The way forward is not to predict the end of the pandemic, but to do as much as possible to protect the country against what is yet to come.
The hopeful part of this analogy is that it is ultimately possible to win the game. No one, however, can predict how soon this might happen. WhileThere are differences, too, between what is happening globally and what is happening in individual countries, with life on the ground varying greatly between nations. This pandemic won’t be over until it’s over everywhere, but Australia can do much more to protect itself while fulfilling its obligations to its neighbours.
While the World Health Organisation has urged the world to brace for new variants, some health experts believe omicron is going to be hard to beat. As it has been more transmissible than anything we’ve seen in this pandemic, a competitor would need an extraordinarily high replication number to outrun it and become dominant.But Dr Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s health emergencies program, says waning of immunity, together with the evolution of new variants, is a double whammy.
He believes we will all get infected with this virus eventually, and the question for individuals is what sort of protection they want and when they get it. The more protection they have from vaccines, the less likely they are to get seriously ill. “And there is no guarantee that the next variant will be as apparently benign as omicron seems to be,” he says.There is also no guarantee Australia will find a sweet spot that is acceptable to the community and endures through what is to come.
Other measures include securing sufficient supply of new generations of vaccines that will eventually cover all variants and block transmission. Supplies of new drugs and tests need to be in the national stockpile, too. “It is not sustainable to live as we have lived with COVID over the past two years, and we have to try to aim to get people’s lives as close to normal, as we are now doing. But we also have to be prepared if it comes back in a different form.”
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