for much longer to keep the virus out. Holidaying in Bali or Thailand will likely become a thing of the past for a long time.

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While Britain has been criticised for not following our lead and closing borders, immunologist and Nobel laureate Professor Peter O’Doherty fears it’s too late for the United Kingdom.

“You know, as far as Britain is concerned, they might as well let people in because there’s so much virus around I don’t think there’s much they can do about it,’’ he told news.com.au

“And that’s what usually happens with flu, by the time you close the borders it’s too late. But I think we have seen from our own experience and New Zealand that closing borders does work with this virus.”

Now, Australia has the chance to try for an elimination strategy, to effectively declare the nation “COVID-19 free” or at least regions or states, which just a few weeks ago would have been unthinkable.

“That’s a possibility in the long term with this virus if we can get it to incredibly low levels, and it’s very low right now,” Prof Doherty said.

“There are things we can do like test sewerage to test for infection levels in communities and suburbs. It sounds disgusting but we may be able to return in Australia to a much more normal life.”

Beach holidays at home are likely to be the new norm when local restrictions on travel are lifted.

“I don’t think it would preclude domestic tourism,’’ Prof Doherty said.

“We would still need to be very careful about remote areas and the indigenous community. But we are going to have to keep our borders closed for a very long time.”

But Prof Doherty concedes the virus is so new that the world is in the midst of a giant gamble. The risk of second and even third waves of COVID-19 infections is real.

“We call it an experiment because we don’t know,’’ he said.

“Quite frankly, different people are doing different experiments. I mean you can see the experiment they are doing in New York City, where they are just wiping out whole populations of people in nursing homes and people are dying at a very high rate.

“Whereas we have been pretty successful with what we have done, and I congratulate the government at every level, even though they disagree sometimes I think everyone is doing a good job.”

But he’s hopeful that the alternative policy pursued by New Zealand, to not only reject herd immunity but actually close the borders and eliminate the virus, is a possibility for Australia.

“Naively, I think it may be possible. Or, it may be that we can get it down so low that we just test hot spots,’’ he said.

“Say, anyone who has a bad cold, we test them right away. Then do contact tracing and testing in that community, that’s the hot spot idea. At the moment, the number of infected people in the population is very low.”

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Prof Doherty said keeping tourists out of Australia had already proved critical but would be even more important in the future to build a “Fortress Australia” that allows the economy to restart within our own borders.

For now, Health Minister Greg Hunt warns it’s too early to lift restrictions on interstate travel or reopen pubs and clubs.

“I think it is very important to say that now is the time to stay the course,’’ he said.

“To continue with this self-isolation and social distancing. These are producing real reductions in the rate of growth, real reductions in the number of new cases and real increases in the number of cleared cases.”