Last week, the state of New South Wales (NSW) recorded Australia s first case of the virus, and a second case was later confirmed in the Victoria s state capital Melbourne.
Truthfulness, acknowledging uncertainty and understanding the workforce are key leadership elements, say senior health leaders.
“When people try to communicate uncertainty as certainty, that’s when you get into trouble,” said Professor Raina MacIntyre.
When Professor Sir Edward Byrne reflects on his time in the UK at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he recalls how much the country was unprepared for it. He speaks about the healthcare workforce and what he learnt about this critically important sector.
“There were ridiculously low numbers of ventilators in the country and not enough personal protective equipment to provide basic protection for staff,” Professor Byrne told a UNSW Sydney symposium about leadership in health during challenging times. “Almost every final year nursing medical student and clinical academic went up to the clinical frontline overnight.”
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Health by Sue Dunlevy
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Subscriber only We won the race to develop vaccines against Covid-19 but our failure to get enough of them into human arms has given the virus time to mutate fast enough to outrun them. Even before scientists have produced the promised booster vaccine doses to cover the UK, South African and Brazilian variants of the virus several new super infectious Indian types have emerged. If you ve had just one dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca jab, a Public Health England study shows there is only a one in three chance it will protect you from an Indian variant like the one sweeping Melbourne.