Eighteen months into the COVID pandemic, the outcomes in my mother’s birthplace of Sweden and my birthplace of Australia could not be more stark.
Sweden met the challenge of the virus threat guided by medical advice and a bipartisan and multidisciplinary panel of experts. It is clear its approach has delivered far better results. Today Sweden is thriving and is one of the freest, happiest and healthiest countries.
In comparison, Australia’s rolling lockdowns could be the most damaging public policy mistake since federation. Never has government policy so heartlessly transferred harm from the very elderly on to our children.
Why did Sweden succeed so comprehensively where Australia has failed so dismally? My seven years working at McKinsey & Co taught me a fundamental truth: “What gets measured gets managed.”
In Sweden, policymakers identified what success for the whole of society would look like (short-, medium- and long-term) and then measured their actions. Policies had to be evidence-based and their full costs (societal as well as economic) expressly measured before implementation.
But Australian politicians have not clearly defined what success looks like and therefore have been measuring the wrong things. Narrow epidemiological medical advice has been followed without considering the broader costs and impacts. Politicians have been monomaniacally focused on daily case and death metrics.
Calamitous consequences have been inflicted on Australians.
The rolling lockdown policy is causing cruel trauma to millions of children who need to learn, socialise, play and burn off energy — with an increase in youth suicides, record hospitalisations for self-harm, depression, anguish and adverse educational outcomes. Closing schools is a perverse and unprecedented action with long-term damaging consequences. In Victoria even playgrounds were shut for a time.
We have fought wars against totalitarian regimes for our freedoms, but we have become a dictatorship by stealth under lockdown. Basic liberties stripped away, arbitrary edicts issued, protests outlawed, curfews declared, a “ring of steel” imposed, and the military in NSW engaged to enforce decrees.
Australians are forbidden to leave the country. Society has become so Kafkaesque that Victorians were told not to remove masks when drinking alcohol outside the home.
Whole sectors of the economy have been gutted by the lockdowns causing bankruptcy, ruin and despair. The rest of the economy has been propped up by massive debt stimulus of hundreds of billions of dollars that our children will have to repay in the future.
COVID is not the Black Death that killed 50% of the population over four years in the 1350s. The mortality rate globally for COVID is about 0.1%-0.25% of the population.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says if we had done nothing at all in Australia we may have had 30,000 deaths. To put that in context, about 170,000 Australians die every year, and just under 85,000 hospitalisations are palliative care. The average age of a COVID death in Australia is 86 — four years higher than the average life expectancy — and most COVID deaths also have a serious illness, such as dementia or heart disease. Many people who are infected never know they have it, and for healthy people under 50 it is often no more dangerous than the flu.
In Sweden, COVID policy was under the leadership of epidemiologist Dr Anders Tegnell, the independent steward of the nation’s health.
All of society’s well-being was considered in policy decisions, not just COVID. Policy had to be evidence-based. No policy could be implemented without considering the broad costs. Mild physical distancing restrictions were introduced and Swedes were mostly allowed to decide what precautions to take.
There were no border closures; there were no lockdowns. ICU capacity was doubled; hospitals were stretched, but not overloaded. Sweden’s COVID death toll of 0.14% of the population was nearly all people who had a short time to live. Deaths compare well with the UK (0.18%) and the US (0.21%).
The economy took a small hit but has rebounded and as the rest of the world experiences new surges, Sweden’s weekly average COVID deaths have been zero over the past month.
But most importantly, Swedes maintained all their democratic rights and freedoms. Tegnell declared lockdowns anti-democratic and unsustainable and kept schools open. He was vociferously criticised by experts the world over and at one point even the king of Sweden despaired of his policies.
But his critics focused on COVID metrics only. He acknowledges some mistakes were made, but Tegnell has been vindicated. Sweden is the world’s success story managing the COVID policy trade-offs holistically.
Australian politicians are addicted to tyranny and fearmongering. We must learn from Sweden. Our policies must always be measured by what is good for the whole of society.
End the lockdowns immediately. Restore our rights and freedoms. Stop harming our children and instead protect them.
Should Australia let it rip? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
“Sweden’s per-capita case counts and death rates have been many times higher than any of its Nordic neighbors, all of which imposed lockdowns, travel bans, and limited gatherings early on. Over all in Sweden, thirteen thousand people have died from covid-19. In Norway, which has a population that is half the size of Sweden’s, and where stricter lockdowns were enforced, about seven hundred people have died”. New Yorker, 6th April 2021. But hey, let’s manage what we can measure.
You’re rather missing the whole point of the article. The number of deaths can easily be measured. The impacts of lockdowns are not easily measured. The difference between the Swedish approach and the Australian approach is that Sweden attempted the difficult task of identifying the impacts of lockdown, and weighed them against the impacts of not locking down. That exercise has not happened here – the only factor considered is deaths.
Minds could reasonably differ about the appropriate result of the balancing exercise. Some might think the guaranteed harm to millions of children was too high a price to save the lives of 13,000 people, many of them with limited healthy years remaining. Others might disagree. The point is that we have not in Australia had that debate – at least not yet.
Completely agree. Australia’s debate has been framed in a simple data set.
How many people have been diagnosed.
There has been little or no nuance and factoring in of quality life years for those who have died and the impact on other disease, both physical and mental.
The effect of death on a person’s subsequent QOLYs is quite distinct.
Suggesting others can die rather than there be a drop in my quality of life is barbaric.
Hiding the question behind a blind of supposed empirical truth-seeking doesn’t change anything.
I agree. There are many people who are quite happy for others to die for their freedom. Perhaps if people were asked whether they would be willing to die themselves, or if they would be willing to sacrifice members of their own family, so that others could be free, then perhaps they would think twice before demanding an end to restrictions.
Totally agree. As if people losing their parents and their children their Nanna and Pop would not affect their quality of life. Children catch up on their school work but losing the wisdom and experience their grandparents can impart to them is irreplaceable. How many families in Sweden lost one or two parents and their grandparents?
Not to mention the entirely real possibility of children losing their parents due to premature opening up (in order to boost Scott and Gladys’ chances of re-election, no matter how remote).
I agree that looking more broadly at harm – and measures of it – makes sense. I expect that some of this does exist in Australia, and has been used to inform decision-making, but that it is not in the public domain. Public health messages need a simple narrative to get attention and wide-spread adoption, hence the focus on death. Death is irreversible; it leaves little wiggle room.
In terms of the article itself, there is a childishness in waving your arms about and throwing around terms like totalitarianism and dictatorship. That belongs on Twitter. Lockdowns are about taking collective responsibility – to share the burden across the population rather than concentrate it on too few – health workers – and a health system that does not have the capacity for this pandemic.
The article deliberately ignores the obvious fact that Sweden got their approach very wrong last year, and had to move back from it.
James Baillieu is the nephew of former Vic one term sacked Premier Ted Baillieu.
Baillieu was described by The Age as “the Baillieu family’s chief spear thrower” with “an open approach to conflict”.
In December 2011, Baillieu and his wife Josephine hosted Mary and Freddy of Denmark as guests for a week in a secret visit to their Mornington Peninsula home.
He is a former McKinsey & Co consultant and lawyer with Mallesons Stephen Jaques.
McKinsey and Co being big beneficiaries of contracts and outsourcing during covid
Anything at all to say about the substance of the argument? What about it was unreasonable?
To paraphrase Mary McCarthy (on Lillian Hellman), “every word including ‘and’ & ‘the‘.
Lol.
Think you’re being generous.
There seems to be a pattern emerging of Crikey editors giving column inches to opinion pieces by unqualified individuals with vested interests, notably one with a financial interest in Private Media which is not declared in his byline.
so you think we are doing the right thing here ?
85000 people per year go into palative care
people die its part of life
what is the cost of 1050
or so deaths from the flue ?
Why are we all terrified of something we have to live with daily, its not going anywhere lockdowns border closures or not!
“Guaranteed harms to millions of kids …”
May I respond, balderdash. Impacts of lockdown are not easily measured, as you say, and then in the next sentence you measure it. Perhaps what will become of this is a generation of kids who actually had to meet something like a challenge and perhaps build a little resilience, and the long term effects will be beneficial for them and the country.
Guaranteed harms. Can you quantify one that couldn’t easily be flipped on its head as a possible long term building of strength and resilience. Perhaps there are thousands of children who now have a relationship with their father who they only used to see leaving for work in the morning and kissing them goodnight as they went to bed. I know a few.
Cool… let’s harm the kids to toughen them up. This will be especially effective for the kids whose parents are uninterested or incapable of homeschooling or properly caring for… the neuro diverse kids… the ones who can’t access therapies they need… the ones who just need social interaction and schooling to continue to develop typically or just to enjoy life.
Honestly some of you boomers are just sick in the head. Like you were in the trenches at Ypres
That’s not what has happened. Your idea is that the elderly are expendable. They are not. Ask their families. We do not know what harm is done by isolation and other factors to the young. I know a few and they have suffered no harm at all, though this is only anecdotal evidence it is better than sweeping allegations with no evidence whatever. You don’t mention “long covid”, which is damage caused by the virus that goes beyond deaths. Why are you silent about that? Without lockdowns, you maximise the extent of “long COVID-19”. Of course, Covid is not the Black Death, which the propagandist you defend falsely claimed killed 50% of middle age populations in Europe-it was more or less a third, depending on the degree of effective lockdown-but that does not mean that lockdowns should be avoided.
Lockdowns have been a universal catastrophe. At best, they delay the inevitable.
That’s a negative way to look at it and very simplistic.
The rationale was to limit the spread until we received the vaccines that were under development and being fast tracked. What upset that particular apple-cart was the Covid virus mutating in India late last year, thus the Delta variant emerged.
Seeing what was happening in India made lockdowns until the vaccine became available, an imperative.
Vaccine is now available – has been since mid/2021, but lockdowns set to prevail until when? The end of never?
The catastrophe was our incompetent Federal government failing to secure with adequate haste, sufficient vaccinations to reduce disease severity in cases that do occur. They were trying to save money, but have instead cost the country and its citizens a fortune, and kept us locked down longer.
Each successive Post WW2 Generation gets less self-reliant and resilient. The Generations pre-1945 really had it tough compared to anything that we have gone through.
Cotton wool & helicopter parents do not functional adults make as can be seen over the last 20-30yrs .
So covid is now responsible for poor parenting?
Covid forces us to choose the least evil over and over. Delta isn’t like alpha on kids. https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/pediatric-covid-19-cases-tick-up
April if you read this – https://tinyurl.com/24nue2x2 You will find out some factual info re Delta
“Panic Porn Dressed Up As Science” – Exposing The Truth About The Delta Variant
Snip:
As you can see, the Delta variant has a 0.1% case fatality rate (CFR) out of 31,132 Delta sequence infections confirmed by investigators. That is the same rate as the flu and is much lower than the CFR for the ancestral strain or any of the other variants. And as we know, the CFR is always higher than the infection fatality rate (IFR), because many of the mildest and asymptomatic infections go undocumented, while the confirmed cases tend to have a bias toward those who are more evidently symptomatic.
I checked the link, as courtesy requires.
Now I just feel dirty about the 30 secs I’ll not retrieve.
Reputable organisations don’t hide their scientific/medical knowledge behind https://tinyurl.com/
I checked their bona fides and came up with this:
“the zero hedge manifestoour mission:
There are no organisation details, who, where etc., It is definitely neither a Scientific nor Medical site. The spread of articles indicates a mish mash of financial and anti-Covid articles. And there are no details about the author of the article quoted.
In short, just another American opinion sheet, judging by the wording it would be over to the right.
Try far right –
Zero Hedge (or ZeroHedge)is a far-right/libertarian financial blog, presenting staff-written articles and aggregating news and opinions from external sources. Zero Hedge, per its motto, is bearish in its investment outlook and analysis, often deriving from its adherence to the Austrian School of economics and credit cycles.
Zero Hedge expanded into non-financial analysis, including conspiracy theories and fringe rhetoric associated with the US radical right, the alt-right, and a pro-Russian bias.
It’s non-financial commentary has led to a number of site bans by various global social media platforms, although its 2019 Facebook ban and 2020 Twitter ban were later reversed.
Zero Hedge in-house content is posted under the pseudonym “Tyler Durden” (a character from Fight Club (sic!); the founder and main editor was identified as Daniel Ivandjiiski, born 8 November 1978) is a Bulgarian-born, U.S.-based former investment banker and capital-markets trader, and currently financial blogger, who founded the website Zero Hedge in January 2009, and remains its publisher and main editor.
On 29 April 2016, an ex-employee of Zero Hedge, Colin Lokey, gave an interview to Bloomberg, revealing Ivandjiiski, and San Francisco-based credit trader Tim Backshall, as the main force behind Zero Hedge. The article confirmed various details about Daniel Ivandjiiski, including that he lives in a mansion in Mahwah, New Jersey, Lokey saying: “These two guys, who live a lifestyle you only dream of, are pretending to speak for you.”
Is that who’s paying James Bailleu?
As someone who has spent a lot of time at sea, with my son aged from 6 to 10 years old, I really don’t understand what this “hurting children” is all about?
Just a different life, that’s all.
Was your son allowed out of the house for more than an hour a day whilst you were at sea?
Did he go to school?
Did he muck around with his mates? Kick a footy?
Might have helped.
My son was allowed on deck if the weather was good, he learned to steer a compass heading before he understood fractions properly.
He learned to navigate and understand weather patterns.
Most sunsets we read from treasure island or other exciting novels and he had his tape walkman with books to match if the weather was bad.
Our longest passage was 84 days and shortwave radio was it for the outside entertainment.
When we were in port he was a hit with the locals because he had a dinghy and outboard, he got to watch a weather balloon launch up close in Majuro and play beach volley ball in Kiribati.
I taught distance education provided by the Queensland school of distance education, usually provided to children out of range of the school of the air.
As a child off a farm myself, I saw no problem with his different life and he seems to be a well balanced loving husband, father and fisherman.
Well done!
He was a fortunate child indeed to have such a mother.
My apologies, if incorrect, for my presumption, from the tenor of your posts, that you are a woman.
Are you people seriously still on here trying to explain why kids are no force off for being forced to stay home with minimal social interaction, no school and minimal social services? And you’re making this case by reference to some rose hued anecdote about one particular kid who sailed the seas while his parents read to him? Like sons kid sitting in a two bedroom apartment on the iPad all day is not paying a price?
All I can say is – between self delusion and crushing guilt you have made a rational choice. Good luck to ya
There’s a massive disconnect with your reply to what N.A.F. wrote.
And you don’t know what “Might have helped”, you are not the child’s father nor obviously were in those circumstances.
And Yes, I do have a slight understanding. As Assistant Harbour Master in one of Australia’s remoter localities, one of my duties to to clear Yatchs, along with all other vessels.
There were may children of all ages on these boats and many of them had a maturity beyond their years. That characteristic was so widespread that I took it that that lifestyle gave children a greater sense of self worth at an earlier age than their land living cousins, except, interestingly, children brought up on farms. Yet when they came ashore they fitted in very well, they were just as raucous , energetic, cheeky etc as the rest of the mob.
“what N.A.F. wrote.”
Should be what @ratty wrote.
How do you that @Dog’s Breakfast is a boomer? “Ypres” you have the wrong generation, although quite a few boomers slogged through the jungles of Vietnam.
As for “let’s harm the kids to toughen them up.”, let’s not cosset them or wrap them up so tightly that they aren’t exposed to risks. Those that they usually generate, enjoy the thrill and sometimes learn from.
I’m not sure where you get this figure of 13,000 people. If we had followed the Swedish approach I’m sure we would have lost a great many more, and I take some issue with your statement ‘with limited healthy years remaining’ for two reasons. Firstly, we are seeing younger and otherwise healthy people dying too. Also, don’t people with underlying health conditions (about 40% of the population, according to some) have a right to live too? Dismissing the elderly, cancer patients and the disabled as unworthy of protection is social darwinism.
And while I sympathise with children who are suffering anxieties, at least they’re still alive and get an opportunity to recover, unlike the dead, who don’t get a second chance.
Before the pandemic, right-wingers always complained that kids these days were too soft and needed to ‘toughen up’, so it is rather cynical of them to suddenly use mental health as a political weapon when they previously demonstrated no interest in mental health before. They still express no concern for the mental health of victims of Robodebt, or of welfare recipients who have had to endure years of welfare quarantining.
That’s exactly it. The lives of 30,000 people who likely would not have lived much longer anyway have been saved, while millions of people have suffered as a result. Children in the formative years of their lives may have suffered lasting developmental and neurological damage which won’t even be clearly evident for years. Millions lost their livelihoods. Mental health issues have gone through the roof.
I always thought Sweden did it right!
How do you know what damage if any, has been done to children during this lockdown, unless of course they are abused children?
One of my friend’s daughter is a speech pathologist at one of the public hospital’s in a very disadvantaged demographic.Some of her young clients with parents who only speak english have no language skills (Unable to speak, only point), some can only swear, all can open their mother’s smartphone and find their games. Apparently, children can not learn language skills from a screen.
If the person/s supervising the on line education, or heaven forbid, paper lessons, has thought through the strategy for the child’s circumstances then there should be little on the downside.
There are children who have been allowed/ taught to become passive recipients of “Whatever” which will not set them on the right course for later life.These kids should blossom with the idea of finding their own information.
A friend’s daughter taught her two girls during the lockdowns in Queensland and found that taking them to one of the wilder parks, with lots of snacks and a kitchen timer worked well.
Hot-spotting from her phone gave them internet access.
One hour of school work got them one hour on one of the walking/ scrabble walks and all the work done after the steep walks was done with much greater concentration and good progress.
There are ways around the “potential harm” they may suffer and next to no way around the finality of death.
As for the gratuitous comment about the value of someone’s life being “only cut short by a bit and they were going to die anyway”. If anyone thinks that is a justification then they should try that justification in a court facing a murder charge.
I wish for them a full blown Covid19 case, because even if someone is double dosed with Pfizer, they have about a 5% chance of needing an ICU plus or minus dying and about a 30% chance of becoming a “ballast person”.with a form of Covid19 induced chronic fatigue syndrome.
At 84 I am potentially one of your 30,000 who might not have lived much longer who might have been saved, My extended family, on the other hand, has only suffered the privation of no travel overseas during the lockdowns.
I would suggest that in the last two years and in fact through all of my life, I have contributed more to society than Fiona Shearer has and with my elderly peers, will continue to do so. We should not be considered justified sacrifices to the indulgent whims of the young.
I don’t think they understand the concept of ‘contribute’ -it’s all “gimme. gimme just coz”.
Currently in the news, parents of very young children have been hospitalised in ICU and some on ventilation. The chances of more and more children being orphaned by a reckless pandemic response are increasing. There are very few things more destructive of a child’s welfare than being deprived of their parents.
Sweden is ranked 33rd in the world in death with COVID rates. Every country has a different situation regards age, health, geography, population density, average nursing home etc. Selecting “other Nordic countries” as comparison is not relevant – they’re all different in the above factors. The publication you quote from is a notorious scandal rag that has ignored these differences to beat up a story
James, remind me how many, in actual numbers, hospital admissions, ICU admissions, intubations and deaths Sweden actually had. Then provide the equivalent numbers for Australia, while remembering that Australia is 2.5 times larger than Sweden in population terms. Curious that you omitted this basic information, but I guess you had your reasons.
I’d hate to think it’s “My seven years working at McKinsey & Co..”
McKinsey – the firm who gives your wishes credibility for dollars
Could it be that he is the start of the PR that we have all paid for in those contracts we are not allowed to see?
Always follow the money.
Pack of parasites.
Donald, remind me how many numbers Australia has had for increased deaths due to missed bowel cancer screenings, missed mammograms, et al. ??
Fact is we won’t have that date for some time, but what is emerging is another health crisis created by our very blunt policy response.
If people don’t think that the routine maintenance of their life is important, or can’t have that brought to them.
Dear Mr/Ms Test, why ask a question you yourself reveal as futile? But I ask you to remember that internationally, (and therefore likely in Australia although local numbers are not in yet) there has been a lower real rate of heart attacks and strokes in lockdown (not an artefact of reduced detection), as here as well as internationally a major reduction of the rate of pre-term births. The reason behind these unexpectedly favourable outcomes are under investigation. And that’s before we mention the almost zero rate (for obvious reason) of infectious respiratory illnesses like influenza. So, we can get real health benefits as opposed to possible deficits. And remember also there were confident predictions of a tsunami of suicides, yet this has not been seen. Likewise predicted was a collapse in scholastic performance by children not allowed to attend school physically, but again, testing has not revealed any effect at least so far. Perhaps we are more resilient than we thought! And by the way, the real health crisis has already emerged, and it is the exhaustion of capacity in the health system – in facilities but especially in health care staff – caused by the SARS-CoV2 viral disease. This is being mitigated even in NSW so far by lockdowns; without lockdowns it would be far, far worse.
What a tendentious propaganda piece, with unsupported assertions about profound damage done to children from school closures, and no mention of “long Covid” and the as yet to be quantified damage this does to many young people, who suffer from it far more than they suffer from the flu. The loss of the elderly is dismissed as of no consequence, since they have few years left to live. The “average” age of those dying is cited as meaningful, when in fact it is not, since the distribution of deaths is highly skewed toward the upper end. Sweden suffered close to the same economic loss as Denmark but with many more deaths, with so many in nursing homes that Tegnall conceded that it was a mistake to take no measures. The death rate from Covid cannot be cited without taking into account what quarantine measures were taken. Where quarantine measures are lacking, as in the US, the death rate is 20 times that of flu.
Then we are told that Sweden has had no deaths from COVID-19 in the last two months. On 12 August this year, Sweden had totalled 1,109, 112 infections, while 14,658 had died within 30 days of infection, giving a death rate of 1.47%, much higher than for the flu and mysteriously much higher than the number quoted in this article, which might be measuring the death rate in the whole population. The claim that there were no COVID-19 deaths in July and August is simply untrue.
Finally, the data compares a country with a population that is not highly concentrated with that of other countries with population concentrations, with Sweden in fact having a death rate 10 times higher than similarly sparsely populated Norway.
In short, propaganda. Yes, COVID-19 is nowhere near as bad as the medieval Black Death. It is much worse than the flu, and we vaccinate those most vulnerable to that. Most people who die are older than 60 years but their deaths do not count less than any other person, even if they do not tragically shorten lives. A significant proportion of those younger suffer from life-crippling after affects. It is a serious illness.
Well said, Ian!
But what else do you expect from these business types?
Another brain washed spray –sprouting MSM BS. This article was sensible & well intentioned. You appear to have very limited information -poor you. More people have been hurt & died by these Vaccines than have died from Covid. Average age of death is 80+ with most being in nursing homes & with other comorbidities.
Average number of comorbidities of people dying of covid in the USA is 4.2 as of yesterday.
That has more to do with their commercial medicine model – the highest health expenditure and the worst health outcomes in the OECD.
Cuba puts it to shame, despite 60yrs of iniquitous sanctions.
Thats rubbish, I’ve been to Cuba three times, it’s not the nirvana you would prefer it to be.
A country needn’t be Nirvana to have neo/perinatal and maternal death rates superior to the Benighted States as well as better overall health.
Also higher literacy due to good, free education.
Little things that matter more than whatever floats Septics’ boats.
What were the second and third trips for? To prove your observations?
More likely ‘prejudices’ rather than observations – assuming that he’s ever been there.
Neither veracity nor acuity seem to be his strong suit.
I can just picture the second arrival: ‘I knew it, I just knew it was like that!’
No, to swan around the “tourist” zones for westerners eating free food and drinking free good rum and smoking Cubans whilst the workers, operating on a totally different currency, get shafted, actually.
Took me three trips before I realised what a farce Cuba is. I’m a bit slow maybe.
Cuba is Bali for Europeans and Canadians.
They have done well though despite crippling USA loss of face sanctions. You’ve got to admit.
Higher as vaccines offer enough protection to enable more people to survive the fewer number of comorbidities that killed when there were no vaccines.
So you are saying that it is an amplifier of conditions that are normally treatable? That is serious.
Ok, I’ve got 6 deaths in Australia so far attributed to the vaccines. What numbers are you working from James?
This very silly smug comment should never have been made. It is simply not true, even remotely true, that more people have died of vaccines than of COVID-19. Please shut up.
Where is the moderator when you actually need them?
It’s spouting, not spouting. Plants sprout.
Not sprouting.
Firstly, this idea that anyone over 60 or 70 or even 80 is dispensable is bizarre. My grandma died at 91 and she was over 80 when she met both her great grandchildren. We have so many fond memories of that decade, and I would say it was one of the happiest in her lifetime.
Secondly, with respect to the general despair of lockdowns, I would say a significant portion of it is not the lockdown itself but the economic hardship and worry it brings people, which governments have a way of fixing if they choose to.
Lastly, lets get back to Sweden and how they are doing with delta when their winter hits, we also had a lovely summer with no lockdowns….
They had a wonderful winter, spring and summer.
Now I know you’re lying. Sweden – a wonderful winter? Yeah, sure.
It may depend on what one means by ‘wonderful’.
Swedish friends, admittedly in the south, have been less than pleased by the last two or three winters which have been wet & dreary, so unlike the 4-5 months of hard frozen, white wonderland and scintillating blue skies which were once the norm.
Damn climate change – wrecks everything!
Given the CALLS from all sectors to provide adequate financial support I suspect Scomo & Co chose not to in order to foster anti-lockdown sentiment as there isn’t a valid not to have.
While I agree with your sentiments, I would caution you against speaking for the elderly. Old people get very good at hiding the things that make old people’s lives miserable.
The flu can also be a serious illness.
Yes. We vaccinate the very young and the very old because it is sufficiently life threatening for them. COVID-19 is worse than the flu. The flu has never got remotely near to killing over 600,000 people in the US, so please accept that COVID-19 requires extra effort to protect people, especially when the federal government has failed to secure adequate supplies of vaccines.
We need to move beyond the vaccine shortage of early this year if we are going to ably assist Australians going forward. I guarantee you nobody will forget.
Forget what?
The failure to obtain vaccines early enough?
In sufficient quantity?
The failure of the stroll out to make them available?
The million$ grifted to maaates in marketting for advice on…what exactly?
The lies, obfuscations, dissembling, victim blaming etc etc ad nauseam?
So much to remember that it’s all too much effort.
Come the election campaign, he could do a “We’ve always been at war with Oceania” by claiming it was all a resounding success, gold standard, best in the world, to same old, same old B/S.
And not be called to account.
This comment was withheld – can anyone explain why?
Interesting to cop Awaiting for Approval.
Wonder why?
Sweden didn’t take any calculated or measured approach, they just decided to do nothing and hope for the best. They “only” had 14,000 plus deaths, mostly old people apparently – who cares.
What a stupid comment. Amost up to the level of Dogs Breath.
On 12 August this year, Sweden had totalled 1,109, 112 infections, while 14,658 had died within 30 days of infection, giving a death rate of 1.47%, bla bla bla
What rubbish – get your facts straight or don’t comment. If you’re going to comment at least know what you’re talking about & provide accurate figures. Swedish population is 10.395 Million & reportedly 14,651 deaths from Covid. If correct .14% of the population died or 10 for every 100,000. I’d take those odds rather than the $hit show on display here in Oz.
Most were over 80 & had other Comorbidities . But wait – a new currently small survey being undertaken shows that in only 15 per cent of cases was Covid-19 judged to be the direct cause of death. https://tinyurl.com/tz458ran. In other words a lot died With Covid not From Covid
Govt figures from Sweden disclose that 2,701 people died in 2018 of Influenza and Pneumonia Deaths -this being 3.57% of ALL deaths. ( this works out at 5.42 times current Covid deaths)
If someone dies as their heart fails they died of heart failure. It does not mean that low oxygen from covid had nothing to do with their death.
Wow, an investor telling us about Covid and what is successful. No, sorry, those with PhDs in medicine and public health are the only people’s opinions worth listening to, mate.
You want an end to lockdowns so you can make more money. Pure and simple. Please don’t cloak your intention with faux care.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/swedens-failed-covid-strategy-leaves-the-country-deeply-divided/
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/954399
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32750-1/fulltext
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0020731421994848
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-parliament-committee-says-government-failed-pandemic-handling-2021-06-03/
Published two weeks ago, in Business Insider, something you might prefer: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/sweden-covid-no-lockdown-strategy-failed-higher-death-rate-2021-8?r=US&IR=T
Maybe those are better to consider.
Swedens response was managed by a team of epidemiological experts.
And still tens of thousands of deaths. Maybe ours are better?
Ours will be amongst the worst. And the state governments just adopt the opinion they want anyway.
Very big on constant calumny – never a good word about anything.
True. However, you cannot deny Anders Tegnell and co. took a very different tact to the rest of the world, and paid the price. They are now used as an example others have learned from. For business investors to now tell me that what Sweden did is great and we should follow their path – well, I’ll stick to the wider body of epidemiological thought whom advised against Sweden’s decision, and don’t forget, Sweden’s government held an enquiry, the Corona commission, so they realised they stuffed up – sadly, the report about whom and what stuffed up specifically isn’t ready until November (https://www.thelocal.com/20210603/committee-on-the-constitution-coronavirus-pandemic/).
Yes, and then after Anders Tengle’s theory resulted in so many deaths, the King stepped in and handed the management to doctors, whilst remarking that the plan for Herd Immunity by infection was an awful failure.
the discredited Tegnell has tombstone shaped regrets..
Above I linked your last + one re: no benefit to economy of staying open compared with neighbors who did lock down earlier on which makes it seriously baffling why businesses are so keen to let it rip. Both support – as does Aus economy the near if not uniform advice from economists that controlling covid helps business – go figure as I can’t!
Those with PhDs in medicine and public health?? Like ATAGI?? Those “PhDs” set this country back six months with their blathering incompetence and incapacity to make common sense health judgements. Medical expertise is not the full story; we need to balance medicine and livelihood, both now and into the future. This is not captured by a simple count of deaths or cases. e.g If 35,000 people die this year rather than next year, is that worse that half a million children spending a year home schooling, with no doubt more than 35,000 of those children suffering a lifetime of lesser achievement / happiness etc because of the failures of such an educational outcome? James isn’t talking about business, he’s talking about reaching the optimal outcome for all in the context of very difficult decisions. Our politicians have taken the easy way out.
Is
Ala typo. for JP?A bean counter might claim “Medical expertise is not the full story” in a pandemic – try an intramuscular shot of cash and get back to us… if you can.
Despite what the political talking heads tell us every day, the medicos only advise. The politicians make the final decision as that is what we elect them to do. It would appear that many of the politicians filter the medical advice through political filters to be slanted towards political goals.
Australian Institute for Health and Welfare data show “there is no evidence to date that COVID-19 has been associated with a rise in suspected deaths by suicide.” So Ballieu’s concern for young people’s likelihood of death by suicide is, like all I suspect of his Uriah Heep-ishly expressed concerns, entirely liberated from any basis in fact. I’m surprised this passed the Crikey quality check.
They put this in for a stir.
Surely the giant wooden spoon schwabbing us all too frequently is more than adequate for that?
Maybe this is just Schwab using Crikey for “advertorial product reinforcement”?
You’re wrong & anyway would you expect them to admit to the damage they’ve caused? Just like they’re hiding the numbers injured from this bad flu ! Question everthing or you are a dummy.
No mention of the cost of Long Covid
This “bad” flu is a completely different virus which causes inflammation of the lining of all blood vessels.
Some people have next to no symptoms and other die.
The survivors have various damage or none.
Long Covid is terrifying because we may end up with lots of people permanently unable to work.
A good reason to limit the number of people getting Covid19 at all.
The quality check is going downhill anyway.