NSW’s ‘gold standard’ on Covid tarnished as Gladys Berejiklian faces acid test
At her press conference announcing 27 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, and a one-week extension of the greater Sydney lockdown, the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, told reporters it was “absolutely our intention” for restrictions to lift on 16 July.
It was a revealing moment of honesty. For a government that has until now banked enormous community goodwill off its ability to handle new Covid outbreaks without subjecting NSW residents to the kind of restrictions that became the default response in other states, that word – intention – hammered home both the seriousness of the situation and the incredible challenges for political leaders trying to control this virus.
As recently as April, Berejiklian was being hailed by one newspaper as “the woman who saved Australia” and the constant refrain that the state was the “gold standard” at controlling the virus was an implicit and irksome rebuke to the Labor premiers in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
Even in the early stages of this Sydney lockdown, the press largely appeared to give the NSW government a pass based on its past performance. Unlike the hostile exchanges that typified Victorian premier Daniel Andrews’ press briefings during its long lockdown last year, the media in NSW has struck a noticeably more conciliatory tone.
How quickly things change. As Berejiklian and the state’s chief medical officer, Dr Kerry Chant, outlined the continued rise in cases and the health department’s struggle to contain new outbreaks in parts of south-western Sydney, the tone of Wednesday’s press conference took a decided dive.
Suddenly she was being grilled about the impact of extended lockdowns on business, the looming nightmare of homeschooling, and why the government had waited until Wednesday to announce them when journalists were being briefed on the decisions yesterday afternoon.
As one reporter noted on social media, that it took 45 minutes for the media to ask a question about 163 year 12 students at one of Sydney’s most expensive private schools being erroneously given the Pfizer vaccine tells you something about the particularly tense vibe (“move on”, was health minister Brad Hazzard’s response).
The decision to extend the lockdown is no surprise. Too many of the new cases being recorded each day have remained in the community for part or all of their infectious period, and Berejiklian foreshadowed that the new outbreaks across western Sydney would likely see case numbers on Thursday “higher than what we have seen today”.
As Berejiklian said, “we don’t want to be in a situation where we are constantly having to move between lockdown, no lockdown, lockdown, no lockdown”.
The frustration for state governments of all persuasions is that while they are front and centre in managing outbreaks, the federal government’s botched vaccine rollout has them using a garden hose to put out a forest fire. As Hazzard said on Wednesday: “It’s safe to say that if we had had the [vaccine] supply that we wanted ... we wouldn’t now be in this situation here in NSW.”
Chant’s revelation that eight of the 37 people currently hospitalised with the virus in the state are under the age of 35, including one in ICU, is particularly galling for an age bracket who are yet to be given access to vaccines.
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In the meantime, as the highly contagious Delta strain of the virus continues to wriggle out of NSW Health’s control, the government may soon feel pushed into even harsher restrictions as it attempts to extinguish the outbreak before the 16 July deadline.
Numerous commentators have been calling for Berejiklian to institute the kinds of draconian measures used in Victoria, decisions which, in that state, led to dramatic overpolicing of minority and disadvantaged populations.
They may soon get their wish. On Wednesday, Berejiklian flagged an increased police presence in the three western Sydney local government areas of Fairfield, Liverpool and Canterbury Bankstown, all areas with high minority populations. They may also soon be subjected to tighter restrictions.
If that doesn’t work, the question of what happens next looms large. Elements within the crisis cabinet meeting on Tuesday night opposed extending lockdown measures and, on Wednesday, Berejiklian said the next nine or 10 days would “determine how we live until the rest of those vaccines arrive”.
Hazzard too said Sydney would have to contemplate how to live with the virus once the lockdown ended.
“I think at some stage, if the individuals that we need don’t hear Dr Chant’s message and don’t respond, then at some point we’re going to move to a stage where we’re going to have to accept that the virus has a life which will continue in the community,” he said.
For now though, all we can do is wait for tomorrow’s numbers.