Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[HappyFlyerFamily]

4pm news on 9 said they are investigating whether two American male cabin crew members breached the iso rules and left their room during their layover before flying back.

Land of the free.....

And the home of the brave lol

 

[justinbrett]

Apparently noticeable tensions in the press conference today, between SA Health CHO and Police Commissioner who wanted the 4sq metre to relax to 2sq metre and which did happen. I think middle ground has been achieved.

Post automatically merged: Dec 4, 2020

Still, after all the snaffus and incorrect conclusions and actions that SA people have made in recent weeks we must be careful not to jump to conclusions.

Wouldn’t middle ground led to the 3sqm rule?

 

[Pushka]

Wouldn’t middle ground led to the 3sqm rule?

Apparently the 2sq m takes venues from 25% to 50% so I'm saying 50 is half of 100! 37.5% just much too hard.

Good god, Health is threatening to make people wear masks at the Adelaide Test Cricket. Crowd of just 20,000 (just under 50%).

 

[jakeseven7]

WA confirm opening to VIC on Tuesday as planned, but won’t announce whether they will open to NSW on Tuesday until the day before....

Giving NSW residents 24 hours to plan....


—
WA set to reopen border to Victoria but NSW call delayed until Monday after coronavirus scare

WA Premier Mark McGowan says the state will reopen to Victoria on Tuesday under its planned border changes, but a final decision on New South Wales travel will not be announced until Monday.

Earlier today, the NSW Government confirmed genomic sequencing had confirmed the COVID-19 strain found in the Sydney hotel worker originated from the United States, likely from a self-isolating airline crew member.

The decision to allow quarantine-free travel from Victoria and NSW was announced on Tuesday.

At the time, advice from WA's Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson stated the relaxation of rules was "subject to no further community outbreaks”

Mr McGowan said there was still testing to be done in NSW, but the information to date was "positive news".

"The woman in question, the cleaner, spent a lot of time on trains and trams between Western Sydney and her workplace, and by all accounts was a very gregarious person, so we are still awaiting further test results," he said.

The Premier warned things could change at any point, adding that WA would continue to err on the side of caution.

While NSW residents remain in limbo, those in Victoria expressed relief after learning they were allowed to travel west from Tuesday.

Travellers from NSW left anxiously holding their breath for last-minute call on WA border

Premier Mark McGowan says WA's border with Victoria should open on Tuesday as planned, but a final decision on New South Wales travel will not be announced until Monday following its COVID-19 scare.

www.abc.net.au

 

[N860CR]

International airline crews self isolate in hotels for short stays, they dont do 14 days supervised like arrivals do. They mostly need to ensure that cleaners have ppe and are trained to take extra care when cleaning their rooms.

Same for domestic crew on short stays in Perth for what it’s worth. Marched through hotel lobby’s in PPE, physically kept apart from other guests and then locked in their rooms (with guards blocking the corridors) for up to 72 hours.

 

[love_the_life]

So the NSW scenario is that the lady likely contracted the virus from cleaning the rooms of airline crew, likely from the USA. Pretty significant issue for airlines now.

And people are busting to fly international again? Doesn’t sound like it’s safe yet.

 

[RAM]

Apparently the 2sq m takes venues from 25% to 50% so I'm saying 50 is half of 100! 37.5% just much too hard.

Good god, Health is threatening to make people wear masks at the Adelaide Test Cricket. Crowd of just 20,000 (just under 50%).

Surely only if they're not drinking! So no masks then....

Well if you apply the same sort of logic to people arriving from low risk countries, if there's a 1 in 100,000 (or perhaps 1 in 1 million) chance that vaccine is not effective, then she should still have to quarantine ...

But hopefully we'll get past that soon.

No the vaccines are nowhere near that good. I put a way too detailed post on the two front-running vaccines in the 'When will international flights start again' thread - Post # 3,555. It includes the links through to the detailed results from Pfizer & Moderna.

Predictions of when international flights may resume/bans lifted

It will probably depend on how that country is going vaccinating their citizens. There are a few EU countries that we get reciprocal medicare so potentially it may fall under that There will also be issues around which vaccines the Federal Government might accept as being suitably effective to...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

Efficacy does not translate to 1 in xyz quite so easily. If you feel lucky - plow through the details because most articles are misinterpreting what they're writing about.

For example: The results reported only relate to the first 105 days of the Pfizer trial. Sounds good. But as there's a month in between the first & second shots - the results are a subset of the first 105 days as they have been progressively signing up participants - so the results deal with those from July 27th through to around the 9th of October (I think it was) or 74 ish days of particpants looked at for the 105 day period of a 2.5 year Phase 3 trial. Some had been in the study for just 1 day at the time of the results reported (so had not even had their week 1 contact).

There are roughly say 40,000 covered. So hopefully 20k of placebo & 20k of vaccine. The rate of infection for all participants (including only 2nd dose vaccine) is 0.41% vs the wider population in those countries which is far higher, multiple times in fact over the same time period. In the UK the 67.98 million not in the trial have seen 1.5% or so test positive over the same period.

This provides a little insight about why many regulatory agencies want to see all the data not just a media release before giving the drug companies immunity from prosecution or being sued for side effects.

​

 

[lovetravellingoz]

The good news continue in NSW.

We should all be most grateful that the cleaner was a believer in wearing a mask.

Presumably by now all close contacts to two rings out (ignoring the randoms of the public transport) will have now all had test results back.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

The good news continue in NSW.

We should all be most grateful that the cleaner was a believer in wearing a mask.

Presumably by now all close contacts to two rings out (ignoring the randoms of the public transport) will have now all had test results back.


View attachment 235162

NSW Health has not mentioned contacts of contacts as far as I was able to decipher (only close contacts and casual contacts at home work and transport), so I would not assume it’s 2 rings.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Australia’s active cases

Local: now under 10 - 7 in SA, 1 in NSW (quarantine worker)
International quarantine: 184 - 14 in WA, 11 in Qld, 13 in NT, 1 in ACT, 145 in NSW* in the past 4 weeks (38 this week, 32, 41, then 34)

 

[N860CR]

And people are busting to fly international again? Doesn’t sound like it’s safe yet.

Wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, to be honest. If anything, the fact that operational airline crew are flying 15 hour sectors to Australia without the concern shows what a non-event it largely is.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, to be honest. If anything, the fact that operational airline crew are flying 15 hour sectors to Australia without the concern shows what a non-event it largely is.

How do you know that they are not concerned?

Covid 19 is now in the USA this week the number one cause of death.

 

[N860CR]

How do you know that they are not concerned?

Because airline crew don’t board 15 hour flights if they’re sick with a deadly virus that’s killing them

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Because airline crew don’t board 15 hour flights if they’re sick with a deadly virus that’s killing them

So the crew that infected the cleaner are still in Sydney?

 

[N860CR]

So the crew that infected the cleaner are still in Sydney?

Actually yes, got me there. They’ve operated two 15 hour flights now that they’ve returned.

There’s no point arguing with you. We know you’re concerned about this virus. But at some point we need to deal with it (Australia has failed badly at that) and the fact that infected airline crew are operating some of the most exhausting flights in the world prove that a “one size fits all” approach doesn’t work.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, to be honest. If anything, the fact that operational airline crew are flying 15 hour sectors to Australia without the concern shows what a non-event it largely is.

The father of a friend of mine just died from Covid after nearly a month on a ventilator, his mother and uncle are still ill. His Dad was a year older than me. I find it hard to see it as a non event and I think Australia has done a stunning job at keeping us safe.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Actually yes, got me there. They’ve operated two 15 hour flights now that they’ve returned.

There’s no point arguing with you. We know you’re concerned about this virus. But at some point we need to deal with it (Australia has failed badly at that) and the fact that infected airline crew are operating some of the most exhausting flights in the world prove that a “one size fits all” approach doesn’t work.

Why am I concerned?

I am fit and well and so my personal outcome would most likely be ok. But as a community Sweden, UK, USA all show what happens if you do not have adequate measures with Covid 19. So personally no I am not ok with the mortality rate in those countries, plus the other outcomes that some have had, and do not wish it for Australia.

My view is:

1/ That all of Australia should be now be open for interstate travel. And that authorities just need to jump on any new case including any quarantine or sea/air freight breaches with the two rings of containment method which has been proven to work well.

2/ International travel to be allowed with 14 day quarantine. Gov needs to open up more quarantine facilities.

Eventually the vaccine should alter things, but that is many months away yet.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

The father of a friend of mine just died from Covid after nearly a month on a ventilator, his mother and uncle are still ill. His Dad was a year older than me. I find it hard to see it as a non event and I think Australia has done a stunning job at keeping us safe.

Save your breath. The poster possibly doesn’t care.

In their words (or to the effect) from another AFF thread: “We are in a pandemic. People die”.

 

[jb747]

Wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, to be honest. If anything, the fact that operational airline crew are flying 15 hour sectors to Australia without the concern shows what a non-event it largely is.

Because airline crew don’t board 15 hour flights if they’re sick with a deadly virus that’s killing them

The fact that airline crew, much less American crew, do anything, should not be taken as any form of indication of how safe something is. If I were still flying, there is no way I’d do a USA trip. Not just because the virus is common, but because about half of the population think it’s a con. Which makes it extremely likely that they don’t take appropriate precautions.

Interesting over the last couple of days, travelling into NSW and ACT. They simply don’t have the same level of wariness that became commonplace in Victoria. If I need to be wary until this event is over, I can handle that....

 

[Flying mermaid]

Interesting over the last couple of days, travelling into NSW and ACT. They simply don’t have the same level of wariness that became commonplace in Victoria. If I need to be wary until this event is over, I can handle that....

I would agree with the ACT part. We went into Civic yesterday to do some Christmas shopping and apart from a few signs limiting numbers in shops and the like, it just felt very normal. Mr FM says any social distancing at the markets has just about disappeared. I guess we have had it so easy for such a long time that people have forgotten.