COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease which stemmed from a newly discovered strand of the coronavirus. The illness has heavily impacted the entire world over the past few months. As of today, there have been over 8.9 million cases and over 467,000 deaths worldwide due to the pandemic (Gutiérrez, 2020). While several regions and countries across the world have experienced huge case numbers within their boundaries, such as the United States with the largest amount of cases (2.23 million), Brazil with over 1.09 million cases and Russia with over 592,000 cases (2020). Australia, on the contrary, has reported very low rates of COVID-19 case numbers (Fuentes, 2020). As of Monday June 22nd, 7,459 cases have been reported in the region and there have been only 102 deaths since the introduction of the pandemic (Fuentes, 2020). Unlike many regions elsewhere, there are even cities within the region, such as its capital city Darwin, which have zero deaths reported (2020). To be the planet’s sixth largest country (“Australia’s Size Compared”, 2020) these statistics are pretty incredible. Of the 7,459 cases, 6,896 victims have recovered from the virus (Australian Government Department of Health, 2020).
The outbreak has caused the country to enter into its first recession in almost three decades (Watson & He, 2020). In order to control the spread of the virus the Australian government has enforced temporary lockdown rules and restrictions that have recently slowly eased up. On June 1st several places, such as Queensland, Tasmania and ACT, started to allow the opening of retail stores, hair salons and theaters, with specific rules set in place to ensure resident safety (Landis-Hanley, 2020). Australia’s chief medical officer, Dr. Brendan Murphy, even said during a press conference on June 13th that the virus had been eliminated throughout many parts of Australia (BBC, 2020). However, since then cases have started increasing once again leading some government officials to once again reenforce restrictions and state emergencies until the middle of July (BBC, 2020). Borders for travel remain closed except for essential reasons and apparently could stay that way until 2021 (Landis-Hanley, 2020).
COVID-19是一種高度傳染性疾病，源於新發現的冠狀病毒鏈。在過去的幾個月中，這種疾病嚴重影響了整個世界。截止到今天，由於大流行，全球已經有890萬病例，死亡467,000多人（Gutiérrez，2020）。雖然世界上幾個地區和國家在其範圍內都經歷了巨大的案件數量，例如美國的案件數量最多（223萬），巴西的案件數量超過109萬，而俄羅斯的案件數量則超過59.2萬（2020年）。相反，澳大利亞報告的COVID-19病例數非常低（Fuentes，2020年）。截至6月22日星期一，該地區已報告了7459例病例，自大流行開始以來僅102例死亡（Fuentes，2020年）。與其他地方的許多地區不同，該地區甚至還有一些城市，例如首都達爾文，據報導死亡人數為零（2020年）。要成為全球第六大國家（“澳大利亞的規模比較”，2020年），這些統計數字令人難以置信。在這7,459例病例中，有6,896名受害者已從該病毒中康復（澳大利亞政府衛生部，2020年）。為了控制病毒的傳播，澳大利亞政府實施了臨時鎖定規則和限制，這些規則和限制最近已逐漸放鬆。 6月1日，昆士蘭州，塔斯馬尼亞州和首都地區等一些地方開始允許開設零售店，美髮沙龍和劇院，並製定了確保居民安全的具體規定（Landis-Hanley，2020年）。澳大利亞首席醫學官布倫丹·墨菲（Brendan Murphy）博士甚至在6月13日的新聞發布會上說，該病毒已在澳大利亞許多地區被消除（英國廣播公司，2020年）。然而，此後案件再次開始增加，導致一些政府官員再次加強限制和國家緊急狀態，直到7月中旬（英國廣播公司，2020年）。除非有必要，旅行邊界仍然關閉，並且顯然可以一直保持到2021年（Landis-Hanley，2020年）。
