Some interesting commentary there Plugged.
I don't agree with you but it is a fair point of view.
However, I disagree that this is even remotely comparable to " stop the boats ".
As to the financial pain, well, we won't know for sure till after it's over. It is going to be an interesting experiment. For countries like Australia that might be able to reduce the wage subsidy period by containing the virus quickly, I think they'll be ok. For places like the US where it really looks like it's getting away, I'm not so sure.
You're not the first person to suggest isolating the elderly etc. So, I ask you to explain in some detail how that would work. You've put up some numbers for the increased debt.
Put up some numbers of the cost of isolating people and the impact on business that will have regardless.
Would you rather have thousands of the elderly and the more vulnerable die and be isolated for a couple of years or would you rather pay a bit more tax once this is under control ?
Would you have the same view if you were 70 years old ? What about if your wife was pregnant ? Or, you might be on immune suppression drugs ?
Who would you isolate ? What are the qualifications for that ? Age etc ? What happens is someone just under that age limit dies from the virus ? What about all the other vulnerable people ? Pregnant women etc ? How would you manage that ?
Where would you isolate them to ? Who would look after them ? How much would all that cost ? Would we still have travel/movement restrictions ?
What is a tolerable number of people dying from the virus for you ?
Let the virus run rampant ? We have already shut down elective surgery etc. We simply don't have the capacity to deal with the larger numbers of illness if we let it off the chain.... The complications for the health care system that deals with all the other, normal health issues would be huge.
You talk about spending the money on cancer patients. Cancer patients will be the first to be affected when virus cases overrun the hospitals. In other countries such as Italy, doctors are having to choose who gets the ICU bed and who doesn't. That is a tragedy and should never come down to cost.
In your scenario I think that would be a regular occurrence.
If the virus was to be let run through the community, businesses would shut down anyway and there would be considerable damage to the economy.
Who is going to go shopping when the virus is running rampant through a shopping centre, football club or crowd at large events ? Who is going to get on a plane knowing that people on that plane have CoVid ?
Even if we were to start up, Australia would be isolated from the world. So, our airlines, tourism, international education etc would still be impacted. No more foreign workers here to work in agriculture. And so it goes on.
Not forgetting that airlines and all sorts of other businesses around the world are struggling and will be in a virus lockdown despite what we do in Australia. The flow on impacts for us would still be there.
I'm not suggesting that the current plan is perfect. Far from it actually. However, there is a sense of control to it as opposed to the alternative which would literally be out of control.
We know that if we support these jobs and these businesses and we get past this quickly, we can bounce back. I see our biggest risk is how long this takes to sort out I reckon. The longer it goes, the worse it will be . The quicker we get it sorted, the better.
We know that if we have a set of rules in place it will be much less messy at the other end. If these businesses such as airlines can start up quickly, I think you will be surprised how fast we get back to normal, albeit with more debt.
Yes, there will be a debt to pay back and that will take a considerable period to do that. As someone who is generally financially conservative, I'm not too happy about racking up that debt. However, there are times when debt is necessary and in my view this is one of those occasions.
I would much rather be paying more tax., ( I can't believe I'm saying that
) than watch the economy grind to a halt, watch businesses and the health system collapse in front of me and watch thousands of people die needlessly.
