What pisses me off most is our government's continually delayed response. A few weeks ago, our Prime Minister said that we simply couldn't isolate ourselves from the world in an attempt to keep the virus out. So we closed our borders to China only. Then we started importing cases from other countries. So we started closing our borders to Italy and so on. Each time waiting to import more cases before acting. Now we are doing what the PM, just a few weeks ago, said we couldn't do - we are about to close our borders to non residents. Funny how we couldn't do that a few weeks ago when it would have been much more effective but somehow the impossible back then is now possible. If it was done just a few weeks earlier, we could be almost free of this virus as almost all of the cases up to a few weeks ago were imported and isolated.
It might have cost us a few more tens of millions in lost tourism over those few weeks but now it's costing us tens of billions to try to stop job losses and the spread. If they just step it up further and get ahead of the curve, it might not be too late to wipe it out here. South Korea has reduced their rate of infections from a much higher starting point. They currently have around 6,500 active cases and from that number, their new daily cases are only around 100-125. We only have around 700 cases and yet we had 142 new cases today. If most of those are still imported cases (mostly Aussies returning home), then we have some hope still once the borders are closed and all overseas travelers coming home are isolated.
There is still a good chance of getting on top of this with current international travel restrictions but the government should step it further right now until we see the numbers drop. More pain short term would be much better than letting this spread.
