George Christensen overreaches on Singapore's road map to a new normal

Federal Nationals MP George Christensen took to Facebook this week to praise "sensible Singapore" for its intention to move away from a goal of zero COVID-19 transmission and to begin treating the disease like other endemic illnesses such as the flu.

According to Mr Christensen, the move, which would involve quarantine being "dumped for travellers", non-compulsory isolation for close contacts of cases and no more daily announcements of case numbers, represented an "end to the pandemic madness".

"Australia and every other nation will eventually have to get to this point when they realise that governments can easily eradicate freedoms but actually can't eradicate a virus."

But Mr Christensen has clearly jumped the gun, with his Facebook post ignoring some key qualifications.

First, Singapore has yet to set a date for implementing the measures. 

In an opinion piece published in The Straits Times, Singapore's ministers for health, finance, and trade and industry (who are the co-chairs of the city-state's COVID-19 governmental task force) foreshadowed the new strategy, but did not offer a definitive timeline.

"We are drawing up a road map to transit to this new normal, in tandem with the achievement of our vaccination milestones, though we know the battle against COVID-19 will continue to be fraught with uncertainty," the ministers said.

"In the meantime, we still need to take the necessary precautions and safeguards, to keep infections and hospitalisations at bay."

Singapore's road map also relies on it hitting vaccination targets, including sustaining a "comprehensive, multi-year vaccination program", improvements to rapid testing capabilities, and developing new and effective treatments for COVID-19.

The ministers further noted that being able to live with COVID-19 would depend on "Singaporeans' acceptance that COVID-19 will be endemic and [on] our collective behaviour".

As of June 29, Singapore had fully vaccinated 36 per cent of its population (2.09 million people) while a further 20 per cent (1.18 million) were partly vaccinated. According to the ministers' opinion piece, the city-state aimed to have two-thirds of the population partly vaccinated by early July and fully vaccinated by early August.

Australia, by comparison, has fully vaccinated 5.8 per cent of its population (1.48 million people) and partly vaccinated a further 17.7 per cent (4.55 million) people).

WHO vaccine advice for children taken out of context

Anti-vaccination groups on social media are sharing old advice issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as evidence that it is unsafe for children to be vaccinated. 

Screenshots of the outdated WHO guidance stating that "children should not be vaccinated for the moment" have been shared widely online, prompting a wave of speculation about the WHO's motivations and misinformation regarding child vaccination. 

In some variations of the post, the screenshot of the WHO advice has been cropped, thereby removing the words "for the moment".

Some users have further claimed that the advice represents a recent revision of official WHO policy.

But the posts don't capture the full story. 

It is correct that the WHO did change its official advice regarding the vaccination of children against COVID-19 on June 22, replacing its recommendation that children should not be vaccinated against COVID-19 with advice that it was less urgent to vaccinate children than older people.

In a statement to PolitiFact, the WHO said the change came after its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts concluded that the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine was suitable for use by people aged 12 and older. 

The public health organisation's chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, explained in a June 11 video that the advice in part reflected the limited supply of vaccinations available globally. 

"So, the reason … WHO is saying that vaccinating children is not a priority is because children, though they can get infected with COVID-19 and they can transmit the infection to others, they are at much lower risk of getting severe disease compared to older adults," Dr Swaminathan said. 

"Except for very few children who are at a high risk, it is not considered to be a high priority right now because we have limited doses of vaccines, we need to use them to protect the most vulnerable."

The WHO said it would continue to update its recommendations "when the evidence or epidemiological situation warrants a change in policy".

At this stage, Australia's medical regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), has not approved either Pfizer or AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for use in children.

According to an article written by three Australian pediatricians and published by the Conversation, clinical trials have shown the use of the Pfizer vaccine on the age group is well tolerated and effective.

Pfizer has been approved for children over 12 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US and by Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. 

Recent clinical trials have also shown the Moderna vaccine, the other mRNA vaccine Australia has signed up for, to be highly effective in teenagers.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are also being trialled in children as young as six months. 

Children under 16 are due to be vaccinated in phase 3 of Australia's COVID-19 vaccination rollout.

In other news

Anthony Albanese says Australia's real wages have 'flatlined' for eight years. Is he correct?

After being overly optimistic with its wage forecasts for years, Federal Treasury is now, according to Labor, predicting that real wages will fall.

In his budget reply speech, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said Treasury was offering a "low-wage future" and that he believed Australia could do better.

"So much better than real wages declining over the next four years after flatlining over the last eight years," he said.

Fact Check this week found that claim to be close to the mark.

Over the eight years to December 2020, real wages — that is, wages adjusted for the impact of inflation — grew by 3.1 per cent, representing an annual average growth rate of about 0.4 per cent.

Whether this can be characterised as "flatlining" is somewhat subjective: over the eight-year period, wages growth has not been constant, with relatively solid growth in some years and weak or negative growth in others.

However, by recent historical standards, average growth has clearly been low.

For example, wages grew at more than double the annual average pace (0.9 per cent) over the 12 years leading up to December 2012.

And according to the predictions in the May 11 federal budget, real wages will be slightly lower in 2024-25 than in the December quarter of 2020, the latest data available when Mr Albanese made his claim.

This finding is consistent with Mr Albanese's claim that real wages will fall over the next four years, although the fall is forecast to be small.