Why the increasingly hysterical push for a harder Sydney lockdown is not only WRONG but not based on evidence... here, NIC WHITE breaks down demands for curfews, masks outside and closing Bunnings

Unless you're a hermit, I think we can all agree lockdowns are depressing, frustrating, and, for many, financially ruinous.

So why do so many seem hellbent on making Sydney's now seven-week shutdown, as necessary as it is, even more unpleasant?

Whenever case numbers rise as they did to 345 on Thursday, or don't fall by enough, there are calls from premiers to punters for a harder lockdown.

Every day there are pointed questions from reporters at NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian's press conferences practically demanding stricter rules.

'We are seven weeks in, numbers continue rising... what will it take, what are you waiting for to pull the trigger and further impose more restrictions like the ring of steel and curfew?' was one question on Tuesday. 

 Lockdown in Sydney isn't fun, but at least residents are able to take a walk in the sun without having to wear a mask. Why do so many want to make it more unpleasant?

Thousands of Australians, both from Sydney and elsewhere in the country, have made the same demands across social media.

Suggestions appear to focus on four measures which lockdown zealots seem to believe will force cases down: Shutting down more shops they deem 'non-essential', mandating masks outdoors, nighttime curfews, and a 'ring of steel' around Sydney.

Such a lockdown would mirror Melbourne's Stage Four restrictions that paralyzed the city for months last year as it battled an even bigger outbreak.

The problem is, these measures range from medically ineffective to needlessly draconian - and are mostly both.

Curfews

One of the last-resort features of the 2020 Melbourne lockdown was banning anyone from leaving the house to exercise or buy groceries after 8pm.

This was billed by Premier Daniel Andrews as an effort to reduce movement and keep people in their homes for more of the day.

However, the rule caused uproar after chief health officer Brett Sutton denied it was based on his medical advice.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews eventually admitted the curfew was imposed solely because it would make enforcing the lockdown easier for police.

One of the last-resort features of the 2020 Melbourne lockdown was banning anyone from leaving the house to exercise or buy groceries after 8pm

'The rules were ultimately made by me,' Mr Andrews said at the time.

'It's not a matter for Brett , that's not health advice, that's about achieving a health outcome.

'His advice is 'do whatever you can to limit movement'. Police then say "we need rules we can enforce".'

But Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said police never asked for a curfew and he was only told a 'couple of hours' before it began.

'I was never consulted,' he told 3AW radio soon after Mr Andrews' claim. 'We had never asked for a curfew. It's not a decision that I was involved in.'

Reporters have been persistent on this point throughout the lockdown regardless.

No curfews are in effect across Sydney under lockdown restrictions, as seen here in Bondi

'What about a curfew? Would a curfew help decrease mobility?' was one question shouted at least twice over the assembled scrum.

Another asked: 'Isn't it fair to assume that we need to do something different? Is it increased fines for not complying? Is it the curfews? Is it the rings of steel?'

But Ms Berejiklian, with the benefit of seeing a curfew operate in Melbourne, is dead against it - for good reason.

'They haven't demonstrated they work,' she replied to another demanding press conference question on July 26.

Wearing a mask at all times when you leave home 

 Every time Western Australia, Queensland, and Victoria go into lockdown - and for at least a week afterwards - you'll never see anyone's face.

From the second you step outside your front door, the mask has to go on and stay on even if you are going for a walk with no one anywhere near you.

Mr Andrews and WA Premier Mark McGowan have over and over lashed NSW for only mandating masks indoors citywide - with increasingly antagonistic rhetoric.

Sydneysiders do not have to wear masks when they are exercising, getting food and drink, or otherwise outside away from people 

In other states, like Queensland , residents must wear masks whenever they leave their house no matter what they are doing

However, only very few transmissions of Covid have been known to have taken place outdoors in Australia during the whole pandemic, NSW Health said.  

Top infectious disease professor Peter Collignon last Monday explained that even crowds seen at Sydney's beaches were very unlikely to spread the virus.

'You're hard-pressed to find evidence for much outside transmission,' he said, explaining the likelihood of transmitting the virus outdoors was 20 to 30 times lower than indoors.

'Providing people have kept two metres apart, then there will be minimal impact to the spread of the virus.'

St Vincent's Hospital infectious diseases professor Greg Dore agreed, saying an outdoor mask mandate was unnecessary and there was little evidence showing the benefits.

In Melbourne, from the second you step outside your front door, the mask has to go on and stay on even if you are going for a walk with no one anywhere near you

Residents shopping at Cabramatta, south-western Sydney, on Wednesday, are wearing masks while shopping indoors, as is required during the lockdown

Unlike indoors, where droplets holding the virus linger in the air, outdoors they are quickly dispersed.  

Experts caution that though catching Covid outdoors is extremely unlikely, being in close contact for extended periods outside, such as the only known transmission on Blacksmiths Beach on July 30, carries enough risk to need a mask. 

Overseas data is consistent - 0.1 per cent of transmissions in Ireland were outdoor, and there is not a single case worldwide of someone catching Covid in a casual outdoor encounter. 

Yes, residents of the 12 local councils in the western Sydney epicentre of the outbreak have to wear masks outdoors, but this reeks of a political need to be seen to be cracking down rather than any serious medical reason.

The 'ring of steel'

Another heavy-handed measure in Victoria was the 'ring of steel' dividing Melbourne from regional areas that had softer restrictions and far fewer cases.

Hundreds of police were stationed at checkpoints on major roads in and out of the city checking every car to see if the driver had a good reason for crossing.

NSW is in a similar situation where only Sydney and surrounds is locked down and most regional areas merely have moderate restrictions.

The effectiveness of the 'ring of steel' has been debunked in detail before, but it bears repeating.

Hundreds of police were stationed at checkpoints on major roads in and out of Melbourne checking every car to see if the driver had a good reason for crossing the 'ring of steel'

Mr Andrews has a go at Ms Berejiklian almost every day about not copying his idea, claiming it puts his state and the rest of Australia at risk. 

But his own police force hated the 'ring of steel' so much and found it so ineffective, they advised against repeating it during the state's four subsequent lockdowns. 

Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said it tied up 400 officers a day and didn't stop anyone carefully sneaking out.

'As a result of being so resource-intensive, we were not able to provide the number of resources to back roads that really deterred people from taking back roads,' he said in June.

Checkpoints also created enormous traffic jams up to four hours long that did little but hurt essential workers. 

'Most vehicles delayed were legitimately entitled to travel. They were people from hospitals, they were nurses, doctors and emergency workers,' he said.

Checkpoints also created enormous traffic jams up to four hours long that did little but hurt essential workers 

Such queues would also throw freight delivery across Australia into chaos, as Edith Cowan University associate dean Flavio Macau pointed out.

Instead, Commissioner Nugent opted for increased patrols and using automatic number plate recognition to spot suspect drivers - using half the manpower.

Mr Andrews himself knocked back calls for a new 'ring of steel' last week saying he didn't want to close half of Melbourne's police stations.

This would severely affect all other policing, he said. But apparently NSW Police is so much more efficient than his that it can spare the officers without missing a beat. 

Shut all the shops

This one got a lot of juice a week ago when Sky News got into a fight with the premier about whether Bunnings and The Reject Shop should be open.

'Why is Bunnings open? It's not in Queensland,' the reporter asked several times, until Ms Berejiklian fired back, 'next question'.

The reporter continued with this this so much over several days, it became a meme. For the record, the hardware store was still open in Queensland's lockdown.

The case for closing more retail is the strongest of the four measures, but has mostly already happened with even stores like Big W doing click and collect only. 

A closed Target store in Melbourne during lockdown, which some people believe should be the same in Sydney

Last week it was heavily debated at Ms Berejiklian's press conferences whether Bunnings should be open during Sydney's lockdown. A customer is pictured at Bunnings Alexandria on Thursday

A fair few are still open for trade and lockdown zealots argue almost all of them are 'non-essential' and should shut.

But what's non-essential to one person might be essential to someone else, especially if they can't wait for delivery or can't afford it.

Bunnings sells plenty of goods that people might need to do critical home repairs, especially as inviting tradies inside is heavily discouraged.

Also, with so few things to do in lockdown, why would you deny homeowners the ability to fill their time with a bit of D.IY. or gardening? 

'NSW, unlike other states, has never determined what is essential and what is not essential when it comes to businesses,' as Ms Berejiklian put it a months ago.

So what gives?

The question remains, why are so many people - even ones in Sydney whose lives would be made worse - demanding a harder lockdown?

State premiers are easy to guess. All of them have seen skyrocketing approval ratings by scaring the blazes out of their subjects and weaponising it to close borders and justify their own hard lockdowns.

All of them regularly insist that even the smallest chance of spillover into their states is too much, and so demand harder lockdowns to eliminate the virus.

Some like Mr Andrews and Mr McGowan are such Covid-zero advocates that they insist every outbreak be 'crushed and killed'.

The question remains, why are so many people - even ones in Sydney whose lives would be made worse - demanding a harder lockdown?

But they are also trying to justify their own harder lockdowns, particularly in Victoria, lest residents decide they suffered unnecessarily. 

Many residents, again particularly in Melbourne, just want to see Sydneysiders suffer like they did for months so they aren't the only ones.

Hating on Sydney is popular at the best of times, but even more so when the state's world-beating contact tracing squashed a dozen outbreaks without needing lockdowns, until finally meeting its match with the Delta strain.

More practically, there's others who want Sydney locked up tight to make it even more likely they can live freely and don't really care about anyone else's suffering.

This point goes for many  wealthier Sydneysiders too, especially the ones who can work from home and aren't in danger of losing a cent of their salary.

Unlike workers and businesses suddenly without income beyond a government handout they may or may not actually get, the severity of the lockdown isn't a major concern so they'd rather it was harder and theoretically shorter.

But the vast majority likely just don't realise the nastier measures they demand won't have any significant effect on case numbers.

Beating the Delta outbreak requires a big effort and collective sacrifice, but the cure shouldn't be worse than it needs to be - and should be based on evidence.

Beating the outbreak requires big effort and sacrifice, but the cure shouldn't be worse than it needs to be and should be based on evidence Pictured: Residents in Bankstown on Wednesday

The NSW Government seems to get this, even as it makes a big concession to the 'lock us down harder' crowd and hands police chief Mick Fuller a blank cheque to ramp up enforcement.

All that appears likely to change, besides more police on the streets and a stricter interpretation of the rules, is more help from the army, a ban on rich people fleeing the city to their holiday homes, and tighter rules for the singles bubble.

The NSW government also appears to get that even if it surrenders and imposes a Melbourne-style lockdown, it won't stop big families in southwest Sydney breaking the rules and spreading it across households - as Health Minister Brad Hazzard highlighted.

Time will tell if Ms Berejiklian can hold her nerve and stick to what actually has medical evidence to back it up.