Sydney resident here & let me start by apologising on behalf of our state Government!!
Yes — we should have locked down much earlier & harder, but because this outbreak started in the 'affluent' eastern suburbs, nothing was done until it started showing up in the 'poorer', ethnically-diverse south-western suburbs... who all vote Labor anyway, so it's okay for a Liberal government to lock 'em down. That's an overtly cynical view, but one that's hard to disprove. How it spread from here into the other States is a mix of the Delta variant's higher contagion & the usual stupidity & bloody-mindedness of the kind of idiots you'll find in any city, anywhere... though, to be fair, because this variant spreads so early, so quickly, you may not even know you have it when you inadvertently spread it 'round
But, in my city's defence, the Delta variant came here first because we take nearly all the international arrivals — certainly the ones who fly in. Melbourne has limited international flight capability & the other, smaller capital cities have none, so of course the damned Delta would show up here first. I do think we were as unprepared as any other place in the world for its aggressive spread & it certainly exposed the fallibility of the hotel quarantine system
As to the national vaccination rate, or lack of one really — that's what you get when you put the Marketing Department in charge of Logistics. Our Federal government is more concerned with political point-scoring than policy & much better at blame-shifting, than practical delivery. Unlike the glory days of politics, when vision was more important than appearances & before the media became more important than the Nation, the buck doesn't seem to stop anywhere — just gets passed around & around until it's completely devalued
I'm fully Pfizered &, as an essential worker, I have to get tested weekly in order to go about business — not because I live in one of the 'hot-spots', but because the company I contract to seem to be one of the sensible ones who won't let you work without a negative test & indeed, that's been their policy most of this year, well before the latest outbreak & eventual lockdown. So, standing on the other side of the vaccination divide, it's frustrating, infuriating & a whole lot of other negative emotions, seeing a life-threatening situation being treated as just another political football & also seeing the rise of the dis/misinformed mob mentality. I thought we were supposed to be the Clever Country...
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-08-22 01:05 am (UTC)Yes — we should have locked down much earlier & harder, but because this outbreak started in the 'affluent' eastern suburbs, nothing was done until it started showing up in the 'poorer', ethnically-diverse south-western suburbs... who all vote Labor anyway, so it's okay for a Liberal government to lock 'em down. That's an overtly cynical view, but one that's hard to disprove. How it spread from here into the other States is a mix of the Delta variant's higher contagion & the usual stupidity & bloody-mindedness of the kind of idiots you'll find in any city, anywhere... though, to be fair, because this variant spreads so early, so quickly, you may not even know you have it when you inadvertently spread it 'round
But, in my city's defence, the Delta variant came here first because we take nearly all the international arrivals — certainly the ones who fly in. Melbourne has limited international flight capability & the other, smaller capital cities have none, so of course the damned Delta would show up here first. I do think we were as unprepared as any other place in the world for its aggressive spread & it certainly exposed the fallibility of the hotel quarantine system
As to the national vaccination rate, or lack of one really — that's what you get when you put the Marketing Department in charge of Logistics. Our Federal government is more concerned with political point-scoring than policy & much better at blame-shifting, than practical delivery. Unlike the glory days of politics, when vision was more important than appearances & before the media became more important than the Nation, the buck doesn't seem to stop anywhere — just gets passed around & around until it's completely devalued
I'm fully Pfizered &, as an essential worker, I have to get tested weekly in order to go about business — not because I live in one of the 'hot-spots', but because the company I contract to seem to be one of the sensible ones who won't let you work without a negative test & indeed, that's been their policy most of this year, well before the latest outbreak & eventual lockdown. So, standing on the other side of the vaccination divide, it's frustrating, infuriating & a whole lot of other negative emotions, seeing a life-threatening situation being treated as just another political football & also seeing the rise of the dis/misinformed mob mentality. I thought we were supposed to be the Clever Country...