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Speaker 1: As you know, yesterday a report was issued into COVID

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Speaker 1: nineteen and how the nation handled it. It found quite

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Speaker 1: a few things and really where to start with this.

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Speaker 1: It found the mandated vaccines shouldn't have been mandated because

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Speaker 1: it helped eroad trust, community trust. It found measures like

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Speaker 1: lockdowns did the same. It found Australia was ill prepared

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Speaker 1: for the pandemic and probably isn't prepared for the next one.

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Speaker 1: At this stage, one positive and independent center for disease

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Speaker 1: control will be established two hundred and fifty million dollars.

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Speaker 1: That's one of the recommendations. And the word from well

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Speaker 1: just about everyone is we need to be better prepared

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Speaker 1: for the next pandemic. And there will be another pandemic

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Speaker 1: at some stage, let's hope it's frankly not for a

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Speaker 1: very long time. It's been a century since we saw

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Speaker 1: anything like COVID, and that was the Spanish flu, so

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Speaker 1: we can at least wait, certainly that long before the

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Speaker 1: next one. Not that many of us will be around

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Speaker 1: to see the next one, but anyway, let's well, as

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Speaker 1: long as it is that long, let's have a chat

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Speaker 1: with Professor colinyon Infectious Diseases expert at a and Peter,

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Speaker 1: good morning, thanks.

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Speaker 2: For your time, Good morning, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Weare to start with this the erosion of trust. Let's

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Speaker 1: look at that. I had a chat earlier this morning

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Speaker 1: with Chris Pickton, our State health Minister, and he wasn't

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Speaker 1: all overly keen on having a national approach in the future,

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Speaker 1: because you don't want the lowest standard implemented, you want

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Speaker 1: the best. In South Australia certainly seemed to do quite

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Speaker 1: well during the pandemic in terms of lockdowns and everything else.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think that is an issue. One of the

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Speaker 2: issues is you know, what lockdowns do you ever have

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Speaker 2: or what restrictions you have. You might remember at the

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Speaker 2: beginning of twenty twenty, when there was sort of much

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Speaker 2: more consensus, an agreement between the premiers and the common law,

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Speaker 2: there was, you know, effectively a lockdown for a week

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Speaker 2: or two when it wasn't clear what was going on,

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Speaker 2: what were really the risk how quickly would spread. But

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Speaker 2: it's interesting my memory of that time is that places

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Speaker 2: like Victoria you could either have no visitors or one visitor.

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Speaker 2: In New South Wales I think it was two, but

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Speaker 2: in South Australia it was ten. And yet despite those

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Speaker 2: variations in restrictions, the end result was the same in

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Speaker 2: all states. All states really effectively got rid of almost

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Speaker 2: all spread of COVID. So that's one of the points

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Speaker 2: of this report. It's not saying we will not need restrictions,

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Speaker 2: but it's saying a lot of them were overdone and

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Speaker 2: were in place the longer and as the disease changed,

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Speaker 2: the risk changed. There was a much higher risk in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty, for instance, than in the end of twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty one. But if anything, there were more severe restrictions

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Speaker 2: at the end of twenty twenty one because people started

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Speaker 2: getting a zero COVID mentality, and that meant you had

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Speaker 2: harsher and longer restrictions when that was never realistic in

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Speaker 2: the meet into long term. Yet that's what influenced. And

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Speaker 2: if you want to see the extreme of that, look

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Speaker 2: at China, which kept lockdown for much longer than everywhere else.

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Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, if you look

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Speaker 2: at live saved, which is the most important objective parameter,

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Speaker 2: Australia was one of the best performing countries in the world,

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Speaker 2: but equally Sweden, which I disagreed. I didn't think they

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Speaker 2: put in enough restrictions. They've done really just as well

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Speaker 2: as Australia and much better than most of the rest

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Speaker 2: of Europe and most of the rest of the world.

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Speaker 2: So there's no doubt you need to do something if

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Speaker 2: something happens, but we better off once now this all

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Speaker 2: settles down to have an agreed plan where we look

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Speaker 2: at the costs in economic and social costs which were

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Speaker 2: largely ignored, and the report makes a big point of that.

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Speaker 2: They're very important to look at because and look at

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Speaker 2: the different risk in different groups. An eighty year old

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Speaker 2: was quite different to a fifteen year old. Yet we

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Speaker 2: tended to have the same restrictions and often more restrictions

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Speaker 2: on children and young alts than older people people, even

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Speaker 2: though they were at lower risk and the economic and

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Speaker 2: social consequences for them were much much higher.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I suppose my issue with it is as

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Speaker 1: you say, it started off with a national approach and

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Speaker 1: everyone was on that page. And then we had premiers

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Speaker 1: start beating their chests and saying, look, look how tough

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Speaker 1: I am at doing this, because you know, I want

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Speaker 1: to protect my people and in the state. And so

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Speaker 1: we went from a federated country to essentially a collection

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Speaker 1: of colonies just like the good old days, and it

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Speaker 1: became political rather than practical.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's very true. I mean, for the

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Speaker 2: first six months, I think there was a lot of cooperation,

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Speaker 2: you know, and it wasn't political, But then it started

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Speaker 2: to become political for whatever reason. And that's why when

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Speaker 2: and the trouble is when you have a pandemic, fear

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Speaker 2: sometimes gets out of proportions of the actual risk. And

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Speaker 2: not that there wasn't a risk, but just the fear

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Speaker 2: can make you do, you know, more things than you

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Speaker 2: need to do to achieve the same result. And that's

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Speaker 2: why we need to actually go through all this. I

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Speaker 2: think the report was very good at identifying those issues. Admittedly,

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Speaker 2: the report couldn't look at really what the states did

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Speaker 2: because it was a federal report, so they could mainly

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Speaker 2: look at, you know, what happened federally, although they did

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Speaker 2: comment on lockdowns and things like that. But a lot

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Speaker 2: of those things we did made probably very little difference

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Speaker 2: in the medium term to how much COVID spread and

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Speaker 2: caused a lot of harm, including deaths, you know, not

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Speaker 2: letting people go across state borders for urgent medical care, etc.

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Speaker 2: And we need to know how we can actually do

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Speaker 2: this better that yes, we keep the spread down. I

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Speaker 2: personally think closing the pubs and clubs and large indoor

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Speaker 2: gatherings while you're getting your most vulnerable people vaccinated was

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Speaker 2: a good idea. But stopping people going outside, stopping people

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Speaker 2: playing golf, I mean, when the risk is not zero

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Speaker 2: but it's really low. We did that. We closed schools

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Speaker 2: even though children were much less of a risk than

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Speaker 2: their parents, and in some places we opened in bars

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Speaker 2: and gyms before we reopen schools. I mean, even though

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Speaker 2: the risk was so different, you know, it was much

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Speaker 2: lower for them. So there's a lot of things we

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Speaker 2: need to look at and say, look, yeah, they may

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Speaker 2: have caused a bit less transmission, but even that is

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Speaker 2: arguable for schools compared to the community. But you know,

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Speaker 2: what was the cost of that economically, socially, mental health, etc.

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Speaker 2: Because the cost of it can exceed the benefit, and

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Speaker 2: we might have much more target approach to the most vulnerable,

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Speaker 2: which are basically those with underlying disease and those are older,

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Speaker 2: rather than doing making it appear that everybody in the

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Speaker 2: population was the same risk, which was never the case.

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Speaker 1: Should and the report had to go at mandatory vaccines,

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Speaker 1: Should they remain a thing in the future, should they

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Speaker 1: be mandatory?

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Speaker 2: Well, this is a personal philosophy. I don't think we

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Speaker 2: should mandate vaccines because there's a percentage of people who

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Speaker 2: I often think are wrong, but they really believe and

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Speaker 2: object to these being injected into them. Now, providing you

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Speaker 2: get ninety and ninety five percent of the rest of

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Speaker 2: us getting vaccinated, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.

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Speaker 2: I might say, if something happens it's like measles, you

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Speaker 2: may have to have your child out of school for longer,

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Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. But so there's that there's not consequences,

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Speaker 2: But that's different to forcing you to have a vaccine.

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Speaker 2: So my own view is the vaccine mandates we didn't

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Speaker 2: really need because we had a ninety ninety five percent

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Speaker 2: uptake in adults anyway, and in that because it was mandatory, though,

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Speaker 2: oh well, I think probably was a factor. But you

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Speaker 2: look at childhood vaccination in Australia when it wasn't mandatory,

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Speaker 2: and it's still not. You can opt out if you

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Speaker 2: want to. It makes life difficult for we admittedly, but

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Speaker 2: you know there's about five percent of people who no

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Speaker 2: matter what you say, will not accept vaccines, even the

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Speaker 2: really good ones like measles, tetanus, et cetera, that you

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Speaker 2: know give you a lifelong immunity and very little inside effects.

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Speaker 2: So I personally think we're better off having doing the

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Speaker 2: best we can to encourage vaccination, and in Australia, I

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Speaker 2: think we can get that to high levels because the

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Speaker 2: trouble if you're mandated, those people who for whatever reason

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Speaker 2: don't want to do it are fired from their jobs

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Speaker 2: or they can't work in hospitals or emergency services, when

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Speaker 2: really there was no evidence that that made a lot

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Speaker 2: of difference to transmission. I mean, vaccines did stop infections,

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Speaker 2: and that actually meant that it was less transmission, but

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Speaker 2: not enough to stop it still circulating through society. And

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Speaker 2: particularly when you get up to fourth and fifth boosters,

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Speaker 2: we didn't actually knowledge that the benefit was mainly in

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Speaker 2: older people and actually for a thirty year old. If

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Speaker 2: you look at our current guidelines, we're not recommending getting

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Speaker 2: boosters for COVID, for instance, because while you get some benefit,

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Speaker 2: it's relatively marginal. But if you're an eighty year old.

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Speaker 2: We now have a situations a lot of people in

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Speaker 2: nursing homes where the boosters do make a difference and

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Speaker 2: a lot of difference are not getting them. So we

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Speaker 2: need to better focus sure that those who get the

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Speaker 2: most benefit get it are at the front of the line,

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Speaker 2: and don't oversell it to people where the benefits are

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Speaker 2: lower and the side effects, for instance, may be significant

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Speaker 2: compared to the benefits you get from it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I just wonder if we didn't put

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Speaker 1: too many people. I think we did through a lot

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Speaker 1: of hardship, particularly lockdowns in aged care. And now I

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Speaker 1: understand the risk is high there obviously with the elderly people,

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Speaker 1: but the suffering inflicted on keeping people apart elderly people

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Speaker 1: from their children, their grandchildren does a lot more damage

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Speaker 1: of long term to people mental health obviously than the

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Speaker 1: whole experience of the COVID necessity of doing that.

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Speaker 2: Look, I fully agree. I mean one of the most

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Speaker 2: ridiculous things during the COVID pandemic is people who are

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Speaker 2: in hospice dying we're not allowed to have visited. And

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Speaker 2: you think you've got a two or three year life

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Speaker 2: expectancy and we're not going to let you have visitor.

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Speaker 2: I mean, how ridiculous. I mean, that was absolutely ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: Nursing homes are a bit more difficult because you have

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Speaker 2: people who are very vulnerable, you know, and like a

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Speaker 2: ten percent chance of dying. But equally we overdid that.

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Speaker 2: So you know my own view, and I might say,

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Speaker 2: if you look at the recent guy infection control guidelines

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Speaker 2: that came out from Age Care, from this Tranquality and

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Speaker 2: Safety Commission for Healthcare that I co chaired, we specifically

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Speaker 2: made a few recommendations in that. One is that vaccines

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Speaker 2: should be actively encouraged but not mandated. But the other

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Speaker 2: one is you cannot have people in prolonged isolation. You know,

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Speaker 2: nobody should never be able to see a visitor, or

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Speaker 2: you may only have one visitor for the four or

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Speaker 2: five days you're sick. But to have people locked up,

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Speaker 2: kept away from relatives from months was a big mistake

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Speaker 2: and it's something we should not repeat.

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Speaker 1: And this comes back to premiers particularly McGowan and the

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Speaker 1: West and Comrade Andrews and the Southeast, just beating their

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Speaker 1: chests and saying aren't we great, Look how tough we are.

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Speaker 1: That's all it was. And again the politics of that

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Speaker 1: and we've discussed that, but that's that seems to me

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Speaker 1: just where it stemmed from, and absolutely ridiculous. And you're

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Speaker 1: right crossing state borders when you're in need of a

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Speaker 1: potentially life saving care. But no, we can't have anyone

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Speaker 1: into our state, into our colony boundaries drawn up in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties for goodness sake. I mean, get real.

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Speaker 1: Just drives me mad.

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Speaker 2: That's what we didn't do. There was a real risk

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Speaker 2: to some people, particularly you know, close to the borders

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Speaker 2: where the healthcare was across the border, where you know,

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Speaker 2: in a few instances they were not allowed to go

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Speaker 2: to those healthcare places. And you think that is ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: Even if they had infection, we should have been able

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Speaker 2: to control that and not let it spread. You know,

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Speaker 2: that's good infection control and prevention in the hospital. So

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Speaker 2: fear caused a lot of these things. And I might say,

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Speaker 2: you know, I think a lot of the premius did

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Speaker 2: go than they should have. But there was a large

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Speaker 2: proportions of the population though that fear. And you could

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Speaker 2: probably ask why was the fear, in my view, overdone

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Speaker 2: and why wasn't it Well, I think, you know, I

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Speaker 2: think people have fear for what a lot of reasons.

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Speaker 2: I think some people played on it to get people

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Speaker 2: to obey the rules. But you know, and I think

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Speaker 2: there is a bit of media hype as well. All

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Speaker 2: of that compounds it. So to some degree, some of

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Speaker 2: those politicians were just playing to a large percentage of

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Speaker 2: the population who fully supported them and still do. I mean,

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Speaker 2: there's a large proportion of people that I get feedback

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Speaker 2: and say, oh, look, we need all the same restrictions. Again,

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Speaker 2: I think, well, I hope we can learn from what

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Speaker 2: we did well and what we didn't do well, and

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Speaker 2: if something comes we don't make the name mistakes. And

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Speaker 2: to put this in perspective, the worst pandemic we've had

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Speaker 2: was in nineteen eighteen nineteen, where there was huge loss

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Speaker 2: of life, particularly in twenty and thirty year olds. This

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Speaker 2: one was much different. This had a mortality rate about

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Speaker 2: zero point six percent compared to the Spanish flu which

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Speaker 2: was two or three percent, for instance, and a different

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Speaker 2: population had the biggest risk. You know, it wasn't the

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Speaker 2: elderly then, So we need to learn from that and

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Speaker 2: why you don't know in the first month or two

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Speaker 2: maybe what's happening. We had pretty good data after the

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Speaker 2: first few months to be able to better tailor where

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Speaker 2: we put restrictions, how we did them, but not rob

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Speaker 2: people of their dignity, some freedoms, and their economic and

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Speaker 2: social necessities of life.

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Speaker 1: Then all right, Paul, thank you, Peter, rather, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for your time.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: That's Professor Peter colinyan infectious disease expert at A and U,

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Speaker 1: on the COVID report out yesterday