It's probably more correctly a personal liberty versus public health argument in that the lockdowns are being used to pursue public health outcomes. Thus it boils down to the discussion/debate that first started a few millennia ago when people first started organising themselves into societal groups - how you reconcile the trade-off between the individual and the group.

Unsurprisingly, some people are firm advocates for individual rights first, while others believe that the welfare of the group is more important. To tap Aurelius, it's the bee and the hive discussion. At the end of the day it comes down to personal values. And frankly who is anyone on this forum to tell anyone else that their values are wrong?

I think that it is fair to say that what some people see as an unreasonable imposition on civil liberties others see as a reasonable public health measure. Those pesky values again. You do you.

Trying to get good country-to-country spending comparisons is problematic for a number of reasons but Sweden's COVID spending in per capita terms appears to be not dissimilar to ours. As a proportion of GDP we have committed around 19 percent, a bit more than the UK, similar to Canada but significantly less than any of Japan, France or Germany.

In terms of how Sweden and Australia have ridden through COVID economically to date, we're doing better in terms of GDP growth (compared to Q4-19, our economy has actually grown to Q1-21; Sweden's (as are most developed countries') is still down) and unemployment (at 5.1 percent we're back to where we were coming into the pandemic whereas Sweden at 9.8 percent is stuck some 2+ percentage points higher than where their were coming in). Draw your own conclusions from that.

Vic and SA reporting new cases. This could be spreading country wide by months end.

Mr Spock may have been on to something when he said quite succinctly "The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few."

Just some food for thought.

Fly safe (when you can) and play hard (when you can)

Cheers Hoss

And then, of course, in the next movie you had Kirk saying that sometimes "... the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many."

You do you.

89 cases. Onya Gladys

And some of us are arguing that the response be the subject of a proper cost-benefit analysis. It's a completely uncontroversial concept applied in many other aspects of the workings of our society.

It may be that the real costs of the response outweigh the value of the lives saved. Or it may not be. And the real costs are not confined to just curtailed liberties.

(I was struck by the implications of a societal phenomenon of which I was not aware but recently heard explained by a doctor practising in the inner suburbs of Sydney: Many older people go to shopping centres to get warm, because they cannot afford to heat their homes. And well-known psychologist, social researcher and writer, Hugh Mackay, recently pointed out that the worst punishment we inflict on prisoners is solitary confinement. But we are effectively ordering all these old people to go into solitary confinement. At least prisons are heated. It reminds of that song by another well-known public figure: Ozzie Osbourne. "Killing ourselves to live.")

If Australia continues to stumble from outbreak and lockdown to outbreak and lockdown, without some clear and credible evidence of why it's all 'worth it', I fear that the 'circuit breaker' will be very, very ugly.

In some countries the worst punishment inflicted on prisoners is the death penalty. We officially took that off the table as a sentencing option over 35 years ago.

Your point being?

So,we now learn that the family in melbourne who returned from sydney broke their stay at home isolation requirements & the 3 removalists have varying stories on where they visited etc.
Im really curious how hard it is for people to understand exactly what 'stay at home' means.
I constantly see on here comments about how home isolation is the way to go & how it would be much better that having people in hotel quarantine.
I wouldnt be surprised to see them running to the media now with stories of how badly they have been treated.
The govt have said they wont be fined as they have been forthcoming about their movements,guess u dont have much choice after being caught red handed.

Good thing everyone will have had a vaccination by then!

Just needed a little outbreak to motivate people.

Can we hold a sweep on how long after the NRL settles in their hotels in Qld until AP suddenly finds a reason to close the border?
She’s not even a good actor… written all over her and JY’s faces tonight on the news.

No need for it to get ugly. Just get everyone (or at least 60% of the population) vaccinated. Stop the hysteria regarding the AZ vaccine and get on with it. It seems to be working out pretty well in the UK.

Australia is coming a very embarrassing 38/38 of OECD countries for full vaccination. Accept there is always some risk with every medicine we use and I say again, get on with it like the rest of the world. Nothing more needs to said!

A Geoffrey Robertson hypothetical.
If every state and territory declared 100 cases or even 500 cases and all the borders are open.
Which state would close their border to which state? Why would they do so? Every state is on an equal footing.
One state would complain "you can't close the border because your state is just as infected as ours".

Or let's say all the borders are shut. All state cases jump to 1000 then 2000. Then you could argue, the border is no longer a border
it's just an imaginary line.

Just noting that the formerly worst punishment we inflicted on prisoners, the death penalty, is precisely what gets put on the table as a possible outcome for at least some of "these old people" if we don't "effectively order all these old people to go into solitary confinement". It strikes me as somewhat odd that "well-known psychologist, social researcher and writer, Hugh Mackay," hadn't observed the incongruity in being so perturbed by the lesser of the two punishments.

Separately, it is also notable that nearly four decades ago we determined that the death penalty should not be countenanced for even the most heinous crimes yet in some quarters that is exactly what has been seen as an acceptable outcome for entirely innocent people so that we can avoid public health measures that temporarily impact civil liberties. That strikes me as a tad incongruous but I expect that others will have no issues with reconciling that. You do you.

Yeah but that’s the whole point.
right now everyone in Sydney has a 10km imaginary line around their place of residence.
They way you break a pandemic is to stop the spread of the virus. You can do that through vaccination or by reducing contact between people. That’s it. Those are the options.

The vaccine rollout has been a mess, the only other option is to limit the movement and contact that people have with each other.

This isn’t a conspiracy for the government to take control. I guarantee they’re having a far worse time than previous governments who just needed to worry about whether to build a new stadium, or which rich political sponsor they were going to have dinner with this week.

Can we remember that 98% of COVID positive people recover.

There isn’t enough research done on the long term effects of Covid for you to make that assessment.

I know some one with long Covid. It’s not pleasant. I wish I did not have to wait another 3 weeks for my second AZ.

You don't need to wait.
My SIL (age 69) rang yesterday and asked if she could have her 2nd A-Z early - 8 weeks in.
Yes. No problem.
Got her 2nd A-Z this morning.

Thanks for the info.