The Easter bunny managed to make it to my bunker in Woonona to ensure a calorific breakfast. Another puppy walk and beach romp was arranged. The number of new coronavirus positive tests continues its daily decline in double digits. Now there is a resurgence of unbridled joy coupled with devious plans for a return to a normal existence, despite the voice of reason dampening such optimism.
So, not so fast! Remember, there was a lot wrong about how things used to be. We need a sufficient interregnum so we lose touch with the old for long enough to drive us towards a new normal, a re-set, a new paradigm. We will have a new take on what we can afford so the whine of we can’t afford it will not wash. We may appreciate that public policy decisions with funding outlays are choices we make to meet the needs of all. The future will test if liberalism is capable of a greater inclusiveness. Less talking, more listening perhaps?
A relief package for higher education has been announced to encourage those whose jobs have been lost to re-skill for alternative career options. This would be fine if anyone knew what is meant by the anachronistic term “career” in 2020. Casual workers have been left out in the cold by the much-touted job-keeper provision of $1,500 per fortnight. Perhaps in the post-virus world we will re-visit the nobbled tax debate and establish the policy drivers away from sectional interests to governing for all. The clamour for accountability can only increase.
Australia’s primary threat remains returning Aussies who have been overseas but the rate of in-community contagion is expected to increase as a proportion of total cases confirmed. The US (over half a million cases) and Italy are both heading towards 20,000 deaths, the UK has about half that number. Globally there have been 1,777,666 reported COVID-19 cases and 108,883 deaths. Australia now has 6,314 cases, 21 new today, and 60 deaths. The NSW share of these is 2,854 cases 7 only today (attributable to many fewer tests on Easter Sunday) and 24 deaths.
As for prospects for a wind-back of community constraints, now commonly referred to in the media as a snap-back, let’s watch that curve a little longer before any snap judgements are made.
Awesomely Astute 