Victoria, under Dan Andrews, is back in a 3-week lockdown. By the time it's completed, that will be 185 days in hard-lockdown since Covid began.

We've been asking this question for a while - how long can this go on?

Recently a lady in her 90's passed away from Covid - the second or third death this year in Australia. In Australia it was headline news. In the UK, where 99 people died yesterday, there's no mention of death whatsoever on the BBC.

The grim reality is that we need to offer a vaccine to everyone who wants one, and then, whether they work or not, re-open society, do our best to protect the vulnerable. Which is what the UK are doing.

It's not a perfect strategy - the perfect strategy would have been 'don't let scientists fuck around with GoF experiments in shady labs' - but it's too late to reverse that.

The Funny Money Theory cannot keep pumping it out to cover lost productivity - compounding Covid by plunging the world into depression is not the answer - neither is an indefinite state of restrictions on basic human freedoms.

But here's the weird part - lockdowns are hugely popular in Australia. The NSW premier, who's done her best to use them as a last resort (and managed a very difficult situation pretty well), is under a constant barrage of attack. Dan Andrews - the lockdown king - is still insanely popular - even though his state has had more Covid deaths than all the other states combined.

I would add to the above, pump up the therapeutics. There are drugs that have reasonable efficacy in reducing the severity of symptoms - they're not as glamourous as vaccines but they're an important part of the solution.