Victorians want answers after hotel quarantine bungling

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews wipes his hands with sanitiser after announcing the lockdown of Metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire for 6 weeks due to a spike in the cases of the coronavirus. Picture: NewsWire/Ian Currie

A social and economic disaster has descended on Melbourne — one that will endure well beyond the six-week second lockdown from midnight on Wednesday.

After the March-April-May isolation months, hope was emerging — but it has now been smashed, crunched, extinguished.

Even as our coronavirus numbers over the past week were ugly — 72, 77, 66, 108, 74, 127 and 191 — we all hoped Tuesday’s announcement wasn’t going to come.

The taste of pre-COVID normality — of heading back to pubs and restaurants, having friends over, visiting family and preparing for kids’ sport — is now a cruel mirage.

And 2.2 million children were due back in class on Monday. For many parents, the prospect of a return to “remote learning” or “home schooling” is grim. Mercifully, Years 11 and 12 can still attend class. For other age groups, holidays have been extended by a week. Thankfully, regional schools will run as normal.

Political watchers noted that in the past week, the later a press conference by Daniel Andrews and the health bureaucrats is held, the worse the news.

 

So it was when the Victorian Premier emerged from a lengthy crisis meeting of his corona cabinet at 3.15pm to announce a six-week lockdown for all of metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire in the north.

“I am very sorry we find ourselves in this position,” Andrews said, going on to blame individuals for breaching rules. Everyone knows someone who has broken the rules, he quipped, in a clumsy attempt to shift focus from his government’s mistakes.

One question no doubt shouted at televisions in many loungerooms across the country’s ­second-largest city: “What about your bungled hotel quarantine?”

Couldn’t possibly comment about that as there is an inquiry under way. The art of cynical political deflection.

Millions have been bracing for Lockdown Two during the June-July school holidays, which constrained Victorians to holidaying in the state rather than our natural winter habitat of Port Douglas.

The creep of the second lockdown started in the west, with a batch of postcodes sent back into isolation, and was quickly followed by nine housing commission towers and their 3000 residents.

A woman works at Melbourne Airport on Tuesday. Picture: Ian Currie

While expressing sympathies for fellow Victorians, much of the population pressed ahead with plans for a more normal future, ­albeit glancing over the shoulder at the gathering problem.

On Sunday afternoon at the Kevin Bartlett Reserve in Richmond, one of many acts of defiance against the looming lockdown was unfolding. Adhering to social-distancing rules, the Richmond Junior Football Club, part of the Yarra Junior Football League, one of the biggest sporting organisations in the city, held training sessions. Play was set to resume this Sunday. Not now.

Kids ran around, kicked and tackled. Parents watched and asked whether we had a fixture yet; who are we playing, when and where? Among those unanswered questions was a feeling that this might all be a false start.

And it was exactly that.

But junior footy will be back. Among the biggest victims are the small and medium-sized business owners.

Police speak with drivers in Melbourne on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images

Around Melbourne on Tuesday, thousands of them were reeling. The corner pub up from me reopened at the first opportunity: The London Tavern on the corner of Lennox St and Richmond Terrace could take in 80 at a time.

Billy, the publican, was reopening as a show of faith to locals and his staff. For him, it wasn’t about trying to make a profit in these restricted trading times by selling beer and parmas, it was about selling hope. And boy, he’s been selling that by the keg over the past month or so. Now that’s gone for (at least?) six weeks.

This is a hammer blow to pubs, restaurants and cafes.

None of this is to say Victorians don’t understand the necessity for action. The numbers are too high. We’ll knuckle down and light the fire pits in the driveway again.

And at least we can see our footy teams on TV. Watching re-runs of the 2017 and 2019 Tiger premierships was great, but ...

Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast may not be the MCG but in 2020 it’ll have to do.

But this time, isolation will be different. With justification, many Victorians will be looking for someone to blame.

This should be exercising the mind of the Premier.

In Lockdown One, we were willing to put up with a lot. Now, having had a taste of our old life, and with much of the blame for the second wave being laid at bungling around hotel quarantine, Lockdown Two is very different.

Victorians deserve answers as to how this happened. And who will be held accountable.