Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[nutwood]

Interested to note that SA is now relying on QR code to greet new arrivals at the airport. The long line of desks are no more.
I'm not sure people waving signs at you "Have you been in WA?" is as effective as a personal interview but it must be a relief to the poor people who spent a year of lives behind those desks. Not much job satisfaction there!

 

[SydneySwan]

I wonder what (if any) planning is being done by govts and CHOs for the situation we will have in a few months time when everyone who wants a vaccine will have had their chance to get it but there are still covid cases and there are still people getting sick. Unfortunately the vaccine does not generate an immune response in everyone and although it reduces spread it does not stop spread. Some people are still going to get sick even if they have been vaccinated. In the U.K. a few have died even after being vaccinated. The possibility that premiers will still panic over 1-2 cases and we will still have to have lockdowns, travel restrictions, hotel quarantine and self isolation even after large scale vaccinations makes me shudder.

Public servants may be planning but it is whether their political masters will accept their advice. Best advice I can give is to relocate to NSW - the anti-lockdown state.

 

[hydrabyss]

Public servants may be planning but it is whether their political masters will accept their advice. Best advice I can give is to relocate to NSW - the anti-lockdown state.

No, that's a bad idea they need to stay where they are safe. Going by how voting in the lockdown states goes I am guessing most of these people like to be locked up. They may bring their way of life to NSW.

 

[RAM]

I think the true figure is other way around, 1.2 million AZ and 700000 Pfizer. GP Clinics only have AZ and account for nearly a million alone

In the piece played on ABC Radio, the 731,000 AZ figure was repeated multiple times and discussed by the Federal Medical officer with regard to the three additional clotting cases announced. No correction has been issued by Fed Dept of Health.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Someone needs to keep the microphone away from McGowan.

I just read that on top of everything else yesterday he said that Australians can get married here so don't need to go overseas, immediate family deaths are no reason to travel and that leaving the country for study is not essential. What a clown.

Oh to live in an isolated iron ore republic?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

So zero again till midnight yesterday.

Plus DHHS Report of yesterday (ie prior to oday's figure below) included:​

​

All 260 passengers, air and ground crew of interest to Victoria from QF778 have been contacted and advised to quarantine and get tested. 216 have returned a negative result.​

​

The remainder of the flight’s passengers are in other states and have been formally referred to the relevant health authorities for their ongoing management.​

​

58 arrivals in Victoria have identified as having attended WA exposure sites and are also required to quarantine for 14 days. 52 have tested negative.​

So another positive case stemming from the WA outbreak would now seem less likely , Though people can still turn positive for a while yet. However everyone who is likely to possibly turn positive should be quarantining.

 

[jakeseven7]

Public servants may be planning but it is whether their political masters will accept their advice. Best advice I can give is to relocate to NSW - the anti-lockdown state.

Doesn't stop other states locking down to NSW though unfortunately whenever they have an outbreak as demonstrated time and time and time again. Sigh,

 

[Lynda2475]

Get Aussies home: NSW challenges other states to take more international arrivals

New figures show NSW has quarantined almost half of all returning travellers since the pandemic began, with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian calling on other states to do more.

www.smh.com.au

Analysis of weekly arrival caps by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age shows NSW can take about 37 arrivals per 100,000 residents and Western Australia can take 38 returned travellers for every 100,000 people living in the state (although this is being reduced to 19). But Victoria’s cap sits at 13 people per 100,000, and Queensland is even fewer at 10. In contrast, South Australia takes almost 30 arrivals for every 100,000 who live there.

Since the start of the pandemic, NSW has taken 125,856 arrivals – just less than half of the nation’s returning travellers. Queensland has taken 48,975, WA took 36,908, and Victoria quarantined 31,559.

From October 27 to April 22, government figures show five hotel quarantine breakouts from 57,000 people in NSW, three from almost 30,000 people in Queensland, and two each from 21,000 people in WA and 11,600 in Victoria.


Given HQ breakouts below 1% everywhere except Victoria (1.7% since second wave was over, obviously much worse before that), there is really no justification for WA halving its arrivals and for Vic and Qld not to be pulling their weight. If HQ hotels are full (and this is because of stupid decision to periodically force interstate arrivals into HQ in WA and Vic, instead of allowing quarantine at home for domestic travelers) then stand up another hotel. NSW takes almost 50% of all arrivals each week and when needed they have added more hotel capacity.

 

[Princess Fiona]

And the recent MJA has an article that explains the Premiers wanting time for their Health services to cope.Health in Australia is stretched nation wide.

ED overcrowding, under-resourcing “worst in 30 years” - InSight+

Currently, our acute health care system -- emergency department and ICU -- is failing many who need it to be better, writes Simon Judkins

insightplus.mja.com.au

Based on my experience I would completely agree with that headline.

 

[Lynda2475]

Victoria asks to start second stream of hotel quarantine for business travellers

The scheme would be funded by the firms seeking to bring foreigners into Australia and administered separately from regular hotel quarantine.

www.smh.com.au

So now Vic want to offer more special places for actors/sports/students BUT no commitment to take a reasonable number of regular Aussie citizen and PR HQ arrivals.

Feds should deny them the money making opportunity until they agree to pull their weight by providing the 30+/100k of population rate of overseas arrivals for citizens and PR. Taking 1/3 of the rate of arrivals of SA and NSW is frankly pathetic and not good enough for states the size of Vic and Qld.

 

[Carrots]

Meanwhile in SA....

International Flights to SA suspended to get onto top of COVID spike

 

[SydneySwan]

Meanwhile in SA....




No Cookies | The Advertiser

Apparently the medi-hotel is nearly full.

 

[suze2000]

If the layover in DXB was 12 hours longer, for example, then the test couldn't be done earlier than 15:35 Tue, India time.

What does it matter, since they are just faking their tests anyway?

All flights from India need to end NOW.

 

[dajop]

I must admit I fail to see how that makes much difference, unless there is something happening with indirect routes that makes them want the test done later. Why not later with direct flights as well.

I guess the argument is that for direct flights, it already is later, as with connecting passengers you have to account for transit time. If you had an westbound flight from India for 3 hours to Doha, then a 23 hour layover, that means (under old rules) your test could be done 26 hours earlier than someone just departing from Doha on the same flight.

To achieve what they're trying to achieve, you would really want the test done x hours before arrival in Australia , but I guess that is too complicated.

In any event, it doesn't get around the likelihood the issue is not a matter of 12 hrs or 24 hrs, but a matter of fake test results.

 

[dajop]

All flights from India need to end NOW.

I disagree, but I think this is where some leadership from the federal government could come in.

Remember the early days with China - where charter flights were sent to Christmas Island? Let Howards Springs take India arrivals (and re-establish Christmas Island?) and allow people to still travel from low risk countries and be placed into CBD hotel quarantine.

It's high time they started risk stratifying on the basis of country where the passenger has been in previous 14 days. Arrivals from Singapore, Taiwan, China should not be in the same category as arrivals from India. But our useless state and federal governments treat everyone the same, and then guess what, someone who has been in China - who has had very little exposure in China - catches it in Hotel Quarantine in Australia. This should not be happening. End of Rant.

 

[jase05]

All flights from India need to end NOW.

I believe they have now

Direct flights from India suspended until 15 May.
Travel via Doha, Dubai and KL suspended by the relevant authorities.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Is there anyone here who wouldn’t get a false test, if it was the only way of getting themselves out of a country where people are dying in the street before a hospital can treat them? I know I wouldn’t hesitate if it was necessary to save my family......

 

[bcworld]

Victoria asks to start second stream of hotel quarantine for business travellers

The scheme would be funded by the firms seeking to bring foreigners into Australia and administered separately from regular hotel quarantine.

www.smh.com.au

So now Vic want to offer more special places for actors/sports/students

The way this is being reported today you would think that Vic is the only state that has these plans...

eTendering - View Scheme - SCM10881

The NSW Government eTendering website lists upcoming, current and closed business opportunities that have been provided by agencies. This site also provides details of awarded contracts over $150,000 in value.

www.tenders.nsw.gov.au

 

[ethernet]

Using Operations Research (OR) we can see the various states putting a low price on the cost of lives/ souls stranded overseas, whilst rubbing salt into wounds, proving the well heeled have privileges. Saving lives is now secondary to business interests. The Cwth can simply veto these via the back door arrivals, as they should. Setting a 50:1 arrival ratio seems an idea.

Secondly India's lockdown is about to send Australian businesses into shock- where they outsourced lock stock and barrel without a plan B. Banking, ICT and Financial services, if they stumble - I wonder if full on complex recovery is possible. I am not talking about low level call centres. A cash stash in case ATM's break, and cards go offline, is quite foreseeable. Medical imaging is another service I can think of.

 

[Lynda2475]

The way this is being reported today you would think that Vic is the only state that has these plans...

Yes all states have similar plans, but NSW has been doing the heavy lifting on arrivals so its genuine extra capacity. Same can be said for SA and WA (well until they halved arrivals this week). But Vic and Qld haven't been taking their fair share of arrivals and Qld hasnt been paying their invoices.

Vic in particular have never returned to the volume of arrivals they were taking in June last year. They have paused taking arrivals twice (justifiable at start of second wave, but then took way to long to resume) and had a totally unnecessary cease earlier this year for a handful of cases. There is no reason why Vic (and Qld and WA) shouldn't be able to take same % of arrivals per head of population as NSW and SA.

If they can find capacity for celebs, they can find capacity to pull their weight wrt to Aussies.

If all states took arrivals continuously at the same rate as NSW has been then thousands more Aussies would be safely home well before now.

Of all the Premiers only Gladys has shown any genuine compassion to Aussies stranded overseas (including India), she talks about Australians not NSWelshmen. McGowan cares not for the health or wellbeing of anyone who is not from WA and has no desire to leave WA. and the Deputy Vic Premier has been backing him all day today wrt banning further arrivals.

You cant reduce aussie arrivals on one hand and then ask to import more foreigners on the other.