Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[dajop]

I’m fixated on the headline, several contributors seem fixated on the conclusion that this will result in Australians being not allowed to return home. I’m just not sure on how that conclusion has been drawn, if it weren’t for the headline.

I’ll leave it to the professionals and experts in epidemiology and infection control, thank you very much. If they think a risk assessment is needed well they can go ahead and do it. That’s what they’re paid to do. I’m not an expert they are. Maybe you are too? If so, then all good.

We can then debate any risk management that comes out of such an assessment rather than jumping to conclusions already.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Victoria, after allowing 800+ residents to die in a covid outbreak the state failed to stop, is now throwing it's weight around trying to tell others what to do? Maybe I am being extreme but it almost seems as though it is arrogance that permeates the state government.

I note there is a rumour some will be released out of hotel quarantine after travelling from NSW recently, before their 14 days are up.

What does that say, if anything?

A an expert going to a meeting of his peers is hardly throwing his weight around. It is what happens on a regular basis.

Also a national strategy on this could end up being or sorts of things. Ie NZ have just adopted a strategy on this.


Or it could be extra strict quarantine.

 

[andye]

Obviously NSW's approach hasn't worked too well so far... the virus escaped and is causing untold inconvenience in Victoria and other states with thousands of hours wasted in people lining up for tests, hundreds in isolation, and businesses closed.

I presume your solution to this level of inconvenience to a proportion of people in Melbourne would have been to lock down the whole of Sydney (or NSW) for 5 or 7 or 14 days

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I presume your solution to this level of inconvenience to a proportion of people in Melbourne would have been to lock down the whole of Sydney (or NSW) for 5 or 7 or 14 days

I'm no expert, but going on what chief health officers have said or done in the past, I thought we were supposed to have hot-spots, and to be able to try and contain those hotspots? Melbourne closed itself off from regional Victoria, even locked down specific postcodes. Was that not an option for Sydney?

 

[drron]

Because the only officially declared hotspot has been the Northern Beaches area of Sydney.That area was locked don but IMHO it should have been a bit tighter but others disagree.
The official definition of a hotspot was not in force for the Victorian second wave.Trying to compare the Victorian second wave to the current NSW situation is ludicrous.

 

[flydoc]

SA currently holding the line on the NSW border buffer , despite NSW Health now listing a Broken Hill cafe and fuel stop as venues of potential close and casual contact respectively

SA health authorities 'closely watching' Broken Hill but border buffer exemptions to remain for now

South Australia will continue to allow travellers from a 100-kilometre buffer zone in western NSW to cross the border, but authorities are "closely watching Broken Hill" after a Western Sydney man with coronavirus visited the outback city.

www.abc.net.au

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

A potential issue with the AHPPC doing a risk assessment on the risks of the UK strain is that at least 3-4 participants would probably treat it as a nil assessment - how to keep the risk to nil.

And given how well hotspot went, States don’t have to follow the 7/8 agreed definition with respect to their State borders.

Yes States can’t stop returning Aussies from UK without Federal agreement, but I think they might leverage this fear to go for something else like longer quarantine (like in HK).

The NSW CHO in today’s press conference was reasonably clear in not being even in favor of pre-test of the UK strain risk

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Because the only officially declared hotspot has been the Northern Beaches area of Sydney.That area was locked don but IMHO it should have been a bit tighter but others disagree.
The official definition of a hotspot was not in force for the Victorian second wave.Trying to compare the Victorian second wave to the current NSW situation is ludicrous.

The Victoria example is to show it’s possible to cordon off a city, or parts of a city if required.

 

[Flashback]

A potential issue with the AHPPC doing a risk assessment on the risks of the UK strain is that at least 3-4 participants would probably treat it as a nil assessment - how to keep the risk to nil.

And given how well hotspot went, States don’t have to follow the 7/8 agreed definition with respect to their State borders.

Yes States can’t stop returning Aussies from UK without Federal agreement, but I think they might leverage this fear to go for something else like longer quarantine (like in HK).

The NSW CHO in today’s press conference was reasonably clear in not being even in favor of pre-test of the UK strain risk

It looks like UK may bring in a requirement for negative PCR test within 72 hours of arrival, following the status quo for most other countries.. assume Australia will soon jump on the same bandwagon and implement the same for all arrivals on top of their mandatory hotel quarantine program.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Good grief - 1 week to get wastewater testing results.

Residents in regional areas across Queensland are being urged to get tested for COVID-19 after fragments of the virus were found in wastewater.

Routine testing at sewage treatment plants in Cairns, Warwick, Stanthorpe and Loganholme uncovered the positive results.

The tests took place on December 29 and 30.

COVID-19 detected in four wastewater plants across Queensland

Residents in regional areas across Queensland are being urged to get tested for COVID-19 after fragments of the virus were found in wastewater.

www.news.com.au

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Victoria’s Department of Health assesses just 175 of 2295 border exemption applications​

An offer of support has been given to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to get residents stranded in NSW home, as huge delays continue at the border.

Scott Morrison says he has offered the Victorian government help to get residents stranded in NSW home.

The Prime Minister spoke with Premier Daniel Andrews about the border issue on Monday night.

The development follows revelations that Victoria’s health department has assessed just 175 of 2295 exemption applications for people to enter the state for compassionate or medical reasons.
Queues of cars remain stranded at the border after the Victorian government deemed the whole of NSW a virus red zone and slammed the border shut to the state over New Year’s.

“Those issues, they are matters for them, and so (I was) happy to talk to the premier about that and provide what support we can to see if we can get a better pathway home for Victorians as soon as possible,” Mr Morrison told 3AW on Tuesday.

Worrying figure behind huge delays at Victoria-NSW border

Scott Morrison says he has offered the Victorian government help to get residents stranded in NSW home.

www.news.com.au

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Black Rock Outbreak to date:

Two different Bayside Households have been the most acctive in passing it on.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Vic DHHS Daily Report is now out: Department of Health and Human Services Victoria | Coronavirus update for Victoria - 5 January 2021

Some salient extracts:

• All of Victoria’s locally acquired cases are linked to the Black Rock Restaurant Outbreak. They are spread across 14 households. There are no mystery cases or cases under review.
• There are currently more than 1300 people identified as close contacts in Victoria linked to the Black Rock Cluster, comprising 900 primary close contacts and around 400 secondary close contacts in the Local Government Areas of Bayside, Casey, Kingston, Monash, Whitehorse, Stonnington, Maroondah, Boroondara, Glen Eira, South Gippsland and East Gippsland.
• Victoria has recorded four new cases of coronavirus since yesterday. The new cases include three previously identified close contacts linked to the Black Rock Restaurant outbreak.
• Today’s fourth case is in a returned international airline crew member in hotel quarantine. There are now eight international airline crew members who have tested positive in Victoria since the program began. All international air crew arriving into Victoria are now tested and 1096 tests have been processed from air crew. Victoria is the only state that currently tests all arriving air crew.

 

[moa999]

Before the cluster was identified there were people with the virus out in the community, passing it on.

And yet of all the hundreds of thousands of tests post December, all have been linked back to the two new US strains.
Ergo it wasnt just spreading in the community until the breach occured.

NSW has done it's level best to stop hotel transmission, but the virus is like a coughroach, it will find the smallest hole.
But equally be prepared and confident that if an outbreak does occur we can once again defeat it.

The best guess is that the NZ outbreak occured from transmission on imported goods. Are you going to shut them down to.
As well as shut out Australian citizens desperate to get home who might have lost their job, or health insurance or visa etc.

 

[drron]

The Victoria example is to show it’s possible to cordon off a city, or parts of a city if required.

So what.Victoria had over 700 cases a day at peak.The whole NB cluster is less than a quarter of that total.So totally unnecessary to cordon off all of Sydney.

 

[nutwood]

I'm only shocked because so much has ben said about how the Vic system was so improved. What's really alarming though is to think how an untested state such as mine will perform when the inevitable outbreak comes ....

You pose an interesting question. With the demise of Jobkeeper, it's very much in Tassie's interests to keep borders open as much as possible. As such, it would be sensible to consider the situation we'll be in if we have a contagious visitor doing the tourist rounds.
My suggestion would be enact that exact situation. Get someone, genuine tourist or not, to play the part and then trace the contacts. Contact the locations visited, treat it as a genuine outbreak and see how the arrangements stack up. There's a reason why places do fire drills and there seems to be no reason why vulnerable States shouldn't do COVID drill.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So what.Victoria had over 700 cases a day at peak.The whole NB cluster is less than a quarter of that total.So totally unnecessary to cordon off all of Sydney.

Which is why my post said 'or parts of a city', which would have included the Northern Beaches.

 

[drron]

At least Tasmania does have an adequate contact tracing set up.over 1000 contact tracers can be called up quickly and quite a few more can be on line within a few days.They had their baptism of fire in the NWRH outbreak and actually performed well.
They were also very successful treating Covid.The Mersey Hospital became the centre for those that were thought to be likely to die.They treated 41 patients,virtually all over 80 and all with comorbidities.There were 8 deaths.
Considering these were hospitalised patients all with co morbidities that is a very good result.Add to that is the fact that the Mersey hospital has no respiratory physician and at that time no infectious disease physician as well as no ICU and no facilities for ventilation.So Tthe Tasmanian health system did come through well.

Post automatically merged: Jan 5, 2021

Which is why my post said 'or parts of a city', which would have included the Northern Beaches.

The guidelines on official hotspots meant only the Northern Beaches needed to be quarantined not other parts of the city.

 

[andye]

The danger is always of exponential growth. Despite the size of the initial Avalon cluster this didn't happen which is a testament to the behaviour of the residents and the efficiency of the contact tracing (maybe with a smidgen of luck and poor weather). Thus far none of the seedings Turramurra, Croydon, Wollongong nor the unrelated Berala have behaved exponentially

 

[nutwood]

At least Tasmania does have an adequate contact tracing set up.over 1000 contact tracers can be called up quickly and quite a few more can be on line within a few days.They had their baptism of fire in the NWRH outbreak and actually performed well.
They were also very successful treating Covid.The Mersey Hospital became the centre for those that were thought to be likely to die.They treated 41 patients,virtually all over 80 and all with comorbidities.There were 8 deaths.
Considering these were hospitalised patients all with co morbidities that is a very good result.Add to that is the fact that the Mersey hospital has no respiratory physician and at that time no infectious disease physician as well as no ICU and no facilities for ventilation.So Tthe Tasmanian health system did come through well.

Post automatically merged: Jan 5, 2021

The guidelines on official hotspots meant only the Northern Beaches needed to be quarantined not other parts of the city.

I would have to agree with you regarding the NW outbreak and hopefully a State wide spread would also be dealt with competently. The NW event was largely a local affair. A tourist travelling the State would be a different challenge.