Covid exit strategy?

Fourthly, open the borders. This should be done in the late spring for two main reasons. Firstly, the population is more robust in the warmer weather. They have higher levels of vitamin D from the increased sunshine and are spending more time outdoors where spread of the virus is less. In addition the hospitals are not having to deal with the seasonal flu which comes in the winter months and places the hospitals under strain. This will also give us a few more months to get all the vulnerable people vaccinated, prepare for a large number of people who will require home treatment and to re-educate the Australian people to be less fearful of this disease.

Fifthly - we need to stop testing and counting asymptomatic people. This is vital. The health authorities and politicians are not distinguishing between people who test positive and people who are sick. As such the Australian public are failing to distinguich between these two groups. We don't go counting cases of any other asymptomatic viral infection and should not be counting this one. It only serves to ramp up unwarranted fear. This fear only serves the politicians who can then tell us all how they are "keeping us safe". Without the fear, we would see their actions for what they really are. A totalitarian power grab for political purposes.

Sixthly - stop all the unnecessary mask mandates, business restrictions etc. There is little evidence to support their efficacy but they do a great deal towards increasing public fear.

Seventhly - stop talking about variants. There will always be a new variant. Viruses mutate. If we are going to assume that every new variant is more dangerous or more transmissible than the last, then we will never find our way out of this mess. The reality is that if you have natural immunity to one variant, you will likely have immunity to all. This simply serves to increase the level of fear in the community for no good reason.

Lastly - we need to put death into perspective. Every single one of us will die. For most of us that will be when we are old, but not for everyone. The average age of death from coronavirus in australia is 82 years old. This is older than the average age of death from all other causes. While some of these deaths are tragic, others are simply not. When a 93 year old nursing home resisdent with dementia, heart disease and stroke dies of coronavirus, this is not a tragedy. It is the end result of a very long life.

Many people die younger than they need to due to a lack of caring for their health. While these deaths are terrible for the family and friends, we generally recognise them as the price we pay for living and making our own health choices. Obesity is of epidemic proportions in Australia with resultant large numbers of people with diabetes and other comorbidities. We don't demand the government intervene to force us all to be healthy, and I don't think many Australians would trade their freedom to decide what to eat and how much exercise to do for an in improvement in health due to government fiat.

Importantly, we need to treat covid just like we treat all other risks to our health. Educate people about the risks but then let them decide on how much risk they will place themselves under. This is the way we manage nearly all other risks including influenza, heart disease, alcohol consumption, tobacco use etc. Covid needs to be treated the same way. There will be Covid deaths. There is no reason to view them worse than deaths caused by anything else. We do not have news bulletins giving a running tally of people who have died from heart disease this year (41,800 per year).

I know there will be those that object strongly to my suggested exit strategy. Before insulting me, I ask you to firstly point out the errors in my thinking and secondly to identify a better strategy. There may well be better paths available that I have not thought of and it is possible that there are errors or misunderstandings in my own thinking. The main issue I see is that we are just continuing on this path of lockdowns, restrictions and fear with no thought as to how we extricate ourselves from this guilded cage that is Australia in the age of Covid.