THREAD

Former Australian Prime Minister @HonTonyAbbott speaking to the @Policy_Exchange about the coronavirus pandemic.

Tony Abbott says Jacinda Ardern locked down New Zealand and delayed the election after just 4 cases.

Victoria has put people in house arrest and says @DanielAndrewsMP wants to extend this 'dictatorship' for at least another six months.

Tony Abbott says Premiers front the media everyday with casualty lists and stern warnings that it could get easily get worse unless people stay in their homes and avoid each other.
He says lockdowns only reduce disease but don't eliminate which leads to a 'stop,start' life.

Tony Abbott 'it was hard for governments to ask how much is a life worth - every life is precious and every death is sad but that's never stopped families sometimes electing to make elderly relatives as comfortable as possible while nature takes its course.'

Tony Abbott says in Sweden they behaved like trauma doctors in response to the coronavirus pandemic while elsewhere the responses were governed by 'health economists.'

Tony Abbott says we should have asked whether the cure was proportionate to the disease once it was clear that a 60 % death rate and a 1 per cent death rate was unlikely.

Tony Abbott: "along the way, the official objectives have shifted from flattening the curve so hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed to suppression to zero communication transmission."

Tony Abbott: "Governments have justified it as following the expert advice as if this is always been clear or as if we should be ruled rather than merely guided by unaccountable experts."

Tony Abbott: "We just have to learn to live with this virus in ways that can be kept up more or less indefinitely with orders managed but open business vigilant."