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Saturday, April 11, 2020 10:54:04 PM
The Covid-19 exit strategy: when will Australia know the coronavirus battle is over?
"Now that the JobKeeper Payment has passed Parliament, this is how it'll work"
A medical professional performs a coronavirus test at the Bondi Beach drive-through Covid-19 testing centre in Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
Australia has not yet reached the Covid-19 peak, and experts say if we come out of isolation too early we risk a devastating second wave
by Ben Doherty
Sat 11 Apr 2020 06.00 AEST
Last modified on Sat 11 Apr 2020 10.51 AEST
It is a fundamental problem in fighting a war against an invisible enemy, one that hides among us.
When is the battle over?
We know that we are not there yet. That end is months, not weeks away.
We know we have not yet reached the “peak” but that it is coming. Like an invisible wave, we won’t see it when it arrives, we will see only its effects. We have watched it wash over other countries: the grimly climbing toll reported daily, even hourly; the overwhelmed intensive care wards; the shuttered businesses and closed school gates; the empty streets and full mortuaries.
“This health crisis and economic crisis is a battle on two fronts,” the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has warned, “and it is going to be waged in an unimaginable and unprecedented way over the next at least six months and potentially beyond that.”
But it is a balancing act for governments. Weighing lives against livelihoods, the financial imperative to restart shattered economies against the medical necessity to stay home and save lives.
[...]
The risk of relaxing too early
There is danger in complacency. Singapore, for weeks the darling of international comparison, the exemplar of how best to suppress the Covid-19 pandemic, has since seen a dramatic spike in the number of infections – a 60% jump in new daily infections .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-singapore/singapore-reports-120-new-coronavirus-cases-in-record-daily-jump-idUSKBN21N0G6 – and has announced a further tightening of restrictions.
It will now close all schools and most workplaces – only essential services such as supermarkets and banks will stay open – for a full month. It has instituted jail terms for breaching stay-at-home orders, and banned visitors and transits through the country.
[...]
Comparisons between countries are always flawed, too great are the differences in size, development, governance and demographics. Singapore, an island city-state ruled by a single party since independence, with a high-quality public health system and a population broadly adherent to government diktat, was always inherently advantaged.
Japan, similarly, having kept infections low for two months, has now declared a month-long state of emergency .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/japan-shinzo-abe-declares-state-of-emergency-over-coronavirus .. in response to a jump in new cases.
But the risk of lifting restrictions too early and unleashing a devastating “second wave” applies to countries all over the world, and the international community itself.
“If Australia comes out of our isolation too early, we risk an even bigger peak,” Associate Prof Ian Mackay from the University of Queensland told the Guardian this week.
“This could take six months or more. We cannot lose focus. It’s annoying, it’s hard, it’s very tough for a lot of people, there is real pain and economic hardship in the community. But we have to stick it out, because if we relax too soon, and allow the virus to re-emerge and spread widely, all the pain we have suffered will have been for nothing.”
There is historical precedent in Australia too. In the immediate aftermath of world war one, Australia was spared the very worst of the Spanish flu outbreak .. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2020/apr/09/lessons-from-the-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic , aided by geography and the delay the steam-ship age afforded a distant continent to implement a strict quarantine regime.
Medical staff and workers from Riley Street Depot, Surry Hills, April 1919. Photograph: NSW State Archives and Records
But when the flu did break in Australia, it killed an estimated 17,000 people, and it did so in three waves, the first in February, the second in April. The third wave, in July, was by far the most deadly.
‘What’, not ‘when’
More - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/the-covid-19-exit-strategy-when-will-australia-know-the-coronavirus-battle-is-over
"Now that the JobKeeper Payment has passed Parliament, this is how it'll work"
A medical professional performs a coronavirus test at the Bondi Beach drive-through Covid-19 testing centre in Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
Australia has not yet reached the Covid-19 peak, and experts say if we come out of isolation too early we risk a devastating second wave
by Ben Doherty
Sat 11 Apr 2020 06.00 AEST
Last modified on Sat 11 Apr 2020 10.51 AEST
It is a fundamental problem in fighting a war against an invisible enemy, one that hides among us.
When is the battle over?
We know that we are not there yet. That end is months, not weeks away.
We know we have not yet reached the “peak” but that it is coming. Like an invisible wave, we won’t see it when it arrives, we will see only its effects. We have watched it wash over other countries: the grimly climbing toll reported daily, even hourly; the overwhelmed intensive care wards; the shuttered businesses and closed school gates; the empty streets and full mortuaries.
“This health crisis and economic crisis is a battle on two fronts,” the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has warned, “and it is going to be waged in an unimaginable and unprecedented way over the next at least six months and potentially beyond that.”
But it is a balancing act for governments. Weighing lives against livelihoods, the financial imperative to restart shattered economies against the medical necessity to stay home and save lives.
[...]
The risk of relaxing too early
There is danger in complacency. Singapore, for weeks the darling of international comparison, the exemplar of how best to suppress the Covid-19 pandemic, has since seen a dramatic spike in the number of infections – a 60% jump in new daily infections .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-singapore/singapore-reports-120-new-coronavirus-cases-in-record-daily-jump-idUSKBN21N0G6 – and has announced a further tightening of restrictions.
It will now close all schools and most workplaces – only essential services such as supermarkets and banks will stay open – for a full month. It has instituted jail terms for breaching stay-at-home orders, and banned visitors and transits through the country.
[...]
Comparisons between countries are always flawed, too great are the differences in size, development, governance and demographics. Singapore, an island city-state ruled by a single party since independence, with a high-quality public health system and a population broadly adherent to government diktat, was always inherently advantaged.
Japan, similarly, having kept infections low for two months, has now declared a month-long state of emergency .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/japan-shinzo-abe-declares-state-of-emergency-over-coronavirus .. in response to a jump in new cases.
But the risk of lifting restrictions too early and unleashing a devastating “second wave” applies to countries all over the world, and the international community itself.
“If Australia comes out of our isolation too early, we risk an even bigger peak,” Associate Prof Ian Mackay from the University of Queensland told the Guardian this week.
“This could take six months or more. We cannot lose focus. It’s annoying, it’s hard, it’s very tough for a lot of people, there is real pain and economic hardship in the community. But we have to stick it out, because if we relax too soon, and allow the virus to re-emerge and spread widely, all the pain we have suffered will have been for nothing.”
There is historical precedent in Australia too. In the immediate aftermath of world war one, Australia was spared the very worst of the Spanish flu outbreak .. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2020/apr/09/lessons-from-the-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic , aided by geography and the delay the steam-ship age afforded a distant continent to implement a strict quarantine regime.
Medical staff and workers from Riley Street Depot, Surry Hills, April 1919. Photograph: NSW State Archives and Records
But when the flu did break in Australia, it killed an estimated 17,000 people, and it did so in three waves, the first in February, the second in April. The third wave, in July, was by far the most deadly.
‘What’, not ‘when’
More - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/the-covid-19-exit-strategy-when-will-australia-know-the-coronavirus-battle-is-over
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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