I think we can lay to rest the hypothesis that Australia did better than other countries because it was more sane and has wiser systems for making decisions. Australia did better for other reasons, including being an island, that led to a different equilibrium. Now that we are in the vaccination phase of the pandemic, Australia is utterly failing.
From Australia, this hypothesis [Australia succeeded because it was using good epistemics to make decisions] was only ever plausible if you looked at high-level outcomes rather than the actual decision-making. We got basically one thing right: pursue local elimination. … Nationwide, we continue to make expensive and obvious mistakes about handwashing, distancing, quarantine, and appear to be bungling our vaccine rollout.
Zero active cases and zero local transmission covers a multitude of sins. I attribute the result as much to good luck as epistemic skill, and am very glad that COVID is not such a hard problem that we can’t afford mistakes.
Unfortunately it turns out that our national vaccine rollout has been comprehensively bungled, including turning down Pfizer when they approached us in July last year. Hopefully voters can correctly attribute responsibility for our latest round of lockdowns to the current federal government.
For all that though, and while the Delta strain spreads considerably faster, my impression is that we still largely have it under control—just at significantly greater cost via track/trace/lockdown rather than vaccinating everyone and moving on. I’m hoping I’ll be able to travel next year, now...
As I noted on the April 15 post,
Unfortunately it turns out that our national vaccine rollout has been comprehensively bungled, including turning down Pfizer when they approached us in July last year. Hopefully voters can correctly attribute responsibility for our latest round of lockdowns to the current federal government.
For all that though, and while the Delta strain spreads considerably faster, my impression is that we still largely have it under control—just at significantly greater cost via track/trace/lockdown rather than vaccinating everyone and moving on. I’m hoping I’ll be able to travel next year, now...