Can our aussie posters let me know what Australia did different to our march lockdown please? I know you shut borders, but what else closed, what where are the lockdown rules?
Borders shut. Inter-state borders shut. Imaginary borders around hot spots (eg i couldn't travel more than 5km from central Melbourne for two months) Any returning travellers placed into mandatory 14 day quarentine in hotels. No pubs, cafe's or restaurants open for anything other than takeaway. No retail open save for essentials. All working from home. All learning from home except kids of essential workers. Little to no elective medical procedures through lock down. Curfew. No elite sport until they moved it into a bubble in Queensland where the disease had been eradicated. No leaving the house save for shopping, exercise, medical care or essential work. Beaches closed at different times. That's about all I can remember. It felt pretty stifling at the time but I'm sure others who were in states that had fewer problems would have found it ok.
To add to Disco's answers... No visitors to your home or you visiting others Since we've got under control here in South Australia every business/public location has a COVID QR scan code which we all must scan prior to entering for contact tracing purposes. All returning overseas travellers must quarantine in a medi hotel for 14 days and get tested 2 or 3 times during that stay. Small clusters initiate almost instant lockdowns. Forms must be filled in before interstate travel is permitted
WA was no different either. Border control between states was shut down. Regional borders closed to prevent community spread - only reopened on advice from scientists who understood the data being presented First few weeks virtually a total shutdown Hotel quarantine for 14 days for all returning travellers. Initially paid for by the state government but now paid for by the individual. Only essential travel and work allowed until restrictions eased. I also think every state had a fairly robust compliance program as well. As an essential worker life sort of went on as normal for me. Same as Mrs EJK who works for the department of health. Neither of us could really complain tbh. I think our state premier- Mark McGowan - being ex RAN ran it like a military operation and as a result we have reaped the benefits. He said from day one that he would make any decisions based on the science. In short he kept us all safe. It also helped that anyone found contravening the rules were dealt with harshly. For example an Australian woman who arrived from Spain about a month ago walked out of her hotel quarantine. She was located 15 hours later. Arrested, put before the court and remanded in custody. Released on bail conditions last week which she breached almost immediately and rearrested. Back in Bandyup prison. And that’s what pretty much happens to anyone who ignores the law. I think that the difference between the UK and Australia is that our government and state premiers have been very consistent in applying the law and taking notice of the science and the data behind it. Also, we are a big country and nowhere near as densely populated as the UK or any other country within mainland Europe.
And to add to EJK's comments we shut our international borders which i believe the UK has only done recently
Thank you for the replies, interesting reading. When you say essential work, did construction continue?
On and off in Melbourne. I think as soon as covid safe plans were brought in it was back to the tools. That said. Our worst day was a few hundred cases.
In South Australia initially only emergency construction work was allowed such as insurance claim make safes, road barriers etc. All non urgent work was put on hold and even if it was deemed as urgent safety protocols had to be in place.
I only ask as over here construction has never really stopped and on most sites the "Covid safe" things they brought in were half arsed at best and practically non existent now on the majority of sites
Not sure you can fairly compare countries with this. Australia is massive and only has 25 million people, we're tiny compared to them and have a population of 60 million. Add in we have a lot more international travel because of London for the old business side of things so very different starting positions.
The reason I was saying we should've stopped international travel in March. Virtually no business travel is justified these day ... ... it just makes people feel important. From my experience it's one day in the office, easily done by Zoom, etc, and 4 days out on the piss. There's no doubt people died because we didn't prevent foreigners coming and going.
I agree it's hard to compare, but when you look at where they are now and where we are as countries, it does make you wonder if we had been so strict early on what the difference would have been
Human contact is the only way the virus spreads, reducing that reduces the deaths. I think we could've done more.
Coming out of the first lockdown, no further forward, made people lose faith. The testing, quarantines and tracking obviously didn't work and people start wondering what the point of it all was. We're now, despite all the promises, worse off than when we started. It could've been so much better.
The main differences between us and Australia seems to be borders closing and public compliance. In terms of restrictions, we seem to be pretty similar. I've always said it's been a mistake not closing our borders. They should have been closed to everybody, mind. British people can carry the virus in and out of countries, too. Not just foreigners. The public needs to take a fair share of the blame, too. There's so many people refusing to comply with the rules, in terms of not wearing a face covering and continuing to meet up in each others homes, illegal raves/parties, anti-lockdown gatherings all over the country. It's always going to be more difficult to contain when all of that is happening.
