Australia to close Victoria-NSW border

[Still Waters]

The border between Australia's two most populous states, Victoria and New South Wales (NSW), is to close after a spike in Covid-19 cases in Melbourne.

The outbreak in Victoria's capital has seen hundreds of cases in the past two weeks - more than 95% of new Australian infections.

Until now, the two states had maintained open borders even when others had shut them.

The closure, beginning on Wednesday, will restrict travel to permit holders.

Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews said it was a joint decision with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-53303317

[Peter B]

Yes, this is serious. Most of the border between NSW and Victoria is the Murray River, and there are something like ten cases where there are towns or cities paired across the river, with the paired communities closely inter-connected. That's going to cause a lot of disruption in those communities where there don't seem to be any cases of the virus.

The big trouble is in Melbourne, and the three governments involved seem genuinely concerned this could get out of hand.

Just to reiterate, where other countries have had hundreds of thousands of cases and tens of thousands of deaths, we've had barely 8000 cases and about a hundred deaths, so we're coming out of lockdown in remarkably good shape. It'd be a disaster to lose control now.

[Peter B]

And now the whole of Melbourne is back into lockdown. That's five million people.

As this article explains, this is something we'll have to get used to for the rest of the year - at least - and may happen in other cities if things get out of hand.

[Peter B]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-07-10/coronavirus-covid-spread-victoria-what-we-need-to-do/12438950

Even as Melbourne and surrounds return to lockdown, Victoria has today reported 288 new cases of COVID-19...

These are people who have caught COVID-19 here in Australia — and in some cases we don't know where it came from. It's not just possible, but probable, that there's more coronavirus spreading undetected.

We've had success with containing the virus so far, but at the moment at best Victoria, and arguably Australia, is at edge of a precipice.

[Peter B]

tmcom, even if you think this isn't a genuine threat, do take care - if not for yourself then for others. The same goes for all our Victorian friends.

At the moment cases seem to be doubling roughly every 3 days. It's going to be at least two weeks before we know if the current lockdown has controlled things. With just under 300 new cases today, there could easily be 2000+ new cases a day at that point.

[Golden Duck]

We were sent to work from home today because of this

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/two-teenage-girls-at-centre-of-queensland-s-covid-19-scare-identified-20200730-p55gsd.html

[psyche101]

1 hour ago, Golden Duck said:

We were sent to work from home today because of this

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/two-teenage-girls-at-centre-of-queensland-s-covid-19-scare-identified-20200730-p55gsd.html

I've been hearing about this. Incredibly irresponsible. Hopefully we have caught it in time to minimise the impact.

[Golden Duck]

And cue the race card.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8575849/Brother-teen-Queenslands-COVID-19-emergency-claims-shes-targeted-shes-black.html

[Peter B]

On 7/30/2020 at 8:51 PM, psyche101 said:

I've been hearing about this. Incredibly irresponsible. Hopefully we have caught it in time to minimise the impact.

Never mind them, how about the 130 infected people in Melbourne who were out and about yesterday when they should have been in quarantine in their homes?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-31/coronavirus-key-points-from-daniel-andrews-update/12511218

ADF personnel conducted more than 500 home visits to check active case were staying at home yesterday, up from 269 checks the day before.

"There were more than 130 unsuccessful visits," Mr Andrews said.

That means one-in-four people were found to be not isolating when they should have been.

"The only place to be is at home," Mr Andrews stressed.

[Golden Duck]

On 7/31/2020 at 10:36 PM, Peter B said:

Never mind them, how about the 130 infected people in Melbourne who were out and about yesterday when they should have been in quarantine in their homes?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-31/coronavirus-key-points-from-daniel-andrews-update/12511218

 

 

I'm not sure you can really blame the authorities here. 

Parts of the community seem to have lost the discipline. 

[Peter B]

13 minutes ago, Golden Duck said:

I'm not sure you can really blame the authorities here. 

Parts of the community seem to have lost the discipline. 

No, I'm not blaming the authorities.

I'm putting the behaviour of those two women into perspective by comparing it to the behaviour of 130 people in Melbourne.

As you say, parts of the community seem to have lost the discipline.

So even though it's been three weeks since there were any new cases here in the ACT, we're likely to get caught up in the outbreaks in Victoria and NSW...

[Space Commander Travis]

Well, I heard on the News today that the government of Victoria has declared a State of Disaster.  My god, I thought, what's happened? Forest fire? Earthquake? An airliner has crashed into the centre of Melbourne? No, Three weeks of reimposed Lockdowns^(TM) have failed to control an Upsurge in Covid^(TM) Cases!  Now that's politicians in an absolute nutshell isn't it. Something hasn't worked? What would any normal person, i.e. not a politician, do? Consider that maybe it doesn't work and try something else? No, what do politicians do? They go and and do it some more, convinced that the reason it hasn't worked is that they haven't been doing it hard enough! What's a definition of stupidity? Doing the same thing over and over, convinced that it'll work this time.  What has happened to the famous Aussie healthy disrespect for authority? Is everyone so petrified of virus that they're willing to tolerate pig-headed stupidity? Why int he name of goodness don't people stand up for themselves and say enough pig-headed stupidity, you aren't working, begone with you?  

Edited August 2, 2020 by Montmorency the Dog

[Space Commander Travis]

7 hours ago, Golden Duck said:

I'm not sure you can really blame the authorities here. 

Parts of the community seem to have lost the discipline. 

hahahaha what we need is more discipline!! To be enforced if necessary, by the Geheime Staatspolizei.

[Golden Duck]

1 minute ago, Montmorency the Dog said:

hahahaha what we need is more discipline!! To be enforced if necessary, by the Geheime Staatspolizei.

You've become more paranoid since this last avatar and name change.  Do you have some theme?

 

[Peter B]

1 hour ago, Montmorency the Dog said:

Well, I heard on the News today that the government of Victoria has declared a State of Disaster.  My god, I thought, what's happened? Forest fire? Earthquake? An airliner has crashed into the centre of Melbourne? No, Three weeks of reimposed Lockdowns^(TM) have failed to control an Upsurge in Covid^(TM) Cases!  Now that's politicians in an absolute nutshell isn't it. Something hasn't worked? What would any normal person, i.e. not a politician, do? Consider that maybe it doesn't work and try something else? No, what do politicians do? They go and and do it some more, convinced that the reason it hasn't worked is that they haven't been doing it hard enough! What's a definition of stupidity? Doing the same thing over and over, convinced that it'll work this time.  What has happened to the famous Aussie healthy disrespect for authority? Is everyone so petrified of virus that they're willing to tolerate pig-headed stupidity? Why int he name of goodness don't people stand up for themselves and say enough pig-headed stupidity, you aren't working, begone with you?  

Doing the same thing over and over would mean not imposing a stage four lockdown and leaving the restrictions as they were and hoping that somehow things would change.

Imposing the higher level of restriction is exactly the opposite of doing the same thing.

The Victorian government has questions to answer about the original hotel quarantine processes a couple of months ago. But as I pointed out above, if a quarter of the people who are supposed to be self-quarantining at home at the moment are instead out at work or the supermarket or somewhere else spreading the virus, then perhaps the government is right to be imposing tougher restrictions.