Dan Andrews defends Victoria Covid lockdown after report slams school closures, public health rules

Victorian Prime Minister Dan Andrews has praised his Covid decision in the wake of a new report that shed light on pandemic failures, including the overuse of lockdowns and border closures.

The independent review of Australia’s Covid response disapproved of politically-driven health regulations and the excessive use of lockdowns – finding that they ultimately failed to protect the country’s most vulnerable people.

The 97-page review, spearheaded by former Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, Peter Shergold, urged federal and state governments to learn from their mistakes and review their processes to restore confidence.

But on Thursday, Victorian Prime Minister Dan Andrews defended his Covid restrictions, leading the state to endure the longest lockdown in the world – lasting 262 days.

“There are many things, many, many things we wish we didn’t have to do, many decisions we wish we hadn’t made,” Andrews said.

That is of course why when I say that these decisions were not taken lightly and that they have been the subject of debate and discussion and very careful consideration, it is precisely for those reasons, because there are consequences.

“We made the decision as a community that we would make the difficult, challenging sacrifice to avoid (the consequences) and that’s exactly what we did.

“The challenge is to weigh those consequences against having death rates like in Italy, in most of the United States and like in the United Kingdom.

“We definitely avoided some scenes, some things that we saw in different parts of the world.”

Mr Andrews then cheered his state before turning to how the rest of Australia mocked Victoria, saying ‘we showed the rest of the country’.

“We’ve always said they are very difficult decisions, none of them were easy, none of them were taken lightly and that’s why we are so deeply proud of every Victorian who has done so much,” he said.

“We showed the rest of the country, many of whom thought it was a good sport to try Victorians, that if we stick together and have that sense of unity we can achieve anything and that’s what we did. ‘

The Covid report, funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, John and Myriam Wylie Foundation and Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation, concluded that the closure of schools in the country was wrong.

“It was wrong to shut down entire school systems, especially when new information indicated that schools were not high-transmission environments,” the review said.

‘For children and parents [particularly women]We have failed to strike the right balance between protecting health and imposing long-term costs on education, mental health, the economy and workforce performance.

Rules were too often formulated and enforced in a way that was not fair and compassionate. Such an overshoot undermined public confidence in the institutions essential for an effective crisis response.’

Mr Andrews said that to ensure that all schoolchildren make up for all the work they have missed due to school closures, his state has gone above and beyond by hiring ‘thousands of teachers’.

“We can be optimistic about the future and there is immediate support to ensure that every child has every opportunity,” he said.

“That’s why we have thousands of teachers working in every school, making sure every child has all the support they need to make up for everything they may have missed.”

Mr Andrews said that while there were things his state could have done better, the pandemic was not an “academic” challenge and lessons could always be learned from any crisis.

“There are always lessons, and there are many, many reports,” he said.

“There was nothing academic about this event, it was very, very real.

‘This is all a continuous process of improvement and learning.’

The Fault Lines review was conducted over a six-month period and included more than 350 confidential submissions and consultations from health experts, economists, government officials, businesses and community groups.

It consisted of more than 160 submissions, 3,000 hours of research, and policy and data analysis.

The review concluded that various closures and closing of borders should have been used as ‘last resort’.

“Too many of Australia’s lockdowns and border closures have been the result of policy failures in quarantine, contact tracing, testing, disease surveillance and effectively communicating the need for preventive measures such as wearing masks and social distancing,” the review said.

Lockdowns, especially when targeted at a particular location, instilled a deep sense of inequality in those who were most restricted. Lockdowns generally created a universal sense that the pandemic was being controlled rather than managed.

As with lockdowns, border closures – particularly between states and territories – should be used sparingly and only in extreme situations. They should be applied with more empathy and flexibility.’

The review noted that despite the pandemic affecting everyone, “the burden was not shared equally.”

It said failing to adequately plan for the “different impact of Covid” meant the disease “spread faster and more widely.”

The review also noted that while Australia had early success in limiting infection rates and deaths, this success ‘started to falter’ in 2021, compared to other countries.

“The number of cases and deaths has risen even further in 2022, dramatically reversing our early competitive advantage,” the review notes.

As of September 30, 2022, Australia has registered 378,617 cases per million people in 2022.

“The latest official data available shows that by May 2022, the number of additional deaths in Australia had risen to nearly 359 per million people by 2022.”

The document also said the “lack of transparency” in experts’ health advice “helped mask political calculations.”

“Political calculation was never far from the surface of COVID-19 decisions,” the review said.

‘It is neither realistic nor desirable to take politics out of decision-making in a responsible democracy.

But the lack of transparency in expert advice to leaders helped mask political calculations.

“It was difficult to make the tradeoffs considered between health and economic outcomes. It made it easier for leaders to be selective about the ‘expert advice’ they followed.’