Starting Mayday this weekend we have some easing of lockdown restrictions. In NSW we can begin to visit friends and family. Queensland and Western Australia have announced similar plans to ease social distancing rules but Victoria is digging in. On the negative side of the ledger is that now 20 staff and 34 residents of the Newmarch Anglican aged care facility have tested positive and 11 have died, lesson: don’t go to work if sick, it’s not soldiering on, its spraying disease and death.
Worldwide we have 3,050,308 cases and 211,326 deaths. Of these the US has 988,469 cases and 56,253 deaths; UK has 158,348 cases and 21,157 deaths. Now for Australia: 12 new cases added in the past 24 hours for a total of 6,731 and 88 deaths. NSW’s share is an additional 5 to 3,009 cases and 41 deaths, with the late announcement of 4 more deaths associated with the Newmarch cluster.
The USA seems to be providing guidelines on what not to do in a crisis. Unfortunately their leader doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and it appears there is no antidote for ignorance. The voices of reason are still pandering to his vanity. Andrew O’Hehir claims America is a declining empire, weak, divided and ineffectual. It is, he says, utterly bereft of coherent national leadership. His summation:
“It isn’t just that our corrupt, conniving and alarmingly incompetent president has repeatedly made a fool of himself in public, whether through outright lies, unfounded speculation, flatulent boasting or pseudo-scientific blather. We ought to be used to that by now. But I don’t think we have fully registered how it looks to the rest of the world that the self-appointed greatest nation in the world and guiding light of freedom and democracy elected this person in the first place, and that close to half our population continues to view him with reverence and adoration, as a supreme symbol of our national values and aspirations.” (Salon, April 26, 2020)
Donald’s tip for today: Inject liquefied vegemite exported from Australia.
Closer to home, Michael Bradley (Crikey, 27 April, 2020), suggests we could have used this crisis as an opportunity to “reimagine and rebuild the structures of our economy and society in a better way.” After a stimulus response that bears all the marks of socialism, we still have big business pushing for the balance to be restored in their favour, pressing for tax cuts. He concludes:
“It’s understandable that we’re all losing a bit of steam in our push to keep COVID-19 from the door. It’s equally predictable that the government has lost some of its courage as the immediacy of the threat falls away.”
Government must not continue to frame public policy by looking for congruence with its ideological prejudices, asking questions only of those who will provide the answers they favour. It could earn respect by including other intelligent voices providing inputs to decision making, including from the opposition.
Awesomely Astute 