Scott Morrison can’t seem to make his way through a press conference with at least one fuck up, and today it’s his comments on if kids should stay at home.
In his latest presser, Scott Morrison announced free childcare so that parents can send their kids to childcare centres and work, and then encouraged any parents who had withdrawn their children from care to re-enroll them. He stressed that children should remain at childcare so their parents can work and keep the economy alive.
Some parents may desperately need #childcare and it’s wonderful that this service will now be provided for free. Now can someone please explain how we will prevent these centres from becoming hot spots for #coronavirusau ?
— Soula P S (@vacuumofmyheart) April 2, 2020
Considering just recently Gladys Berejiklian told us that kids should stay at home, and to only send children to school if there was no one to look after them, the messaging here is pretty inconsistent. Are kids supposed to stay at home or not?
A journo pointed this out and asked the PM what the main message is, since it’s all pretty confusing and inconsistent – and of course, he got really shitty with her.
What flabbergasted me though, is his insistence that there is no inconsistencies in advice, totally ignoring that she was referring to the messaging of telling kids to stay home and then telling parents to send children to childcare. He seemed to reprimand the journo for asking a simple and warranted question, and didn’t directly clear up the confusion.
Not one journalist asked the obvious question to the PM ‘can children transmit the virus?’ …… I didn’t realise kids weren’t human beings yet #auspol #vicpol #childcare #abc730
— Bradley Chivell (@chivellife) April 2, 2020
His claims that all advice has been consistent is just not true. Again, Gladys Berejiklian literally said “for practical reasons we are encouraging parents to keep their children at home.”
She then went on to stress that schools are remaining open for parents who don’t have that option. I mean, the whole point of encouraging kids to stay home was so that there would be less kids at school, in turn making it safer for the children that must attend because it would be easier to practice social distancing with only half the amount of students.
Now, Scott Morrison is giving the opposite advice – send your kids to childcare, and get back to work. He didn’t give any advice on how to keep childcare workers safe from contracting the virus, either.
EVERYONE knows children may not get sick but always pass on the illness to chilcare workers. What right has the government to say my health and that of my family is not important enough #childcare @theprojecttv
— Franca Randazzo (@RandazzoFranca) April 2, 2020
It’s ridiculous because there seems to be an odd assumption that children are immune to catching, carrying, or transferring the virus – an assumption that is totally untrue. Children can absolutely have coronavirus, though the vast majority are asymptomatic, making them dangerous in that they can infect adults.
So you’re telling me to stay home unless absolutely necessary, but then forcing me to drop my kids off at daycare and touch handles that another 150 adults need to touch on a daily basis.
I think you’re missing the point!#childcare #COVID19Aus #ScottMorrison
— Ben Calder (@bencalder) April 2, 2020
So, what is the truth? What is the most responsible thing to do? How is it safe for children to go to daycare, but not safe for me to sit alone in a park (in NSW, this is now illegal). How can people be expected to follow completely contradictory rules that change every two days because we constantly have new pressers?
The complete inconsistency of having draconian two-person laws despite confining heaps of kids in one space is exactly why people end up flouting social distancing rules.
