"Extrapolating the Swedish figures, Australia would have approximately 18,500 deaths per month (7,500 x 2.5)."
No, that's flawed analysis, because it risks comparing apples with oranges in that it fails to account for Sweden's demographic structure being different to Australia's:
Sweden is "older", with median age of 41 vs Australia's 38; 21% of Swedes are aged 65 and above, compared to 16% of Australian aged 65 and older.
Accordingly, Sweden's natural annual death rate is 9.4 deaths/1,000 population (52nd highest in global rankings), almost a full 30% higher than Australia's 7.3 deaths/1,000 people (ranked 118th).
But don't get me wrong, even if you adjust for the above demographic disparities, in pure death figures, Australia has clearly done much "better" than Sweden.
But if one had to assess the situation from the standpoint of some sort of "holistic benefactor", who looked not just at the deaths, but at the price that has been paid for the deaths possibly avoided, a simple exercise would look something like this:
Sweden Death Rate = 550/million population
Differential Natural Death Rate Adjustment Factor = 7.3/9.4 = 0.776
=> Australia equivalent deaths = 550 * 25.5m * 0.776
= 10,900 theoretical deaths in Australia attributable to Covid, assuming same death rate as Sweden (adjusted for differential demographic profile)
So, deaths "avoided" = 10,900 - 100 deaths already occurred, so 10,800 deaths avoided due to Australia's different shutdown response compared to Sweden's.
Now, at the risk of sounding vulgar, what has the economic cost of of this response been?
The Financial Times ran a report the other day talking about a 10% contraction in the economy due to the shuttering in of various parts of it. Given the economy is $1.9 trillion in size, that amounts to a cost of $190bn.
Which is consistent with the numbers being estimated as the government's assortment of bailout packages ($200bn to $300bn, depending on which economist/agency is doing the analysis).
So, for easy maths, let's use $200bn as the cost.
Therefore, on a per capita basis, that equates to a cost of around $18.5 million per life possibly saved [*] ($200bn divided by 10,800)
[*] And remember, the median age of people dying of Covid in Australia is 79, which is basically the same as normal life expectancy in Australia (!), meaning that these people might have only had an extra two or three years to live anyway, so the cost to extend the life of each of these people by one more year is somewhere between $6m and $9m.
Now, we can all adopt our own ethical positions on whether or not such analysis should even be conducted (because we are, after all, talking about people's parents and grandparents here), but the fact is that placing a cost on human life is what subliminally happens in society and government anyway: given that there are infinite societal needs but limited means, decisions that effectively impute a cost on human life happens all the time (otherwise we would price cigarettes and alcohol out of existence, and cars would be built to be indestructible and there would be no limit to the amount the state spends on patients diagnosed with terminal cancers and those in palliative care, etc.).
The discussion that should at least be had, I think, is what cost society should be willing to bear.
Is the cost of extending a human life for one year $1m? Or $6m? Or $9m? Or $10m? Or $15m? Or $20m?
There has to be some price at which it becomes excessive and no longer makes sense, because given the competing demands (eg, child and domestic abuse, cancer treatment, education, mental health and suicide prevention, alcoholism, gambling addiction) on the resources of the state, does it make sense to spend several millions of dollars per year to extend the life of people who are in their 80s?
Can/should those resources not be diverted to other deserving parts of society, where - in fact - deaths in those other parts would be avoided by doing so?
An uncomfortable discussion, to be sure, but I think when we look at just the pure death figures we overlook some of the unintended consequences of effectively spending so much money to potentially delay the deaths by relatively short periods of time, in the scheme of things.
I'm not 80 years old, but I suspect that when (and if), I do get to my 80's, I will feel that I've enjoyed more than my fair share of life and that if I heard that to prevent me from potentially dying each year was going to be costing society $8m or $9m, which could be better utilised in some other way in society, I'd be more than happy to see out my last few days in a comfortable, secure, bespoke place with adequate amenities where I, and like-minded others, could be protected while the rest of society gets on with living for their own futures.
I'm far from alone in thinking that way.
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