But 1 club is not as important as 15 other clubs, nor as important as 300+ players that will have their income affected, or a whole competition that will have its funding affected.
The media is alarmist and so are you. Where is 6 months income going to come from? Some people might be able to do a month at most, many people cannot work from home. We're allowed to go to the shops? Where the f**k is the food going to come from to stock the shops? I live in a small town that's 65km away from the nearest supermarket, and I run a petrol station in said town. Am I allowed to stay open so people can get fuel to go to the shops? Or from the other angle, am I required to stay open so people can get fuel (an essential service) risking exposure to myself and myself exposing others to the virus?? It's not as simple as 'everyone just stay home all winter'.
South Korea did not impose a lockdown like Italy
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlie...wn-but-with-nearly-250000-tests/#77e535de576b
China's lockdown was not as long as 6 f**king months and it was not the whole country.
Your quibbling over the term lockdown. Call it social distancing if you like. Call it voluntary, it doesn't matter, it is the same idea.
No country has allowed essential services to stop, nor should they.
Some countries play around with the formula. In Japan, they have closed schools except some allow kids of medical and essential services workers to school, so that those workers don't have to stay home to mind their kids.
Some countries are fortunate in that they can isolate an area and not have the whole country in social distancing at once. If you are in a very rural region of Australia, you might be lucky and just keeping people out of your town or village may work instead of social distancing (on the down side, you are unlikely to have the intensive care and breathing assistance technology nearby needed if you do get a severe case).
South Korea though, has absolutely shut down in a way that we haven't yet. Schools closed, people not going to cinemas, cafes, gyms. No public gatherings. And yes, they have been innovative with tracking cases and testing. They are also the most technologically advanced society on in the world, so this shouldn't be too surprising. But they are staying home just like we will be.
Saying China didn't all "lock down" is disingenuous. Hundreds of millions of people did. They are like 50 Australias, and the 10 or so with infections locked down. And the rest will too, eventually.
Why would you say the lockdown wasn't as long as 6 months? It isn't over yet. No one is precisely sure how long extreme social distancing has to go for (if you prefer that term to lockdown). I have suggested months, not 6 f**cking months.
I certainly don't know how long it has to be, but if we start extreme social distancing in two months in Australia (it may be earlier than that as the 50 new cases in two days shows we are further along than I thought) and it went for 2 months that would see us through most of flu season.
There will almost certainly be gradual lifting in some places as an "experiment" and the rest of the world will look on. The people that make that call will be desperately hoping they don't get it wrong, and if it is just left to people to decide for themselves, communities will be hoping their members get that call right.
In Beijing, which has had two and a half months of social distancing but not much coronavirus, people are starting to go back to public spaces.
The UK are experimenting and not doing it yet, arguing that people will get sick of it and not follow it after 3 months, so they will do it when the peak is closer. They are a few weeks behind Italy, and are experimenting with the timing, but they still see extreme social distancing as their eventual fate.
I think it is a bold experiment. I wish them luck. I fear they will be another Italy very soon.
But you are right. Social distancing is coming at a great cost.
Plenty of people will be down a lot of money. Businesses will close. Worldwide, an increase in poverty from the economic shocks will kill many people, but those statistics will hardly be noted, just studied by "lefty" sociologists in future years.
Hopefully you will be in a position where you can work from home, but if not, you will likely rely on welfare for some period of time this year (which will cost the government many extra billions this year). Maybe for a while, restricting public transport and staggering work schedules will help for a while.
If you are a fly in, fly out mine worker, you might just keep working as normal. Each job and each country will have its own peculiar circumstances.
But I guarantee that in Australia, schools and universities will close for some time. If that doesn't do enough (which is probably the case, unless we suddenly get a lot more testing kits, and a lot more hospital beds) then "non essential" businesses will close. Businesses may make the call themselves, or governments may have to tell them. I can't tell how authoritarian the government will be on this. They probably don't yet know themselves.
But that will probably mean cinemas, cafes, restaurants and other work places where people gather, that are not essential, will close. Governments will probably shut most their own offices, but require workers to work from home where possible. Plenty of other office based jobs can do this also. Retail based jobs will just plummet, as sales will be next to impossible for a while, except of essential items.
Australia is less predictable since we will have a flu season at the same time. I urge everyone to absolutely get the flu vaccine when it comes out, probably much earlier than it normally does (I think it is going to be out in 2 or 3 weeks, and if you get it then, which you should, you may need another around July, which you should also do).
But this may make us worse than other countries, so this winter we may be very isolated.
You are right to be worried about people's economic futures. It will be a tough year.
You can argue about "lockdown" vs "social distancing", and argue about how long it will happen for. We don't know precisely what it will look like (already it looks like no crowds and no NZ Warriors in the NRL) or how long it will last.
The more extreme and earlier we do it the shorter it probably has to be, but I don't see any signs yet that Australia feels like this is a threat we have to properly deal with, so it will be weeks or even months before we have the sort of "non lockdown" that South Korea has, where no one goes to cinemas, restaurants, or public spaces with other people. But we, too, will get there (I hope we don't. I hope there is a vaccine, but there won't be. I hope we contain it, but we haven't. I hope just stopping crowds will slow it enough, but it won't.)
