The safest countries for Australians to travel
Let’s say this winter Australians desperately want an overseas holiday. Where is it safe to go? We’ve crunched the numbers.
Historian Geoffrey Blainey coined the term “the tyranny of distance” in a book of the same name published more than 50 years ago to describe the uniquely Australian condition of geographic isolation.
We Australians are tucked away, down under in the southern hemisphere, well removed from global centres of business and culture in Europe, North America and to some extent parts of Asia.
Or at least that’s the way things were until the meteoric rise of the Australian middle class, which associated overseas travel with social cachet and sophistication.
At the turn of the 21st century there were around three million outbound trips from Australia, mostly to places such as New Zealand and Bali. Last year this number exceeded nine million, still mostly to places such as New Zealand and Bali but now also including various destinations in China.
The Australian affliction, the so-called tyranny of distance, that saw us cut off from the rest of the world was dulled, diluted, by our rising wealth, by the advent of cheap airfares and by our determination to travel overseas as often as possible. Plus, and this has been an important demand driver for travel, because such a large proportion (more than a third) of Australians have family overseas it means we’re predisposed to thinking about, saving for and endlessly talking about our next big trip “OS”.
And so the coronavirus restrictions on inflowing and outflowing movements are being felt acutely across Middle Australia this winter. But there are some carriers still operating (on restricted schedules), connecting the Australian continent with the rest of the world, which raises the question of “where’s safe?”.
The obvious answer is New Zealand, and it seems the Kiwis are indeed up for a spot of trans-Tasman travel just as soon as we sort out the sorry state of Victoria.
Looking at the numbers, an Australia-New Zealand travel bubble makes sense because both countries have recorded only four deaths per million population; that is, 104 deaths in Australia (population 25 million) and 22 deaths in New Zealand (population five million). Britain, in comparison, has recorded 644 deaths per million. Perhaps it’s just as well that the Aussies and the Kiwis are giving London a bit of a miss this year.
So, where in the world is safe or at least relatively safe? Using data sourced from Worldometer.com I have ranked, classified and mapped countries on the basis of reported coronavirus deaths per million population. The key issue is that the healthcare (and governance) systems deployed to collect data vary between countries. Some data is more reliable than other data.
Nevertheless I have identified 11 countries in addition to Australia where the data appears reliable and where there have been fewer than 10 coronavirus deaths per million.
After an airbridge is (eventually) opened between selected Australian cities and, say, Auckland, Wellington and Queenstown, perhaps we should be looking to connect with Taiwan’s Taipei where there have been just seven deaths in a country of 24 million.
Troubled Hong Kong also has recorded seven coronavirus fatalities, which translates into a ratio of one death per million residents.
In Singapore, 26 deaths translates into four deaths per million, which is the same rate as for Australia and New Zealand, as well as for Malaysia.
Fiji has recorded a number of coronavirus cases but no deaths. On these figures, Fiji too deserves to be inside our travel bubble. South Korea, Brunei and Japan have recorded coronavirus death rates of between six and eight deaths per million. These too are relatively good figures.
If the figures for Thailand are accurate at just 58 deaths across 68 million people, then perhaps direct flights between Australia and Koh Samui and Phuket could be considered?
On official figures, China has recorded 4634 coronavirus deaths, which translates into a ratio of only three deaths per million residents. The US, on the other hand, has recorded more than 130,000 deaths at a rate of 393 per million residents. Even allowing for, shall we say, methodological differences between the way the US and China record coronavirus deaths, the US experience has been disastrous in comparison. For China to have recorded the same death rate (per million) as the US, the number of deaths would have to be revised upwards to more than 500,000.
Let’s say that this winter the Australian and New Zealand middle classes desperately want a bit of a European holiday. Where should they go?
Well, based on the coronavirus deaths-per-million criterion they could head via Singapore or Hong Kong, to Latvia’s Riga (16 deaths per million), Greece’s Athens (18 deaths per million), the Mediterranean’s Malta (20 deaths per million), mountainous Liechtenstein (via Zurich, I imagine; 26 deaths per million), Iceland’s Reykjavik (29 deaths per million) or Norway’s Oslo (46 deaths per million).
But while soaking up the European sun and contemplating the necessity for hotel quarantine on the return, travelling Aussies and Kiwis should take special care not to visit the principality of San Marino (population 33,000) in northeastern Italy which, according to Worldometer.com figures, has the highest country death rate in the world at 1238 per million in a community about the same size as Warrnambool.
Also, colonials holidaying in the northern hemisphere should not visit Belgium’s Brussels or the principality of Andorra or indeed anywhere in Britain, Spain, Italy, France or indeed the entirety of the US. In these places, the coronavirus death rate (per million residents) is at least 100 times worse than it is in Australia.
This raises some interesting issues. If the coronavirus is to be part of global life and death for the foreseeable future, then perhaps a group of so-called COVID-safe countries, including Australia and New Zealand, should pal up and form a travel bubble (and maybe even a trading bloc) where admission requires fewer than 10 coronavirus deaths per million.
This bubble/bloc could be similar to the EU with a core group (Australia and New Zealand) and an expanded Schengen group. A tiered system of trading and travel rights would apply between member nations. The safer the coronavirus metrics, the freer the connections.
The big question for these low-risk countries is whether the official figures for China, at only three deaths per million, are accurate. If somehow they have become, let’s say, muddied, then there is still a long way to surpass the exit criteria of 10 deaths per million, which in China’s case would mean 15,000 coronavirus deaths instead of the reported 4634 to date.
On this basis, China is a safer travel bet (from the risk of contracting coronavirus) than are most places in Europe and the US.
Let’s start with connecting Australia and New Zealand, add Fiji, bolt on Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei, then consider expanding to the rest of the low-risk zone. Opening up Australia to COVID-safe countries, while retaining quarantining requirements, would go a long way to helping build a stronger Australia.
Bernard Salt is managing director of The Demographics Group. Research by Hari Hara Priya Kannan.