Here is the big so important question. As we prepare to ease some restrictions, will we, in contradistinction to many communities in other countries, embrace the long-term behaviours that must be normalised to allow us to live as safely and productively as is possible in a Covid-infected world? We need to look closely at the efforts of those in many countries for their track record is dismal.
This week, an important, measured and timely urging from the WHO to not use ‘lockdown’ strategies as the primary means of control of the current pandemic has been dangerously misinterpreted by numerous commentators and politicians who have long criticised governments for using this tactic.
In the US, the disastrous and worsening Covid epidemic currently features 50,000 new infections and an average of 1000 deaths per day, the highest in the world. Public health experts agree that for many US states, only a period of lockdown would bring their epidemic under control. The politicisation of the epidemic in that country seems to have ruled out such an evidence-based imperative.
However, in misinterpreting the WHO message, President Trump exuberantly announced at his latest rally that he had been right all along in opposing any shutdown tactics. Here at home, Alan Jones on Sky News this week congratulated himself for the supposed vindication of his long-held anti-lockdown stance. Both gentlemen and many others who voice similar opinions are misleading the public and in so doing undermining public acceptance and confidence in a crucially important strategy.
In fact in the statement referred to above provided by the World Health Organisation’s special Covid envoy, Dr David Navarro, he emphasised that: “Lockdown is justified to buy you the time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources and protect your health workers.”
The corona viruses responsible for this epidemic must leave an infected individual for a new host within about two to three weeks to survive. Staying put would result in either the infected individual’s immune system killing the virus or the virus killing the host.
Faced with a raging epidemic, with numerous cases of spread within a community, some weeks of lockdown are essential. Keeping away from each other will minimise the availability of new hosts for the virus. There is no shortage of evidence that with good compliance this tactic works.
Of course every effort must be made to minimise the lockdown period given the economic, psychological and social toll that is an inevitable by-product of the initiative. The huge challenge is to perpetuate the advantages provided by the lockdown. Which brings us back to the major point in Dr Navarro’s message.
His intent was to emphasise that we will share this world with this deadly corona virus until an effective and safe vaccine is readily available. We must place more emphasis on using proven post lockdown strategies that will allow us to minimise the dangers of this reality.
Accurate, readily understood information is the key to achieving the public discipline required. We must normalise tactics that balance our need to work and play while embracing public health measures that minimise our risk of infection. If we don’t we, will all too soon be forced into another lockdown that will be far harder to bear than the first.
This is the reality. In so many countries at the moment (Israel, the UK, France, Spain and many more) the benefits from a period of lockdown have been lost as complacency eschewed adherence to social distancing and the use of masks, and so on.
Dr Margaret Harris, a spokesperson for WHO commenting on the misreporting of Dr Navarro’s comments, said, “A lot of countries have had to go into lockdown. Right from the start we have said that what we’d really like to see is strong tracking, tracing, community hand-washing and mask wearing so that you don’t have to go into lockdown.”
However, many continue to reject the implementation of the public health measures proposed by the WHO and most experts. Given the economic and psychological stress associated with attempts to contain the pandemic, proponents of the ‘let it rip’ approach aimed at producing “herd Immunity” to contain the spread of virus have been vocal of late.
They argue that the most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally and build up immunity through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. Available evidence makes such an approach unacceptable.
At his latest media briefing, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus addressed what he called “some discussion about the concept of reaching so-called herd immunity by letting the virus spread”.
“Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic. It is scientifically and ethically problematic. Letting Covid-19 circulate unchecked therefore means allowing unnecessary infections, suffering and death,” he said.
In truth we still do not know whether infection results in immunity from the corona virus. We have a number of examples of individuals experiencing a second Covid-19 infection months after the first.
The isolation needed to protect the most vulnerable (people over 65), especially those with existing health problems, in this paradigm is regarded by most experts as unachievable. To seek herd immunity is to experience swamped hospital facilities, many infected health professionals and a lot of people who have been infected and been left with serious, even life-long, health problems. In the most heavily infected communities such as Brazil, South Africa and the US, no sign of herd immunity has emerged.
Dr Trump however thinks the ‘herd immunity’ approach is the way to go and he has been advocating this approach at his rallies. His total failure to help Americans tame their terrible epidemic may be his undoing on November 3. Certainly despite (or perhaps as a result of) his recent brush with Covid-19 he continues to show no regard for the health of those he crowds into his rallies without requiring supporters to social distance or wear masks.
Last week, Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham, in defending Donald Trump’s disparaging of the wearing of face masks, suggested that it was “personal freedoms” that were being undermined by efforts to enforce mask wearing and social distancing and that this was unacceptable in a democracy. This attitude is surely indefensible but on display in many demonstrations opposing Covid restrictions around the world including Australia.
The premiers of NSW and Victoria have, of late, been angered by flagrant examples of public flouting of public health guidelines necessary to minimise the spread of the virus. Seldom does the anti-social behaviour of just a few people have the potential for causing enormous harm to thousands in their community as was clearly demonstrated in the breakdown of quarantine security in Melbourne.
Here is the big so important question. As we prepare to ease some restrictions will we, in contradistinction to many communities in other countries, embrace the long-term behaviours that must be normalised to allow us to live as safely and productively as is possible in a Covid-infected world? We need to look closely at the efforts of those in many countries for their track record is dismal.
Most countries have not maintained the required discipline and are paying a heavy price in the form of a second wave of infections often worse than the one initially experienced. We must be different. No country is better placed to keep Covid-19 manageable. Only an understanding and implementation of strategies required to protect each other and a palpable display of solidarity will see us succeed where others have failed.
Professor John Dwyer AO, is an Immunologist, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at UNSW and for many years heavily involved in efforts to improve the delivery of healthcare in Australia. He was the founder of the Australian Healthcare Reform Alliance.
Comments
13 responses to “Misinformation about Covid-19. Don’t listen to Donald Trump or Alan Jones.”
Hi Gavin. I have been sceptical of the Covid 19 story from the outset but have not had much to say because it is not my territory, dies not interest me much and people like you get so indignant. Besides, my original protagonist on Pearls and Irritations, Paul Frijters, is doing such a good job on his new blog, Club Troppo. His latest post of 14 October is headed “The growing Covistance…” According to Paul, half a million people have signed the Great Barrington Declaration including 20,000 scientists and doctors. It does seem a stretch to suggest that even Bill Gates and his Davos mates could organise a hoax on this scale but the German is a top professional. Personally, I find the most likely explanation of the virus is an accidental leak from a joint American/Chinese scientific research programme called “gain of function” conducted at Wuhan. This programme was always controversial because it was just so damned dangerous. The moral of the story is leave those bats in peace. On climate change, the scientist who interests me is Kiminori Itoh. You could look him up while you are on the job.
The people on the front line are medical professionals who have worked long and hard, and risked their lives to save people. It must be disheartening for those working in Western countries whose health systems are on the point of being overwhelmed because governments don’t care enough about their people, and people don’t care about each other enough to take the necessary measures. They must be thinking hard about emigrating. New Zealand can only take so many, but China and Vietnam are countries where their skills would be appreciated. They also offer the adventure of learning a new language and lifestyle.
Don’t heed Trump or Jones on anything. Especially when they agree.
Yaneer Bar Yam of NECSI, and Prof. Raina MacIntyre are my sources for information on how to behave during a pandemic.
On the train from Wollongong to Sydney on Thursday. Less than half the passengers wore masks despite the advisories. Apparently as Australians many think immunity comes from natural selction and Australian superiority. We have no chance of defeating this virus.
‘There is no shortage of evidence that with good compliance this tactic works.’ Reference? Evidence for masks? Every literature review I have seen before 2020 says masks don’t work for respiratory illness. No mention of the Great Barrington Declaration in your article?
Dwyer relies on science not ideology.
It is barely an inconvenience to wear a mask in public and observe social distancing.
But the cost of the lockdown is great and some effort should be made to measure this cost. From the statistics in Australia it is clear that Covid 19 kills old people and those with a weakened immune system. But young people are and will be killed by the consequences of the lockdown: increased domestic violence; suicides as a result of long-term unemployment, or going bankrupt, or loss of hope; increased incidence of cancer as a result of lower detection rate of cancer; poor dental health leading to poor general health as a result of fewer people getting dental treatment; increased anxiety etc.
There are also serious consequences for disadvantaged school-children. I know from personal experience that some are simply not getting any education. They will fall back even further. We will all rue the consequences of this.
As far as I can see, no systematic effort is being made to collect data on the consequences of the lockdown. All the epidemiologists seem to care about is the number of Covid cases.
And Professor Dwyer, if it is the case that people can catch Covid 19 more than once, then why should we have any confidence that we will have an effective vaccine widely rolled out any time soon?
And if there are no effective vaccines, sooner or later, we are going to have to open up and let young and old live the lives they want.
This is not a once in a 100-year event. It is more like the Asian flu of the late fifties which killed about 1.5 million people. The Spanish flu killed many times that number but its real threat was that it killed many people in their prime. A pandemic like that could be just around the corner. What then?
I don’t see any threat to my personal liberty by being required to wear a mask, asked to wash my hand frequently, told not to kiss or hug people. Let’s keep such measures. But let’s stop destroying the lives and hopes of many through extreme lockdowns.
It would appear humans can only worry about or attempt to mitigate one problem at a time. The very horrible COVID-19 is responded to, at least in many parts of the world, following the principles and methods medical science and epidemiology, potentially saving the lives of many hundreds of thousand people. At the very same time carbon emissions are increasing, elevating the CO2 level of the atmosphere to 411.29 ppm by September 2020 (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/) and rising at a rate faster than any recorded for the last 55 million years. Climate science projects temperature rises to about 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, rendering much of the Earth uninhabitable, Few if any governments are undertaking serious mitigation and CO2 draw-down efforts. the consequences are bound to be more than an order of magnitude more severe when compared with those from the virus.
After a year there is no consensus about what this virus is, where it comes from and what to do about it. I have been listening to Professor Sunetra Gupta for the past six months and did not hesitate to sign the Great Barrington Declaration, The German Corona Investigation Committee has gone a step further, promoting a class action alleging Covid 19 is a hoax designed to make money for pharmaceutical companies and empower the police state. Barrister Reiner Fuelmich can be seen on video explaining the action. He is the lawyer who nailed Volkswagen on the diesel pollution scandal. His English is perfect. Not hard to find on the internet.
Jerry,
I knew nothing about this Professor Gupta or the Great Barrington Declaration.However the latest nonsense that the COVD-19 is a hoax is an totally unacceptable insult to the families of the tens of thousands who have lost family members and loved ones in horrific circumstances. I believe the many hundreds of qualified scientists who continue to warn us of the terrible future facing humanity from this Virus It joins with Human induced climate change as a powerful warning that if we dont adapt to the reality of sustainable use of Earth’s limited resources we face a disaster of unimaginable scope and severity .Putting ones’ head in the sand and hoping that the virus and climate change will just go away is not the way to deal with these disasters .
I have gone to the trouble to read up on Gupta and the Great Barrington Declaration. I strongly suggest readers of this post do the same.
Thank you Professor Dwyer for your timely warning.
My wife and I are in the seriously at risk group, particularly myself with preexisting medical conditions. It disturbs us greatly that certain individuals , including so called leaders of society, should continue to deny scientific truth whether it be COVID-19 Pandemic or human induced Climate Change.
This Pandemic should be a wake up call that the pursuit of so called economic growth and unfettered freedom to do what we like at the expense of public health is no a longer viable option Society depends on mural obligation between citizens for the pursuit of the “Common Good” .When that breaks down we have anarchy.
Media personalities have a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure accurate and timely information is given to their audiences.They, like members of the medical profession who are already required by their Oath , should be held responsible for their actions and omissions in the matter of public safety. The lives of many ordinary citizens depend on it. Proper and effective Education is a vital key to the effective control of this pandemic
The commercial mainstream media, its acolytes and advertisers are fundamental to the promulgation of false and misleading disinformation.
Fizzy drinks do not “…add life…” any more than a motorcar gives “…what a feeling…”
Brains, collectively, baffled by bullshit.
Thank you Professor Dwyer.
One of the major failings in this and many other matters affecting our ‘Western’ world is the freedom of the individual to ignore the responsibilities which we each have in regard to the welfare of others.
It has been a success of business and politics to “divide and conquer” in order to progress their own ends, but in so doing they may well be undermining the very factor which makes their achievements possible – social cohesion.
The freedoms which many advocate are little more than calls for communal anarchy as currently being demonstrated in the USofA: Margaret Thatcher gave light to this in this in her “…no such thing as society…” claim which should have been a ‘wake up’ call to the general population but which was surrepticiously suppressed by the media of the day – a media owned and influenced by commercial and political interests.
“United we stand; Divided we fall”.
And we are falling so very quickly.