The second wave

2020 is undoubtedly turning into a year none of us will ever forget. With three months remaining the flood of extraordinary news headlines continues unabated. Since I last posted about the global COVID-19 pandemic so much has happened here in Australia and internationally.

Less than three weeks after my last post on 6 June things took a nasty turn in Australia. In late June, the Victorian State Government announced a re-tightening of social distancing restrictions after an unexplained spike in community transmitted cases. It soon emerged that disease prevention protocols had failed within the state’s hotel quarantine program for returning international travellers. Hotel staff and security personnel at two hotels had contracted COVID-19 and subsequently taken it out in the broader community.

Infected people then began travelling interstate triggering new outbreak clusters in New South Wales and Queensland. In Victoria, the situation deteriorated rapidly. As the graph published here shows positive tests, hospitalisation and COVID-related deaths began climbing to levels previously unseen in Australia. While these statistics are still remarkably low by global standards, the pandemic has resulted in this nation's worst recession since the Great Depression.

In response to Victoria's second wave, the nation experienced another soul-numbing round of unprecedented headlines. First, international flights to Melbourne ceased and its hotel quarantine program was suspended. Australia's second-largest city was effectively cut off from the rest of the world.

Then, on 8 July, the Victorian and NSW interstate border closed for the first time in more than a century. Queensland subsequently closed its border with NSW just weeks after finally reopening for the first time in four months. This meant that those of us living in Sydney found ourselves constrained within our home state's borders for the first time in living memory.

On 7 July, after recording 191 new cases, the Victorian Government announced that metropolitan Melbourne would re-start lockdown restrictions for a minimum of six weeks. Four weeks later these restrictions were extended across the entire state of Victoria.

The state's lockdown restrictions were tightened again in August to include a night curfew in Melbourne. Non-essential businesses were forced to close and residents were largely confined to their homes. Those venturing out for exercise or grocery shopping were restricted to travelling within a zone that extended no more than 5km from their home. In Sydney, Victorian travellers arriving by air were also forced into compulsory quarantine for the first time.

The death toll in Victoria rose rapidly reaching 805 people as of yesterday. Positive infections passed 20,000 recorded cases. Prior to the second wave, Australia's national death toll has stalled at a remarkably low 104 people.

Restrictions finally began to ease in Victoria in late-September as new case numbers dropped into the low teens. Clusters that had broken out in NSW were also brought under control thanks to new restrictions and world-class contact tracing. As of today, NSW has reported eight consecutive days with zero community transmission. In Sydney, daily life is slowly starting to feel normal again.

International travel remains effectively banned in Australia. Residents cannot leave the country without a permit that’s often difficult to obtain and those who return are transferred into compulsory quarantine for 14 days at their own expense. The intake of international travellers is also capped at 4000 people per week.

These restrictions are expected to remain in place until at least March or April next year. As a result, Garry and I have made new plans for our Summer vacation. We'll be staying within our home state and travelling up the North Coast for two weeks on Boxing Day.

We’ve booked ourselves into a corner suite at the waterfront Ramada Hotel in Ballina for a week. We last stayed there in 2016 while on business and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We’ll then make our way back down to Sydney stopping for several days in a series of scenic spots. Our itinerary includes the picturesque waterfalls at Dorrigo National Park, Harrington and Port Stephens.

Internationally, the news remains grim. The USA, Europe and India saw positive cases rise again as initial lockdown restrictions were eased in June. In the UK daily cases now exceed those reported during the pandemics initial outbreak. In the USA more than 200,000 people have died and more than 7 million infected. Globally the death toll has soared past 1 million souls.

Then, just when we thought we’d seen the last of COVID's stunning headlines, the President of the United States and the First Lady were diagnosed with COVID-19 yesterday. The President’s infection comes less than a month before the US Presidential Election. Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, are now under quarantine for several weeks.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the impact this has on his re-election campaign. Trump was already behind in national polls and actively redirecting the daily narrative away from his handling of the pandemic. Now he and many of his key campaign operatives are unable to venture beyond their homes. October surprises really don't get any bigger than this.

In public, Trump has downplayed the pandemic's seriousness. He’s ignored social distancing measures on numerous occasions and disregarded guidelines from top health advisors. Once again, this persistent virus has demonstrated how incredibly virulent it really is. It’ll be interesting to see how this week’s events affect the election on 3 November.