No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
Melbourne resident here.<p>We&#x27;re feeling pretty relieved to be getting these results and excited to be tentatively emerging from nearly four months of fairly strict lockdown.<p>Much is being made of the fact that back in August when Melbourne was reporting over 700 new cases on some days, UK and France were reporting similar new case numbers, yet we are now getting zeroes and those countries have out-of-control spread.<p>At the same time, there&#x27;s much debate and political ruckus about the merits of the lockdown - i.e., the economic and human costs, vs the benefits of suppressing a virus that many consider to be not very serious.<p>There&#x27;s also the ongoing attack on our state government from  political opponents and parts of the media, over the fact that the virus was suppressed here back in May, as it was in the rest of Australia, but then started spreading rapidly again in June, when poorly-trained security guards acquired the virus while working in quarantine hotels, then took it back to their families and communities, with the outbreak then tearing through aged care homes and leading to a total of 800+ fatalities.<p>What isn&#x27;t being talked about here, but has been mentioned by another commenter in this thread, is weather. Melbourne is the only large&#x2F;dense city in Australia that has quite cool winters, similar to the weather that prevailed in Northern Asia, Europe and the US in Feb-April, and that is returning to Western Europe now. As we now know, given the serious outbreaks that have happened in warmer regions, warm weather is not a strong enough factor to halt this virus altogether, but it does seem to have an influence, and it&#x27;s striking to note the progression of this virus in Melbourne, relative to the weather.<p>AMA!