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How Australia crushed the COVID curve and lost the race

How Australia crushed the COVID curve and lost the race

This country had one of the best-designed economic responses in the world, and one of the worst vaccine procurement processes.

In Australia, the COVID-19 pandemic was a tale of two policy responses. David Rowe

Richard Holden and Steven Hamilton
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Pandemics are, by their very nature, bad. They are never going to be good. The challenge facing policymakers in addressing this kind of once-in-a-century crisis is simply how to make it less bad. The pandemic wasn’t anyone’s fault – at least not anyone in Australia.

No reasonable person expected our governments to be perfect in responding to it. It was inevitable and reasonable that mistakes would be made.

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Richard Holden
Richard HoldenEconomics professorRichard Holden is professor of economics at UNSW Business School and president of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Connect with Richard on Twitter.
Steven Hamilton
Steven HamiltonEconomistSteven Hamilton is assistant professor of economics at George Washington University and visiting fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the ANU.

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Original URL: https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/how-australia-crushed-the-covid-curve-and-lost-the-race-20240917-p5kb4o