Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Every Christmas I take a moment to reflect on what I’m thankful for. This year, one thing stands out above ALL others because without it, there wouldn’t be a lot to be thankful for. What is it? Politicians! (Yes, really!)

Politicians who put the good of their country and its people above all else, and who take science seriously. Specifically, the decision by Australia’s politicians, especially Western Australia’s Premier, Mark McGowan, to go hard, go strong, and go early on dealing with COVID-19, and to be transparent about why, and with a united bipartisan approach, at least early on.

Locking down our borders (international, interstate, and intrastate) has saved countless lives, and continues to do so (Western Australia has gone more than 250 days with NO community transmission [yet] and Australia’s total death toll from COVID in the past 9 months is around 1000 [see below for comparisons], with 800+ of those from the Victorian outbreak alone). We’ve also been incredibly lucky, but early and tough decisions had a lot to do with that luck too, and that can’t be ignored, especially in light of how other countries are coping (or not) as a result of their decisions or lack of decision, or decisions that were countermanded or were ignored by too many of the population.

In addition, the federal govt’s stimulus package of $750 per week (for 6 months) for ALL employees of companies whose turnover dropped by 30% or more meant that the unemployment rate was nowhere near as high as it could have been. And the increase in payments to those who were unemployed helped them pay their bills. While some of these measures and eligibility may have changed, the fact that they were there for the first 6 months helped keep an awful lot of people from going under. Added to that our nationwide healthcare system, which prevents almost all Australians from going bankrupt just because they get sick.

Some industries, businesses, and individuals and families have been hit very hard, and may never recover. Other industries are booming—I heard some $40 billion each year was spent on travel by Australians, much of it overseas travel. For those who still have jobs, that money is now being saved or paid off the mortgage, or being spent on other big ticket items, such as upgrading cars, houses, etc. Sales of new and used cars have gone through the roof, and the building industry (new builds, renos) is inundated with work. Other industries have benefited too, such as IT companies helping businesses and individuals set up for working from home, anyone who makes perspex screens, courier and delivery companies. After an initial rocky start, local tourism has benefited too, with people holidaying at home and discovering the wonders of their own state.

But in the grand scheme of things, the measures taken back in March/April have kept us safe and in a bubble of ‘normality’ (for example, I haven’t worn a face mask since March/April and nor has anyone else in my state—yet).

Those measures taken 9 months ago bought us time—time to assess, time to recover, time to implement measures that needed time to prove successful in other jurisdictions, and time for a vaccine to be developed.

Comparisons, using death rate per 1 million people as at 23 December 2020 (figures from: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths):

• UK: 1018 deaths per million
• US: 985 per million
• Sweden: 819 per million (by comparison, Norway is at 77 per million)
• Canada: 387 per million
• Australia: 35 per million
• New Zealand: 5 per million

And with that, I wish you all as festive a season as possible, under what for many—especially my family and friends in the US—will be a really difficult time.

(And right when I was finishing this, Santa just came up the street on the back of the local fire truck, siren blaring, giving out lollies to the kids! It’s 35C in the shade right now and even hotter in the sun where he is—he must be boiling in that suit!)