The Cost of Taking Cases to Zero

symptomatic infections. It's the most encouraging scientific advance so far in the battle against the coronavirus. The preliminary results paved the way for the companies to seek an emergency use authorization from regulators. They can get that if further research shows the shot is also safe. If the data hold up, the world may have a vital new tool to control

the worst pandemic in a century. Separately, the novavax vaccine received a fast track designation from US regulators as the drugmaker prepares to launch a large late stage study before the end of the month. The expedited review by the US Food and Drug Administration could push the company onto a shortlist of front runners in the race to bring a vaccine to market. Meanwhile, the pandemic shows no signs

of slowing, with worldwide infections surpassing fifty million. Cases in the US topped one hundred thousand for a fourth concert of day, bringing the nation's total over the ten million mark. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he'll reimpose some restrictions Monday, after the state reported about five thousand new cases in just forty eight hours today. New York City Mayor Build A. Blasio said the city is coming dangerously close to a

second wave of the novel coronavirus. And now, for today's main story, countries like the UK and France are locking down amid a spike in cases. They're concerned that winter will only make things worse. But if Europe and America want to see an example of how well lockdowns worked during colder months, they only need to look at Melbourne, Australia. The country's second largest city went through two lockdowns, one of which happened during its winter. Remarkable, the city has

reported no new cases since late October. But at what cost? Senior editor Jason Gale has more on what the world can learn from Melbourne. Melbourne's first lockdown lasted roughly from March to May, and it was a success. It reduced the number of cases to just a handful of day, but security failures at quarantine hotels for returning overseas travelers, poor communication of critical information to migrant communities, and inadequate contact tracing allowed the virus to row back in the

southeastern state of Victoria. The second state home order was only meant to last six weeks, but it turned into an almost four month affair. Yes, there's been an enormous price that's been paid. There's no doubt. This is Dr Terry Slavin. He's the chief executive officer the Public Health Association of Australia. There's been a lot of respect and regard and empathy for the people who have lived through

that experience. I mean the fundamentally, the withdrawal of liberties is a pretty challenging thing for a whole community to go through. When the city went back into lockdown in July, it's five million residents would only leave their home for essential work and services, medical treatment, school or an hour's exercise. A day, but cases continued to rise. A month later, the restrictions were extended across the entire state. Melbourne was

placed under a nighttime curfew. Schools were closed and large parts of retail, manufacturing and hospitality were shut down, and the city is still counting the economic and social costs. The majority of Victorians have started at home, have followed the advice and have abided by the rules, and as a result, few people have got sick and few people have died then would have otherwise been the case. And while the medicine has been really tough and really hard

to swallow, it's done the job. The Australian government estimates jobs have been lost on average a day across the state of Victoria, and demand for mental health services as surged by more than the spike. Key factors working in Melbourne's favor including closed borders, an infection count that was relatively small, and a state government with strong public backing. It's still talked twice as long as anticipated to crush

the curve. It's a bleak reality confronting political leaders, particularly in Europe. They have already experienced the damage wrought by full blown lockdowns and are now introducing new measures to fight a resurgence of the pandemic. In other parts of the world, that same political leadership hasn't supported the expert advice. And the truth is those communities have paid the price with their lives. The number of deaths that have been

preventable in relation to this pandemic is horrendous. And there are communities that have the expertise. There are populations around the world. There are countries that have the technical expertise in the capacity to do exactly what Victoria has done, but they haven't and that's strategic. Terry says Melbourne succeeded because it's citizens worked with the government in following expert advice.

I mean, the bottom line is that no police force in Australia, probably no police force in the world, could adequately enforce those laws if the majority of the community believed it was not in the community interest. It would have been impossible to meaningfully police if there wasn't community support for Victoria makes up about a quarter of the nation's gross domestic product and the restrictions have only deepened Australia's recession. The lockdown slashed about seventy a million U

S dollars a day from economic activity. Business leaders say it may take years for moving to recover. The social class are also mounting. Dr Cameron Lawyer is a family doctor and the chair of the Victorian Faculty of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. He says demand for mental health services in Victoria jump more than thirty in September and October. Mental health has been one of the

most striking impacts of the pandemic. We've seen a huge increase in the burden of mental health throughout our communities. Cameron says doctors have provided an extra seven and a half million consultations during the pandemic specifically related to mental health.

I would suggest that's probably an under reporting and the number has been higher, So that's a marker of how much the community is coming to us as GPS concerned about anxiety depression for as concerns during this pandemic, says two things really concern him as people are forced to

stay indoors, alcohol consumption and domestic violence. We've seen surveys from mon Ashes School of Public Health that has seen about a twenty increase in alcohol consumption throughout the pandemic, and we know that the consumption of alcohol is often associated with depression and anxiety, and alcohol is often one

of those sort of self medicating behaviors. To try and manage that, and importantly of significant concern to our community, we've seen nearly ninety thousand additional family violence offenses reported to the police, so that's a that's an increase in really seven percent. This has seen the highest rates of family violence in the state's history. Terry Slavin says it's important to remember what it talked to stop transmission of

the coronavirus in Melbourn. The scrambling effort to respond to this pandemic has been a great success, but that doesn't mean the games over. We don't even know if we're at halftime it alone three quarter time. We know that if we let our guard down, if there's a couple of super spreader events, if we see people becoming lacks with regard to the basics, the old fashioned public health, the hygiene, the distancing and all arrest, and then we

don't pick it up in the testing. We don't do the proper tracing, we don't do the quarantining and isolating, we don't keep communicating with the community about the progress that's being made, then this thing can set off again. Recently, the state took the day off of the Melbourne Cup horse race. It was a warm spring day and people hit saying Kilda Beach. Most of the beach goers weren't

wearing face masks like their requitee. Terry worries about residents slipping back into their old habits now that the virus count is down to zero. There there's a small steps forward and they're legitimately celebrated, but we don't return to behavior because if we do, we'll find ourselves in August trouble where it comes to COVID virus. So the challenge for everybody is to understand this is a long game.

And when you feel like you've been sprinting for the distance of a marathon, it's understandable that you want to celebrate feeling you've gotten over the line. But I'm sorry, this is an ultramarathon and the truth is that the world has changed and it's going to be sometimes time before we return back to what we considered normal last year.

Um that's not an easy message to receive. Terry says that until we have a safe and effective vaccine, we have to continue managing the coronavirus with the tools we have, avoiding congregate settings, keeping a physical distance, regular handwashing, and wearing a face mask. That was Jason Gale, and that's

it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Top of Foreheads, Jordan Gospoure, Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Jason Gale.

Original music by Leo Sedrin. Our editors are Francesco Levi and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.