What Victoria needs to learn and realise about COVID-19

One of the world’s leading epidemiologists has delivered a blunt message to those thinking life will snap back to normal once a COVID-19 vaccine is developed.

“This fairy tale dream that the vaccine will come, it’ll be perfect, everyone will take it and we’ll go back to normal life – none of us really believe that day will come,” Professor Dale Fisher told Neil Mitchell.

Professor Fisher, an infectious disease professor at the National University of Singapore and Chair of the World Health Organisation’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, said the coronavirus was here to stay.

“We need to learn to live with this,” he said.

“Hunkering down and trying to keep it out is not a sustainable proposition.

“It will make its way in, somehow, sometime.

“The point is you need to be ready.

“You shouldn’t be pointing at border failures, or hotel quarantine failures – these should be expected, in some ways.

“It’s not a 100 per cent system.”

Neil Mitchell, who has several concerns about how the coronavirus response is being handled in Victoria, asked Professor Fisher what could be learned from Singapore.

“Rather than hearing the numbers in Victoria, I’d much rather be hearing the strategies,” he said.

Professor Fisher also explained why Singapore had such a low death rate.

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview