Well, it's official that Australia is on the stage one lockdown.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-22/coronavirus-lockdown-what-it-means/12079242
Also now all Australians are banned from traveling outside of the country in the PM's recent announcement.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced further restrictions on businesses, public gatherings and overseas travel in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus following his meeting with the national cabinet tonight.
From midnight tomorrow night these activities and businesses will no longer be allowed to continue:
- Amusement parks and arcades
- Indoor and outdoor play centres
- Community and recreation centres, health clubs, fitness centres, yoga, barre, spin facilities, saunas, wellness centres
- Swimming pools
- Galleries, museums, national institutions, historic sites, libraries, community centres
- Auction houses
- Real estate auctions and open house inspections
- In-store beauty therapy, tanning, waxing, nail salons and tattoo parlours, spa and massage parlours (excluding health-related services, like physiotherapy)
- Food courts within shopping centres will only be able to sell takeaway. Shopping centres themselves will remain open
Mr Morrison also addressed specifics around a number of other activities:
- Hairdressers and barber shops can continue, but they must limit the time a customer is in the premise to no more than 30 minutes
- Personal training and boot camps are limited to a maximum of 10 people
- Weddings can continue, but only with the couple, the celebrant, and witnesses — totalling a maximum of five people
- Funerals are limited to a maximum of 10 people
- Outdoor and indoor food markets will be addressed by individual states and territories
The Prime Minister also announced Australians would be banned from travelling overseas, with some exceptions made for aid workers and for compassionate, employment and other essential travel.
He also said the advice on schools had not changed and it was safe to send children to school.
On a broader note, Mr Morrison said people should not go out and "participate more broadly in the community, unless you're shopping for basics or there are medical needs or you're providing care and support to an individual at another place."
Considering how more schools are getting infected, I'm starting to think that keeping schools broadly open is a bad idea. The Scotch College is one of the latest schools in Victoria to be hit by the virus. The news broke out on the very last day of Term 1, where Premier of Victoria is has just decided to begin the easter break one week earlier than the Federal Government recommends.
Victoria's school are still kept open after the official holidays had began, which is for kids who in dire need of the school's services, so that's understandable and alright.
Oh Goldstone i feel and pray for your country as i do ours and all others.
Hunker down, know we are all thinking of you and sending you lots of love.
I know how challenging this will be for you and your friends and loved ones.
Ride the waves and try to keep the comedy going if only on the internet and with your own smaller group.
Socially distant and energetic only hugs to you and yours. ?
Well, trails here tend to be overcrowded on weekends/holidays anyway. They are not wide enough like many trails back East. Picture a typical rail-to-trail trail. Now slice it in half for width - that's about as wide as most hiking trails are around here. There's one in particular (at Torrey Pines) where it's impossible to pass next to people without pretty much touching them. No way to get 6 feet distance. So it's fair. And the ones we hiked on the other day are so far away from everything else, they can't patrol them. So I might head back out that way if I get cabin fever. They're not arresting or fining anyone, just "educating", and if I'm an hour down a trail, it's not like they're gonna give chase just to tell me I shouldn't be there.
Wow!
Because of the coronavirus, the Peace Corps is doing more than evacuating its 7,300 volunteers from 61 countries.
It's also firing them.
In a March 15 open letter to the volunteers, the agency's director, Jody Olsen, said, "We are acting now to safeguard your well-being and prevent a situation where Volunteers are unable to leave their host countries."
But nowhere in the statement posted on the agency's website does it tell the public that all the volunteers are being dismissed. That information is in the agency's "frequently asked questions" about the evacuations.
"All evacuated Volunteers and trainees, regardless of length of service, will be classified as having undergone a Completion of Service (COS)," it says.
That leaves volunteers like Kimberly Ruck - who have sacrificed in service to two nations, at home and abroad - upset, dismayed and angry.
Although the volunteers received dismissal notifications separate from the open letter, "Director Jody Olsen's statement is very misleading to the public as well as the volunteers," Ruck said by email Friday, her last day as a volunteer in her post in Windhoek, Namibia, in southwestern Africa. "What is really happening is she has ended the service of ALL volunteers and there will be no volunteer activity in any of the 61 countries until the Corona Virus is over, until countries open borders, until countries issue visas and until Peace Corps begins accepting applications to join."
An agency statement to The Washington Post said volunteers were dismissed, instead of being allowed paid leave, because "it is logistically impossible for the agency to place each of them on administrative hold for an indeterminate period of time." Peace Corps volunteers typically serve for about two years. The Peace Corps is an independent agency of the U.S. government.
Ruck's annual stipend was less than $14,000 for her economic-development duties in a Windhoek community center that serves orphans and vulnerable children. She said her evacuation and dismissal mean that "I abandon them when they need me the most." Ruck, 51, now describes herself as "currently homeless, former residence Carefree, Arizona."
More can be found here.
I am in Melbourne too, and I agree with you, it's pretty outrageous. I think we had a chance to 'depopulate' schools 2 weeks ago. Doing so would have allowed vulnerable teachers to stand down or work from home, and keep schools open for the children of health workers etc. but still slow down the spread. Many teachers are vulnerable, as are student's families. These families include the elderly, and those with health conditions that put them at higher risk. Absenteeism at schools is now 75%, so parents have voted with their feet.
Don't get me started though on Prime Minister Scott Morisson's statement that essential workers are 'any worker with a job'. What? What a perfect way to obscure the message that we need to stay at home!
I am thinking of you and your friend. I hope your friend and her family will be ok. Stay safe and well.
Thanks everyone. Sorry if I act a bit standoffish at times, but I'm really grateful for the support and it means so much to me.
While that particular person I was trying to send a letter at the time wasn't a friend, I still look up to her quite a lot. She did some really good work in the past, including avocating human rights and upholding justice. Saying that she's smart is an understatement, as she's known to demolish an unflappable supergrass during an infamous murder trial case through some rough verbal frisking years ago.
Still what happens in Scotch College is a grim reminder that no one is immune to the Covid-19, even when you're at the higher echelon of society, along with having strong wits and such.
The EPA will not enforce environmental laws due to COVID-19. Indefinitely!
Awesome...
“This EPA statement is essentially a nationwide waiver of environmental rules for the indefinite future. It tells companies across the country that they will not face enforcement even if they emit unlawful air and water pollution in violation of environmental laws, so long as they claim that those failures are in some way 'caused' by the virus pandemic. And it allows them an out on monitoring too, so we may never know how bad the violating pollution was,” she wrote in a statement to The Hill.
I've move past the whole concept of incompetence as a descriptor for this regime.
What we're undergoing now is a form of genocide. Genocide by negligence & malevolence.