22 Mar 2022

Michael Baker, other experts, urge govt to keep Covid controls

From Checkpoint, 5:17 pm on 22 March 2022

A group of public health experts are calling on the government to pump the brakes on loosening Covid-19 restrictions.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to make an announcement tomorrow about vaccine passes, mandates and the Covid-19 protection framework.

The National Party wants most of the restrictions gone immediately and the rest by the time Australian tourists start arriving 13 April. 

However, epidemiologist Michael Baker and his colleagues in a blog argue that now is not the time to slacken off and in fact some of the controls need to be updated.

Prof Baker told Checkpoint he understood the sentiment of being tired of the pandemic and that we all wished the virus would go away, but the reality was the virus had a life of its own.

"There's two big biological processes we can't control, one is the virus will keep mutating and it will take at opportunities by becoming more infectious, not necessarily more dangerous. The other thing is that generally, our immune protection wanes over time, so these are things we have to live with.

"If we look at Australia, which I think is still a good example of what we might expect in the next few months, is when we come down off this peak, you return to quite a high baseline of ongoing transmission, which will mean thousands of cases a day for the rest of the year, and you might have 200 or 300 people in hospital all the time, and that's a huge drain on health system, limiting elective procedures and all sorts of other things.

"So that's the reality we should be planning for, and rather than saying 'oh, let's lift all the restrictions', try and keep ahead of what we think the virus will do and I think cautiously remove controls and try and avoid having a second peak."

Hearing about the Director-General of Health's announcement about a potential fourth vaccine dose for vulnerable groups, Prof Baker said that was a good option to have, especially considering that waning immunity was a problem with the Omicron variant.

Vaccine passes and boosters

One way to keep ahead was to have another look at vaccine passes, Prof Baker said, including a requirement that people have a booster dose before obtaining a pass.

"Remember, the two-shot schedule was fine for Delta, it doesn't work so well against Omicron. It still gives you some protection against serious illness but it doesn't protect you so much from getting symptomatic illness and passing the virus on.

"This is not something we've just dreamt up, this is just biology here, you need those three doses to be immune.

"The virus will keep changing, we have to keep changing to keep ahead of it. Otherwise, we're just trailing behind and our tools are not very effective."

Vaccine passes were still useful in some scenarios, he said, but he wasn't sure it should be compulsory to show a pass in many environments.

"For example, visiting aged care facilities, they might say 'look, we want you to have a vaccine pass or have done a recent rapid antigen test to show you're not bringing the virus into this vulnerable community'. 

"We do have a requirement for travelling on most international carriers now and for entry into many countries so I don't think this requirement is going away anytime soon.

"I think some venue operators may want to have that as a requirement they can use. For example, if you are organising an indoor concert for a vulnerable older population, you might say 'look, let's make this a vaccine pass event, because that's what our customers really need to feel comfortable coming back into indoor environments'." 

He said there needed to be discussions with those in the sector, including community and event groups, about what they believe would be the most effective way to make people feel safe in a venue - through event size limits, mask use, or vaccine passes.