However, previous generations were fighting a visible enemy. They also had old-age pensions to look forward too, they didn't have to self-fund their own retirement with superannuation - which you don't get paid if you have lost your job!. Oh, they also didn't have the Government telling them "If you've lost your job, you can raid your retirement savings to tide you through". They also benefited from house prices the likes of which we will never see again, with average house prices being only 3-4x the annual income (Source), they didn't have to save for 8 years just to achieve a deposit for a loan, yet alone the loan itself (Source). They also, typically, were able to enjoy a "job for life" if they so chose, casualisation was barely heard of and they didn't need to commute 3 hours a day from the house they could afford to their workplace, they didn't have the cost-of-living outstripping wage growth year on year, and they didn't have the Medicare Levy surchrage or PHI levies....
Yep, those previous generations have made so many sacrifices! And now they're asking the follow-on generations to make even more sacrifices to protect them. A quick number crunch suggests if you withdraw $20,000 from your superannuation at an early age (in your early-mid 20's), it will cost you in excess of $360,000 when you retire. That's based on a 7.5% compounded year-on-year return, which my super fund easily achieved on several options....
456 hospitalised, of which 38 are in ICU out of 6489 currently active cases. 0.6% of cases need ICU. According to The Age, Victoria has 695 ICU beds, but "with the capacity to rapidly increase that if required" according to the Health Minister. To fill those beds would require a daily case increase between 960-1880 for 10 days straight, yet even nationwide we didn't achieve that lower figure. So to completely fill their nominal-capacity ICU beds with Covid patients would need ~116,000 currently active cases. But this would, presumably, exclude those beds from other patients, injuries, etc.
We haven't even got close to that as a nation! But speaking of the nation's response to Covid, where's Mark McGowan or Anastasia Pala-howeveryouspellhersurname coming out and saying "We can help support our interstate citizens and shoulder our share of the health load by accepting some patients in our hospitals!" Or are we not 'all in this together'? Let's not forget the reason why NSW and Victoria have so many cases is because the vast majority of International Arrivals came through Melbourne & Sydney.
I think they would be manageable. Just because you have it doesn't mean you will need hospitalisation, yet alone an ICU bed. People elsewhere (NSW & Qld) have shown the infection rate can be kept under control.
I'm reminded of that old TV show "Dinosaurs" and their Hurling Day episode...