Before covid, family visited elderly in nursing homes, knowing full well there is a small chance they could pass the flu on to them and kill them.
I know my grandfather appreciated my visits, even though he knew there was a small risk of contracting something like the flu.
A life where you control for every possible risk is not one worth living.
We accept risk for rights and convenience all the time. E.g. operating vehicles.
Looking at all cause mortality and just eyeballing, it looks like in most cases Covid19 is reducing some lives by a few times while the fact that no one lives forever stubbornly persists.
Australia: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provis...
UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
What happens to a country that stops people working and starts living on the government credit card? It's all great now when everything is paid in debt. What happens to health, education and infrastructure? What happens to peoples wellbeing and prosperity in the future? Australia's health care system was already at breaking point pre covid. Education was already at breaking point pre covid. They bullshit us that the numbers are fine, and being the fools we are we believe them even though it makes no logical sense. How will people work and pay tax when there are no jobs? How many will die you think?
Covid is not the only thing that can kill you. Poverty has killed infinitely more.
In fact, having just a few minutes ago come out of two weeks confined to a hotel room, into a place where there is effectively no coronavirus, I’d say not very essential at all.
That's some cold-blooded calculus to say that Australia would have been better off with another 50,000 people dead rather than having some restrictions in place while they wait for vaccination targets to be reached.