![]() ![]() State leaders met in March 2020 to coordinate their responses and form a National Cabinet which would share data and strategies. The legislation was rushed through Parliament in just one sitting day in order to get relief to Australians who needed it most. While Australia’s current conservative government normally clashes with the trade union movement, they recognized that union cooperation would be essential in implementing their emergency measures and gave them a role in shaping policy.Įarly in the pandemic, the federal government introduced a $130 billion dollar economic bailout which included a six-month wage subsidy scheme. However, when Covid-19 struck, they put aside their differences to work on a unified pandemic response. While there are a few complaints, the public is happy to comply with these brief lockdowns as they know that they will shortly return to the luxury of normal life.Ģ) Bipartisan unity is essential to an emergency responseĪustralia’s two major political parties are definitely still closer to the center than Republicans and Democrats but have grown increasingly combative in the last 10 years, with legislation often gridlocked in the two Houses of Parliament. With case numbers so low, the media is able to publish the exposure locations that the infected person visited in addition to traditional contact tracing. ![]() When there is a small rise in cases (usually from workers at quarantine hotels) they have the systems in place to trace exposures and lockdown certain regions for a few days. These swift, decisive actions have allowed Australia to reach zero cases at certain stages of the pandemic. This gave Australians a clear, logical path forward to reopening and encouraged compliance. ![]() The easing of these restrictions and eventually restrictions on indoor and outdoor gatherings were tied to declining infection rates. Anyone found to be violating those restrictions faced a hefty fine. Non-essential businesses were immediately closed, everyone was given a limited radius that they could not leave unless it was for essential work, medical appointments or caretaking, and households were not allowed to mix with some exceptions. While restrictions varied between the states and rural and urban populations, they were clearly communicated through daily televised press conferences, public signage and advertising and further media outreach. Approximately 40,000 Australians are currently stranded overseas, desperate for a place on those limited flights which has been considered a human rights violation by some.Īustralia’s lockdown restrictions and behavioral safety protocols were also enacted swiftly. While this has been an effective policy it has not been without controversy. Australia has also implemented a cap on incoming international flights carrying returned citizens in order to ensure the quarantine system isn’t overwhelmed. State and territory borders have now reopened but international borders have remained closed due to the threat of the variants. The progress of individual states did not affect the entire country. Closing state borders also meant that states like New South Wales and Western Australia were able to reopen their local economies after just two months of lockdown. These early border closures stopped the rapid spread of the virus and allowed for Australia to build a testing and tracing system that was not immediately overwhelmed and therefore very effective at controlling the spread of the virus. Below I’ve outlined some of the key lessons from Australia’s response that can be applied globally. Australia’s success proves that a strong public health response enforced by a democratic government focused on vigilant testing, tracing and quarantine is the key to fighting a pandemic. While Australia does have considerable advantages in terms of geographic isolation and population density there is still much we can learn from their response. Australia only began its vaccination program on Feb 21, 2021, yet as you can see in the chart below (Figure 1) cases have remained low for almost six months. All of this has been achieved without vaccinations. Even after experiencing a second surge of cases last year, Australia swiftly learned from its mistakes and cases never rose over 1,000 for a population of 25.36 million. The majority of these new cases are not from community transmission but from the hotel quarantine system that houses Australian citizens returning from overseas. As of March 23, 2020, Australia has just five new cases of Covid-19. ![]()
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