Omar Khorshid: Premier should set and stick to a new border opening date now

The decision to keep WA isolated from the rest of the world was a shock to me and to many others who had heard Premier Mark McGowan’s repeated statements that WA was opening as scheduled. The delay itself wasn’t surprising, as many in health care would welcome more time to prepare. Better access to rapid antigen tests, N95 masks readily available in healthcare settings and a greater proportion of adults and children vaccinated and boosted will all make health care safer. The Government says hospitals are ready but many on the ground would disagree — hospitals are scrambling to be prepared after a period of many months of being relaxed about COVID. The surprise was the indefinite delay and the target for booster doses, likely to be reached as winter approaches. Last winter, public hospitals were unable to cope in WA. There were more than 6000 hours of ambulance ramping in August alone, important surgery was deferred for months — and that was a winter without flu and without COVID-19. This long-term problem was caused in no small part by the WA Government’s underfunding of public hospitals since taking office. But it can’t be fixed in the short term. The announced new beds are a pipe dream until we can find more staff. More staff that need to come from interstate and overseas. Until we rejoin the rest of the world, not many workers will be lining up to come to WA. More boosters should have some impact on transmission — although it’s unclear how much. But the longer you wait, the fewer of our most vulnerable will be at peak immunity after their booster. And winter is coming! A flu and COVID epidemic in winter would be a disaster for WA that we must avoid. The Chief Health Officer has acknowledged these facts in his advice. The border was never going to fully protect us against Omicron the way it has for the previous variants. The rapid transmission occurring now in Perth is proof of that and it is time to move on to a new strategy. Experience of the Omicron outbreak here in Australia offers two options to the WA Government. NSW imposed minimal public health measures to slow the virus and imposed them too late — once there were already thousands of cases in the community. It’s fair to say they had minimal effect and the virus spread rapidly. Hospitals filled up both with people sick due to COVID and people who got sick for other reasons and happened to test positive to COVID. Both pose a huge burden on hospitals. South Australia took a middle path. It kept its borders open but imposed reasonable public health measures at an earlier stage — things like density limits at venues, mask wearing, and limiting the number of visitors to the home. These dramatically reduced the expected caseload and the outbreak may have peaked already, without hospitals being as overwhelmed. It’s clear to me that South Australia offers the better path. The numbers do matter. Even though most will find Omicron infection relatively easy to cope with, a proportion of people will need hospital admission and our capacity is very limited. A slower spread of the virus will mean hospitals, GPs and many essential services will be more likely to cope with the additional burden from the outbreak and the loss of workers. Last year we were locked down due to isolated cases of COVID-19. This year, despite the transmissibility of Omicron and the fact that there are hundreds of exposure sites, there are still minimal public health measures in place. To protect West Australians now, we need the Government to accept that the border closure is no longer the solution. Our bubble has burst. We need more active steps to manage the outbreak that is happening right now and to limit the impact on the vulnerable, our hospitals and our way of life. The time to act is now. The Premier must put in place immediate public health measures to control the current outbreak. He should set and stick to a new border opening date and use every single day between now and then to prepare. Dr Omar Khorshid is the president of the Federal Australian Medical Association and an orthopaedic surgeon in Perth