No it’s not, screams The Australian:
The NSW government will prioritise economic recovery over pre-emptive lockdowns, even as it slashes the number of people who will be allowed in the state’s pubs and ramps up enforcement against venues flouting the rules.
As Victorian health authorities warned that infected travellers visited a string of venues across Sydney last week, NSW cabinet on Monday night decided to cut from 20 to 10 the number of patrons who could book in a group and strengthen flying squads to enforce COVID-19 social distancing rules.
But senior ministers remain committed to keeping the NSW economy open as businesses warn they cannot afford a repeat of a hard lockdown in the wake of Victoria’s decision to enforce a six-week stay-at-home order in Melbourne after a spike in COVID-19 transmissions.
Which is exactly why it will. To wit:
The NSW government has moved to tighten some social restrictions again as health authorities work to trace the spread of a cluster of 21 COVID-19 cases linked to a south-western Sydney pub.
The state on Monday recorded more locally acquired coronavirus infections than cases in hotel quarantine for a second straight day, in a sign that NSW has entered a precarious new phase of contagion.
Group bookings at pubs will be reduced from 20 people back to 10 and large venues will not be allowed to have more than 300 patrons.
Did nobody in NSW watch the Victorian outbreak? Chasing the virus around segments and suburbs for a month while it exploded in the community but the government worried about the economy? Apparently not, at the ABC:
Infectious disease experts say Sydney can avoid a Melbourne-style second lockdown if it stops multiple clusters of community transmission through hard “ring fencing”, compulsory mask wearing and a renewed focus on social distancing.
Yet one expert says the Crossroads Hotel in Casula already looks like “the ember that has started a bushfire”, as cases connected to the south-west Sydney hotel continue to grow, including one confirmed case at Sydney’s The Star casino.
As of 12:00pm on Monday, 21 COVID-19 cases had been linked to the Casula pub — 10 people who went there, another 10 “close contacts” of that group, and one person who contracted the virus third-hand.
VIC “ringfenced” it too. Despite the efforts of our testing and tracing brigade it so far failed.
I’d guess that NSW is roughly three weeks behind VIC as it heads towards lockdown. QLD is probably three weeks behind that.
I hope I’m wrong.
