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The Federal Government forecasts debt will increase by $500billion due to the pandemic response. If we take the deathtoll from Sweden (lower than the USA, Spai

The Federal Government forecasts debt will increase by $500billion due to the pandemic response. If we take the deathtoll from Sweden (lower than the USA, Spain, Italy, Belgium), Australia could have expected 15,000 deaths, adjusted for population. Less if we consider only excess deaths. This is $33 million per life saved, typically for a person in their 80s. Is this a good use of funds? If this money was devoted instead to tackling climate change or domestic air pollution (basically the same thing), how many lives would have been saved and improved instead? Its likely that the country could have been completely decarbonised - all coal power plants shutdown, urban wood burning banned and new efficient gas heaters and insulation subsidised, and all new vehicle sales replaced with electrics.

grecy 6y ago
I also saw someone else say if we had done the Sweden approach and allowed those 15k deaths and saved all that money and ALSO made cigarettes illegal we would have saved many orders of magnitude more lives.
- doubleunplussed 6y ago
  I'd bite that bullet - cigarettes should be banned. In Australia the tax on them is continuously ramped up every year and fewer and fewer people take up the habit. It's obviously an elimination strategy there as with COVID.
0xfaded 6y ago
That's 25 grand per person. If life goes back to normal for Australians for 1-2 years before everyone else, that's a bargain. Considering that the Australian economy is based on digging and has an economic complexity just below Uganda[0], most of that damage was unavoidable anyway. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Complexity_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Complexity_Index
- Devils-Avocado 6y ago
  Australia will be the slowest to go back to normal since they will need to maintain national quarantine forever - until a suitable vaccine is found and administered. $25,000 per person is a huge amount of money, far greater than for any national scheme, ever. Probably approaching Australia's expenditure for a world war or major international conflict. Keep in mind that currently in Europe - there is very limited excess mortality. For example in Belgium right now, there are less excess deaths than from a heatwave in August: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country Sweden and other non-lockdown countries are already back to normal. The only thing preventing normality is politicians who insist on lockdowns for a virus which is currently not causing excess deaths beyond what we would expect from regular influenza.
  - doubleunplussed 6y ago
    The fear is the trend, not the numbers so far. Belgium's healthcare system is at breaking point, and the death rate is doubling maybe every 10 days: https://chrisbillington.net/COVID/Belgium.svg https://chrisbillington.net/COVID/Belgium.svg
  - 0xfaded 6y ago
    Well, my parents live in Perth. They've been living a normal existence since May. Monetarily, it's no different than any other medical expenditure. Would you spend 25k for an extra year of normal life? What about if you're 20-30? Colour me jealous.
    - Devils-Avocado 6y ago
      In Sweden 0.06% of the population has died from COVID, and those that did have a median age of about 80. Would you pay $25,000 in order to have a 1 in 1,666 chance of living an extra few months when you are 80 years old? No one would take those odds - but it has been forced on the population.
      - 6y ago

grecy 6y ago

I also saw someone else say if we had done the Sweden approach and allowed those 15k deaths and saved all that money and ALSO made cigarettes illegal we would have saved many orders of magnitude more lives.

doubleunplussed 6y ago
I'd bite that bullet - cigarettes should be banned. In Australia the tax on them is continuously ramped up every year and fewer and fewer people take up the habit. It's obviously an elimination strategy there as with COVID.

0xfaded 6y ago

That's 25 grand per person. If life goes back to normal for Australians for 1-2 years before everyone else, that's a bargain. Considering that the Australian economy is based on digging and has an economic complexity just below Uganda[0], most of that damage was unavoidable anyway. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Complexity_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Complexity_Index

Devils-Avocado 6y ago
Australia will be the slowest to go back to normal since they will need to maintain national quarantine forever - until a suitable vaccine is found and administered. $25,000 per person is a huge amount of money, far greater than for any national scheme, ever. Probably approaching Australia's expenditure for a world war or major international conflict. Keep in mind that currently in Europe - there is very limited excess mortality. For example in Belgium right now, there are less excess deaths than from a heatwave in August: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country Sweden and other non-lockdown countries are already back to normal. The only thing preventing normality is politicians who insist on lockdowns for a virus which is currently not causing excess deaths beyond what we would expect from regular influenza.
- doubleunplussed 6y ago
  The fear is the trend, not the numbers so far. Belgium's healthcare system is at breaking point, and the death rate is doubling maybe every 10 days: https://chrisbillington.net/COVID/Belgium.svg https://chrisbillington.net/COVID/Belgium.svg
- 0xfaded 6y ago
  Well, my parents live in Perth. They've been living a normal existence since May. Monetarily, it's no different than any other medical expenditure. Would you spend 25k for an extra year of normal life? What about if you're 20-30? Colour me jealous.
  - Devils-Avocado 6y ago
    In Sweden 0.06% of the population has died from COVID, and those that did have a median age of about 80. Would you pay $25,000 in order to have a 1 in 1,666 chance of living an extra few months when you are 80 years old? No one would take those odds - but it has been forced on the population.
    - 6y ago