Originally Posted by
WingNut60
You forgot to mention the other half of the quoted sentence, the bit that mentions 70 deaths.
I didn't forget, nor intentionally omit it. You asked for a specific number of cases, I gave what
I consider to be a reasonable number of cases based on testimony from a state CHO - incidentally the same one who also champions "28 days COVID free" to allow his state border to reopen to the rest of the country, and to hell with the socio-economic cost of that 28-day delay.
Originally Posted by WingNut60
But then, that'd be OK, wouldn't it?
To me,
YES, it would! I make no secret of that fact, nor apologies for it. But in saying that, I am happy to accept personal responsibility for my health, and tolerate minor inconveniences (masks/social distancing/hand sanitiser on entry, for eg) to allow life to continue as normally as possible, as it does in NSW (who has kept borders open almost entirely throughout...). By the same token, I don't smoke so, personally,
I don't consider the 8,000-odd deaths from preventable lung cancer a year as being "OK". But hey, the rest of Australia seems to think that killing 8,000 citizens a year by the sales of tobacco products
is perfectly fine! So who's right?
My point is, if the Government has had a financial model for acceptable risk (including death) v reward for decades, and they threw it out the window for COVID. However, the Government - of all persuasions - is happy to rake in the billions of dollars from tobacco excise,
despite knowing it is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in Australia.
You can't have it both ways.