Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[jakeseven7]

I think a hard Queensland border closure is likely

Well yes it does but it costs a bomb, drains massive amount of police resources away and the army certainly won’t be helping that’s why they’ve held out so long this time.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Another school covid case in Victoria. So with Delta in both NSW and Vic (In both this and in the previous Delta Outbreak in North Melbourne -North Melbourne Primary School) schools feature prominently. Re-opening schools with active community spread is clearly not viable at present.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1425230362741936132

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Another sporting venue (harness racing) as an exposure site..

Note though that exposure period was back on 2nd August.

Some contacts are Tier 1.

 

[justinbrett]

Well yes it does but it costs a bomb, drains massive amount of police resources away and the army certainly won’t be helping that’s why they’ve held out so long this time.

I thought it was interesting that the Gold Coast mayor wants the checkpoint between Gold Coast & Brisbane on the M1, not at the border. He seems more worried about Brisbane than NSW.

 

[RAM]

My bolding.

Id agree. Of course it’s sad when people die, and maybe because I’ve spent a lot of my life involved with geris I’m a little desensitized. The simple fact is that virtually all deaths in this current outbreak were totally avoidable if those people had chosen to protect themselves. I’m a little over politicians using lines like “tragically, a 90 year old died”, rather than pointing out that the individual made a decision not to get vaccinated. We don’t seem to have this level of sympathy for other deaths.

Please do not believe all the PR spin being promulgated by the Federal Govt & others. True, some people who are fully mobile, in full control of their faculties and have legal control on their decision - have decided to wait for Pfizer or perhaps not have a vaccine at all - but these people are in the minority.

Not every elderly person 'made the decision not to be vaccinated', some may have but many did not.

Just like the nearly 11,000 Disability Care facility residents still to get their 1st vaccine dose, or over 30%.

Disability Provider Alert
23 April 2021
The Australian Government has contracted ASPEN to continue the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine for people with disability living in residential accommodation of two or more people eligible under phase 1a.
The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine will ramp up with ASPEN from early May 2021, initially targeting the smaller states and territories; the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. They will then expand to other states and territories.

As of last Friday over 1/3rd remain unvaccinated despite over $167m paid to have them & workers fully vaccinated at their locations by Week 6.

Then 'quietly' changed on April 23rd - no grand announcement by Scott Morrison nor Greg Hunt though. Workers to get AZ only from GPs.

Then when zero vaccinations for anyone - residents or workers - revealed in the Disability Care Royal Commission special hearing on Covid - the Federal Govt committed to make residents their 'Top priority'.

Now, 18 weeks after both workers & residents were to be fully vaccinated - over 1/3rd of residents are yet to get their 1st dose.

Maybe consider this example before condemning others.

The Federal Govt are the one's who should be condemned - politicians & senior bureaucrats presiding over this debacle.

 

[RAM]

I don't think you can base a system on fallible humans keeping 100% compliance with doing the right thing.
I have encountered two cases this week where the covid isolation status of individuals was deliberately withheld, both times resulting in people being unnecessarily exposed and needing to isolate

But in NSW Gladys knows all.

After all there are no murders in NSW, sexual assaults, domestic violence, car thefts, burglaries, speeding, drink driving, grafitti or any corrupt conduct by politicans.

People 100% do the correct thing 100% of the time. That's why we don't have a police force, security guards, speed cameras....

Meanwhile back to reality....

It is much easier to blame everybody else than have targets that keep getting missed. Not publish the formal health advice unlike every other State & Territory including that black hole south of the border who's name shall not be typed.

 

[justinbrett]

Not publish the formal health advice unlike every other State & Territory including that black hole south of the border who's name shall not be typed.

Has any state or territory released the health advice? I don't think so.

 

[bcworld]

Has any state or territory released the health advice? I don't think so.

WA maybe. Someone in one of these threads provided me a link once but no hope of finding it again.

 

[RAM]

Presumably they have exactly the same number plate reading technology that is in use in Victoria. They can very readily differentiate between vehicles that should be there, or those that are interlopers.

Can it? In an ideal world the system would be able to have filters set easily and provide different screens showing the results.

Meanwhile back in the grand bureaucracy of committee land - the reality is sadly often the reverse to common sense.

I know the NSW system used to be mostly turned off in patrol cars because it would sound alerts constantly no matter what street/road they drove down. Hopefully it has been improved in the last four years - but last time I asked the intelligence unit that was still the same.

It detects any outstanding issues such as unpaid parking/speeding fines, bail alerts, people of interest, stolen cars, registration lapsed etc etc.

But on addresses - unless you have a ring of steel then the cars can be going by in 2 or 3 lanes every fraction of a second. There is not enough time to read an address let alone be able to know where it is exactly.

For example, Highway Patrol cover more than a small local area. I admit, if I was in a Highway Patrol car on the other side of Sydney then I would not know maybe 70% of the address locations coming up on a screen as the cars pass by. Then add in reaction time.

The only way to accurately stop people leaving is to have a checkpoint. In regional NSW and other States because they don't have the police resources provided to them - many local Councils have dumped piles of earth/sand to block all but one or two inter-state access roads. Thanks to too many 4wds - one Council was reported recently spending a few thousand to get rocks trucked in to make it harder to force through.

 

[Lynda2475]

The problem is NSW is utilising a state wide

No it isnt. LHDs are decentralised and there are not state wide lockdowns, but targeted LGA restrictions. You can search exposure sites by postcode.

Media coverage I watched yesterday on ABC, Nine and SBS all mentioned Hunter region and also Northern rivers. There were also Hunter specific tweets from NSW Health yesterday.

 

[RAM]

Has any state or territory released the health advice? I don't think so.

Yes. According to one group fighting to get NSW to release the advice - every other State & Territory does. Some more easily than others, such as Victoria.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Has any state or territory released the health advice? I don't think so.

While not directly released by Vic Gov, Prof Allen Cheng has given a number of detailed interviews both before and after his period as Deputy CHO as to his health advice. Dan Andrews also has given at least one interview on it.

Sutton has had quite a few interviews to on such aspects as mask wearing advice. His comments on fleeting transmission were initially mocked by some.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

A man in his 30s has died in NSW as well as a man in his 90s.

14 new cases in the Hunter New England Region.

374 now in hospital, ICU at 62 and 29 on ventilation.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1425260979919544324

 

[RAM]

Meanwhile, we build pointless quarantine facilities for billions.

No, lockdowns can cost billions per week, purpose built quarantine cost a fraction of that over a 3 year full use operation period.

Just the cost of some poor person for 1 day in Covid ICU covers the cost of more 80 people in purpose built quarantine I think the figure was.

A purpose built quarantine facility to house 2,000 costs in the very low hundreds of millions (not in the CBD of course) for the land, construction & operation for a 3 year period. Ongoing costs on mainland Australia is very low when operated on a 'moth-balled' basis. When an existing facility is repurposed then the cost is in the tens of millions - like Howard Springs.

Cost/Benefit - estimated cost of the first three weeks of this Sydney lockdown would have paid for the construction & operation over 20,000 bed capacity purpose built quarantine facilities for 5 years. Remember the 1st 3 weeks were lockdown-lite.

 

[oz_mark]

Has any state or territory released the health advice? I don't think so.

WA releases a lot of it, but certainly not all of it.

COVID-19 coronavirus

Find information and advice on the COVID-19 coronavirus for the community and businesses in Western Australia.

www.wa.gov.au

 

[justinbrett]

No it isnt. LHDs are decentralised and there are not state wide lockdowns, but targeted LGA restrictions. You can search exposure sites by postcode.

Media coverage I watched yesterday on ABC, Nine and SBS all mentioned Hunter region and also Northern rivers. There were also Hunter specific tweets from NSW Health yesterday.

I'm fully aware that HNE Health exists, the problem is the website and social media (apart from HNE's own account) is run out of Sydney. There's also been conflict between HNE and NSW Health in terms of case reporting (which seems to have been resolved now, but means we are finding out about cases much later than we were).

I'm mostly speaking about the contact tracing locations, and if you are using the list view they are not grouped into regions. Yes you can use the map view but that's not very mobile friendly.

In recent days Gladys or Kerry didn't even mention the HNE stats in their brief. It's not a big ask for a city the size of Newcastle (7th largest urban area in the country) to get a verbal update on the news live without having to research on social media or NSW Health website.

I think the feedback has got back to Gladys and she's now giving HNE totals in her brief (it wasn't just me, the local MPs, Newcastle Herald and many others have been voicing the same concerns as me) - though it could also because they're realising that Newcastle is going south fast and probably deserves more attention.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Vic Presser

5 cases today still unlinked. Mystery cases in terms of no yet likely link for some of them.

Lockdown extended by 7 days.

 

[Pushka]

A man in his 30s has died in NSW as well as a man in his 90s.

14 new cases in the Hunter New England Region.

374 now in hospital, ICU at 62 and 29 on ventilation.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1425260979919544324

Read that the 90 year old wasn't vaccinated. Sigh . I don't know the Vacc status of the 30 year old but it seems covid exacerbated other health conditions. Possibly on that basis he may have already been eligible.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Read that the 90 year old wasn't vaccinated. Sigh . I don't know the Vacc status of the 30 year old but it seems covid exacerbated other health conditions. Possibly on that basis he may have already been eligible.

Or like at least one case in NSW may have also been medically not able to be vaccinated.

Most of the deaths have most likely have been in those that chose not to be vaccinated. But some may not have been able to get access (ie the younger woman), or could not be vaccinated for medical reasons.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Vic Presser.

Jeroen Weimar.


13,800 odd close contacts in quarantine.

20 Cases today.

• 1 Student at Al Taqwa and 5 household contacts.
• 5 at Mt Alexander College
• 4 at Caroline Springs Shopping Centre
  • Two are associated with The Jolly Miller café
  • One associated with YPA estate agency
  • One with Edwards Sourdough bakery
• 5 not linked.

Unlinked cases

• 2 children and a parent in the one family at Melton.
• Father (Healthcare worker at eye clinic) and young son (Year 1) in City of Melbourne. The son is a student at St Michael's Primary School and the father is a health care worker who last worked at the Melbourne Chin's Eye Clinic at the RCH

13 active cases now from City of Melton. 6 today