Lockdown must be a blip, not onset of a grim winter

The anger and anguish triggered by Victoria’s fourth Covid-19 lockdown in 14 months was predictable. So was the outbreak of the virus on the cusp of winter, with the B.1.617 Indian variant wreaking havoc and death around the world. Now it is loose in Victoria, which leaves no time for blame games but poses an enormous challenge — how to bring it under control in less than seven days so the lockdown is no more than a blip rather than the start of another winter of discontent.

Australian authorities, federal and state, should have been better prepared for such an outbreak. Important as it is, last-minute scrambling on Thursday and Friday to vaccinate residents of the few Melbourne nursing homes not yet protected shows a critically important job was not completed. And more purpose-built quarantine facilities should have been operating by now; they might have saved our second largest capital city from lockdown and other states from the costly fallout of this outbreak. The exasperation of business leaders with lack of action on quarantine and with Victoria’s repeated failures to manage the virus is justified. As Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said: “Once again the systems for managing this virus through tracking and tracing and quarantine have failed.”

These issues are fraught politically for the Morrison government, which is responsible for aged care and quarantine. Scott Morrison said on Thursday that Victoria’s proposal for a purpose-built quarantine facility was “very useful”. The government’s view of it was “highly favourable” and it might be able to be done quicker. Just do it. That and other facilities need to be built as soon as possible to deal with what is shaping as a long-term problem as more serious variants of the virus emerge. These seem likelier to cause problems in quarantine hotels. Before long, the nation also should need facilities to quarantine returning overseas students and skilled immigrants.

The Victorian government’s contact tracing system, which has proven inadequate in the past, also needs serious attention again. Tracers were pursuing contacts from the wrong Woolworths store, as Health Minister Martin Foley and chief health officer Brett Sutton admit. Slowness in picking up the error has not helped. The desperate call to university students to act as contact tracers, revealed by Rachel Baxendale on Friday, suggests authorities were ill-prepared for a serious Covid outbreak. The tracers are facing a huge task as more than 14,000 primary and secondary close contacts now are linked to the Whittlesea cluster. The list of public exposure sites, dating back to May 13, numbered more than 100 on Thursday night, in addition to a similar number of unlisted private sites.

Painful as it is for Victorians and others, the outbreak and seven-day lockdown will give many Australians an important wake-up call. Those who had decided to “wait and see’’ about being vaccinated must realise the potentially deadly consequences of delaying their jabs. The extra 130,000 vaccines dispatched to Victoria by the Morrison government are essential. The fact an open door at an Adelaide quarantine hotel was the likely source of the transmission that led to the Victorian outbreak underlines the virulence of the B.1.617 variant. As this newspaper has said consistently, vaccinations are our best defence. Australians have been largely insulated from the worst of the pandemic, largely because of our early and prudent international border closure. But we should not forget that the virus has claimed at least 3.4 million lives from 167.7 million known cases worldwide.

The “circuit-breaker” seven-day lockdown will cost the national economy $1.3 billion, inflicting acute financial pain on Victorian businesses, many of which are still recovering from last winter’s 112-day lockdown. For that reason, and for the sake of those bracing yet again for the social and emotional costs of isolation and home schooling, this lockdown must be short, sharp and effective. Interstate businesses also are facing hardship. The operators of tourist businesses and their staff in Queensland, for instance, have stocked up for the annual winter influx of Victorians. While Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania have slammed their borders with Victoria shut, we approve of the flexible yet effective approach of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. As usual, our most populous state has reacted in a way that is proportionate and mature, urging citizens to delay travel to Victoria and those who have been there to stay home. Defence Minister Peter Dutton has a point when he says Australia cannot function with state border closures and lockdowns. As we have argued previously, that is not an indefinite option.

Until now, contact tracing has been our best defence for managing coronavirus outbreaks, as NSW experience attests. It remains vital. But vaccines are now our frontline defence. After a slow start, almost four million Australians are protected, with an additional 900 GP clinics added to the effort. We also applaud the initiative of Qantas to provide incentives such as vouchers or frequent-flyer points to passengers who have been vaccinated. But the Victorian lockdown is a reminder that staying Covid-free and living normal life are the best incentives to take the vaccine.