On Thursday, Australia’s National Cabinet I Agree List India as a “high risk country” and temporarily reduce the number of people returning from the country by 30%.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said other countries would soon be placed on the high risk list, even though only India has been included so far.
As an Australian who is of Indian descent but has lived in Australia all his life, that is Pictures from India In the past few days, I’ve been pulling my heart in a way that has surprised me – just when I thought I was becoming a little desensitized to the destruction the Covid-19 pandemic can wreak.
Unprecedented disaster
India is in the midst of an unprecedented disaster, even by the devastating standards we have seen over the past year. On Thursday it reported the largest one-day increase of Covid cases for every country since the pandemic began, with 314,835 new cases. Many hospitals are Lack of oxygen.
Unsurprisingly, there are many key drivers of transmission in India: poverty, very dense areas, lack of resources, and limited lockdowns, to name a few. It is also very clear that the reported Covid numbers, alarming as they are, clearly represent an underestimation of the actual level of spread.
With Every third test is positive In some parts of the country, the actual number can be many times higher than the number found.
That combination of increasing tests, increasing percentage of positive results, and exploding cases. Everyone was going in the wrong direction. We can witness some of the worst scenes of the pandemic in India. I don’t see how this doesn’t turn into a major humanitarian disaster. pic.twitter.com/jivbYjgEN1
– Andrew L. Croxford (@andrew_croxford) April 15, 2021
I have to admit that the Australian government’s response to this situation has torn me apart. From a disease control perspective, I understand the reasons. By limiting the entry of people from high risk countries, we are certainly limiting our risk in Australia.
As we have seen many times during the pandemic, hotel quarantine is not perfect and the risk of infection escaping these facilities is very real. One of the triggers for this decision was clearly the transmission of the observed cases by the hotel in the past few days in Perth.
But from a humanitarian point of view, I feel uncomfortable. One could argue that those who wish to return from India need to look after them now more than ever. In the event of uncontrolled transmission and danger to life due to infection and a Lack of hospital resourcesWe should not abandon the people of India or any other country facing a similar situation.
As difficult as it is to make such a decision, it is not without precedent. Limiting or preventing travel from high risk countries to reduce the risk of disease importation has been a mainstay of the pandemic response in Australia and elsewhere. This policy of reducing the number of travelers from high risk areas looks like this similar on the UK “Red List” which prohibits people from traveling from certain countries (unless they are UK or Irish citizens who can enter but must be quarantined at their own expense and test negative).
However, it begs the question of how we will define “high risk” from now on. Expecting a rigid definition is likely inappropriate as there are many variables to consider, including the variants of the virus circulating in other countries.
Even so, I think it will be important for the Australian government to communicate as much as possible about how these decisions are being made.
Human perspective
The more transparency and clarity we have in these decisions, the more trust we can have in their fairness. Understanding the basis for making these decisions can help us understand when and why a country should be added to the list, and of course when and why it should be published again.
The national cabinet agreed to propose vaccinations for ages 50 and over from May 3 in state respiratory clinics and from May 17 in general practitioners
Also to reduce the number of overseas Aussies returning on charter flights from high risk countries and to limit exemptions for travel to high risk countries
– Josh Butler (@JoshButler) April 22, 2021
The response to this crisis in India speaks again to the complexities of public health decision-making. While the science is worth listening to, it can’t tell you what your policy settings should be. In setting the policy, one has to consider fairness, consider the human perspective, while balancing what is acceptable to the wider community.
We have seen the challenge of balancing these different and often competing considerations in other difficult decisions made during the pandemic. This is just the latest example.
The Australian government has likely encountered a fairly sensible and pragmatic response to protect Australians by not completely closing the border with India but by reducing the risk of importing Covid-19 by limiting the number of arrivals. However, like many others, I am deeply concerned about the situation in India. The looming crisis shows that until we have control of virus transmission in all countries, we still have a long way to go to get out of this pandemic.
Hassan Vally is an Associate Professor at La Trobe University.
This article first appeared on The conversation.
