'Not the time': Experts' dire warning about Australia lifting restrictions

Experts are warning Australia should not be easing coronavirus restrictions heading into winter and such action will inevitably trigger a soaring second wave of cases.

Dr Dena Grayson, an infectious disease specialist in the US, said the decision now to start lifting restrictions would undo all of Australia’s hard work so far.

“Now is really not the time for Australia to let its foot off the brake,” she told Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes.

Dr Grayson compared the spread of the virus to Australia’s last bushfire season, noting COVID-19 had the ability to rapidly spread across the community with devastating consequences.

“You have to think about flu season as wildfire season. So you have a little brush fire, it's going to spread like going through dry grass,” she said, noting such an outbreak would mean Australia would be forced into a much longer lockdown than previously endured.

Australia has so far had 97 deaths from coronavirus, but Dr Grayson believes that could rise drastically in the coming weeks and months.

She also believes the virus is “behaving the exact same way” as the Spanish Flu in 1918.

That global outbreak killed at least 50 million people.

“I knew back in December that this represented a pandemic threat, and I started telling people in late January and February, this is going to come in waves,” Dr Grayson said.

Australia could face Japan-style surge

Professor Kazuto Suzuki, a political scientist from the University of Hokkaido, has warned against lifting restrictions after living through an unsuccessful attempt to do so.

Hokkaido, Japan’s second-largest island, was forced to return to a lockdown just 26 days after easing restrictions and is now faced with 14 times more cases than it had heading out of its initial lockdown.

“They wanted to have a freedom back,” Prof Suzuki told 60 Minutes.

He said people viewed restrictions being lifted as the end of the outbreak and precautionary measures from citizens disappeared.

“Don’t take the lockdown for granted,” he said.

“The second wave is definitely bigger than the first.”

Yet Prime Minister Scott Morrison had repeatedly stressed Australia would undoubtedly face a rise in cases as restrictions were eased, but the country had taken measures in the preceding weeks to successfully handle outbreaks.

“On the frontline, our testing and our tracing capabilities containing outbreaks [have all improved], all backed up by a health system with more ICU beds and ventilators, more personal protective equipment, doctors, nurses, first responses, ready to go,” he boasted on Friday as he announced a three-step exit from restrictions.

Dr Kamalini Lokuge, associate professor at the Australian National University, believes the ramped-up testing is the key for Australia successfully curtailing the virus’s spread and comparisons to the Spanish Flu are misleading.

"We look today now where we are with this COVID-19 pandemic and we're in a very different position, particularly in Australia," Dr Lokuge told 60 Minutes.

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On Friday, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy warned that while restrictions beginning to ease, it was vital everyone continued to enact social distancing.

"We don't want to lose the control we've got. We want to make sure that outbreaks that occur are managed and controlled. We also want to make sure that before we do anything, every Australian follows these measures,” he said.

Second wave fears after shopping centres become overcrowded

Yet over the weekend, alarming images emerged of shopping centres packed with shoppers seemingly ignoring distancing rules.

Such behaviour has sparked fears of a second wave and on Sunday Prof Murphy once again urged people to do the right thing.

“We have also seen pictures of people crowded in shopping malls, in other circumstances, where they have not been observing the social distancing norms that are part of our new way of behaving,” he said.

“So regulation can achieve things, but every individual can do more than regulation, by behaving in a way that is respectful of social-distancing norms.”

Prof Murphy said it was better to simply leave if shopping centres become too crowded.

“So if you are going to a shopping centre to buy something, go and buy something, but don't hang around the shopping centre for half-an-hour mingling for no purpose. Go home,” he said.

“If you are arriving at a shopping centre and you find a crowd at an escalator not wanting to practise social distancing or crowding together, don't go in. Leave. Come back later.”

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