4 ms·
Australia is big and sparely populated compared to other countries that implemented full lockdowns. Also, it's summer down there, with heat waves, etc. All of t
by sto_hristo 6y ago
Australia is big and sparely populated compared to other countries that implemented full lockdowns. Also, it's summer down there, with heat waves, etc. All of this diminishes virus' ability to spread. It's very situational. Australia is not doing anything more special than other countries. You gotta look into the meaning of these numbers and just the value.
Lockdowns do work, technically speaking, but not in the long-run. Virus doesn't care and will operate as usual, albeit at slower rate. Persistent things those viruses are.
Lockdowns make sense only at the beginning of a pandemic and their only sane purpose is to give the health care segment to prepare itself for the hit. Beyond that it's a lost cause. You're not saving thousands of lives, you're just extending the inevitable further down in the future, while your economy is sinking, which will create even more problems down the road.
So even if you stay inside the cave forever, the bear will still come.
- threeseed 6y ago1. 71% of Australians live in a handful of cities each of which has very high density relative to the rest of the world. 2. Lockdowns occurred during winter. 3. Australia has effectively eliminated COVID-19 and by having so few cases it allows for targeted lockdowns to work over the long-term e.g. Perth just had 1 case today and is having a short 5-day lockdown - their first in 10 months.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sto_hristo 6y agoHigh density, you say. Relative to the rest of the world, you say. Sidney - 423/km2 Melbourne - 508/km2 Brisbane - 155/km2 Paris - 20,000/km2 Berlin - 4,206/km2 London - 5,666/km2 NYC - 27,755/km2 You are effectively out of touch with reality. edit: NYC - 27,755/km2 to NYC - 10,716/km2 (27,755 is in mi2 units) sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin
- mewse 6y agoWhat’s your source? What geographic region are you counting as “Melbourne”, for example? If we’re talking just about Melbourne’s CBD (which might be a sensible thing to do seeing as we’re talking about people being clustered in the cities and not about the surrounding suburbs, national parks, and rural areas which presumably are included in your “Melbourne” number), then the actual number for Melbourne is around 19,000 people/km2 [1], which is at least in the ballpark of the numbers you’ve given for other major cities. Although again, you don’t give enough details to know specifically what those numbers actually mean. [1]: https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/theres-a-reason-melbourne-feels-so-crowded-its-the-most-densely-populated-area-in-australia/news-story/8ccbaa220544ff3702164b57a35caf57 https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/theres-a-reas...
- sto_hristo 6y agoedited post with fix on New York and added sources We're talking about the cities as a whole, not selectively for this or that neighborhood, or that particular bus.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bjowen 6y agoWhat factors led to the effectiveness of the Melbourne lockdown? Choices are things like compliance, geography, particulars of the rules (8pm curfew, 5km movement radius), enough of a population that is able to work from home, enough economic support for those who couldn’t (job keeper etc) - to slow down population mixing and interrupt transmission chains. Contact tracing was overhauled midway through and that coincides with the turnaround [0,1]. Would those measures work in similarly-high-density cities? The awkward fact is that most of the cases in greater Melbourne were outside the densely-populated CBD [2], that much of the transmission occurred in lower-paid (McDonalds) and less-safe (meatpacking) workplaces, people whose home language was not English, as well as in shared living conditions. There’s a temptation to fit the data to the narrative you want, but (as far as I’m aware) the data you’d need to pick any one of these factors as conclusive hasn’t been released. Gestures in the direction of geography as the _one thing_ that enabled elimination are silly and ignore the vast amount of effort and personal sacrifice and organisation and argument and collaboration that went into that result. Lockdowns do work — even if that’s not quite the end of the story. [0] https://theconversation.com/where-did-victoria-go-so-wrong-with-contact-tracing-and-have-they-fixed-it-147993 https://theconversation.com/where-did-victoria-go-so-wrong-w... [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-14/victoria-coronavirus-contact-tracing-system-parliamentary-report/12980902 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-14/victoria-coronavirus-... [2] https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/202101/NCOV_COVID_Cases_by_LGA_20210131.csv https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/20...
- cudgy 6y agoUh ... a 5 day lockdown due to 1 case per day in a city with over 2 million people! Talk about an overreaction.
- pbourke 6y agoIt was winter in Australia when they locked down in August, and the outbreak’s epicenter was Melbourne, which is a large city.
- dennis_jeeves 6y agoI came here to mention the summer part. But you already mentioned it. Heretic view - there is no new virus to start with. Some places seem to have declared zero flu cases this year. Go figure.
- anotherevan 6y agoCan we please stop going on about it being summer. The lockdowns we had in Melbourne that lead to elimination was during our winter.