The Prime Minister's roadmap out of COVID19 and back to normal has been framed within a pretense of knowledge: that governments know best. It clearly foresees the continued use of coercive powers over citizens. This will be counterproductive and extend Australia's misery.

If the World Health Organisation had not changed its definition of pandemic in 2009, COVID19 would no longer be classified as such. Hence, national emergency powers would have been rescinded. The change in definition allowed emergency powers to be maintained, not on the basis of what actually was happening with infections, illness and mortality but on the basis of what might happen. The end result is what we see in Australia right now - 15 million or more people in lockdown in the face of how many actual deaths this year? The answer is twenty one. 

An effective roadmap back to normal would begin today with the declaration that the pandemic is over and responsibility for personal health is now handed back to individual people. There is ample knowledge and good sense in the community. People are smart enough to make their own risk-adjusted decisions and mitigations. The real roadmap starts with this acknowledgement. 

The director of the US Centre for Disease Control has confirmed on CNN that vaccines do not prevent the vaccinated from being infected and spreading COVID19.

See this short clip from the interview.

Which means that as a strategy to suppress or eliminate the virus, vaccinations don’t work. Further, vaccination passports and similar restrictions on the unvaccinated would be unnecessary and unjust discrimination.

The buck stops here.

President Truman’s sign on his desk. He meant that he was responsible for the decisions and if things went wrong he couldn’t blame anyone else. (What a fantastic film emulsion. I wonder if that photo was shot on the famous Ferrania P30 film? The emulsion is back in production and I have some on order. ISO 80. Classic Italian film look. But, I digress…)

It’s a sentiment that is admirable in times of national emergency. But nearly two years down the track after COVID19 first emerged, there is no longer a national emergency. Or international emergency.

Responsibility for keeping the noses of the public clean should now be handed back to the individual owner of each nose. It is no longer a matter for any politician. Anywhere.

The President of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Khorshid, has failed one of the fundamental requirements of his role. At this link, he says that the lockdown in Sydney may have to stay in effect until everyone is vaccinated, ie. indefinitely. He says that since there are insufficient vaccine supplies to vaccinate everyone it is imperative people stop talking to each other, being close, breathing and coughing on each other. He made no mention of the fact that 100% vaccination rates will never happen, regardless of supply.

Now, some people may watch that news interview and think that the good doctor is giving considered medical advice. They could be excused for thinking that doctors are the best people to give medical advice. In some very limited circumstances, doctors are the best people to give medical advice. Those circumstances are limited to the treatment of one individual person to the exclusion of all other concerns. For example, it applies when you visit your GP, when your dentist is fixing your teeth, when you are on the operating table in surgery and that’s about it. When the health of the public in general is the subject, medical people are just like you and me – they have opinions but these opinions are no better or worse than anybody else’s opinion. All these medical experts advocating locking up citizens in the face of SARS-CoV-2 have no more authority than you or I do to stand up at that press conference. Thus, politicians hiding behind those medicos are cowardly in pretending a political decision to lock up citizens is actually a medical decision when it is nothing of the sort.

Dr Khorshid failed in his role not for any medical reason. He failed for political reasons. The AMA is a political organisation. Doctors don’t need the AMA to practise medicine. In fact, I believe that a large proportion of the country’s doctors are not even members of it. The AMA exists to lobby Government to advance its own political objectives. All professional organisations have similar objectives. By airing statements that many in the general public will see as variously ridiculous, extreme, laughable, unrealistic etc, he has just damaged the credibility and authority of the AMA. A key function of the role of President is to enhance the standing of the AMA, not detract from it. Can anybody explain how such an interview could enhance the AMA’s standing? I can’t. So, Dr Kharshid, let’s mark that interview as ‘Fail’.

Spoiler alert: No.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/