By Margaret Maccoll
Vaccination of all is the best weapon in the fight against Covid but not the sole defence, says Noosa specialist emergency physician Dr Ian Norton, whose social enterprise Respond Global has been at the forefront of Australia’s battle against the virus since it began.
“Vaccination is a big area. It is one tool,” he said.
“In the UK and US they have reached 80 per cent but still have infection rates.
“We will need to have other forms of defence such as screening and tests. We need to remember all public health measures are going to be here for a lot longer. Freedom Day won’t be happening.”
With 20 years’ experience in emergency medicine across the world, including heading the World Health Organisation’s Emergency
Medical Team (EMT) Initiative program and being deployed to an Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Dr Norton and his team are at the ready to manage the Covid crisis.
In the early days of the pandemic he was called to assist when the now famous Ruby Princess cruise ship sat off Sydney with a quarter of the crew infected and 100 people symptomatic.
When Victoria was hard hit by the virus in 2020 the Federal Government called on Dr Norton to come to the aid of an aged care sector in crisis.
Ninety-seven per cent of aged care facilities had said they were ready for Covid, but clearly being ready on paper and truly being ready
weren’t the same, he said.
His team returned to Queensland from Victoria and left behind an incident management electronic system and a preventative system
that was working well and an aged care system “in a much better place“.
During the latest wave of Covid in NSW, the Federal Health Department called on Respond Global to conduct rapid tests in affected local government areas.
“We were the first group using rapid tests,” Dr Norton said.
“We did it at Howard Springs [quarantine facility]. It’s well used in the UK and USA.
“We did 300,000 tests over seven months. We were the best ones to roll it out in Sydney.”
The tests take 10-15 minutes to provide a result and are 95 per cent accurate in people with Covid symptoms and 50-60 per cent accurate for asymptomatic people, who are less infective, he said.
Respond Global has also been contacted by the Commonwealth Bank and other businesses to conduct rapid testing of their staff as part of ongoing management of the virus.
In Queensland the group has been involved in vaccination, focusing on priority areas and with a team on the ground.
“The state government has prioritised food and manufacturers as the need to supply food is essential and we are helping them vaccinate workers on site,” he said.
Dr Norton described Australia as being on a knife edge in its effort to keep Covid out while dragging the chain on vaccination.
“If people can get access to vaccination, they should step forward,” he said.
“Vaccination is a way out of lockdown but not a way of getting to zero.”
Dr Norton said he didn’t expect NSW would return to zero Covid cases but saw the path forward would involve multiple health measures including high rates of vaccination to obtain herd immunity.
“It’s about joining the rest of the world – living with Covid. We have to alter our perspective.
“When we open we will see local transmission. We still have a 30 per cent chance of catching it when vaccinated. If enough of us are vaccinated, if we get into 90 per cent vaccinated, we’ll see the herd immunity kick in. We’ll see less spread.”
He was disappointed at the roll out of health information on vaccines that has impacted vaccine uptake, saying AstraZeneca was a safe vaccine.
While Victoria and NSW were building their vaccination numbers, Queensland was lagging with vaccine hesitancy and supply shortfalls as dominant issues, but he expected vaccines supplies to increase across October, November and December.
The next phase in the vaccination rollout will be younger children.
Dr Norton said with the Delta strain of Covid infecting children, discussions needed to be had with parents on vaccination and the risks.
“We should follow what the rest of the world is doing,” he said. “Studies are occurring in other countries. We know vaccines are safe in pregnancy and that’s a good indication of the risks in young children.
“To get truly herd immunity, we need to vaccinate children.”
Respond Global is also branching beyond the Australian borders to assist countries in the Pacific.
It is negotiating a vaccination rollout to Vanuatu using supplies of AstraZeneca from Australia, together with vaccines donated from other countries and their own funded supplies.
The group plans to base themselves on a luxury vessel to conduct the rollout.
For more, visit respond global.com
