I should start updating this blog every day, as so much happens in a short space of time these strange days. I've forgotten half of what I meant to post.
I looked at the glorious weekend weather forecast last Thursday, and wondered how my fellow Victorians would behave in the sunshine. Given that New Yorkers had flooded public parks, and UK residents had ventured up mountain and down dale during their recent warm weekends, would locals here do the same? Sure enough, our beaches quickly filled up with groups of non-distancers. The socials and professional media pointed the finger of shame, causing councils and state government to bring down the ban hammer. Beaches are forthwith closed unless you're on your lonesome and mobile; no sitting on the sand allowed. If I predicted this from the weather forecast, I'm surprised no-one in government did the same. Maybe they did, and let things run their course. The unspoken 'herd immunity' policy.
However, the lens of shame is haphazard; they could easily film at any of our supermarkets and shopping centres and show crowds continuing to flout social distancing rules. I went for a Saturday morning cycle through the 'burbs and watched (from a distance) punters leave a busy Preston market with only one or two bags of shopping at the weekend. Surely you'd stock up for a week or two if you were serious about following the government edict about not leaving the house unnecessarily? Queues formed outside popular coffee shops in Thornbury. Aldi had a line outside the door at 9.30am, I presumed they were limiting numbers in the store; but then they mysteriously allowed everyone in at once.
Child care centres are still open, despite the protests of workers, but schools remain shut for the foreseeable future. Odd thoughts run through my mind; will empty businesses they be overrun by rats? Did someone remember to pick up all the school chickens and assorted classroom pets? What happens if there's a big storm, as so many schools have leaky roofs?
As a response to the beach scenes at the weekend, the government has enacted Stage 3 restrictions. Stage 3 is pretty much the same as stage 2, except gatherings are limited to two people as opposed to ten. That's the model currently employed in Germany, which has over 50,000 cases but a tiny death rate. People are still allowed to exercise, work, travel by public transport, order takeaway food and shop. We're not supposed to leave the house unless we need to. The amount of businesses that have stayed open continues to surprise me. I've posted about this before, but why is a tropical fish shop or a clothes store considered essential? A dry cleaners? They're still open a five minute walk from my house. I guess we can't buy live fish online, but most other goods can be delivered. I used to buy clothes online all the time, until I became a nudist.
Car traffic is still reasonably heavy along my closest major thoroughfare, Bell Street. Maybe folks are just escaping the house for a bit on. Train, tram and bus usage has really fallen away.
Today the government have announced that 6 million workers are entitled to $1500 a fortnight unemployment benefit. That constitutes a pay rise for many people. I'm not sure why the figure is so high, I suppose the government needs us to continue to buy shit we don't need to feed the precious beast called 'The Economy.' At the moment we're not going to buy much beyond food and booze. Is the plan that we save up our cash, put the economy in the freezer, and have a massive splurge to restart it in a few months. A remaining 5 million working Aussies don't get these benefits, for reasons beyond me. Foreign workers, unless they're from New Zealand, get nothing. I don't know how they're going to get by.
The government has now provided $320 billion in assistance packages. Commentators have broadly welcomed the measures, but no-one seems to be discussing how we are going to pay for them when all this has finished. When the UK and Ireland bailed out the banks after the Global Financial Crisis, those countries had years of fiscal tightening. Public services bore the brunt of the cuts. Are we heading for Austerity Australia, with closed down libraries, families fed by food banks, cuts to pensions, and increased child poverty? With the next election far off and a Liberal-National party right wing government in charge, the rich may suffer less than the poor. I'm not holding my breath for the government to ask our billionaires and wealthy banks to play their part.
I fear that remote working may become the norm in some industries after this has finished. Some commentators see this as a boon, offering choice and flexibility. I'm concerned that workers home and work life balance will suffer. The lack of social interaction will increase loneliness.
The CoVid-19 infection rates in Victoria look pretty good on the surface. There are now 821 cases of COVID-19 in Victoria, 56 more than yesterday; 29 people are in hospital, including four in intensive care; four Victorians have died. The government policy is to 'flatten the curve' but according to Professor Tony Blakely, an epidemiologist at the University of Melbourne, the minimum number of daily infections we can expect by mid-June is 100,000 per day! He's the expert.
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-modelling-shows-the-government-is-getting-the-balance-right-if-our-aim-is-to-flatten-the-curve-134040?fbclid=IwAR34FVA8I4XurFVVCX355KNZlMo0l-bK8Ls7tfKifFmQzZN42admoL3gPW0
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