The Health Minister has admitted the advice about the most recent covid wave was wrong and ‘lessons must be learned’.
While the media was focused on ATAGI’s recommendation for a fifth covid shot, Health Minister Mark Butler yesterday dropped an honesty bombshell that one expert says is a “profound shift”.
Before handing the microphone to Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly to talk about the new ATAGI advice, Mr Butler came as close to a mea culpa moment as has been seen since the Labor government came to power in May.
“There is no doubt that this wave has endured for longer than expected at its beginning, longer than the advice that was received by governments, particularly based on more recent waves then that had happened in parts of southeast Asia,” said Mr Butler.
“It was not ‘short’ or ‘sharp’. It lingered for longer and it had a very significant impact on the community, our health system, and many individuals.” He went on to cite figures of up to four million Australians infected during the wave, with 2600 lives lost since October.
“It is my intention to make sure that we learn the lessons of the past few months and constantly make sure that the response that all governments put in place to deal with what inevitably will be the next wave of covid some time over the course of 2023, is aligned with the best understanding and the best evidence about the way in which we can protect Australians from the impact of this virus.”
For Professor Brendan Crabb AC, CEO of the Burnet Institute, and an outspoken critic of the government’s covid strategy, the moment was a powerful one.
“That sort of devastating honesty is a breath of fresh air, and something I’ve been wanting to see,” Professor Crabb told The Medical Republic.
“The media will make more of the fifth dose announcement, but Mr Butler knows that it is not the fifth dose that is our biggest problem – it is the five million Australians who have not had their third. It is the kids who are eligible but do not have them yet.
“A full-frontal admission of where we’re at is the most important thing, more important than any specific intervention,” he said.
There has been a disconnect, Professor Crabb said, between the government narrative and what has really been happening.
“[One thing at fault here] is a false narrative, deliberate or otherwise, that is underplaying the significance of covid; that’s creating the impression that we are doing better and better all the time; that covid is now pretty much like the flu,” he said.
“That culminated in the CMO Paul Kelly saying in September, with the Prime Minister standing next to him, that we no longer think covid is exceptional, that it can be treated like other respiratory infections.
“That was a headshaking moment, because we literally had something like 40 times the rates of deaths and 40 times the rate of hospitalisations [compared with flu]. And that gap has widened since that time.”
Professor Crabb said that although it was unlikely that the government would make big changes to its strategy, quiet changes were afoot.
“I’ve been seeing some positive signs,” he said. “They are quiet, but significant. I do see the signs that we can shift.
“We’ve got a long covid inquiry, and it is a serious inquiry [even though] we have a strategy now that says, we have looked at the available evidence, and we do not think long covid is worth preventing. So, to have a serious long covid inquiry in that context is a good, solid thing.
“We have a renewal of ATAGI, with seven positions – half the membership – up for renewal in July this year.
“We have federal government grants – $25,000 per school – for all schools in Australia to be better ventilated. That is a quiet thing, but it is significant.
“And now we have this announcement about ATAGI changing eligibility for fifth covid vaccination doses.”
Mr Butler “should be commended” for his honesty yesterday, Professor Crabb said.
“I hope he gets credit for standing up and saying it, because I think the context in which he said it is very hostile towards tackling covid in a full-frontal way,” he said.
“I do not underestimate that challenge. We have had to go through an unnecessary degree of death and suffering. We have exposed so many people to the virus with unknown outcomes.
“Mr Butler has been given an incredibly tough task – the biggest public health challenge since the Second World War without question. We will probably have 20,000 to 25,000 excess deaths because of covid and that is an enormous challenge.
“But this has been a shift and he should be commended.”
