Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down • Hacker News Board

Re: Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down

#31

Post by plugger » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

SwiftyBug wrote: post #18

hjhhvcxx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns haven't been shown to be effective in stopping the disease, only in delaying it while incurring economic damage. This on top of the absolute destruction of liberty over 124 cases of a disease with a 2% hospitalization rate and less than 1% fatality rate across all ages and heavily slanted towards old, fat, and diabetic people, in a city with millions, is an absolute tragedy for freedom and it's frankly absu…

Maybe I'm too dumb to follow your logic, but what interest do these governments have in locking down entire states again?

Locking down the entire state ensures community spread doesn't occur across state lines. It's as simple as that.

Re: Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down

#32

Post by abc11223344 » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 12:01 AM UTC

hjhhvcxx wrote: post #15

schappim wrote: post #7

This data is old, and the title is inaccurate. Today in Sydney (22/7/21, 11:01 am) we had: - 85K tests - 124 cases - 48 in community whilst infectious (39%) For those interested in Australian COVID-19 data, this site is pretty good: https://www.covid19data.com.au/

Lockdowns haven't been shown to be effective in stopping the disease, only in delaying it while incurring economic damage. This on top of the absolute destruction of liberty over 124 cases of a disease with a 2% hospitalization rate and less than 1% fatality rate across all ages and heavily slanted towards old, fat, and diabetic people, in a city with millions, is an absolute tragedy for freedom and it's frankly absu…

> Shit I'll only use throwaways on this site because I don't want to get blackballed for saying that the only thing lockdowns do is cause deaths of despair

Lockdowns do slow the transmission of the virus. However some lockdowns are more effective than others.

I am an Australian, and I live in a country which has been in lockdown for somewhere around 500 days. While it is difficult to prove what would have happened if the country here did not go into lockdown, I can honestly say that the lockdown here hasn't been highly effective, as there are still 1000s of cases a day and high levels of community transfer. I would say things would have been worse.

I would rather be in lockdown in Australia than here, there are many safety nets in Australia which while life might be difficult in these times prevent what happens like people starving to death. These don't reflect on the effectiveness of the lockdown, but rather the effectiveness of the management of the lockdown.

There is also the mentality of the citizens, lockdowns are less effective when the citizens are less compliant or due to certain government stances. Take one of the areas here, you can travel there and you only have to go into quarantine for 7 days if you are vaccinated, no consideration to the fact that you can still get infected by the virus when you are vaccinated and can still transmit it.

To sum up, are lockdowns effective and the answer is yes if they are done effectively. Do lockdowns impact on personal freedoms, yes they do if they are done effectively or not. Do lockdowns have social and economic impacts, yes they do and so does not having a lockdown.

Re: Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down

#33

Post by Youden » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:19 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #26

If you are an isolated island then at least you have a chance to do something like what Australia is trying . You don’t have hundreds of thousands of border crossing work commuters and truck drivers who would drive through any “closed” border like e.g in the EU or between US states. And given the less-than-spectacular vaccine rollout, you can probably justify lockdowns that just delay the pandemic by a month or so, s…

> You don’t have hundreds of thousands of border crossing work commuters and truck drivers who would drive through any “closed” border like e.g in the EU or between US states.

I hear this assumption a lot but actually, you do. Australia's lockdowns and quarantines aren't limited to the international borders. Victoria is currently quarantined from South Australia and New South Wales. Victoria's granularity [0] is what I'd say is approximately equivalent to US counties.

That "county" granularity isn't just theoretical. During one of the longest lockdowns, Melbourne, Victoria's capital city, was cut off from the rest of the state. Imagine cutting off LA or the Bay Area from the rest of California and that's essentially what happened.

This also happened briefly in the EU. Despite Schengen, free travel was suspended and most of the national borders were closed.

In both cases (Australian states and Schengen), cross-border commuters and freight were generally permitted to continue but were regulated.

[0]: https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/victorian-travel-permit-s...

Re: Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down

#34

Post by alkonaut » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

Youden wrote: post #33

alkonaut wrote: post #26

If you are an isolated island then at least you have a chance to do something like what Australia is trying . You don’t have hundreds of thousands of border crossing work commuters and truck drivers who would drive through any “closed” border like e.g in the EU or between US states. And given the less-than-spectacular vaccine rollout, you can probably justify lockdowns that just delay the pandemic by a month or so, s…

> You don’t have hundreds of thousands of border crossing work commuters and truck drivers who would drive through any “closed” border like e.g in the EU or between US states. I hear this assumption a lot but actually, you do. Australia's lockdowns and quarantines aren't limited to the international borders. Victoria is currently quarantined from South Australia and New South Wales. Victoria's granularity [0] is what…

But aren’t there exceptions for transports (drivers), people in important positions (nurses etc) who cross for work and so on?

Re: Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down

#35

Post by Youden » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 8:59 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #34

Youden wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don’t have hundreds of thousands of border crossing work commuters and truck drivers who would drive through any “closed” border like e.g in the EU or between US states. I hear this assumption a lot but actually, you do. Australia's lockdowns and quarantines aren't limited to the international borders. Victoria is currently quarantined from South Australia and New South Wales. Victoria's granularity [0] is what…

But aren’t there exceptions for transports (drivers), people in important positions (nurses etc) who cross for work and so on?

Yes, that's what I was getting at with my final sentence.

Re: Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down

#36

Post by bananapub » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

bananapub wrote: post #13

and? australia has low vaccination rates, low immunity due to avoiding massive disaster last year and so is using (hopefully) short lockdowns again to extinguish the spread within the country. what's the "satire"? is the suggestion that instead australia should just do nothing at let ~1% of people die and the healthcare system collapse?

...and Victoria has ended their lockdown (with one restriction remaining) after almost elimininating covid in the community again: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-27/victoria-new-local-co...

Re: Australia: 82K tests, 111 cases, 1 death, 900.000 people locked down

#37

Post by harambae » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

plugger wrote: post #30

hjhhvcxx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns haven't been shown to be effective in stopping the disease, only in delaying it while incurring economic damage. This on top of the absolute destruction of liberty over 124 cases of a disease with a 2% hospitalization rate and less than 1% fatality rate across all ages and heavily slanted towards old, fat, and diabetic people, in a city with millions, is an absolute tragedy for freedom and it's frankly absu…

yea, nah. Western Australia has completely proven hard snap lockdowns work. We even had community spread of Delta from the NSW outbreak around a month ago. I'm typing this in the office without a mask because we quashed the outbreak. Our state government posted a budget surplus last FY as our economy is booming because we don't have community spread of Covid. I'm sorry, but your take is just incorrect and worthy of d…

>I'm typing this in the office without a mask because we quashed the outbreak.

I'm typing this in the office without a mask because I'm vaccinated. I'm also going to nightclubs, bowling, travelling internationally to most places I like.