Have we gone too hard in this lockdown?

It’s a fair question to ask today when you look at our numbers and compare them to Australia’s.

Per capita, they’re not dissimilar. We’ve got 1366 cases for a population of 5 million

Australia has five times our population and around about five times our cases: 6351.

They’ve got more deaths: 61.

Adjusting that number for our population would give us 12 deaths.  We haven’t lost 12 people, thankfully. But, we’re not far off. We’ve lost 9, and, four of those deaths happened in just the last 24 hours so I guess we have to accept that there’s a chance we might yet catch up to Australia.

It’s brutal to compare the numbers like that, and I’m sorry to do it, but we need to compare ourselves so we can keep assessing whether our response is appropriate.

And based only this, it seems it might not be. It might be too restrictive. Australia is achieving virtually the same results, but without the same economic pain.

Their construction and manufacturing industries are still working. Bunnings is open. Uber Eats is delivering. Takeout coffee and haircuts are allowed. The government wants all schools open.

We’re doing none of that, yet we aren’t doing much better in terms of infection.

The OECD says we will be the economy hit the hardest in the developed world.

We’re expecting unemployment to peak at 13.5% if we have a four week lockdown with existing levels of government assistance. Australia’s expecting it to peak at 10%.

Of course, it’s hard to predict how things are going to play out in either country.  Either one could take a turn for the worse.  But in week three of the lockdown for us, this comparison with Australia is potentially very uncomfortable for those deciding what happens next.

There are already calls for the Prime Minister to end our lockdown early, given how much better we’re doing than the models predicted.

Remember, we should be seeing 40-50 new cases a day right now. Today we had 17.

Right now, these calls are largely coming from independent economists and academics who appreciate the pain this is inflicting on the economy. 

If – and it’s a big if – but if Australia keeps tracking as well as us with less economic pain, expect those calls to get louder and start coming from a bigger group of people.