‘Hundreds Of Deaths’: Doctor’s Grim Coronavirus Warning For Australia's Indigenous Communities
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4,557 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Australia
Virus has killed 20 people in Australia and more than 40,000 worldwide
A doctor from Far North Queensland in northern Australia is pleading with the government for coronavirus assistance in Indigenous communities, including basic masks and isolation facilities, in order to avoid hundreds of deaths.
Indigenous Australians have been told they are extremely vulnerable to Covid-19 due to underlying health issues such as diabetes, rheumatic heart disease and kidney disease, conditions they’ve been forced to battle since colonisation.
Indigenous people over 50 have also been advised to stay home “to the maximum extent practical.” The same advice was issued for people in the wider community with chronic illnesses over 60.
Australia has a long history of having diseased white people dock their boats in the harbour & disembarking. Nothing new here.
— Senator Briggs (@Briggs) March 27, 2020
The Aboriginal community of Yarrabah is not only dealing with the shock of a government-enforced lockdown but is also grappling with the potential reality of what will happen if the virus reaches the town, just 45 minutes from the tropical North Queensland city of Cairns.
“If we don’t get to this, for a community like Yarrabah, that could be deaths in hundreds, and we need to avoid that at all costs,” Yarrabah Senior Medical Officer Dr Jason King told HuffPost Australia.
After weeks of hearing pleas from Indigenous groups, Prime Minister Scott Morrison used powers under the Biosecurity Act to give states and territories across Australia authority to restrict entry into Indigenous communities as of last Friday, a move welcomed by the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO).
But doctors on the ground stress that there is still a lot of work to be done to protect Indigenous communities.
