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Some observations about COVID and QLD, having been here for three weeks, visiting from NSW. (It feels like visiting from another planet.)
The QLD Government has done a very good job at convincing QLDers that their only options are a) to be like the USA/UK or b) to close the borders and “be safe”.
The media/Gov portrayal of COVID in NSW represents nothing of the lived experience of most of NSW. Many think we live in a perpetual state of lockdown. They’re led to believe the whole state is like the Nthn Beaches. “You can go out to restaurants?” one waiter asked, astonished.
The QR code infrastructure is farcical. Venues use it in an ad-hoc kind of way. They only got rid of PEN AND PAPER sign-ins at venues TWO WEEKS AGO.
The complacency that people have around social distancing is astonishing. The closed border has built a false sense of security that means social distancing isn’t really a thing. Shops have signs up, but people ignore them.
Their testing capability is a fraction of what it needs to be in an outbreak & it’s hard to see how they’d scale it. I looked up testing sites in case it became a requirement for travellers & there wasn’t a site within 20 mins -all required a referral. And I’m in a populated area
You get the sense if, God forbid, they do have an outbreak up here, it won’t be pretty. The public isn’t trained to respond appropriately, the infrastructure to test and contact trace feels about where NSW was in March. They just haven’t done the work.
In short the gov has successfully convinced QLDers that the border is stopping the place becoming the UK. But the cost of convincing everyone they are protected is they may be in big trouble in an outbreak. Their only option will be to lock whole cities, or the state, down.
I return to NSW thankful for a government that may not be perfect ... but it is rational, proportionate in its response, and has done the hard work to help us live with COVID until the vaccine does its thing.
