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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Fri 8 May 06:37
In line with our near neighbour, New Zealand, Australia has today cut back on the coronavirus restrictions that have been in place for the past 50 or so days.
Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, announced a three-step approach to the reductions. States and territories will move at their own pace through the steps and will "cut and paste out of this plan to suit their local circumstances".
Step 1 "will enable greater connection with friends and family", step 2 will "allow larger size gatherings up to 20 people", step 3 will be "allowing gatherings up to 100 people".
Mr Morrison said there is "no expectation of step 1 starting on day one" unless the state or territory wants it to. The National Cabinet will review the progress of the plan every three weeks and "make any changes as we need to".
The Prime Minister said international travel will not be opening up "in the foreseeable future".
STEP 1
Up to five visitors at your home (including kids).
Gatherings up to 10 outside of your home.
Work from home if it works for you and your employer.
Libraries, community centres, playgrounds and boot-camps open.
Australians can do more:-
Shopping
Restaurants and cafes
Home sales and auctions
Local playgrounds
Outdoors boot-camps
Local and regional travel
STEP 2
Gatherings of up to 20 outside your home.
Work from home if it works for you and your employer.
Australians can do even more in gatherings of up to 20:-
Gyms
Beauty therapists
Cinemas, theatres or amusement parks
Galleries and museums
Some interstate travel
STEP 3
Gatherings up to 100
Return to workplace
Consider cross-Tasman, Pacific Island travel and international student travel
Australians can do even more in gatherings of up to 100*:-
Food courts
Saunas and bathhouses
All interstate travel
*States and territories may allow larger numbers in some circumstances.
This is the route that Australia is taking out of the crisis. I would imagine that other countries such as the UK will adopt a similar template.
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Topic Originator: wetherby
Date: Fri 8 May 06:49
How many cases and how many deaths have you had there Oz?
New Zealand certainly seems to have the measure of it.
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Fri 8 May 06:56
The official figures for Australia are 6,819 confirmed, 6,031 recovered and 97 deaths.
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Topic Originator: DBP
Date: Fri 8 May 07:39
How's the Australian economy doing?
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Topic Originator: GG741
Date: Fri 8 May 07:44
The numbers reported from each country are difficult to compare, as we don't know what we don't know.
With the initial targeted or limited testing, the numbers for confirmed are always going to be a lower percentage of the total population. Victoria, in the last two weeks, has ramped up the testing regime to include anyone with any of the symptoms. That has changed the percentages, as there weren't many more confirmed cases (thank goodness).
Whilst the Federal government / Prime Minister Morrison made the announcement, he really only announced the broad steps of each 'stage' and some examples of what those 'stages' mean. As mentioned by OzPar, the individual States will make the final decisions for their own State, using the templated 'stages' as a guide.
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Fri 8 May 10:27
Thanks for the clarification, GG741. Spot on.
It is difficult to tell with the economy, DBP. Early days.
Like everywhere else, to use a maritime analogy, much of the business sector is on slow ahead or stop engines. I would be very surprised if we don't end up with 20+% unemployment in Australia, at least in the short-term.
Australia's economy is in large part determined by minerals exports and a fairly buoyant services industry, particularly financial services. Australia's weak spot is its dependence on China; up to now, China has taken the highest proportion of our coal and iron ore exports and much of what we import is sourced from China too. Whether these levels continue in the future remains to be seen.
I've alluded to it in other posts, but I think the biggest lesson for all nations out of this crisis is the need for us all to reduce our dependence on overseas suppliers.
More and more countries are going to look to minimise their exposure to long and distant supply chains. That will be bad news for Australia and New Zealand.
To counter that, new industries are likely to quickly emerge.
For instance, in order to circumvent vulnerability in the supply chain, I can see much greater use and much wider applications for 3-D printing technology. This will lead to a resurgence in the manufacturing sector, but I doubt that it will lead to many new jobs as much will be automated.
There will be a re-examination of strategic industries. The old strategic theories are irrelevant and there will be a renewed focus on domestic agriculture, the medical and pharmaceutical industries, fuel supplies and refinery capacity, communications security and building strategic stockpiles.
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Topic Originator: BoAPar
Date: Fri 8 May 10:53
Barring a sudden, unexpected, jump in cases NZ will hopefully move down to the next level of our lockdown mid-next week. 7,000+ tests yesterday found 1 new case - linked to a care home breakout.
Interesting that having been much stricter than Australia to date, we will probably have a softer situation next week (although I'd guess that SA, WA and NT will jump through the stages rapidly).
For reference the highest level of lockdown here in NZ was very strict - everything except essential services (basically hospitals, petrol stations and supermarkets) were closed for a month. The mass flight of citizens coming back to be "safe" in NZ ironically almost caused things to get out of hand here.
The NZ government hasn't got everything right, but it looks like they will get through the first part in good shape - how the economy will fare is anyone's guess though.
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