Melbourne, Australia Australia After more than 100 days under one of the world’s longest and toughest lockdowns, residents of Australia, Australia’s second-largest city, are struggling to make ends meet – but these conditions reflect the global division on the need for lockdowns to fight the Covid-19 epidemic.
Since July, Melbourne residents have been barred from leaving their homes within a three-mile radius for a handful of reasons, including exercise and food purchases. Ices fees and retail outlets were mostly closed. Rest restaurants, rentals and cafes were open to takeovers or delivery orders only. The night curfew was lifted late last month.
Now, with only two of the more than 70,000 daily infections and three straight days of no coronavirus death, health officials in the state of Victoria, including Melbourne, are easing stricter restrictions, while tightening the overall lockdown almost anywhere in the world. Prevails.
As of Monday, Melbourne’s five million residents will be able to travel up to 15 miles from home, and a two-hour time limit will be set for outdoor exercise. By November 1, retail and hospitality outlets, including restaurants, cafes and hair salons, will be able to reopen at restricted capacity. Caption will be given to 10 attendees on wedding occasions, in which the couple’s vows are exchanged; Funeral, at 20.
With so many small-business owners already at a breaking point, Victoria’s State Premier Daniel Andrews said the infection rate would fall faster than expected if measured by the daily rolling average of 14 cases per day if the November 1 target could be pushed forward. But he gave no updates for industries such as construction, manufacturing and meat processing, many of which are operating under capacity limits.
Tough strategies lead to a variety of approaches as the country continues to fight the virus like the 2020 wind in its final week. U.S. And European leaders are struggling with new growth in coronavirus infection. But they are also struggling to balance these concerns with the economic and social turmoil caused by the lockdown.
Many health officials now say broad lockdown is not necessary, or they are likely to be complied with.
In Australia, however, public-health officials have been sticking to an aggressive and almost zero-tolerance approach to community transmission since the onset of the epidemic. Even with the new relief, Mr Andrews has insisted that Melbourne’s emergence from the lockdown will be cautious and gradual.
“These lockdowns have come with pain and loss and damage, but the strategy is working,” Mr Andrews said during a television news briefing on Sunday. Victoria can now make “covid-normal 2021,” he said, “meaning it is going to be a deadly winter in other parts of the world, with lockdowns and controls that are heartbreaking.
Mr Andrews called for a direct comparison with the UK, which had the same number of infections in August Gust as the daily cases in Victoria reached 25-25.
“Today, as two new cases were reported in Victoria, the UK hit 16,171,” he said. “And as we continue to simplify our sanctions, their pressure is increasing.”
Melbourne’s sanctions came into effect this summer after a breach of the hotel’s quarantine protocol, while the rest of Australia was practically virus-free. Authorities initially tried a more targeted range of block-by-block restrictions, but enforced strict lockdown when they failed to stop the spread.
As a result of the outbreak, Victoria now accounts for 816 of Australia’s 904 deaths and about three-quarters of its total cases.
Stricter restrictions have reduced Melbourne’s infection rates, but they have also become a regular part of the world’s most populous city. Business groups and political opponents have criticized the state’s response to be unnecessarily tough, with a disproportionate impact on the economy and social well-being.
Jennifer Vestakot, chief executive of the Business Council of Business Australia, said: “There is no solid reason to keep business restrictions in place, especially since the number of cases is clear in the following ways.” “It’s not as good as just having a haircut or being allowed to go out a little when you have no job, no money and your business has failed.”
With Victoria’s Australia accounting for about a quarter of Australia’s gross domestic product, sanctions have been stretched across the country’s economy, which is in recession for the first time in nearly 30 years.
And the Australian Australian Rules Football grand final, the local equivalent of the Super Bowl, will be played next week outside Melbourne for the first time in its 123-year history.
Prolonged sanctions have led to public frustration and exhaustion, contributing to small and sporadic public protests over the recognition of lockdowns and legal challenges by small-business owners.
As a result of the downdown, the Australian Australian Rules Football Grand Final – the local equivalent of the Super Bowl – will be played outside Melbourne for the first time.
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Health experts and medical organizations have widely endorsed the Victorian government’s epidemic-control measures, but have highlighted the serious mental-health effects of prolonged lockouts and the need to reduce associated employment losses and social breakdowns, especially among the young and disadvantaged. Groups.
Greg Hunt, the health minister of Australia’s richest national government, said there had been a 31% increase in federal data on mental-health needs among Victorians over the past two months compared to a 15% increase nationally. The number of calls to mental-health care services beyond Blue was 90% higher in Victoria in August than in other parts of the country.
The second wave, which led to a lockdown, took a heavy toll on Victorians’ mental health and their economic prospects, said Australian treasurer Josh Friedenberg.
Polling firm Roy Morgan’s October 14 survey showed that Premier’s approval rating remained strong at 59%, down from 11% in the previous five percent.
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Mr Andrews, who heads the left-wing state labor government, has insisted that strict measures be taken to prevent a potentially bad third wave of infections that would put hospitals at risk of overcrowding and even longer shutdowns.
He said the infection-rate targets were based on supercomputer computer season modeling and extensive consultation with public-health experts and had a constant weight against economic and social pain. Many restrictions are likely to remain in place for at least a few weeks.
“This is not an easy decision to make, there is a lot at stake,” Mr Andrews said on Sunday. “And if we do it very quickly, then we’ll be where none of us will ever want to be again – we’ll do this again, where we were.”
Write to Philip van at [email protected]
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