‘The opposite of planning’: how Australia put the economy before health of the nation

Australia’s response to the Covid pandemic has become a parody, with the nation so desperate for workers it is prepared to ‘trade off an extra nurse or truck driver today at the cost of three or more absent in a week or two’. Photograph: Richard Milnes/REX/Shutterstock

It’s hard to know the moment Australia’s response to Covid turned from purposeful to a parody, but it was probably when economics trumped health advice.

First there was the mid-December declaration by Dominic Perrottet to leave mask use to “personal responsibility” and discourage curbs on the movement of the unvaccinated just as the Omicron variant took off.