But there also appear to be other, more subtle, factors at work.
One is that a media stereotype has developed about Victoria’s COVID response. The stereotype is that the government is incompetent in the way it handles the pandemic. Initial failures in hotel quarantine and contact-tracing have tainted perceptions of the entire government response, regardless of the improvements that have since been made. The fact the most recent outbreak occurred as a result of a hotel quarantine breach in South Australia was conveniently ignored by some media outlets.
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Media stereotypes are generally founded on fact, and initially there were plenty of facts to support this one, as the hotel quarantine inquiry report showed.