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The city, with a population of five million, emerged from one of the world’s toughest and longest quarantines on Wednesday, shaking up businesses and jailing residents in their homes for more than three months.
Although the number of infections has fallen from its peak in early August (around 700) to just two new cases recorded on Wednesday, the economic and social impact of the second quarantine in Melbourne has been enormous since the crisis began.
According to the Australian government, the state of Victoria lost an average of 1,200 jobs a day, while the demand for mental health services increased more than 30 percent.
Despite key factors in Melbourne’s favor, such as closed borders, low infection rates by international standards and a strong state-backed state government, it took twice as long to flatten the curve.
Political leaders, especially in Europe, face a stark reality. They have already suffered large-scale quarantine damage and are now considering various options to deal with a resurgent pandemic.
Australia was one of those countries that successfully controlled the spread of the virus in society at the beginning of the pandemic. The first quarantine in Australia, which lasted from roughly March to May, reduced the number of infections across the country to just a few per day. But security flaws caused by quarantining foreign travelers returning to hotels, poor provision of critical information to migrant communities, and poor contact tracing allowed the virus to return to Victoria’s second most densely populated state. .
On July 7, Victoria’s Prime Minister Daniel Andrews issued a six-week quarantine ordering Melbourne residents to stay home except for essentials such as work and essential services, medical treatment, school or one hour of outdoor exercise.
In less than four weeks, as cases continued to grow, restrictions spread across the state, Melbourne was introduced as a curfew, schools closed, and a slew of shops, manufacturing plants, hotels and restaurants closed doors.
With the state of Victoria accounting for roughly a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), restrictions have deepened the recession, the first in Australia in nearly thirty years.
The quarantine attracted 100 million. Australian dollars ($ 71 million) in economic activity per day, with an average of 1,200 job losses per day across the state between August and September, Treasury Department official Luke Yeaman told a parliamentary committee this week.
Long recovery
According to business leaders, Melbourne, which was declared the second most livable city in the world last year, could take several years to recover. Renowned Melbourne chef Scott Pickett has warned that ongoing restrictions on production capacity will continue to affect restaurants and cafes and that many of them will be forced to close when government wage subsidies expire early next year.
“Some can hold out until Christmas, January, and then announce that they can’t finish anymore,” said Pickett, owner of Estelle Bistro. “And the time will come when the massive bankruptcies will begin.”
Social costs are also increasing. According to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the demand for health services has increased by 15 percent across the country since the beginning of March and by 31 percent in Victoria between September and October. Alcohol use has increased and there has been a sharp increase in domestic violence.
“It was horrible when you could only be outside for an hour a day,” said Tessa Patrao, a 27-year-old elementary school teacher who finally returned to work after 112 days of “staying home.” The second quarantine was even more severe than the first, especially since most of the country had returned to normal life, he said.
While the governments of the UK, Italy and Germany face protests against the second quarantine, Victorian residents have largely complied. This is partly explained by the popularity of the state Labor government, which won the 2018 elections with a landslide victory, and the high qualifications of the Victorian state prime minister, D. Andrews.
The government’s ‘rhyme and gingerbread’ policy has also helped, with $ 1,500 in benefits paid to people unable to work due to illness, and a court fine of A $ 20,000 for repeated violations of isolation instructions.
Circuit termination
“It would have been impossible to effectively control the situation without public support,” said Terry Slevin, executive director of the Australian Public Health Association. “This is a great example of an agreement between the government and the public, based on expert advice and recommendations, that has paid off in the field of public health.”
According to Catherine Bennett, chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Dickin in Melbourne, it is probably too late for the UK, US and European countries to repeat Melbourne’s success story of fighting the rise in new infections.
Rather, authorities in these countries should opt for chain-break quarantines of two to three weeks to ease the burden on the public health system.
“Breaking the chain could help normalize the situation and make it manageable,” he said.
“But if you take it too early,” otherwise it will be very difficult to bring the number of new cases to zero, Bennett said.
The quarantine may have slowed the spread of the virus for some time, but as outbreaks around the world show, infections can return in force if requirements such as wearing masks, body temperature tests, and active testing are no longer met. contact tracing.
Such elements of “living with the virus” are valid in Korea, Japan and China, which have managed to control the growth of cases in their countries.
“Australians should discuss what the ‘new norm’ is so that we can live with this virus without a mandatory quarantine,” said Jennifer Wertacott, executive director of the Australian Business Council. – If the use of masks and hand sanitizers has become the new norm, is everyone ready for it? The key question now is whether individual Australians are ready to fully adapt their lifestyles to the COVID era. “
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