This is leading to very long ambulance waits at hospital entrances and lead to at least one death when an ambulance wasn’t available. (Sorry that I don’t have time to find a link right now)
To be clear I fully support the government action in Victoria, life is pretty much back to normal here, and looking overseas it seems hard to believe how fortunate we are, but it was not without unexpected consequences.
This could really use some additional context for non-Australians.
Melbourne is the largest city in Victoria. The Premier of Victoria enacted interregional border closures during its several months-long lockdown.
(This wasn’t unique to Victoria — Western Australia did the same thing at the start of the pandemic.)
If hospitals are “filling up” now, that could be at least in part due to the logistics previously not allowing it.
However, as someone who avoided getting stitches for a finger laceration due to fears of catching Covid in a medical facility, I’m convinced people avoided necessary medical procedures to reduce exposure risk primarily. Hence I’m not sure how much of this surge in delayed medical procedures is due to interregional border closures, and how much of it is due to the public’s fears of catching Covid having been assuaged by the successful Covid safety measures taken by the Victorian state government.
Lockdowns have become one of the most politicized aspects of the pandemic. It’s really a shame they’re so unpopular amongst Americans: I think many there would happily subject themselves to 4 months of hard lockdown — in unison with generous unemployment support ofc — if it meant eradicating Covid completely in their local area.
Overall I feel we managed the pandemic fine so far without lockdowns. Sure, people died and I'm sure in much larger numbers than Australia. But if we ever need to experience something like this again, I would still prefer this over strict lockdowns after a few new cases like in AU. I'm not against strict lockdowns, there might be times when they are a good solution, but nothing longer than a couple of weeks.
My experience of Covid, which is the same for almost everyone in Australia, is nothing remotely like yours. For the vast majority of people living here, Covid is a minor inconvenience that doesn’t materially affect our day to day life.
I meet friends at bars for drinks and dinner, my kids take public transport to school and go on school camps, I go to the office for work, and I’m even flying to Sydney this afternoon for a couple of days.
Australia is basically operating normally with almost no restrictions. Situation normal.
You seem to be saying that lockdown was too heavy a price to pay for the freedom I now enjoy, but I respectfully disagree.
It was totally worth it.
The only thing that I’m unhappy about was that Melbourne stuffed it up the first time and we paid heavily for that. But you know what?
Still worth it.
(One might think that borders would only have to stay closed until local vaccination has been rolled out. However, several of the scientific advisors recommending the "zero COVID" approach à la Oz and NZ, also want borders closed – except for strict hotel quarantine – for some years into the future to prevent variants from arising, or even in perpetuity to prevent the next pandemic from ever starting.)
And a mere 48-hour disruption had pretty disruptive results [1] - and week-long quarantines simply aren't an option.
It was also arguably “unconstitutional” [1] for Australian states to close their borders with one another over the pandemic. Business magnate Clive Palmer sued Western Australia over its border closures, in fact, and even received backing from the Australian federal government [2].
Particularly in light of the patchwork framework surrounding state-mandated church closures in the US, the difference between Australia and the United States as it pertains to interstate border closures seems to be more a matter of cultural expectation, than legal impossibility. But IANAL.
US airports are highly controllable ports of entry. I think a lot more could’ve been done there had the population willed hard border closures into existence.
[1]: https://auspublaw.org/2020/08/border-closures-and-s-92-clive...
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/02/feder...
More than half of the eligible voters in each state voted (either directly or indirectly through preference based instant runoff voting) for their government. This is significantly higher political participation than almost any other country in the world, and I’m sure it contributed to the outcome.
So I don't think the current situation is a result of iso but rather a result of Covid, and the fact that we are no longer fearful of it.
The unemployment support was missing/inadequate. Had it been adequate, I doubt we'd have had over half a million deaths from this.
In fact, there was one particular story on the news that I remember the most about a woman who couldn't get her appointments for an eye treatment due to the lock down and it progressed from curable to incurable.
She's blind now.
