Andrew Bolt: We're not Italy and alarmist coronavirus claims do not help

It’s too soon to say if we’ve overreacted to the coronavirus in Australia, yet with just 16 deaths so far, it’s easy to think this virus has caused less suffering than our panicked reaction to it, writes Andrew Bolt.

We were right to worry about coronavirus in Australia, especially given what’s happened in Italy, but not anymore, writes Andrew Bolt. Picture: AP

How dangerously quick we were to panic about the coronavirus, particularly after watching Italy.

Sure, that was understandable … at first.

Italy recorded its first death from the virus on February 21. Just 21 days later, it had 250 people dying in a day, with 1266 total deaths.

But nothing like that was happening here.

In the 21 days since our first death on March 8, just 16 Australians died.

That’s tragic, but all were old — most very old — and many had very serious illnesses such as cancer.

It was always likely we’d cope better than Italy, and not just because our hospitals are better.

After all, this is a virus that kills mostly the old, and Italians are much older than us: their median age is 10 years higher.

Italians also live closer together and smoke 50 per cent more cigarettes per person than do Australians, which may be significant with a virus that kills when it attacks the lungs.

Also feeding our panic was the appalling World Health Organisation, which still claims this virus kills 3.4 per cent of those who catch it.

But that figure is based on grossly incomplete testing of people with few or any symptoms. The real mortality rate in Australia so far is closer to 0.4 per cent.

But experts paid too little attention to what the Australian data was showing and issued terrifying predictions.

Professor Warwick McKibbin of the Australian National University claimed his models suggested the virus could kill between 21,000 and 96,000 Australians.

Professor Raina MacIntyre of the University of NSW warned of “hundreds of thousands” of deaths and the Sydney Morning Herald, extrapolating from infection rates from our Deputy Chief Medical Officer, warned “up to 150,000 Australians could die”.

But just 16 deaths so far suggest such claims were alarmist.

What’s more, are we distinguishing enough between people dying “from” coronavirus and dying “with” it?

The first two men to die in Victoria were both in a cancer ward. The first man to die in Queensland had “seriously underlying health issues”. Two frail women in their 80s died in their NSW nursing home beds.

It’s too soon to conclude we overreacted, and some will say it’s just that reaction that’s saving us.

Yet others may soon think this virus has caused less suffering than has our panicked reaction to it.

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