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?

[BaruFisher]

The oxford vaccine looks really promising. It would be great for all of us to avoid a second wave of it works at such an early date. Fingers crossed.

[eaglejulesk]

I'd personally rather be in this far off back water than the UK at the moment.

Me also

[Biscuit0110]

bool your post makes no sense.

[Biscuit0110]

baru lets hope so, because 1918 tells us that the worst may be to come, so whatever we can do to prevent a catastrophe of that magnitude is vital now to all of us.

I care about other countries, I cried every time I saw Italy on the news, I cry every Thursday for our country. In the end it is irrelevant where the suffering is from, we are all human. We are at the end of the beginning, as our medical chief is fond of saying, and that is the problem. We are not at the end sadly, the world has a very long way to go before we see of this monster.

[SusieOwl4]

Belgium has a very high density population and yes has the highest deaths per million. We are all saying how well Australia has done and yet are all crying out for lockdown to be lifted when we don’t even have proper lockdown and also a lot of the population are ignoring it anyway. But yes let’s blame it on the government. And if you are going to do that I suggest you blame it on Corbyn as if he had not been so inept he would be in charge and everything would be hunky dory.

[Biscuit0110]

*off

[echt]

Belgium has a very high density population and yes has the highest deaths per million. We are all saying how well Australia has done and yet are all crying out for lockdown to be lifted when we don’t even have proper lockdown and also a lot of the population are ignoring it anyway. But yes let’s blame it on the government. And if you are going to do that I suggest you blame it on Corbyn as if he had not been so inept he would be in charge and everything would be hunky dory

What are you on about?

[eaglejulesk]

why are you singling the UK out in particular

Probably because MN is a UK site, and that's where the posters who are trying to defend the UK's actions are writing from? I haven't seen anyone on here trying to tell me that Italy, Spain etc are doing well.

[eaglejulesk]

Do people in this country really think that people in other countries care enough to look at the UK in horror.

They do, they really do - some of us are in those other countries, and this is not the first thread this has been discussed on.

[eaglejulesk]

Shutting our borders isn’t as easy as that. We have a lot of people to feed and and we import a lot.

The borders were shut to travellers, not to cargo.

[BaruFisher]

Biscuit I agree. Let’s hope all of us and our loved ones make it through safely.
In other news I see the U.K. are expected to introduce self isolation for 14 days for all international arrivals (of passengers) from June at some time- when the numbers have dropped. A good move.

[Biscuit0110]

baru Better late than never!!

[Biscuit0110]

Also worth noting Eurostar is still operating, abeit with masks and new seating arrangements. I can't see the UK fully closing, and I am wondering what happens in July and August when many will be considering heading to the continent for a holiday......

[Bool]

@eaglejulesk and what do you think Spain, Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands are looking at the UK in horror at seeing as the majority of these countries have figures worse than ours?

[Bool]

@Biscuit0110 it doesn’t make any sense to you? Ok.

[Biscuit0110]

bool your posts are very confused. We are all around the same, give or take. The Netherlands are faring slightly better. I think we are all horrified full stop, it is not country specific but general feeling of WTAF. It is a crisis, a pandemic, a 100 year event.
We are still in the middle of it, and so conversations around who is suffering more (this week) are not not helpful at all, and will only make people upset and defensive.

[EdwinaMay]

My DSis in Aus is still attending teh office where she works. No working from home rule.
Just less cases to start with I think.

[timeisnotaline]

Biscuit this is pretty biased!
It feel more like a town than a city when you compare it to London (9million) New York (8 million) Moscow (11 million) Beijing (21 million). Great that you ‘felt’ it’s small, but that doesn’t change facts. Sydney is over 5m people so it’s really not a small town in comparison. As for London has 2.9m foreign visitors and 10m locally annually, so what? You obviously have no idea Sunday has 4m international visitors a year and about 11m Australian tourists. If it’s a ‘small town’ these 15m visitors must be pretty crowded, huge virus spreading risk. As for ‘you couldn’t shut the trains between melb and sydney down’ it’s not trains, it’s planes for daily business traffic. And yes, they shut them down. I have close family and friends who live in one and work in the other and they are.. working from home or not at all like everyone else. Also, this global city size comparison is limited. France has only a single large city, Lyon is one of the next largest and its less than 2m people. Australia has some natural benefits but we also acted quickly. You could have shut down the channel. Everyone could have worked from home or not at all which is whats happening here , and there now.

[EdwinaMay]

I think Aus does follow UK news. Or at least the headline stuff, not the boring political debates in parliament type of stuff, like most people to be fair.

[timeisnotaline]

Eurostar is still operating so are international flights here, but we are quarantining them! I think qantas has changed routes to keep flying to London, avoiding the hubs like Singapore than won’t let Aussies transit.

[MaeveDidIt]

I think the UK should be judged for initially sticking its head in the sand and not reacting fast enough.

We need to learn from other countries excellent handling of the situation - e.g. Germany, Australia and Korea. They were all prepared and took immediate action with testing, tracing, isolating and locking down borders etc.

We knew way before this it could potentially happen and how on earth we didn't have decent PPE equipment in stock is beyond words.

So many people have died needlessly and we have lost so many of our excellent doctors and health workers and they cannot be replaced.

The new phone app will of course be beneficial but the horse bolted months ago.

[Bool]

@Biscuit0110 then yes I am confused. Because I agree with you! I keep wondering as well why we keep comparing countries.

[SusieOwl4]

What I was saying was , as someone queried it .

Belgium has higher death rates per million than us
Belgium has a higher population density per sq km than us

We have never had the full lock down that other countries have had

Lots of people are blaming the government for our figures by comparing countries which is nonsense

And I don’t understand why people are saying lockdown will be lifted when the figures of people still in hospital and infected is so high and yet are congratulating Australia for still keeping control .

I think a lot of people have ignored our lockdown as they think it is a restriction on freedom but then when the figures are still high they can’t understand why .

[eaglejulesk]

@Bool - sorry I shouldn't have said "rest of the world" as I actually meant the rest of the world outside of Europe. However, didn't a doctor in Italy tell the UK to take it seriously and they didn't?

[Biscuit0110]

time we have 30 million visitors not 2.9 million. 2.9 million on average to London alone per month, not year.

It is an enormous international world city that is not comparable to any city in Australia. This is not a stealth boast, simply looking at the density of the larger world cities, you can see how easily viruses spread. You link that to the world's busiest airport, Heathrow, and you can see clearly what the challenges were going to be. We have seen a massive drop in cases in London, it is well past the peak.

Australia has a completely different set up, each of your houses are spread out individually. You do not have very large cities like other countries. Your an island so to speak with air travel being the main source of travel. Logistics are so much easier with that kind of set up. With just 24 million spread over such a large land mass, you will only have had to contend with hot spots. In reality Australia could be doing the same as South Korea, would be effortless really.

So to conclude you can not compare. Countries are not all equal, both in terms of population, land mass and travel connections. Therefore any kind of misinformation that Australia somehow managed things better, is just that. It is no accurate or an honest assessment.