By Kevin Baker
In June 2020, I read an article in “The Scientific American” entitled “How The Covid-19 Pandemic Could End.” It has proven to be one of the most accurate science-based maps I have read on how the pandemic would transition to an endemic. In this article, I will offer my first, high level analysis of where we are with Covid, how and why Australia handled it the way it did, and what is likely to happen next.
Back to the Future: June 2020
Here is a summary of the forecast made by Lydia Denworth in the June 2020 Scientific American piece:
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- The combination of vaccination and natural immunity will protect many of us. The coronavirus, like most viruses, will live on—but not as a planetary plague.
- Past pandemics offer hints of how pandemics can end.
- Viruses are constantly mutating. Those that trigger pandemics have enough novelty that the human immune system does not quickly recognize them as dangerous invaders.
- Ultimately, in most cases, antibodies developed by the immune system to fight off the invader linger in enough of the affected population to confer longer-term immunity and limit person-to-person viral transmission. But that can take several years, and before it happens, havoc reigns.
- The 2003 SARS-CoV coronavirus was far more virulent than SARS-CoV2. Thanks to aggressive epidemiological tactics such as isolating the sick, quarantining their contacts and implementing social controls, bad outbreaks were limited to a few locations such as Hong Kong and Toronto. There were only 8,098 SARS cases globally and 774 deaths. The world has not seen a case since 2004.
- The Covid-19 end game will most likely involve a mix of everything that checked past pandemics: Continued social-control measures to buy time, new antiviral medications to ease symptoms, and a vaccine.
- The exact formula—how long control measures such as social distancing must stay in place, for instance—depends in large part on how strictly people obey restrictions and how effectively governments respond. For example, containment measures that worked for COVID-19 in places such as Hong Kong and South Korea came far too late in Europe and the U.S. “The question of how the pandemic plays out is at least 50 percent social and political.”
- If any of the several antiviral medications currently in development prove effective, they will improve treatment options and lower the numbers who get seriously ill or die. A technique to screen for SARS-CoV-2 neutralising antibodies, an indicator of immunity in recovered patients, could also prove very useful.
- It will take a vaccine to stop transmission. That will take time—probably a year from now.
- Compared with flu viruses, coronaviruses don’t have as many ways to interact with host cells. “If that interaction goes away, [the virus] can’t replicate anymore.”
- COVID-19 is likely to become endemic. It will circulate and make people sick seasonally—sometimes very sick.
Australia and Covid
Throughout the progression of Covid-19, I, like most informed people, have monitored government policy and media coverage. I have also observed the sociology of how our generation has navigated this public health event. Personally, I have endured three lengthy lockdowns with my family in Sydney. The most recent lasted four months. I am also triple vaccinated (two Astra Zeneca shots plus a Pfizer booster). My view is this is a personal choice. I made my choice out of my belief this was my best health option. It is consistent with my values to love my neighbour. I also have children and grandchildren in America. My family life requires travel. I made my decision based on the Therapeutic Good Administration vaccine provisional pathway process.
Professionally, as an executive leading an essential business in Sydney, I have endured one of the most challenging managerial and leadership situations of my entire career. Government health and economic decisions here both spurred and limited demand. Supply chain disruptions caused by quarantines, shipping disruptions, and cost of goods inflation have entirely changed the way we do business. As a business leader, I have watched in dismay as the life savings and hard work of many small businesses were destroyed by the pandemic. Big tech companies like Amazon experienced growing profits. Many small businesses were decimated.
What Australia Can Learn From Its Mistakes
Australian federal and state governments, and the people, have gotten it both right and wrong along the way. In Canberra, delayed vaccine buying, and poor communication about the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, are major learning moments for government, media, and the people.
The result now is people here are ashamed or fearful when they get infected and are sick. There has been significant disrespect for the right of people to make their own choices during the pandemic. Think about that. Where is empathy, compassion, and concern for the sick? Sadly, faith communities such as churches, historically known for building hospitals and caring for the sick in times of crisis, have been shut down or chosen to be absent. There is an unhealthy fear and anxiety around getting sick with Covid.
It is clear that at times, government leaders and agencies simply lied as a means to a good end—vaccinate to lessen impact and prevent deaths until the virus mutates itself to death, or herd immunity and antibodies makes the virus endemic. I think honesty would have been the best policy. Leadership can communicate in mature, truthful, adult conversations every step of the way in times of crisis:
“We need you to vaccinate because without it, your risk of serious illness and death poses high risk to vulnerable populations in these early days when the virus is most potent. Over time, variants will eventually come that will be weaker. When a weaker variant arrives, we will change policy to let it spread so the virus destroys itself or antibodies limit the impact to an endemic level. The virus is spreading and mutating now. This is how pandemics end. Till we get there, we will have vaccination drives and appeal to you to ‘love your neighbour.’ Vaccination saves lives, lessens the impact of the virus, and is temporary until a weak variant arrives that we will let spread. That’s the plan.”
Messaging now should be, “Omicron is the weakest variant so far. Herd immunity combined with vaccination will stop the pandemic. So, we are going to tell you the truth. Our policy is let this spread so we can now stop this pandemic for good. We will protect those most vulnerable. So now, please eat healthy, exercise, take vitamins, and prepare to be sick for 1-2 weeks so we can stop this for good. It is almost over.” It is time to heal. The Containment Phase is over, so we no longer focus on the number of cases and the spread rate. The emphasis in the “Learn to Live With It Phase” now should be on ICU and the hospital bed availability rates, and rebuilding our country.
In conclusion, Australia has done many things right during the pandemic to protect public health. At the same time, the country in its government, media, and its behaviour of the common person has demonstrated moral decay, disrespect and ignorance of democratic ideals, and a tendency toward heavy handed authoritarianism.
The pandemic presents challenges to The Great Southern Land, which require open, honest, public debate and corrective action if we are to be a free people of character and integrity.