When we look at the current lockdown Victorians are faced with, you have to wonder if perhaps the government is locking down all of Metropolitan Melbourne (and stage 3 for regional Victoria) when a considerable proportion of cases are related to two groups. Healthcare workers and Aged Care.
These two groups are contained groups, or can be contained, and would often amount to 50% or more of new cases. This isn't meant to be a reflection of these groups, just of reflection of the situation for these groups.
If you take out these groups you can almost immediately halve the number of daily cases and then you have to wonder if the Victorian government isn't being too harsh on the general public. Today I read of two elderly ladies sitting on a park bench being threatened to be arrested by police.
I can't drive with my partner to get takeaway which poses no (or no additional) risk to anyone. I feel if I were to eat my takeaway in the car I could also get fined by police. As a compute support consultant I've spent hours trying to find if I can provide onsite support and still don't know. To me this is absurd for the government to treat people in this way. The government needs to be more creative in what people can do that is low risk. I understand they have a problem that people break the rules. Having only one person in a car means it's easier for police to enforce rules but they've enforcing rules for the sake of enforcing rules. The police look bad and the government looks bad. You then start creating anger in the people because when things don't make sense people know.
I wonder what activities other people think should be OK.
For example I think it should be OK to order takeaway food and eat the food in the car park. Subject to that it is only yourselves and you're not meeting anyone else, or connecting with anyone else.
I think it should be OK for two people from the same household to go shopping together. Yes there is additional risk of one of the two people getting infected, but chances are they'll take less time, split the tasks and reduce the overall time, thus negativing that increased risk. And if they go to different shops, there's no additional risk compared with one person going to two shops, or two people going to one shop each.
I think people should be allowed to go for drives, as long as they don't stop and leave their car. Again this is for people from the same household.
If you can do activities where you don't mix with other people you're not increasing the level of risk to yourself or others. With exercise, try going to the local park for a walk and see how many people you pass. That's more risk than driving in a car. In a recent bike ride to the local park I took a video and counted 82 people that I passed or passed me. To me that's a much greater risk than two people driving in a car to get takeaway together.
The problem is the government is putting laws into place that help the police enforce the laws, rather than laws that actually make people safer. Sometime doesn't feel right with this approach.
The following is a graph of the percentage of cases each day for the last three weeks for healthcare works.
During the last three weeks the average number of healthcare workers has been 37% of the total number of new cases each day. You can see in the graph on multiple occasions the percentage has exceeded 50%. These healthcare workers will infect their family and friends so if this group was considered an outbreak, you have to wonder what percentage of daily infections the group would make.
Very broad restrictions don't really make sense when a large proportion of cases is limited to sections of the population. The government needs to become for more nimble in its approach, otherwise it will crush the spirit out of the people.
The good thing is at the next election we get to vote. You can decide if you think the government's done a good job.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.Mapz.com.au/coronavirusvictoria/
Update: 9/9/2020
Today basically Dan Andrews confirmed restrictions on Victorians aren't because they're' required for health issues, but to make policing easier. Now it makes sense. That insight has never to my knowledge been stated before. That means people are most likely getting fined not because there's a health issue, but for taking actions that make no difference to our safety and wellbeing, but to simplify police enforcement.
At his daily press conference on Tuesday, Mr Andrews admitted that the curfew makes “the job of the Victoria Police much easier”.
You have to now start asking the question "is the curfew even necessary?" Where's the science to justify the restriction. Brett Sutton stated it wasn't based on health authority advice.
Once people start to question one of the restrictions, you can understand why people start to question many or all of the restrictions.
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