The ‘urgent urge’ an infectious diseases expert says is Victoria’s COVID-19 downfall

An infectious diseases expert says the “wild swings” in Victoria’s COVID-19 restrictions are hindering the state’s battle against the virus.

Infectious diseases professor at the National University of Singapore and chair of the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network,Professor Dale Fisher, says the “urgent urge to return to normal is what’s the problem” with the state’s COVID-19 response.

“(You’re) pretending that there’s no pandemic going on and then you have another leak, and then there’s another huge exposure and so you’re locked down again,” he told Neil Mitchell.

“It really must be driving people crazy.

“You can have 50,000 people at the MCG one day and a few days later you’ve got five reasons to leave home!”

Professor Fisher says adopting Singapore’s approach, which keeps some restrictions in place in the long term, would help Victoria avoid further serious outbreaks.

“Do the lockdown, weed it out again, but maybe next time just go back to something more in between so you haven’t got these wild swings,” he said.

“In Singapore … masks have been mandated for well over a year now and we don’t have the large gatherings.

“That does mean when you have a leak or a couple of cases they really don’t spread too much because the contact tracing and the quarantine works.”

Press PLAY below to hear more about the problems Professor Fisher sees with Victoria’s COVID approach