What was the best economic and health option to tackle COVID? Australia Vs Sweden
It's been just over 12 months since the world faced It's largest challenge in quite some time, people have likened it to a 1 in a 100 year event however my personal beliefs and views sees it on par with Chernobyl. A man made disaster that had the potential to cause significant death.
I understand this view is disputed and it is being focused as a natural disaster through wet markets but I am not of that personal belief.
Here in Australia debate has surrounded what was/is the best approach as the political parties were divided between herd immunity or eradication. Fortunately my and many other state governments went for eradication despite our federal government wanting to open up, their focus was on business.
Sweden was often used as the case example of herd immunity however these were too early days to be using such an example, but elected officials still did.
No offence to any people from Sweden who might might reading this but the countries cultural beliefs and laws are very different. These beliefs led to different ways of tackling the virus.
For instance in Sweden from 1906 to 1976 Sweden was actively sterilising people with mental health issues, the poor, promiscuous women, people seeking gender reassignment and a few other demographics in a process referred to as Eugenics with a focus on survival of the fittest and cleaning the gene pool.
This in my opinion ultimately led them to the decision of allowing the virus to run free through their nation literally claiming the weak and only leaving the strong. Those weak were peoples grand parents, peoples mums, dads, family. People who would normally live a normal fulfilling life with their families.
Australia did not and went for hard lock downs and eradication to ensure everyone's survival or at least greatest opportunities at it.
I use Sweden in comparison to Australian as we have a similar population and demographics, a great nation to run a comparison on.
Unfortunately this approach had little effect and still doesn't provide any safety from the Virus as we have since learned that it doesn't discriminate and healthy people can succumb to it.
What we did see is that wealth plays a larger role as wealthy individuals self isolated from the world and locked themselves down. With poorer members of society forced to work in order to survive, even with the virus causing further spread and spreading to those who were self isolating.
It was advocated in Australia that lockdowns were harming businesses despite Australian governments shilling out billions in financial support to keep everyone in operation.
A move Sweden did not take as they anticipated people to continue shopping but they did not. The economic impacts on Sweden mirrored those of Australia. Two countries one with a lock down one without. That is because people in Sweden went into self preservation and stopped going out. This ment cafes had 0 support where as in Australia the government was providing support.
We're 12 months in and Australia's model has been an international success with now many nations following suite. However, there slow action has made it hard to achieve the same results as Australia.
But it's not over yet, in Australia we have enjoyed a free and open summer due to our climate which I believe plays a significant role in ensuring the viruses slow transmission compared with cooler climates.
I fear winter will give us a few more outbreaks and with it more lockdowns and I'm not sure how strong the vaccine will he against it. Only time will tell and in 12 months time we will have more information and data on COVID.
but from a brief comparison between Sweden and Australia it is evident that an eradication approach was better for the economy and the health of nations.
But I'm interested in knowing your thoughts and opinions. Do you think there is something your nation could have done better or are you happy with the outcome?
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