Remember those bizarre days through the pandemic when knocking elbows replaced shaking hands because it was healthier?
Remember the obsession with cleaning everything with disinfectant wipes?
Pens, groceries, desks, even traffic light buttons were wiped every few minutes.
Well, according to the man who led the charge, it was a waste of time.
He also mentions there are “alternative methods” instead of harsh lockdowns to effectively handle a similar crisis, highlighting that even the widely-used hand sanitiser was not particularly beneficial.
This issue is like life insurance and next week’s huge rent bill.
We know we have to face it but just want it to go away.
The bad news is that another pandemic is inevitable, possibly within the next decade.
For our own health, we need to work out what went wrong, what worked and what didn’t.
Here’s the expert with unmatched insight into the mistakes and accomplishments: Professor Brett Sutton, the chief health officer who crafted Victoria’s COVID-19 strategy, known as one of the strictest globally.
“Touching elbows was probably never necessary. They’re the things that we learn as we go.
“Throughout a century of infectious disease knowledge, we overstressed the belief that transmission occurs through surfaces, handshakes, or droplets, while the reality is, it’s mainly in the air we exhale.”
“It’s very unlikely to spread through surfaces. You didn’t have to wash down the groceries.
“It’s not like washing your hands and using hand sanitiser is a bad thing.
“This might be more relevant for bacterial infections encountered in hospitals rather than pandemic viruses, which primarily concern the air we breathe.”
In a rare interview, Sutton, who is now with the CSIRO, spoke to my Nine podcast Neil Mitchell asks why?
He described the pandemic as a “horror show” and said he woke up many mornings wanting to quit.
He says more than most he wants to forget it, but as a society we must not.
“We tend not to discuss it much. The truth is, we should diligently prioritize planning and prevention, aiming to facilitate easier response and recovery phases.”
Through those dark days, lockdowns were what damaged the people most.
In Victoria, there were also curfews and limits on travelling more than five kilometres from home.
Businesses collapsed, families were traumatised. Society was frozen.
It began with a national six-week lockdown then states took over.
After a second wave arguably caused by government sloppiness, Victoria reached a total of 262 days locked down by the time vaccination rates built.
NSW was less than half that, and with a million more people, had significantly fewer deaths.
So, did lockdown work and will the public ever accept it again?
“Maybe we will agree as a society that we never want to do that (lockdown) again,” Sutton said.
“There are other ways to manage stuff. And if we all wore masks and we all got vaccinated and we all kept distances without them being mandated.
That’s a potential path we can take.”
Today, some doctors argue that the COVID impact lingers, particularly with children, through increasing disengagement and school refusal.
Sutton agrees the kids did it hard.
“I think absolutely we should recognise that they made a significant sacrifice when they were least at risk, at medical risk.
“People made sacrifices to protect those most vulnerable, such as those undergoing chemotherapy, individuals with weakened immune systems, and the very elderly in nursing homes.”
“The children were constrained in their lives and that didn’t benefit them as much as it benefited others.
“But those other people, by God, needed the support of everyone.”
He says more work needs to be done to assess Victoria’s hardline reaction against other states and countries.
“We’ve got opportunities to make comparisons around the world for the places that had four weeks of lockdown, like WA, New Zealand and places that had really long lockdowns.
“My suspicion, and this is a personal view, is that there’s a larger global trend with youth that was maybe amplified through COVID-19 with all the challenges that it presented.”
Sutton is unable to speak about the details of his health orders, partly because of impending court action.
Although there has always been suspicion of undue influence by politicians in his decisions , he takes full responsibility and says he was “in the belly of the beast”.
“Probably a list that’s too long for this podcast. Speed is of the essence. And so I think decision making around the settings that you should have is probably something that I would reprosecute many times in my mind.”
Sutton mostly works from home, a business trend that emerged through the pandemic.
He is director of Health and Biosecurity at the CSIRO which means much of his job now is to plan for the future.
“I think I’m an emotional optimist, but an intellectual pessimist.
“We’ve got really profound challenges that will shape the nation and shape the world that are coming like a juggernaut.
“There’s no hard hat-wearing, ribbon-cutting solution that’s going to make it all good.
“I think we’ve got really, really challenging times ahead.
“A pandemic might be part of the juggernaut, I hope it’s not. We’ve got enough to worry about on our plate.”
The podcast Neil Mitchell asks Why is posted each Tuesday at 6am.
