At massive economic cost. It has only been bearable due to the other states remaining open and proping up the Victorian economy via Federal Government payments.

Just at the state level debt is expected to more than triple by FY23/24 to $155b.

It’s been expensive in the UK, too.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britai...

Lockdowns are expensive when you do them late. The point is to do them as early as possible or better do proper contact tracing, mask usage, travel restrictions early. E.g. Taiwan put on full travel restrictions super fast and now operate like a normal country with minimal economic damage. Dragging your feet on COVID19 is what gets expensive.

Locking down does have a large economic cost, but the alternative is a large number of preventable deaths. I know which course of action I prefer to be taken.

Ongoing semi-lockdowns, presumably until the majority of the population can be vaccinated, plus the affect of the infection on individuals along with their medical costs and absence from work has a cost too.

Situations like this are what money-printing was made for.

Money is just a means to an ends. It acts as a means of exchange, unit of account, and store of value.

What we really want are goods and services to consume. If people aren't going to work and producing goods and providing services then there will be less to go around making us all poorer.

700/day in a single state, and now it's officially eliminated statewide (0/day for 28 consecutive days).

Per capita, that's worse than the 5000/day in the UK.