Leave Gladys Berejiklian to make the call

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Gladys Berejiklian could do worse over the next few days than turn off morning radio and throw a phone through her TV set.

The NSW Premier has earned the right to manage the pandemic her way, without any ill-informed intimidation.

As her government inches towards the deadline for declaring whether or not the lockdown will end on time, the pressure will become immense to open up Sydney again.

Most of the shouting will be to take her foot off the brake but in reality a botched exit from lockdown will do more harm than it will good, both in a financial and psychological sense.

Lockdowns are unpopular, blunt instruments but they work.

Not the lockdowns in the states that fundamentally have had no or few Covid problems. Think Queensland, Western Australia and, for a time, South Australia.

But NSW – Sydney really – is still a viral uncertainty, although the indications seem to be that the numbers are heading in the right direction.

It is easy to say that cases in the dozens don’t matter but they in fact do, particularly when a cluster grows to the point that contact tracing can become compromised.

The chatter among the epidemiologists on Sunday was that the numbers were positive, notwithstanding the potential aged-care fallout, but no one sensible seemed to be making predictions about the future of the lockdown.

As The Weekend Australian’s health editor Natasha Robinson reported, experts believe there may be enough people fully vaccinated within the next two months to avoid the need for further lockdowns.

If true, this would represent enormous relief to millions of Australians, especially those in Victoria, who have suffered most under the draconian measure.

But even under this blue sky scenario, governments will still have to manage the next eight weeks.

Business arguably is the biggest victim of lockdowns, particularly hospitality, and what owners are looking for is certainty they cannot have.

But a decisive, short lockdown that crushes the virus is a better outcome than a quicker lockdown that leads to millions bouncing in and out of stay-at-home restrictions.

The problems are practical. Spoiled food, disgruntled staff and a community that tires of restrictions that fail to do the job.

The best guess is that Berejiklian’s health advice will be to stay the course until the numbers are sufficiently low to pretty much guarantee wider freedoms and greater “certainty” for business. That is, minus the rollercoaster of dropping in and out of lockdowns.

Sometimes caution is a good thing, even if it’s unpopular in the short term.