A mammoth, weighty, COVID inquiry report was released by the Federal Australian Government earlier this week and it highlights many of the problems experienced by the supply chain.
As the Report runs to 877 pages, 24 chapters, covered a vast range of Australian life and made nine recommendations with 26 actions, we will focus on the Supply Chains chapter and on seafarers. The recommendations alone run to 30 pages.
The main supply chain recommendations / actions are as follows:
Action 3: Conduct post-action reviews of outstanding key COVID-19 response measures to ensure lessons are captured, including a review of the Biosecurity Act 2015. This includes reviewing the Biosecurity Act to explore ways to ensure any decisions on extensions of determinations include consideration of broader advice on the health, economic, educational, social, equity and human rights impacts.
Action 5: states that there should be updated health emergency planning and response arrangements in conjunction with states and territories, and key partners, including consideration of escalation and de-escalation points, real-time review and a focus on post-emergency recovery. A sub-action point adds that there should be modular operational plans for specific sectors and that includes supply chains, which should be led by Department of Industry, Science and Resources.
The Supply Chains Plan should be developed in consultation with state and territory governments and industry, the report reads. The Supply Chains Plan should consider agreed protocols between Commonwealth and state and territory governments, should intra-Australia travel be restricted, to ensure ongoing operation of critical supply chains. It should include provision for scenario exercises with industry to simulate responses to supply chain disruptions.
The Managing the International Border plan should document and stress-test pre-agreed roles and responsibilities across decision-making powers (Commonwealth) and implementation powers (states and territories), to ensure that the interface between the Australian Government agencies (such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Border Force) and state and territory agencies (such as state police, health and hotel quarantine providers) is seamless – operationally and legally; recognise the interdependencies between any quarantine arrangements and international border controls (arrival caps, entry approvals and the movement of goods), the aviation and maritime sectors, and diplomatic relations.
Action 6: Develop legislative and policy frameworks to support responses in a public health emergency. This includes a framework for international border management, to be lead by the Department of Home Affairs, and identifying essential services and essential workers. This should be lead by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The essential workers framework should also define who / what is an essential worker and an essential services; set up mechanisms to support harmonisation between different levels of government, have an agree set of principles to guide decision-making with respect to the movement of essential workers, have arrangements for priority access to vaccination, protective equipment, and infection control training.
Action 22: Develop a whole-of-government plan to improve domestic and international supply chain resilience, considering how resilience can be built across all critical supply chains; develop arrangements to collect supply chain data to support decision-making, develop engagement structures that encourage ongoing and regular communication between government and industry on the development and implementation of the whole-of-government plan and emerging supply chain issues.
The inquiry
On 21 September 2023 the Prime Minister the Hon Anthony Albanese MP announced the independent Commonwealth Government COVID-19 Response Inquiry. The panel, which was comprised of senior public servant Ms Robyn Kruk AO, infectious disease expert Professor Catherine Bennet, and health economist Dr Angela Jackson, was asked to deliver a final report to government by 30 September 2024. The Terms of Reference was wide-ranging and comprised of matters such as governance, health response measures, international policies, support for industry and business (including responding to supply chain and transport issues), financial supports, community supports, and mechanisms to better target future responses. The COVID-19 panel received 2,201 submissions from organisations and individuals. Over 250 consultation sessions ere held with stakeholders. Over 176 participants attended focus groups targeted at eliciting views of different populations. There were 2,126 individual response to a survey. Over 27 Round Table groups were held with more than 300 participant.
Shipping Australia was one of the groups that made submissions to the inquiry and took part in the Round Tables.
COVID and the pandemic – a backgrounder
Back in the final days of 2019, a novel coronavirus – “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2” (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in Wuhan, a city in China. The virus was declared to be pandemic (i.e. everywhere) by the World Health Organization in 2020.
The disease that eventuated from a SARS-CoV-2 infection was “Coronavirus disease 2019”, which became known as “COVID-19, or just “COVID”. In popular (non-scientific) speech, COVID also began to be applied to the virus itself even though that was technically incorrect. Symptoms were typically mild but were in some cases were fatal. Symptoms included fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, vomiting, loss of taste or smell, pneumonia, hypoxia (oxygen deprivation), respiratory failure, shock, multi-organ failure, and death. Not all symptoms manifested and many infected persons showed no symptoms at all. As of early April 2024, it was understood that COVID had infected at least 704.75 million people of which it had killed at least 7.01 million.
Zoonosis
SARS-CoV-2 is “zoonotic“, meaning it jumped from animals into humans. Given that it is very closely related to a virus found in bats, bats likely somehow came into contact with other animals (in this context, humans are also animals) and the virus somehow was able to infect those other animals. It is unknown if the virus jumped directly from bats into humans, or if it infected one or many other species first, and then into humans. There are a wide range of animals that were found to have contracted SARS-CoV-2, but it appears that it was mostly (but not always) humans who passed on the virus to animals.
Infections
It was originally said that the virus was spread by “droplets” breathed out and that these droplets would fall out of the air owing to gravity. This led to public health exhortations to wash hands and keep everything clean. However, it quickly became clear that the disease was in fact spread by aerosols (i.e. super fine and small particles) and were airborne – which meant they could be breathed in some time after exhalation, which led to mask mandates. Ultimately, public authorities resorted to locking down whole populations (i.e. requiring everyone to stay at home and not socialise, go to work, or to study with others).
Supply chain disruption
As populations were locked down, they turned to online shopping to buy entertainment goods and many decided to splash cash on durable goods. This caused a massive spike in demand for the transport of goods. Shortly thereafter, massive port congestion queues formed – at one point absorbing around 10% to 12% of global ocean shipping capacity. With such a surge in demand and such a cut in capacity, freight rates underwent a massive inflationary spiral leading to the highest freight rates seen in living memory. With massive port congestion all around the world, schedule reliability went out the window and there were huge problems in Australia related to managing, and evacuating, the stock of empty containers that built up in this country. Seafarers around the world became “trapped” on ships – after their contracts ended they often found that they were not allowed to disembark, leading to fatigue and risks of accidents. Meanwhile, relief seafarers at home and without employment while waiting for their next ship-engagement were suddenly and unexpectedly thrown into poverty as restrictions on population movements, and the near-cancellation of international flights, meant that they could not get to or board ships. On the land side, there were huge problems for stevedores, truck drivers (many of whom were at risk of being stranded on the wrong-side of a State or Territory dividing line if the authorities closed the border), and logistics staff of all kinds who needed to move around Australia to do their jobs.
Vaccines ended the threat
The first COVID vaccines were distributed by late 2020 – just over one year after the disease was first identified – and the later distribution and uptake of the vaccines brought the COVID pandemic under control. About 13.72 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered worldwide as of August 2024. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to medical experts Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work that led to the development of mRNA vaccines that protected against COVID.
