Now that the rules around testing in some states have changed the number of cases will have to figure less in our conversations about Covid. Removing the requirement to get a pathology lab test done once a quick home test comes back positive means reporting is now different from in the past. The key indices now are hospitalisations and the number of people in intensive care wards.
Even if New South Wales introduces a quick method to register a case using a mobile phone it’s inevitable that some cases won't now get reported so as the public continues to register a sense of panic by staying at home at levels not seen since the Delta outbreak the assurance it wants will remain out of reach unless we change our collective understanding of the figures.
Governments need the media in order to process the messaging it has to perform in order to make sure laws and regulations are taken on-board. What they say affects what we think, and what we think changes what we do. It’s important for the leadership to be on the same page as the governed, and nightly newscasts showing long queues of cars lining up at testing stations sent a strong message to the prime minister that something was wrong.
Hence the policy change. Of course each time the rules change we have to adjust our behaviour, but I don’t see people religiously using an app every time they get a positive result. Human nature instructs me to suspect that the number of cases reported will be wrong. I’ll base my thinking on information coming out of hospitals and health departments. Thank God for the ABC.
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