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Aussies: Football, Meat Pies, and Rampant SARS


Stubby

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36 minutes ago, Raja said:

I..what was the lockdown before if it wasn't that? Or did Melbourne not have one?  I'm curious ( I mostly read these threads as my knowledge of Aussie politics is similar to my knowledge of Aussie rules)

It varied by state, but lockdown throughout Australia during the 'first wave' was pretty much everything still open aside from gyms, bars, cafes & resturants, people strongly encouraged to work / study from home if they could, schools shut for a couple months, borders closed between most states. No gatherings larger than 2-10 people (dependent on which state you were in). No leaving home aside from for work, exercise or to do essential shopping (again enforcement of this depended upon where you lived). Businesses which remained open were required to enforce distancing between employees / customers.

Anyone feel free to correct me if I got any details wrong, here in SA our lockdown was extremely light. There was minimal enforcement and we could still having gatherings in friends / family homes of up to 10 people. Though it was strongly discouraged. However even during lockdown light driving into work in late March was eerie. I have never seen less traffic on the roads.

Anyway, along with incoming traveller quarantine it was enough to ensure it didn't really get a foothold in Australia aside from in Vic & NSW, and drive case numbers to near 0 there too. Then after opening up there was a breach in quarantine, which the previous soft lockdown strategy annoyingly doesn't seem to be getting completely on top of, at least in Vic. NSW seems to be remaining largely under control through contact tracing alone at the moment, though it looks kinda sketchy.

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NSW had a stricter lockdown than SA with restrictions on leaving the house without a ‘reasonable excuse’ and outdoor gatherings limited to two people. 

Most shops remained open (with restrictions) but restaurants were takeaway only

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2 hours ago, Raja said:

I..what was the lockdown before if it wasn't that? Or did Melbourne not have one?  I'm curious ( I mostly read these threads as my knowledge of Aussie politics is similar to my knowledge of Aussie rules)

The lockdowns we've had so far have been relatively light, as @Impmk2 notes.

In Melbourne, it was basically no going out of the home unless it's for exercise, caregiving, shopping for essentials or work - but those four reasons could be stretched pretty far (especially the work one). Schools were only partially shut down - older students were still being taught at school (Years 11-12) while the younger years were getting online teaching at home. The lockdown measures just announced are much harder and basically pin people inside their own homes and don't allow movement outside the home except for very strict reasons. It's much closer to the types of restrictions employed elsewhere.

In Sydney, we're basically open right now after having been in a stricter lockdown situation before. The strategy is to keep everything open but impose capacity limits and social distancing. So I can still go out to a restaurant with friends (maximum booking of 10 per group, with restaurants having a max of 1 person per 4 metres squared), I still go to work (I'm a teacher though), can still go shopping not just for essentials but for general retail as well, I can have dinner parties at my home (limit of 20) and so on. Life is "normal" except for some people working from home, social distancing measures, and the need to book things in advance.

If the Sydney cases creep up, I expect they'll start shutting down high risk businesses again (gyms, pubs and restaurants are allowed to open if they take precautions).

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Melbourne in disaster lockdown now.

FFS, I knew I should've gotten my hair cut on the weekend. It's already getting long and I was contemplating it, but thought I'd just go next week.

WTF do I do now, try cut my own hair? :wacko:

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4 hours ago, Skyrazer said:

Melbourne in disaster lockdown now.

FFS, I knew I should've gotten my hair cut on the weekend. It's already getting long and I was contemplating it, but thought I'd just go next week.

WTF do I do now, try cut my own hair? :wacko:

Six weeks! Think of the lovely locks you’ll have!

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Should just attack my head with a shaver and go bold. Hate getting haircuts to be honest. :angry:

Anyway, how strict has NSW gone with its lockdowns? Has it gone to stage 3 there yet? If not, I reckon you guys should ASAP cause you're teetering on the edge it seems. Mandatory face masks outside, travel only for work, study, essentials, exercise, etc. A couple of weeks of it should hopefully suppress a potential outbreak there.

I don't think we're getting over it in 6 weeks here in Vic to be honest. This could go till the end of Spring....

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9 hours ago, Skyrazer said:

Anyway, how strict has NSW gone with its lockdowns? Has it gone to stage 3 there yet?

NSW is pretty lax to be honest. Everything is still open - pubs, gyms, restaurants, churches, schools, etc - just with restrictions on numbers and enforcing distancing etc. I'm very surprised we've managed to keep track of the virus so far, but all it takes is a couple of mystery cases that spread for things to go very pear-shaped.

I think it's only a matter of time before we lose track of the virus and harsher measures are needed. I'm carefully stocking up on a few things to prepare for what I think is an inevitable lockdown, ordering more masks (I have three re-usable as well as about 10 disposable ones in my car, but I think I'll double that just in case) and now you've just reminded me I should get my hair cut...

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4 hours ago, Jeor said:

NSW is pretty lax to be honest. Everything is still open - pubs, gyms, restaurants, churches, schools, etc - just with restrictions on numbers and enforcing distancing etc. I'm very surprised we've managed to keep track of the virus so far, but all it takes is a couple of mystery cases that spread for things to go very pear-shaped.

That leaves me scratching my head. Vic has served as a perfect showcase warning - going from double-digits to several hundred daily cases happened in a manner of days. You don't wait for it to get out of control and then act. Lockdowns suck, but what sucks more is even longer and tighter lockdowns. We're going to be hurting here in Vic for years from this.

On the bright side though, since full lockdown doesn't come into effect here until midnight Thurs, I managed to duck out to get my hair cut. :ninja:

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I'm surprised NSW hasn't moved to a more restrictive mode. The hotspots graphic of greater Sydney looks like photo of someone with a case of measles. For the last 2 weeks I've worn a mask whenever I've been on public transport, but in my locale only about 30% of fellow passengers are following suit. In my local supermarket all the workers are wearing masks but again only about 30% of patrons have donned masks.

 

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NSW hasn’t gone to lockdown because it has much lower community transmissions and can quickly trace clusters and thereby get potential contacts tested and quarantined, limiting spread.

Victoria keeps getting more lockdowns because its contact tracers were overwhelmed in June. The virus is rampant in low wage essential work sites, which aren’t impacted by lockdown (until yesterday). People seem to be treating NSW as identical but in addition to the flaws in hotel quarantine that brought cases back in, the pandemic is revealing major issues with the Victorian healthcare system that aren’t mirrored in other states.

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While there will be differences from state to state, I think it's dangerously complacent to say it can't happen here, because we're better than they are, even if you are provably better. It doesn't take much for a handful of mild / non-symptomatic super-spreaders and some people with outlier incubation times to throw things into chaos.

We had one person in quarantine test negative on day 3 of quarantine and positive on day 12. It is possible he picked up the infection in the quarantine hotel, but it's more likely he picked up the infection before arriving into NZ and was just a slow incubator.

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I’m in Melbourne, dude. I didn’t say it couldn’t happen in NSW, just that NSW has had a much better public health response than Victoria so far.

It’s important to stay vigilant but I have to say as someone in a city that’s racking up hundreds of untraced cases per day hearing NSWers talk about being in a knife edge for what, a month now?, when the state has been recording low double digits and hardly any community transmission is wearing a bit thin.

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It's better to be over-vigilant I think, even if it means harking on about being on a knife edge whether we're going to hit the community spread threshold, than become lax. I certainly don't envy the situation there in Victoria (didn't realise you'd moved out to Melbourne - say hi to Ser Camaris for me if you ever bump into him when the lock-down there is lifted). I'm still coming grips with the federal & state dynamics here in Aus. The differences between responses to the Covid pandemic from VIC, NSW and QLD is interesting, if not worrisome.   

In other news, my workplace got hit this week with a ransomware attack which has encrypted parts of our network. Troublesome stuff indeed. Avoid opening any unsolicited emails from irregular sources people! Apparently the virus that spurned the ransomware attack came from an email from one of our Melbourne sales reps!   :leaving:  

 

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When you have Pete Evans inst-bullying you that probably means you're doing something right. These people can say whatever the hell they like and never suffer consequences, because they never have to back up their bullshit with actual achievement or results.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12356031

Quote

Pete Evans 'bullies' Jacinda Ardern on Instagram and urges followers to vote against her

Ex-celebrity chef Pete Evans has taunted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Instagram about the new virus lockdown, urging people to vote against her and alluding to a conspiracy "agenda".

The post, slammed for its "bullying" tone, was mostly praised by followers who have flooded Evans' Instagram page with wild theories about Ardern placing the country "under martial law".

It would be entertaining if it wasn't about a deadly global pandemic.

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On 8/14/2020 at 6:12 PM, The Drunkard said:

Clive Palmer's bullshit was flooding my radio on the way to and from work this morning, although (thankfully, sort of) the radio bobbleheads were all making fun of him. I hope he is less successful smearing McGowan than he was with Shorten. 

I suspect Kerry Stokes has had enough of Palmer's shit - if the last few days' worth of front pages on the West Australian are anything to go by.

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It's interesting that universities are finally getting pinged for their exploitative labour practices and use of casual staff. I can attest that every single one of the universities here in SA set blatantly unrealistic times for marking, often not even giving enough time to read through the work, let alone provide feedback. It's just part of the sector. 

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7 hours ago, Impmk2 said:

It's interesting that universities are finally getting pinged for their exploitative labour practices and use of casual staff. I can attest that every single one of the universities here in SA set blatantly unrealistic times for marking, often not even giving enough time to read through the work, let alone provide feedback. It's just part of the sector. 

The all staff email we got last week after "PWC audit identified irregularities with pay" was laughable the way it tried to frame the whole thing as just as oversight caused by an error in the system, we're very innocent you see.

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