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When I took on the role of Victoria’s Deputy Chief Health Officer in July 2020, there was a lot to learn.
But the most foreign aspect for me was working with the media.
It was a lot like preparing for an exam. In the morning, I received a briefing on the current facts and figures, the issues journalists had raised and those that needed to be, and had about an hour to remember as much as possible before answering questions during the session. press conference.
Reflecting on a year of press conferences, the role of journalism has emerged as an important issue. I knew that the pandemic had become a very political story and that political journalists approached the story very differently from health or science journalists.
This is understandable. Public health is inherently political, and state prime ministers have never been more exposed than during this pandemic. I was aware that by standing in front of press conferences, I was representing the work of thousands of people in government.
But for a hospital clinician unfamiliar with the public arena, having my every word scrutinized and dissected was a new and trying experience.
Some in this Melbourne press kit are really going after Dep CHO in Andrews’ presser today. About the News Corp model story – the one Hunt said he hadn’t seen. Dep CHO spoke quietly and less experienced in the media. Andrews intervenes.
– Cheryl Kernot (@cheryl_kernot) Aug 6, 2020
I can think of several issues where I might have taken a different approach. It is particularly difficult to explain the technical details during a press conference.
I remember once carefully explaining how we could tell when PCR tests might be false positive. Halfway through explaining viral genomes and how a PCR test works, it was obvious that all the reporters had logged off and I was probably wasting everyone’s time.
Explaining and defending mathematical modeling to the public was also particularly difficult, especially because all models have limitations and assumptions.
It is necessary to hold governments accountable, but not productive to crucify
From my perspective, it seemed that there were several main types of media stories. The most constructive were explanations that interpreted complex data or concepts or provided insight into what was going on “behind the scenes”.
I felt the best use of press conferences was to make sense of the current situation and tell the stories and trends behind the numbers. Studies have suggested these stories were more common earlier in the pandemic and have allowed journalists to challenge us to justify public health measures.
The “behind the scenes” stories were useful in expressing the complexity of the work of contact tracers or the hotel quarantine system, but could be difficult to organize. Much of the action takes place in online meetings and it was important to ensure that the confidentiality of the cases was protected.
The less constructive angles were those I called “blame and crucify” and stories that focused on seeking out conflicting opinions from experts or non-experts. Studies have found reports of blame peaked in August with the peak of Victoria’s second wave.
When events unfold at a rapid pace involving thousands of people, it is inevitable that there will be mistakes or misunderstandings. It’s human nature to try to find someone to blame.
This is not to diminish the impact that mistakes can have and the obvious need to hold government accountable, especially at a time when legal guidelines have a major impact on human rights.
On the other hand, focusing on fault finding can undermine confidence in the public health effort or erode compliance. The high-profile breaches of UK restrictions by Councilor Dominic Cummings are cited as having eroded trust in the UK government by “normalizing” rule bending.
More constructive questions would have been: “What happened, what have we learned and how can we do better next time?” This is what Victoria tried to do by publishing reports on infections among healthcare workers and patients who contracted Covid in hospital for other reasons.
Many thanks to so many of my colleagues in the infectious disease and infection prevention community who have contributed in different ways to the public health effort. @ASIDANZ @ACIPC
– Allen Cheng (@peripatetical) July 3, 2021
We were also very conscious of trying not to stigmatize communities in public. One of the first statements by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) was to denounce racist behavior against the Chinese community.
Since then, many different communities have been affected, and there has been (and continues to be) considerable effort to work with community leaders and representatives to respond appropriately and effectively.
While I had some experience as a commentator earlier in the pandemic, being a government official has many new dimensions. Commentators are rarely responsible for their statements. Before being Deputy Chief Medical Officer, reporters rarely came back to me to follow up on what I had previously said in the media. But as a public official, previous positions were often cited to me for comment. And it is much easier to point out problems than it is to find solutions to difficult problems.
I still have hope for the future of Covid
Since leaving the department in June, times have certainly been difficult with the large and growing Covid epidemic in New South Wales, the rapid escalation of the situation in Victoria and the ongoing epidemic in the region. ‘ACT. Obviously, the tools we used last year – locks, testing, contact tracing – are no match for the increased infectivity of the Delta variant.
We’re now back to ‘flattening the curve’ – trying to slow the increase in cases to make sure Covid isn’t rampant. Even with the current number of cases, public health and hospitals are under considerable pressure.
The next few months will remain difficult, as any significant easing of lockdowns is likely to lead to a rapid increase in cases and hospitalizations. But to limit transmission, significant social restrictions will likely be needed. This reinforces the need to support those hardest hit by their impact.
However, I still have hope for the future, as the “headwinds” posed by the increased infectivity of the Delta variant will be reversed by the “tailwinds” of vaccination.
There will come a time, hopefully as soon as possible, when there will be enough people vaccinated that the number of cases will start to decline.
And like Victoria last year, both NSW and Victoria will begin to chart their roadmaps by slowly easing restrictions. The first steps are to allow less risky activities, recognizing that some social contact is needed to ease the mental burden on the community if blockages are to continue for more than a few weeks.
The modeling report conducted by the Doherty Institute and the experience of other countries offer us a future where control will be easier, as public health measures will be complemented by high vaccination coverage.
Allen Cheng is a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Monash University. This article first appeared in Conversation.
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