Australian state border restrictions

[Must...Fly!]

Fixed that!

At least the yacht race will be a contest...

 

[Jacques Vert]

I reckon the interstate visitor test demands has a lot to do with the emergency cabinet meeting on border restrictions, and the smaller states seriously need to be called out on this.

Qld announced today over 200,000 entry passes issued in the first week. Add to that pre-arrival test requirements from SA, NT and Tas and you have a huge additional demand on test resources particularly in NSW and Vic where there is a lot of pressure already from increasing case numbers and close contacts. Lengthening times for results to come back also mean it’s becoming an impracticable demand.

At the same time Qld appears to be letting itself off the hook for post arrival testing. How convenient.

Went to the drive-through testing centre in Coffs Harbour today. Lot of interstate number plates in the queue.

We arrived at 0700 and waited 4 hours to get to the testing tent. By the time we got there the queue had grown substantially; at least 5 hour wait for a test. Assume lots of travellers heading to Qld swelling the ranks.

Reports that getting the results have blown out to 48 hours +.

Given the test has to be within 72 hours, any further blow out in the time test results take to come back will see people queued at the border waiting for their texted results. If the results arrive after the 72 hour mark, will they be denied entry?

Another issue is that you cannot (without fibbing) apply for the border pass until you have your result.

Something's got to give.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Something's got to give.

Something is giving, and it's the people who actually have symptoms and the clinical need for a test being unable to get one.

 

[jakeseven7]

Went to the drive-through testing centre in Coffs Harbour today. Lot of interstate number plates in the queue.

We arrived at 0700 and waited 4 hours to get to the testing tent. By the time we got there the queue had grown substantially; at least 5 hour wait for a test. Assume lots of travellers heading to Qld swelling the ranks.

Reports that getting the results have blown out to 48 hours +.

Given the test has to be within 72 hours, any further blow out in the time test results take to come back will see people queued at the border waiting for their texted results. If the results arrive after the 72 hour mark, will they be denied entry?

Another issue is that you cannot (without fibbing) apply for the border pass until you have your result.

Something's got to give.

On ABC news - because of their border restrictions, SA again had 5-7 hour wait times today (2-3) for appointments and again apparently staff were abused. Frontline staff are not the ones making these insane rules up. I repeat hope National Cabinet can sort this border mess out…

 

[exceladdict]

On ABC news - because of their border restrictions, SA again had 5-7 hour wait times today (2-3) for appointments and again apparently staff were abused. Frontline staff are not the ones making these insane rules up. I repeat hope National Cabinet can sort this border mess out…

Hopefully there is genuine conversation about what is working, what is not, and the consequences of decisions.

But unfortunately, there's a few elections next year so the popular opinion contest gets in the way

 

[Pushka]

Thank you for this information. Sounds like the suburban testing stations would be the better option. The only "issue" (if you can call it that) is there is no real time wait time information on the SA Health website.

As you enter the terminal upon disembarking, is the line for police checking your details reasonably efficient?

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[dylarr]

Went to the drive-through testing centre in Coffs Harbour today. Lot of interstate number plates in the queue.

We arrived at 0700 and waited 4 hours to get to the testing tent. By the time we got there the queue had grown substantially; at least 5 hour wait for a test. Assume lots of travellers heading to Qld swelling the ranks.

Reports that getting the results have blown out to 48 hours +.

Given the test has to be within 72 hours, any further blow out in the time test results take to come back will see people queued at the border waiting for their texted results. If the results arrive after the 72 hour mark, will they be denied entry?

Another issue is that you cannot (without fibbing) apply for the border pass until you have your result.

Something's got to give.

I've been in Yamba the last few days and got a test at the nearest testing centre that was open yesterday which happened to be in Grafton (run by NSW Health / NSW Health Pathology).

I arrived at 9am, the opening time, and there was already enough people in the line in order for it to be a 2.5hr wait. Pretty much everyone in the line was going to QLD and the nurse said at least 90% of all the people she had tested were the same.

The day before (Saturday), there were 5+ hr waits and they had to close off the line early in the afternoon. A lot of people on Sunday morning had been turned away Saturday afternoon.

Got my test results at 6:30pm this evening, so a 31 hour turnaround time. Just applied for my QLD border pass and it came through within a couple of minutes.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Fixed that!

Indeed, if Tassie puts up its borders again, their hopes of hosting a cricket match will be in ashes!

Of course the media have whipped this up and the state premiers will rule. Australia is just a joke.
I really hope that any restrictions are met with huge rallies in cities with general mayhem.

A big question no politician has the guts to handle is how to deal with COVID. Right now they keep yapping on about living with it, but the reality is this virus will likely be with us for some time. Constantly jumping back and forth creates uncertainty and there is little evidence it results in better health outcomes. For instance, when Sydney had its lockdown earlier this year, in the hours leading up to the lockdown I could see Woolies and other stores packed to the brim with people. Not particularly COVID safe. Meanwhile people are so turned off from travel right now that arguably the safest place to be in Sydney is the airport given how deserted it is. The government also made a deal with us, get the jab and life goes back to normal. Well we've more than satisfied our end of the bargain!

At the same time there are so many new tools available to make the pandemic manageable, in effect dealing with the problem. Lateral flow tests are cheap and can be easily distributed by the government to residents. If every resident tested once a week we would do a way better job at spotting and isolating COVID residents than the slow, expensive and ineffective PCR tests which represent the tin standard for testing.

I would propose an ultimatum from NSW/VIC/ACT. If the other jurisdictions don’t remove the test requirements, then all citizens of QLD/SA/TAS/NT will be required to obtain a test within 24 hours of departure from their state if they are going to NSW/VIC/ACT. Returning residents exempt (sound familiar Tasmania?)

This will crash the testing system in those states, just like it has done in our states. And it won’t take much to do it either, none of them have any scale.

Some reciprocity may be warranted. At this point the states are becoming more sovereign in how they deal with matters of travel and health. So much for living in a commonwealth.

You do realise many countries in Europe are bringing back restrictions. Please read some global news, get out of your anti Australia bubble.

It hardly got a mention in the news, ppl barely care about national cabinet if at all.

Yes rallies & mayhem is the answer.... I don't think.

Feel free to leave anytime, now your allowed. Maybe better countries out there ..

It's not fair to compare Australia to Europe. Much of Europe remains unvaccinated, with many countries having 0 plans to offer boosters which we know can greatly reduced symptomatic infection of Omicron. They are also in the winter and in some parts of Europe the winter is quite harsh (i.e., cold and snowy). Hence, people are staying indoors more and Delta/Omicron spread like bushfire indoors. As far as the protest and rallies I don't get what they are protesting about? Do they want lockdowns? Do they want the border to close? Quite frankly we've made a huge amount of progress so far. The key now is to lock in this progress through any means necessary. If it means having to get a booster, having to wear a silly mask indoors, taking a lateral flow test every week, so be it. Let us never have to revisit Lockdown Australia 2020, again - 18 months of having the country in a full lockdown may have been appropriate at the time, when we had no vaccines, no treatment and no idea on how COVID spread and it certainly saved lives but it also came at a huge cost.

-RooFlyer88

 

[jakeseven7]

Quite frankly we've made a huge amount of progress so far. The key now is to lock in this progress through any means necessary. If it means having to get a booster, having to wear a silly mask indoors, taking a lateral flow test every week, so be it. Let us never have to revisit Lockdown Australia 2020 again

The one thing I’m not worried about is is they try and do a lockdown again, because there will literally be riots in the streets. Even my grandma will ignore it. They have burned that option out and they know it.

But these state border restrictions are just ridiculous and you correctly point out that we are two years into this now with better treatments, testing options and understanding of the virus.

It’s just because we have these pretty average state politicians just trying to save their own skin and mix that up with purist clinicians who don’t live in the real world and don’t understand public health (most of ATAGI) and you end up with this mess where we are right now.

I just hope after Nat Cab today we have more visibility on how they are going to coordinate a more lucid response to border restrictions and other things (but I’m so pessimistic given the lack of brain power in the room and their personal agendas ).

 

[justinbrett]

I just hope after Nat Cab today we have more visibility on how they are going to coordinate a more lucid response to border restrictions and other things (but I’m so pessimistic given the lack of brain power in the room and their personal agendas ).

It’s on tomorrow.

 

[N860CR]

It’s on tomorrow.

Thanks. I had a mild panic for a minute that I was a day late!

The testing just isn’t sustainable. Two inner west drive through clinics closed over the weekend as it was “too hot”. There are cars lined up for hours to get tests (which I’d imagine is a combination of travelers and woke inner city people in a panic because the Guardian told them to be). For those of us who still need surveillance testing every 72 hours it’s becoming a real nightmare. That’s before even considering travel.

It’s going to have a serious negative impact. People are just going to wing it (pardon the pun) and hope they aren’t checked on arrival (which is almost guaranteed in Queensland). International arrivals are going to release themselves before receiving test results. This is seriously defeating the purpose of the exercise.

 

[Lynda2475]

It’s on tomorrow

And being reported that Dan & Dom are pitching to change the definition of fully vaxed to 3 doses, and bring boosters forward to 4 months.

Whilst SA, Tas and Qld want to talk closing borders again.

 

[jakeseven7]

And being reported that Dan & Dom are pitching to change the definition of fully vaxed to 3 doses, and bring boosters forward to 4 months.

I 100% support the boosters being brought forward based on what we are seeing. I also (surprisingly ) still think ATAGI does not have the right people and perspective to be making these decisions.

But what I really want is an end to this border testing nonsense.

SA apparently called VIC for help with testing resources can you even believe it! I hope they were hung up on.

 

[antycbr]

And being reported that Dan & Dom are pitching to change the definition of fully vaxed to 3 doses, and bring boosters forward to 4 months.

Whilst SA, Tas and Qld want to talk closing borders again.

I have a number of bookings for all three states mentioned above.

That will turn into yet more credit with the airlines, which will be turned into a one way international ticket out of here.

 

[jase05]

Whilst SA, Tas and Qld want to talk closing borders again.

I don’t believe that is the case just yet and not a view shared by all in the SA committee. They have been talking about the 4 months for boosters and the 3 jab policy for a couple of weeks now so I’d think they would strongly support any NSW and VIC proposal on that.
I really hope we show some common sense in regards to borders but I have no faith in them unfortunately.

 

[Must...Fly!]

And being reported that Dan & Dom are pitching to change the definition of fully vaxed to 3 doses, and bring boosters forward to 4 months

I'm no fan of this idea of once again shifting goalposts.

 

[Lynda2475]

But what I really want is an end to this border testing nonsense.

Agree

I'm no fan of this idea of once again shifting goalposts.

If they change definition of fully vaxed to 3 doses tomorrow, then Im good to go anyway.

Israel has already done this, i think you will see it become the definition around the world, and possibly need for an annual booster too to stay current.

 

[justinbrett]

Whilst SA, Tas and Qld want to talk closing borders again.

I don’t personally believe that is the case - not with Queensland anyway. They already have the power to close their border or increase the measures and they haven’t. In actual fact it sounds like they might ditch the day 5 test.

I didn’t like their new CHO at first but I’ve been listening to him since I arrived here and he’s actually quite sensible. The horse has bolted on closing the borders anyway and he has already acknowledged that.

As for Dom pushing the three dose definition, considering we don’t need to be vaccinated to do most things in NSW anymore, I can’t see why he would care either way unless it’s specifically about the international border. But no point introducing that until you’ve completed the rollout otherwise all of us going overseas this Christmas won’t be allowed back in.

 

[jase05]

But what I really want is an end to this border testing nonsense.

Absolutely. Pure madness

 

[Lynda2475]

In actual fact it sounds like they might ditch the day 5 test.

I hope they do

considering we don’t need to be vaccinated to do most things in NSW anymore, I can’t see why he would care either way

Well that easing was based on high fully vaxed rate, if too much of the population has waning immunity they need to boost it up, hence definition change.

But no point introducing that until you’ve completed the rollout otherwise all of us going overseas this Christmas won’t be allowed back in.

The 2 doses rollout for 12+ is basically done, anyone in that cohort has more than enough time to be double jabbed by now, and most 40+ are already at 5 or more months since jab 2, so roll-on with the boosters.

Introduction would be based on time since second dose, so if it was under 4 months they'd let you back in. If your already there get a booster before you leave, plenty of doses available - that is why NSW Health has been SMS spamming people.

None of us will know what is going to get discussed, lets just hope some common sense prevails and they dont make it harder to travel interstate and get back home again.

My hotel booking for next week, allows me to get a full credit if state entry rules change but only if I request it within 48 hours of the announcement, so I need Anna to make up her mind swiftly with whatever she announces.