...fact is that both the NSW and Fed Govt have been disappointingly slow, many steps behind what they ought to be doing much much earlier....their insane incremental reactive approach is just blatant hesitancy ...finally the Fed is dishing out more money that is required but it took great community pressure before they are prepared to do it...just as it took NSW to declare a state of emergency before putting their hands up that they have some contingency stockpile lying around that could now be deployed...and after cases failing to go down, shopping now is limited to 10km, oh with one exception which is unless you cant get that essential item in your locality...right I must get that special herb from a community food store 15km from home because i cant get it in my suburb...and household visits still allowed despite acknowledgment and pleas not to visit relatives ....so at what higher level of cases must Gladys put a stop to this...her incrementalism is trying to be measured not to displease all folks but measured gets NSW nowhere as far as getting traction to reduce community cases...perhaps when the 4 weeks is up and NSW still has over 100 cases or more, she would then pursue the Victorian hard lockdown approach. Perhaps.
And this comment below hits it on the head:
"Inch by inch, dollar by dollar, week by week, the PM has lifted income support back to the level it was under JobKeeper (for some), while refusing to simply bring back the program that proved to be such a wild success. Just once, it would be great to see the PM do something not because he is gradually pressured or shamed into it, or because the polls are bad, or because he wants to address the perception he has played favourites. If only he would do something because it’s the right thing to do."
He has no absolute clue , his clue(s) comes from what he sees at the polls. LOL NSW faces months in lockdown, not weeks
The state is going to take a long, long time to recover from its current crisis. It’s just no one wants to concede that publicly yet. Jennifer HewettColumnist
Jul 28, 2021 – 5.35pm
NSW has crossed the line from commendable optimism to unjustified delusion. The virus doesn’t follow a political timetable. Gladys Berejiklian’s announcement of a four-week extension of the lockdown is little more than desperate hope.
The more depressing reality is a state probably stuck in lockdown and national isolation for something like four months rather than four weeks. It’s just that no one wants to concede that publicly yet.
The NSW economy is in shock and it has taken too long for either government to appreciate the full dimensions of this.
New infections are still heading in the wrong direction – 177 were reported on Wednesday. At best, this number might flatline with a modest fall in the number of infected people out in the community in August.
But with the highly transmissible delta variant well established, the latest restrictions will produce changes more at the margin.
And unless the NSW government changes its target of getting cases in the community “as close to zero as possible”, there can be no finishing line in sight at the end of next month.
That means only mass vaccination can offer an exit from the lockdown for a society still insistent on zero cases in the community.
Despite a concentrated effort, at last, full vaccination of the bulk of the population won’t happen before October, particularly given the widespread reluctance to receive the AstraZeneca jab.
The impact of this in curbing the transmission of the virus to acceptable levels will be further delayed by several weeks. NSW is in shock
The cost of this disaster has been almost beyond comprehension, including to the federal government.
Canberra is dramatically increasing the level of Commonwealth financial assistance to businesses and households in NSW – to about $750 million a week in addition to the state government payments.
Direct payments to individuals who have lost work are now back at original JobKeeper levels of $750 a week, with $200 top-ups for those on other welfare payments.
Cash for businesses has jumped from a maximum of $10,000 a week to $100,000 a week, based on payroll and turnover conditions.
The Morrison government is also increasing the more modest amounts for Victorian businesses to try to limit Daniel Andrews’ complaints.
But it is NSW that is the black hole for either a political or economic recovery as long as the virus continues to circulate in a population with such low vaccination rates.
The percentage of those vaccinated will improve, along with the availability of Pfizer doses. Morrison insists more people are getting the message, helped by the belated shift in medical advice about AstraZeneca to younger age groups. This much-delayed rollout is still painfully slow.
The Prime Minister sounds more confident about the need to “focus forward”.
“I would expect by Christmas we will be seeing a very different Australia to what we’re seeing now,” he says.
“What we are seeing overseas is when countries do reach those much higher vaccination rates, that does give their governments a lot more options in suppression limitations they use to deal with the virus. Lockdowns become a thing of the past.”
Even this will require a hard conversation in a country addicted to the elimination of the virus.
But Christmas is also a long way from the end of July. It’s the next few months that will be make-or-break for the Prime Minister’s promise that NSW will “push through to the other side” and the economy will come “roar back”.
Despite the latest injection of federal and state funds, the NSW economy is in shock and it has taken too long for either government to appreciate the full dimensions of this.
Morrison insists he doesn’t care who gets the credit for the “significant support” to help the economy remain “as whole as possible”. He will definitely care who gets the blame.
He knows the longer the lockdown, the worse community anger and frustration will become. Delays inexcusable
According to the NSW Premier, the tighter restrictions on movement in eight local government areas in Sydney’s south-west and west, along with tougher compliance measures, will get infection numbers down over the next month.
She is still not taking up the offer of the Australian Defence Force or the imposition of Victorian-style curfews every night to assist.
“Our hope is that we achieve what we want to achieve in the next four weeks,” she says. “But that in large part is up to all of us. We can’t afford to have any setbacks, no exceptions.”
Yet there will inevitably be setbacks and exceptions, affordable or not. The Premier can repeat her daily pleas for households to not mix with others but even the great majority “doing the right thing” is nowhere near stopping the spread.
Berejiklian lamented on Wednesday that she had seen images of people not wearing masks in workplaces. Imagine how many images she is not seeing.
The construction industry is returning to work from this weekend under strict limitations.
These include banning most tradies in the eight local government areas at the epicentre of the virus from a return. But there will always be the risk of this “game-changer” variant at work sites and among workforces, no matter how carefully they follow the rules.
It doesn’t help that some urgent practical measures are moving absurdly slowly. It is inexcusable, for example, that the government is only now talking with industry about rapid antigen testing at worksites and schools.
These tests are not quite as accurate but are extremely efficient in detecting potential infections. They are widely used in other countries. And what about more mandatory jabs for particular jobs and industries?
“We have to push through this lockdown,” Morrison declares. “There is no other shortcut. There’s no other way through. We just have to hunker down.”
