Can we better manage the risk to Australia posed by COVID?

Over the Christmas and New Year period, through to today, we have seen the impact of yet another breakdown in managing the risk of returning travellers.

How a transport driver was not adequately protected from the returning passengers I cannot understand.

Despite seeing the impact on the physical and mental health of so many people around the world we continue to see returning passengers breach quarantine rules, while the COVIDiots are alive and well bragging about jumping borders, breaching quarantine while others continue to actively campaign in high pedestrian traffic areas not wearing masks and screaming out their complaints. All are unacceptable risks to the people and economy of Australia.

Yesterday, I had need to visit a major shopping centre in Melbourne for a claim. I would say over 5% of the people were not wearing a mask or were not wearing the mask correctly. Of these the majority were shop assistants who were expected to wear a mask all day and one being a COVID-19 officer. I saw this woman twice, once on the way to the claim and the second on the way out and she had her nose out both times. Great example she was setting.

The cost to government, that is tax payers, in all the extra testing, the disruption to hundreds of thousands of people and the impact on businesses that were really depending on a good trading in December and January is immeasurable.

We also have to remember that at this stage businesses may well have no longer have qualified for the January to March round of JobKeeper but have now seen a massive, if not completed drop in revenue and profit.

To see people obviously worried and or trying to do the right thing having to wait for hours or be turned away from testing centres shows that our governments are still not able to adequately deal with the outbreaks when they do occur.

In managing risk you first identify the risk. We know the greatest risk has been returning travellers.

Secondly, you determine the likelihood and impact. In the past 12 months we have had 3 major failures and countless smaller ones. This is likely to increase as the more virulent strain comes into Australia. Today we heard that WA have 3 people on hotel quarantine alone with the UK and or South African strain.

The impact on individuals, businesses and the economy is at the very top end of any clear thinking person’s scale.

Clearly our previous and existing attempts to manage this risk has failed and continues to do so.

So, what else can we do?

We know there is about 30,000 people perhaps less still wanting to come back to Australia. Some of these accepted the risk and left after COVID-19 became well known.

We expect to be rolling out a vaccine in Australia in March 2021, say 3 or 4 months away.

I assume it is impractical to have people honestly quarantine overseas before they return to Australia.

To me the answer is that we implement a strict national hard border while bringing the current outbreak under control and ensuring there are no further ‘mistakes’ with those in quarantine. The risk would reduce each day for the 14 day incubation period for most of those already in hotel quarantine.

A case of protecting the vast majority [25 million +] outweighing the good of the few [30,000]. 0.12% of the population. I am sure that more than 30,000 people have been effected just as badly by all the state border closures.

I stress we do not abandon “the few”. We just delay their return. As soon as it is deemed safe and practicable those that want to return are vaccinated, tested and only if the test is negative then we reopen the national borders and allow them to return with whatever quarantine procedures are deemed necessary by the health department(s).

While this is going on, the vaccine roll out can be going on in Australia including those that transport the returning travellers by air and ground transport, the baggage handlers, and all those involved in the quarantine hotel process. If someone for whatever reason does not want to be vaccinated they are prevented from working in these critical roles.

In addition, the statistically most vulnerable in the community are likewise vaccinated to reduce the impact on them should there still be a failure in the new risk management system outlined above.

I appreciate this is hard on those wishing desperately to come home and their families, but in numbers effected it is far less than what we have seen in the past few weeks with now over 20 in hospital in this current wave.

I have been harbouring this thought ever since the Victorian outbreak that had such a huge impact with so many people losing their lives, businesses failing, children not able to attend schooling etc.

This latest outbreak, coupled with the discovery of two more virulent strains of the virus now prompts me to publicly share my thoughts.

I am certain not everyone will agree but I really think this option needs to be considered in view of the risk posed by COVID-19.

Your thoughts are as always welcome.