I recently had a sobering chat with a dear friend and trusted medical expert. He had been talking with colleagues – doctors on the frontlines in Italy.
They were begging the rest of the world to learn from their mistakes. They were too slow to put restrictions on mass gatherings. They didn’t take the virus seriously enough. And now they are paying the price. The highest number of COVID-19 cases outside of China. Healthcare workers among the sick and dying. No intensive care resources for anyone over 60.
So what are we doing here?
Many of us in Australia are becoming increasingly frustrated by our seeming inability to learn from Italy’s mistakes.
Our leaders continue to report on the lack of school closures – doing press conferences and showing the right graphics – but perhaps not fully understanding what they actually mean. Our Prime Minister tells the country that Australians will be ok by “being Australian”. No, Prime Minister – the infection curve only flattens out if we socially distance ourselves.
And we shouldn’t be picking and choosing which mass gatherings should be restricted. Social distancing will only be helpful if we lockdown and properly socially distance ourselves to control the spread.
Mass gatherings of less than 500 people are still a transmission threat. And many of our Australian schools see gatherings of well over 500 people everyday. I struggle to see the rationale for allowing schools to continue opening – but limiting other mass gatherings.
But parents will have to stay home
I have seen the posts concerned about what shutting down schools will do to parents who work – especially those in the healthcare system. “We’ll have a shortage of staff” if we close down schools I’m hearing. Well here’s the brutal truth. We’ll have a MUCH bigger shortage if we don’t enforce greater social distancing restrictions and the number of cases continues to grow at the current rate of around double every three days.
When writing this on Tuesday there were 438 cases in Australia. That means we will have around 7000 cases within around 12 days. You can do the math for where we could be in a couple of months.
When there are tens of thousands of cases presenting to ED’s and needing intensive care resources, our capacity to care for people will simply cease. Our healthcare workers will be among the most at risk for exposure and death.
I’d rather deal with a few weeks of inconvenience now to save the lives of thousands if we delay.
This isn’t a case of if – but when!
If the government acts now to close schools and further limit mass gatherings, it would give all of us a chance to socially distance ourselves properly for a few weeks.
If we do this, after four weeks travellers arriving in the country would have been accounted for, most infected individuals would be identified and isolated or have become symptomatic or have gotten over their infection – and then we can on with the business of trying to return to normal.
Back to a time when trying to buy a pack of loo paper wasn’t a contact sport. Back to being able to visit loved ones in aged-care facilities. Back to not eyeing off our neighbours and fellow community members with suspicion if they cough or sneeze.
I get it – I really do!
Self isolation is bloody inconvenient. Trust me – I’m living it right now and my hubby thinks it’s the apocalypse because we can’t get frozen dim sims and the only party pies left at the supermarket were gluten free. “What’s the world coming to”? he asked me in earnest.
We don’t flatten the curve by not shaking hands. Washing our hands helps limit the spread, but on its own, it simply won’t be enough. The only proven social distancing that has helped contain the virus so far is lockdown.
We need to listen and learn
Let’s face it – we need all the help we can get from those who are experiencing this virus first-hand overseas – we just don’t have the experience in dealing with a pandemic. We saw swine flu spread around the globe in 2009 – but before that we hadn’t seen a pandemic in four decades.
We just don’t get it.
She “WON’T be right mate”. It’s not “all good”.
Our laid back, carefree Aussie culture needs a wake-up call. Yes, we need to be calm, but we need to be cautious at the same time. And I fear it’s going to be a very hard lesson for us all to learn. We have a window of opportunity now to learn from other countries and act on their warnings – but we are not.
My dear friend signed off with a grim warning:
If you don’t lockdown soon, it will be too late.
2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
Comments are closed.