Originally Posted by
griffin
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).
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.
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