Restrictions are on track to ease before England arrive but pandemic has shown how quickly things can change
This Sunday, Australia starts daylight saving. Or some of Australia. New South Wales and Victoria will join Tasmania in setting east-coast clocks forward. Queensland on the same coast will stubbornly stay on standard time for reasons lost in the dim mists of history. Formerly half an hour behind that lot, South Australia will skip half an hour ahead of Queensland. The Northern Territory will not, dropping from 30 to 90 minutes behind Sydney. Western Australia will go from two hours behind the east to three. Then there’s the small town of Eucla halfway between Adelaide and Perth, which runs on Australian Central Western Standard Time – 8 hours and 45 minutes ahead of Greenwich.
If you think that is confusing, try Australian states and Covid regulations. Since last year the eight provincial governments across the country have constantly shifted restrictions and enforcement about travel and quarantine as outbreaks are suppressed in one place or flare up in another. Parochialism and public health are each factors. A federal vaccine program defined mostly by its absence has maintained that necessity. Where politicians elsewhere speak in blasé style about living with the virus, much of Australia still has the luxury of living without it.
Written by Geoff Lemon in Sydney
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/oct/02/australias-confusing-covid-rules-shroud-ashes-in-uncertainty under the title “Australia’s confusing Covid rules shroud Ashes in uncertainty | Geoff Lemon”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
