Flattening the Economic Curve, The Quiet Revolutionary

Update 5 May

Gearing Up For More Business

With control of the health crisis now being sustained, the focus turns to flattening the economic curve in Australia.

The new landscape that’s being painted as we prepare to re-enter ‘normal’ living WITH the virus, is a COVIDSafe Australia. This would have been unthinkable 6 – 8 weeks ago when we had no idea what COVID-19 would do to this country. But since then many protections have been put in place, so that we can cautiously venture out again.

A COVIDSafe Workplace

So what is a COVIDSafe workplace going to look like? How will factories ensure hand hygiene? What will restaurants look like with social distancing? And should shop assistants be wearing PPE? Businesses are hungry for information.

Today some helpful resources were outlined by the Attorney-General, Christian Porter, and head of the COVID-19 Coordination Committee, Neville Power:

Safe work principles have been written up by the National Cabinet

The COVIDSafe app will help with tracking if needed.
Safe Work Australia website, which has been inundated by ‘clicks’ in recent weeks, has been upgraded with very specific info to different industry sectors. 1300 additional pages, reached through content filters, help any kind of business to find the finer details of what COVIDSafe looks like for them, from risk assessments right down to what products to use for hygiene.

You’ll find the website links here:
https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/covid-19-information-workplaces

A COVIDSafe Toolkit has been compiled following many consultations with companies, unions, associations and bodies in the business sector. This provides business resources on:

Changes to make your business COVIDSafe
How to respond if there’s an infection in your workplace
How to safely return to work after an infection in your workplace

My Two Cents’ Worth on ‘Living With the Virus’

Here’s the crazy thing to get our minds around: cluster infections are going to happen. That is expected and that is okay. Australia is ready to pounce if that happens to make sure it won’t get far.

My soap box rant for the day is that we should not be shaming places where there are outbreaks. It’s inevitable that somebody’s going to be infected somewhere and not know about it. But calm the farm – it can now be spotted and controlled super quickly. Look at North West Tasmania. Look at the Newmarch Aged Care Facility. Look at the quick response to the meatworks site in Melbourne. No spread outside those unfortunate locations.

Remember that 80% of COVID-19 infections are mild, it could just be a mild cough.

(Have you downloaded the app?)

State News

Queensland

Premier Palaszczuk has made breaking news:

Kindy, prep, and Years 1, 11 and 12 will return to the classroom next week. Remaining grades are proposed to return from 25 May.
June has been suggested as the “good ambitious target” for cafes to reopen.
NRL players have been permitted to travel to Queensland (as essential work travel, and sticking to the required quarantine process) to enable the season’s kick off as hoped.

Western Australia

Elite athletes have been allowed to resume training.

South Australia

A Transition Committee has been appointed to help decide which restrictions should be eased in SA, and in what order. They will seek to identify actions that will have low health risk with economic value.

Northern Territory

As preparation for closed businesses to reopen as soon as 15 May, a COVID-19 safety plan checklist has been devised and can be submitted from today.

New South Wales

Five businesses accepted the challenge to look at producing ventilators locally. Two were selected after prototype presentations. If they meet all the right official requirements, full production can commence if the need arises.

The Stats for Australia

There have been 6825 cases of COVID-19 in Australia
Sadly, 95 have died
28 people are in ICU
5859 people have recovered

Around 5 million Australians have downloaded the COVIDSafe app.

Today ScoMo said he’d like to see 16 million downloads, so we’re about a third of the way there.

Download the app here: www.covidsafe.org.au

Hope Over Fear

Innovation is the name of the game when it comes to business amidst coronavirus craziness.

Italian Community Pays It Forward

‘Paying it forward’ was something that happened in Italy after the world wars. With an estimated one in two Italians currently out of work, the gesture has made a modern resurgence. Communities are helping local wine bars by paying for online ‘wine-in-waiting’ vouchers, to be redeemed as glasses or bottles of wine when the wine bars reopen.

An alternate scheme to the tune of ‘buy one, give one free’ was started by a sustainable fashion brand that shifted their energies to making face masks. Customers who buy Re-Bello’s washable face masks sponsor a second mask to a refugee in Cypress.

Luxury Tracky-Dacks

Luxury lounge wear for the self-isolation wardrobe is an emerging market in the COVID-19 space. Smitten Merino in Tasmania has started a range of high quality woollen wear including items like merino wool track pants. It’s been a success – the company was saved from standing down its 30 workers.

Prisoners Make and Donate School Desks

In Western Australia prisoners have constructed 100 compact school desks to donate to families that don’t have suitable work stations (or space) for their children learning at home.

Your Tip for Today

Boost Your Healthy

Did you know you could keep up your swim training without water? Running out of ideas for healthy eating at home? What’s your self care plan?

If you’re starting to feel the toll of social distancing, or if you’ve not been able to go to the gym or the sports club, this website’s three-pronged approach might give you some inspiration through community challenges:

Boost Camp lets you share your healthy activity of the day
The Big Boost is a series of challenges that you can sign up to, whether walking, cooking or working on your wellbeing.
Boost Challenge involves sporting stars challenging you to keep up with them.

If you’re not keen on challenges, you’ll still find heaps of fitness, healthy eating and wellbeing ideas to give you a boost.

https://hw.qld.gov.au/boostyourhealthy/

What About You?

I’d love to hear your stories.