In this article, we reflect on the cost that Australia’s COVID-19 response has imposed on its society. Indeed, we believe that the broadly positive outcomes mask more troubling developments, both specifically within the response to the pandemic and the broader political culture. There have been, nonetheless, serious ethical challenges at the heart of the Australian response to COVID-19. The Australian system has remained resolutely centrist during the entirely of the pandemic. ![]() Probably as a result, the intense political dysfunction that has gripped many countries, epitomised by dangerous forms of nationalist populism and a rejection of scientific expertise, has been absent. But government intervention prevented the unemployment rate from jumping into double figures. 2 There was no way, of course, that any government could prevent the Australian economy – untouched by a downturn for three decades – heading into recession. Although he was a little slower off the mark than some northern European countries, his government introduced one of the world’s largest stimulus packages to cushion the economic shock of Australian society locking down. Early on in the pandemic, then Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared there was a twin crisis: a health one and an economic one. ![]() The swift and near absolute closure of Australia’s international and domestic borders, along with Australian citizens’ willingness to support government policies – including lockdowns and effective tracking, tracing and isolation measures – have prevented the virus from sweeping through the country with the same devastation as it has elsewhere.Īustralian governments also acted quickly on the economic front. Two years into the pandemic, the number of lives lost to the virus have been few compared to the rest of the world. 1 For many Australians, if not most, the experience of COVID-19 has been relatively fortunate. As the world has grappled with the pandemic, the experiences of just a small handful of countries are widely perceived to have bucked the trend of mass infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
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