A top doctor who led Australia’s response to Covid has admitted governments and health officials lost the trust and goodwill of the public over their handling of the virus.
Dr Nick Coatsworth, who was the deputy chief medical officer during the pandemic, said draconian measures to contain the virus dragged on too long and caused people to tune out.
In an interview with Body and Soul, Dr Coatsworth said Australians were on board with what was being done to promote ‘public health’ for the first year of containment measures.
‘They were open to what we were doing,’ he said.
‘I think, honestly, if we’d taken the foot off the restrictions a little bit earlier in 2021, then we would’ve had a lot more people stick with us.
‘We had an opportunity to really change the way that people think about health, but I think we lost that in 2021 – the consequence being people just mentally blocked out 2020 and 2021 entirely.’
Dr Coatsworth has previously stated ‘group think’ and exhaustion led to poor Covid responses in a 10-page submission to the special commission of inquiry being held into the pandemic.
Dr Nick Coatsworth (pictured centre) was one of the most prominent health officials during the Covid pandemic
He also made the stunning admission that imposing vaccine mandates was wrong, following a Queensland Supreme Court finding in February that forcing police and paramedics to take the jab or lose their jobs was ‘unlawful’.
Although Dr Coatsworth said Australia had assembled a top team of medical experts to advise on managing the pandemic they lacked an ethical framework meaning the focus became too narrow.
‘This allowed the creation of a “disease control at all costs” policy path dependence, which, whilst suited to the first wave, was poorly suited to the vaccine era,’ he said.
Dr Coatsworth argued the restriction and testing policies adopted to constrain the first deadliest strain of Covid in 2020 lingered well past their relative benefit.
He also thought the differing approaches among states and between them and the Federal government confused the public and eroded human rights.
‘I strongly encourage the inquiry to recommend amendment of the Biosecurity Act to ensure that all disease control powers are vested in the federal government during a national biosecurity emergency,’ Dr Coatsworth wrote.
Dr Coatsworth said that allowing Covid restrictions to drag on too long alienated the public
This means the federal government would be in control of state border closures during a pandemic.
Outside of ‘biosecurity emergencies’ states would retain their disease control powers.
Dr Coatsworth has previously taken particular aim at the Victorian government, under then Labor premier Dan Andrews, over its harsh Covid reactions while hosing down criticisms of Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison during the pandemic.
‘Scott Morrison didn’t issue fines to children for crimes against disease control, and Scott Morrison didn’t shut down two towers full of refugee and migrant Australians,’ Dr Coatsworth said.
‘There were very real democratic rights that were trammelled in the course of this pandemic.’
Dr Coatsworth was referring to the July 2020 lockdown on Melbourne public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne, which eventually led to the Victorian government offering a $5million settlement to those affected.
After the Covid inquiry was announced in September 2023, Dr Coatsworth took aim at Mr Andrews who ‘thinks that the Covid inquiry should focus on vaccines, national medical stockpile and PPE’.
‘It is a word that he would prefer never enter into the historical record on our (and his) pandemic response. But it will,’ he said.
‘None of those are related to the core question. Proportionality,’ Dr Coatsworth added.
‘It is a word that he would prefer never enter into the historical record on our (and his) pandemic response. But it will.’
In his latest interview Dr Coatsworth admitted the public profile he gained from the pandemic has led to media opportunities such as being a fill-in host for Channel Nine’s Today program and making a new show, Do You Want to Live Forever?.
‘The opportunity arose out of the pandemic [because] people knew my face,’ he said about the new documentary series focusing on how to extend lifespans.
‘I love what I do in the hospital, but it’s often too late.
‘Once someone’s got a chronic disease, you can’t really make a difference. You make the biggest difference if you can stop them getting the chronic disease in the first place.
‘So, I figured television was the best way to get that message out and communicate how to live a healthier life.’