The militarised, punitive treatment of racial minorities is one of the most critical points to lift out of Premier Daniel Andrews' press conference today. Race and class have led to two unequal approaches to public health during COVID-19

THREAD

Restrictions on metro Victoria is evidence-based; of the current cases, health authorities are tracking 5,000 contacts

Testing is important. But it is voluntary

Social housing residents in the the 9 towers will not be released until they are all tested. How is this justifiable?

Premier highlighted that the 9 towers present a health emergency. But residents are not allowed to leave and they aren't being relocated into luxury hotels like other people in quarantine

They are in police detention even though the rest of Melbourne is under lockdown

Another 260 military personnel (on top of 500) will work at testing sites and road blocks. Having established that Australia is comfortable with having migrants, refugees and Aboriginal people held by police, soldiers will be used more widely. But unlikely to be in While suburbs

When asked about the expired food & lack of essential items for residents of the 9 towers, the Premier said: "This has never been done before. There's no handbook." Yet both the state and fed Government have Emergency Management Departments; the latter is under Dutton's portfolio

The pandemic is unprecendented. It came right after the bushfires. It's a tough and unenviable position. However, it's clear that other Victorians will not be forced inside their homes with police at the door, confiscating food deliveries from them, and coercing them into testing

There are 69 COVID-19 cases in the towers. With coerced testing, this number was always going to be relatively high. There's 6.4 million Victorians. <1M have been tested; esp. in 12 restricted zones. More migrants & refugees are picked up by virtue of being targeted for testing

This is another racialised aspect of testing. Testing is very important. Victoria could have aimed for total testing. Instead it chose only highly multicultural suburbs, which make up less than 52% new infections. They didn't target Anglo suburbs that had higher rates in Wave 1..

If the 12 restricted suburbs had been cut up differently, the chances of higher infection in Anglo majority areas would have increased. As Chief Health Officer concedes, most people who are positive don't know they are until they're tested, because they're ignoring mild symptoms

Aside from lock down to reinforce social distancing/ hygenie, testing is one of the most effective ways of managing spread of infection

The problem remains that not everyone is being treated equally under the testing regime. 9 towers are effectively being denied informed consent

Informed consent is one of the most important hallmarks of science and clinical operations. It is the hallmark of our national guidelines on ethics. Aboriginal people, disabled people, refugees, migrants, poor people are all groups that have been historically denied these rights

The Premier repeated today, addressing the residents of the 9 towers: "Best thing to do when someone knocks on your door is to agree to be tested." Residents report that they can't sleep because similar messages are blasted to them over the PA system

This is not informed consent

If everyone in Victoria was hearing loud messages in their homes to get tested, and they couldn't leave their houses, and police were at their doors—would we call this voluntary testing? The problem is the unequal treatment of the 9 towers BECAUSE they are poor, racial minorities

At the press conference, a journalist asked whether this treatment was fair, given most 2nd Wave infections come from the staff at the quarantine hotels, managed by the Gov. Another journalist asked if the Gov was taking responsibility. Premier said this isn't time for blame...

Premier said that he wouldn't to responsibility of COVID outbreak because 1) there will be an Inquest (although there's no dispute that infections come largely from Gov's mismanagement of quarantine); 2) the Gov is focused on managing pandemic

In fact, it's possible to do both

One of the values of the Victorian Public Service is "Accountability." It is therefore very relevant for the Premier to answer questions of responsibility, particularly when 3,000 disadvantaged people are being held by police, for tests they've been inadequately informed about

There were other interesting aspects, such as admitting that the "hot zone" (restricted 12 suburbs) are, in fact, not the primary sources of infection ("it's a corridor"). The fact that schools are another primary source of infection, but were reopened in Wave 1 is also vexing

Police and Defence Forces will be using checkpoints and licence plate recognition to enforce lockdown. It will be important to watch which groups are targeted. In Wave 1, police focused on multicultural suburbs and didn't issue fines in Anglo suburbs that had higher infections