The chorus of health experts calling on Australia to open its borders is growing by the day. Dr Nick Coatsworth, Australia’s former deputy chief medical officer, criticised the notion that Australia could eliminate the virus. Then Professor Brett Sutton, Victoria’s adored CMO, suggested that Australians get vaccinated so the country could reopen to international arrivals to boost education and tourism industries and allow family reunions.
Add to that Greg Dore, one of Australia’s most respected infectious disease experts, saying last week: “If Australia wants to avoid being left behind, the pathway to opening up will require some risk. The first ‘precautionary principle’ to be dropped must be interstate border closures with less than a handful of cases. International travel should be considered for those fully vaccinated, with more limited home quarantine on return.”
Dore’s views were reiterated by another of Australia’s leading infectious disease experts, Professor Peter Collignon from the Australian National University.
And US chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said last week that for vaccinated people, “the risk is extremely low of getting infected, of getting sick or of transmitting it to anyone else. Full stop.”
Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then recommended that mask mandates for vaccinated Americans can be dropped — only 37% of Americans have been fully vaccinated.
So four of Australia’s leading health experts and Fauci all say the same thing: vaccinate and open.
Those continuing to demand borders remain shut until mid-2022 or later are left with three excuses: alleged mutant virus strains; lower effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine (AZ); a lack of herd immunity.
Critics of AZ continue to be quickly disproved by actual life data. Last week reported results from Italy indicated that the AZ vaccine is 99% effective against hospitalisation and 100% effective against death. Meanwhile the UK has reduced deaths by 99% largely using AZ, despite several so-called mutant strains circulating in regional centres like Bolton.
That leaves the increasing unwillingness of (especially older) Australians to get vaccinated. This has been partially caused by Health Minister Greg Hunt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison claiming vaccination itself wouldn’t necessarily allow additional freedoms like the ability to travel.
That hesitancy can be quickly reduced if the government sets a firm and realistic date for reopening borders once adults have had the opportunity to be vaccinated (a suitable date could be January 1, 2022, almost two years since the start of the pandemic). Bear in mind that target is conservative — Australia could reach US vaccination levels by October if it administers 100,000 shots day.
Those who don’t want to get vaccinated on the basis of COVID being a hoax or vaccines being a way to implement 5G chips into their bloodstreams can bear the minimal risks. The alternative is Australia effectively being held hostage by anti-vaxxers.
Setting a vaccination target without a date creates a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma: there’s no reason for people to be vaccinated without any benefit, and the benefit doesn’t materialise until people get vaccinated.
The government’s primary job is to listen to the experts to safely open borders to allow for families to be reunited, tourism to restart and crucially (but rarely mentioned) our humanitarian refugee intake to resume — not to ride a wave of manufactured vaccine hesitancy and fear in order to win an election.
Should the prime minister listen to experts and open our borders? Write to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say section.
Forget the medical experts, Morrison should be listening to the Schwabs?
Surely Adam is extracting the urine here?
He’s been attempting to discredit people like Coatsworth and Sutton nonstop for over a year now with his own garbage backyard epidemiology… just so he can sell more luxury escapes.
Now suddenly Adam thinks these public health officials are worth listening to?
If he weren’t director of the company that owns Crikey- these kinds of articles would be laughed out of the building by the Crikey editors.
It seems however that the Crikey editorial team don’t have an ounce of vertebrae between them…. and such drivel from their boss gets waved through.
Crikey does get it ‘right’ much of the time but there has been at least one case where extraordinary and inaccurate garbage was published that caused enormous and dangerous harm to innocent parties (including two children). Thank goodness that aviation ‘expert’ (Mr Plane Talking) is no longer with us. More details available if the management has the courage to hear it.
Go on then. What’s this about? Have to be good to excuse slandering the dead.
“If he weren’t director of the company that owns Crikey- these kinds of articles would be laughed out of the building by the Crikey editors.” – — What BS .
What a stupid response -If you don’t like the author or teh content don’t read it. It’s got sfa to do with being a director etc. You & others hould be ashamed. This is a free & open mind discussion or should be.
Allowing your director carte blanche to write with obsessive repetitiveness about an issue he has no qualifications for, and to not disclose he part of the ownership … that is NOT “free & open”.
In that case NONE have the qualifications -they are merely authors of articles -like em or not! Disclosing ownership of anything written is BS -has nothing to do with the content.
Let’s face it, Smirko would lock down the borders indefinitely if he could. I’m sure he thinks closed borders will work politically but beyond that he loves the idea. Sure, closed borders are bad for business and the economy, but so is defunding universities. So is throwing money at fossil fuels. All part of Smirko’s ideal Australia.
Smirko is sending out lots of signals that the borders shouldn’t and won’t be opened any time soon, a total contradiction of his earlier position, which he seems never to have held if you rely on the media of the masses. He’s able to use the shockingly slow vaccination rate and a large degree of public apathy to justify this new ‘safety’ stance; at the same time he’s actually deliberately increasing the public apathy towards vaccination by extending the borders’ closure indefinitely, just as you say. He helped that along nicely, too, with his fear-mongering about the AZ vaccine. What a politically convenient vicious circle. Today, the Guardian reports that he’s ‘not overly troubled…there’s plenty of time to have the chat with the others who are a bit hesitant, that’s alright, it’s a free country’. Plenty of time! It’s a free country!
Agree, Morrison and his advisors, are trying to have a bob each way. While many Australians have had the -ve border security message well reinforced over the decades, that may not last with Australians stranded and/or falling behind on international comparisons for vaccinations; backgrounded by large parts of Europe open for travel by mid year and later (inc. Australians if they can leave Oz).
The lack of urgency on vaccination in favour of a strong border is the absolute wrong lesson to take away from the WA election. Part of the last 12 months could have been preparing for a post-COVID Australia, getting vaccination ready to happen quickly, building our medical supplies readiness, enhancing our quarantine facilities, and it would have been a small fraction of the amount borrowed to keep Australia afloat during the pandemic.
It’s a missed opportunity, and leaves us in limbo for the foreseeable future.
I dunno, I’ve had my first AZ shot and can’t wait to be fully immunized and start travelling overseas again.
Hi Adam!
No problem, good luck, but don’t expect a repatriation flight if you go to a wrong country! You can
always get an interview on TV you are stranded saying how Australia is heartless leaving you
where you are. Leave your contact number with a few TV stations.
Politically, it’s safe to open up after the election and not before. What do they do in Canberra? Politics. Who makes the decision? Politicians.