28 November

Probably quite a lot of people aren’t aware of the difference between public health and medicine. Public health isn’t doctors or nurses, or rather it’s very specific types of doctors, who work on the health of the population, rather than just individuals. This article today shows how Australia led the world with Covid, by using public health. We spent much, much less on healthcare. And had much better health outcomes. Other countries who are hostile to public everything just dumped the infected on the healthcare system (doctors and nurses), and spent way more than we did, and had far worse health outcomes. From late-2021 Australia shifted to this approach too, disastrously, the idea of ‘personal responsibility’ public health. A complete oxymoron, like saying ‘personal responsibility traffic control’. That’s the shift that made me angry and makes me post about Covid nearly every day, it’s a total betrayal of Australia’s previously magnificent public health system. Now in ruins. Political ‘small government’ ideology replaced public health. It’s screwed the ‘economy’ as much or even more than it has people’s health. Public health was invented to look after both.