Where abouts is that? Don't doubt the joke would sell a few chops.
Given up and attempting to control the narrative are two different things. Mark was, in yesterday's presser, stating that contact tracing - as long as there's one case per contact tracer per day or less - is still feasible, and that there's a surge capacity of ~870 tracers (if i recall correctly).
I think the spin doctors have directed Mark and AJS to get in front of the inevitable (uncontrolled spread) as - like many on this forum have stated - the WA public have become used to Mark being 'in control' (for better or worse) and he doesn't want to have to backtrack further (of course, nobody does). I think the strategy is now 'controlled introduction' (though I doubt we hear those words publicly).
AJS (health minister) said a border reassessment would occur in "four weeks or so" which would be mid-late Feb. IMO the variables are
- third dose percentages
- daily case rates interstate (translated as the likelihood of inbound travellers 'seeding' local infections),
- local cases, and
- ICU occupation.
My hypotheses, for what they're worth (which may not be much, given I was very surprised by the 5 feb reneg):
- If local cases approach or exceed spread on east coast, borders open by late March unless ICUs are overrun, in which case the 'seeding' argument might push it out by a month.
- If local cases slow-burn and remain lower than east coast, then open when third dose is projected to reach 60-80%. Not sure when the projections estimate that will be, but I think one of the other states reported 1% a day recently, so if we're anywhere close to that we are maybe looking at 2-3 months.
I also think there's an outside case for a late-feb 'we open for easter school holidays no matter what' announcement, in an attempt to get the 3rd dose rate up, but as that card's already been played, it may not be effective so I don't rate it too highly.
