Thursday, April 16, 2020

Coronavirus in rural Australia: Resistance from remote Queensland

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation comes this headline, "Coronavirus rules need to be relaxed in remote areas, pubs should reopen, locals say."  Francene Norton reports from Diamantina Shire, Queensland, population 292, on the border with South Australia:
Diamantina Shire Mayor Robbie Dare, who returned to the job after retiring from local government in 2012, called for pubs to reopen given there were no known cases of COVID-19 in some areas. 
Norton quotes Mr. Dare: 
We're very lucky we're isolated already just by the nature of being out here in the outback and everyone out here has been doing the right thing.  
We all know we haven't got it and yet our pubs have closed down the road. 
I think they look at our remote areas at least and think about letting them back in, because the same people are walking into the shop and filling their vehicles up. 
Why can't they just walk into the hotel and have a beer? We haven't got any strangers in town.

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