NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has wasted no time in using his new role as State Emergency Operations controller to strengthen police powers and clamp down on movement in Sydney.
As of midnight last night, there will be 700 Australian Defence Force members helping NSW police. Movement has been reduced from 10km to a 5km radius for those in Greater Sydney and, in areas of concern, single buddies have to register with the government with outdoor “recreation” no longer allowed.
“These are some of the strongest powers we’ve ever had in the history of the NSW Police Force,” Fuller said.
Less than a week prior, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian promised to only implement new restrictions if there was evidence to support them. But many of these new restrictions aren’t backed by science, and don’t even tackle key areas of transmission.
Where are the cases coming from?
There have been several examples of people flagrantly disregarding rules, from over 50 people attending a house in Pendle Hill to grieve over the death of a family member, to a party in the Meriton Suites Waterloo, to a 21-year-old travelling to Newcastle and attending parties, sparking a cluster in the city.
There have been beach parties in Clovelly, barbeques in Blacktown, and of course a massive anti-lockdown protest in Sydney’s CBD which Police Minister David Elliott believes caused a surge in cases (though the government hasn’t released data on who at the march became infected).
While some of this is among deliberate rule-breakers, 18 months into the pandemic there’s still a huge gap in communication with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Two weeks ago SBS launched a live translation service of the daily NSW government COVID-19 press conference in six languages.
Many of the cases, especially in Sydney’s west and south-west, are occurring in workplaces where many are employed in distribution centres, food, logistics, and transport.
In mid-July, one in 10 infected people had caught COVID at work, with clusters emerging at seafood wholesaler Great Ocean Food in Marrickville and the Crossways Hotel in Strathfield. Exposure sites show banks, postal offices, supermarkets, pharmacies, and cafes offering takeaway have at times have been suspected to be transmission sites.
While masks have been mandatory in workplaces for almost two months, more needs to be done — from encouraging more click-and-collect or deliveries of goods, to extra financial support for those who need assurance their job will still be there when restrictions ease.
✖ Limiting outdoor activity
One of the key changes to NSW’s rules is removing “outdoor recreation” as a reason to go outside and limiting it to exercise.
There has been limited evidence of outdoor transmission. While a party at Blacksmith beach in Newcastle is believed to have caused five infections, it’s not clear that these infections were transmitted outdoors or through carpooling.
Previous suspected cases of outdoor transmission, including a “fleeting encounter” at Bondi Junction Westfield, have been brought into question by the World Health Organization. One study found in Ireland 0.1% of COVID-19 infections could be traced to outdoor transmission. UV light also kills coronaviruses, though the science now shows COVID-19 is transmitted not just through droplets, but airborne aerosols — meaning outdoor transmission is possible.
But an outdoor party or large exercise class poses different risks to sitting in the sunlight in pairs — especially if facemasks are made mandatory outdoors.
✔ 5km radius
The efficacy of radiuses isn’t known. While limiting mobility is key to reducing spread, it’s near impossible to isolate data around radiuses. As with many COVID-19 measures, efficacy is likely based on a combination of restrictions rather than just one.
The 5km radius is, as Fuller pointed out, less about limiting transmission and more about helping police patrol areas and keeping crowds away from popular places like Bondi beach. The decision to halve the radius was made just two days after Berejiklian rebuffed suggestions to implement the 5km rule.
✖ Registering singles
So far, there have been no cases of transmission among single buddies. People who live alone can designate one partner to visit. The new rules mean these buddies have to be registered for people in areas of concern, and their single buddies must also live within a 5km radius.
✔ Ring of steel
With the bolstered ADF presence, roadblocks have been set up to ensure people aren’t travelling illegally. New rules were implemented to restrict people from travelling to and from different residences, with just one person allowed to visit their holiday home for necessary maintenance and repairs.
The roadblocks will assist with enforcing these rules. Even before Sydney’s lockdown was announced, businesses had been calling for this ring of steel to be implemented, and it’s not clear — costs aside — why this didn’t happen sooner.
✔ Early lockdowns are key
NSW’s lockdown was started by a limo driver transporting airline workers who caught COVID-19 and transmitted it across the eastern suburbs. The virus soon spread across the state with limited restrictions on people leaving Greater Sydney, but no lockdown. Gladys Berejiklian’s decision to leave the state open was supported by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
“My fellow Sydneysiders can feel very confident that if anyone can get on top of this without shutting the city down it is the NSW government,” he said.
Lockdown was implemented the very next day after Morrison’s remarks on June 16 with stay-at-home orders for everyone in Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Shellharbour and Wollongong. Berejiklian said on June 24 she was “comfortable that the settings that are in place are the appropriate settings” as no new restrictions were announced.
By June 30, the cluster had become Sydney’s largest outbreak to date with 160 total cases.
Short, sharp lockdowns have time and time again shown to be key in limiting transmission. While there’s nothing that can be done about that now, there’s little evidence to show these extra restrictions will do much. Instead, the focus needs to be placed on rule-breakers through the ring of steel, making essential workplaces safer, and ensuring everyone understands the rules, with better supports in place for those missing out on work.
The problem which I see with this NSW response is that Gladys keeps looking over her shoulder, looking for permission.
The fact that this lazy good for nothing federal government led by the most slack politician to have ever walked the stage has completely stuffed up the vaccine purchases and roll out has not helped.
Yes, the transmission is higher in the younger group and so the 500,000 doses of vaccine bought as a surplus to requirements for Poland is being directed mostly to them.
There are now over 30 cases of Covid19 in Dubbo in the aboriginal community and more in Walgett.
By failing to ensure we have sufficent suitable vaccines available to our population,I fear we are about to see an humanitarian disaster with deaths in the aboriginal communities that are nothing short of tragic.
Shame on you Scott Morrison and co your laziness and inability to delegate (we all know you are not bright enough to do this job) will result in deaths in the communities and deaths in Afghanistan, too.
Poor fella my country!
BinBoy to the rescue.
Send in the clowns.
Don’t bother – they’re here!
Berjiklian refused to heed expert medical advice, she was determined to do what her bagman wanted, Clubs NSW, AHA, the property council and the construction industry. Berjiklian has for a long time enjoyed a free ride her ruthless corrupt tru nature nicely turned out by concerned photos and PR shots. But there is a photo in Ian Verrender’s article of her as he really is, a hard faced ruthless bag lady.
The Saturday Paper had an article titled: Inside the NSW plan: Now live with the virus by Mike Seccombe.
“All through the worsening Covid-19 crisis in New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian has insisted her government’s response accorded with medical advice. Except that’s not true.
In evidence before the NSW parliamentary Covid-19 inquiry on Tuesday, the state’s chief health officer disclosed that she had not provided any advice to the government about when the state’s lockdown might be eased. This tacitly contradicted the premier’s hopeful prediction that Sydney could start to emerge from lockdown on August 28, if vaccination rates hit 50 per cent.
Contrary to the approach of other states, Berejiklian is not pursuing a return to zero cases. There will be no doughnut day. Her strategy is to open up and live with the virus. The numbers being watched will not be infections but hospitalisations and deaths. She hopes for some opening up by the end of this month and a broader opening up by October.”
I believe the NSW Coalition and the Federal Coalition had this as their unstated aim. Unfortunately the whole of Australia is going to be subjected to their maniacal greed and power crazed syndrome.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-17/pfizer-moderna-astrazeneca-herd-immunity-delta-covid-evolution/100366038
Directly due to Berejiklian, Scott Morrison and the coalition and all those that voted for them
Yeps. I have concern that Bereijiklian’s deflection on to vaccinations will result in people losing confidence in vaccinations – even without her no doubt spinning it as such.
My impression, talking to people who actually live in Sydney as I do, is that Gladys went way too late, too lite, and we found later left gaping freaking loopholes. The movement within 5 kms as opposed to 10 kms is impossible to verify by science, but I can tell you as someone who lives in the eastern suburbs that the streets are much quieter and the beaches comparatively empty, on an evidence base of one day, so not exactly science.
Gladys has got it wrong from the start, and seems to be intent on continuing that way. From my conversations all are very happy that she has increased the lockdown to something like a proper lockdown, particularly in stopping people leaving Sydney. Andrews call for a ring of steel around Sydney, weeks ago, was the right one. What I wasn’t aware of was just how many loopholes they left in the health orders. Going to look at properties in the regions, oh FFS Gladys!
And we aren’t happy about a proper lockdown because all them young thingies are goofing around, it’s because we want to get out of lockdown and current policies are insufficient. We all want out, go harder or put someone in the job who can. The regions and Victoria, and now ACT and Darwin are paying the price.
The only reason why we have lockdowns in so many states is because of Berjikilian and Morrisin, both of them are guilty of causing this second wave, and the unspeakable criminal negligent monster gave us Ruby Princess last year too. Both of these ruthless psychotic Coalition crackpots have been instrumental in the death of your loved ones and your loves ones in agony with the Indian variant.
Can’t wait to read all the comments from angry boomers ignoring the points made in the article and demanding ever harsher restrictions so as to ensure that not one young person can enjoy a walk in the sunshine or a coffee at the beach… never mind that two-thirds of people in their 50s and 60s still haven’t managed to get fully vaccinated – stop the sunbathers!
As a boomer with a daughter a nurse working with PPE, I am so angry at all the people of different ages, blatantly breaking the rules this weekend. I walked my dog by myself, fully masked, and fogged up spectacles. Hot spots in my suburb already!
Congrats. And damn those people walking around so dangerously outdoors. As we know it is well established that people crossing paths outdoors are a key source of transmission. Oh, wait, no it’s the opposite.
Thanks for immediately demonstrating that I was right to expect angry boomers ignoring the point of the article 🙂
You do realise people who walk around outdoors often don’t JUST do that?
People in such situations also often congregate around shops and cafe’s, use shared facilities like toilets, meet up with friends and family etc.
It’s not the walking around outside that creates transmission chains- it’s all the stuff that inevitably occurs before and after the walking when enough people are permitted to be mobile.
Speed limits on roads are not set based on a professional driver being behind the wheel on a perfect weather day.
They are set at what is safe for the worst case scenario- ie a dark rainy night, driven by an average (or below) competence licence holder.
Your utopian view of everyone walking around harmlessly outdoors is akin to saying that because SOME people do it harmlessly- the rules should be set on the presumption that EVERYONE will do it harmlessly.
I suggest you have a think about what would happen if 100km/h speed limits out front of schools existed… just because michael schumacher in his prime could do it safely.
That’s wonderful ex temporising Damo. If only it had some evidentiary basis beyond your personal musings. The actual evidence is the opposite of what you have said.
Given the literal point of the article is the shortage of evidence base for the restrictions, I am going to count you as another boomer who launched into a self righteous jeremiad without reading the article. That makes you 4/4 in that category.
Keep going guys! Can we get 10/10 boomers commenting self-righteously on an article they haven’t read or haven’t understood?? 🙂
I’m 38 so I’m not sure what you are on about.
Naf by name and nature it seems.
All the evidence you desire is right there in plain sight.
The more people move around (doing indoor or outdoor activities), the higher the transmission rates climb.
The correlation between increased mobility (ie people moving around for ANY purpose- indoor or outdoor activities) and transmission is irrefutable:
“We conclude that for 52 countries having experienced, or still experiencing, substantial active SARS-CoV-2 transmission, there was a strong link between mobility measures and transmissibility, supporting the implementation of population-wide social distancing interventions to control the epidemic.”
https://www.natureDOTcom/articles/s41467-021-21358-2
Allowing people to move around more (even to do outdoor activities) increases transmission, there is no question about it.
Thanks for that. I read the article but couldn’t find the bit that said reducing the radius of movement from 10km to 5km in Sydney would reduce transmission. Would you mind pointing me to that bit? Thanks ever so much. If there’s anything in there that comes even remotely close to dealing with the other police powers and other measures please help me with that too.
A quick reminder – the reduction to 5km is the measure subject of the article. The author didn’t suggest there should be no limit on mobility or that no rules were justified. I’m sure you wouldn’t be setting up a straw man or anything but thought I had better remind you proactively just in case you were going to respond suggesting that the author had suggested there should be unlimited mobility or something. Cheers Damo 🙂
You do understand that you’re actually saying we need to stop children, families, teenagers and assorted humanity from “moving around” don’t you?
Good luck with that. It can only be achieved temporarily at the very best. People just aren’t built for it. Is it still lockdown 6 in Melbourne or is this new 2 weeks lockdown 7?
People are people you cannot regulate their behaviour forever unless you send them to a gulag.
“you cannot regulate their behaviour forever”
Umm, isn’t that what laws do in general…?
Cute, as if the law that says I should wait for the green light to drive through a crowded intersection is equal to the one that says I must restrict my movements to 5 klms and before 9pm and only for 4 reasons.
Another “exceptionalist” spreading his virus wherever.
And because quite a few people went prepared to stick to not very onerous restrictions, everyone in Melbourne has to have a longer lockdown and much tighter restrictions.
Yes we’ve been naughty haven’t we, rotten little citizens, and after a good scolding from the principle we should go and sit in the corner.
You can’t legislate against stupidity, however, in Queensland we a very old law which says the CHO can lock you up in a secure facility for up to 2 years if she deems you to be a threat to the health and well being of the citizens of the state.
Until a generation ago, late 80s?, the local police sergeant had that power, certainly in the vast western districts where he was the sole arbiter of Law.
Yup. Tell Scotty the Incompetent that. Had he or Greg Hunt done their job, we would be in a better place. Direct your anger to those who prefer to smirk than act.
Nah, he won’t do that. Who do you think pays his salary?
No one is stopping anyone from going for a walk and enjoying the sunshine or getting a take-away coffee. It’s a bit of a nuisance but wearing a mask isn’t that difficult and neither is spatial distancing. Now, because people have used playgrounds etc as a place for multitudes to meet rather than to take their children for a swing, they are being closed. Rules get more stringent when people can’t be relied upon to abide by the less strict rules.
1. There is no rule requiring mask wearing outdoors 2. The reason there is no such rule is there is no evidence of any substantial transmission in that way 3. Thanks for being the third person to make good my prediction of boomers completely ignoring the point of the article in their rush to whinge and criticise 🙂
There is a rule in Melbourne requiring mask wearing outside.
Ain’t no mention of Melbourne in the article Woopy. Congrats, you’re boomer 3 of 3 to comment without reading the article 🙂
Since late last year, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia routinely have been portrayed by large sections of the media as being run by trigger-happy despots, eager to build walls around their economies, each time COVID-19 posed a threat.What we now are about to learn is that inaction, hubris and complacency carries a far greater cost, and not just financial. Lives and livelihoods will be lost unnecessarily and NSW’s health system will be put to the test. Ian Verrender
Assuming everyone who disagrees with you is a boomer. So very childish of you.
I take it that you have nothing substantive to add, but thanks for your contribution such as it was 🙂
For months, we’ve been regaled with tales of NSW’s exceptionalism; the state’s gold-standard contact tracing and its unrivalled ability to contain outbreaks without resorting to hard lockdowns.
A large dose has, until three weeks ago at least, come from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, backed up by a significant portion of the national media.
Even as late as last Thursday, one national daily proclaimed NSW was leading the way in how best to respond to the latest wave of the pandemic. Ian Verrender
Mostly a true observation though.
Most here are:
1)Boomers
2)White
3) own homes
4) financially set with pensions, super etc
5) well travelled
And generally not sacrificing much during lockdowns. Certainly not their futures.
Your point being?
The point being that the people on here demanding harsher lockdowns are speaking from pure unadulterated self-interest posing as some kind of community concerns. The 50+ and well off (which is predominantly a white group) have an increased risk from COVID and the lowest risk from lockdown – and they are imposing that calculus on the remainder of the community.
This might be tolerable if there were some acknowledgement of the sacrifice the rest of the community was making to protect them. But no – they shriek criticism and demand even more sacrifice from the young and the poor, all the while casting themselves as altruists. It’s sickening hypocrisy
Well I’m a boomer and I am not demanding lockdowns. They are decisions made by CHOs and premiers on the basis that they are the most effective way to stop the virus spreading. Even Gladys has given in on this as her pasta approach has spread the virus almost right around the country including into quite vulnerable communities
I’d prefer to be out there doing all the things I enjoy, and meeting friends. I need sunshine ( vitamin D) and a long walk each day just like young people do.
True I am not home-schooling children or working from home. Many of the younger people where I live can just as easily work from home anyway so those younger people are not making the sort of sacrifice you seem to be talking about.
The people really badly affected both by COVID and the lockdowns are the essential workers in insecure and underpaid employment and the children in poorer areas whose state schools don’t get the funding to provide the sort of home schooling that the private schools provide – private schools who educate or have educated the people who think masks don’t apply to them. I bet the aged care and hospital workers aren’t complaining about wearing masks and wish those they encounter would do the same.
I don’t know what your complaint is about older people. The younger people in affluent areas have coped in the same way as the older people. It is a matter of class and wealth not age.
There is force in what you say – but the fact remains the lockdowns are principally for the benefit of older people. I agree that the financially insecure are paying the price, along with others like my child who is financially secure but cut off from professional support she needs. But it is not the young and wealthy extracting the price – it is the elderly and wealthy. And they are also the ones who have, in a large proportion, not bothered to be vaccinated months after the option became available to them.
As many as 50% of current infections with delta are in children. Covid heads for ACE2 receptors in the body. You know where ACE2 receptors are found besides the lungs and nasal cavities? Testicles, for one. Preliminary studies out of china have shown indicators that fertility could be affected in boys. This is not just about saving the olds, if that is your justification for your anger towards them then i suggest you read up on katy gallaghers daughter getting covid, read up on the multisystem failure that covid can cause in children, and the prevalence of heart & other organ damage found after even milder cases and then look up how delta has shifted its target to the younger demographic.
I trust you can draw your own conclusions about what the long term impacts could be.
Yes. And I can also understand the difference between a literal one in ~500,00 threat of organ damage caused by COVID vs the guaranteed damage caused by my toddler’s inability to access occupational therapy and speech therapy in a lockdown.
This attempt to justify the lockdown by reference to non-zero but de minimis risks to children is just the latest development in the dishonest hypocritical narrative the elderly are using to justify the (further) pillage of the interests of the young.
The decline in sperm viability has long been noted (in the decadent West, NFI about elsewhere) but your mention of testicular susceptibility is interesting.
Might be time to reread PD James’ uncharacteristic novel “Children of Men” or Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale” and recall that, in both, female infertility was not the issue.
19% in children who can’t be vaccinated.> https://downloads.aap.org/DOFA/AAP%20Letter%20to%20FDA%20on%20Timeline%20for%20Authorization%20of%20COVID-19%20Vaccine%20for%20Children_08_05_21.pdf
50% in one hospital on ventilators >https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/08/delta-variant-covid-children/619712/
US running out of ICU beds > https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/08/19/these-6-states-have-almost-no-icu-beds-left-as-covid-hospitalizations-soar/?sh=2a816da66bb5
CHOs for hire.
I agree it is a matter of class and wealth not age. But older people have accumulated most wealth, and have been given the chance to socially rise through the “classes” (even though that word is insufficient in so many ways).
Younger people right now are rising to nowhere, and what do you aspire to if you are locked down? A faster internet package?
And generally not sacrificing much during lockdowns. And hence pro-lockdown.
Pro lockdown = Pro Control Covid. No one wants lockdowns for lockdown’s sake!!! Lockdowns are analogous to chemotherapy. No one wants the effects of chemotherapy but we put up with it as we want the result.
It is true unfortunately that lockdowns have much less impact on the more privileged and far greater impact on those whose work we reply upon for our privilege. Ending lockdowns doesn’t solve this tho as they are also more likely than the privileged to suffer the immediate and long term effects of infection with delta due to more per house and living in densely populated areas. They are finally being prioritized for vaccination which will help but beyond that adequate – actually adequate not the LNP’s below poverty line BS – support from the gov is the only viable solution as uncontrolled covid ends us up like Indonesia and that helps no one. And also as god help them our kids can’t be vaccinated and children are 19% of US delta cases, 1 in 12 get long covid and are reports of other nasty complications, 50% in one hospital are on ventilators – it’s worse than alpha, in some places the US is out of pediatric ICU beds. That to me makes putting up with lockdown chemotherapy worth it.
Remember the stark choice last year when the first wave of the pandemic hit? You could have either a healthy population or a vibrant economy. But you couldn’t have both.
Business leaders and economists across the globe pressured their governments to remain open and simply deal with the pandemic the best way they could.
Except, the entire argument was wrong.
A study by management consultant group McKinsey found countries that imposed the bare minimum of restrictions were hit just as hard by the economic downturn but suffered terribly on a health and social level. …Ian Verrender
And in July 29 TG revealed that Scum Scovid was up to his old tricks that got him sacked twice before from other jobs.
Coalition to pay consultants McKinsey $2.2m for two months’ work but won’t reveal nature of jobGovernment keeping even basic details of contract confidential, with website saying only that it relates to research and a ‘workforce taskforce’
Allan, at the time, very early on in fact, I argued in these forums that the economic damage was already done once the numbers were out there. The argument you put is exactly what was said by the policy and business leaders, but I argued differently, that the choice was between a healthy populace with a diminished economy and the hope of getting back to zero, and some form of normal activity, or an unhealthy populace and an ongoing diminished economy.
It’s great that Treasury with all their expert economists caught up some 15 months later. The people have been fed false dichotomies all the way through by people with sinister intent, or people with benign intent but very little analytical faculty.
Further proof, were it needed, that the only function of economists is to make astrologers look good.
Or at least seem to be reality based.
In fact those that didn’t lockdown got to pay twice.
The economy doesn’t actually do well if people are sick, and the health system strains at its seams.
That’s spooky.
Not this one. Honestly, you and Naf are quite unhinged, your targeted derision for boomers is unwarranted and quite alarming, sowing and feeding division is quite squarely in the LNP playbook so ill ask you directly – are you being paid to sh**post and cause strife?
I’m 41, don’t own my home (in fact was “between homes” for 6 months from March 2020), I can’t work during lockdowns, and can’t travel to care for my children (which i do monthly for a week in normal times) or see my elderly and frail parents. I have no savings, and virtually no super. I have a LOT to lose whenever SA, VIC, NSW or QLD have outbreaks, because having border communities means porous borders others can exploit.
That is why I’m so thankful to the Premiers of QLD, SA & VIC, for repeatedly acting fast and stamping out the outbreaks quickly. It has meant my time with my children has been regular, and affordable as ive mostly been able to work, and enjoyable too without overbearing restrictions in place.
The reason mandating masks outside works as a mitigation strategy is this: it means everyone has one on hand. It means when youre at a bus stop or buying food at a stall or cough or sneeze while walking with a friend, youre not caught out without one on.
In QLD, where i am, masks are still mandated outdoors, 10 days after last case was in the community. We are all used to it, we all comply, mask wearing is a highly visible reminder of the seriousness of the situation and fosters a sense of societal cohesion, reminds us of our mutual responsibility to not infect others, even by accident!
Our numbers got low fast and stayed there thanks to two things. One, the outbreak happened mainly among wealthy families who could afford to quarantine. Two, the constant reminder of what we were facing, every time we left the house and saw only masked people, led to greater compliance.
I would bet the farm on there having been chains of asymptomatic transmission broken purely through consistent mask wearing too, which people have stopped talking about but that still very much exists.
Its absurd to try to hand Dan Andrews responsibility for the Aged Care deaths, the Federal government can’t shirk it that easily.
You Karens just need to man up and deal with the lockdowns, whining like toddlers “are we there yet” will get you nowhere fast.
Silly Millie.
Have we reached peak spin yet?
If 2020 was the year the nation pulled together to overcome a common threat, this time around it has descended into a morass of propaganda, politics and acrimony.
Almost two months into a confusing series of local lockdowns across Sydney, with NSW cases soaring and the infections, having already invaded Victoria, rapidly spreading across the state and the national capital, the state government was finally forced to implement a total lockdown on the weekend.
As a health strategy, the soft lockdown approach has been an abject failure
Had NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian called a two-week lockdown when the Delta variant first appeared in beachside Bondi — and it worked — the total cost would have been less than $3 billion.
AMP Capital’s Shane Oliver last week put the total bill so far at $17 billion. And counting. With the variant now running rampant, the total could end up several times more, if it can be contained at all.
How has it come to this?…Ian Verrender ABC
Have we reached peak spin? Ask ‘Melbourne and Australian Detainee’ as their role here seems to be spinning against anything except the NSW or Federal LNP governments…..
I disagree with the common view here, I agree, but it is an attempt at my honest opinion, not an attempt to spin. I don’t give a hoot about either of the political parties. They’re basically the same by most measures.
That’s the same line or rationale that the risible radical right libertarian MacroBusiness blog promotes while masquerading as centrist, another form of ‘whataboutery’ to avoid scrutiny.
By claiming both sides are as bad as each other, therefore you should stay with the LNP status quo…… maintaining the status quo.
NAF, there is a rule for wearing masks outside in all the ‘LGAs of concern’, which covers a very large percentage of Sydney’s population, much more than half. So there is that.
Just saying, facts are facts, but feel free to call me a boomer or whatever floats your boat.
Hey chief, thanks for your input. The article was specifically talking about the new rules imposed BEYOND the LGAs of concern. This you would know if you read the article before commenting. So I will put you down as 6/6 commentors who didn’t read the article before jumping into the comments to criticise
You seem to think this is about being nasty to young people. You really need to grow up. Stay safe stay home & you might just get that opportunity.
It’s nothing to do with what I think. It’s the fact. The interests of young people are being sacrificed to protect a group who can’t even be bothered getting themselves vaccinated but complain endlessly about others. My toddler who can’t get the speech therapy she needs to progress typically is one of the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of children and young people whose welfare is being ruined to protect a generation that has already done its best to steal her future by trashing the climate, trashing protections for workers, trashing the opportunity that they arrogated for themselves.
So yeah, I think this is about being nasty to young people. And yeah I’m angry about it. Livid. But don’t expect the same for any of the narcissists who populate these pages to recognise any of that. Just double check that your super fund made 25% last year and complain again that some young people went for a walk in the park.
I entirely agree with your third sentence, and have complained bitterly about it here.
Well that makes me feel marginally better I admit
Speaking of narcissists, how many times have you posted on this conversation?
Seems a required trait of anti-vaxxers, evangelicals, fringe alt right and anti-Covid types to do the bidding and promote the libertarians’ need for business to trump everything….. and a total absence of any personal reflection.
Welcome to the Crikey comment pages N.A.F!
I for one have very much enjoyed your balanced contributions on this topic and hope you keep on posting!
You’re a bit off the mark chief, I’m a revolutionary socialist and favour people being held down and forcibly vaccinated by roving people’s militia
I’d assume you are not young unless you are a ‘young fogey’. Like ageing old radical right are often found joining the circle with the ageing left….. Howard’s people e.g. Crosby Textor were very good at splitting the old centre and left on sociocultural issues and gaining some Labor voters (while trashing JobSeeker etc. but firewalling benefits, services and pensions for retirees, now the most influential voter bloc).
Meanwhile radical right libertarian ideology for big business is then able to flourish exemplified by demanding no Covid restrictions, no lock downs, Great Barrington Declaration etc., and in the ‘Anglosphere’ promoting the idea that due to unquantified issues of mental illness, stress etc. precludes any restrictions.
David Shoebridge, the Greens MLC who chairs the NSW Covid inquiry, says Chant’s evidence raised the question of exactly what advice the government was following in its decision-making.
He said:
“I don’t think we are getting the full story from the premier. She keeps reiterating, ‘We are following the health advice.’ Well, clearly it’s much more complex than that,” Shoebridge says.
“We now know for the first time that Kerry Chant has been providing written advice to the government throughout the pandemic, and the government is refusing to produce it because they say it’s cabinet-in-confidence. If they want to retain a relationship of trust with five-and-a-half million people, well, then I think they have an obligation to share it.”
“The mindset was to keep the state open, to rely upon NSW exceptionalism. And that led to a very slow implementation of the lockdown, despite all the evidence,” he says.
“I think there was a failure by the government to recognise what had become abundantly apparent from international experience, which was the incredible transmission rates of the Delta variant.”
Why are you so angry? Because you feel hard done by? Because there is a virus lurking around we can’t see? Because you think boomers are to blame for everything?
I’ve read the article and It doesn’t impress me. I don’t care about a tick or a cross. Lots of countries doing it far tougher than us here. Oh right, that’s not the point, right?
If only that bloody virus wasn’t out of control we’d all be happy.
Remember the “It’s the economy stupid”? Maybe it should be replaced with “It’s the virus, stupid” because the other one is so baby boomery out of date.
So, if you’re still angry maybe kick that virus some ass. And I think there is consensus on how to do that. That will give you the best way to get rid of your anger.
I m angry because young people are paying an epic price for lockdowns whole older people can’t even be bothered to get vaccinated. My toddler needs speech therapy and occupational therapy. Our doctors tell us early intervention is critical and the current opportunity for improvement won’t exist in future. She hasn’t had OT for months and has half-baked speech therapy on Zoom.
This lockdown will damage her, forever. She is one example of the hundred of thousands of vulnerable people in the same position – many of them worse off.
Meanwhile more than half of 50 and 60 year olds haven’t managed to get fully vaxxed months after the option became available. So yeah, I’m angry. Livid actually
Fair enough.
Are there other pathways you’ve tried to get the therapy you need for your daughter? Obviously there is need of care in person and you should be able to access it, lockdown or no lockdown.
I wish you all the best N.A.F.
Thanks. We have exhausted all the options. Right now there is only one game in town. Nothing to be done but check the vaccination rates every day and hope for a miracle.
When i lived in a country town and the visiting speech therapist said my son wasnt ready to start using signing, he needed to use english first, i felt defeated. Then frustrated, then mad, then determined. I got textbooks on speech therapies, i got the auslan dictionary, i started a TESOL course for greater insight into the mechanics of communication. And i taught my son to sign, which he still uses as much as his limited verbal communication.
If your daughter cant get to an OT, find out what OTs would be doing with your daughter, and do it. Its not magic, its just 3 years in uni which you could get a bare bones handle on within a few weeks, online there are many many resources designed for allied health students to help them design programs for individuals, correlated to their particular needs, required outcomes etc. Textbooks can be accessed on Perlego website/app, they have 2 week trial to get you started. Find the 15 best ones you can and photocopy shamelessly the important bits.
You care more about her development than any therapist ever. Grab their toolbox, and build her the bridge she needs.
Good luck with it all.
Thank you. We are trying to do this. Good to know it can work.
I just wish these issues were acknowledged somewhere in the narrative. It feels like our girl and the many thousands in the same or worse position are being treated as irrelevant.
Let me say that as a boomer I know exactly what my father did when he arrived back from PNG – Produce me. Not to mention the dozen or so Boomers I go surfing with each morning. We are not against young people – but it does appear that many more of them have a predisposition to not wearing a mask at the appropriate time.
Thanks for the fascinating insight into your life. 5/5 boomers commenting without having read or understood the article. Let’s get to 10/10!
Enjoy your surfing, young people locked down may never get the change to learn to surf.
Think about it this way, how many teenagers would have learned to surf last summer? Maybe thousands?
For how many of them is that a PERMANENT lost opportunity?
And that’s just surfing, not employment, not relationships, not schooling, not living.
At best its more online gaming and netflix.
What is the PERMANENT damage of that? How many lives were if not ruined (too emotional) but at least highly negatively impacted?
….and we move into lock down 7….what is the human cost….I ask even though I personally am cruising very nicely.
My personal wealth has almost doubled since the start of Covid.
My Amazon stock has gone from $1900 to $3300.
Other tech stock I own has similar rises.
My house price has risen at least $300k.
Blue chip banks are up almost 100% as well, my CBA stock has gone from $65 to $105.
Old farts like me are currently making a motza and it is grotesquely unfair.
From over here in WA your lockdowns are the ones you have when you don’t have a lockdown, over there in NSW.
We don’t blame you for not getting it.
My toddler needs speech therapy and occupational therapy. Our doctors tell us early intervention is critical and the current opportunity for improvement won’t exist in future. She hasn’t had OT for months and has half-baked speech therapy on Zoom. She hasn’t seen her grandmother who she adores for months. She hardly interacts with anyone but her parents and her socialisation is going backwards. She’s not
But sure, keep post recycled glib witticisms on your stroll to the beach while hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children and people of all kinds suffer.
Respect you for recognizing that the economic divide is unfair despite being on the + side of it – few politicians are capable of that.
The permanent damage most of the younger age group really need to understand is LONG COVID!
Imagine having chronic fatigue syndrome/ heart and kidney and lung and brain damage for the rest of your life.
Now speak to me about lockdowns.
It;s terrifying – American Academy of Pediatrics is urging vaccine approval for under 12s as 19% of recent cases are in children 🙁 > https://downloads.aap.org/DOFA/AAP%20Letter%20to%20FDA%20on%20Timeline%20for%20Authorization%20of%20COVID-19%20Vaccine%20for%20Children_08_05_21.pdf
Also recommending masks for 2 yos as is CDC > https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html and https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/clinical-guidance/cloth-face-coverings/
And don’t they love to go out for coffee, and mingle! While the virus is everywhere. Bloody nuts, said the western australian so-called boomer from the safety of his tin shed. This is how you do it: first get rid of the virus by preventing transmission. Second, go out for coffee. The other way around doesn’t work. I’m starting to think NSW should be ringfenced, a toxic disaster zone. What a pity. And what’s superannuation, anyway?
I think it’s only on crikey and channel 9 media that people agitate for longer lockdowns. Wouldn’t surprise me if their are a few who are posting multiple times to spruik it up. Party hacks and assorted kool aid drinkers maybe.
The older demographic here is certainly ok with being protected at the cost of all others, often guised as social health related concerns they’re almost always personally biased to what’s good for them.
I got my second shot today. Hoping Morrison or some of the adults in charge dictate a date when everyone has had a chance to be vaccinated and say that’s it folks the doom show is over. Let’s join the rest of the world who are leaving us in our parochial small minded, ignorant, dust.
and filling the hospitals and dying like flies.
Not true anymore. Massive reductions on all fronts.
Only in your Bizarro world, where kryptonite is a health food.
There is a cartoonist with the NYer who draws exceptionally unpleasant ‘gags’.
His tag is identical to yours – any relation?
You both seem to have the same ugly attitude.
Something something ad hominem? (You’re the one who likes to post Googled Latin right??) I’ll take it you have nothing substantive to say 🙂
You need to look up the meaning of ad hominem – it’s your attitude that is ugly.
What, a sense of fairness and justice?