Except for last week where you were under your third lockdown? I work with people from Melbourne and I feel like a lot of them suffer from at least some mild PTSD. This was re-ignited when the 3rd lockdown was announced with worries that it would last months again (luckily this was not the case!). The mental health aspect/general population wellbeing seems to be largely ignored in Victoria.
> I’m going to a concert with thousands of people this week
Unless there's another leak and you go back into a snap lockdown. There's always uncertainty under such a system! Again, not great for mental health. (and yes, you can argue that there's always uncertainty under a pandemic, but the levels of uncertainty differ between geographies)
I am sure a lot of work from home office people without kids will view these lockdowns rather positively. But I doubt business owners, hospitality workers and artists will appreciate them as much.
The article makes some good points and we really need to look at the wider issues around the disease and its countermeasures.
I agree lockdowns are awful. But what if we didn’t do the snap lockdown last week? I don’t think that would be better.
I also disagree with your statement about mental health not being taken seriously. I think it’s difficult to talk about, but I believe mental health resources have been made broadly available. I’m not really sure how much more seriously it can be taken without making mental health checks mandatory.
Stopping the system entirely is certainly a way to reduce the risk ;)
> I also disagree with your statement about mental health not being taken seriously. I think it’s difficult to talk about, but I believe mental health resources have been made broadly available. I’m not really sure how much more seriously it can be taken without making mental health checks mandatory.
I was mostly thinking of the way the pandemic has been handled in general by the Victorian government. Locking people inside for 22-23 hours a day, curfew, etc. There is very little if no scientific evidence that these drastic measures, which severely impact mental health, have a measurable effect on getting numbers down. Not all lockdowns are the same, NSW's North Beaches lockdown allowed people to picnic outside for example (and made gathering exemptions on Christmas day). This again points to the benefit-risk evaluation mentioned in the article.
Similarly, banning Victorians out in regional NSW from returning home: forcing them to make a dangerous dash across half of the country to get back within the day. Again this could have been handled with a much stronger emphasis on benefit-risk but instead the wellbeing of Victorians was disregarded.
It sounds to me like an ineffective broader strategy by your government. I definitely wouldn’t be voting for those people again, and maybe legal action around their incompetence could be an option. I think the examples set by Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Vietnam, and South Korea show that effective responses are possible. Lockdowns were an important part of these responses, but of course a lockdown by itself will not solve the pandemic.
Tangentially, my personal takeaway from the situation is that Europe is doomed. The combination of an ageing population, young voters absenteeism and political clientelism means that policies are now strictly geared towards pensioners. I fear a victory of the far right at the next election in France and fully expect a severe brain drain once the crisis is over.
> I think the examples set by Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Vietnam, and South Korea show that effective responses are possible.
If we remove China whose statistics are dubious, I find it remarkable that apart from Vietnam, all these countries are islands or can be considered as such with regards to immigration.