Ah Melbourne; fortress capital of despair where Death stalks the land and pale skinned denizens slink from place to place dreaming futilely of freedom while fleeing the attentions of the police, random covid testers and infectious butchers. In that self proclaimed prison camp wearing a smile is a crime against nature and the city's librarians will soon be marshaled into a heavily armed militia to enforce obedience on an increasingly desperate populace. A ring of steel surrounds the city (according to the state premier, most others consider it a ring of intermittently manned roadblocks) and the slightest cough is enough to have you sent to the acid baths for "cleansing".
Now at a time when their souls could be degraded no further and the misery of their daily lives weighs most heavily on their hunched shoulders the people of Melbourne have a new horror to endure. Tourists from New Zealand! Amidst a population apparently consisting of equal parts doomed elderly, plague rats and police issuing infringement notices these clean, upright people glowing with enthusiasm and shamelessly flaunting their health can be recognised a mile away.
Yes, at a time when attempting to visit relatives in the next city over would result in an unleashing of hounds the population of Melbourne now has to put up with people who apparently flew several hundred miles to make the locals feels worse about themselves. New Zealand is so confident that it has beaten the virus that it is telling its citizens to go forth and spread the word (either that or the welfare system can't actually handle so many people back at home). The much touted trans Tasman bubble is in effect. Basically the population of New Zealand can travel anywhere as long as its Australia. Australians can't yet travel to New Zealand because, well because the New Zealanders aren't stupid.
Some of the above mentioned New Zealanders turned up in Melbourne to the outrage of the premier who hadn't realised that people who travel to Australia can then keep on traveling through Australia. The much touted lock down of Melbourne did nothing to keep them out for the same reason that most prisons don't really worry too much about people trying to break in. All of the restrictions were really based around making sure the population of Melbourne didn't leave. In fairness I probably wouldn't have considered that we might have to prevent people from visiting Melbourne either. Vast numbers of people don't visit Melbourne every year and that was before it became a plague ridden hellscape.
Still there are reasons to visit Melbourne, if you're into endangered species the population probably counts as one by now. Also with everybody huddling at home the public transport system is probably working better than it has in a century. That's certainly been my experience even under New South Wales more tepid movement restrictions. And now Melbourne has a claim to fame that will cement its position in the history books. It has been announced that they have identified the first case of reinfection of a previous COVID patient. Only eight or so other cases of reinfection have been recorded around the entire world. Melbourne's immortality is assured. As for the population, that's a little more problematic.
No comments:
Post a Comment