It’s nine weeks since I wrote my last Covid-19 piece. Thanks to mistakes and bad practice by various parties our daily Victorian positive number hit a peak of 725 in early August and by then (Sep 21) had dropped to 11, a figure that people in Europe and USA would think miraculous. As someone whose family is all in UK, I’m all too well aware of the result of failure to take hard measures when required. Look at this graph: Victoria is the red line, the UK the blue one. As our fight against the second wave was taking effect, the UK sadly lost control. How it (France, USA etc) can recover, I don’t know.

One of the sad things about the pandemic here in Victoria is how it has split society. You’re either with Dan (Daniel Andrews, our state Premier) or, spurred on by the LNP (conservative) opposition and the Murdoch press, have what might described as a vicious hatred of him. Tim Smith LNP deputy leader posted “a series of playing cards graphics of Labor MPs that appear to be inspired from the ‘kill or capture’ campaign waged by the US against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein“. Murdoch journalists turn up at the daily press conferences more intent on pursuing an agenda than asking the questions most people would like answered. A photographer from The Australian turned up on CHO Brett Sutton’s doorstep – one might see the subtext as being “we know where you live; we know where your wife and children live” – as Dan observed, it wasn’t as if they were short of photos of him.

Michael O’Brien, LNP leader, endlessly negative, has sought publicity by encouraging lawsuits against our state government. Win or lose, the cost of defending them will come out of the pockets of ordinary people. One of his causes was café owner, Michelle Loielo, who claimed to have lost 99 per cent of business under the state’s lockdown – my local café is no doubt down on business but take-away business still keeps three people busy. A look at her website doesn’t inspire confidence in her business sense: its ‘News’ page is still (as I write this) advertising Fathers Day specials starting with Seafood Bonanza for 2 $138.00; Fathers Day was September 6th, seven weeks ago. I hope the food isn’t that old!

After the 725 case scare, Daniel Andrews declared that our (very hard) lockdown restrictions would be lifted only when it was safe to do so. Not unreasonably this drew a lot of criticism for its vagueness, and so some hard numbers were substituted, the one for today being that the threshold for lifting a whole swathe of restrictions was subject to a 14-day new case average of 5 cases or less, with the caveat that this was subject to circumstance (e.g. 11 days at 3, followed by 5,10,20 would give an average of 4.8 but the upkick would be worrying and justification for delay). Needless to say, our LNP opposition were still unhappy. To quote Jason Wood LNP MP’s Facebook post of two weeks ago:

If NSW could manage with around twenty cases per day, then why does the Victorian Labor Party and our stubborn Premier want to reach this ridiculously unrealistic target of a 5 case average over 14 days?!

What’s turned out to be ridiculous was the assertion that this was an unattainable target. We have reached it! So why have I titled this piece, ‘Disappointment Day’? Sadly we have reached it but – not unlike my example above – have had a sudden outbreak of school-connected cases in the last few days. So, not unreasonably in my view, the hoped for relaxations (opening of non-food retail and hospitality etc) expected today have been deferred for a few days to see whether this outbreak develops or comes to nothing. For everyone’s sake we all hope the latter. But these two representative comments from The Age website show how polarised a society we have become:

• We have all been through so much to drive numbers down. It would be tragic if all our hard work and forbearance was in vain and we went into a third wave, just because we couldn’t wait a few more days. Patience and persistence, Melburnians! We’re almost there! Anonymous
• This incompetent government continues to lead us to destruction, until we change the leadership we are destined for failure ! Drew

Hopefully tomorrow and Tuesday’s numbers won’t show anything to worry about and the changes we hoped to see today can be implemented. But whatever happens, the damage this virus has done is not just to health, not just to livelihoods, but to the understanding that people of diverse political views can maintain those views with a respect for those who differ.

And then …. (Tuesday update)

It was a long 24 hours but what a result! Zero new cases and zero deaths (repeated today!). And so mid-afternoon Monday Premier Dan was able to announce that from midnight tonight retailers would be free to reopen as would – subject to occupancy limits – restaurants and cafes, with many other restrictions being eased or removed either now or in two weeks.
In other news, a poll gave Dan a 52% satisfaction rating – pretty good considering the way certain sections of the media have hammered him. In contrast, ‘Mr Negative’, opposition leader Michael O’Brien’s satisfaction rating was a derisory 15%; even amongst LNP supporters he could only manage 27%. It’s gratifying to see his style of politics so resoundingly rejected, and a welcome remind that the popular press holds much less sway over its readers than it might like to think.

I didn’t write anything about the Covid pandemic in May and June since there was really nothing to say. Then in my July 15^th piece, “After the shock of July 10th’s 288 new cases, one couldn’t help be scared at the thought of this number continuing to escalate. The next day, 216 (phew). But it’s not over: 270 yesterday, 238 today.” But any optimism at that point was misplaced as this chart shows.

Coronavirus cases Victoria Jul/Aug-2020

Back in 1989 when I started my software business the internet as we know it didn’t exist. It was some while before I got a credit card merchant account – in those days merchant facilities were only granted after careful scrutiny of your accounts and an inspection of your premises. Thus my one source of orders was people sending them by mail with an accompanying cheque or purchase order, and the day’s mood was set – for better or worse – when the post landed on the mat.

It’s felt a bit like this during the last month, waiting each morning for the latest new case count. On July 27 we saw our first ‘5’, 523, then were relieved to see a couple of days fall, only to be shocked by a one day rise from 384 to 723, beaten by 725 a week later. Kipling’s stanza re dealing with triumph and disaster came to mind as at the daily press conference our Premier and chief medical officer reminded us that not too much should be read into the latest number. Coupled with the new case rate was the steady rise in deaths, mainly among the elderly in residential care homes, their families distress being the greater because of the restrictions on funerals.

Not surprisingly early August saw severe new restrictions including compulsory mask when outside, a curfew from 8pm until 5am. and the closure of many business premises. Thankfully the vast majority of people seem to be complying with these rules – the doubtful being encouraged by hefty fines – and the daily welcome or unwelcome surprise has been replaced by numbers following a steady trend. But of course the only number that will really satisfy is zero, and New Zealand’s recent experience has shown us that a long run of zeroes doesn’t guarantee anything.

I suspect that things still won’t be back to normal by Christmas, am waiting to be told that my February cruise is cancelled, and am by no means sure that I’ll be making my annual visit to UK next July. Time will tell.