Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[OATEK]

Seeing Professor Collignon on the news again tonight reminded me of your post! He too said there was no need for a lockdown in Victoria because there had been no mystery community transmission.

My question is - at the time the lockdown was announced - how did anyone know? There were expose sites. People could have been infected. They could have spread it on from there. It really doesn't matter if i can trace every person... by the time I get around to telling them they could have spread it into aged care or vulnerable communities.

All very good saying after the fact that there was no transmission. But if there had been, and the government had done nothing, they would have equally been 'incompetent'. I'm not sure the government can ever win?

I would have said it is quite straight forward. Isolate person and contacts is first step. If a small cluster around first infection, isolate/lockdown locally (eg NB in Sydney). If mystery cases appear elsewhere, lock down hotspot. A statewide lockdown would come when multiple hots spots emerge that can't be linked. That would seem proportionate.

And if we don't have sufficient measures around vulnerable populations by now, we never will.

 

[Lynda2475]

My question is - at the time the lockdown was announced - how did anyone know? There were expose sites. People could have been infected. They could have spread it on from there. It really doesn't matter if i can trace every person... by the time I get around to telling them they could have spread it into aged care or vulnerable communities.

All very good saying after the fact that there was no transmission. But if there had been, and the government had done nothing, they would have equally been 'incompetent'. I'm not sure the government can ever win?

So many IF's. You have a zero risk attitude and that is no way to live. Andrews isnt acting proportionately there was no evidence of unlinked community spread he is choosing to hurt more peoples economic livelihoods and inflict mental injury becuase its less visible in the short term than a daily tweet with case numbers.

You do realise you can put temporary restrictions on visitors to aged care and they have other processes and PPE to protect vulnerable people without shutting down a whole state.

Covid hasnt got into aged care since Melbourne's second wave. During that time NSW had community spread seeded from Vic and kept it out of aged care, there were learnings from the stuff ups in March at Newmarch house. One aged care worker infected in August, but zero spread from her because of improved procedures, the state didnt have to get locked down.

There is always some risk present, everytime you get in a vehicle there is a risk of a fatal accident. You wear a seat belt and have airbags to minimise risk but it doesnt eliminate it. In NSW in 2020, 54 people died from Covid (most of whom caught it overseas) yet 297 people died in road accidents. Many of those are innocent victims but wedont stop people driving, we accept risk.

Australia isnt in the position that Europe or US is, we can be more open domestically, NSW proves this.

Endless knee jerk lockdowns for a handful of linked cases is never warranted.

And vaccines arent a silver bullet. Many of the elderly wont be vaccinated because they have underlying conditions that means they cant be (Sir Tom in UK perfect example, had respiratory issues meaning he couldnt have vaccination so still caugt covid and died). Australia also isnt plannjng to vaccinate under 16s. We will be lucky to get to 70% of population and given efficacy of AZ 30% of those vaccinated can still get Covid. Covid isnt going away so we need to be prepared to live with some risk, 19 cases from a known source is a risk we can live with without locking down 6million people, as those odds already better than vaccination.

 

[drron]

I agree with what you say Lynda2475 except the 30% vaccinated with AZ can still get serious illness.In the AZ trial less people got serious illness than in the Pfizer trial.Both were minimal risk of serious Covid.

 

[Pushka]

I think 'fully vaccinated' has to mean (a) all those who want it and (b) required for anyone working in a 'high risk' environment. A bit like the flu shot... if you know the risks but are willing to accept them by not being vaccinated, that's up to you.

The Governments want to protect the hospitals so they want/need as many people vaccinated as possible.

 

[jakeseven7]

Covid hasnt got into aged care since Melbourne's second wave. During that time NSW had community spread seeded from Vic and kept it out of aged care.

And Victoria kept it out of aged care when Sydney seeded more cases again into Melbourne from the Northern Beaches outbreak and lockdown through the 3 ring approach, rapid response units and tracing.

So agree it can be done. I think what threw them here was the speed of the initial burst of cases from the nebuliser patient zero and then the fact it’s the UK variant that has everyone terrified. Combine that with a population here that just won’t tolerate any cases here because of what happened last year and you have a very low tolerance for anything covid.

We will be lucky to get to 70% of population and given efficacy of AZ 30% of those vaccinated can still get serious illness.

Fact check yourself.... per others responses to this. Don’t spread misinformation on vaccines

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So many IF's. You have a zero risk attitude and that is no way to live. Andrews isnt acting proportionately there was no evidence of unlinked community spread he is choosing to hurt more peoples economic livelihoods and inflict mental injury becuase its less visible in the short term than a daily tweet with case numbers.

From my point of view the 'IFs' work both ways. By the time we have identified the outbreak, and while we're in the process of contact tracing, the virus is potentially spreading. Once we had a large expose site like a busy airport terminal contact tracing becomes more complex and takes time.

Zero risk is only while we are waiting for effective treatments or preventions. That's just weeks away now.

You do realise you can put temporary restrictions on visitors to aged care and they have other processes and PPE to protect vulnerable people without shutting down a whole state.

Covid hasnt got into aged care since Melbourne's second wave. During that time NSW had community spread seeded from Vic and kept it out of aged care, there were learnings from the stuff ups in March at Newmarch house. One aged care worker infected in August, but zero spread from her because of improved procedures, the state didnt have to get locked down.

I'm not an advocate of the two-tiered system where those in aged care have to bear the brunt of restrictions. I think everyone should have the same restrictions, and the same freedoms. Fit and healthy? You can go out for meals, visit family, have fun. Vulnerable? Locked away, isolated, and other restrictions

The virus has been kept out of aged care, so far. But there's a healthy dose of luck in that!

There is always some risk present, everytime you get in a vehicle there is a risk of a fatal accident. You wear a seat belt and have airbags to minimise risk but it doesnt eliminate it. In NSW in 2020, 54 people died from Covid (most of whom caught it overseas) yet 297 people died in road accidents. Many of those are innocent victims but wedont stop people driving, we accept risk.

That's right - and it's a risk people voluntarily take. With covid, those who are vulnerable have no option to (voluntarily) accept the risk.

And of course, the aim for road traffic deaths is actually 'towards zero'!

drron has addressed the effect of the vaccines with respect to reducing severity or preventing hospitalisation... hugely reduced, not just 30%.

 

[jakeseven7]

Enormous testing numbers continue

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Without being an engineer or architect, I've stayed in a lot of hotels over the year, and often been able to look in their nooks and crannies. Basically the rooms themselves are often small structures within the larger structural elements of the hotel. The air spaces are common over many rooms/spaces, and you wouldn't consider rooms to be isolated from one another in any meaningful way. I'd see them as being almost the worst possible places for this sort of quarantine.

Being an engineer myself and also familiar with HVAC and the like I would offer the following generalisations.

Early on it was considered that CV19 was not aerosolising unless there were invasive procedures like intubation, or patients with very high viral loads, or with concentrated number.

Given that, and with the need to find somewhere reasonably suitable and as hotel rooms were empty and available using them as an initial solution was quite a reasonable initial expedient solution. Having people quarantine at home, while quite possibly individually reducing risk also had the huge risk that people would not actually quarantine properly and would go out as did occur.

However later it was realised that aerosolisation was sometimes occurring. And I would also note the comments from people such a Bloomfield and Sutton that people are not equally contagious and that most transmission will come from a relatively small number of positive cases.

Now with commercial building, buildings like offices will have false ceilings and that any party walls popped up will in the main just be dividers. This false ceilings will often be porous, and can be popped up to access cabling, ducting and the like. Ata wall junction lift up the ceiing panel and you will be able to reach over to the other side quite freely. When leases are signed normally the whole floor will be open and the tenant put in their own party walls , and at make good will revert back to the full open plan. Air and sound will often be a lot freer to move around.

With hotels and apartments (unless a conversion from a previous use) the walling will normally be completely different. While these walls will not be normally be structural (at least in tall buildings) the walls and ceilings will in most well built buildings be separate cells with reasonable barriers to air movement, sound etc.

In assessing a hotel suitability for HQ it would be a simple matter to check if rooms are indeed individual cells, or just really an open floor with wall dividers. Those that were not in essence separate cells should not have bee used.

The HVAC if well designed will be pushing air in and drawing out of each room, and not through a chain of rooms. However doors are not airtight, and on opening you can see shifts in air due to pressure differences that can result for a number of reasons. So in the nebuliser case the aerosolised infected air could float out into the corridor if the door is opened, or slowly through the gaps in around the door.

With a commercial type ceiling, that should not be in a well built hotel, aerosolised air could float up through the ceiling and travel around partitions. Moreso when the HVAC is not running, and it should be noted that HVAC in may building will not be operating 24/7.

Open widows and doors can also be a huge problem wit air pressure flows, and to my thinking the HQ used in Qld that had the inter-room transmission was not at all suitable due to this reason. All those large sliding balcony doors left open could easily cause pressure differences that would push or pull air into the corridors and through other rooms. People standing on adjacent balconies often quite close both horizontally and vertically and the wind can push the virus further. So while "fresh-air" may have been considered to be good for individuals to be outside and to have fresh air coming in, it will also have meant that contaminated air would also be freely travelling in and out of rooms not through the controlled HVAC ducting, but through the corridors.


With what we know now, and with time on our side as I posted not long ago we really should have moved to separate cabin quarantine. Especially, ones where you just have them self-catered and fully stocked with food on arrival so that there is minimal mixing of the quarantined with quarantine staff outside rooms (really it should just be on arrival, departure and health checks, and no other mixing including people being in corridors). That hotel rooms are still being used over a year since the pandemic started as quarantine facilities is extremely poor.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

And everyone is assuming the nebuliser is the cause of the outbreak.It is just one of the possibilities but concentrating on that rules out an in depth investigation of all other possibilities.
To me the real clanger if you believe nebuliser guy is that he was symptomatic on day 6 and asked for a test but was refused and test done on day 11.So 5 extra days to spread it around.

Even ignoring nebuliser guy, having separate and preferably self catering cabins with a lot less interaction of the quaratined with the quarantine workers, and others in quarantine, should result in less infections both within quarantine, an in any community leakage.

We know the the virus is highly transmissible, and that transmission will happen from time to time whether due to human error, a superspreader or an unusual circumstance like possibly the nebuliser.

I very much doubt that internal quarantine is going to cease anytime soon. So to me at least in makes sense to build more quarantine settings with less risk makes a lot of sense.

The transportable module model also makes sense as they can be readily sold off once no longer required.

 

[Gremlin]

So we wouldn't see this operational before August, realistically. Would it still be required then with a fully vaccinated population?

I think the fact that both state and federal governments are genuinely looking at such plans speaks to their expectations of the longevity of any inbound quarantine program. My understanding is that the Wellcamp option comes with a much higher price tag (albeit for a lot more capacity). Again, it's very much on the table yet no business case for it would stack up if inbound quarantine was expected to be over by the end of the year.

I'm less interested in what the pollies say and more in what they are doing - the fact that these propositions are being genuinely considered by both state and federal governments of both political colours says a lot to me.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

There is always some risk present, everytime you get in a vehicle there is a risk of a fatal accident. You wear a seat belt and have airbags to minimise risk but it doesnt eliminate it. In NSW in 2020, 54 people died from Covid (most of whom caught it overseas) yet 297 people died in road accidents. Many of those are innocent victims but wedont stop people driving, we accept risk.

I agree a level of risk needs to be accepted. It is not zero risk, but it does needs to be managed. With Covid we are learning and improving as we have gone on, and with more tools like the vaccine that have come into play we gain more options.

The road toll is a great example of society managing risk. The annual road toll is say 300 odd in NSW at present. Though the harm to society is far higher due injuries, and the disruption that accidents cause.

Without a strong interventionist strategy though deaths today in NSW, and throughout Australia would be far higher. It would be approximately 2300 deaths per year in NSW., and indeed as the trends were on the increase could well have been 10,000 deaths per year.

So we did not just go with the status quo, or even just adopt only just seat belts and airbags. We as a society completed overhauled things and continue to do so. We did not revert to just walking, but neither did we just charge on without control measures. Many of the measures are such that people had not choice but to go along with them.

The changes to achieve this have been vast. Seat belts and airbags are but a few of the many measures. Better crash barriers on roads, lane separations, breath testing, cars manufacturer to crumple on impact to make them more survivable, safer intersections (roundabouts, staggered t's, speed limits. P-Plates, longer driving hours for learners etc etc are all now in play to manage the risk.

People have vastly changed behaviours in addition to vehicles and the roads also having vastly changed. Many people probably are not really aware at how much things are really different to they were prior to 1970. I know when I spoke at number of conferences in the eighties advocating much lower speed restrictions in residential areas that even the roading professionals present were often aghast at restricting people in such a way. But it like many measures came in and so due to these many measures driving a car is now much safer than it was and many more people (drivers, passengers and pedestrian/cyclists) do not get killed or injured on our roads each year.




So CV19 in a manged risk way will be what we are doing. The risk is higher and so at least for a while I would believe that the measures deployed will be significantly greater than for the flu.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I think the fact that both state and federal governments are genuinely looking at such plans speaks to their expectations of the longevity of any inbound quarantine program. My understanding is that the Wellcamp option comes with a much higher price tag (albeit for a lot more capacity). Again, it's very much on the table yet no business case for it would stack up if inbound quarantine was expected to be over by the end of the year.

I'm less interested in what the pollies say and more in what they are doing - the fact that these propositions are being genuinely considered by both state and federal governments of both political colours says a lot to me.

Even in a well educated and resourced country like Australia the vaccination rate may not be extremely high. Plus there will be some here who cannot be vaccinated.

In some of the countries people would want to travel to and from it will be quite low. In the USA it may be vey low given the beliefs of many there.

How long people will remain immune for, or even at all is still not known. ie It may protect their individual health, but may not stop them transmitting the virus to others.


All of the above adds up to me to the likelihood that travel into Australia from many countries will require quarantine for a longtime yet.

I doubt very much that international leisure travel will resume any time soon, except perhaps to a very limited pool of countries.

 

[MooTime]

I believe florists stayed open

spot on, 4 florists in my 5km zone were open all weekend, was wandering why how under what rules, but I was glad to see it. Masks were worn by all so all good.
common sense, however it happened.

 

[blackcat20]

Some florists diversified into selling basic groceries to stay open.

 

[Lynda2475]

Ive corrected my post, vaccines wont stop everyone from getting covid (4-30% can still get Covid depending on vaccine used). I have never advocated for no action i.e letting the virus rip, but responses need to be proportionate.

Limit those at risk because of exposure events (close contacts) and let others at risk (i.e. immuno compromised people) make a personal decision as to whether to stay home or venture out (as they do influ season). If you live in aged care there may need to be periodic restrictions for the greater good of other residents at same facility - still better than state wide.

We accept that with road toll despites decades of safety improvements and education campaigns innocent people such as pedestrians will still be killed because of some people will break rules and other times accidents happen (i.e. heart attack at wheel) despite best intentions. The same understanding is needed with covid, there are no guarantees of zero cases or zero serious illness, so we have to not panic at low volumes of tracked cases now and later.

Melbourne second wave aside, none of the other large clusters i.e. Crossroads, Thai Rock or Northern Beaches have resulted in widespread serious illness. 5 hospitalisations across those 3 clusters, 1 in ICU. Overwhelming majority of serious cases ending up in hospital in NSW are returned travellers.

Andrews shutdown wasnt based on seriousness of the cases, the UK variant may be more infectious but hasnt seen a jump in the number of hospitalisations for community cases here. The comments about the excessive speed also seem over stated 19 cases in a week is not that fast, certainly not as fast as others we have had in Australia.

Attitudes haveto change, fear based politicing has to stop.

 

[Lynda2475]

That's right - and it's a risk people voluntarily take. With covid, those who are vulnerable have no option to (voluntarily) accept the risk.

And of course, the aim for road traffic deaths is actually 'towards zero'!

drron has addressed the effect of the vaccines with respect to reducing severity or preventing hospitalisation... hugely reduced, not just 30%

I disagree, vulnerable people can and are taking their own precautions over above government policy, and do not expect a whole state to shut down because of them.

I have multiple family and friends who are immuno compromised due to cancer, RA and other conditions. When there are community cases circulating they volunatrily limit their movements and interactions to reduce risk of coming into contact with a asymptomatic carrier. They wear masks in locations not mandated, avoid certain locations, decline invitations.

It is possible to choose to not attend large gatherings, or even the supermarket as there are community services that will shop for you and leave groceries at the door, there is telehealth etc.

Likewise if you are in a high risk group (living outside a shared facility and not a close contact) you should also be able to decide for yourself if you want to being in the community, or self iso. The government should not lockdown everyone due to small risk to small subset of population.

A vaccine with 70% effacacy means 30% can still catch covid, just like flu vaccine you can get it and still catch flu. Serious illness will likely reduce for far more than 70% but you will still see positive covid cases. Noting that serious illness as a percentage of total cases in Australia is already quite low (except in cases of aged care), and recent lockdowns have been based on small numbers of cases not hospitalisations or severe cases.

So even with 100% of the population vaccinated which wont happen, states need to be prepared to accept some cases or this lockkdown cough will continue to be a recurring phenomenon.

 

[drron]

Again the suggested effectiveness of the different vaccines has been estimated,not proven.The numbers in the trial are trivial compared to the world population needing to be vaccinated.On top of this the numbers getting covid after vaccination is very small.It would only take a handful of extra cases to change the effectiveness drastically.
The real evidence will come out in the not too distant future when millions have been vaccinated with each vaccine.

 

[jakeseven7]

I think its likely some more cases will come up in VIC given the amount of people in isolation still.

Thankfully the more sensible state border reopenings (even Tassie) are worded to be mystery cases, not to be derailed by more cases in quarantine already.

---

Victoria expecting 'some cases' to appear over next week​

​

Health Minister Martin Foley has praised Victorians for a job well done in getting tested with more than 30,000 people turning up for a test on Wednesday.

While no new local cases have emerged in the past two days, Mr Foley warned more positive cases were liekly in the coming week as close contacts of confirmed cases continue to be tested.

“There is still a way to go, but so far so good,” he said.

As it happened: Victoria emerges from lockdown as state records zero local COVID-19 cases; Australian Open welcomes back crowds

Victoria’s hard lockdown may have ended, but thousands of people potentially exposed to the virus as a result of the Holiday Inn outbreak are still self-isolating.

www.theage.com.au

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I think its likely some more cases will come up in VIC given the amount of people in isolation still.

Thankfully the more sensible state border reopenings (even Tassie) are worded to be mystery cases, not to be derailed by more cases in quarantine already.

---

Victoria expecting 'some cases' to appear over next week​

​

Health Minister Martin Foley has praised Victorians for a job well done in getting tested with more than 30,000 people turning up for a test on Wednesday.

While no new local cases have emerged in the past two days, Mr Foley warned more positive cases were liekly in the coming week as close contacts of confirmed cases continue to be tested.

“There is still a way to go, but so far so good,” he said.

As it happened: Victoria emerges from lockdown as state records zero local COVID-19 cases; Australian Open welcomes back crowds

Victoria’s hard lockdown may have ended, but thousands of people potentially exposed to the virus as a result of the Holiday Inn outbreak are still self-isolating.

www.theage.com.au

Yes after the initial batch of quarantine workers tested positive all further cases have been in the first ring, and I believe importantly were found to be positive after they were directed to get tested and isolate (as opposed to getting symptomatic and then wandering in for a test). This means that the amount of exposure time that they have had while infectious has been extremely limited.

It also means that the Victorian contact tracing despite some of the public roasting has actually been very good. It also means that as per the report below, that there is a large number of people some of whom are possibly going to become positive who are already quarantined and unable to seed the virus beyond the household members that they are in quarantine with. This is why the second ring method cuts off transmission growth as it gets in front of the spread.

The second ring technique means that the numbers to be contact traced surge quickly and you get very large numbers to be interviewed. Interestingly in NSW, where from reports on this forum , second ring is not deployed fully, but many are very happy with it despite criticising the Victorian contact tracing, you get less people to contact trace, but which also seems to result in mystery cases and random transmission chains popping up. Each to their own of course, but I do find it interesting that what some indicate is not as good has since October when the second ring method was adopted quelled outbreaks quicker and with less mystery cases.

Quarantine outbreaks/breaches are seemingly set to continue (ie look at New Zealand, look at the recent two people who easily left HQ in Tasmania), and how big any outbreak is initially is often due in large part to bad luck. However the second ring has now been proven repeatedly to work very well, and so hopefully Australia can get on with a better new Covid 19 way of living where the Defcon 9 Button is not pushed just because a small outbreak happens. Quick control and containment works very well in Australia. Hopefully the Vic Gov also will not jump to unnecessary lockdown measures too quickly again.





As of yesterday from the VicDHHS:

Update: Holiday Inn Cases​

There are no new cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) linked to the Holiday Inn.

In relation to the Holiday Inn cases, we have identified 59 primary close contacts linked to households and social groups and 1312 primary close contacts linked to exposure sites.

The number of identified close contacts, particularly those linked to exposure sites, will continue to change as exposure sites and cohorts are cleared and others are identified.

Our contact tracing efforts continue to meet performance benchmarks.

99.9 per cent of new primary close contacts identified on 12 February were contacted by our contact tracers within 48 hours.

 

[Must...Fly!]

What kind of rubbish is that at the end from the VIC DH? Who cares about February 12 when the lockdown was announced?

What about Feb 9 and 10 where the failure of the department to contact even half of people exposed within 48 hours brought us to lockdown town?