I am really grateful for the advocacy of @drvyom, Catherine Bennett and others for advocating strongly that cluster management policy (not the tracing, but the policies around isolating household/secondary contacts) needed urgent change, leading to our precipitous drop in numbers

People can crow about lockdown being the critical step - but it’s important to acknowledge that under lockdown, a whole slew of interventions and changes were brought in. Lockdown stopped things spiralling out, but targeted policy brought the numbers down. This is the lesson.

Whether we could have come out of lockdown earlier if these policy changes had happened sooner (rather than hope lockdown would be enough) is a moot point. More critically important is that different policies will be needed as we come out of lockdown and start interstate travel.

Acknowledgement of aerosol spread is vital to keeping rosters safe, workplaces safe, places where we socialise safe.

Specific granular policy will hopefully avoid us going into lockdown again - like many many countries have avoided.

There is literally still no evidence that lockdown alone will lead to guaranteed elimination and anyone saying that is peddling snake oil. This can’t be the message we export to other states and internationally. It is a critical step - controls some (not all spread) and buys time

But the thousand and one changes made to health care, aged care and other workplaces (often by staff acting autonomously in their individual environment and without wide policy support) have done the heavy lifting. I hope we will start listening to those workers who did this.

And to those who spoke truth to power. We almost didn’t get there, with cases lingering in essential industry. Late policy change smashed it.

Time for a post hoc analysis, to find out what ACTUALLY made positive changes, rather than just applying a general brake.

I want to clarify this last tweet. I’m not simply talking about those who advocated via media. I’m talking about contact tracers who learned new system and raised issues. I’m talking about GPs who advocated for every patient, ever family. I’m talking about every nurse who told

someone else to put on a mask. I’m talking about every educator who wrote simulation documents, and every WorkSafe inspector who visited a site. And every geriatrician and nurse and aged care worker who put on a loose N95 and went onto a ward anyway.