Sophie Elsworth: Daniel Andrews, stop treating Victorians like fools
Daniel Andrews and Brett Sutton continue to try to convince Victorians they should be grateful for the progress made against controlling the spread of COVID-19. But they need to stop trying to pull the wool over our eyes, writes Sophie Elsworth.
Opinion
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OPINION: Victorians are being treated like fools.
Tuning into the Premier Daniel Andrews’ daily pressers is enough to make most people’s blood pressure rise and be left without any glimmer of hope of normality soon.
He may have notched up his 100th straight press conference appearance but Dan’s Daily TV is spent avoiding answering the tough questions and instead focuses on lecturing Victorians to “stay the course”.
Dictator Dan and his sidekick, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton, are trying to pull the wool over Victorians’ eyes.
It’s becoming a regular occurrence for the pair to reference the dire situation overseas and this “wildly infectious” virus, then lecture Victorians on how grateful that it’s not like Europe or the US, where there have been far more cases and deaths.
Last weekend Prof Sutton referred to New York’s situation back in March and April when ICU units were “overwhelmed”.
“That’s what Europe is probably facing in this second wave,” he said.
“We need to be thankful of where we are at.”
Really? Thankful.
For what? The gang of eight and the bureaucrats on big fat pay cheques running this show don’t deserve to be thanked.
They’ve wrecked the livelihoods of so many hardworking Victorians and destroyed Melbourne, which was once the world’s most liveable city.
To expect Victorians to be thankful is an insult.
Prof Sutton needs to buy himself a television — he said he doesn’t own one — and realise what is going on in the other states.
Their residents aren’t locked up in their homes and trapped within a 5km radius and their capital cities aren’t cut off from the rest of their state.
On Thursday NSW recorded 12 new COVID-19 cases while Victoria had 11, yet 5.2 million Sydneysiders aren’t confined to the their homes, business shuts and family and friends ripped apart.
But the Premier said on Friday there was one important thing missing from these figures — Sydney’s rolling average of cases.
“They had a 14-day rolling average number of cases at 1.5,” he said.
Melbourne’s sitting just under 10 and the aim is to get below five cases a day for 14 days straight to move to the next stage.
This is near impossible and will continue to hurt more businesses and livelihoods as the weeks roll on.
What would be useful is if the Premier could read out the number of businesses sent to the wall and people out of work because of the absurd decisions to put nightclub bouncers in charge of hotel quarantine.
Stop treating Victorians like fools, many can see through it.