Back in late March when I last was paying close attention to the
John Hopkins covid tracking data, Australia was at or around 20th to 30th in the list of total cases, along with some smallish European countries like Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Czechia. Its interesting to see how that has changed. The small european countries that been more relaxed on their rules or whose people haven't followed the rules closely are still around that spot on the list:
19th = Netherlands
21st = Czechia
29th = Sweden
But other countries have moved down the list. Denmark (54th) and Norway (88th) were more careful than their neighbour Sweden, and its showing. Meanwhile Australia (107th) and NZ (157th) have done incredibly well, but given what we saw with the Melbourne outbreak, that has to be put down to the restrictions that were brought in, as annoying as they have been.
Everyone in my family, and most of my friends, are all 100% in agreement with the restrictions, even if we whinge about them now and then, it is clear as daylight that they've been good and kept a lot of people out of hospital and out of the graveyard. It could have been very different. In the USA there is now more than 400k who have died after getting infected, and there are strong reasons to feel that this number is well under the real number.
Only days ago
the University of Leicester released data from research tracking people who had been admitted to hospital after getting Covid, and then later released as they were regarded as recovering or recovered. They tracked a total of 47,780 people, a reliable population sample. Of those, 14,047 returned to hospital within 140 days. That is nearly 3 in 10 had to go back due to ongoing severity of symptoms and organ damage. Of those 47,780 people who were released from hospital because their Covid condition was considered sufficiently improved, 5,877 have since died. That is more than 10%. This is most commonly due to the development of heart, liver, and kidney problems as a result of Covid.
Here is the kicker. The countries that have tried to stay open in order to keep their economy functioning have gotten not only the worst transmission counts and death totals, but their economic outlooks for the next year or two are currently no better than the careful countries, and often worse.