James Campbell: Dan finally admits to road map disaster we all saw coming
It has taken almost five weeks but the Daniel Andrews has finally crab-walked away from the hard targets we were meant to have achieved before we reached our next stage of freedom. Yet the message seems to be that there is not going to be much change to the way business is being done, or not being done, in Victoria, writes James Campbell.
James Campbell
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More than a month ago, the Chairman of CSL, the Melbourne company charged with producing a coronavirus vaccine, warned it was only a matter of time before Daniel Andrews was forced to junk his road map out of lockdown.
“I’m concerned the targets being established will mean that our misery will be a permanent state," Brian McNamee said.
“So we’re only in some ways debating “when” the Premier has to back down, and not “if”.”
It has taken almost five weeks but the Premier has finally crab-walked away from the hard targets we were meant to have achieved before we reached our next stage of freedom.
Remember back in July when Melbourne went into Stage Three lockdown how shocked we all were that it was scheduled to last six weeks!
At the time the Premier explained he “could have gone for a shorter period” but since the cycle of the virus is about the 14-day period, “six weeks means we have three of those full cycles”.
How’s that cautious approach worked out for you?
Thirteen weeks later life has returned to normal in the rest of Australia but we remain basically locked in our homes.
At the time the road map was announced epidemiologists warned it was highly unlikely we would be able to hit its targets.
The only rational reason why the targets were so stringent was that, despite what he might have said in public, Andrews still had no faith in the state’s ability to track and trace ‘mystery’ cases.
Now we are to be made to tune in on Sunday for the big reveal of road map II. From what we can make out this will include some social easing and hopefully the removal of the hated 5km rule.
But the message seems to be that there is not going to be much change to the way business is being done, or not being done, in Victoria.
It is tempting to make the observation reading the latest Roy Morgan polling that it’s debatable which is falling faster — the coronavirus case numbers or the Premier’s popularity.
A month ago 70 per cent of Victorians thought he was doing a good job. Today it is 59 per cent.
Very good numbers to be sure, but in politics the trend is the thing that matters and at the moment the trend is not Daniel Andrews’s friend.
The survey also shows a steady drop in the public’s support for individual lockdown measures.
Back in August three-quarters of people did not want table service to be allowed – even with proper social distancing. Today 62 per cent of us do.
The same is true of the 5km rule which since August has flipped from roughly 70 per cent in favour to roughly 70 against.
The change in sentiment can in part be put down to the fall in case numbers.
Victorians now judge it safe to open up because we have succeeded in driving down the infection numbers.
Part of it is also, no doubt, due to simple weariness.
Yet more can probably be attributed to the increasing fear that the elimination strategy we have been pursuing – in fact, if not in name – is clearly not going to work and we need to learn to live with this virus as safely as we can.
That seems to be the newly minted position of the World Health Organisation which has decided that upon mature reflection blanket lockdowns are a very bad idea indeed.
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