So how come Australia is still locked down?

[Teddypops]

So Australia has approx 20 new cases a day and barely no deaths.

So how come they are still locked down?

[jonnybiscuits]

Both Aus and NZ are going for complete elimination. Here in NZ we are at pretty much elimination in the community with 2 cases a day at present linked to existing clusters. 95% of the 1300 who tested positive are now recovered. It's totally possible down here due to low population density and obviously different to UK.

We remain at level 3 lockdown for the moment having moved from level 4 a week ago. Our level 4 was in place for a month and was significantly more stringent than anything Aus and UK did.. we've only just been able to get takeaways and construction has just returned.

Looks like we will move to level 2 (everything open but with social distancing maintained) in a week or so and talks are on re a Trans-Tasman bubble. Can't wait to reinstate my Sydney trips and lots of holidays round NZ!

We have family weddings in November in the UK and frankly there is no way we are going even if the UK unlocks. I also doubt NZ would let us back in anyway without an enforced 2 week quarantine. I'd also hate to be patient zero in a new wave.

Happy to bounce around our South Pacific bubble for a couple of years to ride this out. I'm just miserable my parents are unlikely to get out here for their usual trips. They are getting older and every year counts.

[Aebj]

I’m in WA. I personally think things have been done really well here. My boys stayed in school till the end of week 9 term 1( 3rd April ). They are both high school and my oldest is doing ATAR. The schools were very quite then and every class they entered, they had to hand sanitizer their hands, wipe their desks and do the same once the lesson had ended. They have just finished week 2 term 2 and these practices are still in place and they said there’s more cleaners around. Parents have the choice of homeschooling or sending their children in till the end of week 3. It will be reviewed this week.
Our local shopping centre has just opened up other shops apart from our main supermarkets and pharmacies. Bunnings has been open throughout also, limited amount of people allowed in in , so often ques outside and hand sanitizer on the way in.
Parks , community BBQs , skate parks, pubs, clubs, gyms are still shut. We find out tomorrow of more details when these will open And everything will be opened slowly and in phases. The next phase will not go ahead until it’s safe to do so.
We are also bloody lucky that most people are sensible and we have the space. I’m hoping the regional boarders will open but happy to stay isolated from the other states until they have no new cases. We had a run of no new cases (8 days) before a traveller in lockdown tested positive. We’ve had 24 hours of no new cases reported this morning here.
So apart from the shitty storm that we had at the beginning of the week , knocking down 14 mtrs of fence , life is good here. Even the suns out!!!

[Easilyanxious]

I think space helps immensely the UK has such a high population density it makes it so much harder
Luckily I now live in a quiet part of UK and our numbers are lower which I think more to do with the space we have around us so we aren’t as tightly packed in and public transport is pretty non existent, most here are following guidelines although dr increase of more people returning to work

[Guylan]

Looking from the UK Australia seems have done a great job.

[WorriedAboutMom]

LifeisBrutal
I think Jacinda looked lovely in a hijab. It's just some cloth draped over the head like how some people wear bandanas or wrap around turbans. Sorry it offends you so much.

FWIW I wear a hijab and I'm not part of a harem nor is my husband a wife beater. Neither is any other Hijabi I know. HTH.

[LiesHumansTellThemselves]

Hopefully, parks/beaches etc all open again first.

I have never wanted to go to the beach as much as I have since being told I couldn't/shouldn't!

Would be nice to be allowed to eat a kebab on a park bench.

[LiesHumansTellThemselves]

Better a hijab than a moronic smirk.

[Ladida01]

@LifeIsBrutal
This is a discussion on Covid-19 and different countries restrictions not about Jacinda's hijab and your strange ideas. And how do you know we have a less virulent strain in Australia?

[Notanotheruser111]

I think another thing about Aus is that we have a thing about deaths.

For example we get announcements about our road toll weekly(sometimes daily).

4 police officers were killed recently in one state in a traffic incident and the whole country was horrified which is good .

When black Saturday (2009) fires happened it basically changed the whole way we promote fire safety.

We had one mass shooting and made huge changes to gun laws

The idea of even hundreds of people dying let alone thousands would be massive. It would mean political death to any government that wasn’t seen to be doing everything possible.

Also a lot of our political rhetoric is driven by and older population who would be more at risk from Covid

[OffThePlanet]

The PM (Morrison) closed Australia’s the border because of pressure, he wanted crowds of up to 500 to be able to gather until the Monday after his football team had played (this was cancelled by the football not Morrison) and the Hillsong cult (he is a member) had their convention. After the convention it was found Hillsong people who were from overseas and had travelled to Australia before the borders were closed and then toured other states. Some were infected with Coronavirus and had spread it. There were also Australians who travelled back to their homes while being were infected and spread CV in their states.

There was also the huge scandal of the 2,700 passengers who were allowed to walk off the Ruby Princess cruise liner and then hours later more passengers were able to board. You can imagine people were starting to get angry because the first person died around this time.

The state Premiers then stepped in and shut the state borders and closed the schools. Some state’s school holidays had already started and others were about to start. Many students had been taken out of school by their parents before the decision to shut schools was made by any of the Premiers.

PM Morrison was adamant that schools didn’t need to be closed and children would be disadvantaged. He wouldn’t answer questions about his own children and it was found out that they had been taken out of school before the schools were closed. Also Morrison shut Parliament for five months. He thought it was fine to risk Australian lives but to keep him and his family safe.

In the last two weeks some states have had no new cases and yesterday they said their schools could open and lockdown would start to ease in stages. The Victorian Premier Dan Andrews (Labour) said they are still in lockdown and their schools will stay closed until there are no new cases.

During the last week or so Morrison had been saying It was costing Australia $4 billion a week and lockdown had to end because of the economy, even though there would be more deaths. He had to change his tune because the state Premiers stepped in again and he then said the states were deciding for themselves.

Though some people say Morrison has done well it is because of the state Premiers who had the Australian public’s wellbeing at heart that we have done well.

[sashh]

@Clemmieandareallybigbunfight

This is just for you, Tinm Minchin and Briggs.

[eaglejulesk]

@LifeIsBrutal - uncalled for. If you can't be pleasant keep quiet.

[BaruFisher]

Life is Brutal no-one wants to hear that sort of nonsense.
I’m in North Queensland and think our state premier is doing a pretty good job- I like the acknowledgement of the lack of cases in the outback by easing restrictions more there.
Overall though I dislike Scomo I believe the country has done a fabulous job of testing, contact tracing and quarantine to keep things under control. The cluster in the meat works in Victoria shows how badly things could have gone had we not responded quickly.
I continue to worry for friends and family in the U.K. and Ireland (though Ireland not nearly as bad) and had made peace with the fact that the next visit home probably won’t be for a year or more- luckily we went home for Christmas so saw everyone relatively recently.

[worstwitch18]

Lockdown in the UK is aimed at managing hospital capacity.

Lockdown in Aus/NZ is aimed at eliminating the virus. NZ currently believes there is no community transmission but is still in level 3 lockdown.

Borders will be closed indefinitely. I think the tricky decision would be if these countries achieved elimination but the virus became endemic elsewhere and no vaccine was made. Would you keep the borders closed for two years? Five years? Ten years? Forever.

But as it happens I am very pleased to be living in NZ at the moment. (I recognise this thread is about Australia but the situation is similar in both Aus and NZ).

[BaruFisher]

Aus is not aiming for elimination (although it could be a by product hopefully) but suppression making us slightly different from NZ

[worstwitch18]

@BaruFisher

My mistake! I thought the goal had officially shifted from suppression to elimination when, as you point out, it hasn't.

[StartupRepair]

Scomo has not always been clear about the goal. A very mediocre leader.

[Jenny70]

Another Aussie here. We were aiming to reduce virus spread to our hospital capacity (rather than elimination), but were "too successful" that now we are on track for elimination - until the borders open/vaccine available.

Now that our case numbers are so low, we are easing restrictions... but slowly. We can't be sure of how many community cases there are which are too mild for people to present for testing. As soon as spread starts, it's hard to control.

I guess the approach here has been changing as the numbers increase/decrease, but now that we've got such low numbers we relax things slowly, see if that makes difference, then relax more. Seems a sensible approach, but will be expensive.

Our economy will suffer for years and years. But our economy would have also suffered if we'd had full pandemic and 10,000 deaths and 60,000 cases (based on UK rates per million people) rather than less than 100 deaths & 7,000 cases. That would have had costs to our economy and social fabric, as well as being terribly sad for their relatives/friends etc.

[stellabelle]

The Australian government has handled this really well. That is why there have been less than 100 deaths in the entire country . I'm in Australia and I'm very happy with the way the government has handled it - the slow opening of lockdown is a good example.

[BaruFisher]

No worries worst witch- they’re not always very clear at the best of times!

Jenny I agree, the social and economic effects of the deaths on top of lockdown will have been exacerbated by the failure to lock down early.

I don’t understand why the U.K. is considering relaxing lockdown considering as Italy has it under better control and are only easing restrictions very gently now (only big change to my nephew’s (who lives in Milan) life is he can now go outdoors for exercise.

I’m very happy to be here in Aus during all this and really feel for the people in Europe who have been through so much.

[Sauron]

I’m in the UK and threads like this really show how badly our government are/have handled things. Especially as they’re likely to ease up lockdown even when yesterday over 600 more people died.

[StartupRepair]

Great interview with Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty. Encouraging.www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/health-and-wellness/i-m-79-i-won-the-nobel-prize-and-i-don-t-give-a-s-20200506-p54qhb

[Flaxmeadow]

Because Australia has common sense and values lives. They realise the truth of short term pain long term gain re the economy

Please stop this obsequious worship of any country that isn't Britain.
Britain is a country you seem to hate for some reason, as can be witnessed in your other comments here .

Why are threads so full of nasty remarks about a country that has just exceeded 30,000 deaths. Did people stick the boot into Italy and Spain when they were down? Why do people hate us so much that they have to do this?

And why are people comparing the UK with a large isolated low population density island like Australia anyway? There is no comparison. They are totally different countries, with totally different circumstances and contexts

[echt]

And why are people comparing the UK with a large isolated low population density island like Australia anyway? There is no comparison. They are totally different countries, with totally different circumstances and contexts

Australia is low density as an island, (and it's also a country and a continent) but not in its cities, so yes, there are points of comparison with other cities, etc.