It concerns me that the media coverage about covid outbreak in Melbourne has mistakenly simplified the public narrative to suggest it was one misbehaving security guard at hotel quarantine which caused all new cases in Melbs. This leads to public complacency. A thread👇🏻
There is no evidence every single new case in Victoria had one source. The virus was never completely gone. It has sprung up and flared in a school, in family clusters, in North Melbourne tower, as well as in hospitals. This is community transmission - spreading silently.
So, the narrative which suggests all these cases have one source lead people to be complacent about the risks of them getting the virus. They think ‘I don’t have any connection with anyone who has worked as a security guard in hotel quarantine, so I’m safe’. This is concerning.
I found with my research that narratives simplify complex situations into black and white templates. They also reinforce themselves - they become rules of thumb, common knowledge, are spread - like a virus - by community, used to explain all abnormalities, and hide the truth.
Of course, the narrative that hotel quarantine guard was the only source of community transmission in Victoria fits the Liberals’ political hit job on Dan Andrews. They saw a way to blame covid second lockdown on Labor, and media have assisted them to entrench this narrative.
Liberals don’t want any scrutiny of their calls to ‘open the pubs and cafes’, their constant bullying of Premiers to open schools (remember Andrews resisted longest), their early calls to stop the lockdown pretty much from the day the lockdown started. This has infected public.
Of course a pandemic spread is about as complex as it gets. Eventually experts might be able to do DNA analysis to see how the virus spread and from who/where but right now, all resources are being used to test and trace where it is. Huge number of cases today is a massive worry.
Every single person living in Melbourne should be told they have just as much chance of catching covid as any other person. There shouldn’t be a narrative spread that you would know if your contacts had it so don’t need to worry until that happens.
This complacency, I also see spreading throughout NSW. They are so busy pointing finger at Melbourne - drinking the media koolaid which tells them they’ve got nothing to worry about in Sydney, they’re showing major complacency which is a massive risk to everyone.
We’ve seen this week a crowded line outside a pub. Do those people think covid is gone in Sydney? Look how quickly the spread happened in Melbourne. It’s not gone. Anyone with cold like symptoms should be tested - but are they showing that initiative or not?
It worries me that covid could be spreading in Sydney without anyone knowing. I read that a second person in Liverpool has tested positive to covid, and only connection to other Liverpool case is that they went to same pub for dinner. So there is community spread in Sydney.
So, the message to media here here is to stop simplifying, resist the ‘this is all one security guard, all Dan Andrews’ fault’ and instead tell real story which wakes the community up to the fact covid hasn’t gone away and could be back the second you let your guard down. End.
