Our attempt at living with COVID is a crisis, it’s time for clear messaging | OPINION by michellegrattan
A mind reset is needed. But that’s hampered by many in the public and in the political class being unwilling to accept that we haven’t “pushed through” to “live with COVID” in a safe sort of way. To the extent we are “living with COVID” we are accepting a crisis in the hospital system and a level of deaths that, if it had occurred in 2021, would have generated a massive reaction.The earlier wisdom was that when the population was highly vaccinated, the situation would be under control.
It’s been a roller coaster for the experts. Lauded and leaned on initially, they then ran into rougher times. They argued among themselves. They were dragged into the politics and demonised by critics who thought the politicians were listening too much to them. There is also some counter-intuitive action at the “expert” level. With large numbers of deaths occurring in aged care homes, the NSW chief health officer, Kerry Chant, this week signed a public health order making it no longer mandatory for visitors to these facilities to be vaccinated. This is in line with the situation in Victoria and Queensland but the timing seemed odd.
Brendan Crabb, director of the Burnet Institute, who is highly critical of how the pandemic has been allowed to run away, says leaders and health ministers at national and state levels should admit the mistakes of this year.“For the last six months we just tried to protect the old and the immunocompromised,” he says. “We didn’t address transmission.”
Business doesn’t like a strong focus on COVID, even though fast transmission is doing it immense damage. Even if we are well beyond lockdowns and beyond mandates, business fears the impact of, for example, Victorian advice this week for people to work from home. But Crabb argues business should be in favour of a range of these less drastic measures to try to keep transmissions low, because it suffers from the high rates of infection.
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