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Australian state of Victoria to deploy military, impose hefty fines to enforce virus isolation

32 Comments
By Colin Packham

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© Thomson Reuters 2020.

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32 Comments
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"There is literally no reason for you to leave your home and if you were to leave your home and not be found there, you will have a very difficult time convincing Victoria police that you have a lawful reason," Andrews

This is the the end of human freedom....unbelievable.

I don't know anything about Australias politics, but this Guy (Andrews) seems like a complete Idiot to me.

-22 ( +6 / -28 )

This language by elected officials and policy are alarming, this is obviously a test run being done in Australia first to see if it can be done in other western nations this autumn/winter. If people don't resist this we are heading for full Orwellian territory very quickly.

-18 ( +7 / -25 )

This is what happens when you relax the restrictions and people start to act as if nothing ever happened. Tokyo and Japan are next. At present, the only thing saving Japan is summer. It’s mid-winter in Melbourne and the virus us running rampant.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Because lockdowns demonstrably work.  As we can see from the stats in many other countries that locked down.  and many others that took a less draconian approach.......

-6 ( +3 / -9 )

@Big Yen

The experience all over the world in many countries, showed already that a Lockdown will only prevent the spread of the Virus temporary.

As soon as Australia finishes this Lockdown and open the city again, the Virus will spread again very fast.

A Lockdown will never kill the Virus!

-17 ( +6 / -23 )

Monty

These are desperate times, personal freedoms aside, if a full 6 week lockdown is what it takes to bring this under control then so be it.

I’m in the west and it has pretty much been contained here.

12 ( +19 / -7 )

Victoria has been naughty and now is being sent to it's room!

6 ( +8 / -2 )

it is easy to make motherhood statements about heading for full Orwellian territory and end of human freedom from keyboards.

it is very difficult to solve or contain real life problems with people dying everyday during a pandemic.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-10/victorian-charged-with-breaching-self-quarantine-direction-in-sa/12445162

A Melbourne man has been charged with failing to follow directions to self-isolate for two weeks upon his arrival in South Australia.

SA Police attended a property in Glenelg about 8:00pm on Thursday after receiving information the man was not quarantining at the place nominated by him following his entry into the state from Victoria on Wednesday.

On arrival, police allegedly spotted the man leaving and driving away in a Holden SUV.

Patrols followed the man and upon stopping his car, discovered he had only booked himself accommodation for a single night, as opposed to the 13 nights he was required to self-isolate.

The 35-year-old from Keysborough, in Melbourne's south-east, has been charged with failing to comply with a direction, and was refused bail.

He appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Friday and was remanded in custody to reappear on August 12.

all these types of unsupervised so-called self isolate, self quarantines are one of the numerous reasons why many original hotspots who thought they were on top of the situation got the surprises in the past few weeks.

all the resources needed to contact-trace the community from just one irresponsible person running around like this. multiply a few more barking about heading for full Orwellian territory and end of human freedom, the R1 number will duly do its job to expand exponentially, and more unnecessary deaths.

9 ( +12 / -3 )

Calm down. That's what people who live in Victoria, the vast majority of us committed democrats (whichever party we vote for) in a country which is committed to democracy and human freedom, are doing. Even though we're pissed off about how this happened, even though the restrictions are limiting our freedom of movement, most of us (not all) accept the need for it.

A country committed to democracy and human freedom does not lock down people with an action model literally copied on China. This is a shame for Australia to end up deploying the army to police its population particularly when the sanitary situation does not currently justify such authoritarian measures. They are just panicking at this point. South Korea which has so far 14,423 cases and 301 deaths did not use such extreme authoritarian measures (although the violation of people privacy by exposing the informations of infected people and tracing them is a very debatable), there is no reason Australia uses them.

-10 ( +6 / -16 )

This is going to lead to a general uprising.

-12 ( +6 / -18 )

One thing's for sure. If this lockdown doesn't work after 6 weeks, then Victoria's economy will be decimated. Prime Minister Morrison said it himself a month or so ago. You can't lock down an economy, then open up, lock down again, open up again, on and on.

And Do the Hustle, I don't the think the season has anything to do with it. We've seen the virus out spread in all seasons so far around the world.

9 ( +11 / -2 )

A Lockdown will never kill the Virus!

Who said we want to kill the virus? Australia's covid-19 strategy is always about suppression. Not elimination or eradication.

Even since the pandemic starts, I always laugh when I read about how Australian are doing a good job fighting the virus. The 3 reasons why Australia escape the wrath of covid-19 is one we lockdown early before community transmission starts, second we are a large country with a relatively small population and three is just dumb luck. Many Australian are not taking this virus seriously

Last week 3 stupid girls in Brisbane lied about returning from Victoria and have since been tested positive. 2 people who went to the same restaurant as these girls have been infected. I drove pass that restaurant a while ago and it is closed. The whole shopping complex it is in had only a few parked cars which means many businesses are suffering.

Too many bloody idiots are doing the wrong to things. It is time to go hard on them.

9 ( +11 / -2 )

Well said Yoshi and BigYen

It’s apparent there are some keyboard experts here not even in Australia commenting as if they are.

Makes me wonder how my grandparents would have handled this if it occurred in their heyday, I think they’d be more resilient and community minded.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

The Al-Taqwa College cluster is the largest in Victoria, with 113 cases

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said there was "an epidemiological link" between the college cluster and the outbreak in Melbourne's public housing towers

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Excited for posters who said “secret police brutalising and disappearing people to stop graffiti is good” to say “oh no the military in the streets to prevent Covid-19 is bad”.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Tokyo and Japan are next. At present, the only thing saving Japan is summer.

It won't happen.

Testing is measured and won't be ramped up to levels of Victoria state.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

They are really going to have to change their lifestyles to avoid trouble during this lockdown.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Moderate lockdown in Germany worked fine until the anti-lockdown nutters took to the streets and excercised their right to demonstrate against reason. Numbers are up again here.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

it is all about control...90% symptomless, about 99% recovers and the whole states lock down with military. Somebody has just took the bait, the hook and the sinker all together. Wake up people it is not about the virus it is the state imposing its control

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

How are people meant to get groceries? What about the homeless?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

erbaviva voted trump lately? So you are saying the whole world is trying to control is people, keeping them indoors and destroying the economy? Tell me why would a country want to destroy it's economy?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Britta homeless are screwed. You need to watch the news and do your research. People can still go out but only when necessary.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

How are people meant to get groceries?

As per the article the government finally announced Monday it would pay people 1,500 Australian dollars to stay home. I guess Australian dollars are edible.

One might also ask what they are meant to do with their dogs. Let them pee on the rug I guess.

I also wonder how they pay the bills. And what if they need to pick up medication?

Maybe instead of threatening almighty fines, the Australian government should be focusing on ensuring stay-at-home orders come with some actual help so people actually can stay at home.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

How are people meant to get groceries?

The same way they’ve already been getting them.

What about the homeless?

Still homeless unfortunately.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Britta I looked it up, you can go out for food and other necessities, to get care or give care, to work or study. I googled it, it's a pretty useful computer function.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

So in effect the can't go outside thing is useless. Work, school stores are still going to be full, as are streets with people making legit trips. They aren't going to be able to distinguish between person out for food and work from random out on the street. Rhetorical question, doggo, Google it.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

As per the article the government finally announced Monday it would pay people 1,500 Australian dollars to stay home. I guess Australian dollars are edible.

I also wonder how they pay the bills. And what if they need to pick up medication?

You can work this out. I believe in you.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

So in effect the can't go outside thing is useless.

Eh? That's pretty faulty logic.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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