I got an email from a friend in Melbourne, Australia. You want to talk lockdown? They know how to lock down in Oz, at least in Melbourne. They're in what they call Stage Four lockdown. I have no idea if the number of the stage is supposed to match the number of reasons one can be out, but there are only four reasons one can be out of the house. First, they can be an essential worker and carry a permit to prove it. Second, they can be shop for food or supplies. Third, they can seek medical care. Last, they can get one hour of outdoor exercise daily. Curfew runs from 8:00 pm to 5;00 am. With the exception of medical care and essential work, a person must stay within a 5km radius from their home. Nonessential businesses and retail are shut. Face masks are mandatory, and a person can be fined for not wearing one. Police can stop people randomly to check their destination or reason for being out. How long will this all last? Until at least mid-September.
Can you imagine the uproar if a US city were to even suggest instituting such measures? Why, it would be un-American! You can't take away our basic freedoms! Such drastic measures weren't even tried by any city here. I don't want to think about how bad things might have to be for a city or state to try to lock down that tightly. The husband read an article that mentioned that Australia's Northern Territory would be keeping borders closed for another 18 months, which means just about the end of 2021. That would also go over like the proverbial lead balloon here. Come to think of it, though, that might be how long we end up banned from entering any European countries or our neighbor to the north, Canada. And I could see HWSNBN saying that if a country won't let US citizens in, the US won't let their citizens in.
The local university has announced move-in procedures for students who will be living on campus. No mass arrivals such as we faced with each of the sons. Each student gets a two-hour window and can have two people helping. Masks are required as is social distance from other moving-in parties. They did something similar in May or June when they let students return to move out of the dorm rooms they left over spring break. I don't expect things will go swimmingly during move-in, but I'm not sure the general public will hear about it if things don't.
Virginia's case number was up yesterday, sending the rolling seven-day average back up. When will we get back down to the case numbers we had when we first started to reopen? Your guess is as good as mine.
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DS has a time slot for moving in. I haven't asked but I hope it's more realistic than the one he had for moving out which was half an hour to pack and clean bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. I'm good but not that good.
We had four reasons for leaving the house but they were defined so vaguely that you could have shopped three times a day and exercised outside all day. Even so it was grim for a long time and I wouldn't want to go back there.
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