Thread by @timdunlop

We are not just being managed into reopening the economy prematurely (as I said yesterday) but into thinking more infections, and therefore more deaths, are a price worth paying. Unsurprisingly, the PM didn't mention the death part, but he did say:

"The trade off that they're making [is] between people having jobs & the impact on the containment... Now, my view has always been this and I've said it from this podium many times. Just having a low number of cases is not success."
Let that last line sink in as you read the rest

"Now, we've had great success on flattening the health curve, and that's great and we all wanted that. But it has come at a price and we now have to start balancing that up."

Got that? "Start balancing that up."

That is, health against jobs.

"So our expectation is that, yes...undoubtedly you will get cases, of course, that will happen."

I love that, "of course". So blasé

If only a journalist had asked, will this also mean more deaths and are you okay with that?

It is necessary to have the question asked & answered

Now we get to the heart of it:

"We aren't pursuing an eradication strategy. But those cases can be managed and...can be contained in a strong health system and that's our focus."

"So rather than be focused on how many more cases there would be, what we're focused on is making sure we have the capacity to deal with the cases"

So just to be clear: When the govt says we are relaxing restrictions & opening up shops etc, that doesn't mean that the threat has passed. It just means, we have room in our hospitals to treat all the new infections.

This is now the strategy

They need to make that much clearer

BTW: Here is the full transcript of what was an extraordinarily revealing press conference.

pm.gov.au/media/press-co…