Why Melbourne? The answer to lockdowns doesn’t lie in demographic differences to Sydney | michaelkoziol
It’s an understandable question for Melburnians enduring their fourth lockdown: why us? What is it that seems to have made the Victorian capital more susceptible than its sister city, Sydney, when it comes to the spread of COVID-19?
University of NSW epidemiologist Marylouise McLaws, a Sydneysider, said on ABC television on Monday afternoon that Melbourne had better public transport and younger residents. The Australian Bureau of Statistics instantly disproves the assertion that Melbourne’s population is younger – at the last census in 2016, the median age in both cities was 36.
“The data are not granular enough to really get into it,” she said. “I’m just suggesting that there’s a sociability factor that may be more difficult to find. There is something going on and it’s not for blame; it’s understanding that the disease does not just use humans, it uses human behaviours.” The ABS divides the country into grid cells of 1 square kilometre. In Sydney, 193 cells were “high” density or “very high” density – much more than Melbourne or Brisbane .Liz Allen, a demographer at the Australian National University , collated much of this data into a popular thread on Twitter last week. Asked if there was a grain of truth to any of the assertions about differences between the two cities, she said no.
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