A schism has been brewing in Australia’s medical fraternity on how to handle the pandemic best—spilling over into the political realm—with one group pushing for strong measures to smother any potential transmission of COVID-19, and the other calling for society to learn to “live with the virus.” Dr. Nick Coatsworth, a former chief medical officer during Australia’s initial response to COVID-19, has been a leading voice in calling for a return to normalcy. “In light of our community success, the evolution of the virus to a milder form and effective new treatments, the time for mandates and whole-of-community restrictions is therefore over. The case for fear of COVID-19 is now restricted largely to the social media platform of Twitter,” he wrote in an op-ed in The Sydney Morning Herald on Jan. 1. 2022. “Absent the perennial efforts of a small but vocal section of public health academia and a dwindling …