About COVID19 and the road out of this mess....

We have a situation where we are using vast quantities of resources, creating tonnes and tonnes of garbage (masks, swab sticks, other PPE) and also not winning....

We have out of control COVID19, deaths and new disabilities every day...

COVID19 has made it onto every continent on Earth.

It’s mutating faster than we can adapt and variants that are close to escaping cover are being found.

There is however hope, and believe it or not, it has been under our noses the whole time.

We need to dust off our old measles and SARS Airborne disease control plans. We need to aim for human elimination of COVID19....

WHAT?! This is impossible you say? Maybe, read on.

There is a weird thing that happens when you aim for the impossible; you get better outcomes.

If you aim to use the airborne disease pandemic plans, initially it is hard, but then you adapt. You start getting reusable and useful PPE... this means fewer workers get sick ->

This helps to break the viscous cycle in one of the biggest drivers of disease... hospitals and aged care.

If you use the airborne plans you might have to close schools early and use a flexible hybrid learning plan, but as the community the school in recovers school is back!

We have learned a lot since the days of the old measles plans, perhaps with lower prevalence and mitigation, we might even have a head start.

Airborne disease planning also helps the community understand what to do, and help themselves.

Finally, why aim for zero covid... that’s got to be crazy right. It’s everywhere... it’s in our wildlife now!!!

Stay with me...

Now perhaps someone wiser than me can explain the maths of this, but apparently having zero cases gives a much higher statistical likelihood of having very little disease in the community..

Zero covid doesn’t mean actually zero... it gives a hard line in the sand to chase.

Zero covid strategy means that every case is hunted down and isolation is taken seriously.

There is no debate about whether we should do something at 10, 100, or 100,000 cases a day.

Debates that waste time and kill people... and our planet...

Zero covid occasionally means that you do actually have periods of zero covid, and this is a welcome relief...

So in summary, activate your country’s airborne disease pandemic plan. Aim for zero covid. It might not be possible... at least not for some time, but it will give far better outcomes.

Who knows, at some point we may even get human elimination, and we can go back to animal surveillance. If we buy time we may get better therapeutics. We can stop COVID19 mutating and beating us again.

If you can envision a future where we have governments that are following a path out of COVID19 please sign this. A petition to activate the Airborne Diseases Pandemic Plan so that governments can have a clear path to follow. We have had them for measles etc for many years.

Welcome a new future.

https://www.change.org/p/world-health-organisation-emergency-request-to-who-to-activate-airborne-disease-pandemic-plan

https://www.change.org/p/world-health-organization-who-who-must-raise-the-alarm-to-the-dangers-of-aerosol-transmission

Also start a petition in your own country. Ask your government for the airborne disease pandemic plan. Push them to answer why not... why not aim for better?