Saturday saw protests in Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, in Melbourne accompanied by rioting.
On Sunday the state government of Victoria (Melbourne is the capital city of Vic) released their 'RoadMap' out of restrictions. The state had been eagerly awaiting this all week.
The map was met without much community nor business enthusiasm. I'm not sure why folks were so optimistic, a slow exit was well-flagged, even the conditions for exit were known. Long story short is there will be some more easing of restrictions once 70% of the eligible population have been double-vaccinated. This is expected on or around October 26. Much more substantial easings will occur at 80% double-vaccinated, expected on or about November 5.
The point of the slow exit is to try to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed with severe cases. Severe cases are much, much more likely amongst the unvaccinated, hence the focus on getting the double-dosed rate up to 70% plus.
Numbers over the weekend for new local cases:
Reported on Saturday
- NSW 1331
- Vic 535
- NZ 20
Reported Sunday
- NSW 1083
- Vic 507
- NZ 24
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I'm in the thick of it here in Melbourne. Curfew, the works! I greeted the release of the Roadmap with a text to friends of the three-minute TL;DR summary, here it is for my friends at ForexLive, enjoy!