> They have fewer than 10 deaths per state combined with very high vaccination rates. From the outside looking in, it seems wholly unjustified.

“That car is running really well. Why don’t we dismantle the engine?”

Excellent: you have achieved orders of magnitude fewer deaths than the annual cold and flu season. But at what cost? You have also surrendered your entire society to an enforcement apparatus that looks like it was taken straight out of a work of mid 20th century dystopian fiction.

My grandma's in Tasmania. Hasn't needed to wear a mask the entire time. My uncle has worn a mask for a couple of days total.

My American-born kids are going to school in KN95 masks and spent most of last year doing temperature checks and health screenings.

One of these looks like "a work of mid 20th century dystopian fiction", certainly.

> My grandma's in Tasmania. Hasn't needed to wear a mask the entire time. My uncle has worn a mask for a couple of days total.

Now have them attempt that on the mainland. They'll be liable to have their bones broken by the police response.

I'm in SA. Handful of lockdowns days throughout the entirety of COVID so far. I wear a mask for a few seconds to order at the pub, and on flights, and that's about it. Still go to restaurants, not having to homeschool, I've travelled quite a lot in SA, WA and NT over the last 18 months. Don't know anyone personally who has had COVID. Barely seen any police anywhere in 18 months. Work (in tourism content) has been busier than ever. I can see why people outside of the East coast in Australia might be OK with borders/quarantine as they are to date.

My uncle's few days in a mask were in Sydney. No broken bones thus far. I've about a dozen relatives in Oz, including quite a few on the mainland; all seem to have had a much better pandemic experience than I have in the States.

At some point you have to ask what society you're sacrificing to protect.

The reason we have such low deaths is because of the measures in place. They are slowly changing as vaccination targets are met and life should be back to normalish by December.

Australia spent 300 billion in one year on the covid response, and what do we have to show for it?

I live in Melbourne, the most locked down city in the world.

We have substantially lower death rates than Florida, which has a comparable population.

Florida: 3,600,000 covid cases 56,667 deaths

Melbourne: 54,470 covid cases 913 deaths

This remains true for the rest of Australia. Unfortunately, we are in a remarkable position compared to many parts of the world.

Florida population is 21 million, Australia is 26 million. AUD 300 billion to save 70,000 lives, that's 4 million dollars per life saved.

The median covid death is 85 years old. We spent 4 million dollars to save one 85 year old person for a few more years.

The median covid death is 85 years old? Where did you get that number? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...

Using the US dataset as an example of mortality when covid-19 is allowed to spread unrestricted in a population, 700,952 died. Only 193k were 85 and older, so the median covid death must be younger than that - in the lower end of the 74-85 age cohort where another 185k have died.

I'm using the australian numbers

So you found one number in my argument that you dont like and that invalidates my entire point? Is that what you're saying? What number would you prefer instead of the 85? Does that change everything?

Why use the Australian numbers to argue that AU should have taken the USA’s approach of unrestricted covid spreading?

Australia’s numbers won’t match what happens when covid-19 spreads widely, because they successfully stopped it.

Just realized (I think) you edited in the later sentences after I replied.

Yea, it does invalidate your point, the average years of life lost from a Covid-19 death is fourteen not a few as you suggested. Many, many people lost more than a decade of productive, happy life to this virus in countries where it was allowed to spread. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/16/americans-l...

So we're spending $20m on 14 years of life.

The whole calculation is wrong, but even if it was correct, I would still be amazed by the fact that you think $4m is too much to get one person live for a few more years.

This is only one year, we're gonna keep spending money on the covid response as long as there's lockdowns. We do not have unlimited money and there's better ways to increase lifespan for less than $4M per person per year

Length of life is such a horrible metric. What about quality of life?

> AUD 300 billion to save 70,000 lives

You keep quoting 300 billion, where are you getting that from?

https://budget.gov.au/2021-22/content/covid.htm Please explain how am I using this number incorrectly? What is the correct number I should be using instead?

You're using that number incorrectly.

It's like that classic Pirates vs Global Average Temperature chart[1]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/03/23/true-f...

It makes about as much sense to say that we spent $300B to save 70,000 people as it does to say that the US has spent trillions to kill 714,000.

One is not the cause of the other, in either direction.

The US does not go to war just to kill people. Australia's covid response is purely for saving lives.

I said nothing about war, I'm talking about the COVID response in both cases.

The US Federal Government has spent trillions on COVID related bills. Over $5.3 trillion if this[1] is to be believed.

USD$5.3 trillion / US Population = $16k/person (approx)

AUD$291 billion / AU Population = AUD$11400/person (~USD$8,300 approx)

On the face of it, we spent a whole lot less, and have had at least as good, if not a better economic outcome.

[1] https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2021/03/heres-everything-congress-...

Do Florida and Victoria have similar age structure? Immigration patterns?

Preservation of the status quo?

A lot fewer per-capita deaths?

How will the Australian state's vaccination targets be met without maintaining the restrictions which are used to coerce people into getting vaccinated? Things might be somewhat relaxed by December just because it's summer in Australia, but I have a hard time seeing you go the way of "just live with it like the flu" like Denmark or Singapore over the long term.

Australia has a traditionally high rate of vaccination.

The biggest problems are a huge focus on the risks of AstraZeneca, and the overall lack of availability of Vaccines.

The vaccine rollout is progressing well, despite the rocky start and general fuckups by the federal government.

We're on track for 70% double-dosed by 24th of October, and 80% by 7th of November[1].

Those are the two major figures for rolling-back restrictions that were put in place. Individual states are varying on their own internal restrictions.

So, you can see that coercion isn't required.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng-inter...

Singapore hit 85%, opened up, and immediately experienced an explosion in cases. Australia will either have to accept the same outcome or continue lockdowns and quarantines to suppress outbreaks indefinitely.

Coercion might not be required, but it is certainly being used (at least in victoria). With large numbers of low risk citizens being told they need to choose between getting the vaccine and their job.

> An extremely long list of “authorised workers” are now required to be vaccinated, including marriage celebrants, personal trainers, emergency service workers, public sector employees, religious workers, and many others. All authorised workers who do not comply with the vaccination requirement will not be permitted to attend their place of employment but will have to work from home or lose their jobs.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/human-rights-and-mandatory-c...

And yet we heard the same thing last December.

Things aren't going back to normal, when Australia opens up regardless of vaccination status thousands of people will die if they are lucky and tens of thousands if they are not.

The vaccines have been a huge disappointment with constant goal post moving the only way to keep people from noticing.