Thread by @ErichSchulz

I want give some hopefully reassuring context, then I'd like to catalogue all the things our government has done wrong. This is a bit of a long read for social media.

Firstly and importantly, everyone breath.

#auspol #COVID19Aus
facebook.com/erichbschulz/p…

A thread, of 24 tweets. #auspol #COVID19Aus

No. This is not a drill but we're going to be OK. 2020 is going to be a wild time, but we're not going to starve and we all have netflix. If you're suffering medical problems, then I'm sorry, this could be about to get dangerous. 1/24

But even for you in risk groups, you're probably going to be OK. Australia is well placed and entire community is prepared to make sacrifices to help protect you. Even if you are unlucky enough to get COVID19, you're likely to get nothing worse than the flu. 2/24

If you're under 60, and you're not immunocompromised and can walk up a flight of stairs OK, then relax. This is not about you, but you're going to need to make some sacrifices. 2021 is going to go back to normal, other than we're going to be seeing more people in face-masks. 3/24

Now, lets come back to our government. Before reviewing their litany of errors, we should acknowledge that they did one thing right: closing the border with China. Conveniently this aligned just fine with some xenophobic dog whistling so there was no hesitation. 4/24

This single step seemed to have given us a three week head-start. These weeks have been vital, because it now means that the Australian population understands that COVID19 is real and we are all now ready to take dramatic action that we would not have been three weeks ago. 5/24

So yes, credit where it's due. Closing the border with China was a good thing. Same with the Iranian border.

The most unforgivable error Australia made was not to close the border to USA as soon as we had three cases imported from there in a 24 hour period on 9 March. 6/24

This single day, when USA had only 600 cases detected clearly showed that, unsurprisingly, Trump's America had well and truly dropped the ball. Unfortunately, closing this border didn't align with our occult prejudices, so this decision was delayed for a full week. 7/24

The second most egregious error has been the inability to rapidly take the low cost measures to prevent spread. Last Thursday, 12 March, Tom Hanks was found to be infected and it became crystal clear that virus was here and that it was circulating in the community. 8/24

That day all unnecessary mass gatherings should have been cancelled. The real cost of cancelling the football and closing movie theatres is very small, but people jammed in together unable to achieve safe spacing when someone coughs amplifies the risk of big groups. 9/24

The third egregious step has been the failure to role out public health education. It seems our Prime Minister couldn't see an upside for him in this marketing campaign so didn't bother. The ads should have started 10 days ago. 10/24

The remaining problems in our response are more complicated. In any rapidly unfolding situation mistakes are made. Information is limited early on and things get missed in the fog of war. 11/24

So while failing to close the USA border, telling people to go to the footy, and failing to educate the population are all unforgivable, the following issues are regrettable but I can see how they happened. 12/24

It will be argued that given the disruption to our supply chains we never really had a chance to prevent them. What I am yet to see is adequate acknowledgement that we have a problem with our supplies. 13/24

By failing to acknowledge we have a problem, probably excused under the umbrella of “well lets not panic folk”, we are almost certainly failing to engage the community to create the clever solutions that can arise when a large number of people turn their brain to something. 14/24

So what don’t we have? It’s hard to list these in order of priority, but I would say that the single most important thing that Australia is missing right now are regular surgical face-masks. We have barely enough for our healthcare workers, yet alone supplies for you. 15/24

We’re being falsely told that they don’t offer protection but this not true. Good data demonstrates an approximately 8 fold reduction in Corona virus infection in health care workers issued regular surgical masks. They are cheap and effective yet we cannot get them. 16/24

I’m pretty convinced that Asia’s willingness to don a mask in public is the single most effective measure that is allowing them, despite their far higher population density, to do far better than we are at containing this virus. 17/24

The next important thing we haven’t prepared for is large scale testing. Testing is currently being rationed and results are delayed. This will bite us big time. Rapid testing and detection will also slow the spread and avoid disruption. 18/24

I don’t know enough about what goes on in the lab to be able to comment on how to address this shortcoming, but I do know we’re behind and need to catch up quickly. Otherwise our lives will be far more disrupted than they ought to be. 19/24

In a similar vein, it’s problematic that hand sanitiser is in such short supply. Yes soap and water, and 20 seconds at the sink are extremely effective but we know that sanitiser is equally effective, less disruptive and far more portable. Where are the urgent supplies? 20/24

So that’s all I got. Three unforgivable errors, three forgivable failures to prepare, and a general lack of honesty about the shortcomings in our preparation. 21/24

Until recently, I’ve avoided being partisan or alarmist about this topic, but when Australia started the mass importation of cases from the USA I realised that our government was not on top of this. 22/24

The only thing that has saved Australia from a world of pain, anti-karmicly, has been our latent xenophobia and willingness to close our borders. The primordial white-Australia reflex has delayed our pain but now our level of competence is about to be revealed. 23/24

Are we the “smart country” we think we are?

24/24

See this paper for preliminary data to explain why crowds are bad medrxiv.org/content/10.110…