On contrary, top doc wants fewer restrictions
AUSTRALIA is supposed to be the clever country, so why is it that Covid 19 sets us drooling like Pavlov’s dog?
It is almost as though the very mention of the disease triggers a mass hypnosis among a section of the community, which then starts mindlessly incanting chants demanding more restrictions.
A particularly telling example of this was an ABC news report over the weekend headlined “Increasing pressure nationally to return to masks amid worsening Covid wave”.
The article was based on comments made by Queensland chief health officer John Gerrard on radio 4BC and ran under a large picture of the top medico, opening with the par: “Queensland’s chief health officer says there is ‘increasing pressure’ nationally to return to a mask mandate.”
And his first quote, highlighted and enlarged as a pull quote for good measure, was: “I can say that nationally, there is increasing pressure, there is a school of thought that we should be mandating masks again.”
A reader might be forgiven for thinking that the good doctor thought mask mandates ought to be reintroduced. This immediately struck me as somewhat odd, as Dr Gerrard – in stark contrast to his fearmongering predecessor – has always been a refreshingly pragmatic and sensible voice in the Covid debate and has repeatedly said we need to learn to live with the virus. And sure enough here is the kicker: The CHO was referring to this “increasing pressure” in the context that he disagreed with it.
Indeed in the same article, it clearly states that Dr Gerrard was arguing against mandates and in fact supported further reduction in restrictions.
“But Dr Gerrard said he would personally prefer to wind back public health mandates,” the article states further down.
His quote was: “We want to move away from restrictions, towards more self-regulation and self-responsibility – that means being up-to-date with your vaccines.”
Yes, in fact the good doctor is far more concerned with over-65s not having had all the necessary booster shots needed to protect them.
The article is not technically wrong, nor do I think its author or editors were trying to be misleading. And the ABC was not alone in going with the mandate angle.
And that is precisely the point. Certain sections of the media and commentariat appears to be so conditioned to see increased restrictions as the only possible response that is all but blinded to experts arguing the opposite.
A more enlightening article appeared in The Australian on Monday, in which epidemiologist Catherine Bennett noted that while Australia’s winter death toll was “shocking”, we are performing far better than other countries with an overall Covid death rate of just two per million and a death rate per infection of just 0.1 per cent – plummeting from over 3 per cent in 2020.
In other words, despite the enormous challenges of our first unrestricted Covid winter, we are coping incredibly well. Perhaps it’s time we started acting like it.