AT first glance, the June 13 reopening of gymnasiums and dance, fitness, pilates and yoga studios should be good news for enthusiasts, business owners and staff alike.
Some might even say that complaining about operating parameters is to look a gift horse in the mouth.
But other unshackled sectors have also questioned the economics of opening with heavy restrictions on patronage, arguing that clientele limits under the "four square metre (per person) rule" are too strict to defray their operating costs, let alone turn a profit.
CORONAVIRUS LATEST:
- State, national, international COVID-19 snapshot
- Victorian aged-care facility in lock down as worker tests positive
- South Korea limits gatherings as cases spike in churches, call centres
- Jacinda Adern 'understands' NZ black protests but worries about virus risk
- Various former leaders call for G-20 coronavirus summit to help poor nations
- Debate in Italy as Berlusconi's doctor says study shows virus is losing potency
There's been little debate about the point, but business owners will also weigh up whether it's worth reopening under such straitened circumstances if to do so would put them in a worse position than they and their employees find themselves while closed, thanks to the generous assistance of JobKeeper.
This is not to criticise the program, which has kept an estimated 3 million Australians in their jobs, even if that is half the number originally projected.
But we need to acknowledge the perverse incentives that subsidies often run the risk of encouraging.
The real test for rebooting the leisure side of the economy will be what happens with domestic tourism, as Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her counterparts encourage people to holiday within their states.
The winter school holidays starting on Monday, July 6, are not a traditionally big time for travel, but tourist towns and accommodation operators will be keen to make up for business lost during a corona-closed Easter, as well as more generally.
The question is whether the public, conditioned to staying home - and realising by now that COVID-19 is a killer virus and not a variation on the common cold - will want to risk things by travelling: especially if case numbers increase from the present lows, typified by just eight new cases nationwide on Monday.
If a second wave does arrive, however, Canberra and the states would presumably re-tighten restrictions, even if other countries are tiring of their lock downs with case numbers far higher than ours.
There is no road map for the unwanted journey that all of us are upon.
We can quibble with the details - and the authorities should adjust their directions where the evidence allows - but we should take confidence in believing Australia as a whole is on the right track.
ISSUE: 39,623.
IN THE NEWS:
