WITH new COVID-19 infections down to a few dozen a day from late-March peaks of more than 400, pressure is growing for a staged move out of the strict restrictions that have undoubtedly helped spare us the worst of this pandemic.
As Hunter New England Health public health physician David Durrheim reminds us, absent a vaccine, elimination of the virus in Australia would likely need far more stringent lockdown measures than have been the case so far.
This means that whenever, and however, the existing restrictions are lifted, the result is highly likely to mean new outbreaks of cases in what Dr Durrheim predicts will be a "dance" between the competing needs of economic activity and public health.
Australia's success in arresting the virus - down to 38th position on the international dashboard run by Johns Hopkins University - has given the Morrison government significant political capital to spend on leading the nation out of the mire.
The contrast with the United States - where a "Liberate" protest movement is gaining weight even as 2500 Americans a day die of COVID-19 - is remarkable.
But even if a significant number of countries are seeing remarkable improvements in their numbers, others are still in the early, explosive phase of infection, with developing nations, especially, facing dire consequences.
GLOBAL SNAPSHOTS:
-
India's biggest daily spike, 1500 new cases
- NZ eases coronavirus lockdown
- Virgin Atlantic pleads for UK government help
- China reports 12 new mainland cases
- PNG adds five new cases to make just seven confirmed
The truly global nature of the coronavirus crisis should mean the major nations of the world working together through the international apparatus set up after WWII and centring on the United Nations and the World Health Organisation.
"Globalist" politics and economics were already under pressure when COVID-19 emerged, and the all-too-human desire to hold someone to account for the crisis has led the world's two most powerful nations, the US and China, into a growing blame game that level heads around the world will hope is arrested before it becomes a deep-freeze, if not an outright Cold War between the two.
A Cold War that would have potentially disastrous ramifications for Australia, placed as we are between the two.
Rising international tensions mean the domestic "dance" to reopen the economy will be undertaken with our leaders keeping a wary eye on matters abroad.
Nothing is inevitable, but our new "normal" may not be as comfortable as the old one.
ISSUE: 39,585.
IN THE NEWS:
-
Hunter New England patient dies as new cases emerge
- From Newcastle to New Orleans, healthcare workers are feeling the brunt of coronavirus
- Planning authorities give green light to QT Newcastle
- Teenage five-eighth Phoenix Crossland shrugs off injury dramas as he prepares for NRL re-boot
- Face mask supply vital for surgery restart
- Hunter nurse on frontline will never forget COVID-19
