Containing ‘spot fires’ vital to living with COVID-19

We need a better way. And potentially useful signposts towards it emerged on Sunday, at the same time as the US broke records for new coronavirus infections, Victoria’s caseload spiked by 273 and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian feared southwest Sydney could “ go down the path of Victoria”.

The Australian, for good reason, has consistently favoured suppression of COVID-19 in preference to the devastating economic effects of “elimination’’ and the widespread, deadly consequences of Swedish-style “herd immunity’’. Business leaders have now turned attention to how Australians can live with the virus while continuing to suppress it and regrow the economy. Writing on Monday, Graham Turner, founder and managing director of the Flight Centre Travel Group, whose sector has been hardest hit by the pandemic, says all sectors, but particularly travel, tourism and hospitality, urgently need to know governments’ objectives for COVID-19 control and the strategies that will be used to achieve them. By enunciating the way ahead, governments would allow businesses to plan how best to survive the near-term challenges.

Despite our best efforts, periodic pop-ups of COVID-19 will continue but we “can’t keep taking a sledgehammer to our economy time and time again and expect businesses to survive, consumer confidence to remain above the waterline and jobs to be retained and created’’, Innes Willox, chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, points out. Taxpayers are supporting about 3.3 million people on JobKeeper and 1.4 million on JobSeeker. That situation, says Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott, necessitates the creation of about two million new jobs in two years. That is about the number created over the past decade, at a time of sustained growth and China’s economic expansion. Policy settings that encourage business investment and infrastructure stimulus will be essential, as will a more competitive business tax rate within a few years. And, as Mr Willox notes, more than a third of apprentices could be out of training in months, creating a serious skills shortage when the economy rebounds. In view of Victoria’s predicament, which is costing at least $1bn a week, it is essential to avoid what Scott Morrison warned against in June: “We can’t go, stop, go, stop, go. We can’t flick the light on and off, and on and off, and on and off.”

In an interview with Helen Trinca on Monday, US theoretical physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, stranded in Sydney by the pandemic, sums up the challenge when he says living with COVID-19 is about putting out “spot fires” when they occur. Hopes are high for an effective and safe vaccine, possibly from the University of Queensland. But, as Professor Davies says, we may have to live with the virus forever. Learning to live with it, while containing the number of people needing intensive care, is the most sensible option, as Mr Turner says. But what worries business is “panic at clusters of infection and subsequent ham-fisted shutdowns or lockdowns, as we have seen in Victoria’’. The economic outcomes of lockdowns, he says, have been dire and are likely to become far worse, affecting the lives of millions of mainly young Australians with children and a mortgage. Mr Turner wants COVID-19 contained to “certain small areas or zones’’ while reopening domestic and international borders as soon as possible. Doing so “will be vital for the survival of many businesses, and not just in travel’’.

Professor Davies, too, spoke about isolating people in small hotspots and modifying vulnerable points in the pandemic network, such as transport and flight hubs. As Mr Willox says, what we need are more flexible, nuanced and localised approaches to deal with the virus that take account of employment hardship and the growing impact of the crisis on mental health.

After a series of inexcusable errors, and the complacency that arose after the Andrews government sent the wrong message about the Black Lives Matter protests five weeks ago, Victoria’s problems are now far beyond “hotspots’’. Many cases remain clustered in public housing towers and Melbourne’s outer west. But the virus has spread to Geelong, Greater Bendigo, the alpine shire of Baw Baw, Greater Shepparton, the coast and Swan Hill on the Murray. Other states must avoid similar mistakes.

In southwest Sydney, authorities need to track, trace and test hundreds of people who visited the Crossroads Hotel in Casula now that officials have confirmed the venue’s cluster has grown to four. Ms Berejiklian has appealed to people who visited the hotel from July 3 to July 10 to stay home for 14 days and self-isolate. Officials should back that appeal with spot checks once those at risk are identified. It could be the difference between a local cluster and devastating outbreak in our most populous state.

Business leaders are not epidemiologists or experts on public health. But they understand the impact of recession on the wellbeing of young people, families with mortgages, older workers finding themselves out of work too soon and business owners losing their enterprises and savings. Avoiding a repetition of the calamity besetting Melbourne should be an important goal of the nation’s suppression strategy. If another major city lockdown, from which many businesses and households will not recover, is to be avoided, the principles set out by business leaders are worth examining. And, as Mr Turner says, governments must make their objectives and strategies clear.