Patrick Carlyon: True cost of Covid can’t be measured

Victoria’s world record lockdown ordeal has hurt us economically but it’s the human cost that hurts our state the most. See the stats.

The streets of Melbourne’s CBD remain quiet. Picture: David Geraghty

The good news is that the likelihood of surviving COVID-19 compares favourably with Don Bradman’s batting average.

The rest of the news is bad.

Tables depicting the Victorian costs of the pandemic present a sobering analysis of the state’s performance across a wide spectrum of measures.

Most of the statistics show that Victoria has lost much more than any other state. In turn, our recovery stands to be rockier than the rest of the nation.

It’s important to note the economic effects, from the nation’s biggest state deficit, the biggest loss of population, and a CBD occupancy rate at less than 6 per cent of pre-Covid levels.

Lost private sector wages in Victoria in 2020 equated to $8.3bn, which is $1400 for every Victorian adult.

A normally bustling Bourke St. Mall became a lonely place during the pandemic. Picture: Ian Currie

Olivia, 10, wrote a school assignment on how remote learning has affected the young. Picture: Rebecca Michael

Yet the human cost is trickier to interpret than raw economic data.

More than 160 businesses a month have closed in Victoria since the pandemic began. The fallout in families due to these closures is incalculable.

How do you chart the impact of 34 weeks of face-to-face learning lost? Of children who tuned out, because a screen was the most companionable thing to hand?

How do you quantify the loneliness, languishing and/or depression of singles, parents and grandparents over the course of more than 42 weeks of no home visits?

And the demoralising site of playgrounds, security tape dancing in the breeze, closed for a total of 20 weeks?

Trisha Maginness said she saw her family struggling from missing work, friends and study. Picture: Tony Gough

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child star Lucy Goleby couldn’t work during lockdown. Picture: Tim Carrafa

Retail trade has been closed for more than six months, and there have been 41 weeks when hospitality was restricted to takeaway business.

Measures of health, such as the sharp rise in mental health admissions to emergency, were exacerbated by strident restrictions, which imposed more losses of liberty than the measures enacted in non-democratic countries.

Victoria has had the most Covid deaths, 993 to the 540 in NSW, leading to perhaps the most damning statistic to emerge from the analysis.

How many people have admitted to knowing who authorised the use of private security in hotel quarantine, which directly caused the overwhelming majority of Victorian fatalities?

A clue – it’s the same as Bradman’s score in his final Test innings.