Battlers want to avoid the virus, not live with it

Dan Andrews learnt from his mistakes, but NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian apparently learnt nothing from Melbourne or the Ruby Princess.

Gladys Berejiklian apparently learnt nothing from the Melbourne experience or her own catastrophe, the Ruby Princess. Picture: NSW Police

Lockdowns don’t work? We are all being held hostage by power-hungry health bureaucrats and politicians? Well, lockdowns certainly don’t work if they are not early and serious.

It is not often I have the experience of being called a soft lefty because I defended Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ lockdown strategy in Melbourne and pointed to the past incompetence of the Berejiklian government in NSW. Andrews learnt from his mistakes, but NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian apparently learnt nothing from the Melbourne experience or her own catastrophe, the Ruby Princess.

The pandemic should not become an ideological and political tool. However, it is only a tool of the privileged commentariat. The hoi polloi tune out ideology. Everyone has a different complaint, but basically most people just want practical advice to avoid the virus, to carry on working and looking after their kids. However, to do that they must listen to the politicians, all of whom have a political agenda, which as we now see is counter-productive at best, at worst downright harmful. For Mrs Average, untangling the ideological and political from the health advice is difficult.

The theme emerging from the right is whether we should aim for zero cases. Should we aim for suppression rather than elimination? Well, ask anybody on the street, any mum at the school or dad on the job, and what they will probably answer is “of course we should aim for elimination”, and to do that, as the epidemiologists tell us, we must have zero cases circulating in the community. People who query this idea talk about “living with the virus” and “proportional response”.

Berejiklian’s mantra was like that of people who are convinced we can live with the virus. Hers was about a “proportionate response”. However, we now have a disproportionate outbreak. the NSW Premier claimed she was listening to the health advice. But did she?

The first public health alert about this outbreak was on June 16. Then on June 20 Mary-Louise McLaws, an epidemiologist from the University of NSW, in answer to a journalist’s questions, warned there could be dire consequences if the Delta variant was allowed to spread. She called for a brief, possibly three-day, lockdown to re-evaluate the situation, to try to trace the spread of a strain of the virus that is more contagious. Her advice was rejected. Apparently, the NSW government thought it could handle a small outbreak in Bondi.

It had not counted on the Delta variant. The virus spread rapidly from Sydney’s eastern suburbs until there were 54 cases and lockdown became inevitable. It spread to the west because, as Scott Morrison said on Wednesday: “The Delta strain is different from dealing with Alpha.”

The NSW government knew this, or should have, because Britain has been wrestling with this variant for months, and cases are rising there and in the US, where a third wave looks likely, as Joe Biden says, Delta “is more transmissible and more dangerous”.

Talk to any of the people most affected by this, including our own 20 and 30-somethings who cannot work, tradesmen and hospitality workers. They know who to blame, as recent polls show. Berejiklian is at the top of the list and it is because she made a political decision. The irony of this is that it can be a good political decision to go hard and go early – as Andrews has demonstrated in Victoria.

Meanwhile the federal opposition is making hay over the vaccine rollout, but it is no good trying to blame the federal government for the current situation because, aside from the constantly changing advice about who can have AstraZeneca, many people in the categories that can have it don’t want it, especially women 60 and older. That is an individual decision, not a decision of the federal government. Nor is it irrational.

There have been 83 hospitalisations and six deaths from AstraZeneca, and it is not as effective against the Delta variant as the Pfizer vaccine. What is more, as my own 20-somethings have discovered, many GPs will not administer it to the very young.

The Prime Minister’s frustration at this is palpable, but he is right to say the challenge today is different from last year. Consequently, we may need to change our strategies. One part of that strategy is to modify the age profile of who should be vaccinated.

Many of those working at the frontline of public health think the young, particularly those between 20 and 39, should be vaccinated as soon as Pfizer is more available, perhaps before the 45 to 60 age group. Why? Epidemiologists know the young are driving community spread. They are more mobile in the community: students, young workers, tradies and some are still living at home.

Perhaps more libertarians should be looking at the way the country has fared until now. Aiming for elimination has given us, until now, effective suppression. There is no comparison with our mortality and illness rates with any other countries such as Britain’s 129,000 deaths. Australia is among the least affected countries because of early international border closure, caution, lockdowns when needed and following health advice. Commentators saying we should be resigned to live with Covid and not aim for elimination ought to stop for a bit and listen to their fellow Australians. But they might have to travel to the western suburbs to do that – a bridge too far for many.