Suppression versus elimination doesn’t answer the more serious question — when do the borders open?

Australia is now back into the same debate as it had in April, only with the two sides carrying slightly different standards. Back then, it was full lockdown versus a graduated response. Now it's elimination versus suppression.

There are extremists on both sides -- some business figures who just want to let the virus rip and let the corpses pile up so they can get back to making money; some progressives who accuse anyone who tries to take economic factors into account of putting money before lives.

But the different terms obscure that it's the same debate between the same camps as earlier in the year: those who regard the economic impacts of lockdown as less important than dealing with COVID-19, versus those who, either because they have a more nuanced understanding of the health impacts of lockdown, or can't afford to focus only on one issue to the exclusion of others, aren't prepared to countenance the kind of economic shutdown necessitated by elimination.