Melbourne resident here.<p>We're feeling pretty relieved to be getting these results and excited to be tentatively emerging from nearly four months of fairly strict lockdown.<p>Much is being made of the fact that back in August when Melbourne was reporting over 700 new cases on some days, UK and France were reporting similar new case numbers, yet we are now getting zeroes and those countries have out-of-control spread.<p>At the same time, there's much debate and political ruckus about the merits of the lockdown - i.e., the economic and human costs, vs the benefits of suppressing a virus that many consider to be not very serious.<p>There's also the ongoing attack on our state government from political opponents and parts of the media, over the fact that the virus was suppressed here back in May, as it was in the rest of Australia, but then started spreading rapidly again in June, when poorly-trained security guards acquired the virus while working in quarantine hotels, then took it back to their families and communities, with the outbreak then tearing through aged care homes and leading to a total of 800+ fatalities.<p>What isn't being talked about here, but has been mentioned by another commenter in this thread, is weather. Melbourne is the only large/dense city in Australia that has quite cool winters, similar to the weather that prevailed in Northern Asia, Europe and the US in Feb-April, and that is returning to Western Europe now. As we now know, given the serious outbreaks that have happened in warmer regions, warm weather is not a strong enough factor to halt this virus altogether, but it does seem to have an influence, and it's striking to note the progression of this virus in Melbourne, relative to the weather.<p>AMA!
Sydneysider here. Sydney hasn't seen anything remotely resembling an outbreak yet (not as bad as Melbourne's), but people are still wearing masks on trains, we are still getting tested (for free!), and businesses generally appear to be complying with covid restrictions. Life here has been relatively normal so far.<p>I recognize that Sydney might still be due for an outbreak, but I have more faith that the chances of that happening is low. I am incredibly thankful to be living in a country whose people and its government seem to be doing the right thing when it comes to this pandemic.
To those citing weather as a likely influence, I'm not sure I agree.<p>Given the graph provided by the linked site, it looks like cases started really dipping in late August. August and September are still bloody cold in Melbourne, where most of the cases have been recorded. Additionally, Australia is heading into a La Nina summer, generally characterised by a slower onset of warmer weather and greater average rainfall.<p>Edit: Anecdotally, Adelaide weather for the last few months has barely registered as spring. Melbourne is typically a few °C cooler than Adelaide.
Good luck y’all! Life in Thailand has been pretty awesome (if you don’t rely on tourist dollars) since we hit this point some months back. At this point when the occasional bizarre local case does show up (and one or two have here) the government can go nuts on contact tracing and make sure it stays under control.
If you told six month ago me that we'd be treating people who are high risk of this disease the same as people with low risk I would have been in complete disbelief.
Genuine question from a fellow software engineer (throwaway because COVID is such a wedge issue. And for the record I'm currently in Australia and spent the early part of COVID pandemic in the US so have familiarity with both sides of the equation):<p>Does anyone have a plan to get the world out of COVID? Previous pandemics such as SARS/MERS were contained but had no vaccine, Spanish Flu wasn't contained but there were lasting antibodies (up to 90 years![0]). For COVID all we've been doing is "hoping for a vaccine" which by all accounts[1] will only be 70% effective and will likely require boosters. The world is on a roller coaster of going into and out of lockdown (see Europe this week instituting stay at home orders again) and all the while _there is no plan_ for the world to get past this.<p>So I ask again, does anyone have any kind of plan to get the world back to normal? In Melbourne, Australia, people are wearing masks and "buying time for a vaccine" but when it comes it won't help the at-risk portions of the population. In the US there seems to be no plan at all. Nowhere in the world has anyone come up with a pathway forward to return the human race to a way of life similar to where we were at in 2019.<p>So, given there are so many people in here skilled at decomposing problems and articulating effective solutions, and given there most likely won't be a >70% effective vaccine in the next 2-3 years, what is the way forward for the world? Or are we to be mired in an endless cycle of lockdown/open/lockdown for as far as the eye can see.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080817223642.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080817223642.h...</a>
[1]: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/health/covid-vaccines.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/health/covid-vaccines.htm...</a>
Anyone knows if Australia is going to accept "tourists" anytime soon? I would love to spend a few weeks there and get away from the chaos. (and of course I would get tested before going, etc)
This is fantastic news. I do worry about the US though. As far as I can tell huge numbers of people are still treating this like it is nothing. I base this, very expertly, on the sheer number of large Halloween parties I was invited to tonight... and how people (aged 28-40) are still mocking those who won’t congregate with 50 randos in a house. It’s very perplexing. And on the ever-increasing infections and deaths.<p>Also, don’t forget to vote.<p>Edit: spelling
So they achieved 0 infections without herd immunity via natural means or a vaccine?<p>Isn't that a temporary win?<p>Once a person enters the country with the virus its back on.<p>Are we pattong our selves on the back too soon for these kinds of wins?<p>The modern news cycle is so short sighted that the media makes money off this kind of thing without reporting the full picture.
It is important to point out that Coronavirus emerged when the Northern hemisphere was still in Winter and early spring, a time where viruses can extremely thrive and now the Northern hemisphere is seeing a second wave because we still don’t have a vaccine and are entering a full new winter with COVID.<p>The southern hemisphere had only to battle COVID for a single Winter, and that delayed too, having had already the advantage of all the lessons learned in Europe. It’s very likely that their second Winter will already see a vaccine so by pure chance when the virus emerged countries in the Southern hemisphere have had a much better situation and therefore should expect better outcomes.
Another thing that's helping Australia is that they're heading into summer.<p>Normalized by population the worst non-tiny (10M+) countries to be right now seem to be France, Italy, Belgium and Poland. And it'd be even worse in France, Italy and Poland in terms of new cases if they had the kind of testing throughput the US has been able to muster (1.24M tests a day). Belgium has comparable normalized test throughput. As far as cases, new cases = positivity * throughput. The higher the throughput, the more cases you are going to get.
Apparently it is relatively easy to control this virus during the summer, and almost impossible during the winter. Australia's summer seems to be helping it a good deal, even as winter in the northern hemisphere is making things much worse.