Unlike the costs of COVID, the costs of lockdowns are spread far more widely across age categories, with massive losses in areas like mental well-being, physical well-being, future government expenditure, and future earnings due to decisions such as stay-at-home orders and school closures – not to mention the effects of extended lockdowns on less-measurable drivers of social flourishing like the development of anti-social habits, productivity losses, and lower levels of trust in institutions like our healthcare system that were complicit in COVID policy mismanagement.
Many of those spared death in 2020 or 2021 from COVID are succumbing now in 2022 as our borders re-open, meaning that enduring the horror of lockdowns “saved” only a couple of years of life for a large fraction of Australia’s eventual COVID victims.
Australia is now experiencing far more COVID deaths and infections than when lockdowns and other draconian restrictions were being imposed, while COVID restrictions have largely been eased on the back of triumphant politicians’ claims that the COVID injections have been the game-changer that we all needed to escape lockdowns and start to live normally again.
As we head into a federal election on May 21st, the major parties’ candidates really don’t want to talk about COVID. I wonder why?
My Mercatus Center colleague Bob Graboyes adds his clear voice to those who decry Fauci’s power-lust.
TANSTAFPFC (There Ain’t No Such Thing As Free Protection From Covid.)
The Economist reports on China’s “zero-covid industrial complex.”
