Comment by waterglassFull | Hacker News Reader

Comment by waterglassFull | Hacker News Reader

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It took Victoria, Melbourne over three months of a hard lockdown to get the numbers to Zero.

If you compare some of the attitudes in both policing and policy to Australia and the response between parties you'll understand why the UK can never get there.

Consider this:

- Victoria handed out 20K~ fines by August 26 [1]

- England & Wales handed out 25K~ fines between 27 March and 16 November [2]

- The UK has 120K~ police officers [3]

- Victoria has 21K~ police officers [4]

An Australian State which has only 10%~ of England's population (6M people vs 55M) and only 17% of England's Police Force size managed to get 20K~ fines by August.

The attitude there-in lies down to effective policing and policies.

Eg Melbourne made it a mandatory requirement to wear face masks in public - I don't think the UK could get close to that. Time will tell.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/26/victo...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55134562

[3] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Police

Australia also forecasts that it will increase its Federal debt by AUD$500 billion due to the pandemic - AUD$20,000 per person.

Meanwhile aged care deaths in the most heavily affected state, Victoria, are actually down 1,000 YoY. Its almost certain that the majority of the COVID deaths that did occur in Melbourne were with COVID - ie. people of advanced age and serious existing health conditions who would have died around this time anyway.

My comments weren't about Australian financials; however the lockdown isn't the only contributor

- The political fallout between China and Australia is worsening, the long term ramifications don't look good. This isn't attributibal to the lockdown.

- Australia's short term economy is currently recovering well after lockdown [1]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/australia-economy-budget/aus...

The fallout between China and Australia is because of Australia's incredibly aggressive Covid strategy and rhetoric.

The COVID strategy isn't the reason for their fallout. It is the government's attack on the CCP and pushing for an inquiry.

That is the Covid strategy. If they weren't heavy handed they wouldn't have these opinions and push for an inquiry.

You're conflating Diplomatic Strategy and Pandemic Control together

It's basically the same heavy handed strategy: Go hard!

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