It’s a bitter pill, but let’s have a tighter lockdown

Illustration: Johannes Leak

So, Victoria now has 760 so-called mystery cases of COVID-19, meaning: we don’t know how these people got infected.

In Dan Andrews’ words, “they are cases where we can’t trace back the source”.

He went on, saying: “This is why we need to move to a different set of rules.”

At first glance, that doesn’t really make sense, does it?

On one hand, we don’t know how and why people are still getting infected, but we’ll be bringing in the Covid-bubble, to help us deal with it?

Meaning, you won’t be going to work.

Your kids won’t be going to school.

Melbourne’s Hamer Hall is deserted after 8pm yesterday. Picture: Josie Hayden

Weddings will be cancelled, to prevent more funerals.

Pretty much everyone will be tethered to their home by a leash, albeit one that is five-kilometres long.

Death Squad Daily commentators across the nation are, of course, complaining that all this is just too much for the 200 lives we’ve lost.

Far be it for me to explain things to any economists out there, but lives lost don’t equal lives saved.

We don’t know how many lives have thus far been saved. Could be in the thousands. Could be in the tens of thousands.

So, will the tougher restrictions in Melbourne work? We don’t know. But there is anecdotal evidence that this approach worked in New Zealand.

It has a population very similar to Melbourne: around five million people. The weather is similar, too.

A tight lockdown pretty much eradicated the virus in New Zealand.

In terms who gets hardest hit, well, if you’re a Victorian parent, you’re weeping today.

You’ve got six more weeks of homeschooling while you’re trying to work from home, which is all well and good for, say, the Andrews family – people who live in nice homes, in good areas, with plenty of living space, lots of devices, and healthy home internet – but that’s not everyone.

In some homes, it’s three or four kids battling over one ageing desktop, and a weak data plan.

The young are also being punished for continuing to go out eating and drinking during the stage three lockdown (did they spread the virus, in having their beers? There seems to be no real evidence for that).

Retail and hospitality will also get smashed under stage four.

It’s a bitter pill for those who were doing the right thing, except that plenty weren’t.

One example: 130 of 500 people with coronavirus visited by the Australian Defence Force and health authorities on Thursday were not at home.

Not home!

People can’t be trusted.

That’s why New Zealand bought in the total nationwide lockdown on 25 March.

It hadn’t yet had a death, but it was taking no chances.

Before long, they’d gone 24 days without a single case, and even when they suddenly got two, both were quarantine breaches

As of Sunday, New Zealand had 25 active cases; there have been just 22 deaths. That’s fewer than Melbourne had over one brutal weekend.

So, it worked for them, and the hope is, it will work for us, too. As with New Zealand, Melburnians were given two days to prepare, and guess what was again trending?

Dan Murphy Opening Hours.