Melbourne has been plunged into another lockdown to ward of the spread of coronavirus. In a positively dystopian display of force, the police and the army have been deployed to form a ring of (blue) steel around metropolitan Melbourne, while drones and number plate recognition are used to catch trespassers into country Victoria or worse, NSW.

Chairman Dan is seen on TV urging people to stay home and follow the rules, which amount to nothing less but a kind of home imprisonment.

Have we learnt nothing from the previous 10 weeks of lockdown?

Lockdowns don’t work. Anybody who believes they do is a delusional fool.

What they do , is kick the can down the road while taking a away people’s liberty and running the economy against the wall.

After 10 weeks of lockdown combined with international  border control and hotel quarantine , things were looking up in Victoria, but it was only a small window of reprieve. It turned out that while police was busy fining people for fishing or leisure driving, the hotel quarantine for incoming travelers had been mismanaged and the virus got out into the community.

One of the reasons lockdowns don’t work is that people override the rules. The police can not be everywhere and fine everybody. They would be especially reluctant to interfere in some migrant communities where aggressive behavior is common.

They claimed it was impossible to fine the BLM matter protesters, all 10 000 of them who flaunted the rules of social distancing.

Now the “authorities” believe they can contain Melbourne (just like they thought they could contain a few postcodes), but it’s only a matter of time until the virus leaks out into the surrounding countryside and a full statewide lockdown will probably follow in 2 weeks time (and that’s optimistic, it may be less than a week.)

Even if the virus does not leak it will require too many police resources to stop people from leaving Melbourne’s enormous metropolitan area.

And then what? We go for 6 weeks or possible longer as Dan Andrews is already threatening?

Why does the government not understand that we cannot have infinite lockdowns to save a few people at the expense of millions?

Lockdowns don’t work, not only because we can never rely on everybody to do the right thing, but because even when we weld people into apartments, the virus still exists somewhere in the world and will find another way in.

The only way this ends is by reasonable social distancing measures, banning mass events (with huge fines for organizers)  and protecting the vulnerable  while allowing the virus to spread slowly among the young Working from home and online schooling are also good options  for stopping the spread.

It’s ridiculous to say that children are harmed by not attending school. Humanity survived for centuries without  mandatory schooling  and people still manged to learn  and develop.

Children still need to socialize, but a ban on mandatory school attendance is necessary to protect vulnerable parents and grandparents. School could remain optional for those who want or need it.

The young adult population are the ones least likely to be affected by the virus. They are also the ones who are most  negatively affected by lockdown and resulting job loss and isolation.

They will rebel and flaunt the rules, thereby causing the virus to burn itself out among them and creating a herd immunity scenario that will allow us all to move on.

They will be the ones to save us  from ourselves because they will be forced to save themselves from  politicians and their misguided and misinformed draconian measures.