Yep. It costs somewhere on the order of $100 million to $1 billion a week to keep Sydney or Melbourne in lockdown. The costs thus far have vastly exceeded the estimated cost of ordering mRNA vaccine doses for every adult in the country ($780m[0]) or building federal quarantine facilities that don't leak cases (around $200m for a 500 bed facility[1]). It's an astounding leadership failure.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/10/stuffed-how-au...

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/deal-in-sight-for-20..., and though I have doubts about whether it should cost $400k a bed to build and operate a quarantine facility, it would still be much cheaper than locking down the entire state