25,000 Australians to die under current plan to open up Australia at 70%. By Harley Dennett.
Australia’s national plan to relax Covid restrictions risks a catastrophic death toll, new modelling shows, as the Prime Minister and NSW Premier continue to talk up easing restrictions before the community is protected.
Researchers from three of Australia’s most prestigious universities warned tens of thousands of lives could be saved by revising the national plan to vaccinate children and reaching 90 per cent vaccination coverage among adults before “exposing Australians to uncontrolled COVID-19”.
Their modelling shows Australia would see between 25,000 and 43,000 Covid deaths and more than 270,000 people with debilitating long Covid if governments and health officials follow the national plan.
That plan has Covid restrictions relaxed at a vaccination rate of 70 per cent of people aged 16 and over and almost no restrictions at 80 per cent. …
But the politicians really really want it to be true:
One author of the new modelling, Professor Quentin Grafton from Australian National University, said statements from Scott Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian in favour of easing restrictions at a flat rate of 70 per cent of adults was like handcuffing the nation’s public health response while overtaxing its health workforce. …
“It’s a no-brainer – a simple calculation to make, and it doesn’t therefore make sense from the Prime Minister’s statement [on Monday] that at 70 per cent that we should stop having lockdowns because the cost is not worth it,” Professor Grafton said. …
Dr Zoë Hyde, lead author of the new modelling, said premature relaxing of the restrictions would likely be irreversible, the resulting deaths unacceptable.
“It’s simply too dangerous to treat COVID-19 like the flu,” Dr Hyde said.
Interesting times ahead. The road death toll is about 1,200 lives per year, and look how much effort we go to to get it that low.
The rough modeling: 30% of Australia’s 25 million is 7.5 million people. The infection fatality rate is currently between 0.5% and 1.0% in western populations with functioning hospitals. If all the unvaccinated catch covid, expect at least 0.5% of 7.5 million — or 37,500 people — to die. That’s a lot of voters, but good business for funeral parlors.
What effect will 270,000 cases of long covid have on national productivity? Hmm.
We could avoid all this by widely dispensing ivermectin to ease us through the novel phase of covid. But apparently Pfizer has taken out a patent saying you’re not allowed, or something.
