Small steps or an irresponsible lack of action: Australian experts react to national cabinet’s announcement
‘National consistency would be helpful’
With the advent of Omicron, we have a little more national accord in aspects of our public health strategy; we need to slow Omicron down as it moves through the population, and we should aim to do so while avoiding lockdown. The national vaccine program – especially boosters – is central to containing Omicron, and will be boosted itself with better funding incentives from the commonwealth to GPs, and pharmacies and the states ramping up hubs once again. But the other two areas of control focus may continue to be inconsistent across jurisdictions – partly due to different infection pressures, but also down to differences in risk tolerance that Omicron has not nudged aside.
The package of proven strategies that help contain spread, whether the virus is already circulating in the community or to reduce impact if it is reintroduced, are one and the same; masks, physical distancing, hygiene and managing gatherings safely. These were recognised today as a critical pillar in disease control, but the management of these resides with our states and territories, and there wasn’t agreement on how these should be implemented.
What is critical is how well the advice is adhered to, and whether measures already in place need to be tightened. National consistency would be helpful to convey a clear message on the importance of these measures. If there is high compliance in New South Wales already with reportedly 85% mask wearing in retail settings, then introducing a mask rule is not really an impost. Conversely, if rules in other jurisdictions are not achieving high compliance, then that needs to be looked at too.
We are moving to greater consistency in case and contact follow-up, but priorities change as resources are spread more thinly when case infection rates grow, and states with low case numbers want to continue more aggressive case follow-up while they can. QR codes still have a role, whether as an outbreak investigation tool in low infection settings or allowing automatic notification of contact with an exposure site or as a memory prompt of your movements in high transmission areas.
Small steps on Wednesday, but at least this may be a platform for greater national consistency as the coronavirus progressively moves through our community and both our goals and our case load become more uniform.
• Catherine Bennett is chair in epidemiology at Deakin University
‘Australians are relying on our leaders to act responsibly’
It seems it is still not a race. There is a clear need to mandate minimally intrusive but highly protective measures such as masks and QR codes anywhere that Omicron is spreading in the community. The lack of action after the national cabinet meeting held on Wednesday is difficult to understand.
We need leadership in making mask-wearing indoors mandatory – leaving this to “personal responsibility” is frankly irresponsible. Wearing a mask to prevent Covid is not analogous to putting on sunscreen to prevent skin cancer. No amount of sunscreen I slap on will protect you from skin cancer.
In contrast, Covid is an airborne transmissible virus so if you wear a mask it protects me and vice versa. And all of us wearing masks consistently will protect the health system.
We need to ensure high testing and tracing capacity – for the latter, QR codes are the only way to keep up when case numbers are high. We have invested in the infrastructure for digital tracing so it makes no sense to throw it all away. The 3,763 cases in New South Wales on Wednesday will have up to 80,000 contacts, and the contacts are the most likely to become the next cases. If we don’t alert the contacts, the epidemic will explode, health systems will collapse and we may be forced into the lockdown that we never wanted after all. Magical thinking will not stop this – only a smart, layered strategy will do that. For NSW to abandon everything as cases surge during the time of maximal gatherings, will result in avoidable illness and death. But it seems that any national strategy for TTQI can wait another two weeks for the next cabinet meeting.
We learned on Wednesday there are 20m doses of mRNA vaccine in Australia. It is fantastic that we have the supply but vaccine in the fridge won’t help manage the Omicron surge. Maintaining the delivery of boosters over the Christmas holidays will save lives but that won’t happen without a plan. Other countries have called in the army. We are giving a $10 a dose incentive.
With surging cases, NSW Health is already preparing us to turn our homes into hospitals – they advise if you are under 50, manage your Covid at home, and call your GP if you need help. Most GP practices are operating on skeleton staff over the holidays, so good luck with that. There will be preventable deaths of people at home who were unable to access care.
We all need to take responsibility for avoiding the worst-case scenario of the Omicron wave. Our leaders are relying on Australians to act responsibly. Australians are relying on our leaders to act responsibly as well.