Psycho Scott rushes towards reopening

Advertisement

Psycho Scott has no core. Last week it was full conviction lockdowns. Now it’s the reverse. Via Paul Kelly:

Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg believe Covid-19 cannot be eliminated and they have tied their government to a new rallying cry – opening up at 70 to 80 per cent vaccination – triggering a likely political war with the elimination-oriented West Australian and Queensland premiers.

With his leadership authority having eroded for weeks, Morrison has embraced a new stance. It is based on hope, restoring economic activity, insisting that Australia change its mindset to live with the virus and concluding that statewide lockdowns become yesterday’s solutions.

When even the ailing Paul Kelly damns you faint praise then you know you’re in trouble. Why wouldn’t Kelly be unimpressed? He’s in a high-risk category for worst-case outcomes.

The only thing worse than a confused and absent Psycho Scott is one with conviction. His lack of empathy renders his communication worse than useless. What is the trigger for reopening? Is it the 70% or 80% threshold? Do 3m people not matter to the outcome? More:

Advertisement

Scott Morrison was discussing Covid-19 vaccination rates when he said it was “absurd” for any state to think they could protect themselves from the Delta strain forever, in a clear dig to states like WA.

“Now it’s like that movie The Croods,” he told The Today Show on Tuesday, in reference to the children’s film about cavemen.

“Some wanted to stay in the cave and the young girl wanted to deal with the challenges of living in a different world. Covid is a different world … we can’t stay in the cave.”

Needless to say, WA premier Mark McGowan pointed out the obvious:

“We are not living in caves — we are living a normal life.”

Advertisement

As well, Psycho Scott’s vague modeling remains questionable, via Bernard Keane at Crikey:

It’s March 2022. More than 80% of Australian adults have been vaccinated. We’re nearly 180 days into the process of lightening restrictions, which began in NSW in October when that state reached 70%. State by state, the restrictions that hampered businesses and workers are being removed. The international border is to be reopened soon. Case numbers have surged to more than 300,000 since Gladys Berejiklian announced reopening in NSW, but that’s translated into fewer than 9000 hospital admissions and 2000 cases in ICUs nationwide, far less than capacity.

Fewer than 1500 people have, tragically, died throughout the period, two-thirds of them unvaccinated. But only about 25,000 are absent from the workforce because they’re infected or isolating. As Scott Morrison prepares to go to another election, he sees a nation that has forgotten his initial stumbles around the vaccination rollout and which is preparing to gratefully reelect him.

That’s the scenario Morrison is hoping for, and which he thinks the Doherty Institute’s modelling has handed him — even in its updated form, which is based on the likelihood that a reopening will occur with massive case numbers courtesy of Berejiklian’s catastrophic failures in NSW, and even assuming contact tracers struggle to keep up with the virus.

There’s another scenario, however.

It’s March 2022. More than 80% of Australians have been vaccinated. Morrison faces an election within two months. But the NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, still new in the job after Berejiklian “succumbed” to pressure and resigned in December, calls and tells him he has no alternative but to lock down his state. More than 100,000 people have had to be hospitalised since October as more than 2.5 million people have contracted the virus. His contact tracers are hopelessly overwhelmed and have been since November. More than 8000 people across the state have died. The strain on the NSW hospital system is unbearable, and the diversion of medical resources to battling COVID is leading to a spike in deaths from other causes.

That’s what might unfold in NSW if the national modelling by a team of academics led by University of Western Australia’s Zoë Hyde is correct, on a pro rata basis.

Alternatively, there’s the scenario modelled by the Grattan Institute in July. Reopening when 70% of the population is vaccinated sees the nation’s ICUs overwhelmed about 100 days after reopening, with the total ICU cases eventually exceeding 200,000 off the back of 8 million infections. Inside five months, more than 10,000 people have died. Eventually more than 15,000 die. Nearly 17% of those deaths — or 2500 — are people who are fully vaccinated.

So, what is driving Psycho Scott? Medical advice or this?

Advertisement

Most Australians want political leaders to stick to a national cabinet deal to ease restrictions when the vaccination rate hits key targets, with 62 per cent backing the plan and only 24 per cent saying states and territories should go their own way.

If Psycho Scott’s bid for re-election goes medically wrong, and his record suggests that is a strong possibility, where will the hammer fall hardest? Obviously the elderly, for starters.

But at least they will be vaccinated. Nobody, anywhere, is vaccinating kids under twelve. Yet, it appears that they are as much at risk of catching Delta as everybody else. There is no research on what that means but the mounting anecdotal evidence in the US is that unvaccinated small kids are getting as sick as other age groups and attending hospitals, and ICUs, in proportional numbers.

Advertisement

Thankfully, deaths appear contained but it’s early days.

This is a very complicated issue. Reopening is inevitable and we all want it. But I’m damned if I will put my kids in the path of Psycho Scott’s bid for re-election. The information on small kids and the vaccine, plus Delta impacts, is still scant and the rush to reopen is not making it any clearer or more trustworthy.

The only thing I know for certain is that I do not trust Psycho Scott with my children’s well-being.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.