Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[tgh]

America's cup kicks off in NZ this week, with sponsors and crew there must be a few thousand visitors who were given "special" privileges.
Not only Qld with playdough rules….

 

[drron]

Tasmania this week has trotted out their contact tracing app.

New contact tracing app for Tasmanian venues and businesses​

A new contact tracing app available free-of-charge for all Tasmanian venues and businesses.

The Check in TAS app is being provided to venues and businesses to assist patrons and customers easily check in when they enter premises.

The app is now available on both the Apple and Google app stores. Information collected will be stored on a government-owned secure AZURE cloud and can only be accessed by authorised health department staff involved in contact tracing should an outbreak occur. Information is automatically deleted after 28 days from collection.

I've downloaded it.

 

[Pushka]

Simple - Tennis Australia are going to pay for everything, it’s costing them tens of millions for the quarantine program

I think the issue is the time spent in isolation with limited training and then half get kicked out when they lose the first round. I heard it was something like 2000 people with add - ons. Then there is the support staff, the ball boys/girls are back at school by Feb. and - there is no spare space in the med hotels for 'others'.

Post automatically merged: Dec 13, 2020

Tasmania this week has trotted out their contact tracing app.

New contact tracing app for Tasmanian venues and businesses​

A new contact tracing app available free-of-charge for all Tasmanian venues and businesses.

The Check in TAS app is being provided to venues and businesses to assist patrons and customers easily check in when they enter premises.

The app is now available on both the Apple and Google app stores. Information collected will be stored on a government-owned secure AZURE cloud and can only be accessed by authorised health department staff involved in contact tracing should an outbreak occur. Information is automatically deleted after 28 days from collection.

I've downloaded it.

That's a similar system that SA Govt has. Woolies has tried to develop their own which really just data mines.

 

[Pushka]

So yesterday in SA we had reports of a positive in a newly arrived traveller. Today no new cases but also, no active cases.

 

[RAM]

Also that since September ( I think) Australia had repatriated about double the number of Australians and permanent residents who were registered to return, at that time. So much for non priority!!

Actually, remember the old joke...

"How do know when a politician is lying?"

Their mouth is open....

PM apologises for erroneously stating Kevin Rudd had left and re-entered Australia during Covid

Scott Morrison has written to the clerk of the lower house correcting the record and apologising to the former Labor leader

www.theguardian.com

Of the over 65,000 international arrivals since the number of 'vulnerable Australians' was first publicised (July) - less than 14,000 were those registered with DFAT since then (not of the original number registered as of July but registered at any time before & since then.

Over the entire DFAT timeframe:
14,000 / 80,700 = 17% of international arrivals. Seems like non-priority to me. The 80,700 figure are international arrivals for July thorugh to November.

Equating the total number of people arriving in Australia as 'stranded Aussies' is a bare faced misrepresentation. Just like the claim that all the roughly 27,000 registered with DFAT would be home before Xmas - nowhere near that figure as the 14,000 figure issued by DFAT covers from June 9th through to Dec 10th.

Sad but true.

Intriguing that NSW is now proposing the pre-flight -ve test may become a requirement (to limit arrivals of CV infected people). Where this has been real world trialled - Hawaii - there's been exponential outbreaks & lockdowns required vs when 14 day quarantine in hotels required.

Avg daily infection rate for international arrivals seems to be holding around the 1-2% level (comparable to rates 2 months ago!).

 

[RooFlyer]

Of the over 65,000 international arrivals since the number of 'vulnerable Australians' was first publicised (July) - just 14,400 were those registered with DFAT since then (not of the original number registered as of July but registered at any time before & since then.

14,000 / 80,700 = 17% of international arrivals. Seems like non-priority to me.

How do you prioritise people who don’t express interest to you in returning home? In fact, how do you know they want to return at all?

 

[RooFlyer]

Intriguing that NSW is now proposing the pre-flight -ve test may become a requirement (to limit arrivals of CV infected people).

Tasmania already does that (edit: still requires 2 weeks quarantine on arrival). It eliminates some cases that would otherwise make into our disastrously fallible quarantine hotels and reduces the risk that infected people will spread it during the repatriation process. No claim that it prevents infected arrivals.

 

[Flying mermaid]

How do you prioritise people who don’t express interest to you in returning home? In fact, how do you know they want to return at all?

Dr FM is booked to,come home but she felt that registering with DFAT was for people who needed assistance and at the moment she doesn’t feel she does, so she didn’t register. She knows many other doctors in England who have returned home, as their contracts finished and none of them registered with DFAT. It can be a little bit of a struggle - one friend of hers was returning home on 27 December and she had her flight cancelled but after a bit of too and fro with Singapore Air she was rebooked a few days later.

 

[dajop]

A comment on spread. Interesting that in Sydney quarantine hotels the private security guards that are posted on each floor to monitor that guests aren't leaving rooms do not need to wear masks at all times. One presumes that they have them with them should they have to deal with a recalcitrant guest.

I am still bemused that floor by floor guards are required, and more use isn't made of technology (CCTV, locking lifts), whilst physically guarding the two emergency exits.

 

[Pushka]

A comment on spread. Interesting that in Sydney quarantine hotels the private security guards that are posted on each floor to monitor that guests aren't leaving rooms do not need to wear masks at all times. One presumes that they have them with them should they have to deal with a recalcitrant guest.

I am still bemused that floor by floor guards are required, and more use isn't made of technology (CCTV, locking lifts), whilst physically guarding the two emergency exits.

Today SA Health revealed that it was the corridor air conditioning or lack of it, that meant the security guards became infected last month. The same guard was also on the floor where the couple in quarantine caught Covid while in the hotel and not from travel. They surveyed hours of CCTV and the infected guard had no contact with the UK person who brought it in, other than being on the same floor during duty.

 

[andye]

Intriguing that NSW is now proposing the pre-flight -ve test may become a requirement (to limit arrivals of CV infected people). Where this has been real world trialled - Hawaii - there's been exponential outbreaks & lockdowns required vs when 14 day quarantine in hotels required....

I was under the impression that the negative test was in addition to 14 day quarantine. Presumably to reduce chance of en route infection and reduce active cases in hotels (so reducing risk of escape). Might enable a ramp up of available hotel beds if there are fewer active cases to manage

 

[RooFlyer]

Dr FM is booked to,come home but she felt that registering with DFAT was for people who needed assistance and at the moment she doesn’t feel she does, so she didn’t register. She knows many other doctors in England who have returned home, as their contracts finished and none of them registered with DFAT.

Sounds fair enough. If you have the nous and means to make your own way, that's what you should do I reckon.

 

[Lynda2475]

I was under the impression that the negative test was in addition to 14 day quarantine. Presumably to reduce chance of en route infection and reduce active cases in hotels (so reducing risk of escape). Might enable a ramp up of available hotel beds if there are fewer active cases to manage

You are correct, it is an additional measure, no suggestion that international arrivals will not have to do hotel quarantine.

 

[nutwood]

Actually, remember the old joke...

"How do know when a politician is lying?"

Their mouth is open....

I have to take exception to this.

My belief is that the traditional interpretation is the correct one.

"Their lips are moving..."

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

I was under the impression that the negative test was in addition to 14 day quarantine. Presumably to reduce chance of en route infection and reduce active cases in hotels (so reducing risk of escape). Might enable a ramp up of available hotel beds if there are fewer active cases to manage

You are correct, it is an additional measure, no suggestion that international arrivals will not have to do hotel quarantine.

I think in a situation of ‘desperate’ to come home to Aust to live/reside, that a pre-test to disqualify one of a family does not make sense. It will leave families split and possibly without healthcare in the overseas location.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

So yesterday in SA we had reports of a positive in a newly arrived traveller. Today no new cases but also, no active cases.

Perhaps they recover quick in SA mandatory quarantine lol

As an aside, it was good to have a seemingly news-free Monday for Aussie Covid.

 

[Lynda2475]

I think in a situation of ‘desperate’ to come home to Aust to live/reside, that a pre-test to disqualify one of a family does not make sense. It will leave families split and possibly without healthcare in the overseas location.

This rule has been in place for all the government spnosred repatriation flights, NSW is now just planning to extend this to commercial flights. Many airlines already require you to have a nagative test within 48 hours of departure to board.

Im sure other passengers would feel safer flying home knowing they werent stuck in a metal tube with a covid positive person for 18 or more hours.

If you test positive, you get bumped to a later flight once you test negative, its for the greater good.

With overseas cases booming, the infection rate of international arrivals into NSW has been running at almost 3%, earlier on it was about 1%. Medi hotels spaces have had to be increased vs quarantine hotels.

 

[dajop]

This rule has been in place for all the government spnosred repatriation flights, NSW is now just planning to extend this to commercial flights. Many airlines already require you to have a nagative test within 48 hours of departure to board.

Does it have to be from every country though? The risk isn't the same for everyone. Surely there is some good data by now about where positive pax are originating from.

Some countries are getting 700-800 cases over a two week period for every 100,000 residents. Some are getting 0.05 cases (outside hotel quarantine) per two week period for every 100,000 residents. The 0.05'ers are far more likely to contract the virus on the bus on the way from the airport to the hotel, or perhaps on the plane (both mixing with connecting passengers), than they are to have it when arriving at the airport to depart.

 

[Lynda2475]

Does it have to be from every country though?

Well certain flight from NZ are exempt from Quarantine altogether but only if everyone ont he flight had been in NZ for 14 days before departure.

Hard to apply those rules to flights coming from other places as many of the passengers have connected form elsewhere. i.e. cases in Sinagpore are low but many people from Europe and India transit SIN to get to Australia.

Once vaccine roll-out is at decent levels and Aussies are allowed to travel overseas, then there may be sufficient demand for dedicated flighst from safer countries where transiting passengers are excluded, but this isnt the case right now.

South Korea was being hailed a success but cases are now surging there again. We still dont have all of our domestic borders fully open (SA cant go to WA quarantine free until later this month), so I cant see any rapid support for allowing overseas arrivals in unchecked.

We may see pacific neighbours allowed in next i.e Fiji but cant see most of the world being welcomed without quarantine, until all aussies on the repat list are home and we have some real evidence that vaccines stop spread not just limit the severity of disease.

 

[Flashback]

Just because you test negative 48-72 hours before, it doesn't mean you don't have the virus. That's been proved true many times.