This is the first week of “freedom” in our city of Melbourne following a second “brutal” lockdown, which started at 11:59pm on 8 July and lasted until 11:59pm 27 October 2020. The winter lockdown averted a spiralling out of control of COVID-19 cases;
they peaked at a bit over 700 cases on 30 July. In terms of COVID-19 cases, the lockdown was an overwhelming success with cases dropping steadily over last few weeks and zero cases recorded in our city for the past four days.
Taking a worldwide view of COVID-19 cases, after ten months with the virus we are still progressing at an increasing rate in essentially the first global wave. Of course when we breakdown cases locally we see that the Victorian outbreak lead to Australia’s second wave. Following second waves in Iran and Israel, Europe is currently in the second wave with nearly 50,000, over 30,000, and close to 25,000 cases recorded in a 24-hour period in France, Italy, and the UK, respectively in recent days. Similarly, a second wave is currently observed in Canada, and the US is currently in the third wave of the coronavirus. In a world record, the US recorded almost 100,000 (99,784) coronavirus cases on 30 October.
Despite warnings against lockdowns by the World Health Organization (12 October), as a primary measure against COVID-19, many European countries have been to take the measure to halt the spread of disease. A firebreak lockdown was imposed in Wales, a tiered-lockdown system was implemented in Scotland and despite a tired-system, a nationwide lockdown was implemented in England. Measure of various severity have been imposed in most of Europe, with curfews in Italy, partial lockdowns in Greece, and lockdowns in France, Germany, and Belgium.
On the basis of our experience in Melbourne, we now have strong evidence that full lockdowns work. Our lockdown was particularly severe with, complete shutdown of non-essential businesses, an 8pm – 5 am curfew, and a 5 km travel restriction. As we talked about earlier, our winter lockdown was highly successful reversing the rising trend in cases, and then diminishing reported COVID-19 cases to zero in the past few days.
In Australia we are essentially following a virus elimination strategy, similar to that achieved by our neighbours New Zealand. Unlike many other countries, like the US in countries in Europe, elimination is not an unrealistic goal for Australia and New Zealand, given that our islands are isolated and we have a favorable population density. Nevertheless, based on our experiences, the measure taken in most of Europe will help significantly reduce the spread of COVID-19 infection, hopefully to a level where hospital systems are not overwhelmed.
In the US, the situation is different and the COVID-19 response is a highly politicized issue, and this is to be expected with the 2020 election literally hours away. In a few hours we will gauge how important the COVID-19 response was to general population in the US. If we look at the result of the recent election in New Zealand, the people voted in overwhelming favour of New Zealand Labour Party led by Jacinda Adern; her policy on COVID-19 was “elimination” which she essentially achieved by strict lockdowns!
We wait and see and comment in the coming hours!
Until next time … Tranquilo Polymaths.