‘We’ve got to go hard – NOW. The window is closing’: Australia must learn from the mistakes of Italy and enforce even MORE extreme social distancing measures than the PM has announced, expert claims
- Professor Raina MacIntyre at UNSW says Australia needs more social distancing
- Pointed to success in China and South Korea and crisis in Italy and the U.S.
- Australia also needs to test far more people to they don’t unknowingly infect
- Otherwise by mid-April the situation could be ‘worse than anyone can imagine’
Australians need to follow social distancing instructions or risk rapidly rising cases overwhelming hospitals, an expert claims.
University of NSW infectious disease professor Raina MacIntyre said the country would end up like Italy by mid-April if it didn’t get serious.
She said the success of China and South Korea at slowing their increased cases to a crawl showed increased measures – more than implemented so far – worked.
Australians need to follow social distancing instructions or risk rapidly rising cases overwhelming hospitals, an expert claims
‘We’ve got to go hard and go now. The window is closing. We don’t have months and months to think about it,’ she told The Australian.
‘In three weeks’ time it’s going to be much worse than anyone can imagine.’
Professor MacIntyre said Australia’s cases were growing at an ‘almost vertical’ rate in recent days and were only a couple of weeks behind Italy and the U.S.
Italy has almost 52,000 active cases and 5,500 deaths, while the U.S. has 32,000 cases and 414 deaths.
‘Surely we can learn from the mistakes that were made there, which were not testing widely enough, and not using social distancing?’ Professor MacIntyre said.
Scenes in a hospital in Italy, a country which has has almost 52,000 active cases and 5,500 deaths
Instead, she said Australia should follow South Korea’s example of mass testing, targeted social distancing, lockdowns of hard-hit areas.
But Australia is already so short of protective equipment that many doctors are being exposed to infection without masks.
The country also doesn’t have enough testing kits to screen enough people and track confirmed cases so they don’t infect others.
An extra 100,000 kits have been brought in from overseas but this was not expected to be anywhere near enough to see out the peak of the crisis.
University of NSW infectious disease professor Raina MacIntyre said the country would end up like Italy by mid-April if it didn’t get serious
Professor MacIntyre said Australia therefore needed to close schools and increase social distancing measures beyond current levels.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday ordered pubs, cafes, restaurants, places of worship and other non-essential activities where people congregate while stationary.
People are supposed to stay at least 1.5m apart at all times – less than the two metres Britain is recommending.