Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[MEL_Traveller]

The Victorian Health Minister (Labor) has said 'there'll be an announcement in the morning' (i.e. Sunday 20).

This can only mean tougher restrictions on Sydneysiders, or NSW residents. Complete ban?

More small mindedness that wrecks lives and costs so many so much, not just in $.

This Martin Foley character ought read Adam Creighton in 'The Weekend Oz' today. Mr Creighton is a voice of reason.

You've defined the problem... but what is your solution to keep the millions of Victorians, West Australians and other states' residents able to visit their families? Or to go out and enjoy a meal, the cinema, and sports?

 

[TheRealTMA]

Fixed that for you . The Feds look after the immigration bit (if you are Australian, you cant be stopped coming in by BF once you get here; if you are not but have an 'exemption' or whatever, you get in too). A centimetre outside the immigration area its up to each individual states to do with the arriving corpus what they want.

Disagree. All incoming are subject to BF or whatever they are called. They don’t want to take responsibility. Simple.

 

[trevella]

You've defined the problem... but what is your solution to keep the millions of Victorians, West Australians and other states' residents able to visit their families? Or to go out and enjoy a meal, the cinema, and sports?

Time to stop your relentless irrational trolling. Aren’t we all supposed to be in this together, because you don’t believe it’s fair to ask some to sacrifice more than others?

 

[N860CR]

You've defined the problem... but what is your solution to keep the millions of Victorians, West Australians and other states' residents able to visit their families? Or to go out and enjoy a meal, the cinema, and sports?

It’s pretty easy actually. Based on current case numbers, the Northern Beaches has reached the definition of a “hotspot” so appropriate controls can be placed on that area. When it’s no longer a hotspot, they can be removed.

 

[drron]

If QLD now bans all NSW residents then it is about time Gladys took the advice of her QLD counterpart.
SYD is for NSW residents arriving from OS,PER is for WA residents arriving from OS and then the same for any other State and Territory that bans all of NSW.

And still NSW is the leader in it's handling of C19.Just look at QLD this last week.The woman from the Northern Beaches who tested positive turned up at the Sunshine Coast hospital for testing as she had symptoms.However she arrived there just after 4.30 pm so was told to go away as it was after hours.Sorry a massive fail.

 

[jakeseven7]

I think we know where this is going...

——

Victoria enlists military for help on borders​

Victoria Police is preparing to set up checkpoints on the NSW border and the state government will ask for military assistance as it moves to implement tougher measures to protect Victoria from Sydney's growing COVID-19 cluster.

Senior Victorian officials were locked in discussions late on Saturday night about further hardening border restrictions with NSW and enforcing tougher testing measures as thousands of travellers from Sydney arrived in the state.

Government sources with direct knowledge of the talks, who declined to comment on the record, said Victoria Police would step up checks at the road border and a request would be made for Australian Defence Force assistance with the operation.

Northern beaches in lockdown as Sydney cluster spreads

A COVID-19 lockdown is in force across Sydney's northern beaches as a COVID-19 cluster continues to spread.

www.theage.com.au

 

[Must...Fly!]

Happily another zero case day in Victoria for local transmission.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1340410425221984258

 

[jb747]

And still NSW is the leader in it's handling of C19.Just look at QLD this last week.The woman from the Northern Beaches who tested positive turned up at the Sunshine Coast hospital for testing as she had symptoms.However she arrived there just after 4.30 pm so was told to go away as it was after hours.Sorry a massive fail.

Entirely consistent. You’ve forgotten that Queensland hospitals are only for Queenslanders.

Living as I do, right on a state border, we’ve seen just how irrational many of the responses to this illness are. Sadly, I don’t think this is likely to change.

What does strike me though, is just how in denial (unprepared, whatever, you choose the word) things seem to be over that border. Whilst we went through lockdowns (even with zero local cases), and wore masks everywhere, (and still are to some extent), miraculously, only a couple of kms away, masks are never worn and CV seems to be considered a done thing. When I visited Canberra, they seemed to be taking it much more seriously, though I suspect the horrendous drivers have scared it off.

We were visited by friends from Queensland last week and they were astounded at just how intrusive the measures here are (basically all they meant was masks). They didn’t see intrusive. As I see it Qld and probably WA are probably well set up for an outbreak. Possibly regional NSW too.

 

[jb747]

Victoria Police is preparing to set up checkpoints on the NSW border and the state government will ask for military assistance as it moves to implement tougher measures to protect Victoria from Sydney's growing COVID-19 cluster.

Government sources with direct knowledge of the talks, who declined to comment on the record, said Victoria Police would step up checks at the road border and a request would be made for Australian Defence Force assistance with the operation.

Oh great. NSW divided our city in half, and now the other morons are looking at it. Nothing is being learnt by anyone.

 

[antycbr]

If QLD now bans all NSW residents then it is about time Gladys took the advice of her QLD counterpart.
SYD is for NSW residents arriving from OS,PER is for WA residents arriving from OS and then the same for any other State and Territory that bans all of NSW.

Especially if this breach has come about due to international airline crew. If they want to fly here they must follow our conditions. If it means the Commonwealth needs to take QF aircraft into RAAF service to operate essential flights so be it.

Where is the Prime Minister? Christmas is being destroyed for hundreds of thousands of Australians right now and more businesses will go to the wall. The anger in the community is white hot.

 

[I love to travel]

Reading between the lines I think it was Australian based airline staff who could isolate at home and socialised instead

 

[SydneySwan]

I heard this morning from a contact who should know that the international airlines are fuming about the proposed confinement of airline crews in 2 hotels near Mascot from Tuesday. Airlines are claiming that crew will refuse to be rostered onto flights to Sydney and so flights will have to be cancelled. The point has apparently been strongly made that if Qantas won't provide international flights into Sydney then why should they?

My contact believes that some airlines could switch to freight only flights into Sydney (apparently freight is still pretty profitable) which would drastically reduce the chances of Australians getting home since well over half still land at Sydney. Scomo where are you?

Perhaps Hobart could take a few more flights instead of focusing on Pacific farm worker flights? There should be a few hotel rooms free now with the cancellation of the Sydney to Hobart?

 

[andye]

Miserable rainy day on the Beaches. Still came past two long queues of people standing for tests at pop-ups and another long car queue when arrived at the hospital.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Reading between the lines I think it was Australian based airline staff who could isolate at home and socialised instead

I haven’t seen that anywhere - seems a likely scenario, but what makes you think it?

 

[Must...Fly!]

I heard this morning from a contact who should know that the international airlines are fuming about the proposed confinement of airline crews in 2 hotels near Mascot from Tuesday. Airlines are claiming that crew will refuse to be rostered onto flights to Sydney and so flights will have to be cancelled. The point has apparently been strongly made that if Qantas won't provide international flights into Sydney then why should they?

My contact believes that some airlines could switch to freight only flights into Sydney (apparently freight is still pretty profitable) which would drastically reduce the chances of Australians getting home since well over half still land at Sydney. Scomo where are you?

Perhaps Hobart could take a few more flights instead of focusing on Pacific farm worker flights? There should be a few hotel rooms free now with the cancellation of the Sydney to Hobart?

I have been wondering about how they would react, as it's quite an impact on their staff and while I doubt it would make a difference to freighter crew because of numbers, there's many more crew on a passenger flight and somehow I doubt airlines like AA, UA would be that keen on being told where their crew must be put up. But I'm not sure what other way there is out of this issue to be honest.

 

[I love to travel]

I haven’t seen that anywhere - seems a likely scenario, but what makes you think it?

A few of the interviews this morning on brekkie tv

 

[andye]

There are very few chain hotels on the Northern Beaches-the only ones I can think of are in Manly which is a fair way from Avalon. Can't think of anywhere around Pittwater that QR AA UA etc would send crew to.

 

[antycbr]

I have been wondering about how they would react, as it's quite an impact on their staff and while I doubt it would make a difference to freighter crew because of numbers, there's many more crew on a passenger flight and somehow I doubt airlines like AA, UA would be that keen on being told where their crew must be put up. But I'm not sure what other way there is out of this issue to be honest.

If the airline crews were following the rules then one 4 star hotel versus another 4 star hotel to be isolated in while on nightstop shouldn’t matter. But it sounds like they haven’t been following the rules, therefore there is now a problem...

Post automatically merged: Dec 20, 2020

There are very few chain hotels on the Northern Beaches-the only ones I can think of are in Manly which is a fair way from Avalon. Can't think of anywhere around Pittwater that QR AA UA etc would send crew to.

Speculation is that it might have been a day trip by a crew member from a inner city hotel.

From a logistics perspective there’s no way you’d have a crew hotel north of the bridge - one accident and the operating crew can’t make it to the airport.

 

[jb747]

Especially if this breach has come about due to international airline crew. If they want to fly here they must follow our conditions. If it means the Commonwealth needs to take QF aircraft into RAAF service to operate essential flights so be it.

So who is flying these aircraft? And is there even a legal mechanism for doing this, outside of declared war?

Reading between the lines I think it was Australian based airline staff who could isolate at home and socialised instead

Whilst nothing is impossible, I'd have though that there was so little flying by Australian crews that it would be unlikely. And to the USA?

Having said that, I wonder how sanitary the buses used to transport the various crews are. And, are the same buses used for international and domestic crews?

I heard this morning from a contact who should know that the international airlines are fuming about the proposed confinement of airline crews in 2 hotels near Mascot from Tuesday. Airlines are claiming that crew will refuse to be rostered onto flights to Sydney and so flights will have to be cancelled.

If they're supposed to be in their rooms for the duration of the stay, what difference does it make?

The point has apparently been strongly made that if Qantas won't provide international flights into Sydney then why should they?

They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. If they don't want to come, fine. I'd be very surprised if some others, who are working to position themselves, wouldn't step in.

My contact believes that some airlines could switch to freight only flights into Sydney (apparently freight is still pretty profitable) which would drastically reduce the chances of Australians getting home since well over half still land at Sydney.

As this seems to be an ongoing problem, perhaps it really should be taken over by the Commonwealth. Woomera, Christmas Island, Howard Springs (and I guess we could find some others) should be the first port of call, instead of the centre of the cities. Tasmania still appeals.

 

[Flying mermaid]

I have been wondering about how they would react, as it's quite an impact on their staff and while I doubt it would make a difference to freighter crew because of numbers, there's many more crew on a passenger flight and somehow I doubt airlines like AA, UA would be that keen on being told where their crew must be put up. But I'm not sure what other way there is out of this issue to be honest.

I am struggling to understand why it is such an impost unless you are breaking the rules. Surely if you are isolating in your room and not going out one hotel is much like another.

anyway given the catastrophic effect on people and the economy it would probably be cheaper to get Qantas to do repatriation flights to replace any airline that cancels because of this.