Coronavirus: Which suburbs are at risk
COVID-19 has made a beeline for the well-to-do suburbs of our largest cities, but where to from here? Demographic analysis reveals which suburbs may be next.
The coronavirus is a cowardly enemy. It picks on the frail and the aged. It insidiously hitches a lift on the asymptomatic to latch on to unsuspecting targets. It has taken our jobs, threatened our livelihoods and clawed at our social cohesion. Its mere threat has turned many Australians into desperate hoarders. We must fight back. We must protect the vulnerable. We must work out who’s most at risk and allocate resources appropriately. We need to identify battlefields where we can confront and hopefully beat COVID-19.
Mapping released by some state governments on Thursday shows the virus has made an early beeline for the well-to-do suburbs of our largest cities — presumably brought in by global travellers — but where to from here? This virus will not be contained by our capital cities, it will spread to our most vulnerable communities which, based on demographic indicators, includes the tightly packed inner suburbs and then it will surely spread to the regions, to the wheatbelt, to the outback where its targets are progressively older, more remote, more defenceless and with poorer access to scant healthcare facilities. We must do the impossible and contain the outward spread of the contagion.
Here’s how an analysis of demographic indicators can help win the war against the virus. Let’s start with some questions.
Where are Australia’s largest concentrations of the aged? What local workforces are most skewed towards food and accommodation, the so-called hospitality sector? Where are the most densely populated parts of Australia, the places where social distancing is paramount? And let’s take a look at a gift from the 2016 census: where are the families comprising vulnerable grandparents caring for dependent young children?
There are 25.6 million Australians, including 4 per cent — or just more than one million — aged 80 and older. The fascinating thing about Australian demography is the way we bunch as a nation. Young adults huddle in the inner city near universities. Babies bunch up in the nappy valleys of our biggest cities. The middle-aged, the married, the mortgage-holders and the commuters hunker down in middle suburbia.
The aged favour the retirement coast. They also bunch as the older town-dwellers left behind by young ones in search of further education and work. But regardless of where they live, the aged cannot live alone. They need a critical mass of healthcare and other support workers (and taxpayers) in their community to deliver services. In the Victorian beachside municipality of Queenscliffe (pop 2900), the 80-plus population is almost three times the national average (11.8 per cent). If COVID-19 disproportionately affects the aged, then places such as Queenscliffe must be protected.
The same logic applies to other retirement communities, such as Victor Harbor (pop 15,000), south of Adelaide, where 10.5 per cent of the population is 80 and older. But both Queenscliffe and Victor Harbor have the advantage of proximity to big-city healthcare services in Geelong and Adelaide.
In Australia’s vast interior heartland, it’s a different story. The 80-plus population is double the national average in several of the remote Wimmera shires of Yarriambiack (including towns such as Warracknabeal, 8.1 per cent), Hindmarsh (the town of Nhill, 8.9 per cent) and Buloke (where Wycheproof is, 8.6 per cent).
In the West Australian edge-of-the-outback municipality of Wyalkatchem (pop 400), 10.8 per cent of the population is 80 and older. How will we care for the remote aged victims of COVID-19?
Then there’s the issue of social distancing. Australia’s low-density suburban sprawl builds in a distancing factor that isn’t available to the densely packed residents of Chinese and Italian cities. But there are some parts of Australia that are densely populated and where social distancing is critical.
Australia has just over three people per square kilometre but in the city of Sydney this figure rises to almost 9000. Seven of the 10 most densely populated municipalities in Australia coalesce to form the heart and soul of central Sydney. These include Waverley (Bondi, 7926), North Sydney (7073), the inner west (Ashfield, 5598, and Burwood, 5596), Woollahra (Double Bay, 4803) and Canada Bay (Drummoyne, 4776).
These seven municipalities stretching 20km between Concord and Bondi Beach, north to North Sydney and south to the airport, positioned in the centre of Australia’s most globally connected city, and including this nation’s biggest collection of CBD jobs (321,000 at the last census), is as close as Australia gets to the densities of Asian and European cities. The configuration of Sydney, straddling a harbour, supports high-density living and so prompts the need for social distancing.
Broad, flat Melbourne is far more suburban. The densest parts comprise the city’s 19th-century “walking city” dominated by terrace housing and including the cities of Melbourne (Docklands and Southbank), Port Phillip (St Kilda) and Yarra (Richmond). The need for social distancing applies to every person in every part of the continent, but it is our biggest challenge in the densely packed centres of Sydney and Melbourne. That is where civic compliance is most critical.
And then we come to the workforce effects of COVID-19, which has demolished the hospitality industry by closing down cafes, bars and restaurants, as well as the associated tourism, accommodation, arts and events industries.
At the end of last month, the Australian workforce comprised 13.1 million full-time and part-time workers, including 7.2 per cent, or 935,000, employed directly in food and accommodation. Hospitality’s share of the workforce last month was up from 6.4 per cent at the time of the 2016 census. This month’s figures will show the extent of the economic carnage. The food and accommodation industry includes our flat-chat supermarket workers as well as a far bigger number of workers in cafes, bars and restaurants. At the last census there were 94,000 waiters and waitresses in Australia.
The workforce in tourist towns is especially skewed towards hospitality, the demand for which has evaporated in a single terrifying month. In Douglas Shire (which includes Port Douglas), the sector accounts for 23 per cent of the workforce, or more three times the national average. Arguably, Douglas Shire is ground zero as the municipality most exposed to the economic impact of the national lockdown. Other tourist towns (or municipalities) affected include Shark Bay in Western Australia (18 per cent of workers in food and accommodation), Glamorgan Spring Bay (includes Freycinet Peninsula) in Tasmania (18 per cent), Robe in South Australia (16 per cent), Whitsunday (15 per cent) and Dundas (including Esperance and Norseman) next to the WA Goldfields (14 per cent).
Interestingly, the proportion of the resident workforce working in hospitality is almost double the national average in Melbourne and Perth (both 12 per cent) and Sydney and Adelaide (both 11 per cent). Inner-city communities are doubly exposed to the effects of COVID-19: high population densities and a significant exposure to job losses. There is a range of demographic indicators that can be drawn on to better understand the communities considered most vulnerable, such as the scale of the largely indigenous families comprising grandparents and dependent children in a household.
And so, to put all of this together, which communities rank above average across the cited demographic indicators? The results show that it is our aged, lifestyle-focused sea-change and tree-change communities that are most at risk from infection (because of age) and from economic impact (because of the role of hospitality).
This includes places such as Victor Harbor, Port Macquarie and Wingecarribee, and even remote communities such as Broken Hill. Bigger numbers will be affected in the cities, but proportionately the demographic analysis suggests that it is regional (and remote) Australia that could well be most significantly affected.
The number of Australians afflicted by the virus continues to rise; we are awaiting “the flattening” to deliver unto us a better life beyond the pandemic. Tackling COVID-19 requires accurate targeting to deliver precious resources to our most vulnerable communities. In one sense, we are all vulnerable. But in another, it is evident the virus arrived via airports and ports, and it is on the move. The next phase involves the dissemination of the virus throughout the nation. It must be stopped by civic compliance, by testing and tracking, and the sheer determination of a galvanised nation placed on a war footing.
We must protect the elderly, especially in remote communities. We must assist tourist towns that have been devastated by the virus before infection has even arrived.
We must protect the vulnerable: the elderly, the remote, the indigenous, the intergenerational carers of the young. We must marshal our resources and call on every citizen and every business to do their bit, to do their duty, and to work together to secure a collective victory over this deadly foe.
Bernard Salt is managing director of The Demographics Group. Research by Hari Hara Priya Kannan.
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