From Chris Joye comes guff:
Australia’s pragmatic Prime Minister Scott Morrison has, unsurprisingly, pivoted to the possibility of an early release from the lockdown, which if prolonged indefinitely would push the country into an extreme depression with far greater human costs than the capricious coronavirus.
ScoMo also had no compunction shutting down the NSW premier’s suggestion that the lockdown could continue until we have a vaccine. The narrative has shifted to the Prime Minister flagging that states that crush the transmission quickly could experiment with a more rapid transition to the “new normal” of getting ultra-low-risk, working-age employees back to making a living, which could give them a competitive advantage over states that lag.
This sudden change in tone is the expected result of Australia’s success in flattening the infection curve with the rate of increase in new infections peaking in early April in line with our projections in March. Our models continue to predict that new infections in the US will likewise peak this month, which we have argued is a crucial inflexion point for markets.
More guff from El Trumpo:
Thanks to the American people, we continue to see glimmers of hope. pic.twitter.com/7uyCHAZpEh
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 7, 2020
There is no point in opening if you’re not ready. You’ll just be forced to shut again. Recall the hammer and the dance:
First you must crush the virus, which neither nation has done, making the dance harder. Then, to re-open, you must have in place blanket testing infrastructure. Every street corner. Every office. Every supermarket. Every everything must have some trained person with a thermometer, as well as, hopefully, a five minute COVID-19 tester (you can start with the former). Graduates can be used to do mass virus tracing as well.
There’s an obvious massive employment booster in this as well.
The US has none of this. I haven’t seen a plan for it, either, though there may be one. It will have the help of Summer but will still need these measures.
Australia has some of it planned with 100 drive through testing stations but that is NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH given we’re going into Winter.
It will also have to be co-ordinated nationally, by ScoMo, or it’s useless. The borders must remain shut.
You can’t just shut for four weeks, sit on your hands and then reopen.
You’ll shut again in three weeks.
