Coronavirus Australia: PM opens door to rebooting economy

Scott Morrison warns support for businesses and workers ‘cannot go on forever­’ as national cabinet considers a staggered reopening of the economy.

Scott Morrison has warned that support measures for businesses and workers “cannot go on forever­”, with the national cabinet expected to consider a staggered reopening of the economy once the community spread of COVID-19 is contained.

The Prime Minister warned on Tuesday that Australians must “keep the tension in the cord” and stay at home over Easter to avoid fresh coronavirus outbreaks, as health authorities expressed concern over local transmission.

After releasing three scenarios based on Doherty Institute modelling, Mr Morrison said there was potential to begin a scaling-down of tough social and health measures­ through “trial-type relief­ of restrictions”.

With health experts suggesting Australia may have hit its peak infection­ rate, Mr Morrison said it was crucial to “hold the course”.

“It is providing us with much-needed time. We have so far avoided the horror scenarios that we have seen overseas. We cannot be complacent, we must keep the tension­ in the cord,” he said.

“This Easter weekend will be incredibly important. Stay at home. Failure to do so this weekend would completely undo everything we have achieved so far together, and potentially worse.

“We have already seen, in other countries, major festivals or events or holiday periods have been the spark for significant outbreaks.”

The modelling, based on international data, did not include Aust­ralian-based projections for deaths and cases, with the overall number of infections and fatalities considered statistically low. Domestic data sets will be released within weeks as health officials track evidence of community transmission of the virus, with more than 600 cases locally acquired­ or under investigation.

GRAPHIC: Turning the curve

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the data showed that social and health restrictions were “working” but “we cannot be complacent”.

“If we in any way lose that rigour that the Australian community has embraced, particularly over Easter, it could all come undone,” Professor Murphy said.

“We’ve seen what this virus can do in a cruise ship, at a wedding. It can spread to 30, 50, several hundred people very quickly. We are flattening the curve. Complacency is our biggest risk.”

Mr Morrison said “no one point of data” would determine when and where strict social-isolation measures would be eased, and that it would likely be a staggered exit strategy. “You will have some juris­dictions, some states and territories, that might be in a position to move (on easing restrictions) when others are not,” he said.

“And then we will learn through the experience of those states. We may see a number of trial-type relief of restrictions at some point in the future, and that will mean that in states like NSW and Victoria and southeast Queensland that are more impacted, that they will be able to take (their own) easing of restrictions with a bit more confidence.”

Mr Morrison said support measures “cannot go on forever” and the national cabinet had to consider the ability to run the economy when devising approaches to managing the disease.

“The states and territories and I are very conscious that the path out of this is not just avoiding the peak (in new infections) but getting­ back to some sense of normality­,” he said.

Professor Murphy said there was “no clear path” through the epidemic, and that the chief medical officers would advise the nationa­l cabinet on a “range of alternati­ve scenarios”.

He said unlike the case of pandemi­c influenza, where the strategy was to control and contain the virus until a vaccine came along, “we don’t know if and when a vaccine will come for this virus”.

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Professor Murphy said the Australian-based COVID-19 mod­el­ling, expected to be finalised within two weeks, would focus on local transmission of the virus.

“Our modellers have got this data and they are now doing real predictions of what might happen in different scenarios in different states,” he said.

“In the unmitigated scenario where you let the virus spread and do nothing … this is a horrendous scenario. It’s not real, it doesn’t reflect­ the current state in Aust­ralia, but you would see an ICU daily demand for new ICU beds of 35,000-plus.

“We have focal outbreaks. The one that worries us most of all is the community transmission in Sydney. Our current case rate is very, very low. Every death is a tragedy but our death rate is one of the lowest in the world so far.”

The government modelling shows that an uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic would overwhelm Australia’s health system for “many weeks”. Stricter measures would see up to 12 per cent of people infected and only 5 per cent requiring medical care.