Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[suze2000]

@Lynda2475 your point is well taken about arrival numbers, but if you were a Melburnian who lived through last year's lockdown, you would think that ANY arrivals is too risky. Many of us are struggling with fear and borderline PTSD about this. There's a reason there's been an exodus out of Melbs in the last six months. If I had my way, nobody would be getting in unless they came through Howard Springs as I believe it's the only suitable facility that's open at the moment. And I'm not unsympathetic to those stuck overseas, but they need to come in safely. And by safely, I mean in a way that doesn't put whole cities at risk, not to mention the people in quarantine with them.

 

[Must...Fly!]

but if you were a Melburnian who lived through last year's lockdown, you would think that ANY arrivals is too risky.

Don't speak for everyone.

With proper contact tracing there is very little risk of city or state-wide lockdowns. Or at least there should be but states don't trust their own systems they have had well over one year now to set up and have run efficiently.

I have no desire to re-live a lock down but everyone has to do their bit to keep essential travel in and out of the country going. Victoria is clearly not.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Well it's not like there are many direct flights anyway. Indian market has always been heavily reliant on transit in the big ME and Asian hubs

 

[serfty]

I believe they have now

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

To clarify, the relevant authorities of these places had already suspended flights/transit from India. Not the Australian government.

 

[Pushka]

To clarify, the relevant authorities of these places had already suspended flights/transit from India. Not the Australian government.

But SA is still receiving many from the sub continent. Maybe via KL.

 

[suze2000]

With proper contact tracing there is very little risk of city or state-wide lockdowns.

I have no desire to re-live a lock down but everyone has to do their bit to keep essential travel in and out of the country going. Victoria is clearly not.

But time and time again, we have seen contact tracing fail badly.

Do you really think the Vic govt has 100 people sitting in a room just waiting for another outbreak so the contact tracing could be done quickly and efficiently?

I guess the debate for your second point is: what is essential travel? To my mind, there's very little that qualifies. I've watched my husband who used to fly weekly for work manage to do his job effectively from within the house for a year now. He had his first work trip a couple of weeks ago and currently sees nothing in his future that would require another. And I just do not believe that those people that fly overseas for work cannot be replaced by locals, once suitably trained, or that their job cannot be done remotely. What I think is that the will to recruit and train locals isn't there for those companies that import labour. There are a few exceptions, but not that many.

And as for weddings funerals and the like: attend virtually, like we did last year. This is the definition of non-essential travel IMO. You won't stop the person from dying by getting on a plane. And before people start howling me down, yes, this happened to me (with a dying relative) during the Melb lockdown last year. If you choose to live away from loved ones you accept the risk that they may die without you there. Even in pre-covid times, this happened to people all the time. And before the jet age, you'd get a 6 week old letter informing you that Nonna had passed away. Why do we think we are so special now?

 

[Pushka]

I guess the debate for your second point is: what is essential travel? To my mind, there's very little that qualifies. I've watched my husband who used to fly weekly for work manage to do his job effectively from within the house for a year now. He had his first work trip a couple of weeks ago and currently sees nothing in his future that would require another.

As did my husband but he has been back travelling interstate every week for about a month now. Can I just say the fact that he, and the groups of people he works with, were jubilant that they no longer had to zoom for every single workshop, which frequently lasted the full day. They were so excited to see him and each other, in person. MrP's eyesight has deteriorated from all the computer work and he has a few lingering back and shoulder issues from sitting hunched over a desk for hours at a time. As a facilitator he would usually have spent the day on his feet and walking around. This also kept him fit.

And watching your children get married by zoom would be the pits and not a world I want to be in.

 

[DC3]

The channel 7 news tonight featured a footy fan arriving from Perth yesterday and despite being told they were not allowed to go to the game, they said they would would ‘try their luck’ and see if they could get in. They did.

The messages were clear from both ticketmaster and the AFL that this person could not enter unless they had a negative test.

What to do?

Reminds me of why home quarantine had issues. Some can’t be trusted to do the right thing.

 

[jase05]

The channel 7 news tonight featured a footy fan arriving from Perth yesterday and despite being told they were not allowed to go to the game, they said they would would ‘try their luck’ and see if they could get in. They did.

The messages were clear from both ticketmaster and the AFL that this person could not enter unless they had a negative test.

What to do?

I found it laughable that on Sunday as I’m sitting there amongst 78,000 others there was a message on the scoreboard shown every few minutes asking people to leave if they had been in Perth or other high risk areas. Like someone is just going to get up and leave

 

[bcworld]

But time and time again, we have seen contact tracing fail badly.

Have we?

 

[suze2000]

And watching your children get married by zoom would be the pits and not a world I want to be in.

We live in a post-covid world. I don't believe we are ever going to get back to the freedom of movement we had before.

 

[Pushka]

We live in a post-covid world. I don't believe we are ever going to get back to the freedom of movement we had before.

I don't consider this a freedom but a right. It's called humanity. If we can't get to that then really, we may be alive but we sure as heck aren't living.

 

[N860CR]

We live in a post-covid world. I don't believe we are ever going to get back to the freedom of movement we had before.

Sorry but this statement is absolutely insane. Yes, I appreciate that you’re scared, but this is not armageddon. We don’t stop the world for every virus that appears. Realistically, if you’re under 70 then the risk from this particular coronavirus is negligible. Once the elderly are vaccinated, then we can start to move on.

While plenty of Australians can afford to hide under the doona indefinitely, the vast majority of the world can’t.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Have we?

Pretty much since Oct most outbreaks anywhere in Australia once found have become quickly contained and quenched.

Avalon already had momentum before found and so took longer.

Plus now there are more ways that new cases are found earlier, and so outbreaks are a lot less to have time to grow undetected.

We should really have the faith to rely on the systems in place without having to resort to lockdowns, or state border restrictions which probably do little or nothing when cases are few.

Yes Vic got a case from WA recently, but was contained swiftly.

 

[Seat0B]

I found it laughable that on Sunday as I’m sitting there amongst 78,000 others there was a message on the scoreboard shown every few minutes asking people to leave if they had been in Perth or other high risk areas. Like someone is just going to get up and leave

and it's also laughable that we had such restricted numbers for ANZAC Day marches

 

[Seat0B]

I don't consider this a freedom but a right. It's called humanity. If we can't get to that then really, we may be alive but we sure as heck aren't living.

I saw a WWII soldier interviewed recently (sorry cannot now recall the source) this year and he said "In my generation, we risked our lives to save freedom. Now we are risking our freedom to save lives." The sentiment stuck with me, because that is very much how I feel.

 

[OATEK]

But time and time again, we have seen contact tracing fail badly.

Do you really think the Vic govt has 100 people sitting in a room just waiting for another outbreak so the contact tracing could be done quickly and efficiently?

I guess the debate for your second point is: what is essential travel? To my mind, there's very little that qualifies. I've watched my husband who used to fly weekly for work manage to do his job effectively from within the house for a year now. He had his first work trip a couple of weeks ago and currently sees nothing in his future that would require another. And I just do not believe that those people that fly overseas for work cannot be replaced by locals, once suitably trained, or that their job cannot be done remotely. What I think is that the will to recruit and train locals isn't there for those companies that import labour. There are a few exceptions, but not that many.

And as for weddings funerals and the like: attend virtually, like we did last year. This is the definition of non-essential travel IMO. You won't stop the person from dying by getting on a plane. And before people start howling me down, yes, this happened to me (with a dying relative) during the Melb lockdown last year. If you choose to live away from loved ones you accept the risk that they may die without you there. Even in pre-covid times, this happened to people all the time. And before the jet age, you'd get a 6 week old letter informing you that Nonna had passed away. Why do we think we are so special now?

Actually, yes I do think the Vic Gov (and NSW Gov) has call centres ready to go. They can be reassigned from their normal functions where they deal with family/children services issues, legal and consumer complaint functions etc. Just change the scripts! Have you ever seen a call centre in operation, and how they frequently change functions, calling up the appropriate scripts?

 

[Flying mermaid]

We live in a post-covid world. I don't believe we are ever going to get back to the freedom of movement we had before.

I do hope you are wrong! It seems like we will never be normal again, but I suspect in another few years we will and will look at this period as something horrible, but we survived it.

 

[suze2000]

I don't consider this a freedom but a right. It's called humanity. If we can't get to that then really, we may be alive but we sure as heck aren't living.

That's pretty extreme. We live in one of the most liberal democracies in the world. And right now, there's probably close to 1 billion Indians who would love to have been living in "isolated" Australia and not allowed to leave all this time. (my unscientific survey of recent Uber drivers backs this up)

 

[NM]

And watching your children get married by zoom would be the pits and not a world I want to be in.

Yep, we had to do that. The wedding was less than 20km from our home, but we could only watch via zoom. They finally had a wedding reception 9 months after the wedding.