If the recommendations of the inquiry into Australia’s COVID-19 response are followed, we should never again see such a brute-force, old-school reaction to a pandemic – including through mass lockdowns and community-wide mandates.

In the main, Australians listened to the best of the science and, as a community, did far better than most. Mistakes were made – most notably the refusal of medical authorities in early 2020 to acknowledge aerosol infection as the dominant means of spread.