To people of a poetic and keen imagination, Victoria’s experience to date with COVID-19 was pretty much anticipated in The Bulletin of 1898.
That was when the report of the cricket match between Piper’s Flat and Molongo, curated by Thomas E. Spencer, was published.
The game looked lost for Piper’s Flat until McDougall (“canny Scotsman”) and Pincher combined to turn things around. Brett Sutton – like McDougall – has played the innings of his life and Premier Andrews, just like Pincher, has steadfastly refused to drop the ball.
Standing as a modest link between these two momentous events is a piece entitled How Victoria Topped the Score which detailed the situation with Swine Flu that confronted the State in 2009.
To remind, the background is this. In June 2009 the Australian newspaper reported that Victoria had the fourth highest number of H1N1 Influenza (Human Swine Flu) infections worldwide after the US, Mexico and Canada, but the highest per capita load. It was being blamed for exporting the virus around Australia. Sound familiar?
Working at the time in the health field and seeing the value of a positive outlook in stressful situations, I took the liberty of re-framing Spencer’s piece around Victoria’s plight with H1N1.
Recollection of certain facts will help appreciate the 2009 piece. The Federal Minister for Health was Nicola Roxon, the Member for Gellibrand, an inner-Melbourne electorate. The Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer was Professor Jim Bishop. Tamiflu is a Roche product, Relenza a GSK product. In 2014 researchers threw doubt on the effectiveness of Tamiflu and thus of the value of governments stockpiling it. The swine flu epidemic originated in Mexico; and in inter-State veterans’ hockey the Victorians are known as Mexicans, being from South of the border.
And Wikipedia reports as follows:
“On 23 May 2009 the federal government classified the outbreak as CONTAIN phase except in Victoria where it was escalated to the SUSTAIN phase on 3 June. This gives government authorities permission to close schools to slow the spread of the disease. On 17 June 2009 the Department of Health and Ageing introduced a new phase called PROTECT. This modified the response to focus on people with high risk of complications from the disease. Australia has a stockpile of 8.7 million doses of Tamiflu and Relenza. A large scale immunization effort against swine flu started on Monday 28 September 2009. In Victoria there have been 2,440 cases, including 24 deaths. Victorian health authorities closed Clifton Hill Primary School for two days on 21 May.”
Today we are likely to be less horrified than before at the closure of a school for two days on public health grounds.
How Victoria Topped the Score
Gordon Gregory
(after Thomas E. Spencer)
15 June 2009
A peaceful spot is Gellibrand – and many local folk
Exist by work in railways, and paper, tyres and rope.
The views to sea are legend and the people, quite untaught –
Lean naturally to leftwards, as portside people ought.
Still the climate is erratic as the natives always knew
And the winters damp and gusty bring on frequent bouts of flu.
But the locals now are Tami-rous as never were before
As H1N1 gets around – and Victoria tops the score.
It’s 90 square kilometres right to Port Philip Bay
Embracing Whitten Oval where the Bulldogs hone their play;
Includes Altona Meadows where the views are simply grand
And other lovely places now warehousing used to stand.
From Spotswood through to Tottenham employment, once serene,
Depends on heavy industry, petrochemical, marine.
The local folks are very proud, be they so rich or poor
But they all might be affected as Victoria tops the score.
It’s Inner Metropolitan (GPs’ incentives: nil –
For the local branch of the AMA this is a bitter pill).
So when a virus came along – exclusion was in vain –
The local health care services got ready for the strain.
Local people everywhere did all that they were asked
And courses sprang up all around on kissing through a mask.
A local hero came along: Gellibrander to the core
Who meant to keep the lid on it – tho’ Victoria topped the score.
This hero was a lawyer and a trusted one at that
And in the middle order for young Kevin she would bat.
She trained her loyal staffers how to listen and to scout
For useful tips, intelligence, whatever was about;
And each succeeding night they worked ’til the light it was a blur
Sometimes our hero struck a thought, sometimes a thought struck her.
’Til one day news from Mexico of which she’d hear much more
That swine flu now was all the rage – not too long from our shore.
The national plans were then rolled out – even Bishops were involved
Good health care teams and scientists all helped to have it solved.
No stone was left un-x-rayed and surveillance was maintained
And people’s sensitivity was measured when de-planed.
A hotline was established but it very soon was broke
And crackling then was all it gave to its inquiring folk.
The public mind was set at ease, there sure was nothing more
And New South Wales got uppity, as Victoria topped the score.
Victoria’s reached a thousand and some medics now complain
Even tho’ officially it’s-on ‘modified sustain’.
If children want to miss exams and have a full week off
They simply visit Gellibrand and then begin to cough.
We all will do whate’er we can to try to keep the peace
We’ll quit the smokes and exercise ’gin morbidly obese.
This gentle flu, still not a swine, in countries seventy four
And here it’s still Victoria that easy tops the score.
This illness from the Mexicans is causing a to-do
And now is a pandemic if you credit you-know-WHO.
But guided safely as we are from right the very top
We’re confident that this will pass, it’s likely soon to stop.
So raise a glass – or a long pipette – to our Gellibrander boss
‘Cos even tho it’s not too strong it makes us all la-cross.
And there may well be an upside – tho’ it’s touchy this to broach
For you won’t catch a cold at all just now if your shares are still with Roche.
So let’s consign to history, make part of national lore
The time when, quite unwillingly, Victoria topped the score.
