12 days without coronavirus - a Hartlepool expat in Australia says 'we have just about defeated the Covid pandemic'

Joe Richmond, 83, who was raised in Hartlepool and went to Dyke House School, has told the Mail: “Today, all over Oz, there has been no new infection or deaths for the past 12 days.

"On this morning’s early news, it stated again that there has been no outbreaks or deaths all over Australia, so things will soon be back to normal.”

But there may be worse on the horizon for Australia and the rest of the world, said Joe.

"Bad as Covid has been, I firmly believe there is a lot bigger threat to the world than Covid, and this is climate change.

"Earlier this year, we saw bush fires in Oz across two states, the like of which we had not seen before, and in the driest country in the world, this may only be the start,

"Some parts of some states go months without rain, then a lightning strike causes bush fires, and the damage and cost is incalculable. Today in Perth the temperature will be 23 degrees on a nice spring day, whilst up in Kununurra (five hours flying time from Perth) it will be 43 degrees, That’s about 110 Fahrenheit.

"So we can’t all wait for summer and a few lovely hot days. Time was, it was wars that killed off millions, but with Greenland and Iceland melting, sea levels rising, it will be the climate that does for us all.”

Joe spoke to the Hartlepool Mail earlier this year when he said that this had been the worst year he had ever known and that included living through air raids in the Second World War.

But Australia is winning its fight with Covid-19 and Joe added: “As soon as it was apparent, all states closed their borders, no flights or movement in or out at all. Schools, cinemas, shops, cafes all closed down.

"Our Government agreed to pay about 80 percent of workers wages, as workers lost their jobs In the lockdown, The result is the virus has now virtually gone from all over Australia. I think the latest figures for Aussies are 27.000 infections, and 907 deaths.

“I believe in Britain there has been 1.2 million infections, and over 50,000 deaths and in the USA it’s about ten times worse."

“I think before Covid, Oz nearly had a balanced budget, We can only guess what the financial costs of it all is now but once again the “Lucky Country” is just that.

"We export lots of coal, oil, gas, beef, lamb, iron ore, Bauxite, to Asia so compared to the rest of the world we are practically home and dry.”

Joe left school at 15 to become an apprentice welder in the shipyards before becoming a Gunner in the 2nd Royal Horse Artillery .

In the late 1950s, he got a job on the North Yorkshire Moors building a BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Early Warning Station). He later worked on jobs all over the country before being offered a job in 1986 in Western Australia as a welding instructor.

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