Coronavirus: YPO makes public call for lockdown to slow COVID-19 spread

A secretive society of CEOs has made an unprecedented public call for a national lockdown to slow the coronavirus spread.

David Smorgon is part of the YPO in Melbourne: Picture: David Geraghty

The biggest Australian branch of the secretive Young Presidents Organisation (YPO) of chief executives has made an unprecedented public call on the federal and state governments to urgently implement a lockdown of society to stop the progression of the coronavirus.

YPO Melbourne Gold member David Smorgon said Australians now had a choice between a short, sharp, highly effective lockdown or a very extended community driven and mostly ineffective rolling lockdown.

“It is a choice between sharp but manageable economic pain and a wrecking ball going through our country, from both an economic and health perspective. Both businesses and government have a responsibility to ensure that the right decisions are made in the best interests of Australia, and made now,’’ he told The Australian.

The YPO network includes chapters in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth and is part of a global leadership community of more than 29,000 chief executives in 130 countries.

Another Melbourne member, Swisse Vitamins founder Radek Sali, said Australia needed to take the lead of China, South Korea and Singapore that had successfully managed the pandemic.

“If the advice is that a much tighter lock down sooner will see us come out of this faster, there is no question we should be doing this. The current half measures and uncertainty are as bad for business as the full measures, so what are we waiting for?,” said Mr Sali, who now has his own family office known as Light Warrior.

“It frustrates me that the government are not reinforcing guidelines from experts like the British Medical Journal around exercise, diet and nutrition to maintain a healthy immune system. People should be empowered to do more for themselves than just wash their hands, social distance and isolate.”

Former Swisse CEO Radek Sali. Picture: Paul Jeffers

Hundreds of Australian YPO members dialled into a conference call on Sunday evening convened by APN Property Group CEO Tim Slattery that hosted American pandemics expert Yaneer Bar-Yam, a physicist and specialist in complex systems trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr Bar-Yam said it was clear that Australia needed an immediate four-to-six week hard and fully enforced lockdown to avoid catastrophic public health outcomes and severe economic consequences.

“Is Australia in an OK situation or is it not? … If I had 1000 cases, I would be very concerned and I would take immediate action. Every hour action is not taken is adding to a very difficult crisis,’’ he told the audience.

“To stop it requires very extreme action. Extreme action does stop it and China and South Korea have shown that … Why take half approaches if you can stop it quickly … The message is act immediately … and recover the Australia you want to have.”

YPO Melbourne chair and OpCentral co-founder James Cotton said the group was taking a rare public position on the coronavirus crisis to urge all state and federal governments to act in accordance with the guidelines developed by Yaneer Bar-Yam.

“A huge proportion of restaurants, cafes, pubs, restaurants and retailers will go bankrupt under the current plan of a six month shut down. A complete lockdown for four to six weeks would avoid this, and have a far better health outcome too,’’ he said.

A global YPO survey on the business impact of coronavirus published last week found Australian CEO’s were slightly more pessimistic than their global peers about the business outlook six months from now.

As a result the survey showed Australian CEO’s had been significantly more responsive to the COVID-19 crisis than CEO’s worldwide.

Many Australian CEO’s (46 per cent) indicated they had already acted to reduce costs (versus only 39 per cent worldwide), 41 per cent indicated they have shifted their short-term goals (versus only 32 per cent worldwide), and 30 per cent indicated they have made changes to their supply chain (versus only 18 per cent worldwide).