Battling from the frontline
QUEENSLAND’S chief health officer has delivered a message of hope for the future of “living with Covid”, expecting each new wave of the virus to be more mild.
But Dr John Gerrard has warned of challenges ahead with Queensland at significant risk of struggling through a “double whammy” of Covid-19 and influenza this winter.
Dr Gerrard said the return of international travellers into the state after two years of border restrictions was likely to lead to a rise in influenza cases, which could cause an epidemic due to waning immunity. Influenza vaccinations will be critical. The former director of infectious diseases at the Gold Coast University Hospital has a keen interest in influenza – his 11year-old brother, Stephen, died after contracting influenza in the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic.
Dr Gerrard, 60, has been on the frontline of the Covid-19 pandemic ever since treating the first cases in Queensland in January 2020, when an infected tour group from Wuhan, China, arrived on the Gold Coast.
His job now is to navigate Queensland through the “opening up” phase of the pandemic, a plan established before he took over the reins in December from Dr Jeannette Young, now the Governor.
Dr Gerrard supports the bringing down of borders, despite the surge of Omicron cases that have spooked many Queenslanders and thwarted business hopes for a bumper holiday season.
He said the increase in cases was an inevitable and necessary step to Covid-19 becoming endemic in the community.
“If it follows the natural pattern, then it will gradually fade over a period of years as each wave gets milder,” he said.
“Every time the virus mutates, it’s not going to be another pandemic. If it does, that would be extraordinary, never before seen.”
He revealed that all other roles of the CHO had been handed to others so that he could concentrate on Covid-19 for the next two years.
“The other roles of the CHO are too important and they can’t just forever be playing second fiddle to Covid,” he said.
“This Covid is going to go on for some time yet.”
The CHO’S Covid-19 emergency powers expire in April. If he believes an extension is necessary, Dr Gerrard can put his case to the government, but it’s not his decision.
“It is up to the parliament,” he said. “If they say no, it doesn’t happen.”
He revealed he had a secret weapon when swatting up on his new role – his wife Anthea, 58, a law lecturer at Bond University, who talked him through the Public Health Act.
The couple, who have two children, Catherine, 22, and Alexandra, 21, are relocating to Brisbane after spending almost three decades on the Gold Coast, where Dr Gerrard has amassed a range of model aeroplanes.
Building and flying them is Dr Gerrard’s hobby. “I’m terrible at it but I really love it,” he said.
Dr Gerrard was instrumental in lobbying for the Gold Coast University Hospital where he treated Hollywood megastar Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson for Covid-19 in March 2020.
His expertise in infectious diseases led to him travelling to Japan to help care for the passengers and crew on-board the Covid-19 infected Diamond Princess cruise ship in February 2020.
He also went to the former Dutch Antilles last year to treat Covid-19 patients.
The most emotionally intense and complex experience of Dr Gerrard’s life, however, was his time in the West African country of Sierra Leone in 2014, caring for ebola patients.
“It was as scary as hell,” he said.
He has strong memories of a bereft 14year-old girl in the treatment centre, whose mother and grandmother had died of the haemorrhagic fever.
“She tried to escape on Christmas Day and they had to bring her back,” Dr Gerrard said. She survived.
In his early career, Dr Gerrard rewrote textbooks on the history of HIV/AIDS in Australia when his research discovered that a man who died in September 1981 was the first in the country to succumb to the disease.
The previous “first” case was documented as late 1982.
And he’s got a worm named after him. Dr Gerrard found the elusive worm, now called the heterorhabditis gerrardi, after heading across the border to Kingscliff and setting a trap.