I simply cannot wrap my mind around what is happening in Australia. Continuing a lockwdown while the number of positive covid cases remains in the low hundreds and the daily death rate in the lower tens to single digits.
Nothing makes sense here. Draconian laws, complete shutdown over something that is and has been statistically under control and managed from months.
Am I alone here or do people really think what is going on in Australia makes sense and that attempting to completely eradicate a virus that may be as easily spread as the common cold makes sense.
Serious cannot leave your house outside and go outside for a jog … because there are 50 positive cases in a nation of millions ?
Right, there's something disconcerting about the way people are behaving in this situation, and it's hard to process this as something that could reasonably happen. "I thought we were rational people in a free society?"
The terrible thing is that this is exactly how people behaved in "historical" times - a foreshadowing to what lies ahead. The vast majority of people believe we are post-history, and that we're somehow more rational and good than previous generations. This isn't true, and people are just as susceptible to insane fantasies as they've always been. We're in danger now because of these people.
What we're seeing is exactly what it looks like: mass psychosis on the level of witch-hunts, with incompetent and superstitious leaders trying to rule with underhanded measures. There's nothing to try to understand here, it's just time to wake up from the delusion that everything is stable and properly managed.
The difference between modern and medieval people isn't physiological, it is just education. But since stupidity is unlimited, it will just pick up a new mantle and look a bit different.
Rules of public relation will make it increasingly difficult for any official to take a more relaxed stand. Fearful people are motivated people and will make themselves heard, no matter if their fears are justified or not.
Boiling it down to just education is too reductionist. Education is part of reciprocal human interaction and the academy (often associated with education) is itself an ancient institution. What's different is our collection and employment of knowledge.
> . "I thought we were rational people in a free society
There is no polity in the world in which "rational people" drove covid policy (or individual behavior) to any significant degree. Whether we're talking about Florida's low restrictions and high cases or the Bay Area's converse outcome, the best you can hope for is that the masses, through their blind superstition and social signaling, ended up somewhere close to the policy/behavior landscape that you think is optimal.
I don't disagree with this; it seems that if you ask most people who aren't following mandates why they're not following them you'll get a lot of poorly thought out answers.
I would even say that DeSantis isn't really trying to follow science in his decisions, but more trying to align with the beliefs of Floridians.
Sweden is one country which seems to have made the right decisions, though they themselves have said they would have done lockdowns if it were legal to do so. Because of that, I'd say that Sweden is at least competent and transparent in it's democratic policies. Other countries simply made lockdowns legal, clearly subverting their own established democratic processes. Now Sweden seems to be quite happy about it's decisions though.
The laws the article is talking about are the big problem - they're Federal and permanent (at least until we have a sane Government elected to reform and repeal them).
The COVID lockdowns are all operating under temporary state of emergencies under the State Governments. There's no actual reason to think they will be 'extended forever' like some crazies seem to think. For several states, our State Governments are actually much more competent and better in many ways than the Federal Government. Of course, a big part of the reason lockdowns are needed is because the Federal Government botched some vaccine deals with Pfizer etc. so we started vaccinating very late and have been continually supply-constrained since then.
The lockdowns have actually have tended to work effectively - for instance, in my state we've had a few lockdowns and have been able to quash every outbreak so far. So we've been mostly COVID free as we are at the moment, so there is no lockdown right now. Right now I can freely travel to any state except NSW, ACT and Victoria (which are hotspots). I would have to quarantine to go to WA though, but hopefully our state goes from "Low Risk" to "Very Low Risk" by their Government's rating soon so I can take a holiday there without two weeks quarantine.
The main actually ridiculous restriction is the Federal Government's ban on travel out of the country. That is wrong, and probably unconstitutional. Travel out should absolutely be allowed, just with the proviso that there may not be quarantine capacity for months to return (perhaps you should need to have to book in advance and pay a deposit if you intend to return in the next year). Although apparently it is actually ridiculously easy to get an exception to leave, I have a few friends that have taken jobs overseas and their applications were approved in hours with no questions (not even asked for any evidence they actually had a job offer).
It's not misinformation, it's that were looking at Australia from the outside. If you live in the US, pretty much any and all restrictions have been lifted for daily life. You see that there are still Covid cases and deaths, but they have dwindled in comparison to last year and life is pretty much back to how it was Pre-pandemic.
So it's absolutely insane to see that for the same or less daily Covid cases/deaths, Australia is going into lockdowns and imposing draconian restrictions. That's the disconnect between for many of us. At least in the US, any politician even suggesting such measures nowadays would be politically crucified.
For last year it was the reverse for us. We looked at the US, incredulous that you let the virus kill thousands of people every day. At that point we had practically zero cases or deaths and we lived with almost no restrictions. So we could see how bad it could get if we let the virus run free in a population that still doesn't have the majority vaccinated.
It's only in the last couple months that things have been different, and bear in mind only two states have any lockdown orders at the moment. It sucks that our federal government fucked up acquisition of vaccines but at this point it seems silly to not just wait a few months to reach high levels of vaccination rates before opening up properly.
I think you are assuming we have access to the vaccine like the US. Where at this point, if you want to get it, you have the opportunity to do so.
We don't have enough vaccine to do that yet. We have a shortage and consequently we are in 'a race' to get a somewhat limited supply of jabs into arms before the delta strain gets out of control here and starts killing folks like it's the peak in America.
I would say, Australia cares more about it's citizens than in America. But there are definite downsides, like for instance, we don't produce Pfizer or have the very strong industrial/tech base (and the good jobs that go with it)
This is pretty hyperbolic.
Examination of global excess deaths would tell you that the lockdowns were successful in their stated primary aim. Australia and NZ had significantly fewer excess deaths during the first wave [1].
And if they continue with lockdowns, they will have signficantly fewer excess deaths again no matter what else happens.
You may think this isn't a good trade-off, which is a fine point to make, but I don't think any minds need to be blown.
You are correct I think this is not a good trade-off. However I stand by “my mind is blown” that continuing with these draconian measures and the lock down approach borders on madness.
For reference in my part of the world we are fully open going on the 5th week of full in person schooling. All athletic teams and events have resumed with full crowds. In a school district of 2600 students we have over 45 positive cases (temp quarantine). The week prior we had 35 cases.
Neither of these case numbers are concerning and we continue to promote vaccination and frequent testing to limit the spread.
It's hard to evaluate what this means without knowing, at least, the demographic make up of your part of the world, the vaccination rates, the vaccination kinetics, and health system capacity and access.
I could equally cherry pick places with more disastrous outcomes as a counterargument eg Italy early on.
Nevertheless, I'm envious of your lack of restrictions. I haven't seen my father for a long time.
The low vaccination rate means it takes little for cases to jump from double to triple or even quadruple digits, at which point things spiral out of control like already happened in many other countries. Compare this to countries like Britain or the US with high vaccination rates and even higher percentages of the population with antibodies.
Students are not the only members of a community or geographic area.
I’m unclear how this is a relevant comparison to “Covid in Australia” or “lockdown strategy” beyond ‘smaller numbers are smaller’
If you are going to compare the numbers you just provided (which are not a good direct comparison), then it shows that it’s considerably more out of control in your school than in NSW, which is the least contained outbreak in Australia.
26k active cases in 8.1M population. Approx 0.3%.
35 in 2645 is 1.3%.
Other states of Australia are considerably better. So again, what is your point?
Sometimes in Western Australia I forget covid is happening if I don't check the news. Brief, sweet moments. We haven't been in a lockdown longer than 3 days in quite some time.
> Continuing a lockwdown while the number of positive covid cases remains in the low hundreds and the daily death rate in the lower tens to single digits.
Surely you can see how this is equivalent to asking why the company hires a system admin when the system hardly ever goes down or gets hacked.
And you have always been allowed outside for a jog. Please do not spread false information.
This talk about "Draconian" lockdown in Australia needs to stop. Our privacy and digital rights laws are awful. But the lockdowns are necessary.
NSW had upward of 1000+ cases and that's why they're (still) in a strict lockdown. QLD and i beleive WA as well for example are not in lockdown at all because of their much much lower daily cases.
>This talk about "Draconian" lockdown in Australia needs to stop.
I haven't been following the lockdown laws interstate, but here in Victoria there have definitely been some restrictions that seemed to be extremely harsh and soul-crushing in comparison to their effectiveness at stopping the virus.
The 5km radius and curfew both spring to mind. I (legally) haven't been able to see a single friend or family member for almost 2 months now, even if socially distanced, wearing a mask, vaccinated and outdoors. They're all outside my 5km.
Yet at the same time a 10 year old kid can go into Woolies with 200 other people and not even need to wear a mask.
Very much agree with the 5km rule and curfew. If there is strong evidence to suggest that they are necessary than so be it but after months and months of restricting basic freedoms 'we follow the health advice' just doesn't cut it anymore.
Hope you’re ok mate. We’ll be vaccinated soon, hold the fort. I can’t see my family and friends either and it’s undeniably tough. But the rules do make sense, it’s just always hard to see that when they affect you.
The 5km makes it possible for them to be talking about the western suburbs being somewhat under control, and for targeted testing and messaging operations to be useful. My area has been in a lull for a bit after being in the spotlight, so I’ve checked out of keeping track —- that is a luxury in its own way. Without the 5km I don’t think I would have that reprieve from the stress.
> This talk about "Draconian" lockdown in Australia needs to stop.
Actually, telling people to stop talking is what needs to stop.
Here in Victoria we're in our 6th lockdown. 220 days of lockdown since last year. Today there were 221 covid cases reported in Victoria. 87 people in hospital - that's not a daily rate, that's total. These are not big numbers.
We have an angry Premier who yells and threatens. Together with his side-kick health officer, they condemn people for taking their kids to park or watching the sunset. [1]
When watching the sunset is considered immoral, it's time to break out the word Draconian.
We have a curfew here in Melbourne. This means everyone must visit the supermarket in reduced opening hours, increasing density in those places. There is no evidence curfews work. Mask mandates outdoors even when by yourself is another useless signalling technique. Australian authorities love their signalling and behavioral manipulation.
They love blaming the lockdowns on the community. They love their new unchallenged surveillance powers and privacy compromising backdoors. They are ecstatic about the idea of mandating apps and vaccine passports for entry to cafes and venues.
People here are vaccinated enough. A high proportion of older and vulnerable people are vaccinated. Young and healthy people would not fill the hospital beds if lockdowns ended. There may be a small surge, but it would level out, we would deal with it. Lockdowns are doing more harm than good at this point. 80% vaccination target is not a magic number from the Gods.
UK and Israel have proven the "vaccinate your way out of trouble" strategy doesn't work, therefore Australia's lockdown regime will not work either.
Australia is, at a massive social and economic cost, delaying death and cases. They are not preventing them.
At extremely high levels of vaccination, Australia could see 10-50 daily deaths presuming lockdown is eased. There's already prior evidence, other countries have been through this.
Vaccination is not a silver bullet, and lockdown advocates need to stop implying as such.
80% vaccination will mean thousands of daily cases.
Not to mention lockdown advocates routinely ignore the massive costs associated with the ideology, such as additional deaths (suicides, delayed medical treatment, poverty etc) and mental health (1 in 10 Victorians "seriously considered" suicide in 2020(!!!)).
Also, poverty, which will absolutely be the result of this economic destruction, has a directly link to excess mortality (mortality is >100% more likely when you're in poverty).
The recent mask study in Bangladesh comes to mind. I hazily remember it finding mask effectiveness at about 10-15%, which caused the press to proclaim that masks work. However against an exponentially growing virus this reduction amounts to a brief delay in transmission.
Happy to be corrected by someone who has looked at that study more deeply.
If lockdowns are "necessary" then there are other things like taxing unhealthy foods and dedicating the economy to produce enough N95 masks that are vastly more necessary.
1200+ cases in NSW out of a population of over 8 million.
So we should extend a strict lockdown … to do what exactly? Is the plan to manage this virus with a series of alternating lockdowns and get the number of cases to zero? Is this realistic, is this the type of world you want to live in?
The virus appears to be as contagious as chicken pox, vaccines help with serious cases but are doing little unfortunately to stop the spread. At what point do you think it would make sense to manage the disease and resume normal life instead of draconian lockdowns for a untenable goal?
Please put some effort in getting information instead of creating straw man. NSW and Victoria are in a lockdown to have time to get 70-80% of eligible population double-vaccinated. Modelling by couple of institutes show that if lockdown ends today, hospitals would be overwhelmed and lots of preventable deaths occur.
By all estimates we would reach that 70-80% number in 1-3 months time, so that's the plan. Google for "Doherty Institute planning", visit https://covidlive.com.au, check daily press conference of VIC and NSW premiers - answers to your questions are in plain sight.
"Unvaccinated people in New South Wales could be barred from locations and denied movement freedoms even after the state achieves 80% double dose vaccination"
> the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, warning vaccine-hesitant residents they will not be able to “let everybody else do the hard work and then turn up” for equal freedoms.
> “I just want to send the very strong message that don’t assume you’ll get everything that vaccinated people get at 80%.”
Vaccine apartheid. Enjoy ! I'm glad I visited long ago
To be clear, that's 1200 cases in one day. There are currently 26907 active cases in NSW.
The goal of the lockdown is to keep new case numbers as low as possible so a greater percentage of the population has the chance to be vaccinated. Nobody is suggesting it's going to zero. Living with Covid, as you suggest, is the end goal. You're advocating for the current plan.
> Continuing a lockwdown while the number of positive covid cases remains in the low hundreds and the daily death rate in the lower tens to single digits.
Correction - thousands, not hundreds. But comparison to the previous numbers is required, because it's approaching the peak we've seen. So close to highest ever, rather than something to be dismissed.
> Serious cannot leave your house outside and go outside for a jog … because there are 50 positive cases in a nation of millions ?
... You can still do that. There are several allowed reasons to leave your house, and exercise is one of those, and always has been.
One day at the beginning of the pandemic I was out exercising and the police interrogated me over wearing jeans instead of sports wear. The copper was unsatisfied by my responses and directed me to return home + threatened a fine of several thousand dollars if I did not comply.
> Do you have to wear a mask when jogging outside?
Given my encounter and as jogging isn't well defined I assume this is at the discretion of the nearest officer.
American here. It appears to me to be poor incentives reinforcing themselves in the political sphere. If you make a single metric the measure of success, most will go to extremes to game that metric. Australian politicians seem to have made the low number of COVID infections the sole measure of their success. The result is somewhat predictable.
> Serious cannot leave your house outside and go outside for a jog … because there are 50 positive cases in a nation of millions ?
There were around 1.5k new cases in NSW today. NSW is in lockdown. Victoria has new cases too, but is opening up its regional areas where they are covid free. WA has no cases and no lockdown.
It's not like the whole country is locked down over 50 cases - there are many times that many, and the whole country is not locked down.
> because there are 50 positive cases in a nation of millions
Australia is currently experiencing 1500 daily case of COVID with some 30,000+ cumulative case since the start of this last outbreak which is now some two months old.
> Nothing makes sense here.
Firstly only three of the seven states and territories are in lock down.
Four states and territories are experiencing zero cases and for them life is very close to normal.
However, the reason two states are now in lock down is because, as a developed country, Australia is last in terms of vaccination roll out.
And it is not only last, it is last by a long way.
There are only two ways to deal with COVID:
1. Lock down until the vaccination numbers improve
2. Open up and let the virus rip and hope the hospital system can cope with the increased demand.
NSW is currently in lock down (i.e. option 1) and even with these strict rules in place the health system is not coping well, as it struggles with the uptick in COVID hospitalizations.
The simple fact is Australia stuffed up the vaccination roll out and we are now paying the price for that mistake.
As an Australian, I should note that the reason positive cases were in the low hundreds — actually, low tens most of the time — was precisely because of the lockdowns. Once people stopped obeying the lockdowns, positive cases started rising, and we ended up with the current situation here in Sydney with ~1500 cases per day. The only reason it’s not any higher is because (a) we still have lockdown in place, and most people comply, and (b) we’re rapidly getting vaccinated as I type.
(And also, the lockdowns weren’t continuous by any measure. Lockdown restrictions were consistently relaxed as soon as cases dropped to single digits.)
They're trying to buy enough time to get enough people vaccinated before they "let it rip". Delta has an extremely high R value and will come back in force. This way we eliminate many more unnecessary deaths. Not hard to understand.
Nothing makes sense here. Draconian laws, complete shutdown over something that is and has been statistically under control and managed from months.
Am I alone here or do people really think what is going on in Australia makes sense and that attempting to completely eradicate a virus that may be as easily spread as the common cold makes sense.
Serious cannot leave your house outside and go outside for a jog … because there are 50 positive cases in a nation of millions ?
My mind is blown.