Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[pippen_2k]

for those arriving into VIC or QLD from another state other than NSW, are you subject to NSW arrival questioning and border pass checks, or being treated like a normal domestic passenger?

I arrived into QLD 2 days ago. They just take a picture of your drivers license and ask if you have been in any hot spots. Takes 30 seconds

 

[trevella]

They just take a picture of your drivers license and ask if you have been in any hot spots. Takes 30 seconds

Sounds like the Gold Standard.

 

[RooFlyer]

Hmmm ... anyone seen this story? It might be the one that kills Christmas in Sydney.


An Italian cafe in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has alarmed health officials after an employee spent three days working while infectious.

While the outbreak of COVID-19 cases has been mostly contained to the northern beaches, NSW Health is scrambling to identify patrons of Paddington Alimentari deli and cafe after an employee worked three 12-hour shifts last week.

The employee, who worked from 5.30am to 6pm on December 17-19, later tested positive to coronavirus, and all patrons seated at the cafe during this period should consider themselves close contacts, get tested and isolate for 14 days from their visit, NSW Health said. Take-away customers should monitor symptoms until January 2.

 

[Toula92122]

Yes same with son in San Francisco, he is being careful but it is just so worrying.

I thought we would get Dr FM safely home soon, but it’s looking very problematic and I hope this doesn’t cause her to lose her dream job in Brisbane. One good thing is she is likely to get vaccinated in January as she is NHS.

Part of the problem we can see now that we have escaped and are able to look back, is that when you are in the midst of the mess you don't realise how bad it is. There is no ability to work out what is normal and to be able to transition to a mindset that you have to get out of the situation. I know for us our minds were fully occupied observing what was happening with the numbers, trying to stay safe as possible and in the other ear dealing with the fallout of the election chaos. We now realise that our stress levels were through the roof. Speaking with an Australian friend who continues to live in SD where the cases have risen from 400 a day 5 weeks ago to 3500 a day, they feel paralysed to even think about making a change. They have taken a siege mentality of locking themselves away to stay safe. They can't even entertain taking the steps to get on a plane and come home as the fear is real of catching something on the flight.

 

[MelMel]

 

[antycbr]

Hmmm ... anyone seen this story? It might be the one that kills Christmas in Sydney.


An Italian cafe in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has alarmed health officials after an employee spent three days working while infectious.

While the outbreak of COVID-19 cases has been mostly contained to the northern beaches, NSW Health is scrambling to identify patrons of Paddington Alimentari deli and cafe after an employee worked three 12-hour shifts last week.

The employee, who worked from 5.30am to 6pm on December 17-19, later tested positive to coronavirus, and all patrons seated at the cafe during this period should consider themselves close contacts, get tested and isolate for 14 days from their visit, NSW Health said. Take-away customers should monitor symptoms until January 2.

But I am sure a number of people who ate in the deli have been tested and we have no direct person to person spread identified yet. The Rose in Erskineville has confirmed transmission to an unrelated party.

 

[Lynda2475]

News reporting NT struggling to cope with surge in testing because there were a mere 700 tests since Monday, results taking 48 hours or longer. With the Howard Springs arrangement i would think they should have better test processes in place. Individual testing locations in Sydney were taking 2500 swabs and even with 40k+ tests most are getting results within 24 hours.

Seeing WA, SA, NT, ACT and QLD struggle to test their Sydney visitors should be a huge wake up call. These states/territories have had months and months to get their rapid response plans in place but still struggle to do a couple of thousand tests in a timely manner. People should be thankful this latest cluster is in NSW where our tracers and test resources are battle hardened, because clearly many are still not ready to mobilise many resources quickly to do required testing.

 

[jase05]

News reporting NT struggling to cope with surge in testing because there were a mere 700 tests on Monday, results taking 48 hours or longer. With the Howard Springs arrangement i would think they should have better test processes in place. Individual testing locations in Sydney were taking 2500 swabs and even with 40k+ tests most are getting results within 24 hours.

Seeing WA, SA, NT, ACT and QLD struggle to test their Sydney visitors should be a huge wake up call. These states/territories have had months and months to get their rapid response plans in place but still struggle to do a couple of thousand tests in a timely manner. People should be thankful this latest cluster is in NSW where our tracers and test resources are battle hardened, because clearly many are still not ready to mobilise many resources quickly to do required testing.

The recent SA outbreak we were testing as many as 19,000 in a day which is amazing for such a small city

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Hmmm ... anyone seen this story? It might be the one that kills Christmas in Sydney.


An Italian cafe in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has alarmed health officials after an employee spent three days working while infectious.

While the outbreak of COVID-19 cases has been mostly contained to the northern beaches, NSW Health is scrambling to identify patrons of Paddington Alimentari deli and cafe after an employee worked three 12-hour shifts last week.

The employee, who worked from 5.30am to 6pm on December 17-19, later tested positive to coronavirus, and all patrons seated at the cafe during this period should consider themselves close contacts, get tested and isolate for 14 days from their visit, NSW Health said. Take-away customers should monitor symptoms until January 2.

Its a big problem where bosses think their business is essential so effectively make their employees come in.

In one of the NSW press conference, there was a similar question on Qantas using Northern Beaches staff during this hotspot declaration, which I think started 5pm 17/12. I think NSW Premier said something along the lines of use common sense whether to keep doing that.

The counter point is perhaps that the employee hasn’t been to any of exposure sites.

NB Interpreting the information, the Turramurra salon also was an employee from Northern Beaches

Edit to add also the Blacktown gym.

 

[Lynda2475]

The recent SA outbreak we were testing as many as 19,000 in a day which is amazing for such a small city

Then why the struggle now to have sufficient test teams at airport and border crossings to test NSW visitors? All states need to be set up to rapidly deploy teams. No state should be turning away NSW visitors from being tested as has happened in Qld and ACT.

WA and QLD changed arrival policy without mobilising resources to facilitate the new policy. WA put a 24hr deadline on tests then had to push that out to 3 days cause they couldn't test everyone in that first 24 hours.

NSW doesnt have a declared state of emmergency and can get pop up clinics manned super quickly. WA is in a state of emmergency and cant. Still too much reliance on whole state border closures because still not ready to test, track and treat en masse.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

CV19 has reach Antarctica - thirty six Chileans at their base

Coronavirus cases recorded in Antarctica at Chilean research station

Antarctica can no longer lay claim to being the only continent free of coronavirus after 36 Chileans tested positive for COVID-19, according to the country's military.

www.abc.net.au

 

[james4321]

They have 30 days to pay on invoice.

you are kidding surely? And they wonder why they are struggling to get paid? What genius thought that was a "gold standard" process?

 

[SydneySwan]

you are kidding surely? And they wonder why they are struggling to get paid? What genius thought that was a "gold standard" process?

No kidding. I think the process is similar across all jurisdictions.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Finally a leak!!!

Just on the leak's in Vic. It turned out that most were not really leaks, but rather the DHHS releasing information earlier than the Vic Presser each day.

I used to wonder how some journos found out early and like you presumed they were leaks. However late in the second wave I discovered that the Vic DHHS updated two data tables on its Covid 19 webpages, which are pages there to inform the public, including journalists.

This was done once per day and normally early in the morning well before the Vic Presser by Dan. Leaks would normally not happen before the table was updated, only after and so were not leaks but rather a public release of information.

One table had the new positive tests, and another would show new cases still under investigation (which could be unknown community spread).
The presser was later sometimes an hour or so, and sometimes many hours later.

By the time of the presser as hours had passed the cases under investigation would often be less as cases would be linked in that time.

The positive test result would also sometimes be less as a case may be reclassified in the interim.
So the daily overall table released was close to the morning data table released, but sometimes a little different, plus would have additional information such as test numbers and deaths. Hospitalisations and other data would also be made available at about the time of the presser.

Later in the day the CHO (or his department) would issue his daily update and this would have a lot more detail such as locations, clusters etc. But also the numbers might changed if more cases were reclassified.

The CHO or DHHS would also sometimes randomly issue a release include at night and especially if there was a high transmission risk.


Now from time to time there were no doubt true leaks, but many were just from accessing the public data tables and especially when they were just referring to raw numbers.

 

[Lynda2475]

I understood that the need to bring vulnerable Australians home, many claiming financial vulnerablity is why it is pay later.

However, anyone who isnt a citizen or permanent resident i.e. family members, actors, sports people, forign dignatories etc should all absolutely have to pay upfront, i.e. not be allowed to board a flight without showing proof of qurantine pre-payment.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

The recent SA outbreak we were testing as many as 19,000 in a day which is amazing for such a small city

 

[Lynda2475]

Yes Victoria would publish numbers at 8am on twitter and have a press conference at 10 or 11am.

But NSW has never been in the habit of releasing official numbers on the site or via twitter before the 11am pressure. The only times its published first is on a non-event day where there is no presser; or where there is urgent action needed and Gladys, Dr Chnat or Hazard release an official statement ahead of the 11am - has only happened a handful of times all year.

I check the NSW health site and twitter page every day well before the presser, and the updates always seem to coincide witht he 11am timeslot.

Yesterdays listing on numbers 15 mins early, would seem to be a leak.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

News reporting NT struggling to cope with surge in testing because there were a mere 700 tests on Monday, results taking 48 hours or longer. With the Howard Springs arrangement i would think they should have better test processes in place. Individual testing locations in Sydney were taking 2500 swabs and even with 40k+ tests most are getting results within 24 hours.

The NT only has a population of 250,000 spread over a vast area. So I would not be too harsh on their ability do things. It would a difficult task with such a small resource to draw upon.

 

[MooTime]

I asked about US flights on a QF forum the other day, and the response would lead me to believe that these flights have been happening for a while, and use only Brisbane based crews.



Did QF say that, or is that your assumption?



Dropping her off just beyond the territorial limit, and letting her swim back?

I'm really not sure why anyone would book anything at the moment. WA and Qld close the borders on a hair trigger. I'm not sure that Dan is any better. There'll be a lot of unsecured loans to the airlines, as they aren't refunding much at the moment.

I booked Mel to Per for 1st week of new year just last week after Syd closed as had booking for Coogee Beach, reward flights when cancelled by 31 March by both QF & VA are refunded within couple days (which my flights are) & hotels I make sure is same refundable in my booking. I'm well aware states close borders on a sniff of covid & realise I may not get there until Mel covid free day before I fly.

Bit of adrenaline if you like, ha, alternative is the family holiday house down the coast.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Yes Victoria would publish numbers at 8am on twitter and have a press conference at 10 or 11am.
.

The Vic DHHS (ie Vic Gov) did not publish (tweet) numbers at 8AM ( though normally afterwards) till late in the piece when cases were basically zero. And by definition a tweet by the DHHS cannot be a leak, as it is a public release of information. The journos and covidlive etc would regularly release information before the Vic DHHS tweet. It was the tweets/articles from the journos that were referred to as leaks and not the DHHS tweats.

The data tables on the Vic DHHS website were updated before the Vic DHHS would tweet their update.

The perceived leaks were by journos indicating case numbers for the day were looking at the data tables. Those tables were on public pages and if wanted to be kept secret would not have been updated till after DHHS tweets and/or the Presser. So the point is that they were not leaks as was just part of public information that was released to all.