Despite Miss Delta Strain‘s best efforts, Australia is finally starting what looks like the march out of the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. While many people are excited by the prospect of returning to some version of ‘normality’, others are understandably anxious about whether we are easing restrictions too soon. To gauge how Australia’s re-opening strategy stands in comparison to other countries, we’ve outlined how other nations handled the pandemic and what we can learn from the results they’ve seen.
Australia’s plan is one of the most conservative in the world, so we’ve contrasted with countries who took a similar approach (Denmark, Singapore) and others who emphasised speed (Israel, UK). The biggest insight is reassuringly simple: high vaccination rates combined with leaving mask and distancing requirements in place for as long as possible is the most effective way to get life moving again whilst keeping people safe.
Australia
Peak Pandemic Cases and Deaths: Experts warn that we are still yet to reach the peak of cases and deaths in Australia. Over the weekend, Australia recorded the highest number of cases in the history of the pandemic with 2528 new cases. We saw the highest number of deaths back in 2020, with 59 deaths on September 9th last year. The highest number of deaths on a single day in 2021 so far is 23.
Re-Opening Strategy in a Nutshell: Scott Morrison has laid out a four-phase roadmap based on vaccination rates. We’re currently in Phase A – you can check out the current vaccination rate here. The rest of the strategy looks like this:
- Phase B: When 70% of 16+ vaccinated, we will increase caps for international arrivals and reduce quarantine requirements for vaccinated arrivals. Lockdowns are still possible in this phase.
- Phase C: When 80% of 16+ vaccinated, the good stuff comes back. People who are fully vaccinated are exempted from local restrictions within their state; no caps for returning Australians; and international travel will be allowed again to safe countries. In this stage lockdowns are still possible, but will be ‘highly targeted’ to specific suburbs or area rather than city-wide or statewide. Domestic travel is most likely to be more free at this phase, with some restrictions still in place (i.e.: those under a localised lockdown prevented from travelling).
- Phase D: We don’t have a benchmark for when this phase will be reached as there are still too many unknowns, but Phase D is when we will have open international travel again. It’s likely a program for booster shots of the vaccine will be required to achieve this.
Each state can move through the Phases at their own pace – for example, NSW is already in Phase C with new Premier Dominic Perrottet quick to reintroduce some of the freedoms promised.
Impact of The Strategy: TBC… Right now NSW is being watched with great interest, as the first state to reintroduce freedoms after experiencing the full force of the Delta strain. It will take a week or two before we know what the impact of those decisions will be.
Israel
Peak Pandemic Cases and Deaths: Israel saw the peak of the pandemic earlier this year with a record of over 16,000 new cases on the 1st of September. They recorded a peak of 96 deaths on the 28th of January 2021.
Re-Opening Strategy in a Nutshell: In early 2021, Israel went hard and fast with the vaccine roll out. They were able to vaccinate the majority of the adult population (12+), keep daily cases to almost zero and lifted virtually all restrictions, including no mask-wearing nor social distancing. But when Delta arrived in June, cases began to rise again. As of October 9 there were 811 people in hospital and 235 in intensive care. This is still lower than Israel’s peak of more than 1300 hospitalisations and more than 300 in the ICU.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett reimposed some restrictions. They called this strategy a “soft suppression” – using the fewest restrictions possible, and refusing to lockdown fo the fourth time to help the country “learn to live with the virus”. Because most of their older and at-risk populations were vaccinated against the virus, Prime Minister Bennett is hoping that fewer people will need to be hospitalised than before.
Impact of The Strategy: Unfortunately, Israel had eased restrictions completely just as Delta landed on their doorstep, first infecting school age children (who weren’t included in the vaccination plan) who passed it onto their parents. Children under 12 make up a significant portion of Israel’s population, which meant their vaccine coverage wasn’t as impressive as it first seemed. Paediatrician and advisor to the WHO, Kim Mulholland told the ABC that Israel dropped their guard when they hit the vaccination threshold they’d set. She said this was amplified by “big gatherings, religious meetings, and all sorts of events that happened in June, in the middle of summer.”
The good news is that they’re getting a handle on the virus now, with instances of serious Covid cases in the nation reaching an all time low since late July.
TL;DR What Can We Learn From This? It’s looks like two things happened in Israel that drastically impacted their re-opening plans. First, they didn’t vaccinate enough people before they reopened – 80% of the eligible population is only around 68% of their total population (because a quarter of the country is younger than 12).
They were also unlucky with timing. They moved so fast with vaccinating that Israel abandoned measures like mandatory masks and social distancing and got hit with highly virulent Delta at the same time, which could explain higher case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths than expected.
United Kingdom
Peak Pandemic Cases and Deaths: The UK hit their peak in January 2021 with over 50,000 new daily cases and over 1200 daily deaths.
Re-Opening Strategy in a Nutshell: You might have heard UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson mumbling about ‘Freedom Day’ over the last year. If you didn’t hear (he really does mumble) July 19 saw England lift virtually all restrictions.
In February 2021, Johnson outlined a four-step plan to guide the nation out of lockdown. Stage one came in two parts – the first in early March with schools re-opening, and the second in late March with groups of 6 allowed outdoors, the return of organised sport and moving outside your local area. In April, stage two looked a lot like the current situation in NSW, with retail stores, hospitality and gyms open subject to social distancing laws. Stage three meant you could have six people in your home and no social contact rules outdoors. Finally, by mid-July it was a free for all – every single restriction was abandoned. As for how that went wrong…
Impact of The Strategy: Like Israel, England’s roadmap back to normality relied heavily on vaccination rates. They were pretty good – around 78% of the eligible population, which is roughly 67% of the total population of England. But without a gradual easing of restrictions, the country saw a huge surge in cases and the highest number of weekly infection rates since their worst days in January.
TL;DR What Can We Learn From This? It’s important not to abandon every protective measure at once. Former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was careful not to call the easing of restrictions ‘Freedom Day’ and instead stuck to outlining a step-by-step plan that worked towards reopening. Overall Perrottet seems to be sticking to the same idea by keeping mask mandates and reopening venues subject to social distancing requirements. These two seem to be the key measures that England ditched too soon.
Denmark
Peak Pandemic Cases and Deaths: Denmark hit their peak on 18 December 2020 with 4508 new cases, and a peak of 37 deaths on the 21 January 2021.
Re-Opening Strategy in a Nutshell: Denmark officially re-opened on 10 September. At the time, more than 86% of the eligible population had been vaxxed, including over 96% of the population aged over 50.
Denmark launched a coronavirus passport in mid-April, to make it possible for restaurants, bars, cinemas, gyms, sports stadiums and hairdressers to open for vaccinated people. Under this system, people with a negative test result in the past 72 hours could also go to those venues. The country ended the passport system on 10 September, and restrictions were completely lifted. Right now only restrictions for those travelling into Denmark remain in place.
Impact of The Strategy: Denmark has achieved an impressive 75.2% of the total population fully vaxxed! It’s only one month after restrictions were lifted, so while it’s still early days the country is averaging only about 350 new cases a day. It’s not a bad result.
TL;DR What Can We Learn From This? Trust in the Government and a community spirit are crucial for success. Overall, Denmark worked to foster trust between it’s citizen and governing authorities, which ultimately resulted in reaching the point of living with Covid.
Professor Michael Bang Petersen led Denmark’s largest behavioural Covid-project and advised the Danish government out of lockdown. He said on Twitter that Denmark required no vaccine mandates because of how much the citizens trust the government and authority management. Petersen noted that what authorities do during crises is extremely important – if communication is transparent, even if the message is unpleasant, trust will be upheld.
The Danish government also positioned social distancing as a “moral project” to protect other people, which generated a lot of public support.
On top of this, they maintained a cautious and controlled re-opening by keeping measures like vaccine passports as long as they needed to. They made sure people understood it as a temporary measure to push down the R value of the virus.
Singapore
Peak Pandemic Cases and Deaths: Singapore hit their peak over the weekend with 3703 daily cases, and also 11 deaths.
Re-Opening Strategy in a Nutshell: Singapore managed to reach ‘Covid Zero’, but was the first country to abandon the concept altogether. They worked towards the goal of 80% vaccination of the entire population before opening up. From mid-September, Singaporeans were allowed to travel without having to quarantine upon returning, however could only travel to countries with low rates of the virus. Throughout this stage, mask wearing remained mandatory, contact tracing remained in place and restaurants continued to abide by a 10:30pm curfew.
Impact of The Strategy: A month after the plan was put into place, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said that a surge in cases was to be expected, and despite this “[the public] are on a path of transition to a new normal of living with COVID-19.” While infections are at an all time high, cases are much less severe. Singapore’s healthcare system is certainly strained, however Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said hospitalisation rates are nothing compared to 2020.
In late September, Singapore tightened some restrictions in response to the surge, by reducing group sizes for social gatherings and dining, is ramping up testing and will not rule out reimposing restrictions if necessary.
TL;DR What Can We Learn From This? The higher the vaccination rate of the total population, the safer we will all be. As those rates climb, we’ll be doing exactly what Singapore has done – focusing less on the daily case numbers, and instead using the number of hospitalisations, severe cases or deaths as the measurement for what restrictions are needed. We should be maintaining mask wearing, social distancing and contact tracing check-ins until at least 80% of the population is vaccinated – if not more.
