Aus Covid Tracker, page-11

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Factcheck: did Scott Morrison really save 40,000 lives from Covid?

Experts break down the PM’s claim, the effectiveness of Australia’s Covid response and who gets credit

Compared with most other countries, Australia was relatively unscathed by the pandemic, although its health results were achieved by severe measures, including lockdowns and border closures.

Scott Morrison has a figure to convey just how well we’ve done: 40,000 lives saved.

Where does the figure come from?
Morrison has been using the figure since about mid-December, when he explained it was “based on the average [number of deaths] in the OECD”.
In 2020 and 2021, 0.15% of the population in OECD countries died of Covid which, if applied to the Australian population, is about 40,000, he said.

Past success no guide to future
The second thing to note is: the 40,000 figure only compares 2020 and 2021, not 2022, a year in which hospitalisations and deaths increased significantly due to eased restrictions despite very high rates of vaccination.

Wood said the results would be “very different” in 2022, and Australia would be “much closer to the OECD average” because Covid has had a “fairly similar impact” once restrictions were eased.

About two-thirds (4,309) of Australia’s total deaths from Covid (6,562) have occurred in 2022.

“What we’ve seen with Omicron and the loosening of restrictions is a lot of unnecessary deaths and hospitalisations,” she said. Baxter cited mask mandates, working from home and better ventilation as policy settings that could have saved lives.

Baxter argued the figure also “fails to acknowledge any potential to do better: a faster vaccine rollout could have saved a lot of grief”.

Who gets the credit?

Lydeamore said it was “difficult to attribute blame or credit” for Covid policies, as some were federal (the national border), some state (lockdowns and state borders) and some shared responsibilities (such as aged care). “The whole system has to work together.”

Baxter said it was “questionable” for the commonwealth to be taking credit, because many of the policy levers were activated by states, such as lockdowns, to make up for federal “deficiencies”.

“Because our vaccine rollout was so slow that necessitated long lockdowns in Victoria and NSW that could have been avoided.”

Verdict

Morrison’s figure is accurate but it obscures Australia’s more recent Covid deaths.

.Australia’s health outcomes during Covid were excellent, but it’s not a commonwealth government success story, it’s a federal one.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/12/fact-check-did-scott-morrison-really-save-40000-lives-from-covid

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So potentially, for all the Covid-19 measures some have whinged about here, those measures could be responsible for around 40,000 people still being alive at the end of 2021.