– “Sturgeon has been draconian in her dictat”
She has been draconian, it’s her nature, but she hasn’t acted effectively; she hasn’t imposed effective travel restrictions when it mattered, and when travel restrictions have been implicit lockdown rules, they haven’t been enforced.
– “The number of Covid-19 cases in Sydney has been rising recently…”
Yes, it peaked at 49 in a single day, 40 per day in a seven-day average, and has held steady or possibly even fallen a bit in the last few days. Compare that with the UK’s 25,000 per day and rising fast; even allowing for the smaller Australian population it’s at least two orders of magnitude better. Sydney achieved that with a two week lockdown, compared with the UK’s four months. Test-and-trace is practicable under Australia’s numbers; there’s no way all the contacts of 25,000 people can be traced before it spreads yet further, and that 25,000 is probably between only half and a third of actual infections.