A tired Australia plans to reopen when the death toll from COVID-19 reaches 1,000

SYDNEY, Aug 30 (Reuters) – As Australian deaths from COVID-19 exceed 1,000, a heavy but modest by world standards, a country that has used incessant closures is now facing perhaps its biggest challenge. the health policy of the pandemic: how to reopen.

The highly infectious Delta variant has breached the country’s fortress-style controls and is sufficiently entrenched in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, and with one foot in Melbourne, which authorities have dispensed with plans to remove it.

Instead, they plan to increase Australia’s backward vaccination effort and live with COVID-19, an approach that would help struggling businesses, but which is opposed by states determined to crush the disease.

On Monday, Australia reported four fatalities, bringing the total death of COVID-19 to 1,003, according to government data. The data show that it has recorded an average of two to three deaths a day recently.

But while deaths are on the rise, infections are rising to successive highs above 1,200 a day. With more than half of the population closed, even areas with little or no infection are affected.

The exuberance that accompanied the success of Australia’s early suppression has since been replaced by community frustration over a delayed vaccination program that has recently picked up pace.

Just over 33% of those over the age of 16 have received two doses of vaccine, well below most comparable countries, according to a Reuters tracker.

When the tired nation reopens, authorities hope to prevent the growing infections and increased deaths experienced in countries such as Britain and the United States, which recently recorded more than 1,000 deaths in a single day.

The lesson for Australia is that the use of masks should not be eliminated as restrictions facilitate and classrooms should be better ventilated to protect students from the air virus, the epidemiologist said Raina MacIntyre.

“Wearing a mask is a small price to pay to get that extra layer of control,” said MacIntyre, head of the Kirby Institute’s Biosafety Research Program, UNSW Medicine. “We will need one more vaccine strategy as well as ventilation.”

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Australia plans to start easing restrictions when 70% of those over the age of 16 are fully vaccinated, which is expected by the end of the year. After 80%, comes a gradual reopening of international travel, according to the government-backed plan, modeled by the Doherty Institute in Melbourne.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants Australia to treat COVID-19 as the flu as vaccination rates rise. “That’s our goal, to live with this virus, not to live in fear,” he said last week.

But some largely infection-free states, including Queensland and Western Australia, are stepping back as they see health services at the heart of the Delta outbreak in the Sydney area being stressed.

There are 840 people in the hospital treated for COVID-19 at the epicenter, with 137 in intensive care and 48 in need of ventilation.

Mark McGowan, Western Australia’s prime minister, said his iron ore exporting state wanted to continue “crushing and killing” the virus, with blockages when necessary.

Outbreaks and blockages are devastating tour operators, said Daniel Gschwind, chief executive of the Queensland Tourism Industry Council.

“We’re not closed and that’s great, but tourism is like a pipeline,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where that pipe is broken. If you sit at the end of the pipe, nothing will happen.”

The Australian economy, which rebounded rapidly in the early stages of the pandemic, will contract sharply this quarter, threatening to push the country back into recession if the decline persists for the rest of the year.

In the group of 20 major economies, Australia is the latest to mark 1,000 deaths from COVID-19. Among the major economies in Asia and the Pacific, four (New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore) have far fewer than 1,000 fatalities, and New Zealand is the lowest at just 26 years old.

Australia’s growing number of cases means it will try to reopen under a cloud of infections when, up to the Delta strain, it was largely virus-free.

Delta’s high infectivity, short incubation, and asymptomatic spread caused it to spread rapidly after being detected in Sydney in June. The number of cases is higher for younger people, who have had limited or no access to vaccines.

Reports by Jonathan Barrett; Additional reports by Jill Gralow and Roshan Abraham; Edited by William Mallard

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