While they did not always agree with each other on every detail or nuance of the strategy, the consensus was clear. With only marginal exceptions, we gladly and willingly adopted his guidance.
We became one of the most protected communities in the world. We still are. We close our borders, external and internal. We were locked up. We were lucky, knowledgeable enough and rich enough to get vaccinated.
The pandemic severely hampered freedom of movement in Australia. Credit: Getty
However, despite these advantages both natural and acquired, our struggles with COVID have been disruptive and for some catastrophic, but not even as tragic as for many other nations.
Now, as many of us finally succumb to our dose of the virus, the pendulum has swung. The highest death toll this year is a terrifying reminder that this threat is far from over. Contrary to community mythology, not all who succumb are fragile and aged, nor do all suffer from “comorbidities” with serious underlying health problems. Healthy young people and even babies have died with COVID.
But the environment, medical and social, has moved. As the virus continues to mutate, our attitude and community response must also adapt. What was appropriate in 2020 or 2021 does not have to be right for 2022.
Now we have to live with the pandemic. This does not retrospectively validate the views of those who argued the same thing two years ago. At the time, they were wrong: it was unsuitable for that phase of the emergency. But it is suitable for this stage of the crisis.
What was appropriate in 2020 or 2021 doesn’t have to be right for 2022. Credit: Illustration: Matt Davidson
Next month it will test our hospitals and ambulance networks to their limits, in Victoria as in other states, especially NSW, which has the highest number of daily cases at the moment. Victorian hospital emergency services are full, ambulances have been code red. Elective surgery, much of the urgency and important health benefits, is suspended.
This was planned, but not enough was done to prevent it. The transition of Martin Foley’s state health ministers to Mary-Anne Thomas has not helped, coming at a time of high demand. Under significant pressure from some prime ministers, new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is once again convening the national cabinet to address the pressures being felt across the country.
In Victoria, the calculation has been made within the inner sanctuary of the state government, that this increase in winter will soon be left behind and a faint memory when our state election campaign itself begins after the football finals of the September.
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The goal of the recent new Victorian health laws was to allow politicians, rather than public service physicians, to make decisions. Our elected representatives may be held accountable at the polls, not the medical chief. It is the politicians who make the decisions, not the doctors in the civil service.
Unless there is a catastrophic change for the worse, the management of COVID will be a small part of the November battlefield. However, if Prime Minister Daniel Andrews were to impose masks, you recommend a strict work regime from home or [dare anyone even mention the word] again, the community response would be quick and wild. The electoral achievement would be profound. The pandemic would be armed again, and the ALP would be a toast.
As always, the economy and voters’ perceptions of their future prospects will drive the election result of the big parties, the only ones that can form a government. In contrast, smaller, more emerging political movements depend on pockets of enthusiasm for numerous topics that are almost impossible to predict.
The biggest challenge – and which has inexplicably been deprived of the urgency it demands – has been to deal with complacency.
If nothing else, it should be a priority for the national cabinet to urgently address the need for creative and persuasive community health messages, on social and mainstream media, to increase voluntary compliance with public health measures. Anything less would be absurd and a lack of duty.
Let’s focus on the things we can control instead of despairing for the things we can’t.
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