Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[SydneySwan]

He said it was unlikely that the domestic economy would be open before Christmas. WA is likely to keep borders closed until March.....

By the time WA gets around to opening its borders I will have lost interest in going there.

 

[Gremlin]

Well WA doesn't surprise me, they wont let anyone in until zero cases. But Im surprised there is so little confidence in being able to get numbers down such that NSW can travel north again. Guess only options are Canberra or Byron.

I think the underlying issue is that NSW's strategy is different to that of Qld, TAS, SA, WA, NT.

The NSW Premier and various Ministers have repeatedly said that they are not pursuing an elimination strategy, that they are happy with some underlying degree of virus in the community - some of them to the point of 250 cases a day. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/cabinet-divided-over-lockdown-with-some-prepared-to-accept-up-to-250-virus-cases-a-day-20200725-p55fee.html

That wouldn't be accepted in any of those other jurisdictions given where they are at in terms of managing the virus. So unless NSW changes its stance and rhetoric and acts in a manner consistent with actually driving their case numbers down - instead of seemingly being happy to bobble along trying to manage the emergence of two to three new clusters a week - then I don't think borders will open to NSW for a while.

I thought it was quite telling this morning that the Qld presser gave forewarning to border residents to think about how they will operate in the event of a closed border shutting off access for even them.

EDIT: Me grammar gooder now

 

[tgh]

"Accepting" 250 positives per day is a fools game of Russian Roulette.
There is no safe infection level ; there is however a capacity to minimise infection spread that depends on discipline and vigilance from everyone

As the excitement wanes the populace will likely become habituated and steadily lose the incentive to mitigate infection.
250 a day with a relaxed populace could turn to 1000's in no time flat.

There is no good news on the horizon atm , and the infection risks increase as time passes

 

[Gremlin]

"Accepting" 250 positives per day is a fools game of Russian Roulette.
There is no safe infection level ; there is however a capacity to minimise infection spread that depends on discipline and vigilance from everyone

As the excitement wanes the populace will likely become habituated and steadily lose the incentive to mitigate infection.
250 a day with a relaxed populace could turn to 1000's in no time flat.

There is no good news on the horizon atm , and the infection risks increase as time passes

I completely agree. Whilst there's that kind of talk out of NSW and whilst the actions of the NSW Government are inconsistent with driving infection numbers downwards, it will be hard to see other states opening up to NSW.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Senior high school students also more likely to work in supermarket or fast food services where they are exposed to many many people.

While true, the strategy at schools was mainly driven by the idea that while all children could catch Covid19, that they were most unlikely to infect another person and even morseo if that other person was a child. So say junior gets infected by one of the parents, and while junior goes to school, junior's classmates would not get infected.

Hence schools being allowed, though teachers had to remain prudent both with children as morseo with the other teachers/ adults.

With more knowledge now this remains so for young children. But older children need to adopt Covid 19 measures (basically the same as for say an office workplace) if community transmission is about, and both at school and outside of it (which is where the biggest problem has been).

The primary school clusters that I heard/read were mainly traced back to social gatherings of parents including family gatherings. The very big school clusters off the top of my head have all been secondary schools.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I completely agree. Whilst there's that kind of talk out of NSW and whilst the actions of the NSW Government are inconsistent with driving infection numbers downwards, it will be hard to see other states opening up to NSW.

NSW just seems to be going sideways at present.

Back at the start of the pandemic with such low numbers this would have been considered ok. But with some states and NZ having achieved elimination (and one could argue that both Vic and NSW also eliminated the first wave, as if reports are to be believed all the new cases have sprung from the hotel quarantine ) that is now the goal, though NSW does not seem to want to push hard for it.

So the question remains in NSW whether contact tracing is in enough to achieve elimination, as the current control measures in place are pretty minimal ones.

Vic of course just kept minimal measures too long as they did not realise how munch unknown community spread was actually occurring. Hopefully this is not the case in NSW.

 

[mrsterryn]

Husband usually goes out Monday to shop and pick up bits that we have worked out we need from the weekend
He usually comes home peeved about the lack of masks being worn out. This week he has said more people were wearing masks than weren't at our local Westfield's
I wonder if Victoria's shutdown has made people worried that NSW also could go into that degree of lockdown and thought easier to wear a mask than have stage 4

 

[Lynda2475]

You are welcome in Canberra All the museums are open again and its lovely in Spring and summer

Well I still have flights and hotel booked for the AFF Weekend start of Dec - although I do wonder if it will proceed if only NSW and ACT peeps can get there?

Right now 2020 is shaping up to be the year of nothing - zero flights, zero concerts, zero live theatre - yawn!

It does appear that WA, SA, NT, Tas and Qld aren't going to open their borders to NSW and Vic until they can show zero cases - so we may never be able to go to these places again. Even when a vaccine is available there will never be zero cases, look at diseases where vaccines have been available for decades i.e. Measles and Chicken Pox - there are still cases every year.

I was pleased when i did my grocery shop over the weekend that Vic's panic buying hasn't spread to NSW this time.

 

[Seat0B]

I missed the PMs address today as was on a work call, but SMH is running a headline that says "PM doubts border restrictions will lift before Christmas" does anyone know if he was talking about State or International?

I doubt anyone would be surprised re international, but Id really hoped it might be possible to have a domestic break by Christmas.

State borders

Edit: It was on the radio news. Took own link that was referring to overseas borders

 

[Denali]

Husband usually goes out Monday to shop and pick up bits that we have worked out we need from the weekend
He usually comes home peeved about the lack of masks being worn out. This week he has said more people were wearing masks than weren't at our local Westfield's
I wonder if Victoria's shutdown has made people worried that NSW also could go into that degree of lockdown and thought easier to wear a mask than have stage 4

Im already reminding people that Christmas is only 4.5mths away and Gladys will cancel Christmas (up or down the coast trips) if we dont behave ourselves.

Even the random people I have coming to my house to pick up free stuff (FB buy/swap/sell) have been wearing a mask and I leave the stuff on the front step for them.

 

[SydneySwan]

Husband usually goes out Monday to shop and pick up bits that we have worked out we need from the weekend
He usually comes home peeved about the lack of masks being worn out. This week he has said more people were wearing masks than weren't at our local Westfield's
I wonder if Victoria's shutdown has made people worried that NSW also could go into that degree of lockdown and thought easier to wear a mask than have stage 4

I concur with his experience. Shopping on lower north shore of Sydney this morning I reckon mask usage was around 75% and higher than that in the supermarkets.

 

[Pushka]

I think the underlying issue is that NSW's strategy is different to that of Qld, TAS, SA, WA, NT.

The NSW Premier and various Ministers have repeatedly said that they are not pursuing an elimination strategy, that they are happy with some underlying degree of virus in the community - some of them to the point of 250 cases a day. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/cabinet-divided-over-lockdown-with-some-prepared-to-accept-up-to-250-virus-cases-a-day-20200725-p55fee.html

That wouldn't be accepted in any of those other jurisdictions given where they are at in terms of managing the virus. So unless NSW changes its stance and rhetoric and acts in a manner consistent with actually driving their case numbers down - instead of seemingly being happy to bobble along trying to manage the emergence of two to three new clusters a week - then I don't think borders will open to NSW for a while.

I thought it was quite telling this morning that the Qld presser gave forewarning to border residents to think about how they will operate in the event of a closed border shutting off access for even them.

EDIT: Me grammar gooder now

While it maintains that stance then SA, WA, NT and Tas will not reopen to NSW.

 

[nickykim]

As a reference point, a friend has just let me know her 3 year old has picked up the virus from a childcare centre (Melbourne) via an employee of the centre. A mild case but have you tried telling a 3 year old no hugs or kisses?

 

[Seat0B]

While it maintains that stance then SA, WA, NT and Tas will not reopen to NSW.

or the poor old Coronavirus hotspot of ACT where there have been no cases for 31 days. Yes I know it's because we maintain an open border with NSW, but still it hurts.

 

[Pushka]

As a reference point, a friend has just let me know her 3 year old has picked up the virus from a childcare centre (Melbourne) via an employee of the centre. A mild case but have you tried telling a 3 year old no hugs or kisses?

Adults give it to kids. Kids dont tend to give it to adults or other kids. Its a weird virus. Best wishes for your friend and her family and the sweet little 3 year old

 

[jakeseven7]

Still in NSW seemingly no more contacts from Ports Point cluster which shows the contract tracing procedure can work

Sure it can work.

But Sydney still has increasing 'unknown source' cases they have no idea where it came from....

 

[jakeseven7]

NSW just seems to be going sideways at present.

Vic of course just kept minimal measures too long as they did not realise how munch unknown community spread was actually occurring. Hopefully this is not the case in NSW.

NSW case numbers are increasing every day, not going sideways, as the deputy CHO pointed out and told people not to get complacent just because the case number increase is the same every day - its still adding to their case load. I thought that was a good point to make publicly because people are getting way too comfortable....

In a week thats about 70-100 new cases for Sydney, and if the upper estimate of 40% undetected-asymptomatic is correct then we know the actual number is more like maybe 150.

Currently about 10 are completely untraceable and contact tracers can't find the original spreader, still at large in NSW somewhere, potentially still spreading.

They were also disappointed with their testing numbers on the weekend.

So unless NSW actually suppress the numbers to nothing in the community, there is always going to be an axe hanging over their head - it just needs to hit an aged care residence, abbatoir, the wrong school etc and its off.

 

[jakeseven7]

While it maintains that stance then SA, WA, NT and Tas will not reopen to NSW.

Which leads to a potential future scenario of Victoria through its hard shut down getting the virus down a point where some states will reopen to them, and NSW may still be left out in the cold, as they are content to let it bubble along at current levels.

Weird world.

 

[love_the_life]

You are welcome in Canberra All the museums are open again and its lovely in Spring and summer

That is true but this little black duck would like to go somewhere else.

 

[moa999]

NSW case numbers are increasing every day, not going sideways, as the deputy CHO pointed out and told people not to get complacent just because the case number increase is the same every day - its still adding to their case load. I

Agree there are more active (isolating cases).
But the number of detected cases has fallen from high teen/20s 2 weeks ago to low teens.