Coronavirus Australia: Lockdowns and border closures hurting, but Gladys Berejiklian’s showing the way - The Centre for Independent Studies
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Coronavirus Australia: Lockdowns and border closures hurting, but Gladys Berejiklian’s showing the way

Six months ago, the national COVID-19 strategy was to “flatten the curve” to buy time for the health system to cope. It succeeded; new infections dropped to almost none in April. This led to most states and territories adopting a more ambitious goal: maintaining zero community transmission until a vaccine arrived.

As a result, the original three-phase reopening plan has stalled or has been reversed as new cases have appeared. Victoria brought back the sledgehammer of stage three and stage four restrictions; state and territory borders became barriers; a wall was thrown around the nation.

To oppose these is not to deny the virus is highly contagious and must be contained; there will need to be some restrictions for some considerable time.

This acknowledgment was implicit in the March and April plans. The expectation was a substantial ongoing rate of new infections, including through community transmission, which had to be managed.

However, our response increasingly is defined by unrealistic zero-risk objectives and an inability to learn to live with a virus whose risk cannot be reasonably reduced to zero.

Waiting for a vaccine is not a strategy. It is wishful thinking. Even if one or more crosses the finishing line of the marathon of trials, we don’t know when that moment will arrive or whether it will be a silver bullet.

Border controls have festered into a crisis within a crisis. The debate has shifted from whether there should be closures to how border communities can be fitted to a regime of closed borders. But the federation cannot function properly with closed borders.

It is not just a matter of frustrated tourists and those who service them. It is breaking families and business. Policy cannot have a singular focus on reducing the risk without regard to the costs to economic life, social interaction and other aspects of public health. No community can protect public health for long at the cost of its overall economic health. Our nation’s resources will become increasingly restricted as jobs go and businesses close. The prosperity we have experienced across three decades has given way to a deep recession and could move to depression unless there is a reset.

Lockdowns and border closures appear to have been popular, but this is seeded by fears stoked by politicians claiming to be responding to community concerns. Even the NSW Chief Health Officer has described the virus as “a mild disease” for most, with few requiring hospitalisation.

State borders must reopen to allow freedom of movement. And rather than community-wide lockdown, more serious restrictions should be reserved for people susceptible to serious consequences. For example, as 70 per cent of deaths have been in nursing homes, these clearly demand tailored responses.

Real leadership would encourage a sense of proportion. It would coax public opinion towards measures that deliver large benefits at much lower cost than blanket lockdowns and border closures.

NSW’s Berejiklian government has offered a better way. It has spent two months successfully using testing, contact tracing and isolation to suppress the virus wherever it popped up, without significant fallback to pre-July restrictions.

As it happens, this was the original national strategy. It points the way for all states and territories away from the lazy parochialism and populism of border controls and broad restrictions. We need a virus strategy more economically and socially sustainable than the sledgehammer of a lockdown and border closures.