Covid: So what went right in Australia and wrong in the United States? By Asanka Brendon Ratnayake in The New York Times, for a globalist view.
Latest covid deaths per million: US: 3,069, Australia: 302
If the United States had the same Covid death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved — instead of a million lost.
For the standard slide-show presentation, it looks obvious: Australia restricted travel and personal interaction until vaccinations were widely available, then maximized vaccine uptake, prioritizing people who were most vulnerable before gradually opening up the country again. …
But Australia’s Covid playbook produced results because of something more easily felt than analyzed at a news conference. Dozens of interviews, along with survey data and scientific studies from around the world, point to a lifesaving trait that Australians displayed from the top of government to the hospital floor, and that Americans have shown they lack: trust, in science and institutions, but especially in one another. …
In global surveys, Australians were more likely than Americans to agree that “most people can be trusted” — a major factor, researchers found, in getting people to change their behavior for the common good to combat Covid, by reducing their movements, wearing masks and getting vaccinated. …
The initial reaction was crucial, but still the NYT skirts the issue — why didn’t the US close its border? Trump wanted to, but that would be anathema to the deep state and Dems (because it would turn off the flow of new voters).
Australia’s good performance was entirely due to closing the borders, as evidenced by the similar performance of other countries that also closed their borders (Taiwan, NZ, Vietnam, some Pacific nations).
The first positive case appeared in Australia on Jan. 25. Five days later, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first human transmission of the virus in the United States …
The same day, Mr. Hunt struck a more practical tone. “Border, isolation, surveillance and case tracing mechanisms are already in place in Australia,” he said.
Less than 24 hours later, on Feb. 1, Australia closed its border with China, its largest trading partner. On Feb. 3, 241 Australians were evacuated from China and placed in government quarantine for 14 days. While Americans were still gathering in large groups as if nothing was wrong, Australia’s Covid containment system was up and running. …
A full border closure followed. Hotels were contracted to quarantine the trickle of international arrivals allowed in. Systems for free testing and contact tracing were rolled out, along with a federal program that paid Covid-affected employees so they would stay home.
For a business-friendly, conservative government, agreeing to the Covid-containment measures required letting go of what psychologists describe as “sticky priors” — longstanding beliefs tied to identity that often hold people back from rational decision-making. …
The Morrison government, the opposition Labor Party and state leaders from both parties lined up behind a “one voice” approach, with medical officers out front. …
The NYT prefers to talk about how Australia’s success was due to being a trusting society. Not that the NYT mentions it, but that’s because Australia is still more cohesive than the US, less damaged by low-trust immigration and by woke activism:
When Australians are asked why they accepted the country’s many lockdowns, its once-closed international and state borders, its quarantine rules and then its vaccine mandates for certain professions or restaurants and large events, they tend to voice a version of the same response: It’s not just about me.
The idea that one’s actions affect others is not unique to Australia, and at times, the rules on Covid stirred up outrage.
“It was a somewhat authoritarian approach,” said Dr. Greg Dore, an infectious diseases expert at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “There were lots of mandates, lots of fines for breaching restrictions, pretty heavy-handed controlling, including measures that were pretty useless, like the policing of outdoor masking.” …
Studies show that income inequality is closely correlated with low levels of interpersonal trust. And in Australia, the gap between rich and poor, while widening, is less severe than in the United States.
During the toughest of Covid times, Australians showed that the national trait of “mateship” — defined as the bond between equal partners or close friends — was still alive and well. They saw Covid spiral out of control in the United States and Britain, and chose a different path.
Compliance rates with social distancing guidelines, along with Covid testing, contact tracing and isolation, held steady at around 90 percent during the worst early outbreaks, according to modeling from the University of Sydney. In the United States, reductions in mobility — a key measure of social distancing — were less stark, shorter and more inconsistent, based in part on location, political identity or wealth.
In Australia, rule-following was the social norm. It was Mick Fanning, a surfing superstar, who did not question the need to stay with his American wife and infant in a small hotel room for 14 days of quarantine after a trip to California. …
It was also all the Australians who lined up to get tested, who wore masks without question, who turned their phones into virus trackers with check-in apps, who set up food services for the old, infirm or poor in lockdowns, or who offered a place to stay to women who had been trapped in their homes with abusive husbands. …
Not a big deal now:
The arrival of the Omicron variant, which is more transmissible, has sent Australia’s case numbers soaring, but with most of the population inoculated, deaths are ticking up more slowly. Australia has a federal election on Saturday. Covid is far down the list of voter concerns.
“We learned that we can come together very quickly,” said Denise Heinjus, Royal Melbourne’s executive director for nursing, whose title in 2020 was Covid commander. “There’s a high level of trust among our people.”
The US right wing misreported what was going on in Australia terribly — see here and here, for instance. It’s been interesting to see how both sides of US politics projected their own issues onto Australia, and both got it quite wrong.
Interesting too how the article completely avoids the elephant in the debate: why didn’t the US close its borders? It could have if it wanted, but it wasn’t even discussed in the media.
