Interstate travel restrictions

Once more and more people become vaccinated - you will find public sentiment and appetite will drop significantly and people will start questioning why we are still going into snap lockdowns and still have borders closed,

It's already starting to happen with calls to give more freedoms to vaccinated Australians.

I personally support NSW's approach as with every lockdown people's confidence gets shot and people stop spending, casual workers can't pay rent etc.

When we are in lockdown its easy to forget that small business still has to pay rent - and you cannot say this is just a "once off" lockdown we will be having mutiple outbreaks over the next 12 months - the only substainable apporach is the NSW one.

If Victoria had another outbreak and they decided to lockdown for another two weeks - how do you think small business would survive?

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am a simple practical person. I question things and think for myself using real life information not editorials or government news conferences who only have their own self interest in getting re-elected. Lockdowns do not work. They cause misery to millions of people. People will die of Covid. Humans will always die each day. Government control of our health is not the way forward.

Richard I’m very pleased the government controls my health. They told me to get vaccinated 60 something years ago and generally looked after me ever since to varying degrees of effectiveness. They halve my doctors bills and probably more pharmacy bills and sometimes help out on hospital bills. Far more preferable to the over priced US system which seems to be your preference. I’m glad you didn’t exclude news reports. Yes lockdowns do work. Easy to check where they’ve been lifted too early to see what happened.

I think you are only looking at lockdowns with a closed mindset. They do not always stop the spread. But they always cause devastation to millions of people. people are starving just so some can say there are zero cases. People are committing suicide through losing their businesses. Marriages are wrecked, children are storing up massive mental health issues all so some health expert can say there are zero cases. It's madness. Sure, have some simple controls. Make masks mandatory as they are in Hong Kong. Even little kids wear masks there. They have no problem at all and have never locked down. They put simple restrictions in place and over the last 6 months they get a few small amount of cases but no lockdown. We can follow the same path. Australia is one country. No border closures, allow interstate travel, keep simple restrictions in place but no need to lockdown. There is a balance which can be achieved.

@ patrickk

‘ In Sweden which every sceptic loves the death rate went up 10% which is a big deal in any public health system.'

Please qualify/clarify where you got that 10% death rate for sweden.

Did you mean the death rate is 10% of all Covid cases found in Sweden or the death rate increased by 10% ie 110% of previous comparison death rate?

Or something else

Simple answer is go get vaccinated. I’m an Aussie living in NYC and it’s very simple. Vaccinate and you can reopen. New York is back to normal now without stupid lockdowns. Australia is just an embarrassment now... time to figure out a clear strategy to vaccinate people quickly and move on. The virus is going to be around for most of our lives, so just learn to live with it.

Quite right, well said!

XWu the death rate I referred to is excess deaths on previous years which is increasingly seen as a reasonable measure of Covid deaths due to poor attribution of things like covid related pneumonia, but probably underestimates as other infectious diseases such as flu are right down. I think statistica was my source but Dr Google is a good starting point.

Richard in Australia the devastation is not quite as dire unemployment is back to 2019 levels bankruptcies are down housing prices are booming. There are mental health issues but not dramatic. Then again the mental health issues with higher covid cases need to be factored in. My point is shorter sharper and earlier lockdowns do work: see SA and WA

the impact this looks to be having on my business projects is far worse because of the ongoing uncertainty and likelihood it will get worse. Already had to cancel a week's workshops in Melbourne then Sydney work is moving online where it can, but a lot can't and clients aren't comfortable with us running workshops in person - so they are now talking about getting someone else in Melbourne to do that instead. I would have preferred an early short lockdown to get on top of it, feels like its all over the place now and just too hard.

Hello all. You want crazy....I couldn’t travel to SA yesterday from Canberra, because I live 10km over the border in NSW. People from ACT where fine to travel. I am more than 400km away from any hotspot. Closing to whole State’s is nuts and a political decision, not scientific. Thank goodness we have sensible states like QLD, NT and Vic.

I think the only sensible state is NSW and followed closely behind is QLD. WA might as well just cut ties with Australia

Yes far better if we waited to close like VIC and NZ so we could import cases from NSW too

Richard there are people in hospital and off a very low number. You might mean there are none on ventilators but that is a pretty dire step.

It does not matter how fast or how long you close, cases will come back into Australia, into every State. Don't stop interstate travel, we all have to learn to live with it. People will die. Of course they will. People die every day. Find ways to deal with that and live sensibly. Lockdowns cause a lot more suffering and death than a virus.