The current state of emergency in Victoria in response to COVID-19 outbreak is due to expire on July 19, it will be probably be extended indefinitely until the second wave is under control.
A lockdown of metropolitan Melbourne (as suggested by some experts) is impractical as it is hard to define the region boundary in the east and south. Will Mornington Peninsula be included? Yarra Glen? Healesville? Warburton?
Meanwhile, V/Line is replacing part of todayâs service between Melbourne and Albury as the border shutdown looms. People will have to travel by train between Southern Cross and Seymour, before switching to coaches to complete their journey. Apparently there is no terminating facilities at Wangaratta (the nearest major station to Wodonga).
Not necessarily. It could be the case but this council meets each week as it is. It wouldnât surprise me if the topic of schools is on the agenda today as they need to give some clarity to parents so they can plan what is happening from next week. It wouldnât surprise me if they go back to home learning for 2 weeks until this hopefully all calms down a bit.
I think itâs going to be one of two things: either the entire state is going to lockdown or they will continue it within the hotspot suburbs. It would be too hard a task to manage movement to regional areas with an entire city of millions in lockdown. It actually would be easier (resource wise) for the Government to impose a state-wide lockdown than what they are currently doing.
I would just want to know that it is a widespread issue if we do go into larger lockdowns. Particularly given a lot of the city outside of the North west still has so minimal cases, minimal community transmission and have no more than what was previously identified as pretty standards numbers since May. Iâve seen a lot of councils on this side of town (south east) only have between 1-5 active cases and they donât seem to be growing either. Itâs going to be pretty hard on the economy and the morale of 6million people to do this again if the problem is still mostly concentrated to certain areas.
I hope itâs the latter. I am opposed to the statewide lockdown as rural areas have done their part to flatten the curve. If they go to back to stage 3 before some restrictions were eased in late May, it will cause backlash from country people. That may be reflected in the state election in 2022.
The Victorian Government must consider the impact of statewide lockdown on small and medium businesses across the state. There is only a finite amount of financial support the government can provide, and many businesses wonât survive without customers.
Again, is that the most important thing to worry about? Or should it be about keeping people safe? Have you been listening to a lot of right wing shock jocks lately?
This is my experience in Sydney and the south coast. I move away from people or let them pass at a distance on rare trips to the supermarket but others brush past me as I do so.
I was in a hotel briefly on Saturday to withdraw some cash from a TAB account and social distancing measures werenât being followed. Signage is everywhere but people were still crowded around tables and standing and moving around with drinks. Nobody asked me to check in on entry and things were operating almost as if the threat didnât exist. It seemed like the staff had given up trying to enforce the measures because they were too busy or got sick of asking people to comply. There was an employee wearing a âCOVID Marshallâ vest whose job it was to enforce measures but he was serving drinks.
I was down the south coast on the weekend. At the restaurant we went to on Saturday night it was business as usual. Luckily we got there when there was only one free table remaining so we were at the back away from the other tables. I only noticed the sign in sheet as I was paying the bill. They didnât ask us to sign in when we arrived.
Mate you need to stop worrying about the politics of this. No one gives a fuck about the election right now. Regardless of who is in office, we would still be in this mess most likely as itâs not the government who have done the wrong things here.
In his defence you could be forgiven for worrying about the politics when states have been fighting with other states leaders and even the PM. Not to mention opposition leaders undermining decisions on state and federal levels.
There are reports that seven emergency staff at The Northern Hospital in Epping, Victoria have contracted the virus. The hospital is on bypass for the moment, meaning ambulances wonât be entering the hospital.
Surely theyâre not going to be far away from losing the ability to contact trace all of these cases. Same thing was observed elsewhere at this stage where authorities essentially gave up because the numbers were too high.
That seems about normal for recent months - QLD gets the bulk of flights still operating from PNG and the Pacific Islands, meaning only about half of those flights will actually have people on it potentially at risk. I have no doubt with the restrictions on flights in place in Sydney and the ban in Melbourne that QLD will get a number of new cases in hotel quarantine - WA has had 9 new hotel quarantine cases since Sunday.
Australia is on track to start recording more daily new cases than some of the ex-worst hit countries UK, France, Italy, Belgium and Sweden. which have all reduced numbers significantly, all recording less that 210 cases yesterday.
You canât really judge that after only a few days though. These cases would all be developed from before the lockdowns began. But I do agree they might need to do something tougher quicker to stop the spread continuing for longer.