Apparently, you're not allowed to go beyond 5km radius of your house. Can someone in Australia confirm the details of the lockdown?
Virus is here to stay for many years, if not decades. We're never going to eliminate it. It is time we push back on draconian measures in the name of covid.
Unrelated but I can't even go to bathroom in SF city because every restaurant, convenience store, gas station, etc. have an excuse to say that because of COVID restrictions, restrooms are closed. I was fine with Gov-mandated measures last year when we didn't have vaccines. But, I am turning against my own self from last year.
The 5km thing is real while the lockdown is in effect. Keep in mind it’s different to America, you get paid decent money from the state to stay at home.
Whether or not the ~20 000 lives saved from these lockdowns comes down to opinion in the end.
Please don't strawman me, I didn't say I agree with the surveillance bill (I do not) and I don't live in Australia - my family does though.
It's a different country with a different set of tradeoffs, and is also a more free country than the United States across many important areas, which is why it rates higher in the Cato freedom index than the USA.
It comes down to perspective, to take a separate topic to prove my point - You may think their limitation to only own bolt actions and shotguns makes them less free. I may think they are more free, since they live without the fear of death in a mass shooting.
> they live without the fear of death in a mass shooting
I live in the US without the fear of death in a mass shooting because I understand statistics.
There was a school shooting in my area a while back. There was a huge hue and cry to put uniformed police in all the schools. I (annoying person that I am) pointed out that statistically the children were much more likely to die in a traffic accident on the way to school. This did not go over well.
People regularly drown in Lake Washington, too. It doesn't even make the news. Nobody cares.
> I (annoying person that I am) pointed out that statistically the children were much more likely to die in a traffic accident on the way to school. This did not go over well.
Wait until you try to bring up stats on legal vs illegal firearm crimes...
> I live in the US without the fear of death in a mass shooting because I understand statistics.
Obviously you are making the assumption I do not understand statistics, which I do. There are multiple preventable causes of death that can simultaneously be tragedies, and whataboutism does not negate from the extremely high death toll and comparative probability from gun violence in the United States.
The comparison to cars is facetious because cars have the necessary utility of moving people about around the world and are highly regulated, whereas assault rifles have by comparison miniscule utility and regulation.
The nearly 40 thousand victims (4 per 100k) of gun violence and suicide-by-firearm each year in the USA may be meaningless to you, but they are not statistically non-existent any more than their lives were statistically non-existent.
1. these are not mass shootings. You've shifted your stance from mass shootings to all gun deaths.
2. half are suicides by gun. You do not need to fear them.
3. most of the rest are concentrated in a handful of areas, like some neighborhoods in Chicago. It is indeed prudent to avoid them
4. again, you started out talking about fear of mass shootings. This is what I was addressing. Nowhere have I claimed that gun deaths are not tragedies.
I'm glad you're opposed to the bill, but what you describe sounds to me like a mindset of "I'm free because the government (via restrictions on people) helps me feel safe". To me, that's not freedom, but dependency.
> Keep in mind it’s different to America, you get paid decent money from the state to stay at home.
I wish this meme would die. People in the US got paid decent money too.
The federal gov spent $3 trillion more on transfer payments in Q1 2021 than it did in Q4 2019. This is more than a doubling. That's nearly $17,000 for every human in the US.
> I was fine with Gov-mandated measures last year when we didn't have vaccines. But, I am turning against my own self from last year.
Several zip codes in the Bay are at what... 98% vaccination rate? I still don't get how the "much better" governments of Australia and New Zealands, held as examples through the pandemic, couldn't match the vaccine rollout of... the Trump Administration.
It's pretty simple. There have been far fewer cases and deaths than in the US. As for the vaccine rollout, it is largely a function of the early success in controlling infections.
The initial vaccine doses destined for Australia were diverted to more urgent areas (which was the right thing to do). Then as domestic product of AZ ramped up, a scare campaign ramped up (media love to make people worried) and the body for recommending vaccines gave advice for under 50s to not take AZ (whilst there was no actual alternative). Because covid lockdowns were effective, and Australians were seeing such low rates, there was complacency amongst the population and they were willing to wait for their vaccine of choice. Now delta is looking like it is making lockdowns less effective, and there is ample supply of Pfizer, people are scrambling to get vaccinated.
I wouldn't give all the credit to the government for the low infection rate last year. I think it was mostly fear and reaction of people. e.g. by the time government started ordering restrictions, most companies had already switched to fully remote. Toilet papers were already gone from the supermarket shelves. People were already bunkering down. Then in a few weeks the infection peaked, and 2 months later students were back in school.
Since that initial success, the state governments improved their contact tracing process, which was successful to eliminate outbreaks every now and then, while things were mainly normal for most the year (except overseas travel).
Unfortunately, in late June this year, the Delta variant arrived to Sydney, and it proved impossible to control. The world-class contact-tracing process failed to stop the infection rate. So we are still in lock-down, with cases still increasing over a 1000 per day in the state (NSW).
However, other states in Australia are still enjoying full freedom. Probably, because they do snap lock-downs (3 to 7 days) whenever a case appears in the community.
Vaccination, the federal government put most of their eggs in one basket. It planned to produce and use the AZ vaccine, but the AZ blood clot issues, derailed their plans. So they stopped or limited AZ, and went begging for Pfizer doses. They are struggling to get enough of this, so they can acchieve 80% rate, to start re-openning the states currently in lock-down.
There might be plenty of vaccines in US and Europe, but unfortunately the rest of world can't get enough of it.
I can understand the initial delay in vaccination in AU & NZ, because given the scarcity of vaccines, and the high death rates in other countries, it would preferable the vaccines were given to those countries first.
Virus is here to stay for many years, if not decades. We're never going to eliminate it. It is time we push back on draconian measures in the name of covid.
Unrelated but I can't even go to bathroom in SF city because every restaurant, convenience store, gas station, etc. have an excuse to say that because of COVID restrictions, restrooms are closed. I was fine with Gov-mandated measures last year when we didn't have vaccines. But, I am turning against my own self from last year.