Australia in a mess - NZ with a plan

[StartupRepair]

More than half of Australia is in lockdown now, sparked (imo) by the intransigence of the NSW Premier who ignored all warnings about Delta. Our procurement of and messaging around vaccines has been dangerously incompetent.
It all feels a bit bleak today. At least NZ seems to have a plan.

That link is not working but I agree, the view is Aus is the outbreak in NSW could have been resolved with a strong two week lockdown at the beginning. And the current situation there is a result of a delayed, soft lockdown, rather than an indication that lockdowns don't work.

Yes, sorry about the link but that is the gist of it. It was screamingly obvious that a short hard lockdown would be more effective than weeks of pleading and inconsistent messaging.

So @StartupRepair what do you make of Victoria’s “short sharp” early lockdown which now looks to be dragging into its 3 or 4th weeks? It’s not clear at all that an early lockdown would have solved the problem - because you always have non compliance. It’s just Vic seems to have based at 20 cases and NSW at 200.

People are people.

We are almost 2 years into this thing. It doesn't matter whether lockdowns work or not.

People will not continue to comply with them. You will need harsher and harsher penalties and I am not OK with that.

Get a new approach. Because this one doesn't work anymore.

Get vaccinated, take your chances. The political tide will turn. You WILL be exposed to/get Covid.

Your choices now are do that as a vaccinated person or not.

@fruitandflowers. I accept the strategy in Victoria where I live because with a population 20% vaxxed it is a better option than letting it rip to appease business.

And I say that even though lockdown has huge personal impacts on me and my family.

@AllHailTheGreatGoddess

People are people.

We are almost 2 years into this thing. It doesn't matter whether lockdowns work or not.

People will not continue to comply with them. You will need harsher and harsher penalties and I am not OK with that.

Get a new approach. Because this one doesn't work anymore.

Get vaccinated, take your chances. The political tide will turn. You WILL be exposed to/get Covid.

Your choices now are do that as a vaccinated person or not.

Yes, but until everyone has been offered a vaccine here, it very much does matter whether lockdowns work and what is the best approach. Which will be the situation in Aus until the end of the year.

I'd rather do another couple of short strong lockdowns than be in a semi lockdown the whole time.

It looks like you have to have very low numbers and be very early for it to work.

Melbourne will be interesting as numbers are low but from what I can see randomly appearing in various areas

Delta is diabolical. Even with 20 cases Melbourne seems to be having some trouble stamping it out.

It won’t be stamped out because you need total compliance for it to work which you just won’t get in lockdown 6 which was promised to be a “short sharp” lockdown and is now looking to drag on for (at least) over a month. Especially young people. We know this from the U.K. and Europe - people get compliance fatigue and you cannot put that genie back in the bottle.

Personally I would get kids back in school pronto, if a semi lockdown has to drag on then so be it.

But the rest of us will get our vaccinations and get on with our life, as you're doing in the UK now.

Oh, I have no doubt about this either! I think you will inevitably get a minority of who go on being scared for longer though. Although admittedly, there will also be some people who are like this in the UK as well.

Lockdowns work when people make them work. If the people won't lockdown, it won't work.

You can get angry, you can get afraid, you can judge, none of it makes any difference.

Even in China, people had to be welded into their homes because they would have left otherwise.

You cannot control every variable all of the time.

As I said, I am willing to comply until everyone has been offered the vaccine. I am in the privileged position of that not being particularly painful.

I don't judge people who don't have that privilege.

As for aboriginal Australians--it's a difficult situation. No easy solutions there. It's known that aboriginal minority groups in many countries (including the Americas) are more prone to developing severe complications with all kinds of infections. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, this virus isn't going anywhere and will almost certainly become endemic. I believe Oz has been allocated vaccines at areas with many aboriginal Australians as a priority. That will need to be speeded up in the wake of Delta.

Looming health disaster for First Nations.
www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-14/covid-indigenous-vaccinations-nsw-regional-lockdown/100377960
Hope this works. Outlining the vulnerability of Aboriginal remote communities.

One more link. A comedian sums it up.twitter.com/celestebarber_/status/1426806399833575430?s=19

Yep, as usual Celeste nailed it 😂

Another 2 weeks lockdown in melbourne for 20 cases. Ludicrous. Playgrounds closed, 9pm curfew. What a ridiculous country this is.

Complete over reaction by Dan Andrews as normal. I feel so sorry for people in Melbourne with all their outside equipment closed for literally no reason whatsoever. Here in Sydney we have hundreds of cases and none of them are from playgrounds for goodness sake.
What a muppet.

It just drives people inside. You’d think they would have learnt this!

The curfew is interesting.

I get my news from the Sydney Morning Herald. There was an article at 12:28pm with the Victorian Police stating they did not have resources to enforce a curfew.

At 12:41pm the Victorian government announced a curfew.

Which the people of Victoria know will not be enforced...

This is what happened with the police in the U.K. with the outbound border ban iirc. Police cross briefing against the government.

Reality is that curfew will make no meaningful difference to these 20ish cases a day. People who want to break the law will do so.

That’s literally word for word what my husband just said @flyornofly. If people are going to break the rules then now, they’ll just head to someone’s house at 8.00 and make sure they’re inside, instead of meeting for a walk or a catch up outside. Madness

I don't think it's an overreaction. Curfews mean people stay at home. So it makes it easier to spot stupid illegal get togethers.
The consistent under reaction of the NSW government has put the whole country in jeopardy. I'm proud Victoria does not want to go down that path.

It’s a complete and utter overreaction. As is closing playgrounds. Zero transmission occurs that way. Dan has lost the plot.

Watch compliance continue to fall with such a ridiculous set of rules - my WhatsApp has been lit up this afternoon with previously law abiding friends throwing in the towel and organising lunch time play dates at each other’s houses. Entirely predictable.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/four-newborns-die-after-being-denied-heart-surgery-due-to-covid-19-travel-restrictions/ar-BB1agbcI

This is the heart surgery story, albeit taken from last year. There is nothing that’s changed that indicates this isn’t still going on.

I think it’s important to have a ‘league table’. Both covid and anti covid measures are extremely damaging and it’s important to quantify how each country has done in which areas in order to learn for the future. Hopefully by comparing the responses (of course taking into account inherent differences) we can see which measures were most effective and least disruptive and use them in future.