Australia on its ‘honeymoon’

Many Australians are rightly looking forward to a carefree summer, as vaccination bookings across the country reach new highs. With international borders opening up this month, and daily COVID-19 cases falling, there is a whiff of normality in the spring air.

However, Professor Dale Fisher, an Australian infectious diseases expert, warns that any return to normal life may be short-lived, based on the experience of countries overseas. Another wave of COVID-19 infections could be around the corner.

Singapore shows what could happen next

Professor Fisher presents Singapore as a prime example of how Australia could struggle to remain virus-free for very long. With one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, Singapore, like Australia, had planned for a phased reopening once 80 per cent of the population were fully dosed.

Instead, it has faced its steepest curve of infections and deaths so far, with daily case numbers rising from double digits in August to more than 5,000 a fortnight ago. Average daily infections since September have hovered above 3,000, and the total death toll is more than 550, most of them from the past three months.

Last week, Singapore recorded its highest weekly death toll, with 17 deaths on Sunday and a seven-day average of about 13. Even with 85 per cent of Singapore’s population now fully vaccinated, hospitals remain overloaded and restrictions had to be reintroduced.

Australians should be ‘cautious’ for the next eight months

As one of the first countries in the world to begin immunising its population, Professor Fisher says Singapore is now one of the first to deal with waning rates of protection as vaccines lose their efficacy. That means even those who are fully immunised face a new risk of infection.

Australia, he says, could find itself in a similar situation by March, when cooler weather will help to speed the rate of transmission. Professor Fisher warns that complacency among Australians who have had two vaccine doses could also discourage them from getting a third booster shot that could make the crucial difference.

However, with the right planning though, Professor Fisher believes Australia can still avoid a Singapore-style surge.

Lessons from Singapore’s unvaccinated cohort

Singapore has taken a key lesson from its failure to anticipate the high number of elderly people who had refused to be vaccinated at all. Many in that cohort were reportedly complacent because Singapore had, for so long, managed the pandemic so successfully and avoided a high death toll.

People aged over 60 years make up a much bigger share of Singapore’s unvaccinated population than in Australia. It has put a heavy strain on the country’s hospital system once borders opened and cases began spiking.

“Seniors who are unvaccinated and [who] have underlying medical conditions are at much greater risk of severe illness and death,” Singapore’s senior minister of state, Janil Puthucheary, said.

This week, Singapore has announced that, from December, all those who remain unvaccinated by choice will have to foot their own medical bills if they’re admitted to hospital or to COVID-19 treatment facilities. The aim is to encourage the vaccine-hesitant to comply. The government is currently footing the full COVID-19 medical bills for Singapore citizens and permanent residents.

Singapore is also considering a plan to give children aged 5 to 11 a one-third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, to reduce further the number of people who are unvaccinated. About 8,000 of Singapore’s total number of COVID-19 cases have been children under the age of 12.

Yet the chair of Singapore’s COVID-19 taskforce, Lawrence Wong, warns that, even as vaccination rates continue to rise, “COVID-naive states” – which would include most of Australia – should be ready for more waves of infection.