Perseverance is key after grimmest Covid-19 day

The best response to the nation’s worst day of the COVID-19 pandemic so far is co-operation and efficiency, not panicking and playing the blame game. Neither should we forget the need for empathy, especially in regard to the tragedy unfolding in Victorian nursing homes as relatives despair over the fate of loved ones. Three weeks after the lockdown was reimposed in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire, and a week after masks were made compulsory across those regions, Victoria’s 723 new cases and 13 deaths, including 10 nursing home residents, announced on Thursday, set new records. So far the restrictions have not produced the results that were hoped for. Containing the spiral to avoid the caseload doubling and doubling again is vital, as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says. Doing so will depend on public compliance with measures to prevent community transmission and on better application of those measures by health authorities, police and the Australian Defence Force. NSW and Queensland also are facing challenges. But responses must be proportionate.

Queensland, with 11 active COVID cases, including three new cases in the past 24 hours and no COVID patients in intensive care, has gone to extremes in reclosing its border to Sydneysiders. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, three months from an election, may think that will be popular. But it will take a heavy toll on workers, their families and small businesses in the state’s struggling hospitality sector. The state needs to be protected from any further financial hurt. Testing must be boosted; Brisbane people queued for hours on Thursday. And the behaviour of three young women who allegedly flew to Melbourne, returned with the virus and worked, shopped and socialised around Brisbane for eight days shows how hard it is to prevent stupidity.

At this stage, Victorians can improve their economic prospects by co-operating with the restrictions in place for their protection. Mr Andrews is correct when he says that if people continue going to work when they have coronavirus symptoms, or when they are awaiting test results, case numbers will continue to grow “and restrictions will have to stay on”. Fair enough. But his government’s Department of Health and Human Services must speed up the return of COVID test results and the tracing process as much as possible. Waiting for a week for results or for tracing after a positive diagnosis, as some Melburnians complain, is leaving many people confused, demoralised and untested. On Tuesday, Australian Medical Association Victoria Council chairman Mukesh Haikerwal, a Melbourne GP, told The Australian he was ignoring bureaucrats’ advice not to test family members or work colleagues of people with COVID-19 unless they have symptoms or a letter from the DHHS confirming them as a close contact. Dr Haikerwal is right to do so. As Rachel Baxendale reported, delays have resulted in some people waiting longer than the 14-day quarantine period for the department to officially confirm them as close contacts of an infected person. Such delays create manifold opportunities for transmission of the highly contagious virus, especially if those waiting to be contacted for testing are reluctant to be isolated.

From Thursday, employers must notify WorkSafe immediately when they become aware of a worker testing positive. That makes sense. So does the wearing of masks across Victoria, and ADF personnel and public health workers knocking on the doors of every positive coronavirus case in the state. That was necessitated by door-knockers recently discovering 29 people were not at home when they were meant to be self-isolating.

The appalling news that three deceased residents were left in their beds for hours after their deaths at Epping Gardens nursing home in Melbourne’s north highlights the pressures on the aged-care sector. To date, 59 aged-care residents have died in the second wave and 456 residents are COVID positive. The worst-affected nursing homes need and are receiving extra support from interstate and across the health sector. The problem is far wider, however. Only 10 per cent of Thursday’s new cases were linked to aged-care homes. To put Australia’s situation in perspective, our 16,000 cases and 189 deaths from the virus compare with 4.5 million cases and 150,000 deaths in the US, with 13 times our population. For the elderly and others with the virus and those trying to avoid it, the only options, without a vaccine, are isolating as needed, distancing, hygiene, testing and tracing. But deliverance will take time.