Coronavirus has become a fertile battleground for political point scoring

Victoria’s rule that masks must be worn at all times, even when walking outside alone, is as foolish as Premier Andrews’ rule against fishing and golf in the first lockdown. Picture: Getty Images

COVID-19 is a battleground for media culture wars that thoughtful journalists should resist.

On the ABC only complete elimination of the virus is now acceptable and no amount of extra budget deficit is too much. Health reporter Norman Swan is given regular platforms to call for a harder lockdown in pursuit of virus elimination, and ABC journalists regularly interview any one losing out financially from shutdowns to date.

On parts of SkyNews, especially on Alan Jones’s new four-nights-a-week program, the “pandemic” is a hoax with only 128 deaths and people need to get back to work.

The network’s Peta Credlin is more nuanced, alive to the political risks for the Victorian Andrews Government and the federal Coalition of rising infections in Melbourne. Andrew Bolt has, rightly, been more concerned for the elderly in nursing homes and the economy. Credlin and Bolt are both based in Melbourne.

This newspaper’s economics editor Adam Creighton – and this column since March – have looked at the risk to the international economy of global shutdowns and compared the international death toll with recent global influenza tolls and the Spanish flu of 1918-20. So far 635,000 have died globally with COVID-19, but co-morbidities may have been the actual cause of death for many.

Spanish flu killed between 50 million and 100 million. This column on July 13 pointed out a bad flu season still kills up to 650,000 globally a year. Critics from left media bristle at such comparisons. COVID-19 and influenza are different and Covid is extremely infectious, but numerical comparisons do give context and journalists need to be aware of such facts when weighing government action.

More stark are global annual death tolls from heart disease and stroke, the biggest killer, and cancer: respectively 18 million and 10 million of the 56 million who die each year.

Has the world overreacted? Probably. But given the horror stories from Italy, the UK and Spain in February and March it would have taken a brave national leader to resist the medical profession’s calls for lockdowns.

Everything about these death tolls is politicised. When this column pointed out on June 1 that US death rates were far lower than rates in much of Western Europe some readers equated the argument with support for President Donald Trump. They did not accept the high number of total US deaths reflects the nation’s high population.

The US has six times the population of Italy. US deaths per million last Thursday stood at 441, in Italy 580, Spain 608 and Belgium 846. The example used by defenders of lockdowns is Sweden’s decision to remain open. With half the population of Australia, Sweden has had 5667 deaths at 561 per million. Based on Sweden’s figure, had Australia not locked down it could be sitting at 14,000 deaths. No state premier or prime minister would have accepted that.

We now know countries with better health systems tend to have lower mortality rates, especially in second waves. Israel, whose numbers were similar to Australia’s six weeks ago, has suffered a severe second wave after reopening its economy and now has had 56,008 cases. Yet with 430 deaths its rate per million is only 47. Germany has had 204,470 cases and 9182 deaths for a rate per million of 110. This is far better than the similar population of the UK with 296,377 cases but 45,501 deaths at a rate of 670 per million.

The early outbreaks in Western Europe also blinded epidemiologists to an emerging fact. The virus is less deadly than first thought because up to 80 per cent of populations are asymptomatic. The US Centres for Disease Control reported on June 21 that US infections were probably at least 10 times the reported positive case numbers: that was more than 20 million then and probably more than 35 million today. The report was based on analysis of serology tests done in 10 different US communities that made it clear most people with blood tests showing they had been exposed to the virus had never been diagnosed and had suffered no ill effects.

A similar study was reported here last Thursday in The Australian Financial Review. Based on “blood samples taken from pregnant women and pathology tests used for other purposes”, it suggests between 250,000 and 500,000 Australian have some immunity to COVID-19, far exceeding official figure of 12,428 positive tests.

These numbers suggest COVID-19 death rates are lower than initial estimates. The consensus in academic papers the past week suggests an Infection Fatality Rate of 0.4 per cent, much lower than initial estimates from 1 per cent to as high as 4 per cent.

Then there is the problem of deaths in old people’s homes. This will need to be investigated nationally and by the World Health Organisation internationally since it was always clear those most at risk were the over 70s.

Some journalists have claimed governments need to spend more on welfare to protect the young because the young are facing the biggest economic hit to protect the elderly. And yet in almost all Western countries it is those in aged care who have in fact not been protected.

Here a third of all deaths have been nursing home residents. In the latest Melbourne outbreak, infections have been detected in 45 aged care facilities. In the UK, The Guardian reported 16,000 people had died in nursing homes by late May. The Guardian reported on May 29 that as many UK deaths were being reported in nursing homes as in hospitals.

The New York Times has reported 40 per cent of all deaths in the US are in aged care facilities. Analysis of the response of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo shows a large part of the responsibility for the State’s high coronavirus death rate goes to his decision to send recovering patients into nursing homes.

Here is a prime example of the Covid culture war. The media used the New York outbreak to slam Mr Trump, who in fact sent a hospital ship to New York Harbour on March 30 to help the city’s health system.

The 1000-bed USNS Comfort treated only 179 patients and left New York. Mr Cuomo on March 25 signed an order that recovering COVID-19 patients be placed in nursing homes and specifically barring such facilities from requiring incoming patients “to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission”.

The debate about masks is totally politicised. Many on the right in the US see mask wearing as an infringement of personal liberty. It’s a silly argument.

Yet as Bolt pointed out last week the WHO itself sees little reason for wearing masks apart from in crowded indoor venues. US studies show mask wearers are less likely to stay home because they think they are safe.

Like most people on the flights I took to Brisbane and back last week I wore a mask. But Victoria’s rule that masks must be worn at all times, even when walking outside alone, is as foolish as Premier Andrews’ rule against fishing and golf in the first lockdown.

As usual for journalists, a focus on sceptical, factual reporting ahead of clickbait sensationalism will prove more useful than politicised point scoring.