@Froggy181; I hope what follows provides the insights you requested:
After almost driving the first wave of Covid19 into the ground by late May 2020, Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews went soft at the knees as Australia's Prime Minister Morrison demanded an end to all Covid restrictions. An unexpected outbreak from hotel quarantine in Victoria then led to a rise in new case numbers but following the earlier outbreak and Morrison's insistence, Victoria was reluctant to re-impose restrictions.
As new cases mounted in Victoria Andrews applied new restrictions on a hot-spot by hot-spot basis. The virus spread further and found its way into North Melbourne's tower complexes - Andrews imposed a rigid Stage 5 lockdown on them for five days on them and copped a mountain of criticism for doing so.
Still the virus spread throughout Melbourne and in particular to Morrison's federally controlled aged care facilities, so Andrews imposed a Stage 3 lockdown to all of Melbourne. As the virus ran rampant through Morrison's aged care facilities Andrews moved to Stage 4 restrictions and took over Morrisons aged care facilities as death rates began to soar in them.
Andrews and his Ministers called on the expertise of university experts to create a detailed and robust plan to beat the virus, that included tight definitions for what was 'essential work' and 'essential retail'. It aimed to do so by greatly reducing human movement and human interactions. People were required to work from home wherever possible and employers were restricted to just 25% of employees being on site - that included the construction sector which was nevertheless allowed to continue operations.
That plan turned Victoria's 2020 second wave around and after another couple of months the virus was eliminated and life returned to a Covid normal. Sadly 802 people paid with their lives, some 655 of them from Morrison's aged care facilities which have since still not been fixed.
Recently Victoria terminated a complex Covid 19 variant outbreak only to soon after cop yet another Covid outbreak caused by irresponsible removalists from Sydney. Victoria opted to impose a Stage 4 lockdown from which it's expected to emerge next Tuesday.
At roughly the same time, NSW refused to impose restrictions throughout Greater Sydney as its new cases began to increase. NSW attempted to target outbreaks by Local Government Area but the virus kept spreading. It did so LGA by LGA until about four weeks ago when Berejiklian imposed a soft version of a Stage 3 lockdown.
That did not stop the virus spreading so a couple of weeks ago Berejiklian decided to impose a soft version of Stage 4 restrictions that were later extended to include a ban on all construction work [ie. unlike what Victoria did]. New cases have still continued to increase along with 'free radicals' moving infected throughout Greater Sydney and today Berejiklian responded by imposing a tougher lockdown only to poorer parts of Sydney - almost sparking riots!
Victoria appears to have learnt its lessons from the 2020 second wave and seems certain to end its 12 day lockdown next Tuesday as new case numbers dwindle and free radicals all but disappear.
NSW ignored Victoria's 2020 lesson, listened to Morrison's praise for not locking down and as of today experienced 136 new cases with a total of 70 infected 'free radicals' moving throughout the community. Today, Berejiklian set about blaming people for not getting vaccinated and for not complying with restrictions. She called for other states to donate their share of Pfizer vaccines to Sydney while refusing to 'ring fence Sydney' as Andrews did to Melbourne.
We now await the next instalment of how NSW's mixed bag of restrictions impacts the spread of the virus - many people are anxious and fearful and at a loss to know what the plan is let alone how long it will take to emerge from lockdown!
