Go hard, Go early, Stay home: Prematurely ending lockdown could spell disaster

Coronavirus has challenged modern society to revise its hierarchy of values. The cynic in me would argue it challenges our institutions to adhere to any in the first place. Much like the climate crisis this coronavirus pandemic poses a question to us: are you willing to reprioritise health and prosperity? In this sense Australia's next move will reveal our true character. So far our efforts as Australians to work together - by staying apart - to flatten the curve, are commendable. As are our efforts to pressure and campaign for at least some wage protection. A spirit of togetherness has been enlivened. But let's not get complacent too soon. A premature exit from lockdown could ultimately cost more lives, more time, and more money.

Lately there has been a lot of talk from News Corp and the ABC about how soon Australia can end its lockdown. Aren't we far from ready to deploy an exit strategy? Do we even have one? A recent dip in confirmed cases, including a cosmetic decrease induced by the Easter weekend, when fewer GPs operate, has fuelled this premature optimism. Worryingly, just when we thought "herd immunity" had finally become a dirty word, we've started hearing about it again. And now the government is proposing an opt-in app which will carry out bluetooth contact-tracing. There seems to be shift in sentiment happening, away from a steely resolve to protect lives above all else, back to an impatience to restart our economic engines.

The government's foray into welfarism has proved fleeting. There has been no talk of further social spending from the government. It seems their focus has returned to the welfare of their GDP figures and their political prospects. In this spirit, the national government has announced the development of a new, opt-in, contact-tracing app. An app like this should be considered as a last resort, employed after we exhaust all other efforts. In this, Morrison is prioritising a hasty economic recovery over our health and our personal freedoms. A surveillance app like this could allow the government to identify and quarantine more cases more quickly. But it would only be as effective as its participation rate. In Singapore, where a similar voluntary app has been deployed, participation rates only reached 20%. The app would also set a dangerous surveillance precedent. Whilst other measures are contingent on public health emergency clauses being evoked, so far there's been no assurance that this surveillance architecture, and the data it collects, would be burned after reading. Further lockdown measures, with life-support for newly effected non-essential businesses is the better option. We know this option would cut new cases effectively and save lives, and it doesn't depend on volunteers and privacy infringements.

When other countries have resorted to harsher lockdown measures to try and completely flatten their curves, what makes Australia so special? Why do we think we can flatten ours without a full shutdown of non-essentials? I'd argue, nothing at all. I'd argue we can't. There's plenty of evidence that under current measures our new daily cases curve will bottom out before falling close to zero, creating a 'long tail'. Sure, for various reasons our mortality rate is far lower than some countries, but that partly because lockdown has ensured we haven't overwhelmed our health-care system. Lower mortality rates and lower case rates vindicate lockdown measures, they shouldn't be taken as an excuse to lift them early. Even if we remain in lockdown, since when are we content with constraining the virus to spreading at a lower rate so long as its not exponential? Clearly that's not good enough. It would be unsafe and irresponsible to end lockdown before vaccination, or before we reduce our total cases to near zero. In ending lockdown prematurely we could undo all our hard work. Our impatience could induce a second wave of infections, landing us back in square one. I agree we shouldn't wait a year or more for a vaccine. But we need a comprehensive exit strategy involving full testing and secure quarantining of all remaining cases before we hit 'go'.

In crises, good leadership takes urgent and decisive actions. It makes the hard choices. During the GFC the Rudd government's mantra became "Go hard, go early, go households." Australia was the only developed nation to avoid a recession. Our mantra during this pandemic should be similar but different: "Go hard, go early, stay home." If we don't go harder now we're just prolonging the inevitable and inflicting even more long-term economic, physical, and mental pain. We know that further lockdowns will slow the spread even more, moving us closer to completely controlling the outbreak. So, it seems counter-intuitive, but the sooner we move to further measures, the sooner we can lift them. And ensuring we stamp this virus out in one go will make for a smoother and stronger recovery.