Is Dan Andrews doing the right thing?

[starlight7]

Do you agree with the really hard lockdown in Victoria or do you think it is all too much and will totally wreck our economy?I certainly agree with social distancing and mask wearing but not so sure about the 5 km restrictions, especially where we live where there are only a very few cases of Covid 19.

[MacGyver]

4 hours ago, starlight7 said:

Do you agree with the really hard lockdown in Victoria or do you think it is all too much and will totally wreck our economy?I certainly agree with social distancing and mask wearing but not so sure about the 5 km restrictions, especially where we live where there are only a very few cases of Covid 19.

I think he's doing the right thing, but it's easy for me to say from a distance when I'm not struggling through the lockdown. The quarantine issues aside, once the second wave started he tried a softer approach initially. Unfortunately too many people seemed to ignore the rules and it led to huge numbers.

If I was in his shoes I'd be looking at it thinking we can open up a bit now and hope people follow the relaxed rules this time, or stick it out a bit longer and get back to zero community cases if we're lucky, then it doesn't matter so much when people inevitably break the rules.

I think the option to go softer (and possibly save his political career) was taken from him during the early stages of the second wave, when people refused to follow the rules. It would be madness to think this behaviours wouldn't happen again now.

[mt9754]

I think it’s all he can do really given the guidelines passed down to him (when it comes to Melbourne).

Australia are hanging in there for an effective vaccine, I don’t think there’s a plan B.  The economy will struggle in one way or another until then.

[AussieMum]

The 5 km restriction is a big driver in helping stop people moving around and spreading COVID-19 while asymptomatic.  Without the restrictions, you wouldn't have "a very few cases" where you live for very long.

Are the restrictions tough? Yep.  Is it getting harder the longer it drags on? Sure.  But the alternative if we let the rate of community transmission climb is absolutely horrendous - not just deaths but the unknown long-term effects. 

He's following the science (which is changing because that's what science does) which is all we can ask for, rather than trying to win an election by trying to make decisions that he thinks will be popular with those who will vote for him/his party.  I feel like some of his critics forget that he and his family have to follow these rules too, it's not like him and Brett Sutton, etc, are all having parties and hanging out with their mates at super-secret bars and parks.

[Marisawright]

The logic of the 5km radius is obvious.  If you didn't have any restriction on your movements, and found out you had Covid, would you be able to document exactly where you'd been for every minute of every day for the last two weeks?   Few of us would, I think.  Whereas if an infectious person can't travel beyond 5km, then at least the contact tracers know what radius they have to scour for contacts.

While the contact tracing teams are overwhelmed with high numbers, I think that makes a lot of sense. Once the numbers come down, then they'll have the manpower to track further afield.  

[Toots]

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

The logic of the 5km radius is obvious.  If you didn't have any restriction on your movements, and found out you had Covid, would you be able to document exactly where you'd been for every minute of every day for the last two weeks?   Few of us would, I think.  Whereas if an infectious person can't travel beyond 5km, then at least the contact tracers know what radius they have to scour for contacts.

While the contact tracing teams are overwhelmed with high numbers, I think that makes a lot of sense. Once the numbers come down, then they'll have the manpower to track further afield.  

Our area of Burnie/Devonport had much stricter restrictions than the rest of Tasmania as in everything was closed except for supermarkets and pharmacies and we also had the 5km radius for about 4 weeks I think it was.  It worked.  Zero cases of Covid now and apart from the border being closed all is back to normal.

[Alan Collett]

Risks exist in many things we do in life - as a rule Governments State and Federal assess the costs of a life and legislate accordingly.  

With COVID it appears every death is "a tragedy" for which those in Melbourne have to be in lockdown.

Rational thought has been abandoned to emotion.  

IMHO.

Onwards!

[Alan Collett]

19 hours ago, MacGyver said:

I think he's doing the right thing, but it's easy for me to say from a distance when I'm not struggling through the lockdown. The quarantine issues aside, once the second wave started he tried a softer approach initially. Unfortunately too many people seemed to ignore the rules and it led to huge numbers.

<snip>

The second wave that was triggered by the incompetence of the Department of Health and other bureaucrats in Victoria you mean?

Many of us here in Victoria are very angry at what is going on.    And I'm relatively lucky, living in Geelong.

Best regards.

[Alan Collett]

8 hours ago, Marisawright said:

The logic of the 5km radius is obvious.  If you didn't have any restriction on your movements, and found out you had Covid, would you be able to document exactly where you'd been for every minute of every day for the last two weeks?   Few of us would, I think.  Whereas if an infectious person can't travel beyond 5km, then at least the contact tracers know what radius they have to scour for contacts.

While the contact tracing teams are overwhelmed with high numbers, I think that makes a lot of sense. Once the numbers come down, then they'll have the manpower to track further afield.  

IMHO the 5k radius is arbitrary - why not 1k, or 100 metres? 

Indeed, what happened to the much touted COVID app?

Best regards.

[HappyHeart]

1 hour ago, Alan Collett said:

Risks exist in many things we do in life - as a rule Governments State and Federal assess the costs of a life and legislate accordingly.  

With COVID it appears every death is "a tragedy" for which those in Melbourne have to be in lockdown.

Rational thought has been abandoned to emotion.  

IMHO.

Onwards!

Let's see how rational you are when a family member dies in tragic circumstances. Every death IS a tragedy for someone. We've lost our humanity and empathy. 

[MacGyver]

3 hours ago, Alan Collett said:

IMHO the 5k radius is arbitrary - why not 1k, or 100 metres? 

Indeed, what happened to the much touted COVID app?

Best regards.

Resistance to downloading it rendered it less useful, then those who refused to download it criticised it for being only partially useful. It's on my phone, yours?

[Tulip1]

I believe they’re saying it won’t change until there is a period of sometime with no more than 5 cases a day. That seems very strict. I expect people will stop getting tested if that continues which will have a negative effect.  I have spoken to a few people living in Melbourne and they agree with some things but not others. One described Dan’s speech along the lines of a speech of power that had such a dictatorship about it that it left a bad taste.  

Edited September 10, 2020 by Tulip1

[Marisawright]

On 10/09/2020 at 01:06, MacGyver said:

I think the option to go softer (and possibly save his political career) was taken from him during the early stages of the second wave, when people refused to follow the rules. It would be madness to think this behaviours wouldn't happen again now.

This.  

It's all very well for economists to say, "let's just open up the economy and accept that a few people will die".  As we've already seen, when people die, there will be families who cause merry hell in the media and call for the heads of those who allowed it to happen.  So those in authority are pushed into a corner - they have to be seen to be doing everything in their power to prevent every death.  

Just look at how popular the other state premiers are.  ScoMo may be mad at them for closing the borders - and the people who actually live on the borders aren't happy - but the majority of people in Tassie, WA and Queensland love the closed borders because it's letting them live almost-normal lives.  They can see what's happening in Melbourne and they don't want it, thank you. It may be bad for the economy but it's great for votes.

[Marisawright]

14 hours ago, Alan Collett said:

IMHO the 5k radius is arbitrary - why not 1k, or 100 metres? 

Indeed, what happened to the much touted COVID app?

Best regards.

Why not 100 metres - would you be so cruel?  5k seems reasonable to me, since it means most people would have access to most services within that range of their home.  They could have picked another number but why would they?  Pick a round number that's not too restrictive and isn't going to tempt people to get in the car - 5k is about right IMO.

I guess if the Federal govt had managed to develop a Covidsafe app that worked on the iPhone, the state wouldn't have to resort to other measures...

[Alan Collett]

11 hours ago, MacGyver said:

Resistance to downloading it rendered it less useful, then those who refused to download it criticised it for being only partially useful. It's on my phone, yours?

Yep, and has been since a few days after it was available.

Best regards.

[Alan Collett]

44 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

This.  

It's all very well for economists to say, "let's just open up the economy and accept that a few people will die".  As we've already seen, when people die, there will be families who cause merry hell in the media and call for the heads of those who allowed it to happen.  So those in authority are pushed into a corner - they have to be seen to be doing everything in their power to prevent every death.  

Just look at how popular the other state premiers are.  ScoMo may be mad at them for closing the borders - and the people who actually live on the borders aren't happy - but the majority of people in Tassie, WA and Queensland love the closed borders because it's letting them live almost-normal lives.  They can see what's happening in Melbourne and they don't want it, thank you. It may be bad for the economy but it's great for votes.

Someone famous is once alleged to have said the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Best regards.

[Alan Collett]

14 hours ago, HappyHeart said:

Let's see how rational you are when a family member dies in tragic circumstances. Every death IS a tragedy for someone. We've lost our humanity and empathy. 

With respect, you have no knowledge of my personal circumstances.

There's too much hyperbole and not enough reasoning/critical appraisal.

I submit that too many deaths are being attributed to COVID-19 when people have died with it, not because of it.

263 people died on the roads of Victoria in 2019.   Shall we ban driving too?

Over 900 people in Australia died of the flu last year.   Why didn't we shut down the country in 2019 when last year's strain was known to be virulent?

Best regards.

[Marisawright]

16 minutes ago, Alan Collett said:

Someone famous is once alleged to have said the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Very true, but you are dealing with the real world here, and politicians nowadays are driven by what voters think - or at least, what the media tells them voters are thinking.

[Marisawright]

8 minutes ago, Alan Collett said:

Over 900 people in Australia died of the flu last year.   Why didn't we shut down the country in 2019 when last year's strain was known to be virulent?

I am not disagreeing with some of your arguments, but not this one.  If you are going to compare flu deaths in a normal year, when there were no restrictions in place, then the only accurate comparison is to compare it to coronavirus deaths at a time when no restrictions were in place. Remember Italy?

[Alan Collett]

10 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

Very true, but you are dealing with the real world here, and politicians nowadays are driven by what voters think - or at least, what the media tells them voters are thinking.

Then maybe the State Premier should stop marketing platitudes and get himself outside his bubble of advisors.

Best regards.

 

[Alan Collett]

11 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

I am not disagreeing with some of your arguments, but not this one.  If you are going to compare flu deaths in a normal year, when there were no restrictions in place, then the only accurate comparison is to compare it to coronavirus deaths at a time when no restrictions were in place. Remember Italy?

A very different culture - I don't recall seeing any Melburnians kissing each other on both cheeks any time recently.

Are we really going to cut ourselves off from the rest of the globe?

What happens if a vaccine isn't found?

What's the exit strategy in the absence of a vaccine?

Best regards.

[Marisawright]

6 minutes ago, Alan Collett said:

A very different culture - I don't recall seeing any Melburnians kissing each other on both cheeks any time recently.

Oh, so Italy doesn't count because you only catch it by hugging?   Have you seen the research that says it's contagious up to 2.5 metres indoors?  And if you can't catch it unless you physically touch a person, why are so many health workers getting it, even when dressed to the nines in PPE?

[Alan Collett]

2 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

Oh, so Italy doesn't count because you only catch it by hugging?   Have you seen the research that says it's contagious up to 2.5 metres indoors?  And if you can't catch it unless you physically touch a person, why are so many health workers getting it, even when dressed to the nines in PPE?

With respect, you drew the analogy with Italy.    I'm saying you are comparing apples with oranges.

Also - again respectfully - I'm not into scaremongering.   I have friends who work in the health care sector in Victoria.   I am told there are very few in ICU.   Which some would contend shows the strategy is working.

I submit this means the foot can be taken off the proverbial throat of the Victorian people.

Wasn't the strategy a few months ago to ensure the healthcare system wouldn't be overwhelmed?    What happened to that?   When did we move to a COVID-eradication strategy?

Best regards.

[Paul1Perth]

15 hours ago, Alan Collett said:

IMHO the 5k radius is arbitrary - why not 1k, or 100 metres? 

Indeed, what happened to the much touted COVID app?

Best regards.

Well they had to make a decision on the distance and 5k means you can go out for a run, get to shops, bike ride maybe. 1k or 100m wouldn't allow much at all, would have been stupid. 

Seems pretty common sense that 5k seems about right.

The Covid app is still around but needs everyone to have it and use it properly for it to work. A lot of the people spreading the virus don't even believe it's a problem, they want to do their own thing, so they are hardly likely to use the covid app properly.

Living in Perth everyone here knows how lucky we are. You wouldn't know the virus had ever existed, apart from not being able to travel outside WA, but there's plenty to do here. No masks, places packed, no social distancing, no cases for ages.

You can see by the decrease in numbers of cases in Victoria you are on the right track. Unless you aim for zero cases and no transmission you are not going to get back to "normal", you would be on your guard all the time. 

The pain will be worth it in the end.

[HappyHeart]

1 hour ago, Alan Collett said:

With respect, you have no knowledge of my personal circumstances.

There's too much hyperbole and not enough reasoning/critical appraisal.

I submit that too many deaths are being attributed to COVID-19 when people have died with it, not because of it.

263 people died on the roads of Victoria in 2019.   Shall we ban driving too?

Over 900 people in Australia died of the flu last year.   Why didn't we shut down the country in 2019 when last year's strain was known to be virulent?

Best regards.

Firstly, COVID-19 is not influenza. We know relatively little about it but we do know that's it's MUCH MORE CONTAGIOUS AND DEADLY than flu. 

We know we have a flu vaccine and that by far the vast majority of over 65s and at risk groups get vaccinated. Yet still people die. 

People tend to die 'with' disease not 'of' disease. People with cancer, with chronic health conditions, the young, the elderly all live with varying degrees of immunosuppression. That means infection is a potentially fatal event. 

I reject this claim that some of us should be allowed to take our chances and vulnerable people should take precautions. That strategy condemns large numbers to a long life of isolation and misery due to the selfishness of others. 

The strategy should be elimination till a vaccine is found. We dont allow kids into schools and dsycare without up to date vaccinations. Why people are getting their knickers in a knot about this particular vaccine baffles me. I for one am prepared to live in this bubble till a vaccine is found...that may be a few years..Who knows. If local cases spike I accept lockdown as the quickest way to get back to NORMAL. 

I don't accept any number of deaths as collateral damage. Every one is someone's beloved person. I think the entire world needs a rethink about society and what we value most. Capitalism requires sacrificial lambs to keep the world turning.  We can't serve 2 masters. 

Edited September 11, 2020 by HappyHeart