Beer? Victorians are happy with our takeaway coffees

The Premier has shown he is capable of a flexible approach to coronavirus restrictions where necessary.. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Some might argue Victoria is the nation’s surly teenager, defiantly tucking under the COVID doona for a bit longer while the rest of the country rises and shines.

Those who do are missing the method in Dan Andrews’ cautious approach that sees kids still home from school, intrastate tourism verboten and restaurants, pubs and cafes still sitting dormant.

Andrews is using the other states and territories as a giant real time social and medical experiment, with a sample size in the millions.

The Premier’s hypothesis is that for the price of two or three weeks’ additional economic pain, 6.3 million Victorians can wait and watch to see how the other states’ fare, and whether their easing of restrictions turns out to be a policy folly that leads to a financially devastating second wave of infection.

BORDER WARS: Dear Gladys from SA — an impolite letter

BORDER WARS: So you don’t want our travel dollars but will take our GST?

BORDER WARS: Eastern states ride roughshod over WA again

BORDER WARS: Palaszczuk’s border stance takes guts

What actually happens when kids elsewhere cram back onto buses, trains and cheek by jowl into classrooms? Is the chief medical officer actually right when he says that a return to school, if handled appropriately, won’t lead to a fresh outbreak?

And by forbearing to “get on the beers”, as the state’s Premier so eloquently put it, for a bit longer than other states, will Victoria’s pubs, clubs and restaurants avoid being the coronavirus incubators that other states’ establishments might yet prove to be?

It’s not as if Andrews has completely ignored economic concerns, whatever the tourism industry might say. By allowing people to travel where they want within the state, but banning them from staying there and requiring them instead to return home, he is driving up sales of petrol and jelly snakes.

And by keeping Year 3 to 10 kids home from school until June 9, with parents engaging in a couple more weeks of educational support at home, bottle shop sales will continue to boom.

The Premier has shown he is capable of a flexible approach to coronavirus restrictions where necessary. For example he agreed to allow recreational fishermen, that most socially gregarious cohort, to return to their dinghies and piers.

In the meantime, residents of the cautious state will continue to pick up their takeaway coffees and scuttle home to wait for the Premier, who is playing the classic long game, to open up the state. When he’s gathered the evidence.