Coronavirus Australia: Nick Coatsworth warns death toll could rise if Australians stop social distancing – NEWS.com.au

Australias deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth has issued a stern reminder to anyone becoming complacent about the importance of social distancing, warning the nations death toll will rise if people slip back into old habits. Speaking to reporters Sunday afternoon, Dr Coatsworth’s warning came after Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced a man in his 70s had died from coronavirus overnight – the state’s second death this week, bringing the national death toll to 108.
“This is a dangerous time. This is a very challenging time,” Mr Andrews said, days after greater Melbourne and Mitchell Shire re-entered six weeks of a stage-3 lockdown, in an attempt to get Victoria’s COVID-19 resurgence under control.
“I know we are asking a lot of Victorians, but we simply have no choice but to acknowledge the reality that we face and to do what must be done, and that is to follow those rules, to only go out when you need to, and to only go out for the purposes that are lawful.”
The state reported another 273 new infections overnight after a shocking week of record rises in cases.
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But an outbreak in New South Wales, linked to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, has served as a “timely reminder” to all Australians that “infectious diseases of any sort, particularly ones with pandemic potential, highly infectious ones, do transmit”, Dr Coatsworth said.
The number of coronavirus cases linked to the pub jumped to nine this afternoon, with health authorities urging everyone who attended the venue between July 3 and July 10 to self-isolate and submit for testing.
Dr Coatsworth said people going out and about “need to be very cautious” of the risk we still face without a vaccine yet developed.
“That is not to say that people can’t frequent those venues, of course you can, within the restrictions that the state governments have put on numbers of people and density, but people need to be very cautious, certainly if you have any symptoms of a cold and you are on the road, don’t drop into the roadhouse and sit down and have a meal. Obviously do things like get a takeaway. If the place looks full, move on to the next venue,” he said.
“These are just important, basic things that we are all going to have to do with COVID-19, with the COVID-19 epidemic.”
If people fail to act responsibly, the “reality” is that the death toll will start to climb again, he said.
“That’s the reality of COVID-19. They are the reality of a pandemic. It is possible that the death toll will increase. There is no doubt about that,” he warned.
Our “main weapon” against a surge in deaths and getting any coronavirus outbreaks back under control is “movement restriction and decreasing mixing of individuals”, Dr Coatsworth said.
“The avoidance of what we have seen overseas, which are large numbers of deaths, particularly in elderly members of society, is precisely why we take the measures that we are doing at the moment. We had to do it in February and March. We are doing it again,” he said.
“We know that once movement gets to a certain level – decreases to a certain level, and this has been the case in any situation of a second wave around the world – that the numbers eventually start to drop again.
“The key after that, of course, is to make sure that community transmission stops, that there are no cases of community transmission, and that we do our best to maintain the security of our borders through hotel quarantine and so on and so forth.”
Dr Coatsworth said that, for now, the focus is to get the “particularly significant outbreak” in Victoria under control, and “then go back to what we do best, which is contacting, tracing and eliminating small outbreaks”.
“I don’t think it would be fair to say that that is an unsustainable way to deal with it. The reduction in movement, the reduction in mixing of people is something that is our main tool to deal with COVID-19,” he said.
“What I don’t think we should suggest is that there will be outbreaks of the extent that we have seen in Victoria that would then necessitate the sort of stage three restrictions on the border closures that we have seen in response to this outbreak.”

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