... is vitamin D, HNs favorite topic:
> Rates of deficiency were shown to be lower in summer (14%) and higher in winter (36%). There was little variation between the states and territories in summer, when deficiency levels were low across the country; ranging from 6% in Queensland to 19% in New South Wales. A divide was apparent in winter, with rates of vitamin D deficiency particularly high for those living in Victoria and ACT, where nearly one in every two people (49%) were vitamin D deficient in winter, compared with only 16% and 13% respectively in summer. In comparison, vitamin D deficiency remained relatively low in winter for those in Queensland and the Northern Territory.[10] Differences were also seen across each state or territory - vitamin D deficiency was more common among those living in major cities (27%) compared with those living in inner regional (16%), outer regional (13%) and remote areas (9%).[10]
https://wiki.cancer.org.au/skincancerstats/Vitamin_D#Vitamin...
(For non-Australians, Melbourne is the capital city of the state of Victoria.)
You mention weather here but, having followed the news, is clear that the primary factor in Melbourne’s outbreak was breaches in quarantine, so much so that there was a government investigation into it. Weather seemed to have very little to do with it.
There’s really no comparison with Melbourne winters and those in most of North America or Europe either. Melbourne climate is pretty mild all things considered.
You seem to be pinning this on poorly trained and paid security guards but there’s credible evidence that there were incidents on security having relationships with those in quarantine (and the responsibility for that falls on both parties). Plus the quarantine didn’t seem to be that strict. People leaving to go out shopping, that sort of thing. Again those in quarantine should also know better.
I've been paying close attention to the weather factor since the epidemic spread beyond China in Feb/March. It was notable that the places that had the biggest outbreaks then (Milan, Qom, NYC, London, Madrid, as well as Wuhan itself) had similar weather in those months to what Melbourne has in winter - cool but not freezing, and not too rainy or humid. When I saw that, I immediately felt Melbourne could be more at risk of a serious outbreak than other Australian cities - all of which have either warmer winters and/or lower population density (EDIT: and also more sunlight in some cases, influencing Vitamin D). Of course, if quarantine was better managed it could have been prevented. But I also find it hard to believe that there was not a single serious lapse in any of the hotels in any of the other cities that were running quarantine.
When weather is raised, people are quick to point out the warmer regions that have had major outbreaks, like India and Brazil. What these places also have his highly dense populations with many people living/working in close quarters, which obviously also facilitates spread. Nutrition/health may also be a major contributor.
As another commenter has pointed out, research has found Victorians to have higher rates of Vitamin D deficiency in winter compared to other states, so weather can play a role in different ways.
Clearly this is a highly complex illness with multiple factors that combine in different ways to influence the outcome.
Take England. I’ve lived in London. There’s a large segment of British social life that revolves around going “down pub”. People will gather at pubs in confined spaces for long periods of time. Those seem like the perfect conditions for community spread. It comes as no surprise to me that England is in another lockdown.
Boer I’m sure weather plays a part on that. Nicer weather and people might go on holiday out do things outdoors but once the weather starts to cool? They’re back to the pub.
I suspect you’ll see patterns like this in other places.
As for your theory in cool climates, well you’re also hitting the climate barrier for high density living and high population centers.
There are outliers (eg Moscow) but generally speaking big cities aren’t in Arctic-like climates.
I don’t know Melbourne at all but o suspect there’s a predilection for pubs, bars, nightclubs and restaurants and there’ll be some relationship there between colder weather and indoor patronage.
I think you're being too specific, pinning it on pubs, etc. It just needs people intermingling in confined spaces of any kind; homes, apartment buildings, workplaces, hospitals/care homes, churches, schools, sporting events, public transportation, and sure pubs/bars too, but any/all of these are conducive to spread.
* Essential industries (food, health care, logistics) were working, some, like abbatoirs, with reduced capacity
* Retail food sales (supermarkets/butchers/bakers etc) open. Cafes/restaurants for take-out or delivery only.
* Other retail closed except for online or click&collect contact free.
* Night curfew 8pm - 5am, relaxed later to 9pm.
* Maximum 5km radius from home unless for work/medical care.
* Only 4 reasons to leave home: essential work, medical care, one person shopping once/day, one hour of exercise.
* Masks whenever in public (not just inside).
Over time, some things got slowly relaxed. The curfew was changed when we got to the start of daylight savings. The radius was relaxed from 5km to 25km. A "singles" or "intimate partner" bubble was established, that allowed people to have one other person outside their household. Then two households were allowed to meet outside the home, but still masked.
At the same time, the government support included $150 if you were being tested and had to quarantine until the results (usually 24h). Then if you were positive or were a close contact and had no sick leave, then there were payments of $1500 for the 14 day isolation/quarantine period.
The Federal government introduced Jobkeeper, which was a subsidy of $1500/fortnight for businesses to maintain employment, and Jobseeker was an extended unemployment payment.
"Penalties of up to $19,826 (for individuals) and $99,132 (for businesses) will apply to employers who issue worker permits to employees who do not meet the requirements of the worker permit scheme or who otherwise breach the scheme requirements.
There will also be on-the-spot fines of up to $1,652 (for individuals) and up to $9,913 (for businesses) for anyone who breaches the scheme requirements. This includes employers, and employees who do not carry their worker permit when travelling to and from work"
https://www.acfservices.net.au/index.php/melbourne-and-victo...
It changes every week or so depending on the cases.
We'll be able to meet with the relatives hopefully after the 9th if everything goes well.
When the roadmap was published the first step of lockdown relaxing was:
> Residents will need to stay within 5 kilometres of their homes and will still only be able to leave home for shopping, exercise, care-giving purposes or permitted work.
> The city's night curfew starts at 9:00pm rather than 8:00pm, and residents can exercise for up to two hours a day, up from one hour.
Pretty strict, but I think the clear steps and threshold being announced were a brilliant approach.
Was this kind of mindset as common when the world irradicated Small Pox and Polio, as it is now?
This kind of thinking has become extremely common across many different topics, ideas and issues.
Improving healthcare, climate change, making better cars/public transport, etc. etc. It's like people have wholesale given up on trying to actually improve anything.
My personal suspicion is it comes from most people struggling under crippling debt, and desperation and no way out in their own life flows over into their broader thinking.
One effect of the virus has been a rise in geographic realism among Australians. Over the last 50 years or so, we have been very gradually coming to think of Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan as medium size, more-or-less democratic countries like Australia. This year, we've been forced to give up on America and Europe, and we're thinking more seriously about how to live in our part of the world, where many countries have the virus under control. Though not yet seriously enough to learn the languages they speak, or anything like that.
The political leaders at both state and federal levels are banking on an effective/safe vaccine being widely available in the next 12 months.
If that doesn't eventuate, I don't know what the Plan B is.
So it's a race between economic damage and global vaccination.
Congrats on getting to the magic 0!
I know it can seem weird that Europe didn't lock down over the summer, but here we mostly use Health care capacity, not active cases, as the most important number.
Being a relatively small island [0] on a remote corner of this planet makes the case for going to the 0 cases a viable one.
Going into a 4 month lockdown in Europe would be useless, since it would just pop up again since we don't have a few international airports as only places where you can enter.
So we're going into lockdown in Europe to prevent swamping our hospitals, and will resume life when it's okay again. And probably will keep going back and forth until a vaccine.
[0](in terms of population)
We have had 0 cases for over 2 months.
You should stop with the "it is only viable in a small island in a remote corner of the planet" line of argument because it doesn't hold much water in my mind.
But the borders vietnam shares with those countries are hard borders. You need a visa and pass a government controlled checkpoint when you enter.
Europe (mainland) has no internal borders. There are no checkpoints, customs agents or chokepoints between countries.
There's thousands of roads leading from every country into others.
That, plus the fact that both the government and the population have had no experience with this make it very hard to control the virus.
I'm open to learn, though, so if you have some time to explain what we could learn from Vietnam I'm all ears.
Borders can be shut, it was done earlier this year. Lockdowns can be enforced, it was done earlier this year. Governments can provide financial support, it's been happening all year.
All this could be over in 4-6 months, and were going into the miserable 4-6 months of the year anyway.
But somehow it's all too hard and the economic damage would be too severe.
What people won't put up with, and rightly so, is an incoherent strategy across Europe. Why make sacrifices if everyone is then encouraged to go on their summer holiday to save the economy and undo everything?
Its frankly disappointing.
What makes you think another lockdown would eradicate it entirely in stead of it just coming back again?
I also don't believe europe would be capable of implementing an eradication strategy. The required social capital has already been burned, and at no point has europe demonstrated it's ability to work together on this. Now we can only wait for the technocrats to deliver us salvation in the form of a vaccine.
Even if the entire EU would agree to do it, we're still surrounded by other countries who might not do the same. And who's people will come into the EU whether we close the border or not.
(the guy who beheaded someone in France came to the EU illegally over the Mediterranean 2 or 3 days prior.)
Thinking an eridication strategy would've worked would've been a worse plan than lowering the curve I think.
We couldn't keep it out even if we wanted to. And yes, on that aspect, it's a huge difference to be an island far away from other countries.
As someone who lives in Vietnam, I think your conception of the hardness of the borders is mistaken. The land border with Vietnam-China is 1,300 kilometers long. That's longer than Germany's combined border with the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
"The 1,400km border between Vietnam and China is extremely porous, with a complicated geography characterised by mountains and rivers – especially in the north – that makes it difficult to monitor cross-border traffic, according to Mimi Vu, an independent Vietnamese-American anti-trafficking expert based in Saigon."
> Europe (mainland) has no internal borders. There are no checkpoints, customs agents or chokepoints between countries.
Yes it does. Germany closed its borders on March 16.
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/germany-introduces-bor...
France, Spain, and Italy also closed their borders. Something like a dozen countries in the EU closed their borders.
... but somehow cases are still not under control.
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/06/29/na062920-vie...
One thing we have learned is that it is easier for authoritarian regimes to deal with pandemics, because having a police state that knows everything about you makes it a lot easier.
So, the answer is, a number of things matter, and it will take many years to parse these things out.
Being a small island helps, being remote helps, having less public transportation helps, living in a police state helps, etc. etc.
English version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGoodWEtV8c
And while mainland Europe is not a "relatively small Island", the UK surely is...
Driving case counts down to zero isn't useless since any outbreaks that flare up again due to gaps in border security will be localized and can be kept in check with localized lockdowns instead of shutting down the whole country.
Police road blocks. Geography no doubt helps: there are only so many bridges across the Murray River, passes through the Australian Alps, and roads across the desert to Adelaide. And it's a bit far to ride a bicycle cross country.
Not in continental Europe, not without involving the military.
And they’ve had in-Schengen passport checks on “temporary for 1-year” bases for several years now without the EU doing too much about it.
I haven't seen good polling numbers around this, but I suspect it's not actually 'many', but rather a highly vocal small number of people, blessed with hubris, ignorance, and/or partisan agendas.
I appreciate that there's some significant impact to a lot of people, and that my world view is significantly skewed because I'm not in that category, but what we continue to find out about the way this disease can affect otherwise fit & healthy people, and with the unfortunate benefit of seeing what is happening in countries that aren't as committed to controlling this, indicates we've probably made the right decisions here.
It is clear that the death toll is overwhelmingly skewed toward the elderly. Many of whom died in the first wave as corona prob got into many nursing homes before we knew better. We are now very careful w nursing homes/ elderly, we might see cases go up but as long as you protect them the deaths/ hospitalizations shouldn’t show similar levels to spring 2020. I don’t think you can deny this, so pro-lockdown people are now mainly using this “it can affect young people” argument to avoid cognitive dissonance - I have yet to see proof. I only have seen an article that says there is lung damage after infection which diminishes over the course of weeks. This is what you would expect with any kind of damage but the article had a ridiculous title like “coronavirus may lead to long lasting damage.” Lastly, I see a lot of ambulances these days - it serves as a reminder to check myself. But we’re all probably pretty analytical here and you can’t justify a strict lockdown from a utilitarian standpoint.
Not so much an argument of, than an observation regarding, the unpredictable mid to long term impacts of this infection in the demographic that includes most of the 'it's harmless' crowd. Ie, the 20-40yo, relatively healthy individuals.
Most of whom, I hasten to add, are cautious rather than cavalier -- but within which group there are sufficient case studies of severe debilitation lasting very many months, and occasional signs of much longer term damage.
Basically my position is 'we don't know' with a consequence of 'let's assume it's worse than we hope'.
> It is clear that the death toll is overwhelmingly skewed toward the elderly.
Almost definitely. And if you're not in the 'elderly' demographic, or care about people who are, this is probably less worrying for you.
> ... similar levels to spring 2020.
Spring 2020 started two months ago.
I mean, TFA is about Coronavirus in Australia, and Australia is where I am right now, and Spring is what's happening here now.
> I don’t think you can deny this, so pro-lockdown people are now mainly using this “it can affect young people” argument to avoid cognitive dissonance - I have yet to see proof.
Apologies -- but I do not understand the point you are trying to make here.
> I only have seen an article that says there is lung damage after infection which diminishes over the course of weeks. This is what you would expect with any kind of damage but the article had a ridiculous title like “coronavirus may lead to long lasting damage.” Lastly, I see a lot of ambulances these days - it serves as a reminder to check myself. But we’re all probably pretty analytical here and you can’t justify a strict lockdown from a utilitarian standpoint.
You mention 'here' without describing where that actually is. And you mention an article that said something you didn't like, but don't provide a reference to that article. Apparently there are ambulances near you. You then conclude that a lockdown is not justifiable, despite TFA being about how lockdowns have effectively halted the spread of SARS-CoV2 within Australia.
I think that the parent was referencing the improvements made in covid treatments over the past handful of months, which have been significant - not as many people in hospitals are dying
>Apologies -- but I do not understand the point you are trying to make here.
Young people, as a population, are not much impacted by this virus. As of Oct 10 there have been 5.3 deaths per 100,000 people under the age of 35 [0] in the United States. The headlines are often misleading about this. I think the parent may have been implying that young people are being misled.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_Unite...
Reporting seems to focus exclusively on mortality, which I suspect leads to people feeling much more confident than if long term health impacts were more clearly reported.
Apparently any virus that attacks the lungs and.or nervous system leaves behind a lot of damaged people. Most of the time things like heart swelling go away after a couple months. But some people are permanently damaged. This can happen with all viruses, even the common cold kills people, and there is no indication yet that this virus is any different.
[0] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.685...
Four newborn babies died because the South Australian government did not want to risk flying them to Melbourne for treatment.
Lockdown primarily harms young people (ostensibly to save old people, the primary victims of the virus). I think this is such a sickening calculation.
We're enslaving our children to debt, depriving them of social lives (this can have permanent impacts), some of them commit suicide, some of them are denied treatment by government and die and they're not getting as much exercise and are also eating poorly.
I'm really tired of seeing people gloss over the effects of lockdown, because lockdown is dangerous in itself. Is the virus or the lockdown more dangerous? Well, that remains to be seen.
In Australia, an additional 4,000 - 7,000 suicides were projected beyond the norm as a result of lockdowns. [1] This is significantly higher than the death toll of the virus and is only a single datapoint. It doesn't include people skipping preventative appointments and dying as a result, or the long term effects of massive depression and obesity spikes.
[1] https://ama.com.au/media/joint-statement-covid-19-impact-lik...
I steeled myself to read this post in the most charitable possible light. Yes, lockdown most likely has some death toll. But the specific points you're making are very dubious and also very recognisable as the effect of consuming specific kinds of media.
Firstly, the point about "not getting as much exercise" is frustrating. Back when we didn't have data on this, it was annoying to me to hear people's absolute conviction that (a) people would exercise less and (b) the effect would be so large that it would lead to a decrease in obesity significant enough to offset the number of life-years lost to COVID, especially since the lockdown personally prompted me to start exercising MORE due to my new surplus of idle time. We now have some suggestion that for previously sedentary people, it led to more exercise (my experience) and for previously active people, it led to a decrease. I'd love to see any suggestion that the net effect of this was so colossal as to produce the adverse health outcomes of whose existence you seem so confident. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312512/
> In Australia, an additional 4000-7000 suicides were projected
At least in Victoria, it seems like these predictions were unfounded. Of course, that is not going to stop people from repeating this talking point. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-27/no-spike-in-suicide-r...
However, the effect of these needs to be balanced against the effect of not controlling the spread of COVID. There were also other benefits, for example, much lower influenza and other winter diseases due to lack of contact and masks and social distancing.
By controlling and reducing the number of cases, we had lower rates and now almost eliminated hospitalizations. There were interruptions in "elective" surgeries, but required surgery and hospitalization for other disease suffered much less than it could have.
Both my and my wife's weight went up. I was able to beat it, she wasn't, so she's about 8kg heavier now than she was in February. The only exercise I get now is half an hour of stationary bike a day. I used to seriously lift weights 4-5 days a week, in addition to it.
It's not even a question for anyone not completely brainwashed that lockdowns are very psychologically hard on people.
I find that an unnecessary slight. Since that topic is very taboo, you won't be able to read about it in mainstream media sources, but only in opposition sources and professional journals. Attacking it on those grounds is weak.
It would be extremely surprising if a multi-month lockdown didn't have a death toll, "most likely" makes it sound like that's probable but remains to be seen. I don't think that's a reasonable position given all we know about the cost of policies, mental health and economic depression.
The argument shouldn't be "lockdown is painless" (because it obviously isn't), it has to be "no lockdown is more painful". We won't be able to tell whether it's true for quite some time, but there's a good argument for erring on the side of caution.
The Australian Medical Association projects 750-1,000 additional suicides for 5 years. [1] That's an increase of 3,750 - 5,000 additional suicides.
Some have projected a 50% increased suicide rate, if that happened for 5 years it'd be 7,500 additional suicides.
[1] https://ama.com.au/media/joint-statement-covid-19-impact-lik...
I specifically said Australia, and your claim is incorrect according to the Australian Medical Association which forecasts 750-1,000 additional suicides for 5 years. [1] I can't find my original source for that figure but the AMA source still proves my point.
>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312512
Belgium did not have a Melbourne-tier lockdown at any stage. Why would it be comparable?
>But the specific points you're making are very dubious and also very recognisable as the effect of consuming specific kinds of media.
Ah yes, "specific kinds of media" like the Australian Medical Association. Those darned far right Murdoch-leaning doctors.
Your own source proves my point in fact. [2]
>"We still think we're going to see, over the course of a 12-month period … and then subsequent years, in the order of 30 per cent increase [in] suicide rates," he said.
30% of 3,048 is 914. 5 years of that is 4,572 additional suicides. I got the 5 years data point from the Australian Medical Association. [1]
[1] https://ama.com.au/media/joint-statement-covid-19-impact-lik...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-27/no-spike-in-suicide-r...
What are you talking about? Yes we did. Curfew, essential services only, no non-essential travel, etc etc.
Above all of that, Melbourne has had one of the longest lockdowns globally (surpassing Wuhan in length).
[1] https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/suicide-an...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-27/no-spike-in-suicide-r...
>"We still think we're going to see, over the course of a 12-month period … and then subsequent years, in the order of 30 per cent increase [in] suicide rates," he said.
30% of 3,048 is 914. 5 years of that is 4,572 additional suicides. I got the 5 years data point from the Australian Medical Association. [1]
[1] https://ama.com.au/media/joint-statement-covid-19-impact-lik...
A restaurant owner who saved their entire life to open up a business was forced to shut down for the greater part of a year with inadequate government support. Of course that causes depression and even suicide in some cases. Their life's work has been eviscerated through no fault of their own.
During the lockdown, the government's message was essentially "do not open your business by threat of enforcement action, but by the way you have to keep paying your rent/mortgage and we're going to give you a token amount of money to help".
While this was happening, governments around the world were throwing cash at banks and big business. Small businesses got screwed. As usual.
As for the specific medical reasoning, I'm no medical professional and would not pretend to know how the Australian Medical Association comes up with their claims.
If you were questioning the source, I'd implore you to post counter-evidence.
Irreparably? Using restaurants is a terrible metric since most of those fail even in a booming economy. I think restaurants and hospitality will be one of the fastest areas to recover once people feel it's safe.
Remember that Australia has not had a financial recession for 25+ years. Recession for any reason causes bankruptcies which leads to those personal impacts.
But the lockdown has meant that our economy will be closer back to "normal" earlier than it would have been. Our primary markets in Asia (in particular China) are all recovering rapidly.
So not sure what your argument is here. Yes, all of the effects you state are correct. However, what was the alternative?
Some of these restaurants had $20,000/week expenses and the government was offering significantly less than that in support.
>But the lockdown has meant that our economy will be closer back to "normal" earlier than it would have been
That sounds like wild speculation. Thousands of businesses closed permanently. Sure, giant banks and huge corporations that were specifically bailed out by government will be more-or-less fine. But that family restaurant? They went out of business months ago.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-10/melbourne-second-coro...
But all that is beside the point, which was suicides from lockdown effects will be substantially higher than virus deaths currently, according to Australian Medical Association modelling. I don't think you attempted to refute that with any counter-evidence (beyond your speculation).
A lot of these things would've happened even without a lockdown, since if the pandemic goes badly enough, huge swaths of the population would've shut themselves at home to avoid risk of contagion.
Also, the virus is clearly more dangerous than the lockdown: you have seen what happens when the lockdown is applied to the whole population, but you haven't yet seen what happens when the virus has spread to 50%+ of the population (and it's especially ugly if it'd happen all in a short amount of time).
It's sad to know about additional suicides, though the reports I've seen say that there hasn't been any increase in suicides during the lockdowns (but again: it might've been specific to the situation in Europe)
This is important to repeat and add also add economic toll. People blame the death and economic toll on lockdowns or other mitigation measures, but the toll is from the pandemic itself.
Even if no state mitigation measures were implemented, there would still be a huge economic and mental health toll.
Raw infection numbers are scary, but not very telling since testing is far from universal or error free.
Death stats aren't that reliable either. Covid seems to be deadly and a miracle cure at the same time - it's amazing how death rates for other maladies all seem to be dramatically down. I'm sure that is just coincidence.
This is False (obviously).
Germany: 126 deaths by million
Portugal: 247
France: 549
Sweden: 580
Spain: 764
Where I currently live in BC (Canada), there have been more overdose deaths than coronavirus deaths in 2020[0]. It might be the case that the overdoses have increased precisely because of lockdown. It might also not be the case. That remains to be investigated.
I think it's superficially easy to blame suicide, overdose, domestic violence etc on the lockdown, but that's hard to prove, because who's to say it's not a reaction to the overall situation of people dying of a brand new disease?
Personally, I really resent lockdown/movement restrictions and I think it's a garbage policy, right back from when I lived in China during the initial outbreak. However, I also have to admit that the countries that locked down seem to have successfully knocked this virus on the head, whereas those that didn't are still suffering the effects. Perhaps a lengthier lockdown pain at the beginning is better than this drawn-out shitshow of half-assed measures that other countries are going through? I dunno.
[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/overdose-dea...
All it takes is for one person to start the virus up again and the entire country has to go back into lock down.
They're playing a permanant game of country wide lockdown whack a mole with the virus.
No one can ever get comfortable again until herd immunity is reached which lockdowns delay.
However, it's much easier to test, trace and isolate small outbreaks ("whack a mole") than if its widely spread and uncontrolled.
Recently we had a single case of a school child that went back to school before they should have. Two days after he tested positive, the following happened:
* The school was closed and deep cleaned
* Close contacts and close contacts of those contacts went into quarantine. This ended up being approximately 800 people.
* All of them were tested within 48 hours and even further contacts (not "close") were also tested to the point that approximately 5000 tests were done and no additional cases were found.
You can't do that tracing and isolation if there is wide community transmission.
People go to the grocery store and come into contact with hundreds of people in an hour.
The infectious dose of COVID is not known, but believed to be somewhere in the several hundred to a thousand viruses range.
An infected person breathing normally near you might expose you to something like 20 or 30 per minute (breath is normally expelled with low force, so it doesn't contain viruses from the lower parts of the respiratory tract). Talking might do around 200 per minute. A cough or sneeze can do millions.
Thus, if I have COVID and go shopping at the same time you do, wearing a mask, and don't cough or sneeze pretty much in your face when we happen to pass each other, you almost certainly are not going to get it from me, and it makes little difference for contact tracers to find you.
It is the people that I spend a few minutes talking face to face to or that I spend a long time near that contact tracers need to find.
Note that it doesn't depend on who you get the viruses from. If a lot of people in the grocery store have it, then even though you might only get a handful of viruses from each person you pass you still might accumulate an infectious dose during your time in the store.
To control it, you need to get the number of infections down enough that people won't be getting it from casual transitory contact, like when grocery shopping, and people need to limit situations that involve more extended contact to times/places where the people they have extended contact with can be identified and traced, and need to limit the frequency of those events so that there is time for contact tracing to work.
You could have stopped there.
We're feeling pretty relieved to be getting these results and excited to be tentatively emerging from nearly four months of fairly strict lockdown.
Much is being made of the fact that back in August when Melbourne was reporting over 700 new cases on some days, UK and France were reporting similar new case numbers, yet we are now getting zeroes and those countries have out-of-control spread.
At the same time, there's much debate and political ruckus about the merits of the lockdown - i.e., the economic and human costs, vs the benefits of suppressing a virus that many consider to be not very serious.
There's also the ongoing attack on our state government from political opponents and parts of the media, over the fact that the virus was suppressed here back in May, as it was in the rest of Australia, but then started spreading rapidly again in June, when poorly-trained security guards acquired the virus while working in quarantine hotels, then took it back to their families and communities, with the outbreak then tearing through aged care homes and leading to a total of 800+ fatalities.
What isn't being talked about here, but has been mentioned by another commenter in this thread, is weather. Melbourne is the only large/dense city in Australia that has quite cool winters, similar to the weather that prevailed in Northern Asia, Europe and the US in Feb-April, and that is returning to Western Europe now. As we now know, given the serious outbreaks that have happened in warmer regions, warm weather is not a strong enough factor to halt this virus altogether, but it does seem to have an influence, and it's striking to note the progression of this virus in Melbourne, relative to the weather.
AMA!