Good question!
Give me access to the experts that the prime minister has access to, and his pay package, and I’ll tell you!
Seriously though, it seems hard to compare directly due to differences in population makeup, density, climate etc - but I’m sure many others have a well articulated and substantiated view on what Australia’s best move should have been based on what we now know.
Step one is perhaps recognising properly what the effect of slowing/shutting/killing businesses actually has on people’s health and well-being.
For example is 1 dead worse than 500 unemployed? Is 1000 dead worse than 1 million with long-term financial strain and mental health challenges? These are very real and often-assessed factors that some economists and other experts deal with, and they should have been consulted deeply prior to the decisions made. These go on in the background all the time anyway, but in a less obvious way - for example, do we ban cars because poor air quality takes x years off y people’s lives (or reduces the quality of life for v people for w years), or do we accept this due to the convenience and freedom and activities etc that cars allow...?!
I don’t have the answer but it would seem to make sense that we would only introduce enough restrictions to not get to a point where significant excess deaths were resulting from an overwhelmed healthcare system...? There would appear to be some reasonable balancing point associated with reaching herd immunity, but managing the rate of spread so that people who can respond to treatment can actually get that treatment.
I’ve heard several experts comment that there’s ultimately no hiding from it and it will get to herd immunity stage in any case at some stage, and therefore strict lockdowns etc are just overkill that introduce very real and significant new problems and costs.
Very tough question for sure, but some very clever people from many relevant fields appear more than willing to contribute to an appropriate management solution - just seems some of the blokes in charge don’t want to listen...?
Just look at Dan’s “captain’s call” curfew nonsense. Lmfao. Based on WHAT!?!?!?!
