Originally Posted by
CPMaverick
I didn't think it was realistic early on. But there has been more than one day of 0 local virus cases in Australia. So it was tantalizingly close. Heck, if you take out VIC they've basically done it. If AU did a lock down like NZ they would have almost certainly achieved a similar result. But hindsight is an easy thing.
I’m not convinced we would have actually as the vast majority of the community spread for the last month has been through what would have been considered essential workers. The things that we did have open which NZ didn’t, restaurants, cafes, more relaxed restrictions on being outside, don’t seem to have had much of an impact on infections but certainly did have a big impact on the economy.
It’s also interesting that the state that was the strictest on what people could do, strict enforcement and handing out fines etc is also the one which has had sustained community transmission for the longest. No idea if by being so proscriptive it made people turn off common sense and do silly things even though they were following the rules or whether it was just plain bad luck but it is kinda interesting.