Scott Morrison said Australia has narrowly avoided “carnage” from the coronavirus outbreak, slamming strategies like herd immunity.
The Prime Minister said Australians had “measured up” to the challenge of COVID-19, leaving the country relatively unscathed compared to places like the UK and the US.
“We’ve done very well on the health side of things,” he said on 2GB.
“You know, of course, that we’re looking at just under 100 death and each and every one of those is a terrible outcome for, obviously, those individuals and their families. But compared to overseas, we’ve done well.”
Mr Morrison said the Government’s lockdown was working and more effective than other strategies like herd immunity.
“This idea of herd immunity, nobody’s got herd immunity,” he said.
“I mean the United States haven’t reached it, Sweden hadn’t reached it, the UK hasn’t reached it. I mean, you’ve got to get to about 60 per cent, two thirds sf your population. And even with all the death and devastation we’ve seen and all of those countries, they went nowhere near herd immunity and no one’s going to reach that.
“The idea that that’s some sort of path you can go down, that’s a death sentence, and that’s not something that Australia has ever contemplated.”
What is herd immunity?
It’s exactly what it sounds like. Big groups of people becoming immune to the virus.
The kicker is, how.
Immunity can of course be achieved if you’re immunised, but we don’t yet have any kind of COVID-19 vaccination.
So there’s really just one other option – to get the disease, recover from it and become immune.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it might be one way to cope with the virus, but in the Prime Minister’s words, it’s a huge gamble.
Call with the Queen
Mr Morrison said he had spoken to Queen Elizabeth on the phone last night, and had been proud to share Australia’s achievements.
“To be able to tell the Queen last night that the people of Australia were measuring up was a moment of great pride,” he said.
Mr Morrison said Australia’s battle against COVID-19 was of “great interest” to Her Majesty.
The call came a week after Jacinda Ardern was buzzed by the Queen, with Mr Morrison admitting he had only received a call from Prince Charles.
COVIDSafe app surpasses 5 million, but do we really need 40 percent uptake?
Mr Morrison has long been saying that while the millions of Australians who had chosen to download the app was a good start, millions more would be needed for it to be effective.
In fact, Mr Morrison even gave a number. 40 per cent of all smartphone users – of which there are currently about 16 million – would need to download the app.
Mr Morrison said achieving this 40 per cent uptake would be key to lifting further restrictions.
But today a parliamentary committee heard that the Health Department never advised the PM on such figures, and in fact there is no kind of number in mind for the app to be effective.
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