This indicates high public interest in getting to the truth of what happened, why particular decisions were made, and what are the right lessons for the future.
This is especially important so Australia can be better prepared next time and also to put the WHO’s new pandemic accords in perspective.
Contrary to dire warnings, there have been only five pandemics in the last 105 years: the Spanish, Asian, Hong Kong, swine flus, and COVID-19.
In that time, great strides in medical knowledge, training, and technology have expanded disease response toolkits along the spectrum of prevention, treatment, and palliative care.
Average life expectancy has improved dramatically as a result. Countries have exchanged best practices on disease prevention and management.
Despite these gains in understanding and treatment protocols, when COVID-19 struck, many countries including Australia abandoned existing well-prepared plans to deal with pandemics, and instead, reacted with panic.
This is never a good basis on which to make either individual or public policy decisions.
Yet the public health messaging deliberately tried to spread panic to the population to increase compliance with pandemic management measures.
The herd panic of early 2020 led to an abandonment of good process, an abandonment of preparedness plans, and a centralisation of decision-making in a narrow circle of heads of government, ministers, and health experts.
The damage to physical health, mental health, social, educational, and economic problems will continue to impact public life for many years into the future.
Did Australia’s COVID-19 policy interventions represent the greatest triumph of public policy, with an unprecedentedly high number of lives saved as a result of timely, decisive, and appropriate measures instituted by governments acting on the science- and evidence-based advice of experts?
Why Were Established Practices Swept Aside?
These are big questions that deserve a rigorous, independent, and impartial inquiry.The first question is: why exactly were the existing pandemic preparedness plans and medical decision-making practices abandoned?
Suspect data from one city, Wuhan, in one country should not have been deemed sufficient to overturn a century of data, experience, and scientific research.
In particular, rather than responding to herd panic elsewhere to order mass house arrests for the entire population, did Australian scientists and public health officials test overseas claims against hard data locally on the extent, virulence, and lethality (the infection and case fatality rates) of the new virus?
Until these facts, as they apply to Australia, are authoritatively and credibly elucidated by a duly-empowered independent inquiry, public trust in health experts and institutions is unlikely to be restored to pre-pandemic levels.
How Was the Threat Level Assessed?
Another set of questions is about assessing the threat of a disease outbreak against other killer diseases, and the opportunity costs of allocating human, financial, and hospital resources to the different health risks.The standard metric used to assess one side of this equation is the quality-adjusted life years (QALY) measure that, logically and sensibly, holds that the death of a healthy child, adolescent or young person is a greater tragedy and loss to society than that of someone above the average life expectancy.
From the start, it was known that the average death of those dying with COVID was higher than the average life expectancy.
That being the case, were standard cost-benefit analyses undertaken of the different policy interventions, including the risks of side effects and collateral harms?
What About the Use of Medicines?
Another area of investigation is the lack of treatment in the period between being infected and severe illness requiring in-patient hospital and ICU care.In particular, why did Australian authorities not undertake high-quality randomised control trials of repurposed drugs, with well-established safety profiles, like ivermectin?
(i) the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship;
(ii) first, do no harm or, alternatively, avoid doing more harm than good;
(iii) informed consent; and
(iv) prioritising the health outcomes of the patient over that of any collective group.
Why did professional colleges and regulators insist that this should be overturned in favour of directives from a centralised bureaucracy with no knowledge of individual patients? Does this mean they do not trust the existing training, knowledge, and skills of Australian doctors?The resort to coercion to enforce compliance with public health was especially egregious against established science that had never accepted their effectiveness.
Almost certainly, this contributed to rising public distrust of public institutions and cross-vaccine hesitancy.
The inquiries should demand the science, data (including quality and reliability), and decision-making behind universal mask and vaccine mandates, especially in the context of the steep age gradient of people at risk of severe and fatal infection.
Bearing in mind the history of false claims of benefits and concealment of risks and harms in the pharmaceutical industry, why did the Australian regulator(s) not require local trials to establish safety and efficacy?
Have Harms Exceeded Benefits?
Finally, of course, we need an authoritative answer to the most critically important question of all: on balance, did the totality of Australian pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions to manage COVID-19 as a public health challenge, do more good than harm?On balance, it seems likely that over the long term, the harms to health, society, and the economy from the radical experiments of mass lockdowns, population-wide mask mandates, and the push for compulsory universal vaccination will exceed the benefits claimed using dubious assumptions and flawed modelling.
What lessons must be drawn for courses of action that are recommended and not recommended? Was the national cabinet helpful or harmful as the central coordinating body? Do we need a sharper delineation of responsibilities between the federal and state governments?
What principles, procedures, structures, and institutional safeguards must be put in place firstly to ensure optimal health and public policy outcomes in future pandemic outbreaks, and secondly to act as effective checks against abuses of power by those given the solemn responsibility to balance all relevant considerations in public policy?
