In fact, for this outbreak, it’s clear that long periods of heavy restrictions has not got us to zero cases.” Some imagery was in order: “What we have called a long tail feels more like a tentacle that has been incredibly hard to shake.” “With Delta, the return to zero is incredibly difficult, and our restrictions alone are not enough to achieve that quickly. “We’re transitioning from our current strategy to a new way of doing things,” she revealed to reporters earlier this month. In doing so, she used the word “transitioning”.
#Katana zero to be continued full
There was New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, whose country had followed the elimination strategy for a year and a half, discarding it in full view of the press. Recently, two countries also removed their names from one of the world’s shortest lists, reading Covid zero its funeral rites.
Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan made clear his ambitions of keeping his state “unscathed” which prompted observations that WA might become a bastion of COVID-19 “secessionism”. A stumbled slaying of the Covid-zero vision, but a slaying nonetheless.Įven as this was taking place, the true believers, largely untouched by the effects of the virus in the first place, continued to believe in a certain public health heaven. “We think there may be a number that is not zero but is low that we can contain,” Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews cryptically speculated.Ī debate was taking place on “a sweet spot that is not zero, but it’s not so high”. But Melbourne, the city locked down for the longest period on this planet, went the way of Sydney, despite having more stringent measures in place.
It had not been that long ago that the same government had proclaimed that it had “run the virus” into the ground like an unwanted invader. Victoria followed, digesting a harsh reality that the virus, active and present, had ceased to be eradicable. “We have to live with the virus” meant not having to say sorry. “What we need to do is all of us have to start accepting that we need to live with Covid because Covid would be around for three or four years,” the now departed premier Gladys Berejiklian stated in September.īut it was less a stance of wisdom than one of necessity, given the initially carefree approach of the Berejiklian government to staying open despite the dangers posed by new variants. Eventually, the number of infections would fall, as they now seem to be doing. In Australia, New South Wales became the first state to accept that a lockdown policy coupled with a mass vaccination push, the stress being on the latter, would be necessary to cope with the ravages of the Delta variant. It found that a 10 per cent increase in vaccination coverage could be associated with a 28.3 per cent decrease in the rate of hospitalisation and a 16.6 per cent decrease in COVID-19 hospitalisations per 100 cases. One, a preprint and yet to be peer-reviewed paper from August, looked at the effects of vaccination coverage among the 112 most populous counties in the United States. Studies showing how increased vaccination coverage would reduce cases of COVID-19 and precipitate a fall in hospitalisation began to catch the attention of policymakers. It was time for the epidemiologists to do more modelling.Ī crucial factor to this was the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines and the acceleration of vaccination programs. It was time to open up the economy time to live with the virus, and, consequently, a good number of deaths. The pro-market factions within governments receptive to using lockdown formulas could claim that harsh stay-at-home rules were not working. Delta became the word mentioned like a terrorist saboteur, placing bombs under the edifice of the health system. This created a climate of numerical sensitivity: a few case infections here, a few cases there, would warrant immediate, sharp lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, the closure of all non-vital service outlets. Or just “flatten the curve”, which could have meant versions of all the above. It was such a noble public health dream, even if rather hazy to begin with. Authorities are grappling with the new reality. The ambitious target of eradication has been eradicated.