“To live with this virus, not to live in fear of it”

That is what our Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, and I totally agree with his view. It is time to think of an exit strategy from lockdown.

Last weekend, there were mass protests on anti-lockdown across Australia. Although I don’t condone the aggressive behavior of some protesters, I do think that we as a society must listen to their objection.

In the mean time, Australia’s lockdowns have become a sort of laughing stock around the world. Watch this video clip and you know why.

Sydney is well into the 10th week of lockdown. Melbourne is now going through another lockdown. Currently, more than half of the Australian population are in fact in lockdown. Yet, the number of cases keeps increasing, not decreasing. Figure 1 below shows that the number of positive cases in New South Wales has now passed the 800 mark! And, the more tests are done, the more positive cases will be recorded (Figure 2). So, judging in terms of the case statistics, it seems that lockdown has no appreciable effect in reducing the spread of the virus.

Figure 1: Number of covid cases since early June 2021. Lockdowns have not reduced the number of cases.

Figure 2: The relationship between the number of cases and the number of tests

Has lockdown reduced covid-related mortality? Well, the answer is No. Before and during…