Coronavirus: Governments ignored own advice, whipped up fear, CIS paper says
An “incoherent” response by governments failed to acknowledge trade-offs including soaring debt and unemployment.
Governments have ignored their own pandemic plans, instead whipping up fear with incoherent and unjustified restrictions to combat the coronavirus, according to a new Centre for Independent Studies paper that questions the proportionality of the response.
As the nation cautiously celebrates eradication of the coronavirus at home, the free market think tank has accused state and federal governments of avoiding and failing to even analyse trade-offs that included soaring public debt, unemployment and mental health problems.
“Governments can take action in a pandemic and have enormous statutory power to do so. But this does not mean they are free to take any action they please,” said Monica Wilkie, author of a new research report, Victims of Failure – how the COVID-19 policy response let down Australians.
“Measures for fighting coronavirus must be justified and proportionate, and individual liberty must always be protected; these are the very standards governments set themselves in their pandemic influenza plans,” she added.
The health department’s influenza pandemic plan, updated in August last year, advised restrictions would “rely on voluntary compliance rather than legal enforcement”, suggesting it was almost entirely ignored.
The coronavirus response plan, released in March, recommended restrictions be “proportionate to the risk posed”, with recourse to tough responses only if severity were “similar to that of the Spanish flu”, which killed around 12,000 Australians over 1918 and 1919.
Over 900 Australians have died of or with COVID-19, mainly in nursing homes.
The federal government spent $70m developing and marketing the CovidSAFE app, which picked up 14 cases.
“Many are celebrating Australia’s relative success in fighting coronavirus but a crisis does not mean we can simply throw out principles of good governance and democracy,” Ms Wilkie said.
Governments made rules, such as banning outdoor exercise and night-time curfews, that made little scientific sense, “continually obfuscated” their exit strategy, and failed to release modelling (which proved flawed) until after decisions had been made, the report argued.
Melbourne was locked down for more than 20 weeks.
“The national cabinet should have devised and publicised what metrics would necessitate a tightening and loosening of restrictions … If such a plan existed why was it not released, and if it didn’t exist, why?”
Ms Wilkie argued that knowledge of the coronavirus increased significantly after March but policies to fight it didn’t change, or became even stricter, and there was never any opportunity to see whether voluntary measures were effective.
“By adopting a strategy of coercion early, it became difficult almost impossible for responses to the outbreak to abandon this pattern,” the report said.
“In their fight against COVID-19, state and federal governments emphasised fear, and continually scolded the public for apparently not complying with rolling public health order changes,” it added.
A parliamentary inquiry into the response to the coronavirus isn’t due to respond until 2022.
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