Covid comparisons come down to reading the numbers

What fascinating material Adam Creighton is providing for us from the US (“Lockdown lessons in a tale of two US states”, 13/7), such as the comparison between Covid restriction-free Florida and lockdown-California, where their per capita Covid-related death tolls are not dramatically different, at rankings of 25 and 33 respectively out of the 50 US states. And in terms of economic and social outcomes Florida wins hands down with an unemployment rate of 4.9 per cent compared with California’s 8 per cent, along with maintaining full social freedoms.

Until authorities calculate the full social costs of lockdowns, we will never really know if they’re worthwhile. For some reason a death from Covid has been given greater status than a death from other causes. We know lockdowns aren’t worthwhile economically because they’re simply not sustainable. The nation could be in the red for up to half a century to fund lockdowns, so there’s very little scope to continue the practice.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

California is the trendsetter and benchmark for woke best practice – including lockdowns, mandatory masks and inoculation – but has an unemployment rate 50 per cent greater than Florida’s, where the state constitution forbids mandatory social distancing (and “excess deaths” are no higher than elsewhere). As Adam Creighton highlights, according to California’s matrix of Covid infections per 100,000 of population for lockdown, “Sydney wouldn’t even be in the minimal risk tier”. Certainly, the Covid death of a woman in her 90s is sad for her family, but so are cancer (50,000 deaths per annum) and road fatalities (almost 600 so far this year). Basically, the Delta variant is more contagious but less deadly than prior Covid strains, which is why the health system is not threatened, and why the politicians need to get their panic under control.

Greg Jones, Kogarah, NSW

Nick Cater writes persuasively but bases his arguments on a misunderstanding of the relative mortality risk for Covid-19 and influenza. He argues the current public health response to the Sydney Covid-19 outbreak is out of all proportion to responses to similar or higher numbers of deaths from seasonal influenza (“No sign of ‘normal’ as fear infects our leaders”, 12/7). However, the data he quotes is misleading.

First, deaths for Covid-19 are in a different league to influenza – to drive this home, let’s use the 2009 pandemic (swine flu) influenza due to a new strain rather than ordinary seasonal influenza. Swine flu was undeniably more severe with about 700 patients in ICU in winter 2009 in Australia, but we have to turn to New York for Covid-19 data. Comparing mortality for 2009 swine flu and Covid-19 in early 2020 in New York, in children under 17 years mortality was very low for both, but twice as high for swine flu. In contrast, for 18 to 65-year-old adults, mortality from Covid-19 was 25 times higher and for the over 65s 300 times higher than 2009 flu. Second, look at the data from Public Health England about Delta variant cases (51 per cent of the English population with two Covid-19 vaccine doses) versus data from NSW Health for Sydney where 9 per cent of the population has had two doses. In England, with 123,000 cases February 1 to June 21, 1.5 per cent were hospitalised. In Sydney, with 626 cases since June 21, 10.1 per cent are hospitalised and 3 per cent are in ICU. This is what the Covid-19 vaccines available in Australia and England can do. Unfortunately, with Sydney’s current level of vaccination, the approaches which had to be used in 2020 – contact tracing, mandatory stay-at-home orders and mass testing – are all we have to protect us for now from hospitals and ICUs full to the brim. We need to use them.

Professors Margaret Burgess and Peter McIntyre, former directors of Australia’s National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, Sydney

I am sure the 600,000 dead Americans would disagree with Adam Creighton’s assessment that it’s more important for people to enjoy life than lockdown to contain the virus. As for a judge saying “a person reasonably can expect not to be forced by the government to put something on his face against his will”, I too expect not be forced to wear a seatbelt, obey traffic lights, or even be appropriately dressed in his courtroom.

Han Yang, North Turramurra, NSW