The AFR View

Australians have adjusted to pandemic normal

Omicron infection levels and deaths are surging this year. But the public’s assessment of pandemic risks has changed substantially.

Jul 22, 2022 – 7.05pm

Email LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

Subscribe to gift this article

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.

Subscribe now

Already a subscriber?

With another month of winter to go, and with the great vaccination drives of 2021-22 now waning, new varieties of the mild but fast-spreading omicron variant are shaping daily life in Australia once again.

The winter sickness wave is as predicted by the Doherty Institute’s director of epidemiology Professor Jodie McVernon at The Australian Financial Review Business Summit in March. Despite Australia’s successes in closing the borders, mass vaccination, and then timely reopening, COVID-19 has no “off switch” of herd immunity, she warned.

The Australian Financial Review’s succinct take on the principles at stake in major domestic and global stories – and what policy makers should do about them.