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The statistics grow ever more grim.
Dozens dying of COVID in aged care every day. Residents locked down and isolated in nursing homes as Omicron outbreaks surge. People with disability going without vital services due to a staffing collapse from COVID.
Who could have possibly accepted this would be the result of lifting COVID restrictions and moving out of lockdown?
Us — we did.
By "us", I mean the social consensus formed by people in the states battling the Delta outbreak of COVID last year.
As long lockdowns in New South Wales and Victoria dragged on, public opinion began to shift.
In August, surveys showed more than two-thirds of Australians wanted lockdowns to end as soon as possible.
State premiers and Prime Minister Scott Morrison reflected the change. A new message emerged: as vaccination rates rose, we'd have to learn to live with COVID.
"We can't stay in the cave forever," the Prime Minister said back in August.
The people were getting agitated, they were done with the lockdowns. And our political leaders took note.
"One of the things they're responding to are our views as the electorate," said Hugh Breakey, an ethicist at Griffith University's Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law.
Those who work with and represent the Australians most at risk of COVID — those in aged care, people with disabilities, the immunocompromised, Indigenous communities -- immediately recognised the change in tone.
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"The narrative has certainly been that we should open up and that we should go out and mingle in the community," said Samantha Connor, president of People with Disability Australia.
"We should ease restrictions and that lockdowns weren't fair and that people had individual freedoms."
Is death part of the deal?
What was almost drowned out in the emerging consensus that lockdowns had to end were the warnings from advocates for people with disability and those in aged care. In an opened-up Australia, they would be at risk.
"We all wanted to go to our restaurants, to our picnics, to see our friends," said Sarah Russell from Aged Care Matters.
"But we weren't thinking: What is this going to do to people in aged care homes?"
Staffing issues from previous outbreaks hadn't been addressed. Vaccination rates for people with disability as well as disability workers were relatively low. Aged care homes struggled to get rapid COVID tests.
This had all been well publicised before the decision was made to open up. Our politicians went ahead anyway — and most of us jumped on board.
"I'm probably one of the people who thinks, 'OK, we need to start opening up, we need to start learning to live with this virus,'" Dr Russell said.
"But not at the expense of all the people dying or getting very sick or being locked down in aged care homes without seeing their families."
It may be uncomfortable for the public to accept, but in the decision to open up increased deaths and risk for those most vulnerable to COVID — it's part of the bargain.
This week Chief Health Officer Paul Kelly said despite "our best efforts", more elderly people "will die".
"The balance between deaths and increased aged care restrictions is difficult," he said.
"I do expect deaths in aged care and elsewhere over the coming weeks and months of elderly people over the age of 70."
Ethicist Hugh Breakey said it was essentially an ethical decision being made by ordinary people.
"The majority makes a decision that we are tired of these lockdowns and we are willing to accept a certain amount of death knowing that that death will fall disproportionately on certain vulnerable and perhaps marginalised groups," he said.
Samantha Connor believes people with disability and others most at risk from COVID have been sacrificed.
"These are deliberate courses of action, which are designed to favour the economy over the lives of people with disability, older Australians, and the broader public," she said.
Balancing the ledger
COVID has laid bare the ethical choices governments make all the time.
"This is something that that our policy makers are always doing," Dr Breakey said.
"Politicians will need to make judgements when there are deaths on one side of the equation. But there are other things that seem very important on the other side."
Things like the economy. Mental health. And society's ability to sustain extended lockdowns.
COVID restrictions had a devastating impact on many businesses.
Melbourne restaurateur James Valentino is one whose livelihood was nearly wiped out by repeated lockdowns.
"I can't begin to explain the terror we felt in the first lockdown in 2020," he said.
He and his wife had opened a second restaurant in Melbourne's Docklands office district just as the pandemic began. It hasn't traded a single day in nearly two years.
With parents in their 80s, he's acutely aware of the risks posed by COVID. But he also understands why maintaining lockdowns indefinitely was not sustainable.
"We're barely solvent," he said. "For us it was very important that we could resume our work and income."
Huge numbers of casual workers, like Sally*, struggled to get by with minimal government support.
"It has been really, really tough to be a casual worker in hospitality," the 23-year-old said.
"Obviously you want to do what's best for the community. But when you've got rent to pay and I want to study, you just want things to go back to normal."
For many of us, that desire to go back to normal helped form the consensus that lockdowns had to end.
But ending most restrictions also meant greater risk, greater isolation, even more death for some of our fellow citizens.
Samantha Connor believes it's important Australians recognise the decision many of them endorsed.
"Ordinary Australians had [this] ethical stress test around lockdowns and around the restrictions that they had on their day-to-day life," she said.
In choosing to open up, and knowingly putting people with disability, those in aged care, the immunocompromised at risk, she argues they failed that test.
"What does it say about society as a whole?"
"Every single Australian has the right and the freedom to be able to participate equally. And that doesn't mean you walk away from one sector of the community, one way or the other."
*Sally's name has been changed at her request.
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