It’s not so stupid.
Eradication (of community transmission that is, excluding inbound quarantine, provided steps are taken to ensure that quarantine actually works for a change) would be way better for the economy, because as soon as you have it, you can completely open the domestic economy, and also open bubbles with countries who also have it, such as NZ.
With eradication of community transmission, state borders would open, and domestic tourism would return to near normal (less the domestic tourism by international tourists, but increased by locals who would have otherwise traveled overseas). Schools, restaurants, pubs, bands, footy... all back to normal. Just a closed international border. Yes, there might be a lag in tourism and spending by those who have suffered job losses or lower incomes in recent times (often described as a “recession”), but I think economists might be surprised by the domestic surge in discretionary spending as soon as there is a positive sign in the domestic economy, and that it is actually “allowed” again. I have many friends who can’t wait for a big holiday - as soon as they are allowed to!
International students could even gradually come back, but just at a controlled rate with intensely controlled quarantine requirements.
To make it happen would require very hard and unpleasant restrictions, but a shorter term of unpleasantness might yield an improved economy in a shorter time frame than the current ongoing neverending uncertainty, which appears to be resulting in a very poor economy anyway.
Victoria is having a go, right now, and my personal opinion is that they are not going hard enough.
NSW is doing very little, and I suspect that will hurt NSW, and by extension, Australia.
To suggest that we would be better off, economically speaking, by just “living with it”, is to ignore what is happening in the rest of the world. A lot of the rest of the world is trying to just “live with it” and their economy is tanking far worse than ours. A good economist would have a good think about that.
Now, I’m not insensitive to the fact that I am suggesting this on a pilot website. There are many pilots, myself included, who want international borders opened, so we can all get back to work.
Well, we have bugger-all chance of getting back to work until we can sort out our own country. And that means opening state borders. So let’s sort out our own country out first. Only then can we look at international flying.
If that means going hard for community transmission eradication, then I am all for it. We should have done it months ago.
Economically speaking, that is our best bet.
Last edited by Derfred; 9th Aug 2020 at 17:52.