Everyone wants to downplay our results. But we went hard and obeyed the rules. I really do think we acted exceptionally as the public.
I see what other places with outbreaks are doing, and it seems very lax.
We have testing in industrial environments that are known to be dangerous (eg abbatoirs, health care).
We have tracing that in the last week caught a single case in a school that ended up with over 800 people in isolation while being tested. Our tracing is not only close contacts, but the close contacts of contacts.
This test/trace infrastructure is being replicated across the country and by next winter, we should have standardized processes.
Work is ongoing in areas like health and aged care, and we are planning for how to bring international students (an important part of our economy) back for the start of the university year in March.
No you aren't. There's no "getting rid of it". Spanish Flu (!) is still with us. It just kinda fizzled out after just about everyone got it over the course of 2+ years, but the virus still endemic, over a hundred years later.
You mean "only" given most people another year or two with their elderly?
Yet we don’t really worry about it in the US: people are (mostly) vaccinated, and getting a visa to enter the country requires vaccination.
Covid might be similar, except given anti vaccine sentiment the US, Australia might have to throw the US on the list alongside Brazil, Nigeria, and the Congo.