National elimination is the only rational objective.
The alternative, of aiming to have the virus continue to roil back and forth in the community, in numbers not high enough to overwhelm hospital capacity, is stupid, pointless and kills and injures more citizens.
Even if there were a logical underpinning for 'suppression', we see in Victoria that the number infected gets quickly beyond the capacity of the suppression tools (track and trace) to even identify cases, let alone 'suppress' them.
Gee, who knew, a novel, highly transmissable respiratory infection that no-one is immune to gets out of hand really quickly?
Even if we generously allow that the authorities had any good reason to expect they could succeed in 'suppressing' this incredibly transmissable respiratory infection, it still doesn't explain why it should have been considered a satisfactory policy goal.
Suppression is open-ended and condems more people to die who otherwise would not.
We ought to be aiming for National elimination, vaccine or not.
The eventual existence, or not, of a safe, effective vaccine may be a consideration in our later decisions regarding how to regulate permission to enter Australia.
It has nothing to do with the fact we ought to be eliminating the virus here in the meantime.
