Coronavirus - Australia
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@voodoo said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@taniwharugby said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@voodoo the UK mentioned they wanted to do this a few weeks back, but they still reporting case numbers and deaths...which today was 32,253 new cases and 49 deaths (wonder how many of these were unvaccinated)
and how many deathes were FROM Covid as opposed to WITH Covid
Feels like we are missing a massive opportunity here to highlight the benefits of a healthy lifestyle on the general public
As have every other country
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@gibbonrib said in Coronavirus - Australia:
Once again, the bungled vaccine roll-out is in no small measure to blame for this. AZ is a good vaccine, it's allowed the UK to get to where it is. With proper procurement and marketing these hesitancy issues would have been greatly reduced.
How much of that is the fault of the Government, and how much is at the feet of ATAGI?
Now the Feds have bungled the rollout, but it's not quite as bad as many make out. I can at least understand why they did what they did.
In the uncertainty of early vaccine trials, they decided to put most of their eggs in one basket - AZ. The reason being it was the one we could manufacture locally. I think that made a lot of sense at the time.
So all was good with that plan until ATAGI came out and really rogered the whole thing by limiting the use of AZ to over 60s. Did Morrison and co have any idea that would happen? No. So their plan was pretty much rooted by the overly cautious medicos.
Now they look foolish because they put too many eggs in the AZ basket and not enough eggs in the Pfizer/Moderna basket. Which was clearly an error but only one that is visible in hindsight.
Clearly other mistakes have been made and I'm not claiming Morrison has covered himself in glory here. But I also think it's not quite as bad as some make out.
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@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
So all was good with that plan until ATAGI came out and really rogered the whole thing by limiting the use of AZ to over 60s. Did Morrison and co have any idea that would happen? No.
I'm still uncertain it wasn't due to Morrison and co'. That info came out at the exact time he was copying crap in the press for the slow vaccine rollout. The tinfoil is sitting firmly on top of my head still.
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@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@gibbonrib said in Coronavirus - Australia:
Once again, the bungled vaccine roll-out is in no small measure to blame for this. AZ is a good vaccine, it's allowed the UK to get to where it is. With proper procurement and marketing these hesitancy issues would have been greatly reduced.
How much of that is the fault of the Government, and how much is at the feet of ATAGI?
A bit of both.
Now the Feds have bungled the rollout, but it's not quite as bad as many make out. I can at least understand why they did what they did.
I can't for the life of me.
In the uncertainty of early vaccine trials, they decided to put most of their eggs in one basket - AZ. The reason being it was the one we could manufacture locally. I think that made a lot of sense at the time.
Totally disagree. If you had to pick only one, that was a good one to pick. But they didn't, they could pick as many as they wanted to pay for. The risk of just picking one (or two if you count the aborted UQ vax) is massive, what it fails or has bad side effects or the regulator doesn't like it. A modest investment up front in a wider spread would have gone a very long way to reducing the big economic hit that we're going to have for the next few months while we work towards 80%.
So all was good with that plan until ATAGI came out and really rogered the whole thing by limiting the use of AZ to over 60s. Did Morrison and co have any idea that would happen? No. So their plan was pretty much rooted by the overly cautious medicos.
All was not well with that plan. That's like saying all was well with my plan to invest my entire life savings in a single stock, until someone did something to make the stock crash.
Of course Morrison didn't know that would happen, the whole thing was unpredictable. It's risk management 101. Nobody could foresee this particular issue happening, but the risk of something happening to a particular vaccine - side effects, bad press, regulators don't like it, supply problems, etc etc - is very real and very foreseeable. Were Atagi too cautious? Probably. But the bigger issue is that Morrison seemed to rely on having a plan that would work great if nothing went wrong. That's a crap plan.
Now they look foolish because they put too many eggs in the AZ basket and not enough eggs in the Pfizer/Moderna basket. Which was clearly an error but only one that is visible in hindsight.
Nonsense. It was clear with a modicum of foresight. If it was only visible in hindsight then why didn't other countries make the same mistake?
Clearly other mistakes have been made and I'm not claiming Morrison has covered himself in glory here. But I also think it's not quite as bad as some make out.
Agree, but we all know that's not how it works here. We each pick our favourite target, and then pile on relentlessly.
Aside from the procurement, the other big blunder has been the messaging. Considering that marketing is the one thing that Scotty is supposed to be good at, what the hell went wrong there? He's getting stick now for spending money on a celebrity advertising campaign. I think that's actually unfair, but he should have done it months ago. Instead there was nothing, so the vacuum was filled with noisy debate and disagreement from various pollies, CHOs, Atagi, doctors and worst of all the misinformation spreaders. The public was unsurprisingly confused, and became more hesitant. I think most of the discussion, disagreement and conflicting information was fine, a normal process of different groups working through a novel problem. But the noise became front and centre, when we needed a clear confident message over the top saying this is the process, here are the risks, now let's get vaxxed.
Why did the messaging go wrong? Don't know, but my guess is that after they realised they'd stuffed up the procurement then the messaging was not a priority any more. A successful campaign could actually have made things worse for Scomo by highlighting the lack of availability. Veering into wild speculation territory, perhaps he figured we'd spend a few more with with the occasional Vic lockdown that Andrews would take the heat for, and he could look like the hero by delivering the vaccines with less than a year until the election.
Scomo's not totally to blame for the stroll out mess, but the lack of leadership and lack of critical decision making is a very strong, consistent theme.
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@gibbonrib said in Coronavirus - Australia:
All was not well with that plan. That's like saying all was well with my plan to invest my entire life savings in a single stock, until someone did something to make the stock crash.
I don't disagree with much of your post, but I have an issue with this. It's too simple.
They didn't put all their eggs in the AZ basket. We ordered Pfizer and Moderna as well. The issue with those was the delivery time, the proverbial queue and our place in it. That's part of the reason it's been bungled (and I do think it's more complex than 'he should have picked up the phone to the Pfizer CEO').
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@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@gibbonrib said in Coronavirus - Australia:
All was not well with that plan. That's like saying all was well with my plan to invest my entire life savings in a single stock, until someone did something to make the stock crash.
I don't disagree with much of your post, but I have an issue with this. It's too simple.
They didn't put all their eggs in the AZ basket. We ordered Pfizer and Moderna as well. The issue with those was the delivery time, the proverbial queue and our place in it. That's part of the reason it's been bungled (and I do think it's more complex than 'he should have picked up the phone to the Pfizer CEO').
Yeah, agree. The simplification is partly useful, because it can capture the essence of what happened even if it's not literally true. But it can also be misleading.
I think they went for 4 different ones (Pfizer, AZ, Moderna, UQ). Which would probably have been ok if "went for" meant bought enough, to be delivered early enough. That's where the biggest failure was. So I dislike the fact that they got it so badly wrong, I dislike the fact that we've been consistently lied to (we were told that we were "at the front of the queue" in January), and I dislike the fact that so many Aussies are so inattentive that scomo will probably get away with it and win the next election.
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I'm not blaming ScoMo because people are so fucking dumb they are refusing to get the readily available AZ (by all accounts there is shitloads of it), or even worse
Cancelling already made appointments to get AZ because they heard more Pfizer was coming.
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@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
I'm not blaming ScoMo because people are so fucking dumb they are refusing to get the readily available AZ (by all accounts there is shitloads of it), or even worse
Cancelling already made appointments to get AZ because they heard more Pfizer was coming.
Fuck those people.
I see nothing wrong with the Federal Government's acquisition of vaccines.
They invested in Australian developed (UQ). Not the government's fault it failed. Imagine the uproar if they didn't invest in its development.
They invested in Australian produced. Low cost and effective.
They ordered quantities of two others.
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@mariner4life The media is also culpable, blowing up the few AZ-related deaths without any context at all. I understand how you'd be reticent if you believed you had a chance of dropping dead after getting the shot.
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@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life The media is also culpable, blowing up the few AZ-related deaths without any context at all. I understand how you'd be reticent if you believed you had a chance of dropping dead after getting the shot.
I've given them more than a few whacks over all of this
Shameless, two-faced fluffybunnies
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@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life The media is also culpable, blowing up the few AZ-related deaths without any context at all. I understand how you'd be reticent if you believed you had a chance of dropping dead after getting the shot.
The media is fucked. But so are health officials.
A 30yr old woman died of Covid today apparently. Clearly that's shit. But where are the details? She died at home, no ambulance called, was it Sudden Covid Syndrome?
What are we doing here??!!
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@voodoo said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life The media is also culpable, blowing up the few AZ-related deaths without any context at all. I understand how you'd be reticent if you believed you had a chance of dropping dead after getting the shot.
The media is fucked. But so are health officials.
A 30yr old woman died of Covid today apparently. Clearly that's shit. But where are the details? She died at home, no ambulance called, was it Sudden Covid Syndrome?
What are we doing here??!!
I notice they pay special attention to the kind of story where the person who died was young or seemingly in "perfect health". Getting the clicks and perhaps using a bit of fear to get everyone vaccinated???
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@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
I'm not blaming ScoMo because people are so fucking dumb they are refusing to get the readily available AZ (by all accounts there is shitloads of it), or even worse
Cancelling already made appointments to get AZ because they heard more Pfizer was coming.
Fuck those people.
I'm not blaming him because people are dumb. But the fact that people are dumb is not a surprise. A roll out plan that relies on people not being dumb is a bad plan. It's the government's job to manage the dumb people and trick them into doing the smart thing.
I mean yeah at this point they might be beyond managing. But it should never have got to this point where there's such confusion and crisis of confidence in AZ
I see nothing wrong with the Federal Government's acquisition of vaccines.
Dear God, really? What would it take?
They invested in Australian developed (UQ). Not the government's fault it failed. Imagine the uproar if they didn't invest in its development.
You know it's not either / or? They could (and should) have invested in the UQ one, and also enough others.
It's not the government's fault that it failed, but it is 100% the government's fault that they didn't adequately plan for the reasonable likelihood that it would fail.
They invested in Australian produced. Low cost and effective.
Great. Maybe they can put the hundreds of millions of dollars saved in not ordering more expensive vaccines towards the tens of billions of dollars that the unnecessarily extended lockdowns will cost.
They ordered quantities of two others.
Yes. Specifically, they ordered insufficient quantities, far too late.
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@gibbonrib said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
I'm not blaming ScoMo because people are so fucking dumb they are refusing to get the readily available AZ (by all accounts there is shitloads of it), or even worse
Cancelling already made appointments to get AZ because they heard more Pfizer was coming.
Fuck those people.
I'm not blaming him because people are dumb. But the fact that people are dumb is not a surprise. A roll out plan that relies on people not being dumb is a bad plan. It's the government's job to manage the dumb people and trick them into doing the smart thing.
I don't see what that has to do with my point, except very tangentially.
I mean yeah at this point they might be beyond managing. But it should never have got to this point where there's such confusion and crisis of confidence in AZ
He's not the Lone Ranger on this. There's ATAGI, Qld's CHO ffs and the media.
I see nothing wrong with the Federal Government's acquisition of vaccines.
Dear God, really? What would it take?
They invested in Australian developed (UQ). Not the government's fault it failed. Imagine the uproar if they didn't invest in its development.
You know it's not either / or? They could (and should) have invested in the UQ one, and also enough others.
I didn't present it as "either/ or". I simply pointed out they invested in the development of an Australian researched vaccine. The clue is the following paragraphs.
It's not the government's fault that it failed, but it is 100% the government's fault that they didn't adequately plan for the reasonable likelihood that it would fail.
But they clearly did by ordering another three vaccines.
They invested in Australian produced. Low cost and effective.
Great. Maybe they can put the hundreds of millions of dollars saved in not ordering more expensive vaccines towards the tens of billions of dollars that the unnecessarily extended lockdowns will cost.
The Federal Government doesn't control lockdowns. The very lockdowns and associated pursuit of "covid zero" State premiers are locked into and apparently rewarded by the electorate.
They ordered quantities of two others.
Yes. Specifically, they ordered insufficient quantities, far too late.
Says Captain Hindsight. We aren't short of vaccines, just short of the ones people want.
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@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@gibbonrib said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
I'm not blaming ScoMo because people are so fucking dumb they are refusing to get the readily available AZ (by all accounts there is shitloads of it), or even worse
Cancelling already made appointments to get AZ because they heard more Pfizer was coming.
Fuck those people.
I'm not blaming him because people are dumb. But the fact that people are dumb is not a surprise. A roll out plan that relies on people not being dumb is a bad plan. It's the government's job to manage the dumb people and trick them into doing the smart thing.
I don't see what that has to do with my point, except very tangentially.
Yeah, I guess I was responding indirectly to M4L's comment, my bad for not being clear.
I mean yeah at this point they might be beyond managing. But it should never have got to this point where there's such confusion and crisis of confidence in AZ
He's not the Lone Ranger on this. There's ATAGI, Qld's CHO ffs and the media.
Yup, he's not 100% to blame, others have muddied the water. But the confusion required some leadership from the top to give the right message. This needed some advertising / information, you know, like every other country in the developed world. What did we get? That weird, dark, shock ad campaign with the woman on a ventilator - in July FFS!
I see nothing wrong with the Federal Government's acquisition of vaccines.
Dear God, really? What would it take?
They invested in Australian developed (UQ). Not the government's fault it failed. Imagine the uproar if they didn't invest in its development.
You know it's not either / or? They could (and should) have invested in the UQ one, and also enough others.
I didn't present it as "either/ or". I simply pointed out they invested in the development of an Australian researched vaccine. The clue is the following paragraphs.
Well you said "imagine the uproar if they didn't", as if someone had suggested they shouldn't
It's not the government's fault that it failed, but it is 100% the government's fault that they didn't adequately plan for the reasonable likelihood that it would fail.
But they clearly did by ordering another three vaccines.
This argument is only valid if they ordered enough at the right time. They clearly didn't adequately plan, because we did have supply issues.
They invested in Australian produced. Low cost and effective.
Great. Maybe they can put the hundreds of millions of dollars saved in not ordering more expensive vaccines towards the tens of billions of dollars that the unnecessarily extended lockdowns will cost.
The Federal Government doesn't control lockdowns. The very lockdowns and associated pursuit of "covid zero" State premiers are locked into and apparently rewarded by the electorate.
But the national strategy is that we use lockdowns until vaccination is at a sufficient level.
I'm sure scomo would like us to believe that the national strategy is someone else's fault and someone else's responsibility. But thats what the national cabinet agreed and if he doesn't like it then the least he could do is offer an alternative.
If they hadn't bollocksed up the vaccine roll-out, we'd could have been at, guestimate, 50% by now. We'd still be in lockdown, but probably only a few weeks away from getting out. Right now, on 30%, it looks a long way away.
They ordered quantities of two others.
Yes. Specifically, they ordered insufficient quantities, far too late.
Says Captain Hindsight. We aren't short of vaccines, just short of the ones people want.
Fuck me sideways, pointing out something that has been patently obvious for months and months does not count as hindsight.
We are short of all vaccines except AZ (and we were short of that early on). So the plan was that we'd roll AZ out to everyone and there would be no issues or concerns or adverse effects and then it's all sorted. Like I said, that's a crap plan. Yes Atagi and the CHO and the media confused matters, but that's the kind of shat that happens in every country. They needed a better, robust plan.
"I had a plan but it didn't work and it's someone else's fault" just wouldn't cut it in most workplaces, I don't understand why so many people think this mediocrity is good enough when it's the PM.
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@gibbonrib said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
Well you said "imagine the uproar if they didn't", as if someone had suggested they shouldn't
Fair point, for clarity that criticism was directed at the media. No one here.
It's not the government's fault that it failed, but it is 100% the government's fault that they didn't adequately plan for the reasonable likelihood that it would fail.
But they clearly did by ordering another three vaccines.
This argument is only valid if they ordered enough at the right time. They clearly didn't adequately plan, because we did have supply issues.
I accept that, but I'd counter from their perspective they'd bought themselves time. Not my preferred approach but I can see the logic.
They invested in Australian produced. Low cost and effective.
Great. Maybe they can put the hundreds of millions of dollars saved in not ordering more expensive vaccines towards the tens of billions of dollars that the unnecessarily extended lockdowns will cost.
The Federal Government doesn't control lockdowns. The very lockdowns and associated pursuit of "covid zero" State premiers are locked into and apparently rewarded by the electorate.
But the national strategy is that we use lockdowns until vaccination is at a sufficient level.
I think that's an acknowledgement of the electoral success such an approach is correlated with.
I'm sure scomo would like us to believe that the national strategy is someone else's fault and someone else's responsibility. But thats what the national cabinet agreed and if he doesn't like it then the least he could do is offer an alternative.
True, they have been relatively silent in their criticism of that approach. I haven't seen much talk of an exit strategy until it was foisted on them.
If they hadn't bollocksed up the vaccine roll-out, we'd could have been at, guestimate, 50% by now. We'd still be in lockdown, but probably only a few weeks away from getting out. Right now, on 30%, it looks a long way away.
Perhaps. I am certainly critical that they haven't incentivised vaccine take up nor argued more strenuously against the clowns such as Qld's CHO. The lack of effective advertising is galling when they're all too happy to spend like drunken sailors spruiking the benefits of their policies as we head into elections.
They ordered quantities of two others.
Yes. Specifically, they ordered insufficient quantities, far too late.
Says Captain Hindsight. We aren't short of vaccines, just short of the ones people want.
Fuck me sideways, pointing out something that has been patently obvious for months and months does not count as hindsight.
But it is hindsight, this problem only exists because of the ignorant fear campaign against AZ.
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@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@gibbonrib said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
Well you said "imagine the uproar if they didn't", as if someone had suggested they shouldn't
Fair point, for clarity that criticism was directed at the media. No one here.
👍
It's not the government's fault that it failed, but it is 100% the government's fault that they didn't adequately plan for the reasonable likelihood that it would fail.
But they clearly did by ordering another three vaccines.
This argument is only valid if they ordered enough at the right time. They clearly didn't adequately plan, because we did have supply issues.
I accept that, but I'd counter from their perspective they'd bought themselves time. Not my preferred approach but I can see the logic.
But why did they need to buy time? If they pulled out the chequebook in mid-2020, like most other developed countries did, then they'd have a plan B and a plan C.
They invested in Australian produced. Low cost and effective.
Great. Maybe they can put the hundreds of millions of dollars saved in not ordering more expensive vaccines towards the tens of billions of dollars that the unnecessarily extended lockdowns will cost.
The Federal Government doesn't control lockdowns. The very lockdowns and associated pursuit of "covid zero" State premiers are locked into and apparently rewarded by the electorate.
But the national strategy is that we use lockdowns until vaccination is at a sufficient level.
I think that's an acknowledgement of the electoral success su8ch an approach is correlated with.
Yes and no. People do generally like it. But what's the alternative to lockdowns? There's "let it rip", which almost nobody want. What else? Everyone else from WA to NSW is essentially following the same plan of "Track and trace, then lockdown if the level gets to X" with just a different X.
I'm sure scomo would like us to believe that the national strategy is someone else's fault and someone else's responsibility. But thats what the national cabinet agreed and if he doesn't like it then the least he could do is offer an alternative.
True, they have been relatively silent in their criticism of that approach. I haven't se much talk of an exit strategy until it was foisted on them.
Yeah, to me this is a major failing- we have the current strategy because the States collectively decided on it. Scomo should have either accepted it, imposed a different plan, or collaboratively worked on a different plan. Instead he stayed silent
If they hadn't bollocksed up the vaccine roll-out, we'd could have been at, guestimate, 50% by now. We'd still be in lockdown, but probably only a few weeks away from getting out. Right now, on 30%, it looks a long way away.
Perhaps. I am certainly critical that they haven't incentivised vaccine take up nor argued more strenuously against the clowns such as Qld's CHO. The lack of effective advertising is galling when they're all too happy to spend like drunken sailors spruiking the benefits of their policies as we head into elections.
Remind me what he/she said? I remember a brouhaha but not the details
They ordered quantities of two others.
Yes. Specifically, they ordered insufficient quantities, far too late.
Says Captain Hindsight. We aren't short of vaccines, just short of the ones people want.
Fuck me sideways, pointing out something that has been patently obvious for months and months does not count as hindsight.
But it is hindsight, this problem only exists because of the ignorant fear campaign against AZ.
Nah. It seems that the plan was AZ or bust. That's a catastrophic plan, if I'd come up with an equivalent in my job it would be career limiting. Because I would have shown an appalling lack of foresight and planning.
Agreed there is a fear campaign against AZ, which is a big part of the problem. But why hasn't the govt done something to counter that?
I'll say it again, a plan that relies on one single vaccine being totally safe and having no issues is a crap plan.
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a wee vent, if you will allow
hi from one of the parts of the country not locked down, but being fucked like it is actually locked down
As we roll in to week 9 in Sydney, week a thousand (cumulative) in Victoria, with the State of Qld closed to the majority of the country, and even the SE corner just emerging from a travel "ban" things are looking less positive than ever.
Vaccinations continue at a decent rate, especially in NSW. But there is hesitancy everywhere. Victoria has serious issues, NSW will soon hit the proportion that flat out don't want it, Qld and WA are feeling protected by their Premiers and are dragging the chain. The so called National Cabinet are agreeing on shit, and then immediately backtracking on it, and publicly. Fingers are pointed between States and Feds, while no body achieves or does anything. So the 70 and 80% targets look, quite frankly, a mile off. And, it appears, won't mean shit to the Premiers any way. Through in reports from overseas of continued infections and deaths, and a Country that has so little exposure to this virus is starting to look happy to stay locked in and away for ever. Those who do speak up are pretty much decried as death merchants immediately.
And thus we come to my particular issue. The tourism industry, an industry that until 20 months ago employed some 750,000 Australians (it's no much less than that obviously) is fucked. Totally and utterly fucked. And there are no lights at the end of the tunnel that we can see. If i can focus on Qld for a second, most especially regional Qld, then the situation is at breaking point. Hotels sit at 15% occupancy. There are no flights. Most of the Country is cut off from us. There is no business. And guess what? There is no support either. It's effectively burn any reserves you are lucky to have, and wait it out. Our only hope is that people from Brisbane want to come up for the school holidays. But, ongoing Govt measures have everyone very very nervous about going anywhere. And you know what? They are a bit shy on spending too much as well.
The hospitality industry is in a dire spot as well. 880,000 jobs in limbo, almost employed a small business owner. No trade. Reduced trade due to restrictions.
NSW has stepped up and is paying businesses 40% of their payroll as long as the lockdown exists. Qld? Fuck all. And you want to know why? They don't have the money. The fluffybunnies are paying for years and years and years of financial mismanagement. So they can point the finger at the Feds all they want (i actually understand teh Feds' position) but this one is on them. No help will be forthcoming. After all, we aren't technically locked down, and we can trade. Sure, we are down 90%, but we can trade. By the way, that's not 90% of like, 2019 pre-covid figures, that's 90% on July 2021.
And what does that lead to? Immense mental health pressures on small business owners who have to worry about not only their families, their homes, their livelihoods, but also all those people they employ who are back on reduced hours, with enormous uncertainty on their short to mid-term futures. Those issues are very real, and are already happening, and are very serious.
So while i completely understand why people clap me down about possible death rates, there is a very serious reason i focus on other things over them. "it's wrong to put the economy over lives" is a very easy thing to say when you completely ignore that what people often mean by "the economy" is the lives of a hundred thousand small business owners who right now do not know how they are going to provide for themselves, their families, and the families of their staff. And they have no idea how long they have to feel like this
It's a very very depressing time.
Vent over. Thank you for the opportunity.
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@mariner4life it's a fucken bad beat all round mate. After all of this is over I hope that governments learn Bout measures to prepare and prevent the next time. But I'm probably hoping for too much