Premier Daniel Andrews is as stubborn as the virus, and both are struggling

The great lockdown is finally throttling the virus.

It has contributed to the near-destruction of the Victorian economy but the health benefits of the shutdown are starting to show.

On a parochial level, Sunday’s figures are terribly comforting for 6.7 million Victorians, suggesting as they do that the pandemic’s second wave is close to ending.

We know this is not a world war, nor are we in the midst of a French-style coronavirus plague, but it has been one of the most difficult periods in modern Victorian history, creating all sorts of economic, social and psychological challenges for a community that was built on freedom and private enterprise.

Most of everything has been stripped from Melburnians in the wake of the hotel quarantine mess, including, for many, the opportunity to work and properly support family.

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton wasn’t at Sunday’s press conference but his Twitter account said it all, screaming: “Home Stretch!’’

Daniel Andrews’s message was simple, with a large 14, bolstered by the words: “We can do this.”

Police question a man after an anti-lockdown protest at a shopping centre in Chadstone, Melbourne. Picture: AFP

It’s an ordinary year when the best on offer is five deaths and 14 new cases fuelled by a global pandemic that has crippled Australia’s second biggest state.

The Premier is quietly confident Sunday’s numbers will be followed by potentially even better numbers over the next couple of days, although any predictions are fraught.

What we are seeing, for sure, is that Victoria is well placed to meet the next target of softer restrictions if there is an average daily case rate of 30 to 50.

With the 14-day rolling average now at 36.2 cases in Melbourne, it seems odds-on that this will be met for the September 28 deadline, although the promised “freedoms” are in reality quite limited.

Melbourne will still be the subject of Orwellian restrictions, with some qualified return-to-school options and roughly 100,000 extra people able to return to work.

The lockdown has been terrible for children, the mentally ill and the private sector, sparking the biggest winding back of democratic rights in modern Australia.

So how much does Andrews deserve credit for the coronavirus turnaround?

The more hard-headed question might be how much should the Victorian government be smashed for allowing the virus to spread?

To deal with the first question, Andrews has unquestionably worked hard to get to this point and a lesser politician might have buckled. He has stopped the virus’s movement by using an astonishingly blunt instrument that would have worked well in parts of Eastern Europe 50 years ago.

It’s hard to see the Victorian public embracing him in seven or eight months when the full effects of the economic hibernation have taken hold. The Andrews government has had an awful six months, exposing bureaucratic ineptitude and political muddle-headedness. It caused the second wave, then had a health department incapable of reining it in.

Sure, large parts of Europe, the US and Asia have suffered second waves but few countries have kicked quite as many home goals.

Only the most rusted-on Labor supporter will eventually thank Andrews for what he has done.

Andrews on Sunday left open the option of bringing forward the easing of some restrictions if the data shows the state is well and truly on top of the virus.

But don’t expect him to be pushed into any early opening up of the economy unless the numbers have fallen his way.

Because he is as stubborn as the virus, his government is battling.