If Andrews was really honest...

The revelation of 723 new cases of COVID-19 in Victoria – after two days of reduced cases but also reduced testing – led me into the most abhorrent temper outburst I have had since I was banned from RMIT for biting a security guard. The meltdown was so bad that I was hitting the cupboard doors of my bedroom, and my mother’s dog was jumping at me and trying to scratch me. My mother ultimately poured water on me to try and calm my temper whilst I was still in my pyjamas.

At the same time I admitted that I did not want to change my behaviour when it a meltdown. I also admitted that, ever since I first read Socialist Alternative, Socialist Worker and Green Left Weekly in the late 1990s, I had entwined abhorrent behaviour with the issues (global warming, now COVID-19) driving this behaviour so completely that I cannot express their opinions any other way. More than that, when I feel convinced by their arguments – and the current COVID-19 disaster in Victoria makes the World Socialist Web Site’s arguments appear irrefutable – I cannot ever contain myself expressing these views by screaming at the top of my voice, plus often hitting hard surfaces, and breaking even valuable things in the inability to contain rage. The aim of this rage is undoubtedly to alarm people enough to make them fight for the policies of socialist groups – complete confiscation of bosses’ profits to solve global warming and now COVID-19. However, it is logically obvious that the most extreme rage inside my home cannot attract the attention needed to mobilise the masses to achieve what the socialist groups desire.

During the previous two days of reduced testing and case numbers, when my temper was generally calm despite poor sleep and not getting to bed until 1:00 A.M., I planned to write on this blog what Premier Andrews would be saying if he were truly honest about the total failure of what, two days ago, Oscar Grenfell of the Socialist Equality Party conclusively demonstrated as a total sham “lockdown”. That Grenfell is 100 percent correct today’s figures give not the tiniest doubt. Unless the severest restrictions on business – proposed by not merely the WSWS but also epidemiologists like Julian Rait and journals like Australian Journal of Pharmacy – are implemented, case numbers will rise and rise indefinitely until improved medications are discovered. If we judge from HIV – admittedly an imperfect analogy – it could take up to six years before Victorians can be reasonably safe from COVID-19. Like COVID, attempts to discover a vaccine against HIV began at a very early stage in the virus’ history. Again analogously, there was early promise of an HIV vaccine that has never materialised even today when antiviral medications make HIV much less deadly. Like HIV, COVID-19 is a type of virus for which vaccine development is exceedingly difficult (though for different reasons than with HIV).

Here is, point by point, what Premier Andrews would say if he were radically honest about the total failure of his “targetted lockdown” policies:

1. “Today, sad to say, Victoria has observed 723 new cases of COVID-19, easily the highest on record since the pandemic began”
2. “This huge spike in cases is definitive proof that our lockdown policies have failed completely”
3. “It is clear that under the present lockdown case numbers are never going to fall”
4. “Victoria will be faced with four- and even five-digit case numbers for a very long time during August and into the spring if present policies are maintained”
5. “We have no doubt that a totally new policy is required if there is any hope for the state to ever recover from this disaster”
6. “Given that 659 of 723 new cases are community transmission, it is clear we must do something completely different to stop spread outside known sources”
7. “It is clear that we must severely rethink keeping workplaces open, given that 80 percent of cases are from workplaces”
8. “We must place the public’s safety above profits of big business owners, given that the escalation of cases proved beyond any doubt that the two are absolutely opposed and, verifiably, no compromise is possible”
9. “We must intensify our effort to hospitalise all inmates of infected aged care centres, and isolate  inmates for at least 14 days or until they test negative”
10. “We must develop policy that makes sure that working people in nonessential industries can gain an income until it becomes absolutely safe to reopen those industries”
11. “We must develop the strictest and most scientific criteria for what workplaces are absolutely essential to be kept open until the virus has been completely eliminated from Victoria”

If he really said something like this, Andrews would be being honest and truthful, and recognising he has presided over one of the most disastrous health failures in the world. As things stand, Andrews is simply playing by the rigidly limiting rules of protecting corporate profits above public health, when Oscar Grenfell demonstrates conclusively that protecting one is mutually exclusive of protecting the other.

The only alternative would be for Premier Andrews to honestly admit he is primarily concerned to protect corporate profits even when that stands verifiably incompatible with protecting public health. However, if he said that, one can admit the public reaction – a reaction the Premier would fear, but one his utter dishonesty makes by no means undeserved.