It only takes one superspreader event to get out of hand. How many cases came back from Vic before the border was shut and we just got lucky?Dr Zaius wrote:Again, it's simply not comparible. The NSW-Victorian border shut when there was about 300 cases a day. Were talking about 14 cases a day here.gangrenous wrote:Whole state maybe not, but it’s easy and clear.Dr Zaius wrote:Restricting movement from hotspots is absolutely the right thing to do. Northern Beaches has now been declared a hotspot which is fair. Labelling the whole state a hotspot, when it clearly isn't, is ridiculous.
In Victoria locking down isolated suburbs didn’t work. Shutting borders for a week to check if NSW did get on top via contact tracing seems reasonable to me.
Nothing in life is without risk. Locking out hotspots v states carries risk. Despite free movement between Sydney and Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra, none of those cities have been seeded with sustained community transmission. I'd argue that the risk is low. You can't live your life without some sort of risk. I'd argue that the harm done by locking out an entire state was not worth the minuscule reduction in risk that it afforded.
Travel between Sydney and Canberra is very different to Sydney and Melbourne. One you typically do in your own car. The other trapped in a confined space with a whole bunch of randoms. At the destination I’d say you’re more likely to be staying in hotels travelling Sydney to Melbourne too.
With Victoria, wouldn’t things have gone better had they gone hard and fast? Maybe the border would have been shut for a week or two if they’d just snapped shut everywhere. Instead they tried softly softly and it grew to a problem they couldn’t contain.