Australia

Meru Sheel, Australian National University; Charlee J Law, Australian National University, and Danielle Ingle, Australian National University Recent headlines have suggested COVID-19 can spread up to four metres, drawing into question the current advice to maintain 1.5 metres between people to prevent the spread of the virus. The news was based on a study conducted in Wuhan, China, and published …

Steven Hamilton, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; Bruce Preston, University of Melbourne; Chris Edmond, University of Melbourne, and Richard Holden, UNSW In recent weeks a growing chorus of Australian commentators has called for social distancing measures to be eased or radically curtailed. Some have claimed the lives saved by the lockdowns are not worth the damage they …

Katherine Gibney, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Jodie McVernon, University of Melbourne The unprecedented restrictions Australians are living with are working, so far, to curb the rise in new COVID-19 cases. Nationally, on average around 50 new COVID-19 cases were reported each day in the week leading up to April 15, compared with a peak of …

Brendan Coates, Grattan Institute and Jonathan Nolan, Grattan Institute Less than a month after restrictions first took effect, Australia appears to have contained the spread of COVID-19 more successfully than we could have possibly imagined. But we’ve done so at unimaginable cost: large swathes of the economy have been shut down, leaving the livelihoods of millions of Australians on hold …

  Andrew Linden, RMIT University and Warren Staples, RMIT University The economic heart attack induced by COVID-19 has revealed an ugly truth – many very large companies have too little cash to ride out sharp downturns. Cash flow variability, and the inability to retain earnings to buffer that variability, is one of the most common reasons small businesses fail. Because …

Emil Temnyalov, University of Technology Sydney and Peter Siminski, University of Technology Sydney   COVID-19’s impact on the Australian labour market has been dramatic and multifaceted. Some sectors of the economy have been almost completely shut down by government order. The demand in many industries has collapsed, while a few others have seen an increase. As many as one million …

Alexander Saeri, Monash University; Emily Grundy, Deakin University; Liam Smith, Monash University; Michael Noetel, Australian Catholic University, and Peter Slattery, Monash University More Australians are worried about the longer-lasting, societal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – specifically that the health system could be overburdened and the country could enter a recession – than they are about the more immediate changes …

Scott Morrison indicates ‘eliminating’ COVID-19 would come at too high a cost Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra Scott Morrison has made clear his view that any attempt to eliminate COVID-19 entirely in Australia would carry too high an economic cost, while Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy says such an aim would require “very aggressive” long-term border control. The national cabinet …

Monash University’s Paul Strangio explains why the most perilous peacetime challenge Australia has faced in living memory will make Scott Morrison a significant Australian prime minister. One of Australia’s preeminent historians, Stuart Macintyre, once observed of John Curtin, the Labor Party leader revered for navigating this nation through the dangers of the second world war, that he would have made …

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra Scott Morrison will urge big businesses to display “patriotism” as Australia grapples with the coronavirus crisis, which he warns could hit the economy harder than the global financial crisis. Addressing a business audience in the run up to this week’s stimulus package, Morrison will say large companies have “a huge role to play”, telling them …