An infectious disease expert argues coronavirus lockdowns are too strict and unsustainable – while others say Australia’s current restrictions don’t go far enough.
Australian National University Medical School Professor Peter Collignon said the lockdowns were unnecessarily tight.
‘Sitting on a park bench in the sun – how is that dangerous if nobody is near you?’ he told Daily Mail Australia on Sunday.
A 21-year-old man was arrested at Bondi Beach on Sunday for walking on the sand when the beach was closed. Professor Peter Collignon said the lockdown is too strict
‘Outside is safer than inside because you’re in the fresh air and sunshine.’
Sitting on a park bench is not specifically proscribed in NSW however NSW Police Commissioner Michael Fuller said on Thursday people must stay at home unless they have a reasonable excuse for leaving.
‘Shopping for food, travel to work or school, medical treatment or exercise are all reasonable excuses,’ he said.
ANU Professor Peter Collignon
Both NSW and Victoria have banned social visits, even for people living alone.
Professor Collignon said it was unreasonable to tell people they have to stay in their homes without having any visitors, and can’t go outside unless they’re exercising.
‘This will cause major psychological, economic and social problems,’ he said.
Lockdown measures that are proportionate include closing the pubs, clubs and restaurants, and limiting groups of people outside to two, he said.
‘Three’s a crowd is a good idea,’ he said.
Quarantining returned visitors and contacts of known confirmed cases was also needed, he said.
‘All those have been very successful in dropping our (infection) rates,’ he said.
‘We need to continue this to at least September.’
But Professor Collignon said the strict lockdowns seen in NSW – where a man was arrested for walking alone on the sand at Bondi on Sunday – may no longer be needed as there had been a continuing reduction in new coronavirus infections each day for the eleven days since March 25.
‘It’s at low levels because of what we’ve been doing. Adding extra hardships won’t make much difference (to transmission rates) – but it will cause disproportionate economic and social hardships,’ he said.
Professor Collignon said Australia would need to wait another week or two to be confident that the infection rate curve was continuing to decline as there is a time lag of five to 10 days before the effects of coronavirus interventions can be seen.
He said that most people in Australia were following the social distancing rules but if they were too strict then people would not follow them long-term.
‘They don’t appear sensible and I don’t think it’s sustainable long-term,’ he said.
‘What’s the endgame of the tight lockdown? If it’s no disease in Australia well – we’re going to be doing that for two years then.’
Coogee Beach was deserted Sunday as all the beaches were closed after people were caught disobeying coronavirus physical distancing rules. Professor Peter Collignon said it is healthier for people to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine
Some of the scientific community in Australia and abroad have the opposite opinion.
Respected scientists from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) recently published a paper saying Australia’s lockdown has not been strict enough.
Professor Raina MacIntyre, the head of Biosecurity at the University of New South Wales’s Kirby Institute, wrote a paper together with three other scientists outlining the benefits of a short, sharp lockdown for Australia.
Peter Collignon said on Sunday that he thinks the lack of community spread means the lockdown no longer needs to be so strict
In an edited version published on Thursday, the scientists said Australia’s gradual approach to locking down the country, adding new restrictions on a rolling basis, was not enough.
‘A silent epidemic may be growing, driven by mild or asymptomatic infections of people who did not meet our testing criteria,’ the scientists wrote.
Travel bans had been the most successful element of Australia’s approach, but the gradual increase of social distancing and the failure to shut schools meant it was not enough.
‘It will leave us dealing with COVID-19 for much longer, with a slow trickle of new infections that keep feeding the epidemic,’ they wrote on the UNSW website.
NSW Police patrol Bondi Beach on horseback, enforcing the beach closure on Sunday
‘What’s needed is a short, sharp lockdown for two to three incubation periods (four to six weeks), combined with scaled up testing capacity and expanded testing criteria.’
‘This strategy, similar to South Korea’s approach, would reduce the size of the epidemic substantially, spare the health system and give us a more manageable baseline from which to best protect Australia until a vaccine is available.’
The scientists said there was no time to waste as the virus was spreading exponentially, increasing from 25 cases on March 1 to 5688 cases on Sunday.
‘While some of these are travel-imported cases, there is likely an as-yet undetected silent epidemic,’ they wrote.
‘In other words, there could be widespread community transmission of infections which restrictive testing and test kit shortages are preventing us from detecting.’
‘We are concerned about the possibility of Australia losing control of the epidemic. We may well exceed health system capacity, increase the number of cases, experience health and economic losses, and a longer time to societal recovery.’
The scientists said while the transmission curve had flattened since March 24, it was too early to tell.
They also said the measures do not have to last six months to 12 months – but only four to six weeks.
‘China has demonstrated the feasibility of a short lockdown followed by phased lifting of restrictions,’ they said.
A short, sharp lockdown of four to six weeks would enable Australia to control the epidemic quickly and get the numbers to a controllable baseline.
After that, the economic recovery can begin with the gradual lifting of restrictions.
‘The slow trickle approach, especially if schools remain open, may result in continued epidemic growth, potential failure of the health system, and a far longer road to recovery,’ they wrote.
The highly infective respiratory virus – which can be spread by those who do not show any symptoms – has killed 65,559 people worldwide as of Sunday since it broke out of Wuhan, China, in January, BNO News reported.
There were 1.2 million confirmed cases globally on Sunday of which 249,708 had recovered and 894,622 were still sick with the lingering illness, which can last for weeks and leave survivors with scarring on the lungs.
In Wuhan, China, where the spread of the virus was brought under control rapidly, the lockdown was so strict that roads were bulldozed and people were welded into their apartments, and sometimes dragged off to quarantine.
Drones ordered people to return home if they ventured out without a facemask.
The difference a more liberal approach to lockdowns makes can be seen playing out in real time in the Nordic countries where in Sweden it appears to have encouraged the spread of the virus and raised the mortality rate.
Sweden has left bars, restaurants and schools open while its culturally and geographically similar neighbours Denmark, Norway and Finland have been locked down with schools shut and movement severely restricted.
As a result, new research by Imperial College London has estimated the virus will spread the most rapidly in Sweden and infect the highest percentage of the population.
Genetic epidemiology professor Paul Franks, of Lund University, Sweden, said as of March 28, the reproductive rate of the coronavirus in Sweden – how many people each infected person can pass the virus to – was estimated at 2.45, more than double the 0.97 estimated for Norway.
‘Although it is probably too soon to see a clear effect of interventions on mortality rates, by April 1, COVID-19 deaths in Sweden accounted for 24 per million citizens, whereas in Norway it was only eight deaths per million. Finland was lower still with just three per million,’ Professor Franks wrote in The Conversation on Saturday.
The United States is now the country with the most coronavirus cases worldwide, with 311,178 cases as of Sunday and 8802 deaths, according to BNO News which has tracked the outbreak since early January.
The United States Centre for Disease Control has issued an urgent recommendation to all citizens to wear a non-surgical cloth face mask to reduce the spread of the virus, in addition to maintaining a physical distance from others of six feet.
The US Surgeon General has made a video (above) showing people how to make their own face mask which can help slow the virus transmission.