Thread by @CrabbBrendan

Brilliant analysis on the death toll for the pandemic's first 2 years. As thought, excess deaths ~3x more than confirmed COVID deaths at 18.2 million people. Greater than the effect of the BIG 3 (HIV, TB and malaria combined). Still ongoing of course. 1/

thelancet.com/journals/lance…

Tragic as it is for the world, from a parochial Oz point of view this highlights an extraordinary success over this period. For example, had we had the same rate as the US (~1.2m people died there), Australia would have had ~100,000 additional deaths 2/

Furthermore, Oz was able to vaccinate much of its population BEFORE they encountered the virus - as many eventually did during the omicron wave beginning in dec 2021. The formal policy of no community transmission delivered these extraordinary outcomes; credit to all Govts. 3/

As for now, I am no fan of policy that resembles vaccine-set-and-forget as we seem inclined to do in much of Oz. We've had 3,000+ COVID deaths already this year (XS deaths unknown at this stage). There is much we can do to minimise deaths while remaining open #VaccinesPlus 4/end