Well, it's because there's such a lack of clarity and such a lack of support. What do you mean by that? Why is the shadow lockdown worse than the official lockdowns that we've seen? MIKE: We've got this situation where lots of the country is in essentially a self-imposed or shadow lockdown.Īnd in some ways it's actually worse than a government mandated lockdown.

So you now, because so many people are sick and because there's so much virus circulating. So they're just staying home or avoiding going out unnecessarily so that they limit their chances of getting sick. So, you know, on any given day in Australia, at the moment, we have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people being forced into isolation.Īnd then we have an even larger chunk of people who might not have COVID but really don't want to get it.

And so are their close contacts, or at least they were until recently. Yeah, I know that's going to have an impact on our society and our economy, you know, for a number of reasons.įor a start, there's the fact that the people who come up Covid positive go into isolation for seven days in most places. Since January 10 this year, there have been more than a million cases recorded in the country, and that's as many as were recorded in the entire country over the past two years. And so can we talk about what is underpinning this, Mike, why the country is so quiet right now? Is it because people are staying home because they're catching Covid-19? Or is this because they're curbing their activities to try and avoid contracting it? MIKE: “The situation predicted to get worse before it gets better.” MIKE:Īnd I suspect when the data comes out, we will be more or less in recession again, at least in the month of January. So, you know, despite all the talk about how this was going to be the year of opening up and economic recovery, it seems like Australians are still pretty spooked. “Consumer sentiment fell 7.6% in the past week to a 15 month low, and the lowest level or perhaps the highest glumness level for January since 1992 when we were deep in recession.” MIKE: The latest ANZ consumer confidence survey found that, January, which is normally a pretty optimistic month and people are out there buying stuff, was the slowest in 30 years. Shops, restaurants and cafes are closing their doors or cutting open hours as they struggle to find workers.” MIKE: “Experts are warning of a domino effect of business closures as record Covid cases trigger staff shortages. You know, we see that people aren't travelling, they're staying home and they're not spending. “As Australia officially records over one million Covid cases since the pandemic began, Omicron continues to wreak havoc on the economy.” MIKE: So at this moment in time, our cities, they actually are just as quiet as they were during the government mandated lockdowns of the last two years. And they found that at the moment, the lack of movement is pretty much equivalent to what it was when the city was in a stage three lockdown. I note that researchers from the University of Melbourne map mobility data across the city, tracking how many people are moving around the city. So it all feels kind of, I guess pretty much as scary as any of the official lockdowns.Īnd you know, this isn't just my personal view. And, you know, even when I walk past people on the street, I was walking past someone the other day and as I approached, I saw them hurriedly put their mask on and sort of scurry past me. Personally, I try not to go out as much as I can. While, we're not in any sort of official lockdown, and we can all theoretically leave our houses and go to the shops and whatever.

And already we're seeing new terminology aren’t we? We see people talking about the shadow lockdown and the Clayton's lockdown, and that's exactly what it is.

I think that's how it feels to everybody. Is that how it feels to you as well? MIKE: No one is really making any ambitious plans for the year ahead. Cafes and restaurants are pretty empty at the moment. So, Mike, right now, we're not officially in lockdown, but in a lot of ways it does kind of feel like we still are. Today - National Correspondent for The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe, on how the rampant spread of Omicron has led to a shadow lockdown, and why for many businesses and families, it’s the worst lockdown yet. While supply chains are falling apart, consumers are also staying home either because they’re sick, close contacts, or simply because they don’t want to risk contracting the virus. Right now most of Australia is living without restrictions, lockdowns or border closures.īut with tens of thousands of people, including essential workers, being forced into isolation everyday our economy is still under intense pressure from the pandemic. From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

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