How many deaths will we accept so the rest of us can be free?

I know every death is sad, but how much longer should we be locked up to predominantly save people who will not save themselves?

We’ve got to finally ask, now that 14 million of us are locked down: how many Australians can we let die so the rest of us can live free?

Would 10 deaths a day be too many? Five? Or one?

Or is that why millions of us can’t leave home? Why children in Victoria have already missed half a year of in-class schooling? Why thousands of businesses are ruined, and crying people ring psychologists and helplines saying they can’t cope?

All that, to stop even one Australian a day from dying of this virus?

If true, we’ll never again ask our army to fight for our freedom. We’d rather live in tyranny than have even one soldier die.

But look overseas. Britain on Tuesday recorded 96 people dying of the virus. No lockdown.

Germany had 13. No lockdown. Italy 10. No lockdown. The US had 36.

How many Australians can we let die so the rest of us can live free? Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Many Australians are now so virus phobic that they’ll say, see, those figures prove we’re right to crack down so hard. Here, five people have already died in this latest outbreak, all in NSW. Too many! Without lockdowns, it would be even more.

That’s probably true. Sure, there may be better ways to fight this virus, but it’s a lie to say targeted lockdowns can’t limit infections.

Nor is it true that this virus is “just like the flu”. My daughter has it, and says it’s worse than any flu she’s known.

But the five deaths in this outbreak are like the 910 before. They’re overwhelmingly of the very old and vulnerable – two women in their 90s, a man in his late 80s, a man in his 70s and a 56-year-old woman who for some unexplained reason was not taken to hospital and was found dead at home.

The overwhelming number of deaths in Australia have been the very old and vulnerable. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Ascui

None deserved to die, but all – I suspect – could have been better protected, not least by themselves. We’ve been told little about these dead, but at least one of the women in her 90s had not got herself vaccinated. Nor had 24 of the 27 people in intensive care in NSW.

How much longer should we be locked up to predominantly save people who will not save themselves?

I know, every death is sad. Yet we seem weirdly sorrier if someone dies of this virus.

We used to accept the 1000 to 2000 deaths each year from the flu as a fair price for the freedom to carry on.

We still consider the more than 1100 people who die on our roads each year an acceptable price for our freedom to drive. We think 6000 deaths from alcohol each year is a bargain for the freedom to drink.

Yet just one virus death of a 90-year-old is a national tragedy, to be announced at a press conference as justification for making Australians stay at home.

Blame much of this fear on the exaggerations of “experts”.

Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton said the restrictions saved the lives of 36,000 Victorians in 2020. Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, absurdly boasted that his restrictions last year saved the lives of 36,000 Victorians. Paul Kelly, Australia’s chief medical officer, last year predicted between 50,000 and 150,000 deaths.

Professor Raina MacIntyre, from the University of NSW, trumped them all, predicting “up to 400,000 people dying” from a virus that’s in fact killed fewer than 1000 of us.

When experts exaggerate danger so wildly, no wonder Australians accept even wilder precautions.

Yes, lockdowns can be needed when contact tracers or hospitals are overwhelmed, but most lockdowns this year were patently useless, with cities shut for just one or two infections.

Even today’s lockdowns cannot all be necessary. The South Australian and Victorian governments have locked down their whole states, even rural towns which have never had an infection, while NSW more wisely locked down only country areas – three – where there’s some real risk.

All of South Australia is in lockdown, even rural towns that have not had any Covid cases. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

But Australians seem so blinded by terror that they can’t work out what risks are acceptable to avoid a lockdown.

That’s partly because those who suffer most from lockdowns are people we don’t see or hear.

I’m told horror stories every day by professionals whose job is to counsel the poor, disturbed, abused and lonely – often now cut off from meaningful contact with others by lockdowns that in Melbourne total 179 days already.

I think also of the children from loveless homes, supposedly now getting at-home schooling with the help of drunk, drugged, violent or just absent parents. How many are now lost to us or forever behind?

There’s no real life without risk. So how many deaths would we accept, just to live again?