WITH the economic headwinds strengthening, governments everywhere are battening down the hatches against a stormy future where the low-interest-rate certainties of the past decade are replaced by less stable, more inflationary circumstances that will test the forecasting and financial management abilities of politicians and central banks alike.
To compound the challenge, it comes at a time when COVID-19 is still consuming a considerable portion of the world's attention.
Almost halfway through 2022, the idea of eradicating a virus that first made itself felt some two-and-a-half years ago has well and truly fallen by the wayside.
We are - as Premier Dominic Perrottet insisted would be the case - learning to "live with the virus".
Such a concept is easy enough to enunciate.
It's much harder to do, however. and this week's scrap over leave payments to COVID-affected casual workers will surely be just one of a rolling series of policy adjustments that the Albanese government - and the states and territories - will be forced to confront in the name of public health.
There is some irony in acknowledging that COVID's impact on Australia is far greater now than it was at the height of the 2020 lockdowns.
The Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard shows Australia as having the world's seventh-highest burden over the past 28 days, with 985,615 cases, and 1328 COVID-related deaths.
From a 2020 perspective, these are truly staggering numbers. In more moralistic times, we may have warned of complacency, or said that "familiarity breeds contempt", when it comes to glossing over the human toll of the pandemic.
But governments - with the exception, it seems, of China - have moved away from draconian lockdowns because they are ultimately unaffordable and soul-destroying.
They were a reasonable response to a frightening unknown threat, but as the Australian winter peaks - and COVID cases continue to rise as a result - we must ultimately respond to the real world around us with a combination of personal responsibility and practical public health measures applied as lightly as possible.
COVID has always been an illness linked to age and infirmity.
Most younger people survive their bout with COVID easily enough.
On this basis, the bulk of government attention should go to those whose age means they most need the protection.
WITH the economic headwinds strengthening, governments everywhere are battening down the hatches against a stormy future where the low-interest-rate certainties of the past decade are replaced by less stable, more inflationary circumstances that will test the forecasting and financial management abilities of politicians and central banks alike.
To compound the challenge, it comes at a time when COVID-19 is still consuming a considerable portion of the world's attention.
Almost halfway through 2022, the idea of eradicating a virus that first made itself felt some two-and-a-half years ago has well and truly fallen by the wayside.
We are - as Premier Dominic Perrottet insisted would be the case - learning to "live with the virus".
Such a concept is easy enough to enunciate.
It's much harder to do, however. and this week's scrap over leave payments to COVID-affected casual workers will surely be just one of a rolling series of policy adjustments that the Albanese government - and the states and territories - will be forced to confront in the name of public health.
There is some irony in acknowledging that COVID's impact on Australia is far greater now than it was at the height of the 2020 lockdowns.
The Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard shows Australia as having the world's seventh-highest burden over the past 28 days, with 985,615 cases, and 1328 COVID-related deaths.
From a 2020 perspective, these are truly staggering numbers. In more moralistic times, we may have warned of complacency, or said that "familiarity breeds contempt", when it comes to glossing over the human toll of the pandemic.
But governments - with the exception, it seems, of China - have moved away from draconian lockdowns because they are ultimately unaffordable and soul-destroying.
They were a reasonable response to a frightening unknown threat, but as the Australian winter peaks - and COVID cases continue to rise as a result - we must ultimately respond to the real world around us with a combination of personal responsibility and practical public health measures applied as lightly as possible.
COVID has always been an illness linked to age and infirmity.
Most younger people survive their bout with COVID easily enough.
On this basis, the bulk of government attention should go to those whose age means they most need the protection.
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