Caleb Bond: Silly coronavirus restrictions, like not being able to stand in the pub, need to go now
Despite SA’s coronavirus “cluster” passing, we’re still not allowed to stand at the pub or have more than 10 people at home. These restrictions are needlessly hurting businesses and families, writes Caleb Bond.
Opinion
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Well, for all the panic, our COVID-19 concerns came to very little.
That’s a good thing, obviously.
But, for some inexplicable reason, you still can’t stand in the pub or have 11 people at your house – even if they’re outdoors. These silly restrictions were never going to save us from a second wave.
As I said last week, the only things that will do that are strong contact tracing and a hard-line approach to Victorians who don’t know how to follow the rules.
But we persist with making the lives of people and businesses harder when we know it is achieving nothing.
The State Government is wilfully harming businesses and families, which – at such a difficult time economically and emotionally – is beyond counter-productive.
We are now in the bizarre situation where people at SANFL grounds over the weekend had to sit on the grass to drink their beer, lest they stand and magically spread the coronavirus. Which is near non-existent in South Australia.
And, if your family has more than 10 people, don’t you dare have them over for dinner. Don’t even think of sitting out the back in the open air with them, where the virus has a much harder time surviving.
But do feel free to all sit at the same table at the pub. Or meet for a picnic in the local park. Because it’s okay to meet in big groups, as long as you don’t do it on your own property.
COVID likes to target people’s homes, you know?
Then you can only have 10,000 people at the footy. While the Adelaide Crows are doing a pretty good job of repelling people on their own at the moment, I cannot for the life of me work out what this achieves.
If you have all the appropriate social-distancing measures in place – and staff strictly enforce them, which I’m told they are red hot on – then what’s the difference between 10,000 and 20,000 people?
It’s not so much the number of people in the ground that’s the issue – it’s whether they can be distanced enough that they can’t spread any illness they might have.
There’s still 10,000 people there. It’s hardly a small number.
People have been going to football matches around most of the country for more than a month. And there has not been a single known case of transmission associated with one of those sporting matches.
One man last week went to a soccer match in Newcastle while infected – but that has not yet led to any other cases. And nor should it, if a social-distancing plan was in place.
They are strange restrictions to apply. It’s as though Premier Steven Marshall instituted the first couple of things he could think of, simply to make a point.
But now we know our “cluster” is tiny, that one of the cases was a false positive and there has been no community transmission since. There is no reason to maintain these draconian restrictions.
Pubs, restaurants and bars are being punished – having their income taken away – thanks to a silly, useless rule. God knows its already hard enough as it is.
You need only put your drink down on the table to stand, so what’s the real point?
Restrictions should not be a first line of defence – and every time you use them, you make them less effective. We ought never end up in a situation like Victoria because our contact tracing is much stronger. But if you get to the point of no return, restrictions and lockdown are your only option.
If you’ve brought in restrictions over every flare up of one or two cases, people will not take notice when the proverbial hits the fan.
One could argue Victoria’s failure to achieve any great change before they went into stage four lockdown is proof of that. You have to give people some level of responsibility and ownership. If you unfairly take away their liberties, they will revolt. That’s the last thing we need.
You only get one change to do it right. We can’t go through this every time there’s a small number of cases.
Lift the restrictions now and stop needlessly punishing people and business.