The Australian Greens have joined calls for a full New Zealand-style mandatory stay at home lockdown to respond to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, backing health experts calling for a \u2018go hard, go fast\u2019 response to enforce social distancing.
\nGreens leader Adam Bandt and health spokesperson Dr Richard Di Natale have called on the Prime Minister and National Cabinet to adopt a lock down in line with New Zealand\u2019s Stage 4 measures. This would require everyone, except those providing essential services, to stay home, and only make physical contact with those they live with.
\n\u201cThe government\u2019s number one job is to save lives. This crisis is growing daily and the current social distancing measures are confusing and inconsistent. The Prime Minister needs to follow Jacinda Ardern\u2019s lead and adopt a full lockdown.\u201d Mr Bandt said.
\n\u201cI am worried that the Prime Minister\u2019s desire to keep business as usual going will place more lives at risk.
\n\u201cWhile there may be a higher short term economic impact, taking strong measures earlier may limit the economic impact in the longer term.
\n\u201cA lockdown must also be accompanied by adequate support for workers and the vulnerable, including a UK-style 80% wage subsidy, rent and mortgage holidays and a ban on evictions and foreclosures.
\n\u201cThe National COVID-19 Coordination Commission also needs to represent everyday people, not just big business. If it\u2019s to be led by mining magnates, it should be balanced with the addition of someone representing the community and social services sector and the unions to speak up on behalf of people thrust into poverty.
\n\u201cThe lockdown must also coincide with a big boost to testing across the population and a massive effort to increase resources to hospitals and fever clinics.\u201d
\nDr Di Natale highlighted the need for stronger lock down measures in light of the rise in numbers across the country and the confused and fragmented response from governments.
\n\u201cThe government\u2019s recent response to this crisis has been confusing, and the \u2018national cabinet\u2019 which was intended to provide a united national approach has clearly failed to do that\u201d Dr Di Natale said.
\n\u201cIf we want to flatten the curve and give our health system a fighting chance, we must now move to this highest level of lock down, with a set of simple recommendations and Australians should expect that we could be in this position for some time to come.
\n\u201cThe AMA and other expert groups are now calling for stronger measures and it is time the government listened.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Australian Greens have joined calls for a full New Zealand-style mandatory stay at home lockdown to respond to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, backing health experts calling for a \u2018go hard, go fast\u2019 response to enforce social distancing. Greens leader Adam Bandt and health spokesperson Dr Richard Di Natale have called on the Prime Minister … Continue reading “Greens call for full coronavirus lockdown”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}