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Speaking with Dr Berhan Ahmed for this article in April, he said his greatest fear was COVID-19 finding itself into the Flemington and other estates [not in the article as outside area]. Ten weeks later and 3000 residents in 9 public towers have been locked into their homes.
![Speaking with Dr Berhan Ahmed for this article in April, he said his greatest fear was COVID-19 finding itself into the Flemington and other estates [not in the article as outside area]. Ten weeks later and 3000 residents in 9 public towers have been locked into their homes.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcETGtYU4AEQ8nO.png "Speaking with Dr Berhan Ahmed for this article in April, he said his greatest fear was COVID-19 finding itself into the Flemington and other estates [not in the article as outside area]. Ten weeks later and 3000 residents in 9 public towers have been locked into their homes.")
Those towers are the ideal environment for a virus like this to take hold and spread quickly, in terms of the proximity of people and the kinds of work in which they are involved. I would be interested to hear what proactive steps were being taken in these estates to stop this.
Perhaps a situation in which so much emphasis on a police response, in an area with a well documented breakdown in trust of the police, may not have been as effective as might otherwise have been the case.
"Shifts of 500 police officers will be assigned to enforce the lockdown for the nine towers". Would this be happening for a breakout in South Yarra or Elwood? https://www.sbs.com.au/news/victoria-reports-108-new-coronavirus-cases-as-hard-lockdown-announced-for-nine-public-housing-towers
Police and the Flemington towers have... history. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-05/victoria-police-should-face-second-discrimination-case-lawyer/8496348
I know you can only fit so much into a statement, but given this is such a major step this is *very* heavy on the policing and very light on the understanding of the need to provide financial assistance and deal with fragile emotional wellbeing.
The government is obviously hurting from the hotel security snafu and the opposition is going to hammer the hell out of that. But this is such a blunt response to real people with understandable trust issues, many with deep trauma associated with uniformed authority figures.
Would love to see one example of somewhere that has effectively policed itself out of a public health crisis. We can suddenly rustle up 1000 spare police to patrol postcodes and 500 to patrol every floor of nine public housing towers, but I've seen no mention of nurse squads.
Why nurses rather than police? Let's consult a doctor... https://twitter.com/schlutes/status/1279344908457750528
March 27: Stonnington (Toorak etc) had 58 COVID-19 cases (10% of Victoria's total), the Mornington Peninsula had 39, the second-highest number. Very little testing was being done compared to now.
Where were the repurposed booze-buses, police foot patrols and lockdowns then?
Where were the repurposed booze-buses, police foot patrols and lockdowns then?
It's easy to say that it's happening now and not then because X, Y and Z, but that's what we do in these situations - make excuses and tell ourselves stories to brush away the otherwise obvious fact we live under entirely different sets of rules.
