Coronavirus Australia: Daniel Andrews plays numbers game with cases and votes as he backs zero

Daniel Andrews talks to reporters. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

Dan Andrews is sharpening his anti-Sydney rhetoric to focus more attention on the Coalition’s handling of the pandemic in 2021.

In a week, it is quite likely there will be a starkly different narrative in Victoria compared with NSW.

Victoria zero, or close to it, and NSW bubbling along with scores of new cases each day.

Labor will draw on the contradiction to embarrass the ­Coalition at a state level, and ­federally.

Call it learning from experience, or overt political caution, the Victorian Premier is adamant he is on the right track by adding another week to the lockdown.

At the core of this strategy is a desire to get new case numbers to zero or as close as possible. Andrews got it wrong in mid-2020; he wants to get it right now.

Tuesday’s decision will probably mean a series of short(ish) Victorian lockdowns until national vaccination rates are sufficiently high.

So it is no great surprise ­Andrews has added days to the lockdown, even if the numbers are very modest when compared with the global experience.

A woman crosses an empty Collins St in Melbourne's CBD. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie.

The decision to tighten traffic between NSW red zones and Victoria for another fortnight is yet another blunt instrument that has both health and political implications.

Andrews was pointed in his comparisons between Melbourne and Sydney, arguing Victoria needed to avoid the 2021 Sydney troubles.

“And we are determined to do that,” he said.

His greatest challenge will be in testing the patience of a very tired constituency.

There already are signs that Melburnians in particular are ­suffering lockdown and isolation fatigue, having had to carry a huge load of responsibility by ­adhering to the at times dracon­ian conditions.

Another seven days of lockdown will also gut large numbers of businesses, while some lockdown conditions border on the absurd.

Yes, there are infections outside Melbourne but the numbers are so low as to be effectively ­irrelevant.

That the government cannot ease conditions for communities hundreds of kilometres from risk seems particularly lazy, notwithstanding the Mildura experience, and the potential for spread.

Even in the darkest days of 2020, there was no serious threat of the virus spreading through country areas.

But this is a numbers game.

In cases and votes.

The general rule is the further you drive from Melbourne, the less people are inclined to vote Labor.

It’s a simple equation.