Australia has gone harder than almost any other nation to save lives through lockdowns but there are some terrifying stats behind the whopping cost.
Every morning we are being conditioned in Australia to listen to various press conferences around Covid, yet some numbers are missing every single day.
• 464 – that is the number of Australians who die every single day, around 170,000 each year.
• 76 is the number of easily preventable deaths which occur every day in Australia, 28,000 each year.
• 2 – the number of Australians who have died on average from Covid-19 each day since the pandemic began – 1000 over 18 months.
Yes, had we not taken lockdown measures, those numbers would have been much higher. Sweden, which has a similar health care system, took no hard lockdown measures and since the pandemic began has had a death rate of 1500 per million people.
Extrapolated to Australia’s population, this would be around 39,000 people – sounds bad, doesn’t it? Except that around 19,000 Australians die each year from heart disease, and around 16,000 from dementia in Australia alone.
Obviously, you can’t catch heart disease like Covid-19 – but if we spent the vast sums of money on disease research like we have spent in Covid measures, then perhaps we would have a shot at defeating these serious illnesses.
Every single death is both sad and tragic, but we need to consider Covid deaths in a broader context.
The Coroners Court of Victoria recently announced a spike in childhood injury deaths during 2020 for Victoria.
One child under 14 died from completely preventable accidents almost every 11 days in Victoria during 2020 – almost double the 17 children in 2019 – and reversing almost a decade worth of downward trend in preventable child deaths, this trend wasn’t replicated in any other state in Australia.
Double the number of children in Victoria died accidentally during Covid than the year prior, and the years prior to that.
Just as Covid victims had families, so to do those children all but they don’t make the Premier’s press conference and we didn’t have the discussion about those kids’ deaths.
Who lives and who dies is a very hard and uncomfortable conversation to have, but we do need to start having it?
I am fully vaxed, believe in the dangers of Covid and have also endured Victoria’s never-ending lockdown. And no, I am not arguing a free for all, or freedom days.
It isn’t just lockdown or people die – there are shades of grey.
Increasingly complex is the vulnerability of people who have lost their life savings, small business or career due to the endless lockdowns – most of those triumphantly holding the “lockdown hard” mindset are gainfully employed in jobs that aren’t really impacted.
I am yet to find someone who is vocally hard lockdown, and yet has a small business impacted.
What we have discovered through Covid, is a complete lack of policy rationality. We have spent around $1 trillion in Australia in relation to Covid, when you add business loss and state and federal government spending. Federal government spending alone was over $300 billion as of May 2021, and would have grown as this year extended.
Taking the ‘no lockdown’ model of Sweden and extrapolating their deaths to Australia’s population would have been 39,000 deaths, divide one trillion by those lives and we have spent $25.6 million per life saved in Australia. I recognise there are of course other consequences, long term impacts and beyond, but whichever way you cut it we are spending a lot to save people from Covid.
On the flip side, we see GoFundMe pages filled with Australians needing to raise $50,000 or $100,000 for a treatment to save their child, or a friend or family, yet we (through our politicians) are quite happy to spend (in absolute worst-case numbers) $25.6 million per Covid life saved.
Through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, we restrict access to drugs based on what is called a Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) If a drug costs more than a certain amount (circa $100,000 per annum in Australia) even if it can save your life, we do not spend the money.
Why? Because money doesn’t grow on trees, and we have to draw the line somewhere.
I have simplified it, but the long and the short of it, if you are going to die tomorrow, and there is a drug that can save you, but that drug costs more than a certain amount, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will reject the drug and you will die, unless you raise the money yourself.
Even the World Health Organisation (WHO) sets a benchmark on who lives and who dies. In Australia that benchmark would be between $55,000 and $165,000 per life saved. Much less than the $25.6 million we are spending per life saved from worst-case Covid deaths estimates.
We do not like talking life, money and ethics, but we also need to remember 464 Australians die every single day, and 76 of them from preventable or accidental death.
The term “excess deaths” has also cropped up a few times in this debate, since lockdown begun, Australia has recorded 3500 “excess deaths” – 1000 of these were Covid, 2500 of these were from increases (against previous year trends) of cancer, dementia, diabetes and other illnesses.
Had we allowed the virus to run rampant, we would have had many more deaths, but I have not seen or heard of any of those 2500 families (seven per day) who experienced “excess deaths” in a media conference. Nor those 41 parents in Victoria alone whose children died as “excess child deaths”, across lockdown.
What we require is a balanced discussion where the full costs of Covid measures are weighed against the obvious – that is the number of people saved. We need a health economist, or an ethicist at our daily press conferences.
Covid has become a hyper polarised topic in Australia, where some people and governments want to see more “Fortress Australia”, whether it be reduced numbers of Australians returning home or acceptance of lockdowns. We need to realise there is an in between, as every other country in the world has learned except us.
We need to balance, with the knowledge we have gained, Covid-19 deaths rationally against other deaths, illnesses, injuries or priorities – maybe that $1 trillion we spent could have cured cancer (around 50,000 deaths per annum) or improved cars and our roads, reducing the 1200 odd road deaths each year.
One trillion dollars would certainly reduce the 1800 drug related deaths each year (five per day), of which two to three were accidental.
These are the numbers we need to consider when listening to the Covid press conferences each day.