Overseas Situation Report Monday 14th June 2021
By Mike Evans
“Luck is what you have left over after you give 100 percent.” – Langston Coleman
In this report we are looking at what the world can expect in a post-pandemic situation. We start with a look at countries that, from the very beginning of the pandemic, used the “hard line zero” approach by locking down the whole country. In Australia, many will say that it was this policy that has helped keep down the number of infections and consequent deaths from Covid-19.
Melbourne is emerging from its fourth lockdown of the pandemic, and many locals and businesses have been left wondering how many more they can take.
And with a series of restrictions still in place, the recent lockdown has once again raised questions about the responses to outbreaks of Covid-19 in the future, and whether it is time to tolerate some cases rather than zero.
In fact, the pandemic is exposing the fissures in the Australian Federation more than at any time in history – and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that they are likely to widen as time goes on.
Margie Danchin, an Immunisation Researcher who specialises in vaccine uptake at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, said public support for lockdown is shifting, particularly in Melbourne. “Portions of the community at the moment really want zero Covid-19, but other people are getting to the point where they are willing to accept a few cases in the community, I can understand why the decision was made to have a snap lockdown in Victoria, but I think we now need to be looking at how this can be nuanced and how to do it better moving forward”.
In the middle of last year, the National Cabinet reaffirmed the goal of having no community transmission – effectively zero Covid-19 – when the Prime Minister and premiers declared that “the goal remains suppression of Covid-19 until a point in time a vaccine or effective treatments are available, with the goal of no local community transmission.” This decision is what’s underpinned many of the calls by state health officials to go into strict lockdown, and to keep the borders closed.
Zero Covid-19 was a fortunate accident. It was not the original goal of the pandemic response.
In the first few months of the pandemic, the purpose of lockdowns was to “flatten the curve”, to buy time for the healthcare system to prepare, and for contact tracing to get up to scratch. We did so well at that, we overshot the mark. “We stumbled our way to Covid-19 zero,” said Brendan Crabb from the Burnet Institute.
“We found ourselves with an aggressive suppression strategy, leading unexpectedly to elimination in a bunch of states and territories.
“Through that recognition, we crept our way to a collective view that Australia really could eliminate community transmission.”
Zero Covid is great in the short term — it has meant Australia has avoided the unnecessary and calamitous death tolls seen in places like the US, UK and India.
But it will make it harder for Australia to exit the pandemic compared to other countries, according to the World Health Organisation.
Dr Michael Ryan, the Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, recently acknowledged the awkwardness that “zero Covid” countries like Australia now face as they ponder the transition from “hermithood” to a post-pandemic world.
When asked why the states take different approaches, acting Victorian Premier, James Merlino, said that the state wide lockdown was necessary this time because of the scale of the Victorian outbreak – that is, it had spread widely across Melbourne and therefore a big lockdown was warranted.
But it does seem that Victoria’s Chief Medical Officer, Brett Sutton, is taking a particularly tough line on zero Covid, saying that there was “no alternative” to the hard lockdown. “This started with one case in Wollert that has led to almost 100 cases over a period of a few weeks – we absolutely have to drive it back down to zero,” Mr Sutton said.
“We don’t want the pain of struggling with ongoing cases that just continue to pressure us and put us at risk of a giant epidemic until we’ve got that vaccination coverage.”
Mr Merlino wasn’t prepared to put a number on what percentage of the population should be vaccinated before he’d take lockdowns off the table in future outbreaks. “Every jump in the percentage of our population that is vaccinated, either fully vaccinated or at least having their first dose, is a step forward,” he said.
“At the moment, 2-3 percent of our population is fully vaccinated, and less than a quarter have received a first dose.
“If you look at other jurisdictions around the world where over half of their population is fully vaccinated … if we had that level of vaccination in our community, then we may well not have the public health advice in terms of the lockdown.”
But as the pandemic rages around the world, and pressure mounts to speed up the vaccination campaign and re-open borders, should our political leaders be starting the conversation about how much risk we are prepared to take?
Governments across Asia have staked their pandemic success on eliminating the coronavirus — a “Zero Covid” strategy. But as people in the West begin to experience a pre-Covid normal, countries across Asia will go through yet another season of closed borders.
Taiwan’s latest Covid-19 outbreak is a lesson that a containment strategy aiming for zero local transmission may not be sustainable in the long term, said Benjamin Cowling, a Professor at The University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health. Before the recent explosion in cases, Taiwan had reported very few Covid infections – most of which were imported – for more than a year. That has left Taiwan “completely susceptible” to new variants of the coronavirus that are more transmissible and potentially more severe, said Cowling.
“Probably less than 1% of their population have had natural infection and therefore natural immunity, and … less than 1% have been vaccinated – so they’re almost completely susceptible,” Cowling told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.” Taiwan, with a population of roughly 24 million, has reported 12.921 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 437 deaths.
Cowling said Taiwan will find it difficult to control the latest outbreak. Authorities may need stricter social distancing measures given that testing capacity hasn’t ramped up enough and the island’s vaccination progress has been slow, he added.
“It’s a warning to other parts of Asia that are also trying this elimination strategy, it’s not necessarily sustainable in the long term,” said the Professor.
Asian economies have generally shown a lower tolerance for Covid infections compared to its peers in other regions.
Governments in Hong Kong and Singapore, for example, have been quick to tighten measures to stem out small upticks in cases. Meanwhile, countries such as the U.S. and U.K. are still reporting thousands of daily cases, but quicker vaccination has allowed the countries to roll back restrictions. Like many of its regional peers in Asia, Taiwan has faced challenges securing Covid vaccines, said Cowling. Part of Taiwan’s hurdle is politics, said the Professor.
Taiwanese President, Tsai Ing-Wen, said in a Facebook post last week that the government has purchased vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and Moderna. She accused China of blocking a deal with Germany’s BioNTech, which has co-developed a vaccine with U.S. pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer.
Beijing has denied Tsai’s accusation.
China claims Taiwan as a runaway province that must one day be reunited with the mainland – using force if necessary. The Chinese Communist Party has never governed Taiwan, which is a democratic self-ruled island.
“There’s a lot of politics involved in getting vaccines to Taiwan,” said Cowling. “I think they’ll be able to do it, but they won’t be able to vaccinate enough people right now to stop the current outbreak, they need to use social distancing, lockdowns to deal with this.”
Whilst politics plays a big part in many countries fight against the virus, the strategy of zero tolerance is certainly not working in India. The latest death toll from India shows that on a single day India’s health ministry data showed 6,148 deaths were recorded over a 24-hour period, as daily reported cases remained below 100,000 for the third consecutive day.
The fatalities rose after one of India’s poorest states, Bihar, revised its total Covid-19 related death toll on Wednesday from about 5,400 to more than 9,400, accounting for people who died at home or in private hospitals, according to a Reuters report.
India’s daily reported death toll from the coronavirus crisis reached a record high on Thursday, with more than 6,000 people succumbing to the disease.
That surpassed a record number of daily fatalities reported by the United States this year.
India’s health ministry data showed 6,148 Covid-related deaths were recorded over a 24-hour period, as daily reported cases remained below 100,000 for the third consecutive day.
India is fighting a devastating second wave of outbreak that started in February and accelerated in April and early May, which overwhelmed the country’s health-care infrastructure. The sector struggled with shortages of beds, oxygen and medication while many doctors and other health-care workers succumbed to the disease.
While cases peaked in early May, government officials have sounded the alarm over a potential third wave that could hit the country later this year.
Experts say that ramping up the vaccination program is the way forward for India, both to bring its economy out of the Covid crisis and to mitigate the effects of a third wave. But the rollout, which began in January, faced problems including a vaccine shortage, resulting in less than 5% of the population so far receiving both doses.
The government estimates that more than 2 billion doses of vaccine could be available by December as more vaccine candidates are expected to receive regulatory approval. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, this week said that India will provide free Covid-19 vaccines to all adults.
As the variant that first appeared in India rages around the world, we can only hope that the world gets to grips with this new wave of infections soon before we see deaths increasing across the world.
Until the next time, Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 176,725,788
Total Deaths Worldwide – 3,819,720
Total Recovered Worldwide – 160,781,266
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 12,124,802 (6.7% of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 164,600,986
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