PRESS RELEASE: COVID-19 SEVERE LOCKDOWNS DEEMED UNNECESSARY BY WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION
• ON AUGUST 1, 2020, WHO URGED COUNTRIES NOT TO REIMPOSE EXTENSIVE LOCKDOWNS IN AN ATTEMPT TO STEM THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 DUE TO THE GENERAL HEALTH, SOCIAL AND DRAMATIC ECONOMIC REPERCUSSIONS;
• THE STRATEGY PROMOTED BY PCS IN EARLIER MEDIA RELEASES STRONGLY ENCOURAGED GOVERNMENT AND HEALTH AUTHORITIES TO FOCUS ON THE ISOLATION AND EFFECTIVE PROTECTION OF THE AGED AND HIGH-RISK GROUPS AND TO AVOID SEVERE LOCKDOWNS;
• THE FAILURE TO ADEQUATELY PURSUE THIS STRATEGY IS THE PRIMARY CAUSE FOR THE CURRENT LEVELS OF HIGH COVID-19 INFECTION RATES AND MORTALITY THROUGHOUT MANY AGED CARE FACILITIES IN VICTORIA;
• THE FOCUS OF ENFORCING RESTRICTIONS ON THE LOW-RISK GROUPS HAS NOT MANAGED TO PROTECT THE VULNERABLE – BUT IT IS DESTROYING THE ECONOMY AND IS CREATING UNSUSTAINABLE SOCIAL HARM.
• THE ANDREWS GOVERNMENT IN VICTORIA HAS COMPLETELY LOST PERSPECTIVE. AUSTRALIA HAS SUFFERED 295 COVID DEATHS BUT WELL OVER 1200 SUICIDES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, MANY DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE FISCAL AND SOCIAL IMPACTS OF LOCKDOWNS.
The World Health Organisation Head of the Emerging Disease Unit, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, a noted epidemiologist, that assists with the WHO pandemic response team, describes the severe lockdowns as blunt, shear force instruments that are only used in the early stages to allow authorities time to establish the necessary public health infrastructure.
Dr Van Kerkhove stated that most advanced countries have tools right now that can prevent transmission and save lives, referencing measures including effective contact tracing, widespread testing, equipping health facilities, physical distancing and wearing face masks. Therefore severe lockdowns are no longer warranted.
Further, the prestigious medical journal, the Lancet, found that while full lockdowns and widespread testing reduced the number of infections (most mild or asymptomatic), they are not associated with reductions in the number of critical COVID-19 cases or mortality. This finding has been supported by numerous other peer-reviewed studies.
Victoria currently has approximately a 700 intensive care bed capacity, with the ability to rapidly increase this number if required. These facilities, combined with the highly trained medical staff, means Victoria has the public health infrastructure to deal with demands some 20 times greater than the current situation. There are currently 43 COVID-19 intensive care patients in Victorian hospitals. Victoria is now clearly well prepared for a possible increase in admissions, a requirement noted by Dr Kerkhove to avoid continued severe lockdowns.
WHO also recently noted that a safe and effective vaccine may never be developed, a view shared by many other experts. It therefore seems unwise for authorities to persistently depend on this option as the only saviour. Clearly, repeated lockdown measures each time positive testing numbers show modest increases, will cause irreversible economic and social harm.
Accordingly, Australia, including Victoria, must allow the orderly, natural spread of the virus amongst the low-risk group that make up the vast majority of the population, so they can steadily develop immunity to SARS-CoV-2. At the same time, it is imperative that authorities initiate far greater shielding measures to protect the vulnerable, high-risk groups. This in particular includes significantly improved training and hygiene procedures for the security, cleaning and support staff in aged care and designated quarantine facilities, as well as strict enforcement of visitation guidelines.
On August 8, the Weekend Australian reported news from the United Kingdom confirming that once the spread of the virus throughout the community peaks, there is a massive fall in COVID-19 hospital admissions and mortality as natural herd immunity develops.
PCS again reminds readers that in 2019, there were over 310,000 laboratory confirmed notifications of influenza infections and 902 associated deaths in Australia (mostly over 70 years of age), where 46% of those that died had actually been vaccinated. Vaccines are obviously not an absolute method to save elderly lives. Victoria contributed to approximately 23% of these influenza statistics. Yet there were no fear campaigns, media hype, panic or lockdowns during 2019, in spite of the ~200 influenza related deaths amongst the aged last year in Victoria (Data source: OHP & DoH).
Very little has been mentioned by the authorities of the low number of elderly deaths this year from influenza. This is because those that were destined to die from influenza this winter have been taken by another respiratory disease, COVID-19. Therefore, there has only been a modest net increase in deaths in Victoria from respiratory disease amongst the aged this winter, and it is clearly a mistake to singularly focus on the 210 COVID-19 deaths.
PCS believes there appears to be a general lack of understanding or acknowledgement about the current pandemic, net mortality, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection process and existing levels of underlying natural coronavirus immunity, all of which creates over-reaction, errors in judgement and advice to government by the various health authorities. This all leads to a flawed strategy.
Dr Beda Stadler, Emeritus Professor of immunology, University of Bern, Switzerland, regarded as a world expert in this area of health science, recently described the basis for the apparent natural resistance to COVID-19 for a large majority of the population under 65 years without co-morbidities.
Dr Stadler states that many types of coronavirus have circulated throughout the population for years. The vast majority of the population has already sustained multiple coronavirus infections, especially younger children. For example, the common cold and general respiratory infections. He explains that many studies now confirm that subjects never infected with SARS-CoV-2 have T-cell responses to a SARS-VoC-2 infection. He further points out that the body cannot have a T-cell response without a B-cell response, which then triggers antibody production.
While Dr Stadler noted that people do not develop a specific antibody for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein until exposed, there are many other parts of this virus, such as surface proteins, that are similar or the same to those coronaviruses previously encountered by the population. These other parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus structure are not new, are the same as previous coronaviruses, and therefore trigger a degree of natural coronavirus immunity throughout the bulk of the population.
This is regarded as a primary reason why up to 50% of those exposed to SARS-CoV-2 have no or negligible symptoms, and most others suffer with symptoms no worse that seasonal influenza, with full recovery once their bodies trigger specific natural antibody responses.
The exception to these mechanisms are the immuno-compromised groups of the population, primarily those aged over 70 years, or people suffering from well understood co-morbidities, such as cancer, diabetes, heart & lung diseases and obesity. Further, it is these high-risk groups that are unlikely to benefit of a COVID-19 vaccine, if one is eventually developed and approved.
The Victorian sudden severe economic lockdown will not eradicate COVID-19, as the virus, which has already spread far wider throughout the community than acknowledged or understood, will continue to remain in the general population. Once the severe restrictions are relaxed, the virus will re-emerge, particularly during colder weather, and positive PCR testing numbers are again likely to rapidly increase.
Given the current appalling levels of economic and social damage to Victoria, particularly the massive increases in fiscal hardship and the suicide rate, that the Victorian Coroner describes as staggering, PCS strongly recommends the immediate easing of Stage 4 restrictions, and reiterates the need for a significant improvement in the isolation and protection of the higher risk groups.
Victoria is certainly well prepared for a sizable increase in serious case numbers if this occurs, and its excellent health workers are now obviously well equipped with facilities and a number of proven COVID-19 treatment methods now emerging, including the use of supplemental oxygen, corticosteroids, vitamins C, D and zinc supplementation.
Australian Governments must protect our aged and high-risk population, train and equip those personnel that care for them, and allow the orderly spread of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the low-risk members of the community, so that natural herd immunity can rapidly develop, as it has in the United Kingdom.
On the other hand, if Governments persist with the hyper-reactive widespread lockdowns, the human cost and economic destruction of the Australian economy will not be recoverable, and the blame for this damage will be justifiably directed at government policy and inequitable enforcement.
