Suggestions for non-restrictive measures to help slow COVID-19 spread and ease restrictions
Today’s post is a discussion piece by a disability advocate based in regional Victoria. The author, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, is living through the COVID-19 pandemic with insecure housing and significant health risks. This post is republished with permission from the author’s blog Disability Advocacy Truth Telling.
In Australia, the Victorian and NSW governments have made mistakes that have contributed to where we are at now. This article unpacks each mistake, looking at what we can learn from it, and what can be done differently. We can't just do the same as what we have done before, to try reduce COVID spreading, when it's not working. It is putting enormous pressure on our hospital and health systems, with too many staff contact-traced and placed in isolation to function. The pressure and acute stress placed on families from lockdowns, compounding family violence, is preventable. These are my suggestions for practical non-restrictive reforms to help slow the spread of COVID-19, ease inundation on the hospital and ambulance systems, and work towards easing restrictions and ending lockdowns.
More needs to be done for mental health. Prioritise the implementation of the Victorian mental health Royal Commission, co-producing this with people with lived experience, and give free online and mail/post out mental health support and courses, and self-care resources that are lived experience informed. Do more for suicide prevention and fix the 000 suicide call-out response. Do more to help people afford food and rent, to prevent homelessness.
Build Howard Springs standard quarantine facilities in every state/territory. are workers moving to work more hours in hospitals, and people escaping bushfires. Hotels should be banned from being used for quarantine, because they spread the virus. Learn from failings of the hotel quarantine system and reform the quarantine workforce.
Train pharmacists to vaccinate people en masse. Send more vaccine buses out to regional areas, immigration detention facilities, institutionalised residential settings, and prisons, to get more people at high risk of dying vaccinated. Give people who are immune-compromised access to a 3rd vaccine to boost their immunity and anti-body levels, as research shows giving only two doses is equal to leaving immune-compromised peoples unvaccinated, and 3 doses is best practice to save lives and prevent severe hospital admissions, ICU and more deaths (which will save hospital public health millions preventing large amounts of further ICU hospital admissions).
Address vaccine shortages Australia-wide and booster shortages. It is over 3 months many essential workers were vaccinated with Pfizer, and over time the effectiveness of Pfizer /anti-body levels start to fade.
Upgrade hospitals in all major regional area hubs, so that regional hospitals have better infrastructure to cope with outbreaks and prevent further spread.
Build a PPE factory in each state/territory, producing high quality PPE, airtight N95 masks, PPE, N95 respirators, ventilators, medical infrastructure, etc. to help Australia and help other countries globally, given worldwide shortages. This will create jobs, help us nationally for future pandemics, respiratory protection in the bushfires and for fire-fighters who end up living with cancer from lack of respiratory protections. Flimsy non-airtight masks, with ear straps (instead of adjustable straps that go around back of head), and people using their own self-made masks, are not COVID-safe or air tight and can spread COVID.
Give out free N95 masks, PPE, gloves, hand sanitizer and alcohol spray to everyone in public places. Many are in financial hardship and can’t afford to buy these. If these were free more people would be using these, reducing spread of COVID more. These can be bought affordably online from Australian companies who are already producing N95 masks. Ensure essential workers have enough supply too, including disability workers and aged care workers (and mandate workforces to supply these free to workers).
Encourage everyone in hotspots to wear gloves in public places, and to sanitise their gloves and mobile phones before and after shopping. Create a reward system for those doing this (e.g. 10% off in major supermarkets). Considering mandating gloves wearing in public places/essential when COVID cases reach a certain number per day. Those who don’t want to wear gloves should be encouraged to use their tops/jumpers sleeves (with hand inside their clothes). This will help reduce spread through surface contact. 80% of young healthy people who get COVID have no symptoms, but are still infectious.
Make people register their bubble buddy on a database, to ensure people are not breaking rules having multiple bubble buddies. People who need more social support for mental illness reasons should still be able to apply for exemptions, which are already being granted with supporting doctors letters.
Prioritise systemic work to encourage sharing of excess vaccines globally, to prevent COVID mutating in poorer countries with low vaccination rates.
Air ventilation needs to be legally mandated to be fixed in apartment complexes and flats, to become COVID-19 safer and reduce spread. Body corporates could lead this work.
We need state and federal leadership in reforming COVID safety in the residential care systems, disability and aged care, youth residential care (many disabled children with poor health outcomes in this system) and prisons (80% of prisoners have disabilities including complex medical conditions/ chronic illnesses). Services that have led in COVID-safety (with least cases) should lead reform work in this area and trainings e.g. the St Vincents aged care facility in Eltham which developed COVD-safe protocols stricter than department of health’s mandated minimum standards.
Stop people going overseas for weddings and other non essential reasons.
Anyone who needs to travel to Melbourne or Sydney hotspots, from regional areas must carry a vaccination certificate and those who need to travel for essential reasons should be allowed to, but prioritised for vaccination immediately. Until they are vaccinated they should be mandated to wear gloves and N95 (quality airtight masks) in public places, to not spread COVID if they catch it whilst in Melbourne, until they get fully vaccinated. This will prevent further outbreaks in regional areas.
People who work in high-contact jobs like tradies, truck drivers, removalists, taxi and ride-share drivers, and hospitality workers should be mandated to wear gloves and airtight N95 masks at work, unless they are fully vaccinated. Hold taxi and ride-share drivers accountable to doing COVID cleaning protocols properly, by having random CCTV reviews, rewards for COVID-safe cleaning, and penalties for those who don’t do it. Give them free alcohol spray, gloves, N95 masks, and sanitiser to make COVID cleaning easier.
Regulate the sale of n95 masks, sanitiser and cleaning products in Australia to have a COVID safe tick, so people know if the products they are buying will protect against COVID-19. Most masks being sold are not air-tight OR N95 filtered.
Make vaccinations easier for disabled and other disadvantaged groups to access, make appointments easier to make. Make all information accessible to disabled people, Auslan and people with other languages.
Make it easier to get COVID tested, and text people in the queue system 30 mins before being ready to come in.
Do more to help the insecure workforce not spread COVID (paid leave) and do more to help small business survive.
For the anti-vaxers who are scared of dying or severe adverse reactions, create a nursing hub to watch over them for days after being vaccinated. Have consultations and workshops with them, to work with this population to address their fears and concerns. Have information from these available in videos translated to different languages, with subtitles. Give people choice over which vaccine they get, to increase uptake.
Content moderator: Sue Olney