Loan curbs

Loan crackdown

A brief mention here in Your Mortgage (or click on the below image):

We ran some analysis on what will likely be the most impacted suburbs, and the results weren't quite what you might think (we will publish the details next week). 

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The Delta variant of COVID has been surprisingly persistent in the UK - even with over 93 million vaccine doses administered - now spreading into the lower age brackets as schools returned, keeping the headline case numbers elevated.

Thankfully, kids seem to be far less impacted by the virus to date.

Whether it's been due to herd immunity or other seasonal factors, despite the removal of restrictions on July 19 ("Freedom Day") leading to hundreds of thousands of us packing out everything from festivals to football grounds and pubs, hospital numbers and ventilator cases have been trending solidly lower.

Recall experts and modellers including some 1,200 scientists were quick to denounce this "dangerous and unethical experiment", but things have actually improved since the reopening, rather than worsened. 

We'll have to see what winter brings. 

Australia reopening

Some experts had called the move to UK Freedom Day "murderous", while even from afar in Australia Grattan economist Stephen Duckett said it was "foolish" and "stupid", so it seems a near certainty that any move towards reopening in Australia will be opposed by many.

There may be some significant implications here for Australia's reopening, since even high UK vaccination rates have not stopped virus cases from continuing to spread, even while the serious cases have declined. 

Obviously I'm no expert (mind you, the track record of the 'expert' modellers has frequently been diabolical) but the evidence for keeping the masses locked indoors to prevent the spread of a virus once again seems to have been tenuous. 

So too, for that matter does banning viewing sunsets, mandating masks outdoors, shutting off beaches, golf courses, and kids playgrounds, requiring 9pm curfews, and any number of other measures which seem to have no science behind them other than being 'seen to be doing something'. 

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In Queensland there has been no lockdown this week, despite an outbreak of cases, doubtless because the football is sold out for the weekend. 

Let's see what they do on Monday, though...science!

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Posting intermittently this past week, as I'm travelling around Crete, where there have been no fewer than 83 earthquakes over the past 72 hours, at the last count (two of them were nasty shocks). 

But the Wifi has held up. 

Yamas!