Sharon Lewin this morning, quite correctly restating that the national Covid strategy is reduction in severe…

Sharon Lewin this morning, quite correctly restating that the national Covid strategy is reduction in severe disease and death. That's what's tying our hands. We need it to be a public HEALTH strategy, against DISEASE. Against infection. All of it, not just severe. #auspol /1

The reason we can't make progress against Covid is this initial national framing, where public health has been derailed and become a logistical hospital-protection strategy. Which in itself is not even working, if you allow mass infection, the hospitals will be overwhelmed. /2

A hospital may still function, sort of, but like schools it may be running well into the rev-limiter red, permanently. You can't run key institutions permanently in emergency mode, it destroys the staff. /3

Too many, including journalists, were duped into thinking it was fine for the entire community to be constantly infected - SICK - provided only a precise number of them ended up in hospital. Not only have you then failed in public health , because the public isn't HEALTHY,.../4

...but you've created a ludicrous fantasy of being able to precisely titrate the seriously ill into hospital beds, with hospitals running more than flat out, 365 days of the year. We're already seeing people being medicated at home, if they're lucky, because there's no.../5

...actual 'titration', no primary assessment, going on. 'If you think you're at risk of serious illness' - how would many non-medical people know if they are? What sort of public health strategy is it to ask people to ring their GP if they think they're.../6

...seriously unwell, on the off chance (which by anecdote seems to often fail) they might get some drugs mailed out to them? This is Australia, 2022, a national disgrace. Smash the LNP's straitjacket hospital-protection strategy, and get back to people and their health. /end