Live with the virus: Pressure on COVID-free states to accept reality

Leaders of COVID-free states have been told to vaccinate and prepare for the virus to spread and people to die as the country learns to live with the coronavirus once vaccination targets are hit.

Ahead of Friday’s national cabinet meeting, Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly urged state and territory leaders to stick to the national recovery plan as Queensland and Western Australia continue to threaten to go their own way.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly says COVID-free states need to vaccinate as fast as they can so they can prepare to live with the virus.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“We have a national plan that everyone has signed up to. It’s based on the Doherty modelling that shows every percentage that we get above 70 per cent coverage of vaccination changes things,” he said.

“There will be people that die from COVID … but we need to start recognising that’s the case, particularly for unvaccinated people.”

National cabinet will also be updated on how well the state and territory health systems will cope and what can be done to manage extra cases when restrictions ease, as well as get a briefing from the Doherty Institute on fresh modelling on the situation in NSW.

Across the country more than 20 million jabs have been put into arms. More than 36 per cent of the eligible population aged 16 and over, or 7.5 million people, is now fully vaccinated.

Under the national plan, international arrival caps will be increased and home quarantine for the fully vaccinated will start to become widespread once 70 per cent of the eligible population has had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was expecting the federal government to provide a list of approved vaccines that would allow people who had received those brands of immunisations to enter the country once international borders ease. Australia’s medical regulator has so far deemed the Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Janssen vaccines safe, while the US regulator is yet to approve AstraZeneca.

“We anticipate the federal authorities will give us a list of vaccines which are regarded as safe for people to have been vaccinated with,” she said.

“NSW will obviously honour that and we look forward to that list, obviously, coming out in due course.”

There is no indication in the reopening blueprint when state lockouts could end. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said that decision is ultimately up to the states, and both Queensland and WA have indicated border closures may continue past the 80 per cent fully vaccinated mark.

When asked whether she would be comfortable opening the Queensland border to NSW or Victoria if the states still had COVID cases, Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young said the important thing was to vaccinate as many people as possible aged 16 and over.

“I know that the target that has been set by national cabinet is 80 per cent, I would like to see much more than that,” she told reporters on Thursday. “Whether or not we need to have any additional mitigating factors in place once we reach 80 per cent, we’ll have to wait and see what the modelling shows.”

WA Premier Mark McGowan has also repeatedly defended his right to keep the state’s borders shut against the coronavirus in the face of criticism from the federal government.

“Why are they on this mission to bring COVID into Western Australia to infect our public to ensure that we shut down parts of the economy, that we lose jobs, people get sick and some people die?” he said on Wednesday.

Responding to the concerns from WA and Queensland, Mr Hunt said the pandemic was here to stay.

“That risk of incursion is not just real but it’s inevitable. And so when it’s inevitable, the fundamental thing to do is to drive those vaccination rates up,” he said.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday accepted achieving “COVID zero” was not feasible, and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said all states must recognise that living with COVID was the reality for everyone.

“Any state premier who thinks it’s an option, unfortunately, is not considering what the real-world experience is,” she said. “The real-world experience is all of us as Australians, no matter where we live, maybe not today or next week, but all Australians have to accept that living with COVID is the future, not an option.”

Federal opposition health spokesman Mark Butler said Australians want to see the national plan implemented safely.

“National cabinet must consider detailed modelling and urgently develop a strong plan to bolster our hospital system. NSW hospitals are at breaking point with much worse yet to come,” he said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk stood by her call that she would stand firm on border restrictions until she saw detailed modelling from the Doherty Institute that considered children under the age of 12.

“If NSW is the model of what lies in store for all of us, then serious discussions are needed,” she tweeted. “That’s why I’m calling to see detailed modelling so we can give Queenslanders answers.”

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the Doherty modelling, and the national plan, already included children.

“The claim that children were not considered was false, and wrong and inaccurate,” he said.

Professor Kelly said until a vaccine is approved for those under 12 they will be protected by the “cocooning effect” of those around them getting immunised. For those children who do contract the delta variant, most are unlikely to get severely ill.

There have been 3815 cases of the Delta variant in children aged under 12 since January 1 this year, but just 3.5 per cent – or 134 – have been admitted to hospital. Professor Kelly said most of the hospitalised children were there for social reasons, not because they were particularly sick, and just three had been treated in intensive care.

“That hospitalisation rate and the ICU rate in particular, and the fact there’s been no deaths in under 12s, is very different to what we’re seeing in adults and even in older children,” he said.

With Mary Ward and Matt Dennien