WHY WE SHOULD BE OPTIMISTIC WITH WHAT IS HAPPENING IN VICTORIA...

The Covid-19 pandemic situation world-wide is frightening. People are dying across the globe. In a sense people do need to be frightened because this prompts them to learn how to protect themselves.

The state of Victoria is in a unique situation with a fairly small (by global standards) but defined population that is being tested and contact traced across the board. There will be some really good data which will provide greater insights about the virus; how it spreads; what preventative measures work; why some people seem to have a lot of people around them who get the virus, become very unwell and pass away and yet others are either asymptomatic or only have a very mild form.

The available data is indicating that it is people with underlying co-morbidities that are most vulnerable but is there a subset in that? It is already telling us that the virus is more insidious at the moment than was previously known and it is also telling us that there are a lot more people than originally realised that are contracting the virus.

Through studying the data, a more defined range of symptoms will become apparent. Six weeks of data on a single population is going to do much more in understanding the virus than just relying on a tally (which is the count or register) of people who turn up at the local clinic or hospital. There will be really robust, scientific data. The community can be reasonably assured that the information will be more accurate than it has been in the past. Even if there is only six weeks of data the community are going to have greater knowledge and understand what is happening.

The public need to remember that this is a new virus. It was first identified in January of 2020. All the other information that is known on infectious diseases, medical scientists have had a long time to investigate, understand, vaccinate and treat. In this instance, the scientific community are learning on the run. It is difficult in this era of social media and 24-hour news cycles, for the everyday person to understand. 

A continual focus just on the tally of numbers instils more fear. Understanding the numbers provides scope for informed decision making. A good policy to follow is “Be alert, not alarmed”.

Victoria has an excellent background in providing public marketing to teach people how to look after themselves. The problem at the moment is that not enough is known about the virus. This means that if money is put into marketing a way of being safe, information is being given that is not necessarily correct or accurate.

In the 1980s AIDS marketing was very powerful. It was effective. When the public marketing campaign was released it was done with almost a decade of information about how the virus spread. Another example of preventative care is the TAC advertisements. Also, very effective. Keep your eyes on the road, put your seatbelt on, try not get distracted by phones or coffee cups. This campaign was supported by a century of knowledge about what vehicles can do to people.

Other marketing campaigns covered preventative health measures such as not smoking and getting children vaccinated. Once upon a time, many of those diseases killed children. Generally, when people are scared they enact survival behaviours. In the past, people have learned the need to put a seatbelt on when they get in the car, become more active with the Life Be in It campaign, and applied sunscreen and a hat as a result of the Slip, Slop, Slap campaign. In all these instances, medical scientists who told the story of how people could help themselves, had years of research behind them.

With regard to Covid-19, the community are going to have to figure out a way to live with this condition and open up the economy again, whilst waiting for the scientific community to find a vaccine. When research parameters of medications and ethical considerations are acknowledged, this could take some time.

The community needs to be scared but also optimistic. The measures that are being undertaken in Victoria will help in a way that is powerful. It is a significant population base that is providing more knowledge. With more knowledge we can effectively find treatments and vaccines to slow or reduce the impact on the community.

Data collection across the world by the scientific community is telling us that Covid-19 is scary but with it there is starting to be a measure of control. The community can be optimistic that we will be able to get back to some form of normality more quickly than would have been possible had we kept going the way we were. So, take heart and I’ll just reiterate “be alert, not alarmed”. Australia has a robust healthcare team that know what they are doing. The resources are there to manage the outbreak. We are a lucky country.

Anne Crawford.