Forty seven references here (I might have missed some). China virus talk is beyond boring now. There seems to be a deliberate effort to wear us down to a point where we will accept anything that we are battered with.

No, I don't believe we need follow that approach, or the collateral damage that it created. A healthy economy needs a healthy workforce and covid-19 has shown us even those with mild infections may have suffered significant internal harm? Lungs, kidneys, heart and brain? And possibly seriously shortened natural lives?

Our denials/ignorance in this area may lead to young footballers etc dropping dead on the playing field/sports arena/factory floor for inexplicable reasons possibly connected to unseen covid-19 related internal issues? Blood clotting perhaps?

All the indications are that in due course we will have a vaccine? And that being so, a protected population able to return to business as usual? With just an economy to fix! And it's here we need bold new ideas and to be masters of our own destiny!

We cannot make trade deals with a hostile adversary, that confines our productivity, manufacturing capacity and or sends all the profits/tax liability offshore when we need them here working at the max in our own economy!

Nor can we expect it to recover very well if we put in an economic straightjacket created by coal-fired ideological imperatives! We need to think big and outside the box!

And that thinking needs to be fact and evidence reliant and has to include nuclear power and some nuclear weapons capability! Something the usually pragmatic Swedes haven't mindlessly prohibited!
Alan B.

Oh come on. Why do these advocates for the Swedish model always fail to compare it to other Scandinavian countries all of whom have fared far better in terms of deaths per million than Sweden? Even Denmark, sitting there directly attached to mainland Europe, and just two borders away from Belgium whose record has been the worst in the world, has done far better.

Look I get slowing the economy to save lives doesn't sit well with an economist like this author but Sweden just recorded its second highest daily infection rate and things are once again going to get serious in terms of deaths in that country.

To be saying the jury is still out is like saying the emperor is still fully clothed. It's nonsense.

Amazing how the demise of Trump's POLITICAL campaign (in favour of GOLF) has reduced the calls in Australia (and on OLO) for:

prioritising economic growth

over minimising the seriousness of Covid and minimising the measures against it.

So never underestimate how selfish foreign politicians can potentially bugger up Australia.

According to Health Minister Greg Hunt the Australian response to Covid-19 has seen the saving of 16,000 lives. The notion that if you ignore the virus it will be "business as usual", with people going about their daily lives as normal, just stepping over the dead bodies is ridiculous!

While SR might be right to compare Sweden to the other Scandinavian countries, it is equally valid to compare Sweden to other EU countries and their policies and results.

While facing similar problems to the EU the social compact and contact tracing produced results far superior to those in most of Europe, and while results similar to Denmark could have been achieved through hard lockdowns, the consequences to the economy would also have been more severe.

The second issue is the health consequences of the population of a severe lockdown. In both Aus and NZ, the estimates of adverse health consequences for people unable to access medical care exceeds the deaths from Covid. The long term consequences of vast debt will further restrict access to services and health care for years to come.

The choice is not a simple balance between cash vs lives as Paul and SR would have you believe.

Excellent article, thanks for that. I agree the Swedish model is the one I would have preferred to live under. The draconian nonsense we experienced in Austria was particularity repugnant. Certainty agree, with self isolation, masks, hand washing etc but that's just sensible stuff. If others don't want to do that they shouldn't have to my defence against that IS the self isolation, mask etc. Closing the borders was the most repugnant thing in terms of human rights I have witnessed in my short 53 years of living in Australia.

Bravo Sweden and we'll watch the fall out from this for decades to come I expect.

Dear Valley Guy,

You harp "Closing the borders was the most repugnant thing in terms of human rights I have witnessed in my short 53 years of living in Australia."

Oh give me a break. Scandinavia in total has a smaller population than Australia. The various countries there closed their borders with Sweden which has a similar population to NSW.

Was that "repugnant" of them to do so?

As to human rights what about those of the 15,000 people who are still alive in Australia because our timely health restrictions? As a Victorian I can tell you there is widespread support for what Andrews has done to get our rates back to zero.

And why in hell are you saying bravo to a country which oversaw far greater deaths due to Covid than comparable countries? What kind of warped ideological positioning allows you to think that is reasonable?

SR,

Once again you are banging on from a somewhat simplistic ideological framework.

Firstly freedom from infection is not a human right or lockdown should be permanent to prevent the 2000 - 4000 people that are killed by the normal flu every year. Whereas freedom of movement and association is a well defined human right.

Human rights can be infringed upon for the common good in emergencies, but even then it should be as short and as light as possible.

The problem with Bubonic Dan is that the Victorian second wave was entirely due to Labor's incompetence, and the lockdown measures taken were often arbitrary.

I see someone is still sulking

shonkyminister,

Dan Andrews and his government is being universally acclaimed for the quick and decisive response to the second wave of Covid-19 in Victoria. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the actions of Marshmallow Marshall and his government in South Australia. MM failed to learn from the Morrison governments error in Victoria. MM thought it a good idea to employ pizza cooks as security guards in hotel quarantine, unfortunately that was a bad idea, MM believing that strategy would solve two problems, security and meals, pizza every night for the inmates! Fortunately South Aussie not having any population to speak of, largest village being Coober Pedy (pop 27 on a hot day), didn't have any deaths. Although Marshmallow Marshall did have his army of pizza cooks on standby to act as undertakers (multitasking) should those services be required!

Pauliar,

Firstly the quarantine stuff up was the sole responsibility of bubonic Dan who refused the offer of professionals from Morrison and instead hired a bunch of clowns from his union buddies showing both incompetence and corruption in one shot.

Secondly, the infection in SA was caught quickly and contact tracing dealt with roughly a dozen infections no deaths and no economic wreckage in stark contrast to the Dandemic where 800 died and 1000s were infected and the economy stuffed.

There has been a recent study comparing mortality in Sweden and Norway which is much more sophisticated than the simplistic Sweden-bashing comparisons that are often made.

It looks like mortality has generally been higher in Sweden, not just this year: 'Our study shows that although Covid-19 associated mortality rate was almost 15-fold higher in Sweden than in Norway during the epidemic, all-cause mortality was not higher in Sweden compared with three of the four preceding years.'

They maintain that excess mortality in Sweden was concentrated into the first epidemic wave from the surrounding periods, which were lower, a type of 'displacement'.
Ref: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.11.20229708v1