New Victoria restrictions

"No state is going to open up again to Victoria with the number of cases we've had (and are having). people are not going to want to go there and lots of people will leave."

Yep. I've already missed one funeral in Tassie. So have friends. It'd be nice to see my family sometime in the next 2 years. I feel immensely sorry for small businesses, hospo especially, but I don't see much choice but to stay locked down atm.

Observing social distancing and competent case tracking should be enough from this point. These lockdowns are hardcore. Can’t say I’d voluntarily comply to be told I had to stay indoors 23 hours per day and obey a curfew. A freaking curfew !

The lockdowns are a blunt object beating citizens over the head to make up for a serious shortfall in government competency.

"Observing social distancing and competent case tracking should be enough from this point."

That won't be enough for the cases to drop substantially though. They'll probably go back up, and without W.A-like numbers, Victorians are pariahs. We could live in our own infected bubble, or hope to cross a few borders eventually.

"The University of Melbourne’s modelling suggests that if the state government was to ease restrictions once the 14-day average reached 25, there would be a 64 per cent chance of the infection rate increasing to the extent that restrictions would have to be re-imposed by Christmas."
Source https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/how-to-interpret-the-modelli...
Call me crazy, but maybe we should listen to medical experts rather than a religious nutter who is a lawn mowing franchisor.

Modelling which predicts the Covid outbreak.....LOLOLOLOL

Um, where's THE App figure in all this?

Remember that?

What'd it cost again?

And when did you move to Victoria, sweetie?

Um, where's THE App figure in all this? Didn't work.

What'd it cost again? About $4 mil went to a Liberal Party mate to build the dud, and then the government spent $70 mil advertising the thing knowing full well it didn't work.

What a complete shit show. These fuckers would rather piss away tens of millions of tax payer dollars rather than admit they fucked up and fix the problems.

Stok - really good point about the borders. Victoria are quite likely to be cut off from the rest of Australia for quite some time if the numbers don't get down below 5-10 a day. It'd be political suicide for another premier to open up to Vics, only to see cases then rise in their state.
That said, there's gotta be a way through that (and 2 week quarantine isn't a realistic LONG term strategy for travel within Australia). Show a covid negative case from the last 24 hours when you turn up at the airport or border perhaps? I dunno, but there'll need to be some sort of strategy to allow movement around the country again at some stage. Tassie/SA/WA etc, they can't isolate themselves for ever, they'd cop it financially big time.

The Covid App thread here on Swellnet is classic.

Cromwell ( Blowfly ) : “No Andy I am saying the evidence is clear that this app will (a) reduce the number of deaths (b) speed the recovery (c) will perform exactly as advertised. Rational fears have been comprehensively addressed by the report. The claims about its effects come from the epidemiologists best qualified to assess them. If you want to remain sceptical you need to explain why you do not accept the available evidence.“

Turns out that evidence wasn’t quite as watertight as some would believe. Despite the calls by many that faith in the government was misplaced, we were reassured that the government had too much to lose by trying on a half arsed piss take of an app and that the integrity and abilities of experts should never be called into question.

It’s not political suicide if numbers of infections raise / lower as long as the hospitals don’t become overwhelmed.

That was the entire premise of the Hammer and Dance approach which everyone thought was reasonable and achievable. Elimination is a pipe dream . WA might have achieved it but as soon as borders reopen its over , just like NZ.

The lockdowns are a political pisstake designed purely to save the career of a premier and not based on anything realistic at all. Everyone gets to stare at their walls for two months as businesses fail because when Dan says that he’s accountable, what he really means is that the people of Melbourne will suffer his mistakes while he keeps his job .

Yep agree 100% with you on elimination. That is only possible long term if you cut yourself off from the world for good. Good luck with that strategy if that's how you wanna play it.
Not even a vaccine will give us elimination. Like any virus/illness whatever in the world, some people will die. I might die if I catch it, maybe not. I might also die if I catch the flu next year and get a complication out of it. That happens also, but we get on with living.

The biggest issue Victoria has is contact tracing the higher the numbers the harder it becomes and many cases cant be traced back to a source or it takes time to do so in which time people are often causing new infections.

Its a complete no brainer to use technology like an app to help record contacts instead.

If every person downloaded the app it would work, especially if it was set to record every contact not set to record contacts after 15 minutes or something silly as only takes a second to be infected not 15 minutes.

Any glitches can be fixed with updates like any other app, or if issues with iphones or whatever new apps designed for iphones.

But what's the point? When people dont download it in the numbers needed?

So instead contact tracing is done like it would have been done a hundred years ago, completely crazy, its like sitting down trying to work out crazy maths equations that take forever instead of using a computer and getting an answer in a much shorter time period.

Haters are always going to hate though.

Yeah. Cos the 1000's of qanon etc dipshits are really gonna download and use the app. Or anyone who is rightly sceptical of how the information gets used for that matter.

Dx3 - absolutely. I think a middle ground needs to be found. Unfortunately though you see how the other states treat Covid - headline news if there's one positive test result for the day. Agreed political suicide as the public in WA/SA/NT/TAS generally support string border closure.

I generally see these lockdowns in Vicco as sending all people in the state into a battle. They said it before - the public is the first line of defense. We're all making sacrifices in terms of freedom, financial security, well-being and livelihoods to fight this. If we don't hit the numbers we require come out of lockdown by the due dates it's going to get uglier. More protests, more political cheap shots and generally less hope.

I don't have these numbers, but since mid-June, what have the death numbers been in rest of Australia (VIC excluded)?
To your point Stok - all the headlines scream about is case numbers and it's the case numbers that people stew over every day. I seem to recall hearing of maybe 2 or 3 deaths in NSW since they got on top of it and then it came back a little in that state from late June to now.
How about more amplification of recovery numbers, which in VIC now with active cases coming right down means recovery is strong. Especially if for the very large majority this virus is just a mild impact on their health for a short period of time.

Once we get back on top of this, the emotionally scared & scarred community are gonna need some positivity back in their lives as we start a road to recovery. I know positive news doesn't sell, but fuck we need some.

"Yeah. Cos the 1000's of qanon etc dipshits are really gonna download and use the app. Or anyone who is rightly sceptical of how the information gets used for that matter."

If it was just conspiracy theory types, then it wouldn't be that much of an issue most people would have downloaded it and it would be a success as even if it had bugs it would be worth updating and ironing out bugs, but lots of fairly normal people didn't download the app through misguided paranoia.

To me it seemed well explained on what it did and how it worked, but i still saw lots of misinformation, even your post shows you don't understand the app.

All it did was record other app users it came in contact with and the information given to sign up with the government already has on you and much much more..

It didnt even record your position like a GPS does (would have been even more useful if it did, but people would be way to paranoid to download if it did)

Crazy thing is you even saw people on social media with the same paranoia, when in reality you give ten times more info out when you use social media and it's info that's useful to make money from you or others.

The funny thing is people gloat because it wasn't a success (like Sheepdog in the other thread) reality is we are all losers from its lack of success, especially if you live in Vic like me.

If everyone had downloaded the app or majority of population and it was then worth updating and ironing out any bugs the contact tracing would be ten times better than it is which would mean numbers of cases reduced quicker, and things like lockdowns lifted faster and economy would be much better for it.

anecdotal data points from WA friends and rellos, as people can't travel overseas all the coastal holiday towns are completely booked out for the next holidays, going to be very busy with Intra-state travelers. Iron ore is still flowing, and well priced houses are getting bid. Blowin, these are and example of closed borders and an economy starting to fire, hey, it's possible, who would have thought?

Same will happen for Vic, many people who can't do the Bali holiday will holiday where they can and coastal towns will go absolutely mental over Xmas. If Vic gets a clear diagnoses from the good Dr Otherstates, then that holiday desire might surge further afield...

"To me it seemed well explained on what it did and how it worked, but i still saw lots of misinformation, even your post shows you don't understand the app."

It wasn't well explained and I do know how it's supposed to work. It hasn't been adopted by the public for a few reasons. One big one is obviously because it doesn't work. Similar models haven't worked o/s either.

How on earth did the worse world wide pandemic and resultant economic collapse in a 100 years become such a hot political issue divided down the usual political lines?

Right and Wrong
Right and Left
Medical Science verses Economics
Heard Immunity verses Lockdowns

Frankly, I'm over it, the puerile crass political squabbling that is.

The reality is Australia's best hope to a return to "normal" is hard virus suppression along with just the few other countries that are taking this thing seriously.

Slowmo wants to talk about opening up the economy and State borders, well jolly good on him, 3 fucking cheers for the Prime Marketer but what is this increasingly annoying turd going to do next year when Covid is still ravaging the world? Will he want our international borders open and will he accept his quarantine responsibilities or squib it again? Aren't we a federation of states and aren't we "all in together" "all Victorians now" ... or was that last week?

I reckon Vicco surfers esp Melbourne surfers should get their own surf day at some a grade spot on an a grade day.

Everyone else get out of the water drink coopers green and heckle and let ‘em have it all to themselves.

"How on earth did the worse world wide pandemic and resultant economic collapse in a 100 years become such a hot political issue divided down the usual political lines?"

Probably cos right-wing leaders have been unconscionably bad at handling it.

Stok maybe take SA of that category or borders are open with QLD, NT, Tas & possibly next week ACT. Our border is open with WA but they wont let us in even tho we dont have any cases.

I reckon that’s a good idea , Freeride.

They’ve got to properly represent Vicco though, so they’ll have to be wearing their sealed 4/3 steamers and booties. Then they can have a bomb Kirra day in February. No skis.

Better yet - make it Snapper through Greenmount and we can park up in the shade with an esky and watch them do waddling run arounds like sweaty Port Fairy penguins .

I think that would bring the tribe together.

Half of Victoria is in this area at the moment. It’s as busy as school holidays when it should be dead. Summer will be out of control.

Think I’ll set up a lemonade stand on the corner.

VJ.....WA is doing well. The premier just went full pro- developer though.

I call it the Corona Boom around here.

Went to the pub last night for a mates sons 18th.
Pub was packed. Restaurant up stairs was packed.

"I reckon that’s a good idea , Freeride.

They’ve got to properly represent Vicco though, so they’ll have to be wearing their sealed 4/3 steamers and booties. Then they can have a bomb Kirra day in February. No skis.

Better yet - make it Snapper through Greenmount and we can park up in the shade with an esky and watch them do waddling run arounds like sweaty Port Fairy penguins."

This is actually very funny, despite my current Victorian status.

I’d love to see it happen.

You poor cnuts deserve it.

Blowin, I would suggest the 3 mil. spring suit would be better attire for the Snapper run. Those pasty lily-white Melbourne winter legs waddling around exposed would set the penguin look right off.

"I reckon Vicco surfers esp Melbourne surfers should get their own surf day at some a grade spot on an a grade day.

Everyone else get out of the water drink coopers green and heckle and let ‘em have it all to themselves."

literally laughed out loud at this (the heckling bit got me), great idea, thanks for the giggle

freeride76 for PM & Premier, of every state. He can take Sutton's job too.

Fuck I’ll do the run around in a 4/3 and get serious yeast infection for an empty day at Lennox or snapper.
Great idea freeride.
Any lefts up there but?

Nah mate , rights only.

The more I think about it the more I think it’s an idea that might be crazy enough to work.

"It wasn't well explained and I do know how it's supposed to work. It hasn't been adopted by the public for a few reasons. One big one is obviously because it doesn't work. Similar models haven't worked o/s either."

It was well explained, people are just paranoid, same deal is going to happen if we get a vaccine, no matter if its safe and been thoroughly tested, people are going to be super paranoid and many not get the vaccination.

The idea of the app is pretty basic and tech pretty basic for a tech type thing, thats the easy part..

The hard part and the big problem is you need the majority of the population to download these apps if they don't they don't work properly, for instance if i have the app but come in contact with 100 people while infected and only 10 have downloaded the app thats only 10 people that can be contacted and 90 people that can't.

Great idea Freeride but I'm thinking the first few sessions out of lockdown will be a kookfest. Locally, there's someone I know who would have been scoring empty waves all lockdown, a most unlikeable prick and pigs will have to fly backwards before he will share with anyone. What do you think GF, locals onto the waves gunna share out of lockdown?

GS, I'm going to put the cue in the rack post lockdown for a while and let the Melbourne guys have a crack. I actually miss a few of the regulars, and their absence has been noted.
Wouldn't it be a kicker if the first swell out of lockdown was 10ft + and none of those blokes had the fitness.

Indo, for "pretty basic tech", the thing was poorly designed and poorly executed - it wasn't fit for purpose and was, in technical terms, pretty fucked.

I think it's fair to say that the government was dishonest when it launched the COVIDSafe app knowing it wasn’t working, which echoes what I said months ago which was essentially why would you have blind faith in this government when they hadn't shown that the thing worked, and in so many other cases had shown that they were completely untrustworthy.

Guy I’d love to know who you’re talking about ha ha. There’s a couple of those around. Not many, just a couple.

As for your last question, Everyone’s happy to share!

What about Stu’s local point?

They’d be happy vacate that for a bus load of unwashed victorians for a day hey? Heard they’re a friendly bunch!

AndyM,
Not only did the app not work, the federal government spent money promoting it, rather than fixing it. The time lost pretending the thing was effective was disastrous. Scumo and Roberts (is there a more incompetent clown in Canberra) simply refused to say the thing was fucked.
I work in tourism and was delivered a QR code for a free tracking app, a Vic government initiative. It's designed for places where the general public visit. Visitors scan their phone on entry and it records the time. Simple and effective.
And here's the kicker. The fucking arsehole who was paid $4 million by the federal government to create the dud app was a Liberal Party mate.

If this thing comes together I’m posing as a Victorian and getting my share. Better start getting my disguise in order.

I should be able to whiten my skin using cream , with a bit of practice I could learn to walk with my knuckles dragging behind me and the single digit IQ is just a matter of the right Valium dosage . Not sure how I’ll be able to replicate that infamous Vicco parochialism though .....I wouldn’t even know where to start if I’ve got to pretend that cold weather , grey skies and freezing waves which refuse to barrel is something to be envied by the rest of Australia.

Any tips from the dyed in the wool Victorians out there ? *

* Jokes . I love Victoria. Nothing better than watching Bells on TV from somewhere tropical.

Vic the whole thing stank from the word go.

As I said ad nauseam, the only company that was singing its praises was totally under the thumb of the government.

I'll have to look up the details.

Look, some people say that I'm not very bright (but I can lift heavy things) but why the fuck did no-one else seem to be suss on this, apart from maybe two other people on this site?

fuck oath FR. Love me some big Len, maybe drift up and get some cookers at Red Rock. All the times I've been there, it mystifies that theres not more heads up that part!?

"GS, I'm going to put the cue in the rack post lockdown for a while and let the Melbourne guys have a crack. I actually miss a few of the regulars, and their absence has been noted."

One hand reached for my heart whilst the other rested softly across my mouth, my eyes started to well with tears of such an incredibly noble gesture.
Then I read who wrote it and started pissing myself laughing, nah, the cunts full of shit.

Fitzroy-21. Love you too brother.

Hahaha, at least you made me genuinely laugh :)

Good call FR.

Probably one thing that hasn’t been articulated very well is that the sacrifice that victorians are currently making is going to serve to benefit all Australians.
If we get on top of it who knows what will be possible by xmas time.

If us Viccos can smash it down next few weeks then as a whole country in Dec-Feb enjoy some freedoms, gonna be bloody interesting to watch what happens in the northern hemisphere as it comes back again, which is quite clearly already commenced.
Key thing to watch will be the death rate, not the case numbers.

Also VL - Roberts vs Colbeck, a race to the bottom when it comes to absolute fucking deadshits that are stealing a pay check off the Aussie workers. Fuck me they are useless. Any other government they’d be gone but Morrison lets them stay, no idea why.