The point of a fine is to be "excessive", so people think twice before breaking the law.
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The point of a fine is to be "excessive", so people think twice before breaking the law.
Context is key. Some dude was told to move on by police, he disregarded them. Spits at police. They arrest him. Some people have no respect and they get the fines/charged as they deserve.
Finding out more about the program, that assumption above is most likely incorrect, as the payment is meant to keep people at work and keep their worksite open - even if there isn't any work to do or your business isn't allowed to be open (the business would be paid to have it's workers doing something, like work for the dole).Quote:
My workplace has applied for the Jobkeeper program, and even though they haven't yet been accepted, they sent out emails to us workers yesterday to have us fill in a form if we want to participate, which suggests that they will close down our worksite as soon as they are accepted by the government (which would mean, no more money until the Jobkeeper payments start in about 6 weeks time (which is meant to backdate the payments to when you were laid off).
So even as my worksite is slowly cutting back on its labour costs due to the sales drying up, if $750 of our wages are to be covered by the government, we'd just be called in 4 days a week, doing menial work like cleaning, until we reach $750 worth of hours each week.
However, I think mid-May (3 weeks time), we will have enough states with zero new cases for several days, to warrant almost all businesses being allowed to open up again (while keeping the borders closed until there is a vaccine, or 2 weeks isolation for every arrival). Some states are already having days with zero new cases, while quite a few new cases recently are from Hospitals and foreign arrivals. We still have about 20-30 thousand Australians overseas, and quite a few of those still want to return, not to mention a couple of cruise ships still in our waters, so foreign arrivals will still be bringing the virus here for a few more weeks.
It looks like the number of new cases each day dropped as fast as it climbed, thanks to an almost complete lockdown here. Some might claim that it was over-exaggeration or fear-mongering, but if we had taken less strict actions, we would have had casualties like some of those other countries that acted slowly. It's like when we are told to prepare for a coming cyclone or flood and it doesn't end up being as bad as expected, does that make us wrong to prepare for it? All it will do is have us not be as prepared next time, and the next time could end up being worse than predicted.
$5K fine for spitting on an essential worker, includes to & from work. $13k for being caught not 1.5m apart (excluding members from same household). Hmmmm....Quote:
Originally Posted by dirge
Well, I'm not sure there's a valid reason for spitting on anyone, in truth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unicran
You’d think deliberate spitting would elicit >$50K fine in comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by dirge
The spitting recreation scene on Seinfeld was pretty funny though. :D
Well, the same thread over TFW has been removed. Not surprised at all.
Apparently that's the fine here in Queensland. I assume other states landed on different numbers.Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzcomp
I’m not sure griffin. An employee can be stood down & still get JobKeeper payment if Employer & Employee meet the criteria. It’s to stop them migrating over to JobSeeker, which reflects on Jobless rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin
Furlough. That’s a new word I learnt during COVID-19.
Does that mean you get fined twice? For you to spit, it's possible that you are less than 1.5m away.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unicran
Quote:
Originally Posted by dirge
Then we should have a single excessive fine for everything and not break any law. Make the fine a factor of your income so the fine impacts everyone fairly. :) In a time where people could be losing jobs, I don't think fines is a good idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tha_Phantom
I would understand if a COVID-19 person did stuff knowingly to spread the virus, then I would agree to these kind of excessive fines. But then they could have mental health issues and that's why they did it. Example a retired soldier with PTSD was shot/killed by a police officer for violating social distancing (overseas). He doesn't have COVID-19 (FYI).
Wonder if once this pandemic is over, will the fine remain as a deterrent, or will they remove it making it ok to spit at essential workers hmmmmQuote:
Originally Posted by Unicran
The fine should remain.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1AZRAEL1
There should be a huge fine for anyone spitting in public, much less on another human being, not just essential workers. :mad:
If people have the urge to spit, go do it in the restroom.
Here's a better idea. Don't spit on others. PERIOD.Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzcomp
...that's the point of an excessive fine.
I was referring to the 13k social distancing fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by dirge
Not spitting is just good manners. I'm not against your better idea. There are a lot of stupid/ill mannered people out there. I'm just more against crime and things that are truly illegal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1AZRAEL1
Even without a fine, it's not ok to spit. I'm not really sure how many instances of this has occurred before. It's just became more concerning now because of COVID-19.Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Q
Scumbags don't care if there is a fine or not. A few staff were assaulted and spat on at Blacktown yesterday, and the scum turned around and said they have corona, and ran off. The language I'd use to describe these people would not be polite. But this is an all too common occurrence. These specimens of society probably don't even have the money to pay said fine. Under current circumstances, will likely get a slap on the wrist. The last person who spat at me, whilst he got arrested and is known to police, saw him a couple weeks later wandering around. Even the police told me it's most likely not going to amount to anything. It's a joke and empty platitudes. Sorry of I sound jaded, but these things have happened to me many times on the job and nothing comes of it.
Also should note this was in March, before they brought in any fines and such.
Sorry to hear, Az. The ones who do this are the ones who can't afford the fine. :mad:Quote:
Originally Posted by 1AZRAEL1
I used to work in the fast-food game, McDonald's Subway places like this. I have been spat on numerous times and treated remarkably badly by both the customers and management upper management. Even now I have a lot of unresolved mental health issues from such abuse, mostly from the other staff, upper management, and owners. I do have a good idea why this happened to me, I don't conform to normal stereotypes and I am somewhat eccentric at a young age.
This law should have been in place long before covid-19 arrived, many people could catch numerous things from those spitting. In reply to the people in Blacktown, I wonder why they repeat these offences, my theory is a fine is only somewhat a deterrent if the person has/earns/ or is capable of paying the fine and it then effects there abilities to purchase nice things or luxury items. The people that often repeat these offences like driving without a license for example usually get off with a slap on the wrist and a fine that they never pay back and it normally just disappears with hardship.
My hope is that people in the front line (including the kids/adults in the lowest jobs ie, Subway Red Rooster) are treated with respect these people even if young are still risking themselves for little money.
Please stay safe everyone.
There's likely a high percentage of them who would indeed fit this. In the end, it would probably catch up with them through garnished income or bank accounts.Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzcomp
Ive had the opposite, people at fast food places abusing me by doing crap to my food.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethel_Hallow
I don't come here often but just want to pop in to say hope everyone is well, safe and dealing with the lockdowns. I for one am just happy the supermarkets have gone back to normal, and have a bit more time digging into my small little TF collection to enjoy them! :)
While some States & Territories are easing lockdown restrictions, Victoria won’t be making any announcement til 11 May.
Don’t know about you lot but I’m spending a lot more money working from home than going to work.
Our numbers are still pretty good in the last week, with most new cases being from people still returning to Australia and from within existing clusters.
I think our politicians could be stepping up their messages of optimism, and that restrictions may only be weeks now instead of months, considering several states have been showing zero new cases for much of the last week. With a couple of weeks of this for all but NSW and VIC, it should mean the virus is virtually non-existent in those other states.
Waiting until the virus was significantly contained or even eradicated, is certainly the option we were going for in Australia, and even I'm surprised at how well it has been achieved here. And fortunately we had our major politicians putting aside their party differences and not actively undermining each other's efforts... unlike in some other countries that are seeing some politicians encouraging people to protest the lockdowns for their own personal political and/or financial benefit.
In a country like America, the virus didn't suddenly appear in every state.... it arrived in just a few coastal states first that have international airports, and is slowly making its way into the central states. Since those central states were getting hit later, some of them (and their people) didn't see the need for a nation-wide lockdown, assuming that the virus was not a big deal because it was some other state's problem. It was then claimed by people in those states that it was all just an over-reaction, and that they were being punished economically... but obviously, if they had pre-emptively locked down their states before the virus hit, they wouldn't now be some of the hardest hit states in the next few weeks. The US have passed 66,000 deaths now, and early projections after lockdown measures were in place over there, was that they shouldn't go above 100,000 deaths in America. With New York being a good example of how to effectively respond to the virus, it was looking like they wouldn't get anywhere near 100,000, but with only about 10 states past their peak deathrate, and about 30 states lifting restrictions this week, I think they are going to smash that number before the end of May.
If a country's government did nothing and 10% of the population died from a preventable death, people would protest... but if a country's government pre-emptively locks down society before it spreads, or has lockdown measures to reduce the death rate significantly, people will never know how bad it could have been and will protest the restrictions.
It's certainly not a good time to be a politician, because you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
Both options are going to cost billions of dollars to the economy, because each preventable sick person is an extra expense to the economy (both in medical costs and production costs if they are off work for a few weeks), and each death also has a dollar cost to the economy, particularly if that person is a worker and their job needs to be re-filled and re-trained (especially vital occupations like emergency services).
However, if you take the humane option of saving lives by shutting down society for a couple of months, less intelligent people won't know the amount of lives and dollars saved by preventing the virus from infecting a larger number of people. Even if it "only" killed 10% of the population by doing nothing, just to "protect the economy", most industries and occupations would collapse from under-staffing, costing the economy billions more. Just look at the food supply chain in America - potentially facing shortages of processed foods because too many people in those industries are getting sick and dying. That's millions of dollars lost in spoiled food, and millions of tax dollars spent on alternatives and feeding those out of work or too sick to work.
So for anyone narrow-minded enough who says that it is costing the economy keeping it closed during any virus that has the potential of killing 10% or more of the population WITHOUT restrictions (like this one), tell them to open their eyes to the actual cost to the economy if that number of people and workers are allowed to get sick or die.
Annoys me that more people are looking at the dollars over people's lives. Sure the economy is gonna tank, but someone's life should matter more.
Sadly, to many it doesn't. Especially in the USA, the land of rampant individualism.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1AZRAEL1
Watching some of the various news programs on SBS from other countries is interesting, particularly the non-western news programs that give us details of what the virus is like in all those other non-western countries that our media don't cover. Russia is being swamped with infections still increasing by large numbers, as are some South American countries and Afghanistan. I think Africa could still be a ticking timebomb, as the virus is taking a while to get into a lot of places since international travel has dried up, but it seems that it was international aid workers who have brought in the virus to places like Sudan, that don't have the resources to deal with this virus. On the other hand, countries like Nigeria that have been dealing with things like ebola, could see minimal cases of covid-19, as they have had a number of years of training their people to prevent the spread of infections.
If quite a few countries in Europe, the middle east and Australasia were able to take measures to result in them now being several weeks past their peak infections/deaths, it boggles the mind that a 1st-world country like America is still having 10,000 or more dying each week, with no sign of the rate slowing.
At least half of the US states are still only in the early stages of the virus hitting them, so America is yet to see the worst of this virus, and not just in terms of deaths, but to their economy. The hotspots in places like New York may have had the big number of deaths, but as the "foodbowl" and "manufacturing" states start getting hit by higher infection rates in the next few weeks, their whole country will suffer, as more processing businesses are forced to shut down by choice in states that are re-opened.
And the worse thing for people in those states is that if their state is officially re-opened, people won't be eligible for welfare payments if they refuse to work, even at a business that has had infected people (like over 20 meat processing plants that have become over-whelmed by infected people, having to close down, but being instructed by the president to go back to work). And it will be the lowest paid people who are in jobs most likely to be contaminated by the virus, as blue collar workers and service workers can't do their jobs from the safety of their homes.
I watched the film "Contagion" when it was on TV the other week, and it was from 2011, but it predicted a lot of things that the world is going through right now... and it also showed us how too much of the truth to the public will cause panic and chaos... particularly when there are conspiracy theorists getting in the ears of the less educated.
Just referring to something I had speculated for Australia 6 weeks ago (the virus infecting people in vital industries, causing them to shut down), which fortunately didn't end up happening here, but with central US states rushing to get people back to work, and some food factories already impacted, I think that a breakdown of food chains is more likely to occur over there now. It just makes no sense, for states to see how bad it can from the states that were first affected, to not take similar measures before the outbreak hits them.
This is certainly one time I'm glad I live here and not over there. I'm just going to miss travelling to other countries for toys and conventions for a while.Quote:
With this virus being around for at least 9 months until a vaccine is available (at best), politicians would be foolish to guarantee that the grocery store supply chain (from farms, to wholesalers, to grocery warehouses, to transport, to supermarkets) won't be severed for weeks at a time, if just one person at a worksite or shift is infected. .... any worksite that has over 100 people (like a grocery warehouse), statistically, one of those people will be infected within the next two weeks, shutting down one of three shifts or the entire site for two weeks. Then over the next 9 months as more people get the infection, the site shuts down again, dozens of times until there is a vaccine to keep the place open.
I'm reminded how lucky I am to get to Germany and back on February. Some of the members of the bands I caught in Berlin I think had to cut short their tour before it finished, and when a they got back some got sick and at least one ended up in ICU.
What is the Australian side of the talk about the shared AU/NZ bubble?
Personally you couldn't pay me to get on a plane this year and travel anywhere.
After looking at the sightings thread and seeing sightings .. are Australians able to walk into stores?
Over here in New Zealand, retail stores can only offer contactless delivery - ie, purchase from a website and they will put it into the postal system (some smaller stores allow you to call the store and go to the store to physically pick up something that has been ordered, but you aren't allowed to set foot in the store)
Depends on what kind of store it is, how big it is, and where you are. There are limits to how many people can be in a given store at once, and a lot of shops/businesses that are 'non-essential' are closed, but things like KMart etc are still open to the public, and at least some restaurants are letting people pick up takeaway orders in-store.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zippo
AFAIK the restrictions are mostly on a State or regional basis, e.g. I live in North-west Tasmania these days and we've just come out of three weeks of Stage 4 lockdown, so more stores were closed or else not open to the general public. You could still go into supermarkets etc. though.
Up until last week we could go into any store that was open but we were only supposed to be allowed to buy essential items... however it wasn't enforced. The emphasis was on deliveries and pick-up though. It took some time but number limits now apply to most stores, stopping people from entering a store until someone leaves.
Unfortunately in america, a security guard at a store trying to enforce restrictions - not letting someone in without a mask, was shot by that person and died.... thanks to the attitude of some people over there believing that their personal freedom is more important than their health.
This is really sad. I imagine the pressures from their debts, health and economic systems compounded by their government priorities are driving people to crazy. I really hope they find a way to turn things around or at least get their priorities straight.
By comparison, Australia has an incredible edge in many respects. I hope that we don't get complacent when the lockout rules are relaxed.
Couple of employees of maccas over in the US were shot because they refused someone wanting to dine in. It's insane how people act.
Why does peace appear like a zero-sum game for some?Quote:
Originally Posted by 1AZRAEL1
From Wednesday's episode of Planet America, they detailed how difficult many of the states over there make it for people to collect unemployment payments... a lot worse than it is here. Some states have so many requirements to meet, that as little as only 5% of those people applying for unemployment payments, actually get any money. And the ones who are successful, the payments are capped at a couple of months.Quote:
Originally Posted by kristofferrer
And after 40 years of stagnant wage growth over there due to a failed "trickle down" economic policy, a large number of people are stuck on a minimum wage that doesn't help get anyone out of poverty, or save for a rainy day like this year.
This is why so many people over there are so desperate to get back to work, and are protesting against forced closures of businesses, because even with all of the stimulus money being thrown around, very little of it is getting to the lowest paid people. Meanwhile, the richest people in America (the top 0.1%) are too busy trying to protect their billions and the share market they are invested in, that the people who need the financial help, and the medical help, are being used and ignored.
I fear that with most of the American states winding back their restrictions to allow people to earn money again (who aren't able to get any money from the government), their economy will suffer more over the long term, compared to a short-term hit to the economy that countries like ours sustained by doing a more significant lockdown to almost eradicate the virus.
And from tonight's episode of Planet America, the results of New York's virus anti-body testing from the last week has shown that the virus is proving to be fatal to 1.2% of people who catch it, compared to the worst flu viruses that are fatal to just 0.04% of people who catch it. As I had noted a few days ago about how saving lives can be saving money, not just costing money (to the economy), if a country does nothing so that it puts it's economy first, they could expect 1.2% of their population dying from this virus, probably in less than six months if it is allowed to spread freely. For Australia, that would be 300,000 deaths, and millions more being treated medically, which costs a lot of money.
The fact that we have yet to reach 100 deaths in Australia, means our government needs to be commended for saving 299,900 lives (so far), by putting lives before the national economy. (they may not be perfect, but credit where credit is due)
This is so grim. At a time like this, wealthy people (who have more than enough) still need more than those who have so little. I've seen some videos of a new yorker pleading the government just to extend the end date of their debts so that they get through the coming months. I was in NY last year and could already tell that if you're not above the poverty line, the city will just eat you alive - and nobody would know or hear about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin
Our government is doing a great job balancing health and economy (and prioritising health over the economy) and It's good to see all supporting our government's efforts. The early lifting of the lockout laws is a little concerning though.
Too many have been indoctrinated into their rights are more important than ensuring the safety of everyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by kristofferrer
As for our country dealing with it, sure has been one of the better ones for the virus spread, just not helping the most vulnerable financially.
With all of the weird youtube and app videos people have been posting up after weeks of cabin-fever isolation, this guy looks to have mastered that lockdown insanity two years ago, ready for times like this.
Looking at some of his other videos, they are very well done, and wouldn't have been easy to do.
(and naturally, the example I have included here was Transformers related ;) )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Cxrk98ZBc
Children without pre-existing conditions are still proving to be unaffected by Covid-19, but in places that have had high concentrations of the virus, like the UK and New York, a new type of sickness is occurring, and only to children.
It is a type of body-wide inflammation, and seems to only be affecting children after they have had the virus (they are being tested, and found to have the anti-bodies that people get after they have had the virus, and as such they are showing up as negative for the active virus).
It is still only new, and there are still a lot of questions as to what it is and why it is happening after they no longer have the virus in their system, but it looks like it could be similar to an allergic reaction people develop to things like insect bites or foods, in their childhood... often after they have been exposed to it once without a reaction, but their body mistakenly creates anti-bodies to it, and then they have to avoid contact with it for the rest of their lives.
These kids are in areas that are heavily infected, so keep coming into contact with the virus, but now that they have an immunity to it, their bodies might be over-reacting with the new anti-bodies, overwhelming their weaker bodies.
At least here in Australia (so far), we don't have huge clusters of highly concentrated infections, so for those with young kids we shouldn't see this happening here, but for as long as the virus exists in Australia, there is still a very remote chance a child who has had the virus (without any symptoms), comes into contact with someone else later who is infected, and could set off their immune system... so be mindful of the symptoms - a fever, rash, upset stomach, swollen lymph nodes.
(it is being compared to Kawasaki Disease, which is said to be caused by the auto-immune system attacking the blood vessels in the body, and the heart)
Finally got my flu shot yesterday. I hope it's an effective vaccine this year cause I don't want to spend 2 weeks in quarantine.