(Gideon
Rozner’s article from the IPA 0n June 30, 2021.)
“Lockdowns do not work. They are illiberal and
economically destructive, and the best available international evidence finds
no link between lockdowns and stopping excess Covid deaths. Australia must find
another way.”
“Lockdowns were
initially brought in under the idea of ‘two weeks to flatten the curve.’ We are
now 15 months into this pandemic and we are still treating Covid 19 as if it
were March 2020.”
“It is especially disappointing to see the Berejiklian government choose to lock down Sydney. This was the one government that seemed committed to learning to live with Covid. Their capitulation to pro-lockdown hysteria tells Australians that there is nowhere they can hide from the threat of lockdowns.”
IPA research has
previously found that the best way to handle Covid 19 outbreaks is through
increasing Australia’s medical capacity to handle outbreaks while leaving the
freedoms of Australians alone.
Medical Capacity: An Alternative To Lockdowns
The best
available domestic and international evidence suggests that lockdowns don’t
work. They impose significant social, cultural, humanitarian, and economic
costs while at best being of debatable efficacy in managing the propagation of
COVID-19 over the long term.
At worst,
lockdowns are counterproductive because the negative health consequences they
induce can come to outweigh the direct health benefits of reducing the
propagation of COVID-19.
They lack
proportion by imposing blanket bans on, or severely limiting the undertaking
of, activities which pose an infinitesimally small threat of virus
transmission, such as exercising outdoors, surfing alone in the ocean, or
fishing on an empty jetty.
And they do not
account for the variable risk that COVID-19 poses to the health of different
population groups. For example, in Australia 90% of those who have died with or
from COVID-19 were aged 70 or above, just four were aged 30-50, and zero aged
under 30 have died.
The original
public policy objective of state and federal governments which formed the basis
of the social distancing measures first introduced in March was based on
medical capacity, and was enunciated as “flattening the curve” or “shifting the
curve”.
In announcing
the expansion of social distancing measures, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison
said in a media statement on 22 March that “the goal is to reduce the spread of
the virus, to flatten the curve, and to save the lives of fellow Australians.”
And in a speech
the following day, the Prime Minister stated, “it will be absolutely vital that
every Australian respects and follows the healthy social distancing measures
that all Australian governments have implemented in order to flatten this curve
and to save lives.”
Similarly, then
Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy stated on 14 March that “we in
Australia want to flatten that curve and keep us under really tight control.” The
curve refers to the number of new daily COVID-19 cases.
The “flattening”
or “shifting” component refers to dispersing the infection rate over time so
that the number of people who required medical attention at any given time did
not become greater than the capacity of the medical system to provide that
medical attention. In practice, this meant ensuring there was a sufficient
number of beds in Intensive Care Units (ICUs).
 |
| Lockdown-loving political leaders of Australia. |
Top End Of Town Is Against Lockdowns
One would be
hard-pressed to find many silver linings as millions of Australians endured
further lockdowns in July, but the admission by many business leaders and
commentators that Australia’s response to coronavirus has caused enormous harm
cannot be seen any other way.
“Repeated
lockdowns will have devastating long-term effects on physical health, mental
health, education, social wellbeing and the economy. There will likely be
hidden longer-term costs we are not yet aware of,” wrote the economics editor
at the Australian Financial Review, John Kehoe.
After the
construction industry was shut down across Sydney, the chief of Australian
Industry Group, Innes Willox, finally called out the unquestioning reliance on
‘health advice’ that supposedly justifies harsh lockdown measures. “The time
has come for that [health] advice to include a proper cost benefit analysis of
lockdown decisions, including the impact of Covid lockdowns on general health,
mental health, impacted business sectors and the general economy,” he told The
Australian.
The chairman of
Telstra, John Mullen, admitted that lockdowns are distorting our economy by
entrenching large corporates and devastating small businesses and sole traders.
“The main economic damage certainly is to small businesses… Big businesses
will, in many cases, change for the better and small business won’t, and that’s
probably the biggest damage to our economy.”
These are all
arguments that the Institute of Public Affairs has been making since March
2020. Lockdowns cause economic carnage, widespread unemployment, and mass small
business bankruptcy. They are distorting our lives, our relationships, and our
national character.
But those who raised these concerns at the beginning of lockdowns were told to “stop talking about the economy” by the ABC’s then-chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici. To ask questions about the costs of lockdowns was to say that keeping the economy running took precedence over the health and wellbeing of other people.
