Madness at the Stadium

Last night there was an AFL match between Collingwood and Geelong. The two Melbourne teams have relocated here to escape Covid and are in quarantine in two hotels, one next door to us in Crown and the other in Joondalup. Collingwood players have been seen exercising in the fenced off area in front of us, some playing golf, others frisbee. They are guarded by two Crown security guards outside and another guy in a high viz jacket inside. The entrance to the hotel is all boarded up and blocked off to the public. I could see some of them playing table tennis or on walking machines. 

Last night’s game seems crazy to me. Ticket sales were capped at 30,000. This is half the capacity, but it’s still a big crowd to keep a social distance, especially when coming and going by public transport or when buying food and drink. There were supposed to be 1400 people employed to ensure that rules were complied with, but who knows? Both the Nurses Union and the AMA spokesman believed it was all a bad idea. It will take two weeks to find out. In the meantime another match is scheduled for Sunday, this time between our two local teams, Fremantle and West Coast. At present there is no community transmission of the virus in WA and there are 24 confirmed cases in hotel quarantine. All are returned travellers who have come in by air. But outbreaks are popping up everywhere in the world and I can’t believe it will not happen here.

I’m really pleased we managed to get away to Broome for a while and to enjoy a holiday without any thoughts of the virus. But seeing how busy JL’s hospital staff were on a normal day made me realise that it would be impossible to do their job AND cope with putting on protective gear against the virus and sanitising between patients. No wonder hospitals and care homes were cutting corners and allowing Covid to spread.