Page 1001 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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commonwealth Chief Medical Officer, the national cabinet and the World Health Organisation have not stated that the pandemic is at an end. It is, indeed, far from that, as the Chief Minister has said.
When the government made the decision to move to remote learning on 22 March, we were faced with modelling that estimated that up to 80 per cent of the population might contract COVID-19 over time. On 12 March Dr Kerry Chant, the New South Wales Chief Health Officer, gave evidence at New South Wales estimates that COVID-19 could result in about 20 per cent of the state’s population, or about 1.5 million people, becoming infected in the first wave, according to the modelling.
The modelling showed that the ACT could experience a sustained outbreak over a period of 25 to 30 weeks. Across the country, the community was calling for governments to act, and act fast, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Many people, in calling for action, were calling for closing schools, closing schools, closing schools. That was the most obvious action for governments to take on their part.
The government made our decisions and, together with the ACT community as a whole, we have successfully flattened the curve. But as people would have seen from the modelling that was released by the Prime Minister a few weeks ago, flattening the curve did not mean getting to where we are today. That still meant a wave of COVID-19 in our community. That still meant busy hospitals, busy emergency departments and busy ICUs, which is why, across our health systems, we were investing in doubling and tripling capacity. Those measures had the support, I understand, of those opposite, and we were certainly being urged to continue with those actions.
As I said, Ms Lee and Mr Coe are, of course, very wise in hindsight. Ms Lee at one point said that perhaps we should not have shut down schools in the first place. Ms Lee, with the wisdom of hindsight, perhaps we should not have shut down schools in the first place, but you cannot operate in that way in a global pandemic. I would like to point out to those opposite that in a letter copied to Mr Coe and sent to me by the shadow health minister on 18 March, four days before the government announced its steps forward in relation to schools, she said:
I know that the decisions about schools are difficult, but some families are already making that decision on an individual basis. Going early, and even exercising, as UK officials put it, what may turn out to be an excess of caution, may save many lives and relieve the undoubted stress on our hospitals and our frontline staff.
Obviously, Mrs Dunne did not have the wisdom that Ms Lee and Mr Coe now have with hindsight.
Ms Lee also, in her typical fashion, set up a straw man to create her argument. She talked a lot about hub schools and why we have them. Her argument was, “The government has claimed that schools aren’t safe, but they’re claiming that the safe and supported environments of the hubs are safe.” The government never claimed that schools were not safe. The government has always recognised the advice of the AHPPC on this matter, and the evidence presented. We have also recognised that that
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