Failed zero Covid policy cost Australia over $938 billion, report finds


The danger in the post-lockdown era is that in our rush to move on we forget the hard lessons that have been learned about this catastrophic public policy failure.

On the basis of alarmist modelling, often commissioned by governments and amplified by sensationalist media, panicked politicians discarded all basic ideas about proportionality and the rule of law to criminalise everyday life and exert unprecedented controls over the citizenry.

From the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, all Australian governments adopted the attitude that any public health mitigation measure was on the table, and little to no consideration was given to the costs of the measures that were adopted.

This is the subject of new research published by the Institute of Public Affairs, which for the first time in Australia calculates many of the costs of the nation's Covid zealotry up to June 2022. In the report, Hard Lessons: Reckoning the Humanitarian, Economic, and Social Costs of Zero-Covid, we find that the total economic and fiscal cost of the Australian COVID-19 response was no less than A$938.4 billion (£550.6 billion) to June 2022. This report identifies:
$595.8 billion in state and federal Government to enforce Covid policies and stimulate the economy;
$259.8 billion in lost economic activity because of the restrictions and economic shutdowns;
$82.8 billion in inflation related costs due to expansive monetary and fiscal policies, a cost which is set to only increase more and more over the next couple of years.

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