The Economist: Australia is ending its zero-covid strategy
The Delta variant has made it untenable
▻https://www.economist.com/asia/2021/08/28/australia-is-ending-its-zero-covid-strategy
“THIS IS NOT a sustainable way to live in this country,” declared Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, on August 23rd. He was defending a dramatic shift in covid-19 strategy. Since the start of the pandemic Australia has used an approach dubbed “covid zero”, stamping on outbreaks down to the last case, whatever it takes. From now on, cases will be allowed to rise as long as hospitals can cope with them. The plan is to drop most restrictions once 80% of adults are vaccinated, which looks achievable by the end of the year.
[...] for most of 2020 life in Australia carried on as usual, with schools, restaurants and theatres open—and no masks in sight. When a covid-19 case slipped through the quarantine wall, meticulous contact-tracing prevented big outbreaks. By August 25th Australia had registered 39 covid-19 deaths per million people, compared with about 1,700 per million in Europe.