National cabinet’s unanimous decision to scrap COVID isolation rules has split the medical community.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday that all state and territory COVID-19 isolation mandates will end from October 14.
This means Australians who test positive to COVID-19 will no longer be forced to isolate for five days.
Some experts argue that now is the right time for the nation to move beyond the emergency response phase. Others label the move illogical and dangerous.
Professor Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, said isolation measures aren’t sustainable forever.
“It doesn’t mean it’s over, doesn’t mean it’s ever going to be over. But it does mean that we’ve come through this last wave,” Professor Bennett said.
“I think this decision out of Canberra reinforces that we’re now in a different place to where we were two months ago. Our overall risk of exposure in the population is starting to come down,” she said.
Given the lower transmission rates of the disease and the strong community level immunity, she said now is the time to move to the next phase of the COVID response.
Not everyone shares that view.
Speaking to ABC News, president of the Australian Medical Association, Steve Robson, said he was concerned about the health system’s ability to cope with a possible increase in cases due to people travelling during the holiday season.
“We need to protect the health system, and we need to protect vulnerable people like those in aged care and people with a disability,” he said.
“I think people who are pushing for the isolation periods to be cut are not scientifically literate and are putting the public at risk and they need to understand that.”
Mr Robson took a dim view of people downplaying the severity of COVID.
“If you think the flu is COVID, you’re living in fantasy land. COVID is a long-term infectious [virus]; we’re already seeing a massive effect of long COVID on the workforce and the community. You don’t have [that] with long flu or long cold. It’s fantasy.”
When do the rules change?
Australians who test positive to COVID-19 will no longer be forced to isolate for five days from October 14.
There is an exception for those who work in high-risk environments like health, the disability sector and aged care.
These people will still need to isolate.
What about COVID support payments?
Support payments for people who do not work in high-risk settings will also end from October 14.
Targeted payments will continue for casual workers in vulnerable settings.
Prime Minister Albanese said Australia was moving away from “COVID exceptionalism”, and it was not sustainable for the government to pay people’s wages “forever”.
“It was always envisaged that these measures were emergency measures that were put in place,” he said.
Can people go to work with COVID?
The rule change does not mean people should attend work or be in the community while sick, associate professor of epidemiology at Deakin University Professor Hassan Vally said.
People should isolate if they have respiratory symptoms, Professor Vally said.
“Just because we’re not mandating this, people still need to do the right thing and look after themselves and other people in the community,” he said.
When asked to advise the national cabinet on the continuation of the isolation regulations, chief medical officer Paul Kelly acknowledged that there were low rates of transmission in the population and high vaccination rates.
He said while the pandemic continued, “the emergency response is probably finished”.
“We will almost certainly see future peaks of the virus into the future, as we have seen earlier in this year,” he said.
“We’re not stopping infectious people going into the community now, and we won’t be in the future.”
