This week has been a week of Covid plans.
On Sunday John Key (the Irish Catholic in me refuses to call anyone sir) came out with his reckons written on the back of an envelope possibly while he he was in a cafe thinking about ponytails.
His concern was clear. He and his ilk could not travel overseas and return without hindrance and for him this was a really big deal
His proposals were basically splash some money around poor people to improve vaccination rates, stop young people from accessing places they want to go to until they are vaccinated, stop using fear unless they are young, and build up our health infrastructure, the same infrastructure that his Government ran into the ground.
Then on Tuesday Act jumped into the void and announced their own policy to guide Aotearoa to post Covid nirvana. Instead of refusing to accept Covid deaths they thought we should have a few, that we should only isolate the old and the frail and those recently returning, that we should be ready to welcome everyone back by Christmas infected or not, that we should “[m]ove from chronic fear and uncertainty and get on a clear path to restoring freedom” one that will clearly involve multiple deaths and a compromised health system.
And yesterday National released its Covid opus. Clearly the policy had been developed over an extended period of time. How they must have hated it when John Key released his list of cafe reckons on Sunday.
There are two takeaway messages from the policy. Firstly National concedes that the health system could not handle the resulting surge of new cases caused if its policies were enacted.
Secondly National is happy to follow Scotty Morrison’s approach to the virus.
From National’s report:
The Doherty Institute in Australia has modelled a situation where Australia gets to 70% of the eligible population being vaccinated.
Doherty noted:
In an average year of influenza, we would roughly have 600 deaths and 200,000 cases in Australia. Any death is a tragedy, but our health system can cope with this. In the COVID-19 modelling, opening up at 70% vaccine coverage of the adult population with partial public health measures, we predict 385,983 symptomatic cases and 1,457 deaths over six months. With optimal public health measures (and no lockdowns), this can be significantly reduced to 2,737 infections and 13 deaths.
Note that Doherty predicts 13 deaths over six months for Australia under such a strategy.
New Zealand has already had 27 COVID-19 deaths while pursuing an elimination strategy, and Australia has five times New Zealand’s population.
In other words, we can expect fewer deaths once we have vaccinated 70% of our population and we can avoid nationwide lockdowns.
The use of Doherty Institute analysis is interesting as it has been the subject of criticism in the past as I noted in this earlier post.
From Paul Karp at the Guardian:
Ending lockdowns and other public health restrictions once 80% of the adult population is vaccinated could result in 25,000 deaths in total and 270,000 cases of long Covid, new modelling warns.
The work by researchers at three leading Australian universities predicts more than 10 times as many deaths as the Doherty Institute modelling that underpins the national four-phase roadmap. That plan was adopted by national cabinet in July but is subject to different interpretations by state and territory leaders.
The Doherty modelling looked at the number of deaths in the first 180 days of reopening at the 70% and 80% thresholds that lead to phase B and C – when lockdowns would be “less likely” and then “highly targeted”.
The latest research models total cumulative deaths over a longer time frame during phase D of the national plan – when no restrictions remain.
Dr Zoë Hyde, an epidemiologist and co-author from the University of Western Australia, warned the new modelling – which is yet to be peer-reviewed – showed it was “simply too dangerous to treat Covid-19 like the flu” and that Australia should reach higher vaccination rates before opening up.
Hyde and co-authors Prof Quentin Grafton of the Australian National University and Prof Tom Kompas of the University of Melbourne, both economists, called for a 90% vaccination rate among all Australians, including children, and a 95% rate for vulnerable populations, including elderly people and Indigenous Australians.
To back up all of the policy releases there has been this crescendo of voices from people stuck overseas and from business people distraught that their ability to conduct business had been affected by the Government’s desire to stop many of us from dying. The fact that the economy is functioning really well does not matter. Their individual frustrations are understandable but this is a tricky virus that cannot be taken lightly.
And in a big fuck you to all of the plans and reckons the daily infection rate yesterday surged to 45 new cases. It may have been a blip, it may be as a result of loosening up of things under level three. The next few days results are going to be eagerly received.
This is why all the planning and pontificating and demanding of dates when we will open up is so meaningless. Handling this virus is a day to day exercise where you cannot delay or contemplate and you have to continuously adjust. It is like playing whack a mole but with dire consequences if you lose.
Excuse the use of the F word in this post. But some of the reckons and commentary are totally misguided and rather dangerous for large sections of the community.
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