Australian decision to scrap mandatory COVID isolation 'premature', medical association says

A decision by the Australian government and the States to end mandatory isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 has been widely criticized as premature.

On Sept 30, the national cabinet – the Federal government, States and Territories – agreed to end mandatory isolation from Oct 14, widely seen as marking an end to Australia's emergency response to the pandemic.

The decision, however, has left many medical and health professionals concerned that Australians now believe the pandemic is over.

Dr Abrar Chughtai, a lecturer and the director of the Master of Infectious Diseases Intelligence program at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales, called the decision "premature."

The announcement was widely expected due to widespread "community and financial pressure" on the government, he told China Daily.

"Eventually we have to live with COVID, but we should understand the pandemic is not over yet and new strains are still emerging, and people are dying," Chughtai said.

Up until Oct 1 this year, 14,853 people had died from COVID in Australia since the pandemic began, according to World Health Organization data – half of them having died this year.

The Australian Medical Association has strongly condemned the move, saying those who pushed for dropping mandatory isolation "are not scientifically literate" and are putting lives at risk.

Australia had closed international borders for around two years and imposed strict limits on movement around the country, often being referred to as 'fortress Australia'.

The government scrapped most COVID rules in August-September and mandatory isolation was the last restriction that remained.

Professor Jeremy Nicholson, pro-vice-chancellor for Health Sciences and director of the Australian National Phenome Centre at Murdoch University in Melbourne, said: "There is a generally held assumption that the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, and we need to get back to 'normal', whatever that means.

"That assumption is highly dependent on your social or political viewpoint and your exact location on planet Earth.

"From a scientific point of view, there is no evidence whatsoever that we are yet through the evolution and development of the virus, and the general lack of testing does not help us much with estimating true transmission rates and in many cases even disease prevalence," he told China Daily.

Despite having one of the highest vaccination rates per head of population in the world, renewed vaccination in Australia is not being taken up, which means immunity is dropping.

Up to about 20 percent of people who have had COVID-19 will go on to suffer from Long COVID symptoms, which can persist for years, Nicholson said.

Scientists say these symptoms long-term will cost billions, or even trillions, of dollars worldwide, because COVID acts as an inflammatory accelerant for existing sub-clinical pathologies that increase the chances of cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, and a range of neurological problems. These are now well-established facts based on studies on millions of people and published in top science and medical journals.

"COVID-19 is still a dangerous long-term health threat," Nicholson said. "Political wishful thinking and selective use of scientific data have been the cause of many of the world's COVID-related problems over the last couple of years – and even though the world has taken such a huge knock, it seems that the lessons will never be learned."

Hassan Vally, associate professor in Epidemiology at Deakin University, said this shift in isolation requirements in Australia "reflects a fundamental change in the risk calculus when it comes to the threat that COVID poses in the general population".

He said the shift has occurred because of the high level of immunity in the population – the result of a combination of vaccination and infection.

It is notable and important that isolation requirements will remain for high-risk settings such as aged care and hospital workers, Vally said.

"Whether this is the right time to make this change, and whether this can be seen as marking the end of the pandemic in Australia, is no doubt going to be fiercely debated over the coming weeks."