The staggering financial impacts of the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic have been totted up by the NSW Auditor-General’s office which has found $7.5 billion was spent by state government agencies on health costs and economic stimulus.
Despite the Federal Government’s claims – trumpeted during the election Campaign – to have successfully shepherded Australia through the pandemic, the NSW Government’s response was largely funded by its borrowings.
The costs do not take into account the huge effects on businesses, personal incomes and other measures related to infections, lockdowns and the like.
COVID-19: response, recovery and impact was released by the Audit Office of NSW on 20 May 2022. Along with detailing the NSW Government’s outlays between January 2020, when COVID-19 hit NSW, and June 2021, the report examines case numbers which at the time were considered alarming.
Today, they seem mere blips on the radar.
Between the diagnosing of the first three NSW cases and 30 June 2021 a total of 5,637 cases of COVID-19 were reported (including 56 deaths).
On 18 May 2022, when many people (but not public health officials) were suggesting, or perhaps just hoping, that the pandemic was largely behind us, a daily total of 10,934 notifications was recorded (22 deaths), and this was about the seven-day average.
Of course such numbers pale in comparison with global totals, not to mention the economic costs. According to the WHO’s ‘Situation Report - 29 June 2021’, cumulative global cases on COVID-19 exceeded 180 million, with almost four million deaths.
The first fortnight of May 2022 recorded nearly eight million cases.
The A-G’s report draws together the financial impact of COVID-19 on the agencies integral to responses across the state government sector of New South Wales. The key areas of spending since the start of COVID-19 in NSW to 30 June 2021 were:
• direct health response measures – $2.2 billion
• personal protective equipment – $1.4 billion
• small business grants – $795 million
• quarantine costs – $613 million
• increases in employee expenses and cleaning costs across most agencies
• vaccine distribution, including vaccination hubs – $71 million.
‘The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the financial performance and position of state government agencies,’ it notes.
‘Most agencies had expense growth, due to additional operating requirements to manage and respond to the pandemic along with implementing new or expanded stimulus programs and initiatives.’
The disease’s spread and consequent impacts were made worse by the delay between detection (25 January 2020) and the commencement of vaccinations (more than a year later, on 21 February 2021). By 31 December 2021, 25.2 million PCR tests had been performed in NSW and 13.6 million vaccines administered, with 93.6% of the 16 and over population receiving two doses.
Winter is not coming, as they say in Game of Thrones, but now upon us, as is COVID-19 and seasonal flu. The costs, both personal and economic, are likely to remain high.
