As the Coronavirus Pandemic rages on, the society is surprisingly still divided. The denialists accusing the cautionists of panic creation while statistics showing the increasing number of infections and deaths across the globe. Still for a smaller sector of denialists, this is fake news and a means for political opponents to undermine their power.
There will always be supporters of the denialist camp, but we all live in the same endless circle of life, so what does that mean to the society as a whole?
I just want to talk about what I saw and experienced in the last three months.
When the virus outbreak first exploded in the wet markets of Wuhan in China, all neighbouring areas were in high alert. I was in Hong Kong visiting my family for the Chinese New Year. Now if anyone knows, Chinese New Year is the Chinese equivalence of Christmas in the west. It is the time that families and friends coming together to celebrate a year of hard work and look into a new year of prosperity. But this year, in Hong Kong, it was a completely different picture. This year, face to face gatherings were reduced to minimum. People were staying home whenever possible. Apart from essential meet and greets, people were not going out. All my prior appointments with my friends were cancelled and every time people went out, they were wearing surgical masks to protect themselves. Supermarket shelves were cleared out, especially for sanitizing and cleaning products. I managed to stock up toilet paper for my parents before I left, because that was what I usually do before I fly out – stock up essentials for a period so they don’t need to carry heavy stuff home regularly. The week after I left, the lunatic toilet paper panic buying started. So, I was relieved that I did so prior to this happening.
There were no joyous celebrations but deadly caution in the air across the territory. Everyday was about infection rate and death rate and how Wuhan got locked down, and then local venues, local schools and local libraries were being closed one by one. There were fierce debates about how Hong Kong should close the border and how Mainland Chinese tourists should be quarantined. Government recreational accommodations were turned into quarantine centres and the frequency of cleaning and sanitising were increased in all public areas. It was a preparation for war. Hong Kong, who suffered immensely during the SARS epidemic, knows better than any other places in the world.
My flight back to Sydney was the first flight being impacted by the travel ban to mainland Chinese travellers by the Australian Government. It happened while checking in was happening, and it created confusion and chaos at the Hong Kong Airport (at that time already only real travellers with tickets could enter the airport). You were not given a seat at online and departure hall check ins. All tourists holding Chinese national passports were moved to a different area, and I only managed to get a seat allocated at the Gate after being checked again. People who slipped pass because of the policy change were tracked down, and their luggage were to be removed. The flight was delayed for over an hour as Qantas was doing its best to deal with the situation. On the flight back, everyone was wearing facial masks, including the cabin crew as nobody knew what is happening and everyone was scared. The flight was so full despite all the deplaning of unqualified travellers, as everyone who can go back to Australia wanted to go back on first flight available. It was an Exodus.
Going through the customs was equally confusing and stressful for some, especially when you have no idea who is healthy and who is not and we were all crowded into one enclosed space with multiple flights arriving at the same time.
Fast forward to the last few weeks, the pandemic has finally arrived the Australian shores in a more significant manner. Businesses were closed, people were losing their jobs, people falling ill and social distancing restrictions were in place. The split between denialists and cautionists have never been clearer during this time. But what do our actions mean in this period of the Coronavirus Pandemic?
As someone who works in public health, despite not being at the frontline but in supporting roles to the frontline, I once told my local barista that we are preparing for a war that we hope wouldn’t come. That was at a time when people were cautioned about isolation and social distancing before further clusters exploded across the city and strict enforcements were in place. Now the war is here and it pains me that I continued to hear denialist talks while the same denialists were the people who went into high security self-isolation first thing first. For those who listened to them they are not only being exposed to the virus through their reckless business as usual activities, but they are exposing other to heightened risks.
People need to understand that the sector that is dealing with this crisis is the public health, which the current governments have been trying to undermine through chronic funding cuts to force people to private health. With chronic under funding, the public health sector is trying its best to cope with the situation. With the coronavirus, whether you are rich or poor, the public hospitals, not the private, are the ones setting up new clinics, moving wards, and increasing clinical and non-clinical capacity to deal with the situation. It is all nice to think that the government had injected emergency funding into the sector for the pandemic, but people need to understand they cannot be improved overnight. Moving wards involves logistics that is more complicated than one thinks. For example, if you want to move a maternity ward for mothers to be to the private hospital ward so you can shield them from public patients and the virus, you involved logistics from rostering, system infrastructure, cyber security, physical equipment movement and sanitisation, relocation of information in the Electronic Medical Record (eMR), building of new wards within the system for new coronavirus wards etc. Also, one new presentation to a COVID-19 clinic involves more than just the creation of a new patient number (Medical Registration Number or MRN), but the integration of all information associated with this MRN will all the associated systems including, eMR, pharmacy, and if required ICU systems. This means a significant increase in network traffic if a significant number of MRNs were created within a short period of time. Works to accommodate these needs while being accelerated at the moment, cannot be done overnight.
Also, when non-clinical workers were being asked to work from home to meet the government guidelines (I have a new COVID-19 clinic established right behind my office building so we were recommended to work from home), the IT infrastructure needs to accommodate to meet the needs. With the current IT infrastructure in the community, it simply cannot cope (the situation could be better if the original fibre to house NBN project was completed). The panic abuse at IT staff and the pressure to build new infrastructure within a limited infrastructure to cope with clinical and non-clinical needs within the public health sector was unprecedented. The public health sector has been responding to the situation spectacularly, but we still need the community to work with the sector in order to live through this ordeal with minimal loss.
There is no point preaching to the non-believers and hard-core denialists. But just think about this from a social emotional perspective. Denialist or not, do you want to wait till you lost someone you loved, or you succumbed to the illness to change your outlook about doing your part for the society? Panic buying, thinking you are more resilient against the illness and just wanting to live your normal life are just aspects that put not only others, but yourself at risk. We all live in the same ecosystem, and only by working together disregarding your social, political and religious orientation that the Australian society can sail through this pandemic with minimal loss. You might think that it is none of your business, but if you waited till it is your business, it could already be too late. An unfortunately you are not going to win anyone’s sympathy.
Think before you act. That’s all we need to do to live through the Coronavirus Pandemic.
If you want to find out more about doing your part during this period, consult the NSW Health Coronavirus website today.
