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Prof Brendan Crabb AC Profile picture
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Oct 20 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Grateful to Peter Shergold & his 3 colleagues for their COVID review "Fault Lines" released today. I have only just seen the report & so am not yet in a position to comment in detail. But I do love the 'dedication' & wish we were hearing more like that. 1/
independentcovidreview.com Image
At a glance, although there are some key conclusions I have some issue with, I do acknowledge it's impossible in a report like this to satisfy everyone. Most importantly, it's difficult not to be impressed by this list of recommendations. 2/ Image
This is serious analysis & deserves to be treated as such. But it's not the only review we need, the central Q is too immense for that: With pandemics, how can we can we achieve as little disruption as possible while protecting our community from widespread death & disability? 3/
A Covid *Summit* addressing issues such as a 'proportional response', the ethical & scientific basis for encouraging widespread infection (is it ever ok?) & the airborne fiasco, is also needed. As is a Royal Commission. With all that, we can plan a way forward. 4/end #COVID19Aus

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More from @CrabbBrendan

Prof Brendan Crabb AC Profile picture
Oct 23
For those wondering, data is accumulating that 4-5% of omicron cases in triple vaccinated people experience #LongCOVID - see

thelancet.com/journals/lance…

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

1/
And understand that self reporting is incredible accurate - @VirusesImmunity estimates it to be 94% in her and @PutrinoLab 's landmark biomarker work. 2/

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
So @PatsKarvelas is spot on with her estimate of ~400,000 with LC. In fact, it's the 9 million cases that is probably under, given serological surveys show many more have been infected that have a reported positive test - kirby.unsw.edu.au/news/june-almo… 3/end
Read 4 tweets
Prof Brendan Crabb AC Profile picture
Oct 21
The scale is breathtaking, as is our nonchalance towards it. Key points:
(1) On track for 20-30,000 deaths more than usual in 2022
(2) COVID causing ~50%, the rest also likely COVID as in Singapore
(3) Last wave our worst
(4) These are true XS, ie, no 'catch up' on previous years
A national day of mourning in their honour is necessary.
And then we can reset around boosters and reducing transmission through airborne controls, testing (to iso get treatment), & judicious use of high quality masks. The continued emphasis on handwashing for COVID is bordering on ridiculous.
Read 5 tweets
Prof Brendan Crabb AC Profile picture
Sep 18
Imp. paper. Imprinting is not new but powerfully shown here. Means that not only does SARS-Cov-2 continue to evolve to escape protective antibodies, newer variants are less effective at generating broad-based protective antibodies, making life easier for the next variant. 1/
They conclude "Together, our results suggest herd immunity established by natural infection could hardly stop RBD (receptor binding domain) evolution & end the pandemic, & vaccine boosters using BA.5 may not provide sufficiently broad protection against emerging sub-variants 2/
This paper comes at the same time as a host of impressive recent work summarized here 3/
Read 4 tweets
Prof Brendan Crabb AC Profile picture
Jul 28
I’m relieved & moved by what I see of the new federal govt; vision, strength openness, empathy, respect have returned. Which makes the tolerance of COVID’s phenomenal impact, that especially targets our most vulnerable people, all the harder to reconcile. #COVI19Aus. 1/
It’s not that nothing is happening. HM Butler, a person I respect greatly, has put COVID on the agenda, the AHPPC published a strong update & it was terrific to have intervention on isolation payments. But COVID is still treated nowhere near the national emergency it is. 2/
In what was predicable & predicted, we have wave after wave of an evolving new virus of humans. Around 13 million Australians have been infected this year, now commonly re-infected, millions with a 5-10 day illness that is devastating our hospitals & wider society. 3/
Read 8 tweets
Prof Brendan Crabb AC Profile picture
Apr 20
A thread on easing of public health interventions. In short, debating individual public health measures is not where to start the conversation. It is not very meaningful if the overall strategy is unclear. Most importantly, how much value do we put on reducing transmission? 1/
Clearly it’s good for health to have less COVID but what about the operations of aged care, health care, business in general, retail, travel, hospitality, schools? Are more or less infected people good for their operation? 2/
If the answer is less (of course it is), what package of approaches has the best impact on reducing infections with the least disruption on a functioning society? 3/
Read 10 tweets
Prof Brendan Crabb AC Profile picture
Mar 28
The notion that there’s nothing we can do as the Qld CHO & many other advocate - that everyone getting infected, regularly & repeatedly, is ok & desirable so some magically benign endemicity will be achieved - is flawed. It is not scientifically sound. 1/
It’s not just untrue (COVID transmission can be reduced with vax, high-quality masks, airborne mitigation & iso of infected people & close contacts) but dangerous; esp. to huge numbers of vulnerable people & unvaccinated kids, & also to acute & long-term health of everyone. 2/
It also fosters continued virus evolution, guaranteeing worse SARS-Cov2 variants - BA.2 not the end. The irony is, as omicron showed, that a ‘hands off’ approach promotes disease-driven disruption (shadow lockdown) to the economy during a wave. 3/
Read 4 tweets

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