Also some of us suggested back then, Why not isolate the elderly and vulnerable and keep the young ones working. That was without a vaccine at the time. Wuhan strain. Deadly
So I will ask that same question today, Why not isolate the elderly and vulnerable and keep the young ones working. Now 70% vaxed over 70yo protected . Delta strain. Not as Deadly.
But all comes back to that word suppression.
The Andrews gov tried that coming out of the very first lockdown and were lulled into a warm fuzzy feeling by the federal gov that it would be easy to track and trace the virus and keep the community levels low. What they found was that this was not the case, the virus got loose in a school, and in the casual workforce due to the socio-economic locale of the breakout. Before you could blink it was in several aged care facilities that were still in complete lockdown and numbers swelled to 700 cases and deaths mounted, one of those aged care facilities was not more than 500 mtrs from me and 15 km from the nearest outbreak spot. I still have no idea how the virus got into that one. It was unnerving to see the area roped off and spacesuits walking around throwing out bedding and fittings into a giant plastic lined skip. Sydney was lucky as its breakout locations were easily contained back then. This is why Melbourne moved to suppression as it was clear you could not isolate vulnerable people within a community from the community, as the facilities require the community to operate. Also you then have the million plus Victorians over 50 and vulnerable who are not in care and definitely can not isolate from the community indefinitely.
This year the tables were turned, in a way, Melbourne had learned from harsh reality that they had to stomp on it early and hard, which has worked every-time since. Sydney tried to play politics in the last month rather than deal with it and is now paying the price.
If we had 80% vaccinations, no prob, non event, but its the opposite of that presently.