Melbourne lifts one of world’s longest lockdowns after 111 days

The Washington Post ^ | Oct. 28, 2020 | Antonia Noori Farzan and Antonia Noori Farzan

[MinorityRepublican]

Add to list One of the world’s longest novel coronavirus lockdowns wound down Wednesday morning, allowing roughly 5 million people in the Australian city of Melbourne to leave home anytime they want, eat dinner at a restaurant and drink at bars for the first time in more than three months.

Celebrations ensued. Bookings at low-capacity bars and restaurants quickly filled up for weeks ahead. Businesses popped bottles of champagne as shoppers flocked to stores. Some, including, Kmart, opted to remain open for 24 hours to meet demand, local media reported.

The rollback came after the city reported zero new coronavirus cases on Monday and Tuesday, a dramatic drop from the hundreds logged each day during the outbreak’s peak in late July and early August.

[CheshireTheCat]

So if one case is reported, lockdown is reinstated?

[MinorityRepublican]

So if one case is reported, lockdown is reinstated?

I'm sure.

[CheshireTheCat]

Has Australia had even 1000 deaths from the dread virus ‘rona?

No, according to Worldometer.

[llevrok]

Has Australia had even 1000 deaths from the dread virus ‘rona?

And the left's answer would be: "See? The severe lock down is why their deaths are so low!"

Spin Spin Spin...

[Gay State Conservative]

I'd be curious to learn what Australia's other states/cities/regions did and I'd be curious to learn how their national and regional economies are doing. Our economy has been devastated by lock downs and stats I've seen suggest that the same is true in Europe.

[Veggie Todd]

Springsteen is moving there next week, so they have that to look forward to.

[MinorityRepublican]

Australia’s economy was already weak – and the coronavirus pandemic has belted it into recession. ... Australia’s economy contracted by 7% in the June quarter, which is the worst quarterly fall on record, and a million Australians are unemployed. - The Guardian

[rightwingcrazy]

Politicians seem to do well in any economy.

[MAGAthon]

another Australian story involving an obnoxious former Prime Minister who presently is trying to destroy Murdoch media, which endorsed him when he ran for PM!

28 Oct: Michael Smith News Australia: Child Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein gave $US650K to Kevin Rudd think-tank
from Daily Telegraph Australia (Murdoch press)
An international scandal has engulfed former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s New York-based peace think-tank, with claims it had “close ties” to notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and was given $US650,000 in donations from the child sex offender.
On Wednesday night, Mr Rudd said he had been “blindsided” when he learnt of Epstein’s donations to the Internat­ional Peace Institute, of which he is the chairman.

He said the “revelations were deeply disturbing to me” and he had convened a special board meeting of the peace body, which works with the UN, to “ensure an equivalent sum was donated to sex assault victims”.
The former Labor leader also said he had convened another extraordinary board meeting of the IPI to order a review into further revelations that its president, Norwegian diplomat Terje Rod-Larsen, had a $US130,000 personal loan with Epstein...
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/10/child-sex-offender-jeffrey-epstein-gave-us650k-to-kevin-rudd-peace-think-tank.html#comments

[Starcitizen]

World’s longest lockdown: Philippines. Extended at least until the dick-tater Duterte leaves office in 2022 or his daughter Sara Duterte leaves in 2028. Or Xi Jinping allows the lockdown to lapse. See also martial law.

[PghBaldy]

Spain has 758 deaths per million population.
Brazil has 744 “ “.
USA has 703 “ “.
Mexico has 698 “ “.
UK has 672 “ “.
Italy has 627 “ “.
Sweden has 586 “ “.
France has 548 “ “.

Australia has 35 “ “.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

[Big Red Badger]

Thanks,
China.

[mazz44]

Deaths per million mean absolutely nothing when the population difference is many times smaller or larger. Especially when a virus is concerned.

[Socon-Econ]

Any faulty causation involved in the Worldometer death figures? Nobody using that meter ever talks about this.

[palmer]

Yeah, the longer this goes on, the more faulty the numbers are. We have 703 alleged deaths per million right now versus 6500 deaths per million normal death rate (for nine months). When we get to a year it will be about 800 versus 8700, but the premature deaths due to COVID will start to manifest next year in a much lower overall death rate.

That's only if people want to focus on death of course. I do not.

[fr_freak]

Deaths per million mean absolutely nothing when the population difference is many times smaller or larger. Especially when a virus is concerned.

I think you have your math concepts confused. Deaths per million is EXACTLY the type of metric you would use to compare countries of different sizes. Comparing deaths in REAL NUMBERS would be silly (i.e. the US has 10 times more deaths than Australia!!!!!!!), since a country with 10x the population can be expected to have 10x the deaths.

[MAGAthon]

deaths per million or per 100,000 are the only stats worth noting:

US still #9 in the world for deaths per million (Statista) - not that the FakeNewsMSM ever reports it.

Belgium (#2 covid deaths per million) reports alleged 15,600 new CASES/INFECTIONS/POSITIVE RESULTS in a single day - which is the equivalent of ***468,000 new cases in a day in the US:

27 Oct: 9 News Australia: Belgian doctors infected with coronavirus told to keep working
by 9News staff
About a quarter of hospital health workers in the city are believed to have tested posted to COVID-19...
Belgium recorded 15,600 new cases yesterday, with October being the highest month yet for COVID-19 cases...

Meanwhile, a French doctor warned yesterday that his country had “lost control of the epidemic” after health authorities reported more than 52,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day...
“There probably are more than 50,000 new cases every day. Our estimate at the Scientific Council is closer to 100,000 – twice as many,” Dr Delfraissy (president of the scientific council that advises the French government on the virus) told RTL radio...
https://www.9news.com.au/world/belgium-coronavirus-doctors-infected-with-covid-19-told-to-keep-working/86e9c6b7-d64f-4358-ac87-b601da49540a

France’s 52,000 new cases in a single day would equal 254,800 new cases in the US.
100,000 French cases in a day would equal 490,000 cases in the US.

FAKENEWSMSM:

Covid cases, hospitalizations continue to surge as U.S. reaches ‘critical point’ in pandemic
CNBC - 28 Oct 2020

THE INEVITABLE PRE-ELECTION CRASH OF SORTS:

US stocks close down 3.5% as Covid concern mounts
Financial Times - 28 Oct 2020
US stocks close down 3.5% as Covid concern mounts. Wall Street follows European bourses lower on new pandemic restrictions in France and ...

EVEN ‘THREE’ CREATES HYSTERIA IN AUSTRALIA:

Breaking news and live updates: Victoria records THREE new cases as crowds spark fears of new infections
9News Australia - 29 Oct 2020

[naturalman1975]

So if one case is reported, lockdown is reinstated?

No, our state government is insane, but not quite that insane.

If we get back up above a 14 day average of 5, it wouldn't surprise me if they reintroduced restrictions, but very low case numbers won't do it.

[naturalman1975]

Most states have had very low case numbers now for some time, and are pretty open. New South Wales is the only other state besides Victoria to have any sort of significant cases recently and they have mostly remained open. Only in Victoria has there been this extreme reaction by the state government. We have the most socialist (openly so - they have no problem with the label) government in Australia and they managed to get fixed terms put in place so they don't need to worry much about the voters between elections. They have behaved in a totalitarian fashion throughout this pandemic, breaking the law in many cases (but the trouble is, it takes months to get a case to the state Supreme Court to rule on that, especially when that court is doing reduced hearings due to the pandemic) and violating their own supposed human rights standards. But they get away with it - one flaw in the Australian system is our constitution restrains the Federal government much more than the state governments are.

Victoria has had the worst problem, so to some extent, you can make a case that the most extreme response makes sense, but the huge problem with that is the reason we had the worst problem is our state government messed up their response - we were down to virtually zero cases only a few months ago and then some cases escaped from a hotel quarantine program that was massively mismanaged by the state government. They've tried to avoid taken responsibility for that - we've had a judicial inquiry where we had the farcical situation that while we know the exact time (to within six minutes) the decision that caused the problem was taken, nobody apparently made that decision - the Premier, the Health Minister, the Chief Health Officer, the Commissioner of Police... all gave evidence and all said they didn't make the decision and don't know who did - the inquiry was meant to release its report next week, but it's now delayed until just before Christmas - partly because the Judge reopened it when it turned out that several of these high profile witness' evidence doesn't match their phone records.

It is almost certainly the worst failure of a state government in Australian history. It has lead to the deaths of around 800 people. But so far, those in charge are managing to shrug off responsibility - the Health Minister has had to resign. The Head of the Premier's Department has had to resign. But the Premier... he keeps saying he is ultimately responsible but shows no sign of actually taking responsibility. By all convention he should already be gone. I think normally he would be, but none of the other people in his party want the job until the mess is over. Exactly what the economic effects will be will not be clear for some time. Certainly a lot of damage has been done, but the scale is not yet clear.