DISABILITY ADVOCACY TRUTH TELLING

Our Victorian and NSW governments have made thousands of mistakes that have contributed to where we are at now, this petition unpacks each mistake, looking at what we can learn from it, what things can be done differently. We can’t just do the same as what we have done before, to try reduce covid spreading, when it’s not working, and while we are putting enormous pressure/inundation on our hospital + health systems which will eventually crash +burn, and have too many staff contact-traced +placed in isolation to function. The pressure and acute stress placed on families from lockdowns, compounding family violence, is preventable. These are some practical non-restrictive reforms to help slow covid19 spread, ease inundation on the hospital and ambulance systems, and work towards easing restrictions to end lockdowns.

We need state and federal leadership to get us out of the longest lockdown worldwide. We already know the that most disadvantaged peoples in our society are still not vaccinated: Aboriginal peoples, children,  many older peoples, people with disabilities, people in residential/institutionalised settings, people with severe mental illness, people living with or escaping family violence, CALD peoples and migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and prisoners. Disadvantaged groups need hospital systems and health workers to not crash and burn, more than anyone else needs this system to work and be sustainable. Disabled and elderly people are not collateral damage in this war against covid,  we are humans and every death that is preventable from covid19 and covid’s impacts on mental health, is worth the work, resources and energy we put into changing things, and  is worth the sacrifices we make.  Please help share my petition to put pressure on our government to change things, save lives, reduce hospital inundation and work out way out of the longest lockdown worldwide. Please support and sign this petition on GetUp, please share the GetUp link below:

https://me.getup.org.au/petitions/40-things-our-government-can-do-differently-to-slow-covid-spread-ease-restrictions

1. More needs to be done for mental health, fast track the implantation of the mental health royal commission, co-producing this with people with lived experience, and give free online and mail/post out mental health support and courses, and self-care resources that are lived experience informed. Do more for suicide prevention and fix the 000 suicide call-out response. Do more to help people afford food and rent, to prevent homelessness.

2. Build Howard Springs standard quarantine facilities in every state/territory. Run quarantined planes directly in and out and pay workers who work in these areas higher wages to live / move closer to the area (to contain any outbreaks for workers who want to do this). Airbnb could support these workers with subsidised or free accommodation, like they have done for healthcare workers moving to work more hours in hospitals, and people escaping bushfires.  Hotels should be banned from being used for quarantine, because they spread covid. Learn from failings of the hotel quarnatine system and reform the quarantine workforce.

3. Train pharmacists to vaccinate more people on mass. And let doctors GP nominated clinics vaccinate more people. Give people who are immune-compromised access to a 3^rd vaccine to boost their immunity and anti-body levels, as research shows giving only two doses is equal to leaving immune-compromised peoples unvaccinated, and 3 doses is best practice to save lives and prevent severe hospital admissions, ICU and more deaths (which will save hospital public health millions preventing large amounts of further ICU hospital admissions).

4. Address the vaccine shortages Australia-wide and booster shortages – because its already been over 3 months many essential workers were vaccinated with Pfizer, and after 3 months the effectiveness of Pfizer /anti-body levels start to reduce.

5. Upgrade hospitals in all major regional area hubs, so that regional hospitals have better infrastructure to cope with outbreaks and prevent further spread.

6. Children are biggest carriers especially in childcare and schools, so invest in reforms to improve covid-safety, in ways that still support children’s learning and development.

7. Build a PPE factory in each state/territory, producing high quality PPE, airtight N95 masks, PPE, N95 respirators, ventilators, medical infrastructure, etc. to help Australia and help other countries globally, given worldwide shortages. This will create jobs, help us nationally for future pandemics, respiratory protection in the bushfires and for fire-fighters who end up living with cancer from lack of respiratory protections. Flimsy non-airtight masks, with ear straps (instead of adjustable straps that go around back of head), and people using their own self-made masks, are not covid-safe or air tight and spread covid. Many people working with people high risk dying (aged care workers, disability workers, doctors nurses, etc having access to quality PPE is important, equally as important as it is to those high risk of dying from covid). When there is better supply of high-quality PPE, all essential workers should be mandated to wearing these, with appropriate breaks outdoors wearing masks with better ventilation/ non-airtight to prevent negative health impacts of recycling own oxygen for too long.

8. Give out free N95 masks, PPE, gloves, hand sanitizer and alcohol spray to everyone in public places. Many are in financial hardship, can’t afford to buy these. If these were free more people would be using these, reducing spread of covid more. These can be bought affordably off ebay from Australian companies who are already producing N95 masks (but they are not airtight or have head-straps, but still affordable).  Ensure essential workers have enough supply too, including disability workers and aged care workers (mandate workforces to supply these free to workers).

9. Currently children are not being counted in the population aim of 70% vaccination, so its actually 54% population vaccination (with 46% of unvaccinated population that includes children), for when our government plan to end lockdown at the supposed “70%”.  Children should be counted in the population for aiming for 70 vaccination rates, for reducing the amount of deaths from covid + case numbers soaring.

10. Encourage everyone in hotspots to wear gloves in public places, sanitise their gloves and mobile phones before and after shopping. Create a reward system for those doing this (e.g. 10% off shopping bill from coles or woolworths). Considering mandating gloves wearing in public places/essential when covid cases reach a certain number per day. For those who don’t want to wear gloves, should be encouraged to use their tops/jumpers sleeves (with hand inside their clothes). All essential workers should be mandated to wear gloves at work and sanitise their gloves after putting them on (cos many touch the gloves fingers whilst putting them on). This will help reduce spread heaps, cos biggest way covid is spread is surface contact, and 80% young healthy people who get covid have no symptoms, and everyone has no symptoms at the start of catching covid but still infectious.

11. Make people register their bubble buddy on a database, to ensure people are not breaking rules having multiple bubble buddies or 10 bubble buddies. For people who need more social support for mental illness reasons, can apply for exemptions, which are already being granted with supporting doctors letters.

12. Do systemic work to support countries who have too many vaccines, to better share these globally, to prevent covid further mutating in other countries globally.

13. Address parks and the 9pm curfew supermarket crowding by encouraging people to go to these places at less crowded times and rewards for people who go at less crowded times. 

14. Where numbers reach over 1000 cases a day, and hospitals and health system are turning 000 ambulance calls away or non-responsive, they should only do delivery from essential services, or click and collect from outside.

15. In UK a company called Respro invited running/exercising N95 masks with greater ventilation called sportsta, Australian government should make a deal with them to get these out to people high risk of dying people 1st and un-vaccinated people 2nd, to give back freedom of exercise and make exercise outdoors covid safe.

16. Air ventilation apartment needs to be legally mandated to be fixed in apartment complexes and flats, to become covid-19 safer and reduce spread. Body corporates could lead this work.

17. We need state and federal leadership in reforming covid safety in the residential care systems, disability and aged care, youth residential care (many disabled children with poor health outcomes in this system) and prisons (80% of prisoners have disabilities including complex medical conditions/ chronic illnesses). Services that have led in covid-safety (with least cases) should lead reform work in this area and trainings e.g. st vincents aged care facility in Eltham.

18. Alcohol mist needs to be sprayed from machines into indoor essential services areas eg hospitals, institutionalised residential settings, childcare, schools etc. China was doing this continuously to reduce spread.  

19. Tighten definition of essential work , there are rich people doing renovations and work on investment properties that won’t be leased to low income people’s who need housing. Most works can wait til after lockdowns.

20.  Once there is enough vaccines available, give incentive to companies and rewards for employee’s to mandate their staff  to get vaccinated for health and safety reasons. Exemptions should be allowed for people who have medical valid reasons to not be able to be safely vaccinated. 

21. Stop people going overseas for wedding’s and other non essential reasons , cos even delta strain   previously got out of  hotel quarantine from a family who went to a wedding overseas. 

22. Police the border lockdowns in regional Victoria, currently these are not being policed and that doesn’t allow enough protection for regional Victorians for preventing future outbreaks.

23. Give option for relocation of people who are high risk of dying, and those who need to access health or medical care that they cannot do this in endless lockdowns, to relocate people who want to move to regional victoria. Each regional area could build a quarantine facility, to enable movement of people and essential workers, health specialists, in Metro areas to regional areas.

24. Educate  people that vaccines don’t stop you from catching covid and risk reduction is not significant enough to stop the spread of covid (even more so for astrazeneca the risk of catching covid is more than if you had Pfizer). NSW are coming up to 80% vaccination targets next week but still have over a thousand cases a day still increasing / still not peaking, and this 80% doesn’t include unvaccinated children population. Educate people that vaccines don’t give you full protection against ending up in intensive care, or from dying. Tell truth about statistics in NSW, how many who are dying were vaccinated? 3 weeks ago, 33 of 160 people in ICU in NSW were vaccinated (with one or two doses).

25. Anyone who needs to travel to Melbourne or Sydney hotspots, from regional areas must carry a vaccination certificate and those who need to travel for essential reasons should be allowed to, but prioritised for vaccination immediately. Until they are vaccinated they should be mandated to wear gloves and N95 (quality airtight masks) in public places, to not spread covid if they catch it whilst in Melbourne, until they get fully vaccinated.  This will prevent further outbreaks in regional areas.

26. Truck drivers and removalists companies should mandate all employees to be vaccinated, unless they have medical reasons why they cannot be.  

27. Our government should look at New Zealand lockdowns and what they have done differently (their numbers were higher than Melbourne’s 3 weeks ago and within 2 weeks of really strict lockdown, they got their numbers down hugely and were starting to ease restrictions.

28. Regional patients arriving to Metro hospitals, and vice-versa, should always be covid19 tested to avoid hundreds of nursing staff, doctors and medical engineers going into isolation and hospitals shutting down as a result (e.g. RMH outbreak).

29. Hold taxi and ride-share drivers accountable who are not following covid-safe protocols, have mystery shopper assessments and random CCTV screenings, if they think they’re being watched or going to be fined, they will do the covid safety better.

30. Invest more in research to develop life-saving covid19 treatments for those at highest risk of dying. The Nasal spray used in India, should be reviewed by TGA and research to assess this and other treatments that are safe for children who cannot access vaccines yet. These treatments can be used as interim measure for children, until TGA approves a child-safe covid19 vaccine.

31. Regulate sale of n95 masks in Australia to have a covid safe tick, so people know if the masks they are buying will protect against covid19. Most masks being sold are not air-tight OR N95 filtered.

32. Make vaccinations easier for disabled and other disadvantaged groups to access, make appointments easier to make. Make all information accessible to disabled people, Auslan and people of other languages.

33. Send more vaccine busses out to regional areas, immigration detention facilities, institutionalised residential settings, and prisons, to get more high risk of dying people vaccinated.

34. For the anti-vaxers who are scared of dying or severe adverse reactions, create a nursing hub to watch over them for days after being vaccinated. Have consultations and workshops with them, to work with this population to address their fears and concerns. Have information from these available in videos translated to different languages, with subtitles. Give people choice over which vaccine they get, will increase uptake.

35. Research shows it is 1.5 meter physical distancing in a laboratory environment with no wind, in environments with a small amount of wind research recommends 1.83 meters physical distancing. Our government needs to review the physical distancing requirement to be more covid safer in environments that have ventilation, air-flow, air-conditioning,  heating and outdoor windy environments, including strategically considering wind direction and where that wind is being blown towards to minimise spread of covid19 especially at doctors, essential services, covid-testing sites, etc.

36. Retro-fit hospitals and public places infrastructure with copper or another surface that spreads covid less.

37. Ensure temperature checking is done at all public places where people come into indoor environments.

38. More needs to be done to support businesses, and reform Centrelink to not take over 6months to 2 years to process peoples claims, when people are in acute financial hardship.

39. Education videos should be mandated for protestors, with video campaign that is lived experience led by people highest risk of dying from covid and their families, those who have lost loved ones, those who have almost died, etc. Many anti-vaxers and protestors don’t believe covid is real and don’t know anyone who has been effected by it, if they hear real stories it will help de-radicalise them. There shouldn’t be a focus on fear, but be productive in reforming perspectives, to actually care about older peoples and disabled peoples.

40. Change false covid-safety advertisements/claims on cleaning products e.g. products that claim to clean covid but don’t, and don’t have at least 70% alcohol in their ingredients. Regulating sale of hand-sanitiser that doesn’t have at least  70% alcohol, also needs to happen. Essential workplaces providing these to workers that do not meet covid safety standards need to be reformed. And a covid-safe tick on products that actually help kill covid. This issue needs to also be fixed with disability work platforms like Mable and peak body of taxi’s/ride-shares’ commercial passengers victoria, need to only be giving out to their workers covid-safe products.