Leading Victorian businessman, McNamee’s criticised the government’s roadmap for its lack of independent consultancy, placing further pressure on Victorian Premier Dan Andrews to ease the stringent restrictions.
Andrews’ roadmap will see Melbourne remain under stage four lockdown until Sept. 28. Then move through a four-step plan that requires less than five traceable active cases for stage three.
“This isn’t ebola. If this was ebola in the community, I get it, but this is a disproportionate response to a disease that we better understand now,” he said.
Andrews has repeatedly defended the roadmap, arguing it was based on modelling conducted by supercomputers and that there was no other way.
No data has been publicised about the modelling despite requests from the federal government and media groups.
According to McNamee, those tasked with creating the victorian government’s models are now distancing themselves from the government’s decisions.
“Even the modellers are saying ”you’re going a bit too far with this, you asked us to do some work with these inputs, that’s all you asked us to do,” McNamee said.
There are only four reasons for leaving the home, one being a one-hour exercise break. Masks are also compulsory across the state. Victoria police have issued thousands of infringement notices and arrested several individuals for violating the Chief Health Officers directions.
“We are an absolute outlier internationally. It’s the most crushing policy in a modern country with a dynamic city like Melbourne. No one is attempting to do what he’s doing here,” he said.
McNamee’s criticism of the roadmap this week followed those made by federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and some of Australia’s leading epidemiologists.
All have questioned the thresholds established for opening up and have pushed better contact tracing as a measure to deal with the threat of the Sars-CoV-2 virus.
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