Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[I love to travel]

First test is in immigration hall. If they refuse straight back on the plane to Christmas Island until they agree.

 

[RooFlyer]

If they serve their quarantine does it matter?

Given the spread occurring in the Melbourne quarantine hotels (and also Rydges in Sydney), yes it matters! They could catch it any time during their stay with lax supervision/behaviors.

 

[drron]

I guess there is no point in trying to compare published active cases stats between states of AU anymore.

I can't find the article again, but earlier today read that NSW gov has changed the way they report stats yet again out of step with all other states. From memory, they will no longer count anyone in quarantine, returned travellers, cases after 30 days, and other changes. Overnight active cases stats for NSW dropped by three hundred.

I think you will find that drop of a couple of hundred in active cases brought NSW in line with the other states.Was ridiculous they were showing 400+ active cases when they have only had in total 57 cases in the last 30 days.

 

[jase05]

NSW have now made a ruling where if you decline being tested whilst in quarantine you must serve an additional 10 days in quarantine

 

[jeza]

NSW have now made a ruling where if you decline being tested whilst in quarantine you must serve an additional 10 days in quarantine at your own expense.

Hope the bolded I added to your post @jase05 also applies to those that decline testing

 

[mrsterryn]

Please take this as a genuine question. Why would people refuse testing ?
Is it fear of showing drug usage ? Other conditions ?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Please take this as a genuine question. Why would people refuse testing ?
Is it fear of showing drug usage ? Other conditions ?

Well with the Aspen couple it is because they did not want their USA Ski holiday interrupted! And this when they knew that people that they were with had tested positive.

 

[jase05]

Please take this as a genuine question. Why would people refuse testing ?
Is it fear of showing drug usage ? Other conditions ?

id assume some may have reservations about the tests and would decline on “religious beliefs”

 

[lovetravellingoz]

JUST VENTING

Well today I must admit that I am extremely uneasy as it is now school holidays in Victoria.

That means that some people will be on the move. We also know from other recent breaks that families holiday together, and we also know that family transmission and other social gatherings is at the heart of recent transmission.

Plus yesterday we saw cases outside of the 10 hotspot suburbs (ie Box Hill), though these cases were where people were working rather than where they lived and so they may live a hotspot.


I think what the authorities are now doing is reasonable (Personally I would have had extra restrictions in the hotspot suburbs, and tighter restrictions statewide on gatherings). BUT I think that they are at least two weeks behind with doing it. The northern suburb family spread was obvious for at least a month prior, and the refusal to act on local hotspots with local measures till last week has been very costly. How costly we are about to find out.

In just over a week we will know if they acted too late, or just in time. But school holidays has the potential to spread the hotspots far and wide.

 

[Pushka]

JUST VENTING

Well today I must admit that I am extremely uneasy as it is now school holidays in Victoria.
.

In just over a week we will know if they acted too late, or just in time. But school holidays has the potential to spread the hotspots far and wide.

And into NSW and Canberra. Ski season. I think that's why SA delayed announcements until after Vic and SA school holidays were done. I agree. I think the Vic Govt has a great deal to answer for and I'm wondering if political allegiances, or rather, the opposite, with the Federal Govt has set up a belligerent attitude.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

JUST VENTING
...

In just over a week we will know if they acted too late, or just in time. But school holidays has the potential to spread the hotspots far and wide.

Well we are probably looking at 200 extra cases from the moment they decided to ‘snapback’ of a sort last weekend.

Please take this as a genuine question. Why would people refuse testing ?
Is it fear of showing drug usage ? Other conditions ?

Perhaps to avoid disrupting their life of current freedom....to be under isolation again.

Unless they get free paid leave from work to be awaiting testing in isolation, then many might not want to get to get tested.

Also if it’s coming up to a weekend, many would not want to be isolation for the weekend while waiting for results.

 

[moa999]

Another single non-quarantine case in NSW. 70yo in Penrith.
Could be false positive as seemingly most of the recent NSW ones have been.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Well we are probably looking at 200 extra cases from the moment they decided to ‘snapback’ of a sort last weekend.

If we only generate 200 cases in total it means that they will be containing things (ie There has already been almost a 100 cases and we will continue to get cases from people being close contacts of recent cases and who are already infected, but not yet testing positive) and this will in the circumstances be a good result. But if there are quite a number of unknown infectious still circulating and breaching physical distancing then who knows how high it could climb.

My concern is that may have already seeded further, and that school holidays could see it seeded further again.

We need people to not just be tested, we need people alter their mixing and physical distancing behaviours over especially the next two to three weeks.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

If we only generate 200 cases in total it means that they will be containing things (ie There has already been almost a 100 cases and we will continue to get cases from people being close contacts of recent cases and who are already infected, but not yet testing positive) and this will in the circumstances be a good result. But if there are quite a number of unknown infectious still circulating and breaching physical distancing then who knows how high it could climb.

My concern is that may have already seeded further, and that school holidays could see it seeded further again.

We need people to not just be tested, we needed people alter their mixing and physical distancing behaviours.

Agree school holidays is a huge risk. Families in Melbourne would have been planning for weeks and looking forward to it.........another ‘selfish’ reason to avoid testing, so can go on holidays. (Sigh)

If it’s 100 new cases at the moment since the ‘snapback’, then things don’t seem to be wildly out of control. 100 per week is around the same rate as 200 during the typical 10-14 day transmissible period.

Hopefully we get enough testing of the suburb hotspots to get a truer picture of the current spread..

 

[RooFlyer]

I am trying to bite my tongue about the performance of Vic Health in the present outbreak, as I tried to do during the NW Tas outbreak (I thought the response was a bit soft in the early days, with testing a bit slack). But we are a couple of months down the track now and I think Vic Health and the government are stumbling into a major bungle. 'Need to get legal advice' on keeping people in quarantine beyond 14 days?? OK, if you must - but should that take more than 4 hours, maybe a day to have it checked? I wonder what authority are they acting under that is limited to day 14!? And all that self-testing I'm seeing. I know its happened before, and in other places, but when I was tested during the NW Tas outbreak, I wasn't given the choice. Is it a health concession to culture?

And yes, I think Andrews, with his dogmatic prior statements and stupid and arrogant comments about visiting other states is acting defensively, to the cost of the community. Boy, I bet he wishes he could use the line "we are doing so many tests, that's why our numbers are high".

And for parochialism's sake, note that in time since the NW Tas outbreak, I have been critical of the Tas govt and Premier Gutwein's decisions. And I do have self-interest here. Victoria's performance will affect Tas's ability to open its borders, given all the flights currently go via Melbourne.

 

[Pushka]

I have no idea what the agenda is in Victoria. I can not believe the decisions that are being made during an emergency state of alert. The professional people we work with in Victoria are currently in despair. It's like when you have a timeline that you can bear, you deal with the bad stuff until you get closer to that timeline, and then you are totally at the mercy of decision making that is simply not in line with common responsibility for a cause of what? Individual freedom having entered a country of your citizenship but from a world where Covid is running amok? Whose freakin freedoms are they trying to protect here?

The ADF has also arrived into SA to deal with the latest batch from India on SQ. And their expertise has been gladly welcomed.

 

[oz_mark]

Please take this as a genuine question. Why would people refuse testing ?
Is it fear of showing drug usage ? Other conditions ?

From what I have heard, for some it was due to the fear of getting a positive result at day 10, which would extend quarantine.

 

[Melburnian1]

Ah but showing our age. For some younger members of the populations that is their normal life. Clubbing and boozing Thursday Friday Saturday night. Gym Mon- Friday. Smashed avo Sat/Sun

And unfortunately, then out of money. It's a staggering statistic but allegedly at least 40 per cent of (adult) Australians of working age would not have their finances lasting five weeks if they lost their job. That's reality now for some. When JobKeeper ends, that will become clearer.

 

[Melburnian1]

I have no idea what the agenda is in Victoria. I can not believe the decisions that are being made during an emergency state of alert. The professional people we work with in Victoria are currently in despair. ..

When Victoria announced 41 new cases on Saturday 27 June, the spokeswoman admitted that there were 'a number of schools' involved but wouldn't name them 'because it's school holidays.'

A nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital emergency dept tested positive. The Health Dept says all who've come into contact with him/her have been notified.

Two months ago when staff at the also major Alfred Hospital tested positive, 100 others working at the hospital had to be quarantined.

It seems to me that there's a cover up going on in Victoria. Maybe the journalists who might occasionally ask the hard questions are also absent on Saturdays.

People in other states may say 'so what' but they're reliant on Victoria supplying many business and leisure travellers, which cannot happen if other states decide not to open their borders to Victorian residents.

 

[Pushka]

People in other states may say 'so what' but they're reliant on Victoria supplying many business and leisure travellers, which cannot happen if other states decide not to open their borders to Victorian residents.

Sadly I can "reassure" you that what happens in Victoria is being reported significantly in South Australia. And anyone with a shred of intelligence cares very much.

I'd also suggest that the Deputy Health Office, Annaliese Van Diemen is looking very very stressed, and may be on stress leave within a few months. Much of it being self inflicted with the fallout from her ridiculous tweet.