Australia/New Zealand New Thread

[Kokeshi123]

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/

Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

This is... really really disturbing, honestly.

I grew up admiring (and, let's be honest, envying) Australians because as a nation, they always came across as a down-to-earth, fearless lot who had a healthy skepticism of authority while also being basically very civic/community minded.

What's gone wrong?

There's no cases, other than a couple from overseas and in hotel quarantine. We are the most isolated city in the world though, so we have that advantage. WA is 20 times size of England, with 3 million people. Vaccination roll-out is going OK, should be 80% end of November early December. We are a mining stare, those companies will drive it too. The regions is going to be tricky, just logistically, though indigenous communities are a federal responsibility.

Sadly a Melbourne construction worker took his life this morning at the site he worked at.

I hope no one would suggest there is any link between this tragic event and the events of this week (construction ban, protests etc), because that would be abhorrent IMO. Certainly without more actual facts.

My husband is a Melbourne construction worker. The industry has a suicide rate well above the national average - to the point they have special "blue helmet" employees whose job it is to monitor mental health across worksites and the wider industry. This is funded by the organisation that runs their portable redundancy scheme (Incolink). It also runs other health initiatives, such as prostrate cancer and skin cancer campaigns.

The only organisations to draw a link between this apparent tragedy today and the unrest in construction are News Ltd publications - the Daily Mail, Herald Sun, The Australian and news.com.au.

Call it a coincidence if it makes you feel better.

what is happening in Victoria should put the go hard, go early strategy to bed. At least cast doubt on it.
You can't put the population into a "short, sharp" lockdown that then actually goes on for weeks with no end in sight. People lose all trust in your decision making.
Construction workers should be allowed back to work - thousands of young men with nothing to do for days on end and no ability to earn money is quite literally a recipe for disaster.
Whatever you think you gain in terms of "health", is lost immediately in terms of social cohesion.
In UK construction never stopped (apart from a couple of weeks back in April 2020 when it was novel and everyone was quite happy for a rest) - after that as I went into work every morning on the tube it was me and construction workers.

Call it a coincidence if it makes you feel better.

I think I'll call it bullshit.

That does make me feel better... cheers

@sashagabadon

what is happening in Victoria should put the go hard, go early strategy to bed. At least cast doubt on it. You can't put the population into a "short, sharp" lockdown that then actually goes on for weeks with no end in sight. People lose all trust in your decision making. Construction workers should be allowed back to work - thousands of young men with nothing to do for days on end and no ability to earn money is quite literally a recipe for disaster. Whatever you think you gain in terms of "health", is lost immediately in terms of social cohesion. In UK construction never stopped (apart from a couple of weeks back in April 2020 when it was novel and everyone was quite happy for a rest) - after that as I went into work every morning on the tube it was me and construction workers.

The construction workers were supposed to get at least one jab by 24th September to continue working but there was a lot of non-compliance. So the lockdown was put in place. Now they have started these protests / riots.

All the dickheads have to do is to roll up their sleeves and get a jab, but they are getting themselves into huge trouble with the violence of the protest . I suspect that there is a large rent-a crowd element in the mob.

People in the arts and universities have had 18 months with no work without rioting. These idiots in Melbourne are a nasty mix of right wing nutters, anti vaxxers , Trump supporters and a few angry construction workers in the mix. Their manifesto wants free ivermectin for all.
Their appearance is a direct result of the divisive strategy of the Murdoch press towards Victoria.

Sadly a Melbourne construction worker took his life this morning at the site he worked at

Sadly this is not unusual on construction sites. My son is a tradie who works on high rises, and mental health issues are rife amongst his workmates. He is one of the mentors who talk to the workers about mental health issues , having been a survivor himself, and it's a daily event to have men confide about suicide plans to him.

Don't assume that this one suicide is linked to the protests . Many of those men are on the edge every day, no connection with Covid.

@Kokeshi123

www.news.com.au/national/long-lockdowns-still-needed-to-keep-covid19-cases-down-despite-vaccinations-new-modelling-suggests/news-story/08c6b3684f06b52d490a7879ff00f0ea

This is all getting silly right now. "Australians will still need to endure lockdowns for at least half the year [2022] even once 80 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, new modelling has found."

The chances of Australians putting up with that are zero. Don't the people developing models put their results through some kind of basic "Does this result sound like complete bollocks?" test before they publish it?

Looking at that modelling I don’t understand the Australian obsession with keeping the numbers around Covid so very low irrespective of the gross harms committed against the populace to do so. In my opinion it’s an attempt to control the uncontrollable. This is a global pandemic, if you can keep the deaths to a similar level as a bad flu year (post-vaccination) or perhaps even a factor of 2, as a society you are doing an amazing job.

All this modelling with goals of 200 deaths in a year etc is a recipe for enormous suffering. I understood the strict border policies and lockdowns over a handful of cases in the pre-vaccine era, when preserving a covid-zero environment on balance made sense. But when you have vaccines that prevent 90%+ cases of severe illness and reduce the threat to something similar to flu I think ongoing lockdowns are unjustifiable. Masking and other social distancing make sense because their relative cost is low, but not lockdowns.

In UK construction never stopped (apart from a couple of weeks back in April 2020 when it was novel and everyone was quite happy for a rest) -

We really need to be careful when we refer to the UK.

That is not the case for the whole of the UK.

I hadn’t realised that the jab was mandatory for construction workers and that is why they are rioting. I thought it was a response to the shut down of construction. No wonder they are rioting. Neither side is likely to back down, both sides will get entrenched. It’ll go on and on.
I am pretty shocked by the scenes coming out of Melbourne atm.

The U.K. “living with” Covid is often portrayed as the risky choice but when you look at what needs to be done to the population to “Not live” with Covid it’s actually the much saner approach of the two.

Apologies yes I should have said England

I’m in Sydney and so we’re on school holidays here and have been meeting friends every day and it’s been brilliant. As far as I can see, no one is concerned about children catching Covid, we all want them back at school. Lots are struggling with being off so long and seeing them back with their friends has been heartwarming. The first time we met at the park it was like releasing puppies, they just ran for two hours
We’ve been meeting with other parents and I wondered how strict people would be on masks, group numbers etc and the result so far seems to be; not very. We all whipped masks off as soon as we had a coffee and they didn’t go back on again. We all said, well, we’re vaccinated, if we catch it we catch it. I’ve been surprised at the level of concern (very little) that we all have. It’s definitely a feeling that we’re as prepared as we can be so we may as well get back to normal.
A few friends (one in particular) who work in hospitals have been posting grim comments on how they’re going to run out of beds and we shouldn’t be lessening lockdown yet but everyone I’ve spoken to has basically said “they’ve had 18 months to prepare, if they’re not ready now, they never will be, and that’s what vaccination is for”
I think we’re all just at the end of what we can deal with. People can’t work and home school for this long, kids are falling behind. I had parent teacher meeting this week and basically said “it’s going as well as could be expected but he isn’t going well, I think you’re going to have to cover most of what you’ve already taught” and she said “yes, that’s what most people have said” - he’s 8 years old, he needs to be taught in a class, by a teacher. My 11 year old is ok, he can be told what to do and get on with it unprompted but the younger one, the teacher said, they don’t teach like this. They don’t just give work and leave them and then see it at the end, they look as they’re working, they can see who needs more help, or who is on the wrong track etc.

@Ozgirl75

I'm glad it seems many Australians - in Sydney at least - are being philosophical about Covid, and recognise that we can't live in fear of it forever.... It seems that other parts of Australia, and all of NZ has a way to go before it reaches that point though!

Feeling a bit apocalyptic here as large earthquake just hit Melbourne.

@StartupRepair

Feeling a bit apocalyptic here as large earthquake just hit Melbourne.

Fires, a mouse plague, Covid-19, and now an earthquake. It’s been a dramatic few years for Oz. 🙂

@StartupRepair

Feeling a bit apocalyptic here as large earthquake just hit Melbourne.

It was a good 'un, wasn't it?

My house did a lot of swaying and creaking. I heard the sound first: what a racket, and reflexively looked upwards to see who was making such a noise upstairs. In the single-storey part of the house. Where I live alone. Lots of crooked pictures. Dog barked a lot.That's about it.

I was upstairs and thought a plane was hitting us. (Live close to the airport). I was a few minutes away from logging on to attend a job interview. Lots of adrenaline!

That's funny. I thought 'plane too, though jets are very rare indeed over my bit of Melbourne, mostly propeller ones, if any, from Moorabbin airport.

I hope your job interview went well.

That sounds good, Ozgirl! And the vaccination program is going absolutely brilliantly. Australians in general seem very pro vax, so I'm hopeful (on behalf of my overseas Australian friends, who are hoping to be able to travel back next year). Just hoping everyone will get the flu jab as well!

Gosh has it left any damage? Having never experienced an earthquake before I didn't realise there was such a "sound" to them. Sounds frightening.

Ozgirl that sounds great! I remember agter our first long lockdown ths first time meeting up with friends was amazing!

Someone on Twitter just posted the following:

"What's amazing about the Melb protests is that they are against policies which actually work:
-vaccines
-restricting indoor gatherings

Instead of policies that don't:
-curfews
-flight caps
-hotel q
-limiting outdoor exercise
-school closures
-closing playgrounds/skate parks"

How true.

Yes, sadly they are coming across as really not very bright.
I can actually understand people protesting about school closures, playground closures etc, but protesting against measures that actually work? Madness.

Victorian government has now mandated vaccinations for all teachers and child care workers.

I'm glad people are feeling so positive in Sydney Ozgirl. I would say the mood is a lot less positive in Melbourne. Most people I know support the vaccine mandates because they just want this all over. The vaccine rollout is considerably slower here and the glacial pace is very depressing after all we've been through. It's got to the point now where I watch the NSW rollout waiting for the point when they slow down as they reach their goals and then we can have the leftovers.

I've found being allowed to meet people outdoors absolutely brilliant for my mental health but it has been a minefield in terms of working around how everyone feels because everyone is just so fragile after the last two years. I agree with IndigoC that zero covid was not worth it and we really need to start being OK which much higher numbers.