Blog Day 166 - 06 September 2020

At 11.15am in the morning and we are still waiting on the premier to tell us what is happening with the road map - just heard on the radio that the premier will be talking to us at 12.00 midday.
Still waiting on the detail of the virus figures for the last 24 hours although we know that there were 63 new infections and 5 new deaths.

Various media outlets are predicting that the core restrictions of the stage four lockdown will continue for another 4 - 6 weeks with some easing around the edges.  Apparently the numbers of new infections are not dropping quickly enough or as expected.  The following has been extracted from the Age website and says it all a lot clearer than I could. The article is discussing the modelling done by Melbourne University and the University of New England on behalf of the state government (on their 'super' computer do you mind). 

"It found that if restrictions were eased when the average number of new daily cases was above 25 for a fortnight, there was a 60 per cent chance of returning to lockdown before Christmas.

The modelling predicted cases were now reducing by 50 per cent every 18 days, and at that rate, Victoria's daily case load would not dip below 20 until late October".

Well, we now have our roadmap out of this, I hope.  The premier has announced today that the virus restrictions will be eased over a serious stages over a series of months and subject to certain virus infection milestones being met.

First up, the current stage four lockdowns will continue for a further two weeks past 13/9 till 28/9.  In the extended two week period the curfew will start at 9.00pm in the evening instead of 8.00pm, we will be able to exercise for two hours per day instead of one hour.  The idea of a social bubble will be introduced allowing a single person household to have a designated "visitor" (not compulsory I hope).  Within this idea of a nominated visitor the 5km rule won't apply but the curfew will.  

So, in the short term not much will change for the next three weeks.

The second step kicks in on 28/9 subject to the daily average new infections being in a range of 30 - 50 cases.  This stage will allow public gatherings of up to 5 people and a staged reopening of schools.

The third stage will start on 26/10 and will be subject to a daily average of less than 5 new infections.  This will allow for the removal of the curfew, some retail and hairdressing to open and limited hospitality to open.  (No haircut until 26/10!!!!!! I will be looking like the wild man from Borneo by then, should I get a ponytail of manbun??).

The 4th stage will start on 23/11, allowing for gatherings of up to 50 people outdoors and 20 people at home.  This also allow for further opening of businesses, including real estate and allowing more people to attend their workplace again.

Hospitality appears to be poorly treated in all of this with very limited opportunities for opening in this entire period.  This may not be as draconian as it appears when further detail is made available.

There doesn't appear to be a date given for the removal of the 5km travel restriction.

Obviously there is a lot more to this and more detail and clarification will become available as the paperwork is made available to the media by the government.  What I have described above is from what I scribbled down as the premier was speaking so not all inclusive.

I bet the loophole Larries and Lorraines are going through all this and looking for real or imagined loopholes.

I think that is enough for today I will go through the current local and worldwide virus figures tomorrow.

Be of good cheer and stout heart, it is a beautiful spring day out so make sure you get out for your one hour of virus allowed exercise.