Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[serfty]

NSW allows another celebrity to self isolate outside hotel quarantine.... what could go wrong...

——

Miranda Kerr caught breaching NSW quarantine rules​

Must have been a slow news day.

All rhe Kerr stuff was over three months ago .

 

[kyle]

EK just making official what has been happening for ages. You need a first or business ticket to have a decent chance of getting home, Y seats have been bumped repeatedly for ages.

Don't want to make fun of a sad situation, but this could be the only time someone gets to try business or first class, albeit with fewer perks and luxuries.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Yes by booting all the Y passengers to the curb....
Very interesting move....

But not surprising.

A certain US carrier is forcing passengers to book J as well. They just don’t offer F as an option

Repatriation flights starting to happen. Dr FM just been offered one, but is sticking with the Qatar flight she booked yesterday. $2,500 for economy and $10,000 for business on the repatriation flight. The economy seats were sold in minutes, but uptake for business is a bit slower.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Must have been a slow news day.

All rhe Kerr stuff was over three months ago .

It is a bit hard to keep up as they seem to come and go regularly. Evidently visiting sick relatives each time....and no HQ for them of course.

So yes the current special home-quarantine, and then yes the special home-quarantine last November.

Miranda Kerr's other half, Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, avoids hotel quarantine

The Spiegel has landed, but he has managed to avoid Sydney hotel quarantine; relationship sparks for Hugh Marks and more from Sydney's social front.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Flashback]

Repatriation flights starting to happen. Dr FM just been offered one, but is sticking with the Qatar flight she booked yesterday. $2,500 for economy and $10,000 for business on the repatriation flight. The economy seats were sold in minutes, but uptake for business is a bit slower.

I wonder how much they're packing people into economy i.e. trying to socially distance passengers or just cramming them in.

 

[Lynda2475]

News.com.au reports

Tourists booted over COVID breach party

Temporary visa holders are being kicked out of the country after carrying out serious COVID-19 breaches.

According to the Daily Telegraph, a French national has already been deported for helping to organise an illegal rave in Queensland on New Year's Eve.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke told the publication “several” people have already been booted under a Border Force crackdown.

“Under Operation Baritone, Australian Border Force has issued hundreds of formal warnings, eight visa cancellations, and conducted several removals from Australia of non-citizens for breaching COVID-19 restrictions,” Mr Hawke said.
“People who are guests in our country have to do the right thing during the pandemic just as Australians must.”

The threat of deportation was first flagged back in December, when footage of a wild, rule-breaking beach party in Bronte in Sydney sparked intense backlash from politicians and the public.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

So take care in shades of 2000 Olympics South West Sydeney and in the Handmaid's Tale Gilead today...





All set with their masks in Gilead....

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Only one case from overseas in today's announced official 24 hr tally for yesterday.

 

[Flying mermaid]

I wonder how much they're packing people into economy i.e. trying to socially distance passengers or just cramming them in.

I will ask - they might have said how many were on the flight.

 

[Lynda2475]

QF operated repatriation flights have 170 passengers no details on breakdown across J, PE and Y.

Huge increase in repatriations with 24 confirmed for December and January

Qantas has confirmed it will operate 24 new repatriation flights in December and January, including to France and Germany.

australianaviation.com.au

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I was reminded of the words Dan Andrews used when asked his opinion of South Australia locking out Victorians.
‘I don’t want to be offensive to South Australians but why would you want to go there?’

Boot now on the other foot IMHO.

Now the most ridiculous point to me was that Victoria was one of the States that agreed to the Commonwealth definition of hot spots.So why now are there still 10 LGAs in Sydney that are declared hotspots when none of them meet the agreed definition.

In some respects WA is the most honest of States.They have never agreed on the hotspot definition.

The Cth definition of a hotspot is 30 cases over the previous three days. But does that account for incubation periods? QLD for example can declare a hotspot is there's been an outbreak in the last 28 days. I would be wary if there's been just three days of no infection and then we declare it a safe zone?

 

[jakeseven7]

An interesting summary and very telling by states responses - which is basically at the complete discretion of the CHO at the end of the day with some 'guiding principles' that can be taken into / out of account if they feel like it on the day, but in the case of WA - no guiding principles at all (unsurprisingly...)

----

Most borders are still closed to NSW after the last COVID-19 outbreak in the state​

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian this week bemoaned the fact Australia had no COVID-19 hotspots, and questioned why most domestic borders remained closed to her state.

She based her statement on the Federal Government's definition of a hotspot, which counts the number of cases in a specific geographical area over a three-day period.

"So, if there's no place in Australia that's deemed a hotspot, why do we even have these border closures and restrictions ... it doesn't make sense to me, I don't think it makes sense to the public who have to deal with this frustration," she said.

But when it comes to how states decide who to let in, things get much more complicated — here's why some have decided to shut their borders despite NSW recording three consecutive days with no locally acquired COVID-19 infections.

Most borders are closed to NSW despite no hotspots in the state — here's why

When it comes to how states decide who to let in, things get complicated. Here's why some have decided to shut their borders to NSW despite the state recording three consecutive days with no locally acquired COVID-19 infections.

www.abc.net.au

 

[lovetravellingoz]

An interesting summary and very telling by states responses - which is basically at the complete discretion of the CHO at the end of the day with some 'guiding principles' that can be taken into / out of account if they feel like it on the day, but in the case of WA - no guiding principles at all (unsurprisingly...)

----

Most borders are still closed to NSW after the last COVID-19 outbreak in the state​

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian this week bemoaned the fact Australia had no COVID-19 hotspots, and questioned why most domestic borders remained closed to her state.

She based her statement on the Federal Government's definition of a hotspot, which counts the number of cases in a specific geographical area over a three-day period.

"So, if there's no place in Australia that's deemed a hotspot, why do we even have these border closures and restrictions ... it doesn't make sense to me, I don't think it makes sense to the public who have to deal with this frustration," she said.

But when it comes to how states decide who to let in, things get much more complicated — here's why some have decided to shut their borders despite NSW recording three consecutive days with no locally acquired COVID-19 infections.

Most borders are closed to NSW despite no hotspots in the state — here's why

When it comes to how states decide who to let in, things get complicated. Here's why some have decided to shut their borders to NSW despite the state recording three consecutive days with no locally acquired COVID-19 infections.

www.abc.net.au

My guess is that a few more days of no new local cases will see the restrictions largely rolled back apart from WA.

Qld to probably take a little longer than other states to remove or reduce them. Maybe 28 Jan?

 

[jakeseven7]

We hear you.....

-----

Business and health professionals call for states to standardise COVID-19 border rules​

<iframe width="638" height="383" src="

" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Lynda2475]

That article didnt really explain the closures, it basically confirmed that states dont discolose the exact criteria for theri decisions.

In Queensland, an LGA can be declared a hotspot if there are one or more unlinked cases in the past 28 days, but other criteria can also be used at the discretion of the chief health officer."

Even where it publishes criteria like 28-days from a mystery case for Queensland, it immediately caveats that with discreion. The last time Queensland only applied a closure to specifically affected was durign Crossroads - but a few days in, they expanded it to whole of NSW, Basically a CHO cant decide to declare a hotspot/red zone without having to reveal the data points used to make the declaration.

In an interview earlier this week, Andrews mentioned Vic's current 10 Red LGAs was based on two active clusters - Berala/BWS and Croydon. But Croydon isnt an active cluster and LGA's like NB who have had a mystery cast in the last 14 days arent Red. Inconsistent.

Its clear there arent hard definitions and decisions arent being made consistently - making it impossible for peopel to plan travel.

The Cth definition of a hotspot is 30 cases over the previous three days. But does that account for incubation periods? QLD for example can declare a hotspot is there's been an outbreak in the last 28 days. I would be wary if there's been just three days of no infection and then we declare it a safe zone?

The Commonwealth defnition is for declaring a hotspot, not lifting restrictions. If in any 3 day period an area meets the case load, it is decalred Red, then restrictions against that area are justified (not the whole state), and would be reasonable to keep in place until 1 full incubation period afetr the 3 day average falls below 30.

Only NB met the threshold to be red, and the commonwealth removed that designation a little over 2 weeks after the daily case numbers fell below the 3 days avaergae hotspot threshold.

Even if you aggregate all community cases across greater Sydney, you dont get to hot spot on any 3 days since the NB cases started declining.

States are locking out unreasonably large areas of other states without real cause.

 

[ethernet]

South African virus variant may resist antibody drugs; Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine seems to work vs UK variant

(Reuters) - The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

www.thestar.com.my

Potentially bad news, so far only in a test tube. Last time supercomputers identified the spike in under 48 hours, and historically saw other likely lesser spikes.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

States are locking out unreasonably large areas of other states without real cause.

Several countries are moving to longer quarantine periods with the new strains of virus... 21 days or longer. That will possibly have been something the states are taking in to account.

I'm not sure 'hot spots' really work anyway. Once an outbreak is detected it is likely to have already travelled across a much wider area.

 

[RooFlyer]

Pheidippides here (therefore a bit breathless)

Tasmania: no new cases, no hospitalisations, no deaths , no cases.

For those into that sort of thing, is that four ‘donuts’ or just the one with icing and a candle on top?

 

[Lynda2475]

Several countries are moving to longer quarantine periods with the new strains of virus... 21 days or longer. That will possibly have been something the states are taking in to account.

Yes Hong Kong require 21 days, I have an ex-pat friend who was in Scotland in December, he had to holiday for 21 days in Dubai after leaving the UK, just to be allowed ot fly inot HK and is now on day 3 of his 21 HQ in HK.

But those quarantone rules are for international arrivals and those tetsing poistive, not for whole cities of people who dont have the virus and havent been a close contact of nayone who has.

I'm not sure 'hot spots' really work anyway. Once an outbreak is detected it is likely to have already travelled across a much wider area.

This hasnt proven true in NSW with the outbreaks since Vic reintroduced local transmission to NSW in July. We didnt see wide scale spread into regional areas of NSW. Hell thousands of Sydneysiders were in Byrn and surrounds over Xmas and there wasnt a major outbreak there.

NB cases did infect people outside the NB, but quality tracking saw NSW Health keep those numbers low - no periods of 3 days with over 30 cases anywhere outside the Northern beaches. The other states and territories need to trust they can also control cases when they arise, without puttting millions into lockdowns. You have more tools than clsoing a border.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

NB cases did infect people outside the NB, but quality tracking saw NSW Health keep those numbers low - no periods of 3 days with over 30 cases anywhere outside the Northern beaches. The other states and territories need to trust they can also control cases when they arise, without puttting millions into lockdowns. You have more tools than clsoing a border.

But I'm from Victoria and I agree with the restrictions!

The vaccine is just a few weeks away. Why would we want to embrace risk when we're so close? Contract tracing is only good once you know the virus is out there. Before they start tracing there could easily have been a super-spreader event.