Running in Covid circles prolongs the chaos
We are at a critical juncture in the fight against COVID-19. Apart from the spike in cases in Victoria, the containment efforts have mostly succeeded in flattening the curve. The focus needs to shift to what comes next.
Governments must make some important decisions; all industries and sectors – but particularly travel, tourism, hospitality and events – urgently need to know and understand the various objectives for COVID-19 control and the strategies that will be implemented to achieve them.
This will allow businesses to take the actions necessary to survive the near-term challenges and, hopefully, be in a position to prosper when things return to normal.
Assuming an effective vaccine or community immunity is some time off, I see four possible pathways governments are considering: herd, or community, immunity; containment or suppression (flattening the curve); eradication or elimination; or no clear and obvious strategy.
But none of these pathways seems ideal.
A fifth pathway – learning to live with COVID-19, perhaps for up to 24 months or until there is a vaccine – must also be seriously considered. In this time, we are likely to incur at least several more waves of infections if you believe the experts, but endless economic, social and community health damage will be caused if we continue to react with hard lockdowns.
In addition to the social, health and economic cost, hard lockdowns, particularly at a state or national level, do not appear to be very effective to date as evidenced by the fairly similar short-term outcomes that have been achieved in the UK (hard lockdown) and Sweden (few restrictions) or New Zealand and Victoria (hard lockdowns) and Queensland (fewer restrictions). Effective control seems to be more about the local community “buying in” – being co-operative and clearly understanding the mid-term government objectives and tactics, which from what I see are not crystal-clear. People need to know, understand and support government strategies.
Many experts, including Professor Ian Fraser from the University of Queensland, believe we will eventually achieve a significant level of community immunity against COVID-19. Herd immunity, which has been the Swedish model, is generally considered to require at least a 60 per cent infection rate in the community. The challenge is protecting the vulnerable but dealing with the human toll until the critical level of immunity is achieved.
Assuming COVID-19 infection bestows long-term immunity – but that may not necessarily be the case – Australia will need about 15 million cases to reach that mark. That’s about 420,000 people being infected each month for three years.
At the present death rate, this would mean about 4000-5000 people a month would die from or with COVID-19 in the three years. This does not seem a great option.
The second pathway would be containment or suppression of COVID-19. This is effectively flattening the curve, which seems the federal government’s, and some of the states’ goal, although it would be good to hear a clear confirmation or denial of this.
Under a containment scenario, it is also important that we understand the tactics as further waves occur, which the expert epidemiologists say is inevitable.
With these waves, the economic and other consequences of ineffective hard lockdowns, will be severe for years as waves come and go. An effective vaccine may never happen, but if it does it is thought to be at least two years away for the broader community. Suppression is necessary for hospital ICU facilities to cope. We have about 6500 COVID-19-available ICU beds in Australia, with less than 20 being used presently. Some states seem to have mistakenly interpreted suppression as eradication, including Queensland, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania.
The third pathway is this total elimination or eradication of COVID-19 from the state or nation.
In New Zealand and in some states it has been claimed at times, perhaps inadvertently, that this is the goal although no unambiguous statement has been made on this, to my knowledge.
The obvious question is how do you ever open state and international borders if this is your goal? Particularly if Australia and NZ are the only countries in the world aiming for eradication.
If you assume COVID-19 will be present among our neighbours, trading partners and important sources of tourists for some years, how long must we remain isolated? A couple of years at least, perhaps up to 10 or 15? If this pandemic follows the path of the flu it could be 100 years.
Regardless, it would mean cutting off our trading partners, business travel and tourism for at least two years, perhaps significantly longer. I can’t see this being acceptable to anyone.
Lastly, let’s consider the model of states, territories or governments who have no COVID-19 objectives or clear science and data-based strategies. In other words, having Australian or state-by-state actions that are ad hoc at best and can change with the circumstances or change on the latest thoughts and advice of health officials or politicians. This should not be the way to go, although some countries seem to be doing so.
I believe there is a viable and sensible alternative: learning to live with the coronavirus, while containing the infection and subsequent ICU numbers. Rather than community immunity or eradication, we accept the virus is here to stay, probably for years. It is very infectious and an effective, widely available vaccine, if there ever is one, is a way off. We may not see a vaccine in our lifetime.
Living with this virus is about containment by proven health and hygiene practices, widespread testing and tracing but without hard lockdown. In other words, similar to how we deal with many endemic infectious diseases.
Containing COVID-19 to certain small areas or zones and opening the domestic and, as soon as possible, international borders is vital for the survival of many businesses, and not just travel. It will be vital for Australia’s social, mental and physical health. Certainly, what really worries business is panic at small clusters of infection and subsequent ham-fisted shutdowns or lockdowns as we have seen in Victoria.
The economic outcomes so far have been dire and are almost certain to get worse. This affects the lives of millions of mainly working Australians with kids and a mortgage. I would like to ask all governments two questions: What are the mid to long-term objectives with this pandemic? What are the 18-24-month tactics or strategies to achieve these?
Learning to live with this virus, while continuing to take sensible health precautions, flattening the curve and getting society and business back to a reasonable level of normality, should be the goal. This is so that as a business, we can plan for initial survival and then eventual success.
Graham Turner is founder and managing director of the Flight Centre Travel Group.
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