Australia is spending up to $25 million for each Covid life saved

Who lives and who dies is a very hard and uncomfortable conversation to have, but we do need to start having it?

Should Australia's strict approach to lockdowns continue?

I am fully vaxed, believe in the dangers of Covid and have also endured Victoria's never-ending lockdown. And no, I am not arguing a free for all, or freedom days.

It isn't just lockdown or people die – there are shades of grey.

Increasingly complex is the vulnerability of people who have lost their life savings, small business or career due to the endless lockdowns – most of those triumphantly holding the "lockdown hard" mindset are gainfully employed in jobs that aren't really impacted.

I am yet to find someone who is vocally hard lockdown, and yet has a small business impacted.

What we have discovered through Covid, is a complete lack of policy rationality. We have spent around $1 trillion in Australia in relation to Covid, when you add business loss and state and federal government spending. Federal government spending alone was over $300 billion as of May 2021, and would have grown as this year extended.

Taking the 'no lockdown' model of Sweden and extrapolating their deaths to Australia's population would have been 39,000 deaths, divide one trillion by those lives and we have spent $25.6 million per life saved in Australia. I recognise there are of course other consequences, long term impacts and beyond, but whichever way you cut it we are spending a lot to save people from Covid.

On the flip side, we see GoFundMe pages filled with Australians needing to raise $50,000 or $100,000 for a treatment to save their child, or a friend or family, yet we (through our politicians) are quite happy to spend (in absolute worst-case numbers) $25.6 million per Covid life saved.

Through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, we restrict access to drugs based on what is called a Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) If a drug costs more than a certain amount (circa $100,000 per annum in Australia) even if it can save your life, we do not spend the money.

Why? Because money doesn't grow on trees, and we have to draw the line somewhere.

I have simplified it, but the long and the short of it, if you are going to die tomorrow, and there is a drug that can save you, but that drug costs more than a certain amount, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will reject the drug and you will die, unless you raise the money yourself.

Even the World Health Organisation (WHO) sets a benchmark on who lives and who dies. In Australia that benchmark would be between $55,000 and $165,000 per life saved. Much less than the $25.6 million we are spending per life saved from worst-case Covid deaths estimates.