More like, people in the UK more correctly assessed the risk of COVID. While is a dangerous disease, it's not so dangerous that it is worth giving up all of your civil rights to avoid it. In Australia the cure seems to be worse than the disease.
In contrast, in Poland if you are told to quarantine you will get occassional and random visits from the police to see if you are actually at home, and the fine for breaking the quarantine is insane, it's like 30k PLN(about $10k USD).
I came by train from Berlin. The rules were to have a negative test not older than 24hs and to quarantine after arrival. No one ever checked. Go figure.
This happened: Thursday evening, just after I arrived, my host said: let's go to tango (we are social tango dancers).
We drove to a (previously) regular event which is in a park in Warsaw, close to the center, that weekday. It was on as if nothing had ever happened.
I know the tango scene in Warsaw a bit. Everyone was there. All the familiar faces. About 80-100 people. And even some people who live like 100km away. I couldn't believe it.
Dancers I talked to there told me this was going on for months. "Basically there never was a lockdown for social dancers." they said. "At the beginning you had to register for 'classes' but as soon as the doors were closed it was a normal dancing event. No masks, no distancing etc."
Restaurants were not allowed to open at the time. So what happened Friday was straight out of a movie.
We drove to a brand new residential building in a side street. Approaching it the door opened and woman in a black mini dress welcomed us. Immediately checking our names on a list.
Once she had found us two thugs in tailored suits who would befit the extras list of any action summer blockbuster appeared behind her; out of nowhere.
Inside they escorted us to an entrance next to the building's elevators that led through a narrow hallway, past a busy restaurant kitchen into a top notch Italian joint.
No one wore a mask but amazingly only every 2nd table was being used. There was a DJ in the middle and my friend told me: "This turns into a private club from around 10:30pm."
The front side windows had blinds that were tightly shut. From the outside the restaurant must have looked completely shut down.
After dinner, at around 11pm, my friend suggested we go to a (real) club. But we had to wait for at least 30mins, he said.
Because the police were blocking the back door through which we entered -- waiting for their cut. As they did every night at 11pm.
I asked him how he'd know. He said: "I spoke to the owner when this happened before and we couldn't leave."
The owner and the head waitress were pulling together the evening's proceedings on a tablet. Then they stuffed an envelope. My friend told me he had asked the owner and the police would expect to pocket 10% of the evening's earnings.
And they they wanted to see the proceedings on the tablet.
When we exited the building through the side street entrance again, at around 11:30pm, the police car just pulled out in front of us.
The club we went to afterwards was also in an old residential building in the center. Through a narrow old door into a wide, low ceiling hallway leading to the yard. Stuffed with rubble and old bicycles.
In the middle of the side of the hallway a narrow stairway leading down to the basement.
About 300 young guests, seemingly drunk, in a space of maybe 300sqm -- minus bars & toilets. It was so crowded you couldn't drop to the floor if you lost your balance.
I wasn't ok to enter there so went to my friend's house instead but I saw it for maybe 30 secs.
So Poland, yeah. Maybe someone got fined 30k PLN for breaking some COVID rules. Maybe.
The main key point here is that you arrived by train - and indeed, trains are not really checked at all. But if you came by plane, you'd absolutely be entered into the system and you'd have police coming over every other day to see if you're actually there. You were just lucky because of your mode of transport. I've heard similar stories from people crossing the border by car - also no hassle at all.
And to add to that - if you were actually diagnosed with Covid, your name would also be entered into the system and police would be checking if you are at home. I know my entire family were checked every day when they got ill.
I didn't mention Poland as some sort of great foolproof implementation - just that if you are actually "in the system", police checks if you are doing the quarantine or not. In the UK we were very much "in the system" and literally no one cared - we didn't even get a phone call to ask if we're actually at home. Literally nothing. Again, I'm not surprised you escaped the whole thing if you arrived by train.
In hindsight the unlimited money spent on healthcare and a collective willingness to take the corona pill works better than whatever Australia is trying to do.
Which is a bit difficult in a lot of places due to international demand.
>than trying to do a full China style lockdown.
Tbh the seemingly extreme chinese lockdown ended with them having less overall restriction in the long run from what i've seen. it's too late to try that here now but i probably would have preferred it. People are much less impacted by severe limitation on international travel than a severe limitation on social and personal life.
That seems like a massive hyperbole.
In WA, there are no lockdowns or any real coronavirus restrictions once you're in. Looks good to me.
Might want to compare those death rates too.
Police harass citizens for the crime of taking a rest on a park bench while on their 1 hour of allowed outside time per day. I have friends who have been unable to leave the country to see dying parents. I have had friends unable to travel interstate to see their dying parents. My own grandmother died in our lockdown so the last 12 months of her life were spent locked in her own home.
This is not a successful strategy, and anybody reading Australia's low deaths and case numbers need to realise this. We have myopic politicians who are suffering from an obsession with a particular metric, neglecting everything else enabled by a population of unthinking zealots who genuinely believe a single death is a policy failure.
Locking down this severely is neither clever nor demonstrates a particularly high level of consideration. It is the most blunt and basic response to the virus and it's only possible in a country of docile livestock who are content to cede every right if the person they're ceding it to promises it will make them safer from a virus, or in the case of these new national 'security' measures pedophiles or terrorists.
That sounds horrendous but honestly little different to what we went through in the UK at various points in the last year and a half, and the death rates are very low in comparison.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Im somewhat neutral on most of Australia's restrictions: my opinion is that theyre unnecessarily draconian, and that some of them are not in accordance with pretty well-established science (1 hour of outdoor time is ludicrous).
But this is a relatively low-confidence belief, as I don't have a strong rebuttal to those championing the minimal-Covid-until-vaccinated strategy and its relative success. I wouldn't pick the same spot on the freedom/safety spectrum, but I have no basis for claiming those who do are "wrong".
But how on earth do the restriction apologists justify forbidding _leaving the country_? It has, by definition, zero safety justification. Plus, forbidding people yo leave a country is quite reasonably considered a violation of international human rights law. With respect to this specific policy, what on earth are policymakers thinking?
I guess no-one had given up their civil rights in East Germany, or the Soviet Union then either.
In states that have covid under control, that means filling out a form stating you're not sick. Rather sensible requirement during a pandemic
The banning of country exit visas is far far more controversial and doesn't have wide spread support. It seems okay as a sensible precaution at the start of the pandemic in order to ensure quarantine places were available for people who want to return to Australia. The fact that it's gone on so long without any real effort to find a better solution is poor government.
Border controls in Australia, are widely popular. Much like in the US.
The border controls will be removed once the country reaches a steady state of vaccination levels and things are as back to normal as they will get. All other controls have been removed immediately once they were no longer required.
This mass surveillance is far more concerning, and people constantly talking about temporary quarantine controls are muddying the waters of an important topic.
the Nazi treatment of Jews was also widely popular among the Germans at that time.
That's some cold-blooded calculus to say that Australia would have been better off with another 50,000 people dead rather than having some restrictions in place while they wait for vaccination targets to be reached.
Before covid, family visited elderly in nursing homes, knowing full well there is a small chance they could pass the flu on to them and kill them.
I know my grandfather appreciated my visits, even though he knew there was a small risk of contracting something like the flu.
A life where you control for every possible risk is not one worth living.
We accept risk for rights and convenience all the time. E.g. operating vehicles.
Looking at all cause mortality and just eyeballing, it looks like in most cases Covid19 is reducing some lives by a few times while the fact that no one lives forever stubbornly persists.
Australia: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provis...
UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
What happens to a country that stops people working and starts living on the government credit card? It's all great now when everything is paid in debt. What happens to health, education and infrastructure? What happens to peoples wellbeing and prosperity in the future? Australia's health care system was already at breaking point pre covid. Education was already at breaking point pre covid. They bullshit us that the numbers are fine, and being the fools we are we believe them even though it makes no logical sense. How will people work and pay tax when there are no jobs? How many will die you think?
Covid is not the only thing that can kill you. Poverty has killed infinitely more.
In fact, having just a few minutes ago come out of two weeks confined to a hotel room, into a place where there is effectively no coronavirus, I’d say not very essential at all.
The UK Covid response was a joke. And the behaviour of the people, who completely lost trust in our leadership (understandably), acted accordingly.
If the alternative is being harassed by the police it's not voluntary.
Effectively you get to choose -
1. Stay in a quarantine centre for two weeks under guard (which you pay for)
2. Quarantine at home with police visits
3. As above but check in with the app
You want to argue quarantine is unnecessary or wrong? Go for it, make those arguments. But what you’re doing is pissing and moaning about the easiest and least intrusive option. It’s not a good look.
As someone who is coming to the end of two weeks in a quarantine centre (actually a Novotel, and there’s no app or home quarantine for international arrivals), that app option looks mighty good. And as I am about to enter a state with no coronavirus, quarantine is looking like it’s been a great plan.
Is this an official option, or do you have to install the app then turn your phone off, with the potential of this turning to 1 if they don't like you doing that too often?
AFAICT there is no "we're sick of visiting you, off to a quarantine centre" potential at all, effectively you're doing them a favour by using the app, the default would be police visits.
Unless you're found to have breached quarantine the conditions I guess. Not sure what happens then.
I'm amazed people have this much trust in their government officials. I mean they're just people with the same ethical flaws as everyone else, they just have a lot more power.
It's not checking every 15 minutes!
If you fail to check in, they try again a bit later on, if you fail again it falls back to the non app-enabled method of a police check at your home.
The app is voluntary and allows you to be at home rather than in a facility, and to not have random police checks. It's a convenience, not an imposition.
> Many other countries trust their citizens enough that such draconian measures weren't required even at the height of the pandemic.
In some like the UK, that trust was misplaced, and compliance with isolation rules was under 50%.
> I'd be curious how violations to check-in are handled in practice.
By a second request and then a police visit, the same police visit you'd get if you opted not to use the app at all.