Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[jakeseven7]

New restrictions in SA :

From -

Midnight tomorrow night home gatherings from 50 down to 10.

Midnight tomorrow night seated consumption of alcohol only in venues.

Numbers at football matches and gyms under review.

2 news cases, one a close contact of one of yesterdays cases.

Its a good call, they don't have a perfect account of where their case has been/infected potentially and they now have 90/100 contacts live in the community.

Their CHO isn't great with media... clearly out of practice (which is a good thing I suppose!)

 

[Lynda2475]

A 44-year-old woman staying at a hotel in Liverpool, in south-west Sydney, who provided false compassionate reasons to qualify for an entry permit to travel into NSW from Victoria was fined.

Never thought Id find myself agreeing with Anna P, but it is time to stop exemptions for non residents.

In regional NSW, the licensee of the Crescent Head Tavern has been handed a $1000 fine after not properly recording the names of patrons or maintaining social distancing. Hopefully this will encourage more venues to take the rules more seriously.

 

[jase05]

QANTAS freight terminal at Melbourne Airport suspends operations
<redacted as no link or reference to source was provided by the posting member>

Going to cause a ripple effect. Thankfully the big bosses have been earning their money and most of our freight will still get moved.

 

[dajop]

Never thought Id find myself agreeing with Anna P, but it is time to stop exemptions for non residents.

So what you are saying is a doctor who live in Wodonga, shouldn't be able to get an exemption to go to work to provide treatment to patients in Albury?

I get the feeling this pandemic has exposed that Australia is a myth and dragged us back into the 1800's, a collection of separate colonies occupying the same continental land mass.

All for trying to prevent the ingress of the virus, on epidemiological grounds, but are state borders the best boundaries to serve this purpose? Isn't it time that we recognised that regional economies and regional workforces do not fit nicely into state borders.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

So what you are saying is a doctor who live in Wodonga, shouldn't be able to get an exemption to go to work to provide treatment to patients in Albury?

I get the feeling this pandemic has exposed that Australia is a myth and dragged us back into the 1800's, a collection of separate colonies occupying the same continental land mass.

All for trying to prevent the ingress of the virus, on epidemiological grounds, but are state borders the best boundaries to serve this purpose? Isn't it time that we recognised that regional economies and regional workforces do not fit nicely into state borders.

Fully agree. The maintenance of a border within what are to all intents and purposes the one town, when there are virtually no cases on either side just creates a lot of work, and huge problems for vitually no benefit.

Common sense should have occurred with a temporary move in the "border", or a town/regional bubble being formed.

You still will have had to have a cordon to check movements across the new "border" but the effort, cost and inconvenience would be but a fraction of what it currently is as this "new border"would only have a fraction of the volume needing to cross it and not all the daily movements that you get in places like Albury/Wodonga.

 

[drron]

So what you are saying is a doctor who live in Wodonga, shouldn't be able to get an exemption to go to work to provide treatment to patients in Albury?

I get the feeling this pandemic has exposed that Australia is a myth and dragged us back into the 1800's, a collection of separate colonies occupying the same continental land mass.

All for trying to prevent the ingress of the virus, on epidemiological grounds, but are state borders the best boundaries to serve this purpose? Isn't it time that we recognised that regional economies and regional workforces do not fit nicely into state borders.

Absolutely agree with your assessment of borders.A map of QLD Covid cases by LGA shows that most of QLD has not had a case.
Only the Brisbane LGA has had more than 195 cases.And only the Gold coast with more than 97.
Most of the LGAs that have had Covid cases have had 16 or less.

Queensland COVID-19 statistics

COVID-19 statistics for Queensland

www.qld.gov.au

 

[Lynda2475]

So what you are saying is a doctor who live in Wodonga, shouldn't be able to get an exemption to go to work to provide treatment to patients in Albury?

Nope that is an essential service, border towns have special arrangements, but that Wodonga doctor should not be allowed into any part of NSW apart from Albury without doing the mandatory quarantine i.e. no weekend trip to elsewhere in NSW. Albury had active cases acquired in Melbourne.

I am saying no compassionate or consular exemptions to mandatory quarantine if coming from a hotspot. So that women shouldn't have been allowed to come into NSW from Melbourne and by-pass hotel quarantine for a funeral (not essential, delay the funeral to allow for the quarantine period to be observed, or do not attend) nor for the the guy that flew on a domestic flight immediately after landing in Sydney from Kabul to go home.

 

[Hvr]

Nope that is an essential service, border towns have special arrangements, but that Wodonga doctor should not be allowed into any part of NSW apart from Albury without doing the mandatory quarantine i.e. no weekend trip to elsewhere in NSW. Albury had active cases acquired in Melbourne

So the Wodonga doctor can enter Albury to work but no further. However, any person the Wodonga doctor comes into contact with, even following safe working and social distancing practices, can go anywhere in NSW?

Which basically renders the quarantine moot because transmission can be carried from VIC to NSW and then throughout NSW.

Maybe Albury-Wodonga should be treated as being one entity and as part of the worst affected state?

 

[Flying mermaid]

Just back from WW at Woden. Probably about a half of the shoppers in the store wore masks (including me). I have no problem with the request from WW. They are not insisting, just asking. ACT has indicated that if cases pop up here or in the region then they pretty much would become required. NSW has suggested/recommended masks for when social distancing is problematic including at the supermarket and on public transport.
Chatting to the staff member at the bottle shop there he said a number of people have said they won't shop at WW if they have to wear a mask.

Ms FM and Mr FM will both be wearing masks when shopping at Coles on Wednesday. It’s just an extra precaution. I don’t think it’s necessary in ACT yet, but just not taking a chance, given he’s old and she has underlying health conditions. Mr FM said there was a noticeable increase in people wearing masks at Epic markets on Saturday.

the reusable cloth ones are not a big cost and we don’t go out much so plenty of time to wash them between excursions.

we did go to the vet on Saturday - that was interesting! Sat in the car and let them know we had arrived. Then had a phone consultation. Then they came out, took the dogs away and gave them their vaccinations, brought them back with a machine so we could pay. Felt very strange!

 

[p--and--t]

As far as mask wearing goes for examples in Woolworths, I think I would go with the advice from Norman Swan rather than some random person who would appear not to even have medical qualifications of any type.

I just heard someone say that they were not wearing a mask because it only protects other people and I don’t have the virus. That person can’t know that unless perhaps they’ve been just recently tested negative, and even then I’m sceptical.
The only issue I see is that people will not want to pay for them. Obviously pharmacies are selling them individually for around three dollars each and I think that will inhibit people from buying them as it is too expensive. Perhaps if they were one dollar each ....

Under $30 for a pack of 50 at Aldi for many weeks now.

 

[blackcat20]

I saw a (quite serious) suggestion this morning that Covid arrived via a meteorite

 

[Hvr]

I saw a (quite serious) suggestion this morning that Covid arrived via a meteorite

That travelled past Uranus? And communicated using 5G?

 

[JohnM]

I saw a (quite serious) suggestion this morning that Covid arrived via a meteorite

Not such a new idea... Panspermia - Wikipedia

 

[RAM]

Just back from WW at Woden. Probably about a half of the shoppers in the store wore masks (including me). I have no problem with the request from WW. They are not insisting, just asking. ACT has indicated that if cases pop up here or in the region then they pretty much would become required. NSW has suggested/recommended masks for when social distancing is problematic including at the supermarket and on public transport.
Chatting to the staff member at the bottle shop there he said a number of people have said they won't shop at WW if they have to wear a mask.

YES!

I look forward to them being people of their word! WW for me!

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Maybe Albury-Wodonga should be treated as being one entity and as part of the worst affected state?

This is one common sense way. Another would be to also look at cases in either side and where a logical border might best be. So in the Qld/ NSW coastal border case I assume that is south.

In Albury Wondonga south. In Cobram/ Barroga north. Though noth of these you could have done either way.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

429 cases and 13 deaths. 8 in aged care. From Dan.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Well while any one day's data should always be taken with a grain of salt it is surprising how the positivity rate bounces around so much.

VIC POSITIVE TESTS
Daily Confirmed Cases / Daily Test Results

DATE	CASES	TESTS	POS
Tue 28 Jul	353	18,521	1.91 %
Wed 29 Jul	255	18,077	1.41 %
Thu 30 Jul	694	19,921	3.48 %
Fri 31 Jul	579	33,826	1.71 %
Sat 1 Aug	354	25,501	1.39 %
Sun 2 Aug	626	19,094	3.28 %
Mon 3 Aug	380	23,906	1.59 %

 

[jase05]

Tasmania’s state borders will remain closed
Tasmania’s state borders, which were to reopen to selected states this week , will remain closed in light of the ongoing coronavirus on the mainland, Premier Peter Gutwein has announced.

Mr Gutwein said the state will be closed to all until at least August 31 .

 

[Lynda2475]

Maybe Albury-Wodonga should be treated as being one entity and as part of the worst affected state?

Makes sense. Put Albury under regional Vic restrictions.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

New Vic Business/Job restrictions. They kick in at different times from midnight Weds to Friday for Melbourne GMMA. Meatworks etc will be statewide though.

STAY OPEN

Anything to do with buying food stay open. Supermarkets, bakers etc

TO CLOSE

Business to close. Shop-front Retails (ie online stays), some manufacturing, some admin will close.

Bunnings one cannot go into, but can buy and collect at drive thru pick up.


TO ALTER
Midnight Friday - Meatworks and the like to to move to 2/3 production plus heightened safety protocols. ie Must dress like heath-workers with shields.


CONSTRUCTION

Workforces have already been reduced by about half per site.
Large buildings above 3 - workforces to be reduced to no more than 25%
Houses - stay working, but no more than 5 persons per site.

Note: The above is a snapshot. Full guidelines will be published.

$5000 grant for businesses that need to close in regional Vic. For Melbourne GMMA and Mitchell Shire an additional $5000 grant for businesses that qualified for the recent $5000 grant. So $10000 in total.