Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[lovetravellingoz]

Obviously the breakdown of that 11 will be of keen interest.

ie If they are cases who are isolating, or were " ïn the wild".

2 of these were announced yesterday (Arcare resident and nurse).

 

[Must...Fly!]

Not good news to wake up to.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Perhaps there needs to be a question as to whether elimination of the virus in the community is at all possible when you have such a significant number of people still moving around the city and going to work - quite necessarily especially given job keeper is no longer there.

I am fine with that if the answer is yes, but what it does mean is that Victoria will be a leper colony for....how long?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

A number of Day 13 tests were done yesterday of people who were isolating..

 

[jakeseven7]

Perhaps there needs to be a question as to whether elimination of the virus in the community is at all possible when you have such a significant number of people still moving around the city and going to work - quite necessarily especially given job keeper is no longer there.

I am fine with that if the answer is yes, but what it does mean is that Victoria will be a leper colony for....how long?

My personal opinion is that this virus is going to spread at some point soon and if our most vulnerable are vaccinated then that should be ok. The question is what AU government phase will determine this and if our moronic states can come to a consensus on this. I also think that fully vaccinated people should be allowed to travel through any state border regardless of shut downs due to virus spread NOW - Nat cabinet said this was coming - hopefully soon.

 

[OATEK]

My personal opinion is that this virus is going to spread at some point soon and if our most vulnerable are vaccinated then that should be ok. The question is what AU government phase will determine this and if our moronic states can come to a consensus on this. I also think that fully vaccinated people should be allowed to travel through any state border regardless of shut downs due to virus spread NOW - Nat cabinet said this was coming - hopefully soon.

Agree, after all it won't be a flood of visitors given how many have had the second shot. But in a month or two there will be a decent pool of fully vaccinated people who should be able to cross borders freely even during lockdowns.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Ok, all of the eleven cases have been linked. 8 were quarantining during their infectious period ( So second ring process doing what it is meant to do). And note that 2 were announced yesterday.

So that presumably leaves one of note to learn more details on.




Panic attack over

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Not good news to wake up to.

At least the Morning Tea news was much better.

 

[Pushka]

Theoretically in SA, in the past, they use the term ‘unknown’ community transmission as being a marker to open / close borders as opposed to transmission amongst the known close contacts.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Theoretically in SA, in the past, they use the term ‘unknown’ community transmission as being a marker to open / close borders as opposed to transmission amongst the known close contacts.

That currently sits at 3 in Vic.

• Case 5 - Whittlesea Cluster - 12 days symptomatic prior being directed to test
• Camperman - West Melbourne Cluster - 6 day symptomatic being seeking a test
• Arcare Worker - Arcare Cluster - the Arcare Maidstone worker presented for testing as soon as she had symptoms.

The Second Ring Method is reliant on one of its planks being for people to present for testing when symptomatic, as it makes ita lot more difficulat to get in front of the virus transmission when people are out and about transmitting for lengthy periods while infectious.

The second problem is that a delay in getting tested makes it much more difficult to find who infected them, as that person may have recovered and this will not return a positive test. And even if an antibody test is done, genomic sequencing cannot be done to provide a match.

Most people are typically, if they are symptomatic, on average symptomatic 5 days after infection. Though generally it can be 1-11 days.

With Case 5 he was probably infected over two weeks prior to the positive result. So any matching would be by pure detective work.

With Camperman being symptomatic on 25th May it is now reaching the period, if we have not already where no prior case could now be found with a confirmed testing result. No genomically matched Delta Case has been found in Vic or elsewhere prior to Camperman. With Camperman not being tested till 31 May it would mean that most of the recent testing in NSW in Jervis Bay would have been too late to find a source if there was one, as they most likely would have recovered, and so will have been of more of use to see if there was any ongoing community transmission.


Note again though that many people are asymptomatic and so would not present for testing unless they have to be tested as a work requirement (ie The maritime worker in WA who was released, but on having to do a test for work returned a positive test).

 

[lovetravellingoz]

So the new case of particular interest is a staff member at Arcare. So most likely would have minimal new close contacts and most of these should have been tested already as they will have been overlap in close contacts, and setting will have also limited these..


By Dean Bilton

Health Minister Martin Foley is here​

Here we go. He's providing some details on the new cases. A bit of detail to come here, I'll try to lay it out as clearly as possible:

Overnight we saw 11 new locally acquired cases and no new cases in hotel quarantining. All 11 were linked to known outbreaks.
There are 32 cases linked to the Whittlesey outbreak and there is three new cases today. All of those three are household contacts of existing cases and have all been in quarantining for their infectious period.

There are the three new cases in Arcare Maidstone, bringing the total number to nine. That being one resident and two new staff members. Two of these were announced yesterday by Arcare but were included in today's numbers.

The next four cases are household contacts of cases in The western Melbourne outbreak, bringing the total cases in that particular outbreak to 14. These four new cases are three children and an adult.

There is one new case in the Port Melbourne outbreak, bringing the total cases there to 31. That person is a previously identified construction site worker in the city.

Our contact traces are continuing to focus on the merging lines of inquiry with a view to closing them down and following up increasingly on our day 13 testing for our initially identified primary close contacts. The COVID response commander will speak to those figure in more detail.

 

[SydneySwan]

Just heard on the ABC News that the UK Govt has made an agreement with dating apps to include vaccination status. Apparently a survey revealed that 75% of people would not date someone who was not vaccinated.

 

[N860CR]

My personal opinion is that this virus is going to spread at some point soon and if our most vulnerable are vaccinated then that should be ok. The question is what AU government phase will determine this and if our moronic states can come to a consensus on this. I also think that fully vaccinated people should be allowed to travel through any state border regardless of shut downs due to virus spread NOW - Nat cabinet said this was coming - hopefully soon.

The fact that we moved a fully vaccinated, totally asymptomatic yet supposedly "positive" geriatric to hospital is a good indication of the Victorian's acceptable (or lack there of) risk level

 

[Pushka]

The fact that we moved a fully vaccinated, totally asymptomatic yet supposedly "positive" geriatric to hospital is a good indication of the Victorian's acceptable (or lack there of) risk level

Limits any issues of stray visits from other residents who escape their rooms.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

The fact that we moved a fully vaccinated,

The second dose was very recent and they would not yet have been at the period of 3 weeks post second dose for maximum effectiveness.

 

[N860CR]

The second dose was very recent and they would not yet have been at the period of 3 weeks post second dose for maximum effectiveness.

That’s largely my point. We’re not prepared to take even the slightest risk for fear of moving away from our unrealistic and unattainable goal of “covid zero”

 

[Pushka]

That’s largely my point. We’re not prepared to take even the slightest risk for fear of moving away from our unrealistic and unattainable goal of “covid zero”

Once it arrives into Nursing Homes thats what will happen always. They also lockdown for flu and rota as well. Sometimes hospital. I don't think this action was in any way unreasonable. But I do agree we have to stop this obsession with zeroes in normal life come the time when everyone has had the chance to be vaccinated. Maybe even just close testing stations once we get to that time.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Once it arrives into Nursing Homes thats what will happen always. They also lockdown for flu and rota as well. Sometimes hospital. I don't think this action was in any way unreasonable. But I do agree we have to stop this obsession with zeroes in normal life come the time when everyone has had the chance to be vaccinated. Maybe even just close testing stations once we get to that time.

Treatment for “geriatrics” is always going to be conservative and rightly so as they are the most fragile and at risk. If they were automatically moving all people with Covid into hospital (as I think QLD and NT do), then it would be more over reactive.

EDIT I actually feel sorry for Morrison. He is trying to steer the country into a more nuanced approach, but has to deal with a pack of unruly premiers playing to their electorates.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Today's update of the graphic of the Victorian Outbreaks.

( The early morning Trailer threatened for it have to have a R Rating, but on viewing it was an actually a G Rating )

 

[Lynda2475]

There was an informative article on the SMH over the weekend dispelling the myths that differences in demographics explain why outbreaks seem to be harder to control in Vic vs NSW.

Many on this thread and Mary-Loiuse McLeod have claimed that Mebournians move about the city more (false), use public transport more (false), live in denser confitions (false) and have more migrant enclaves (false).

"Sydneysiders reported significantly higher use of public transport to get to work each day – 27 per cent, compared to 19 per cent of Melburnians."

"Sydney had the lowest level of self-containment of any capital city: 43.4 per cent worked in the same area as they lived, versus 51. 8 per cent in Melbourne."

"The ABS divides the country into grid cells of 1 square kilometre. In Sydney, 193 cells were “high” density (5000 to 8000 people per square kilometre) or “very high” density (more than 8000 people) – much more than Melbourne (77) or Brisbane (15).

Whilst Sydney's Northern beaches are a bit of a anomaly (in that a good deal of its resdients dont like to cross the Harbour Bridge) , the rest of Greater Sydney are very mobile - heaps of people for the North West, Western, South West, Souther and Eastern suburbs travel into the city, north Sydney BD, Macquarie Park (or other areas of Sydney for work every weekday). Those same people travel to beaches in the east, south and north on a hot day, or to concerts/sporting events all over.

The weather is yet to be widely agreed as a factor, which leaves basically the management decisions.

NSW has a higher risk tolerance (demonstrated by consitently high arrival intake), trusts its systems and uses targeted restrictions. Vic uses blunter instrument of statewide/city wide lockdowns, trusting its constituents less. Gladys asks for cooperation, Dan/Merlino sverly restrict freedoms. Will be interesting to see the mental health stats for the different approaches once this is over.

Why Melbourne? The answer isn’t linked to Sydney

The idea that behavioural differences between the cities explain COVID transmission is seductive, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

www.smh.com.au