Workers wearing personal protective equipment take a breather outside the Flemington Tower Public Housing Complex. Photo / Getty Images
EDITORIAL
One of the favourite destinations for Kiwis in normal times is doing it tough.
The people of Victoria are facing weeks of lockdown to get a dangerous spike of Covid-19 cases under control. It's the second shutdown for the Australian state of 6.6 million.
Lockdown deja vu is precisely the scenario health experts and authorities around the world have hoped to avoid after the sacrifices many people went through in March and April.
It is yet another stark warning to people here not to be complacent about our own situation.
But in Australia's case this is still a targeted approach, if a frustrating and costly one. Localised clampdown operations are being used in countries such as Germany and Spain to jump on any virus flare-ups.
Australia as a whole did a superb job in getting its coronavirus outbreak under control. And the rest of the country still has the virus suppressed to low levels of cases. New South Wales is getting regular cases but not to the same extent.
The country has had about 8800 confirmed cases and 106 deaths for a country of 25 million. That is a rate of 348 cases and four deaths per million people.
The new scare belies the fact that Victoria's death toll from Covid-19 has been low, at 22 - the same as here. Case numbers have been climbing sharply since June 24.
On the whole, Australians should feel reassured by the authorities' all-hands-on-deck approach to dousing this fire.
It is vastly preferable to the hands-off, you-are-on-your-own attitude that has hobbled parts of the United States' response to the pandemic.
People can cope with temporary disadvantage if they have trust that the people in charge are competent and trying to do their best.
In the US, people are getting one message from health experts, often conflicting messages from their city and state authorities, and then surreal "we've done a good job" and "we are in a good place" spin from the President.
This week, the US passed three million cases and 132,000 deaths. If that qualifies as a good job, we would all hate to see a bad one.
Take the experience of Florida. On Monday it passed 200,000 coronavirus cases with its third highest daily total of 10,000. That meant that the Sunshine State, with a population of 21.5 million, had more cases than Germany with its population of 83m.
Victoria's experience shows how difficult it can be to keep the virus down in large population areas.
Last weekend Victoria locked down several public housing towers in inner Melbourne to get on top of the spike in the most unsettling aspect of the operation. Dozens of cases have been linked to those buildings.
Essentially thousands of people were imprisoned inside with food and supplies, with financial assistance provided from outside. The towers were being patrolled by 500 police.
Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said the mass tower outbreaks likely originated from a resident who had interacted with an infectious person.
After Victoria recorded its then-largest daily case toll of the pandemic on Monday, Premier Daniel Andrews announced that the border with NSW would close from Wednesday. On Thursday, Queensland completely closed its border to visitors from Victoria.
The decision to close the Victoria-NSW border was made by the two state premiers and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. A permit system was put in place to allow people who needed to cross to do so. Monitoring 55 crossing points became a huge undertaking. Australian troops helped at mass testing sites and some Qantas cabin crew who have been stood down assisted at quarantine hotels.
It cannot be easy for Melburniansto go back to the quiet of isolation after leaving it behind. It is also a sad setback for businesses hoping for better times. A shopping trip or holiday across the Tasman for Kiwis looks further away unless we are allowed to fly to specific areas.
These are not normal times. But at least Australia is doing its best to put out the fire.
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