In an opinion piece sent out to media outlets, including Neos Kosmos, earlier today, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison urges the country to shift its focus when it comes to COVID-19 case numbers.

“The focus on case numbers was very important when we knew nothing about this virus and whether our hospital system would be able to cope,” he said stressing that a lot has changed since then and that “increasingly we need to look beyond just the case numbers to know what our future holds. How we can keep safe and how we get our lives back in a COVID world”.

Explaining that case numbers are important, but they are not the whole story he reassured that hospital and public health systems are prepared, “they have held up to the challenge and continue to do so. And where they have to be reinforced we know how to do that”.

“Our ICUs have the know how, we have vaccines and the new drugs like sotrovimab that has been approved by the TGA for use that can better treat those who are infected. This all means we can battle Delta and seriously reduce how much harm it does to our health, our way of life and our economy.”

Adding that our national strategy is necessarily about suppressing the virus and vaccinating as many people as possible, he argued that a one-eyed focus on just case numbers overlooks the fact that less people are getting seriously ill, let alone dying.

“Shifting our focus from just case numbers, to actually looking at how many people are becoming seriously ill and requiring hospitalisation will be increasingly what matters. After all, this is how we manage all other infectious diseases,” Mr Morrison said focusing on the date showing that after an AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccination, people are 86 to 87 per cent less likely to end up in hospital or an ICU, and while figures aren’t confirmed about how much vaccination reduces transmission, the evidence from the recent outbreak in Sydney is really strong.

Furthermore, the PM said that key next step in the government’s plan will also be getting children aged over 12 vaccinated.

“Just as we’ve seen overseas in places like the UK, even when their case numbers tick up, their hospitalisations and deaths are not increasing at the same rate and remaining flatter and at rates like you see with the flu,” he said.

“It’s always darkest before the dawn, and these hard lockdowns are imposing a heavy toll. They are sadly necessary for now, and we will keep providing health and income support to get people through, but they won’t be necessary for too much longer.”

Similarly to his statements two days ago, Mr Morrison urged the states to not back down and to not reopen before an overall 80 per cent vaccination rate nationwide is achieved.

“Under our national plan when we start hitting the 70 per cent and 80 per cent vaccination targets, we can start claiming back what COVID has been taking away from us,” he stressed.

“And when we do so, we must not be intimidated by the case numbers that will inevitably increase. We will be able to better handle them then, because of all the improvements we have made to protect people from serious illness and fatality.”

In saying that, the PM admitted that following the national plan does not mean that people won’t get sick from COVID-19, but that Australia can get on with our new normal, and treat the coronavirus like other infectious diseases, like the flu, with high vaccination rates, an efficient and sufficient healthcare system and treatments that work.

“It’s our path back. It’s our deal with Australians, that by everyone doing what we need to do – push through the lockdowns, stay home, get tested, get vaccinated – we can break out of the current cycle we are in and move forward,” he said highlighting that it’s inevitable seeing case numbers rise when Australia opens up, but that should not impact the country’s plan to reopen.

“…Delivering more than 300,000 jabs a day and with more than 1.73 million vaccinations delivered in just the last week, even if we do see more case numbers we’re going to see fewer hospitalisations and deaths meaning we can live our lives again.”

“Our focus needs to be on the rate of people being hospitalised. That’s the measure that should now start to guide our response,” he added

“I know it seems pretty dark now, but it’s always darkest before the dawn, and dawn’s coming. So please hang in there.”