Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[moa999]

Dooley's is a pretty big club. Surely they could be a bit more specific within the venue.

 

[flyingfan]

The Age (and news.com.au echoing it) reports it was a Rydges night duty manager that became infected, rather than a contracted security guard.

If so, that would blunt the intense focus on those guards and poor management of them as the single cause of the second wave.

Patient zero for Victoria's second wave was not a security guard

Leaked emails show the infection that started the COVID-19 outbreak in Victoria came from a staff member in hotel quarantine.

www.theage.com.au

I think though that the source of this info (leaked emails) needs more corroboration, like that much-talked about genomic sequencing. Too early to say that using police or ADF instead of those private guards would have changed things, because you still need hotel staff that know their own hotel to be involved

 

[jakeseven7]

Cheerful Friday news!

From interviews this morning it appears NSW Health have concerns about testing rates in the hot spots of W and SW Sydney, rather than testing rates overall which suggests perhaps the wrong people are turning up for testing....

——

NSW virus cases likely '10 times' higher


An epidemiologist has revealed NSW's COVID-19 cases are likely 10 times higher than what's being reported, with the rise in mystery cases indicating higher rates of community transmission.

University of Melbourne epidemiologist, Tony Blakely, told the ABC that a portion of the undetected cases would be from “silent transmission”.

“So, if they’ve got an average of 20 [cases per day] in the last week, that means that at any one point in time, there’s about 200 other cases out there that we don’t know about. Basically, 10 times the daily count,” he said.

“If you’ve got a case that pops up and you can’t trace it back to its source, and you assume that tracking has been done well it means it’s come from silent transmission.”

NSW has recorded at least 12 mystery cases with no source in the past week alone, with three of those announced as part of Thursday’s eight COVID-19 cases.

Coronavirus NSW live updates

Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, has hit out at the "childish" way the situation between the Queensland and NSW border is being handled.

www.news.com.au

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Victoria has recorded 372 new cases of coronavirus and 14 deaths in the past 24 hours.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Cheerful Friday news!

From interviews this morning it appears NSW Health have concerns about testing rates in the hot spots of W and SW Sydney, rather than testing rates overall which suggests perhaps the wrong people are turning up for testing....

Here is the NSW heat map for cases and tests.....as they haven’t released today’s test figures you might have to adjust the date bar by a day or two.

To me, it seems ok. But I’m not an epidemiologist.

NSW COVID-19 cases, deaths and testing statistics

The latest weekly case numbers, testing figures totals and related COVID-19 statistics in NSW.

www.nsw.gov.au

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

I am wondering whether NSW is focussing on the right type of transmission locations.........is it just restaurants, cafes, pubs, clubs, funeral / religious, gyms, schools, workplaces, perhaps shopping centres?

If the Victorian experience is right and they only found 6 asymptomatic cases (I don’t know how many turned up for a test without symptoms), I wonder why NSW haven’t found the upstream sources of about 7 Community transmission (unknown source) from more than two weeks ago. To me 7 seems to be quite a large number. I guess it does matter less since the unidentified source is probably not infectious now, but it does make me wonder whether NSW has uncovered all the right types of transmission locations.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Qld has 2 new confirmed cases (1 returned traveller from Sydney in hotel quarantine and 1 person on a cargo ship off the coast)

 

[Lynda2475]

it appears NSW Health have concerns about testing rates in the hot spots of W and SW Sydney, rather than testing rates overall which suggests perhaps the wrong people are turning up for testing.

Possibly, the main hotspots have remained consistently South West Sydney (Liverpool, Fairfield and Campbletown LGAs) and Western Sydney (Paramatta, Harris Park) - the other areas have 1-2 cases and likely interacted with someone form the West or South west. Those areas have large migrant populations of people who have English as 2nd or 3rd language - so possibly not all the messaging is getting through.

I am wondering whether NSW is focusing on the right type of transmission locations.........is it just restaurants, cafes, pubs, clubs, funeral / religious, gyms, schools, workplaces, perhaps shopping centres?

Workplaces is the one obvious missing category - people living in the hotspot suburbs are likely to be lower income. That said if you look at where the infections were actually acquired (based on clusters) as opposed to just the venues where positive cases visited the highest numbers of cases have been:
* religious gatherings (funeral cluster, our lady of Lebanon, OLMC School, Tangara School clusters),
* Restaurants (Thai Rock, Apollo) and
* Pubs/Clubs that are pokie venues (Crossroads, Mounties, Star City and other pubs) - mixing alcohol consumption with temptation of gambling isnt proving to be wise.

The 2 gym cases were actually from Crossroads and haven't seen any cases confirmed from cafes or supermarkets.

We are seeing fines for pubs and restaurants not following their covid safe plans - time to send the inspectors into places of worship and high schools.

Ive said it many times before if NSW govt introduce more restrictions the first should be to close places of worship (or at least go back to 10 person limit - 100 people is a complete joke) and close pokie venues (only allow the restaurant area of pubs to open with 2 alcoholic drink maximum whilst dininig, not the pokie rooms or common bar) and masks on public transport.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Workplaces is the one obvious missing category - people living in the hotspot suburns are likley to be lower income. That said if you look at where the infections were actually acquired (based on clusters) as opposed to just the venues where positive cases visited the highest numbers of cases have been:
* religious gatherings (funeral cluster, our lady of Lebanon, OLMC School, Tangara School clusters),
* Restaurants (Thai Rock, Apollo) and
* Pubs/Clubs that are pokie venues (Crossroads, Mounties, Star City and other pubs) - mixing alcohol consumption with temptation of gambling isnt proving to be wise.

The 2 gym cases were actually from Crossroads and havent seen any cases confirmed from cafes or supermarkets.

We are seeing fines for pubs and restaurants not following their covid safe plans - time to send the inspectors into places of worship and high schools.

Ive said it many times before if NSW govt introduce more restrictions the first should be to close places of worship (or at least go back to 10 person limit - 100 people is a complete joke) and close pokie venues (only allow the restaurant area of pubs to open with 2 alcoholic drink maximum whilst dininig, not the pokie rooms or common bar) and masks on public transport.

Thanks, I was wondering about other new types of venues / locations....focussing on what we don’t know or might be missing.

To poke a small hole in your insistence to close religious and gambling.
- the recent religious gathering exemption has yielded no cases so far (fingers crossed) and it’s been just on two weeks now.
- the Star City has not been the site of any transmission, just had a late night visitor I think - it’s never been a Phase 2 venue.
Edit: - Crossroads is said to happen in the dining room by a superspreader getting 14 people.

 

[Lynda2475]

Did anyone actually ever think it could be beaten though (pre vaccine / pre treatment)?

Nope - while ever we have overseas arrivals, overseas freight etc suppression is all that can be achieved. Australia needs to be able to export goods and import goods so people will be crossing our international and state borders continuously, we can never be a true island, so that means the risk remains until the whole world has suppressed the virus (i.e 80% of the work is vaccinated). You may get periods of no community transmission but it only takes 1 mishap (and humans are very fallable even with the best intentions to comply) and this insidious virus will find a host - NZ proves this.

Interesting that the study centre involved is part of Opus Dei. Dan Brown eat your heart out.

The Tangara school itself is run by Optus Dei. Religious types seem less inclined to follow government directions. Mum's with kids at the school were all over talk back radio yesterday dobbing the school in for numerous flouting of govt guidelines, Im sure a fine will be headed their way.

 

[Lynda2475]

the recent religious gathering exemption has yielded no cases so far (fingers crossed) and it’s been just on two weeks now

I did not agree with the exemption they got, but because the media were everywhere they were under direct scrutiny so had, I suspect much higher compliance than if the cameras weren't there. With Dooley's could be either a pokie or church link - time will tell.

I haven't been to a pub since early March - and have been clear to friends I wont attend any venue that has pokies as too high risk (am really missing my Tuesday Night Pub Trivia friends).

 

[jakeseven7]

the main hotspots have remained consistently South West Sydney (Liverpool, Fairfield and Campbletown LGAs) and Western Sydney (Paramatta, Harris Park) - the other areas have 1-2 cases and likely interacted with someone form the West or South west. Those areas have large migrant populations of people who have English as 2nd or 3rd language - so possibly not all the messaging is getting through.=

Sounds like something we have heard before.... You would think there would be some lessons learned by now

Ive said it many times before if NSW govt introduce more restrictions the first should be to close places of worship (or at least go back to 10 person limit - 100 people is a complete joke) and close pokie venues (only allow the restaurant area of pubs to open with 2 alcoholic drink maximum whilst dininig, not the pokie rooms or common bar) and masks on public transport.

There seems to be huge reluctance to put in any restrictions in NSW and they have been very gradual compared to 'Just do it Jacinda' and 'Slam the borders shut' Anna who have pulled the trigger instantly on the smallest whiff of trouble. Its interesting comparing approaches. I'm not judging who is right or wrong, there have been some appalling consequences from Jacinda and Anna's approach as well.... cuts both ways.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

I did not agree with the exemption they got, but because the media were everywhere they were under direct scrutiny so had, I suspect much higher compliance than if the cameras weren't there. With Dooley's could be either a pokie or church link - time will tell.

I haven't been to a pub since early March - and have been clear to friends I wont attend any venue that has pokies as too high risk (am really missing my Tuesday Night Pub Trivia friends).

I didn’t agree with the exemption either, but I’m also willing to concede when it’s likely there has been no transmission.

Dooleys sounds like a staff member got it, so if a cluster happens perhaps similar issues as restaurants.

I think it’s almost got to a point that all dining venues need employees with masks. And perhaps review table spacing (Qld transmission to adjacent table) bit more. The amount of spread dining v pokies seems to lean towards dining.

My thinking why clubs are the hotspots, because their food is cheaper and equally tasty......why? Subsidised by pokie profits.

 

[Lynda2475]

SMH reports (Coronavirus LIVE updates: Victoria records 14 deaths, 372 new COVID-19 cases on Friday; NSW still facing ongoing cases; New Zealand cluster grows to 13):

NSW records nine new coronavirus cases from more than 29,000 tests
By Mary Ward

NSW has recorded nine new coronavirus cases in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

Five of the cases were locally acquired and linked to known cases, including an employee at Dooleys Catholic Club at Lidcombe and a staff member at Liverpool Hospital reported in the media yesterday.

An additional Tangara School for Girls student has tested positive, bringing the size of that cluster to 21.

One of the nine cases has no known source and is currently under investigation.

The remaining three cases are in returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

The single-digit case number, lower than that of previous days, came as the state recorded 29,696 tests during the same period.

There have now been 3747 coronavirus cases in NSW since the start of the pandemic.

There are currently 131 coronavirus cases being treated by NSW Health, of which 89 per cent are in out-of-hospital care. There are six people with the virus in ICU, five of whom are on ventilators.

 

[Lynda2475]

ABC NEWS is reporting that in Victoria "A Whittlesea man who stated he was in Richmond to visit work colleagues but could not produce appropriate documentation. The man has been fined nine times previously for breaching the Chief Health Officer’s directives"

How is this guy still able to move about the community? Surely he should be detained if unwilling to comply, clearly fines having zero effect on his behaviour!

 

[Pushka]

The man has been fined nine times previously for breaching the Chief Health Officer’s directives"

And they wonder why some flout the rules. There are no consequences. I’m betting he’s not paid the fines either. He’d be in jail if he was in SA.

 

[Denali]

ABC NEWS is reporting that in Victoria "A Whittlesea man who stated he was in Richmond to visit work colleagues but could not produce appropriate documentation. The man has been fined nine times previously for breaching the Chief Health Officer’s directives"

How is this guy still able to move about the community? Surely he should be detained if unwilling to comply, clearly fines having zero effect on his behaviour!

No idea about this guy but Ive wondered how drug addicts are managing the restrictions. Do their dealers deliver or they have to risk fines to go out and find drugs?

 

[dajop]

No idea about this guy but Ive wondered how drug addicts are managing the restrictions. Do their dealers deliver or they have to risk fines to go out and find drugs?

IIRC, there was an article a few days ago about Uber etc being used essentially as drug couriers, as ways of getting the good from the suppliers to their clients. Where there's a will there's a way.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Victoria has recorded 372 new cases of coronavirus and 14 deaths in the past 24 hours.

One of the deaths was a male his 20's.

Youngest death in Australia to date.

Genetic testing shows coronavirus outbreak strain new to NZ, Ardern says

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says evidence points to coronavirus being reintroduced into New Zealand recently rather than the virus remaining "dormant" in the country.

www.abc.net.au

 

[OZDUCK]

And they wonder why some flout the rules. There are no consequences. I’m betting he’s not paid the fines either. He’d be in jail if he was in SA.

Or in WA

Woman ‘snuck into WA’ despite permit

A woman is facing a fine of up to $50,000 or possible jail time after allegedly sneaking through WA’s hard border — despite having permission to enter the State.

www.perthnow.com.au