Sunday, August 09, 2020 4:35:19 AM
Is Melbourne's coronavirus curfew likely to be effective? We ask the experts
"Coronavirus live news: US nears 5m cases as Australian border closures ramp up"
The Victorian government should be using law enforcement to ensure employers are keeping staff safe from Covid-19, experts have suggested
* Follow Covid live news and updates in Friday’s coronavirus blog here
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/aug/07/coronavirus-australia-live-update-jobkeeper-victoria-downturn-nsw-qld-daniel-andrews-scott-morrison-economy-latest-news
* Australia’s full Covid stats; Vic cases map
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng-interactive/2020/jul/28/coronavirus-australia-map-cases-covid-19-tracking-stats-live-data-update-by-state-how-many-new-active-case-numbers-today-statistics-hotspots-corona-deaths-death-toll
* Melbourne’s stage 4 restrictions; Victoria stage 3 rules
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/02/victoria-stage-4-restrictions-melbourne-lockdown-rules-covid-19-vic-four-victorian
Those who test positive for coronavirus in Melbourne can expect to be door-knocked by police and Australian defence force personnel and face increased fines if they are not abiding by the curfew. Photograph: Speed Media/Rex/Shutterstock
Melissa Davey @MelissaLDavey
Published on Fri 7 Aug 2020 14.09 AEST
Melbourne residents are subject to one of the world’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns, including a nightly curfew.
It’s just one part of a broader ramping up of the law and order response to the virus in Victoria: from Sunday, those in metropolitan Melbourne were barred from leaving their home between 8pm and 5am except for urgent medical care, and have been told that in the hours before curfew they could only exercise for one hour per day within a 5km radius of their home. Those who test positive can expect to be door-knocked by police and Australian defence force personnel and face increased fines if they are not at home.
But is this the best use of police resources when combating a public health challenge of this magnitude?
Several experts suggested the Victorian government should be using law enforcement to ensure employers were keeping staff safe, rather than emphasising a heavy police response and curfews. It was also crucial to make sure all employers were providing access to pay and job security to employees who were home sick.
Melbourne stage 4 restrictions and Covid lockdown rules explained
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/07/victoria-stage-4-restrictions-melbourne-lockdown-rules-covid-19-stage-four-metropolitan-metro-explained-what-you-need-to-know
Daniel Reeders is a health promotion practitioner with 16 years’ experience working on responses to viruses such as HIV. He said given so much of the virus spread was occurring in workplaces such as aged care and healthcare, it was concerning that such emphasis had been placed on police enforcement of individuals. More than 900 healthcare workers have active infections.
“I can’t believe we are not seeing laws requiring employers to make workplaces Covidsafe, and instead we have this mass focus on individual members of the public, and not even in the settings which most Covid-19 transmissions are happening,” Reeders said.
“There is a demand in Victoria for higher standards of personal protective equipment [PPE] for health workers on the assumption health workers are getting it from patients, and that’s fine, but we also know nurses and casual staff working across multiple sites are getting it, and they are sometimes getting it from colleagues. Improving PPE and limiting exercise or increasing police won’t do anything to address that.”
The limitation on exercise was “disastrous from a mental health perspective”, Reeders said. “I understand they want to close a loophole that Karen from Brighton .. https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/karen-from-brighton-hits-back-at-criticism-from-daniel-andrews/news-story/01fa48e183a3c2e43e1a50d5b77390f4 .. might use to go about her usual morning routine but there isn’t a lot of evidence that Covid-19 transmissions are happening out in public via brief encounters during exercise.”
In a piece for the University of Melbourne publication Pursuit .. https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/making-sense-of-victoria-s-daily-covid-19-cases-and-maybe-some-good-news.amp , Prof Tony Blakely, the head of the centre for epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Melbourne’s school of population and global health, said Victoria would see a drop in infections 10 days or so after stage 4 restrictions began.
“There is one thing that does concern me, though, and may make a fool of my predictions,” he said. “That is that we, here in Victoria, essentially have many epidemics happening at the same time, and out of phase. At the moment, there is an epidemic among essential workers in aged care and, perhaps, in other essential industries. These may develop further given they are still ‘out and about’ during stage four. On this, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
An infectious diseases doctor with a major Melbourne hospital and leading epidemiologist, Prof Allen Cheng, said that recommendations for workplaces were currently being developed by the Department of Health in recognition that certain settings were significantly driving spread.
"The 8pm curfew has no public health rationale for stopping spread,
but is more about the difficulty of staffing police patrols.
Daniel Reeders
“There is a huge amount of work going into trying to define workplace obligations and then, equally, employers not making employees work if they are unwell,” he said. “There have been recommendations made that I think will be put into regulations.”
He said the curfew and exercise restrictions, combined with the police response, were purely about restricting movement.
“Clearly, there’s nothing magical about 59 minutes of exercise being safe and an hour and one minute not being safe. But we just don’t want people going out and doing stuff. In public health, we try and get people to do the right thing by telling them then. Then we push it harder and then if it doesn’t work, we move to actual restrictions.”
Prof Peter Collignon said the spread was not being driven by large numbers of individuals ignoring public health messaging and doing the wrong thing. An infectious diseases doctor and former adviser to the World Health Organization, he said: “You can take all the right precautions in the community and police people, but if you don’t understand what’s happening in a workplace in the tea room, or in a handover room where health workers treating Covid-19 patients brief other staff, you won’t get on top of this virus.
“The biggest factor in Victoria is spread between essential workers. That includes nurses, doctors, security guards and cleaners. There’s no doubt people in bars and clubs with alcohol indoors is a big risk factor, too – just look at what’s happening in Sydney.
“Obviously, the curfew is a blunt approach. It could be too blunt. You might be better off with [just] shutting down big risk venues like restaurants, bars and nightclubs. My presumption of the curfew is it’s not just about an enforced way of stopping people from interacting with others, but about making it easy for people to police it.”
Reeders agreed, saying: “The 8pm curfew has no public health rationale for stopping spread, but is more about the difficulty of staffing police patrols.
“The government is putting a lot of police staff on monitoring other restrictions and this is a compromise more to do with rostering and managing all the places they need to monitor, rather than public health.”
Was he concerned that by telling people with Covid-19 they could expect door-knocks from police and fines for going outside, people might not come forward for testing?
“It isn’t so much that it deters people from finding out their status, it’s that police enforcement and punitive approaches creates a barrier to receiving support,” Reeders said. “In Victoria in the 90s we had two competing responses to HIV. One emphasised empowering people and communities with support services, and the other emphasised policing and criminal law. The first succeeded beyond our wildest dreams and the second, when it was used, impacted on people who were already vulnerable and needed the most support anyway.”
Lessons for Melbourne from Barcelona: coronavirus lockdown is hard, but brings good things
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/07/lessons-for-melbourne-from-barcelona-coronavirus-lockdown-is-hard-but-brings-good-things
Prof Mary-Louise McLaws, a member of the World Health Organization expert advisory panel on infection control, said she worried that the one-hour of limit on exercise, which could only be taken between 5am and 8pm, would have an impact on shift workers. “Authorities made a blanket decision, but surely shift workers could be given a permit to go for a walk outside of curfew,” she said. However, the benefit of the curfew and the exercise limit was that they were unambiguous, she said.
“It’s a real impost on our freedom of movement but you don’t want this virus,” she said. “However, while I think there are behaviours such as not wearing a mask that are easily observable, there are probably many Covid risk challenges in the workplace that are not being observed. The answer is not to send in law enforcement but infection control experts to identify where there may be Covid risks to employees.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/07/is-melbournes-coronavirus-curfew-likely-to-be-effective-we-ask-the-experts
"Coronavirus live news: US nears 5m cases as Australian border closures ramp up"
The Victorian government should be using law enforcement to ensure employers are keeping staff safe from Covid-19, experts have suggested
* Follow Covid live news and updates in Friday’s coronavirus blog here
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/aug/07/coronavirus-australia-live-update-jobkeeper-victoria-downturn-nsw-qld-daniel-andrews-scott-morrison-economy-latest-news
* Australia’s full Covid stats; Vic cases map
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng-interactive/2020/jul/28/coronavirus-australia-map-cases-covid-19-tracking-stats-live-data-update-by-state-how-many-new-active-case-numbers-today-statistics-hotspots-corona-deaths-death-toll
* Melbourne’s stage 4 restrictions; Victoria stage 3 rules
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/02/victoria-stage-4-restrictions-melbourne-lockdown-rules-covid-19-vic-four-victorian
Those who test positive for coronavirus in Melbourne can expect to be door-knocked by police and Australian defence force personnel and face increased fines if they are not abiding by the curfew. Photograph: Speed Media/Rex/Shutterstock
Melissa Davey @MelissaLDavey
Published on Fri 7 Aug 2020 14.09 AEST
Melbourne residents are subject to one of the world’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns, including a nightly curfew.
It’s just one part of a broader ramping up of the law and order response to the virus in Victoria: from Sunday, those in metropolitan Melbourne were barred from leaving their home between 8pm and 5am except for urgent medical care, and have been told that in the hours before curfew they could only exercise for one hour per day within a 5km radius of their home. Those who test positive can expect to be door-knocked by police and Australian defence force personnel and face increased fines if they are not at home.
But is this the best use of police resources when combating a public health challenge of this magnitude?
Several experts suggested the Victorian government should be using law enforcement to ensure employers were keeping staff safe, rather than emphasising a heavy police response and curfews. It was also crucial to make sure all employers were providing access to pay and job security to employees who were home sick.
Melbourne stage 4 restrictions and Covid lockdown rules explained
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/07/victoria-stage-4-restrictions-melbourne-lockdown-rules-covid-19-stage-four-metropolitan-metro-explained-what-you-need-to-know
Daniel Reeders is a health promotion practitioner with 16 years’ experience working on responses to viruses such as HIV. He said given so much of the virus spread was occurring in workplaces such as aged care and healthcare, it was concerning that such emphasis had been placed on police enforcement of individuals. More than 900 healthcare workers have active infections.
“I can’t believe we are not seeing laws requiring employers to make workplaces Covidsafe, and instead we have this mass focus on individual members of the public, and not even in the settings which most Covid-19 transmissions are happening,” Reeders said.
“There is a demand in Victoria for higher standards of personal protective equipment [PPE] for health workers on the assumption health workers are getting it from patients, and that’s fine, but we also know nurses and casual staff working across multiple sites are getting it, and they are sometimes getting it from colleagues. Improving PPE and limiting exercise or increasing police won’t do anything to address that.”
The limitation on exercise was “disastrous from a mental health perspective”, Reeders said. “I understand they want to close a loophole that Karen from Brighton .. https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/karen-from-brighton-hits-back-at-criticism-from-daniel-andrews/news-story/01fa48e183a3c2e43e1a50d5b77390f4 .. might use to go about her usual morning routine but there isn’t a lot of evidence that Covid-19 transmissions are happening out in public via brief encounters during exercise.”
In a piece for the University of Melbourne publication Pursuit .. https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/making-sense-of-victoria-s-daily-covid-19-cases-and-maybe-some-good-news.amp , Prof Tony Blakely, the head of the centre for epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Melbourne’s school of population and global health, said Victoria would see a drop in infections 10 days or so after stage 4 restrictions began.
“There is one thing that does concern me, though, and may make a fool of my predictions,” he said. “That is that we, here in Victoria, essentially have many epidemics happening at the same time, and out of phase. At the moment, there is an epidemic among essential workers in aged care and, perhaps, in other essential industries. These may develop further given they are still ‘out and about’ during stage four. On this, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
An infectious diseases doctor with a major Melbourne hospital and leading epidemiologist, Prof Allen Cheng, said that recommendations for workplaces were currently being developed by the Department of Health in recognition that certain settings were significantly driving spread.
"The 8pm curfew has no public health rationale for stopping spread,
but is more about the difficulty of staffing police patrols.
Daniel Reeders
“There is a huge amount of work going into trying to define workplace obligations and then, equally, employers not making employees work if they are unwell,” he said. “There have been recommendations made that I think will be put into regulations.”
He said the curfew and exercise restrictions, combined with the police response, were purely about restricting movement.
“Clearly, there’s nothing magical about 59 minutes of exercise being safe and an hour and one minute not being safe. But we just don’t want people going out and doing stuff. In public health, we try and get people to do the right thing by telling them then. Then we push it harder and then if it doesn’t work, we move to actual restrictions.”
Prof Peter Collignon said the spread was not being driven by large numbers of individuals ignoring public health messaging and doing the wrong thing. An infectious diseases doctor and former adviser to the World Health Organization, he said: “You can take all the right precautions in the community and police people, but if you don’t understand what’s happening in a workplace in the tea room, or in a handover room where health workers treating Covid-19 patients brief other staff, you won’t get on top of this virus.
“The biggest factor in Victoria is spread between essential workers. That includes nurses, doctors, security guards and cleaners. There’s no doubt people in bars and clubs with alcohol indoors is a big risk factor, too – just look at what’s happening in Sydney.
“Obviously, the curfew is a blunt approach. It could be too blunt. You might be better off with [just] shutting down big risk venues like restaurants, bars and nightclubs. My presumption of the curfew is it’s not just about an enforced way of stopping people from interacting with others, but about making it easy for people to police it.”
Reeders agreed, saying: “The 8pm curfew has no public health rationale for stopping spread, but is more about the difficulty of staffing police patrols.
“The government is putting a lot of police staff on monitoring other restrictions and this is a compromise more to do with rostering and managing all the places they need to monitor, rather than public health.”
Was he concerned that by telling people with Covid-19 they could expect door-knocks from police and fines for going outside, people might not come forward for testing?
“It isn’t so much that it deters people from finding out their status, it’s that police enforcement and punitive approaches creates a barrier to receiving support,” Reeders said. “In Victoria in the 90s we had two competing responses to HIV. One emphasised empowering people and communities with support services, and the other emphasised policing and criminal law. The first succeeded beyond our wildest dreams and the second, when it was used, impacted on people who were already vulnerable and needed the most support anyway.”
Lessons for Melbourne from Barcelona: coronavirus lockdown is hard, but brings good things
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/07/lessons-for-melbourne-from-barcelona-coronavirus-lockdown-is-hard-but-brings-good-things
Prof Mary-Louise McLaws, a member of the World Health Organization expert advisory panel on infection control, said she worried that the one-hour of limit on exercise, which could only be taken between 5am and 8pm, would have an impact on shift workers. “Authorities made a blanket decision, but surely shift workers could be given a permit to go for a walk outside of curfew,” she said. However, the benefit of the curfew and the exercise limit was that they were unambiguous, she said.
“It’s a real impost on our freedom of movement but you don’t want this virus,” she said. “However, while I think there are behaviours such as not wearing a mask that are easily observable, there are probably many Covid risk challenges in the workplace that are not being observed. The answer is not to send in law enforcement but infection control experts to identify where there may be Covid risks to employees.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/07/is-melbournes-coronavirus-curfew-likely-to-be-effective-we-ask-the-experts
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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