Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[Lynda2475]

Your source info is out of date, or was wrong from the start.

I was replying to Rooflyer who questioned whether only 1 location was the norm.

My reply named the 3 NSW hospitals (the same ones in your list) and also Brisbane and Cairns also in your list. I said i expected Qld and Vic to have more than 1 and never said they didnt.

Perhaps if you didnt take replies out of context in your mission to start arguments you would direct your nitpicking to the right person.

None of the hospitals named in my reply were incorrect nor outdated.

 

[MelMel]

Does anyone know if QLD are putting all active cases in hospital as a matter of course? Covid live lists 11 active cases with 11 cases in hospital

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Ok after digging through several articles it appears that the Vic Vaccine Pfizer program (Note: I am not sure if they will have oversight or not of the AZ Program) will be through administered through three hospitals where any stock arriving will be stored and then distributed out from. There will also be vaccination clinics at these hospitals and so all 3 will distribute, and well as vaccinate.

Austin Health, Western Health and Monash Health (Clayton), which oversee multiple hospitals in the city’s heavily populated northern, western and south-eastern suburbs, will run the Pfizer metropolitan vaccine hubs and are set to be responsible for storing the doses in special freezers as well as running their own vaccination clinics.

Monash Health (Clayton) has the capacity to store about 180,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

The Pfizer Vaccine will then go out to through 9 main hubs, but many of these have clinics, or sub-hubs, branching out off them to do widen the vaccination sites. ie locations such as Portland.

The nine vaccine delivery hubs are:

• Western Health
• Austin Health
• Monash Health
• Barwon Health
• Goulburn Valley Health
• Latrobe Health
• Bendigo Health
• Ballarat Health
• Albury-Wodonga Health

And via the Monash Hub.
"We've now set up three clinics across our first sites at Monash Health, one at Casey, one at Clayton and one at Dandenong, and we actually had our first run through at our clinic yesterday to make sure we have the right procedures and policies in place," she said.

One specialised location run by Western Health is is the one at Melbourne Airport:

it’s expected that about 300 airline flight crew, customs workers, cargo handlers and other airport workers will receive the vaccine each day at the new vaccination hub at Melbourne Airport, run by Western Health.​

Airport lounge transformed into vaccine hub as vials en route

It comes as hospitals prepare to receive their first deliveries of the Pfizer/BioNTech on Monday.

www.smh.com.au

With AZ they are looking at some mass sites such as sporting venues, Melbourne Showgrounds etc, so that they can have much greater scale and throughput than hospital setting would allow. ie 600 people per hour. Plus of course through GP Clinics and the like where vast numbers of sites can be deployed..

 

[nutwood]

Reading the vaccine discussions, I suddenly realised that I'm totally ambivalent as to whether I want it. The confusion stems from my understanding that whilst vaccinated persons do not suffer from the virus, they can still spread it. Is this information still valid?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Reading the vaccine discussions, I suddenly realised that I'm totally ambivalent as to whether I want it. The confusion stems from my understanding that whilst vaccinated persons do not suffer from the virus, they can still spread it. Is this information still valid?

Ah, that is the $64 question to which we are all awaiting the answer to.

If transmission is not at least significantly diminished, then free international travel will most likely be a long way off yet.

 

[nutwood]

Ah, that is the $64 question to which we are all awaiting the answer to.

If transmission is not at least significantly diminished, then free international travel will most likely be a long way off yet.

My logic is that, as an essential traveller, I've been dodging the bullets for the last twelve months. I'd very much prefer not to get COVID as my big concern is spreading it to friends and family. If a vaccine means I become an asymptomatic carrier, do I want a false sense of security? Perhaps it's better to be stressed and totally minimise potential contagion?

 

[teammongo]

Does anyone know if QLD are putting all active cases in hospital as a matter of course? Covid live lists 11 active cases with 11 cases in hospital

Yes. All positives are transferred to hospital.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

My logic is that, as an essential traveller, I've been dodging the bullets for the last twelve months. I'd very much prefer not to get COVID as my big concern is spreading it to friends and family. If a vaccine means I become an asymptomatic carrier, do I want a false sense of security? Perhaps it's better to be stressed and totally minimise potential contagion?

Yes that is the dilemma.

Less or no symptoms could mean that more people will catch Covid 19 as more people may be unknowingly spreading it.

Plus some people cannot have the vaccine. So this group will remain exposed, and perhaps moreso if the general community reverts to non-Covid practices and say the international borders are thrown open thus creating much more transmission than we have ever had in Australia.

On the other hand if the vaccines work well enough how ill people actually get, and the portion who die is hopefully dramatically less.

If dramtically reduced transmission is not achieved, then head immunity may never happen.

So we then enter a new Covid normal with an unknown death and serious illness rate (ie say like with the flu). How acceptable that will be will depend what that new Covid normal death/illness rate is.

$64 question is in play.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Probably no need to keep posting these now as the quarantine periods of anyone that may still possibly tun positive shuld now be past bya margin of some days.

Well till the next outbreak anyway.

 

[RAM]

Yes. All positives are transferred to hospital.

Personally - that sounds like the 'Gold standard' vs 'medi-hotels' or whatever the particular state's term for 'infected' hotels.

With numbers relatively low ( not trying to tempt fate) then in hospital (hopefully) using the few negative pressure rooms available provides a much lower risk of leaks than any hotel can.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Personally - that sounds like the 'Gold standard' vs 'medi-hotels' or whatever the particular state's term for 'infected' hotels.

With numbers relatively low ( not trying to tempt fate) then in hospital (hopefully) using the few negative pressure rooms available provides a much lower risk of leaks than any hotel can.

Safe yes.

And probably ok while cases are low, however it does mean that those rooms are then not for what they are normally are used for and that may mean that treatments are being delayed or compromised. But Qld Health may well have added additional capacity to its hospitals for this purpose.

If the people are not adversely ill then using negative pressure rooms is going to better than hotel quarantine, but more risky than using say separate self-contained cabins where less staff interactions are required.

 

[RAM]

Safe yes.

And probably ok while cases are low, however it does mean that those rooms are then not for what they are normally are used for and that may mean that treatments are being delayed or compromised. But Qld Health may well have added additional capacity to its hospitals for this purpose.

If the people are not adversely ill then using negative pressure rooms is going to better than hotel quarantine, but more risky than using say separate self-contained cabins where less staff interactions are required.

Within NSW the negative pressure rooms (all too few of them that exist as was found in an exercise in the early 2000s I recall) are specifically designed to be used with highly contagious patients. As such CV is just such a planned use for them.

They are not specifically designed for another primary use - this is what they're for. In the absence of highly contagious issues then they have secondary uses.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Within NSW the negative pressure rooms (all too few of them that exist as was found in an exercise in the early 2000s I recall) are specifically designed to be used with highly contagious patients. As such CV is just such a planned use for them.

They are not specifically designed for another primary use - this is what they're for. In the absence of highly contagious issues then they have secondary uses.

My daughter works in a Respiratory and Infectious Diseases Ward. Their rooms/wards including such rooms are busy as there are other contagious diseases about of many kinds. Covid has just been one of her passing parade of diseases this year.

They also find application with people who have impaired immune systems.

 

[RAM]

My daughter works in a Respiratory and Infectious Diseases Ward. Their rooms/wards including such rooms are always busy as there are other contagious diseases about of many kinds. Covid has just been one of her passing parade of diseases this year.

They also find application with people who have impaired immune systems.

Out of interest how many negative pressure rooms do they have?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Out of interest how many negative pressure rooms do they have?

I will have to ask her as I have never been there. There are different types of isolation rooms too. Positive, negative and notionally negative.

She is not at the Alfred, but they have a number.

Outside of the major hospitals some special recommissioned facilities were cranked up due to Covid (The old Peter Mac, another at Geelong, and demountable at Monash Clayton . But those were only intended to be temporary. The majors all operate them as a matter of ongoing need.


Plus they get SCOVIDs on a regular basis of course.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Out of interest how many negative pressure rooms do they have?

Ok have the answer now.

Just in her Ward the set up is;

6 single patient rooms for isolating and/or dying patients

• 2 are set up negative or positive pressured
  • Negative pressure for aerosolised diseases like CV19 or TB etc (Both of which she has had)
  • Positive pressure if the patient has no immune system
• 4 are for general isolation which can include non aerosolised contagious diseases, violent patients, those requiring low stimulus environment etc
  • These singles have also been used for Covid or Scovid (Suspected Covid) patients. (Note that high standard hospitals have very good HVAC (higher refresh rates, more fresh air, filtration, better humidity control (very important for aerosolised diseases like CV19) and often UV treatment) anyway, and sections/wards of the hospital are designed to higher standards).
• The negative pressure rooms would normally only be used for Covid patients if they needed to be on ventilators (ie greater aerosolisation risk from the procedures plus also the patients more likely to have higher viral loads).

That is just her ward (she does not know the total for her hospital but there are many), and there are many more isolation rooms throughout the hospital, including the main ward that was used for Covid Patients at her hospital that were very ill or dying. At times they had up to 6 Covid Wards. Currently they have none, but Scovids are a daily management issue.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

From today, millions of Australians in aged care, universities, schools, pubs and restaurants will have access to a world-first surface spray that kills COVID-19 within 90 seconds.

The Australian-developed disinfectant, called ViroCLEAR, was developed by BioInnovate and fast-tracked for approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) last month.

While other surface disinfectants take as long as ten minutes to kill the coronavirus — with some unable to do it at all — BioInnovate Chair Ross Macdougald said the breakthrough was achieved after exhaustive research in northern NSW.

Product kills COVID in 90 seconds

From today, millions of Australians in aged care, universities, schools, pubs and restaurants will have access to a surface spray that kills COVID-19 within 90 seconds.

www.news.com.au

 

[jase05]

Didn’t even know the “Russian strain” was a thing and to make people quarantine for an extra 5 days without notice in QLD is bizarre really.

Queensland travellers have hotel quarantine extended after Russian variant of coronavirus detected

Passengers on an international flight who arrived in Queensland last month are forced to extend their hotel quarantine for another five days after the Russian variant of coronavirus is detected in several positive cases.

www.abc.net.au

 

[jakeseven7]

Didn’t even know the “Russian strain” was a thing and to make people quarantine for an extra 5 days without notice in QLD is bizarre really.

Queensland travellers have hotel quarantine extended after Russian variant of coronavirus detected

Passengers on an international flight who arrived in Queensland last month are forced to extend their hotel quarantine for another five days after the Russian variant of coronavirus is detected in several positive cases.

www.abc.net.au

Probably as transmissible as the highly transmissible mutant UK strain which resulted in precisely zero mystery cases in VIC...

 

[N860CR]

Probably as transmissible as the highly transmissible mutant UK strain which resulted in precisely zero mystery cases in VIC...

And the scary African strain that has resulted in South Africa having plummeting case numbers despite massively reducing restrictions.