Throughout COVID, it would be hard to argue that Australia hasn’t done a pretty good job at keeping people safe from COVID. They’ve enacted some pretty serious measures to do so, but at the same time, have seemingly only prolonged the inevitable.
Australia Pop: 25,840,792
Canada Pop: 38,125,449
While Canada has almost 1.5x the population, we have about 26x the amount of COVID cases and about 27x the mortality from COVID.
That’s a pretty big discrepancy.
To say that Australia kicked ass on COVID over Canada, is a gross understatement.
Was it possible for Australia to Mandate their way out of a respiratory virus?
Check out their case rates for the first, second and third waves of COVID in relation to Canada by mortality. They’ve been very diligent on their measures and have seemingly beat the odds.
Against a Virus that has mutated countless times…
Hard to try and figure out how many times COVID has mutated because all we hear about is the Delta Variant but if you are really hip to the CV Scene:
If you were watching this in April of 2020:
Coronavirus has mutated into at least 30 different strains new study finds
The study was carried out by Professor Li Lanjuan and colleagues from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China and published in a non-peer reviewed paper released on website medRxiv.org on Sunday.
If you were watching this in April of 2021:
We know the coronavirus currently has 12,700 identified mutations, 12 main types of the virus (identified as 19 A, the original type, through 20 J), five strains and almost 4000 variants
Kinda hard to make out the difference from 30 strains, April 2020 and only 5 strains in April of 2021, but with the evolution of the meanings of words changing so very quickly these days, I can only guess that mutations of 30x in April 2020 are now 12,700x in April 2021.
How is this in the Viral world?
I don’t know.
Does it matter?
Australia hasn’t immunized themselves against any other common viruses, by way of natural immunity or vaccinations. HealthDirect Australia has a page - 9 Minute Read - that helps you understand the difference of Colds and Flu.
People often talk about colds and flu (influenza) together, but it's important to realise colds and flu are different illnesses caused by different viruses. Find out more about how to treat each one here, how to avoid catching the cold or the flu, and special information on being ill during pregnancy and looking babies and children with a cold or flu.
So, for a virus where their case count is as low as shown: Australia Pop: 25,840,792, case count: 56, 212 with Canada being about 27x as worse, could they really have effectively stopped COVID in it’s tracks or have they only prolonged the agony?
I don’t think that we can be so sure.
They are on their 3rd Wave of Case Count and mortality, more than double their historical COVID case rate. Hospitalization and ICU cases - are lagging indicators but likely to follow the same of every other country on the planet, More cases=More Hospitalization=More ICU=More Mortality.
Australia, statistically speaking, may only at the very beginning of their pandemic, after an 18 month long ‘Fire Drill’, now that this virus has mutated, 12k times.