Could, but they'll take a cut, and take ages afaik. I could take credit with a bonus, to use at a later date. Will be playing it by ear as it draws closer.Quote:
Originally Posted by DaptoDog
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Could, but they'll take a cut, and take ages afaik. I could take credit with a bonus, to use at a later date. Will be playing it by ear as it draws closer.Quote:
Originally Posted by DaptoDog
134 new cases from yesterday for Victoria... down a fair bit from yesterday, but this is just a one-off number that may not yet be a trend back down. They may have just been focussing most of their testing on known cluster areas that were already targeted in the last few days, which had already captured most of the new cases there... and it can take a week for new clusters or outbreaks in new areas to start showing up and then be targeted with testing.
Melbourne is now back into the type of lockdown they had in April when the virus first hit... which for some it never ended, so this is like the fourth month of disruptions or isolation. :(
Edit - it seems that jetstar had a flight from Melbourne to Sydney last night, that allowed its passengers to leave the plane and airport without any testing or quarantining of anyone positive (or having them self-isolate as a precaution).
The news report says there were about 50 people on the plane, and it was still a few hours before the NSW-VIC border closed... but considering how much is at stake at the moment, and the impending closure of the borders, it's like the Ruby Princess cruise-ship all over again, with NSW Health not screening a vessel from a known hotspot.
From yesterday's cases announced today - another 2 infected people inside NSW that aren't returned travellers (one was from Melbourne), and 3 in the ACT (traced back to one person from Melbourne)... maybe the containment lines were just a little too late to prevent infected people travelling interstate.
And now the NSW premier is telling her residents not to travel to any border towns. A scrambling effort that is now probably too late, when she could have had the borders limiting and screening travel between the two states for the last few months like other states... back when she kept saying that border closures are wrong and stupid.
(on a side note, it was disappointing but not surprising, that the prime minister followed the example of trump and used the virus update press conference today to talk up a couple of coalition policies before taking questions... so TV channels had to stay on him so that they didn't miss the Q&A on the virus)
165 new cases in VIC from yesterday.
The constantly changing status of the borders is really difficult to keep up with, particularly if you are planning ahead to travel interstate, or need to.
Tomorrow, QLD is supposed to be opening its border up to every state except Victoria.
Tasmania and South Australia are also closing off access to Victoria for the foreseeable future. I think NT and WA are also open to everyone except Victoria now, but I'm not sure without spending some time looking into it.
This site has links to each state's covid-19 info page, so if you needing to find out and aren't sure, start there.
WA is very easy to remember. Nobody is welcome. And there is no timeframe now as to when this will change.
The numbers from the last two days were both over 200 on each day (288 and 216)... and now at least 3 cases in Albury, and 2 cases in the south of Sydney that is suspected of being from some travellers from Melbourne before the borders closed. Hopefully they didn't interact with too many people before they were tested... but it just takes one asymptomatic person they spread it to, to spread it around for a couple weeks without knowing that they were infected.
One of the American military people in Darwin has tested positive, but hopefully those people are isolated like any other foreign arrival.
It is being recommended that people in Melbourne should try to wear a mask or scarf across their face when out in public. (just don't wear a loose scarf and constantly be adjusting it back up every time it slips down off your face, like someone I saw in the background of a news report yesterday, because you are touching your face or the fabric near your nose and mouth with your hands, which are touching other things and people)
It's going to be another hard slog, but if everyone follows the restriction level in their area/state, we won't be faced with a high death rate like Sweden (no restrictions to just let the virus infect everyone to build a herd immunity), or be faced with everything shutting down again with lots more people out of work like in America (a number of states that rushed to re-open to heed the call of their president and his protesters, are now completely shut down for a lot longer, which will kill off more businesses than if they had waited until the virus was under control the first time, like most states here, benefiting from being allowed back open with minimal risk of shutting down again if we stay vigilant).
After 3 months of the government paying for the 14 days of hotel quarantine, any new arrivals now have to pay for it. I guess 3 months was more than enough time for people who needed to return home, could get on a flight back home, after it was announced in March that our borders would be closed and people should return home as soon as possible. I think if someone can prove that it has taken 3 months to secure seats on the limited number of flights around the world to get back from a remote location, should still have it paid by the government, but if people have chosen to stay where they are and just travel back at a later date by choice, then that seems fair to not be paid for by the taxpayers.
Arizona in America is now the most infected place in America (and possibly the world), disproving the theory that warmer weather will prevent the virus spreading or surviving (early on it was said that it couldn't survive in environments above 27 degrees... but not only is the human body above that temperature, but Arizona has been in the middle of summer now, with temperatures at 35-45 degrees for at least a month).
People in Arizona are testing positive at a rate of over 30%. One in every three people taking a test has the virus. That compares to here, of one in every 300 people taking a test being positive (that doesn't mean that 1 in every 300 people in the country have the virus, as most tests are only taken of people who are infected with symptoms and people suspected of being infected - we have done just under 3 million tests in Australia, which doesn't mean 3 million people being tested, as a lot of people get tested multiple times if infected or in hotspot areas).
Could you imagine the news programs here if we had 100 times more cases at the rate of Arizona. Since the virus arrived, our main media have been competing with each other to have the most intense coverage of the virus outbreak here, and that was with Australia never going above 469 cases in a single day... imagine if we had the same proportion as America or Arizona with 5,000 to 10,000 new cases in a single day. We would be calling for the immediate resignation of our federal and state leaders and a complete shutdown of everything, just to do the more responsible thing of putting lives before profit.
A couple of reasons why Arizona is so bad (and makes it a good example for the rest of the world to taken notes on what not to do), is that it takes about 8 days before test results to be sent back to people (which means they were spreading it for a week while waiting to know if they were infected)... and the state government being very pro-trump, which meant limited or no restrictions to prevent the spread before it came to the state, and no coordinated effort for testing which is why it takes about a week to get results, compared to a number of hours to 2 days in most other countries. The three worst states for cases in America now are run by governors who are trump's biggest supporters, so either don't believe they need to do anything to match his lead, or don't want to do anything that opposes his message of not needing to take precautions like preventing public groups and wearing masks.
Just about every day has a new record of new cases, up to 65,000 in one day.
Children (under 20) are still very very rare to show symptoms, but the percentage is not zero, so the more cases grow in America, the more children are being hospitalised and dying... and the president is pressuring states to send kids back to school, suggesting that covid funding may be tied to re-opening schools that the states pay for.
How does it look, having a 1st world country with a worse infection rate than 3rd world countries.
And the western media doesn't even report on the virus in 3rd world countries... so we might not even know how bad it is getting there.
Today, after about 50 years of QANTAS using Boeing 747 planes, they were officially retired from service, with a special commemorative flight around the skies of Sydney.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin
Nothing lasts for ever, but to me it was the type of plane I would fly to America for most of my 17 trips over there (at least 30 flights in total), and I just can't imagine seeing any other red-tailed QANTAS plane flying me there. The 747 was the iconic long-haul workhorse of QANTAS that most foreigners would recognise as a QANTAS plane, because it was the type of plane that would be seen with the red kangaroo tail in most countries outside of the nearby Asian region.
I'm sad that I'll never fly one again, as they have a completely different feel to them to other planes, because they had a wider body, so it felt less cramped or claustrophobic. It's overall size and the central galley blocks and toilet blocks, meant that it had the look of compartments, to break up the large economy cabin, compared to a more narrower body that has you looking over the entire Economy section, to remind you that you are stuck in an enclosed space with hundreds of people.
I also love the feeling you get of the bigger, heavier aircraft when it takes off and lands... it just feels so powerful and massive, which I don't feel in their other aircraft.
21 cases now found from a location in the south of Sydney, and it was a very public place from 9 days ago... which means it will be spreading faster than it can be tracked.
It is suspected to be from someone in Victoria, due to it being in a transit corridor... so the original infected person could have been travelling anywhere.
I guess it looks like NSW will be locking down again soon, and the QLD premier will no doubt want to close our border again, as she was pretty strict on the closure last time (which only opened 3 days ago). If the NSW infections came from interstate travellers from Victoria, other states will be wanting to prevent that happening to them... and even a partially open border is risky, as there were already about a hundred people trying to sneak into QLD from Victoria, by claiming that they weren't from Victoria. That sort of blind selfish stupidity is probably how it spread to NSW.
It only took two weeks for Victoria to go back into lockdown after the virus spike started, so those people wanting a rushed return to open borders and businesses, are just making sure everything closes back down a few weeks later.
My furniture warehouse workplace ended up offloading half of its staff, up from about 20% that I was first being told. Two months ago they were looking at the option of having the place closed one day a week, and the staff would end up with a 20% pay-cut from that missing day each week... so I don't know why they didn't use that option first, because they would be cutting costs and keep all of the jobkeeper money from the government. This option of cutting half of the staff may have saved them a fair bit of money, but now they have lost tens of thousands of dollars of "revenue" each week that they are no longer getting from the government, from all of those people they let go that the government is no longer paying the company to keep.
I must be missing something there. Surely cost cutting that ends up cutting their operating revenue significantly when they already have sluggish sales, would be a more dangerous thing to do for the business. Because if their cash-flow takes a big hit all of sudden like this, it will make their budgets outlays look really red all of a sudden, and areas of the business, or creditors, that require regular payments could then suffer.
Possibly related to minimising leave/etc payouts for if/when they lay off large numbers/a solid percentage of staff after the stimulus period ends? I've read about a few businesses who don't feel they'll be able to pay out accumulated leave/etc. when they fold so they're just closing up shop early.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin
Pretty terrible for the poor laid-off staff though. :(
Quick thought from something I was reading about today - with America back into a mostly lockdown pattern in most states, and likely to be shut down even more as the infection rate is still not slowing from the current restrictions... I wonder if cinema movies that were pushed back several months because of the April-May lockdown, will be delayed again, or will other countries that are able to open cinemas, be allowed to start screening them (America is the primary revenue market for cinema movies, so if they have to postpone or release more of the cinema movies online through paid streaming services, my guess is that they wouldn't bother allowing other countries see them in cinemas, because their box office takings would be insignificant).
For example, the film The New Mutants (which was already delayed 2 years), was pushed back from April to August because of the virus shutting down cinemas in America. I really don't see too many states in America allowing indoor venues like cinemas operating in a month's time, with almost all states recording increases in virus cases. And maybe Warner Bros is thinking the same thing, as they had pushed back their Wonder Woman movie from June 5th to August 14 due to Covid, and then a couple weeks ago it was pushed back further, to October 5th. And that's a big budget film that needs cinemas across the US to be operating to make back its money.
If we have cinemas operating here in the next few months, or at least in most states, I wonder if movie studios would consider releasing the movies here, because any cinemas or drive-ins that are currently operating here, are having to play older movies... so even if the cinemas can operate here, the American movie companies may not allow anything new to screen at them, forcing them to run at a loss or shut down without the new blockbuster movies to bring in the crowds.
Meanwhile, it's getting worse for NSW... and there are now some winding back of the recently lifted restrictions. (unlike in most other countries that had restrictions lifted while the virus was still active in the community, which just allowed it to spread again, most of the Australian states were justified in lifting restrictions, because all of the new cases for 1 to 3 months in WA, SA, TAS, NT, QLD and ACT were foreign arrivals who were put into quarantine... the outbreak we are now facing was entirely avoidable if the Victorian government had been more careful with it security protocols at the quarantine hotels - the rest of the country is now going to suffer for that mistake, as borders are going to close again, businesses will be told to close up again, and any chance of a trans-tasman bubble with New Zealand in September to help tourism is now impossible)
Unfortunately, with QLD only just 4 days into having it's borders back open with NSW, it has decided to do what NSW did with Victoria, and keep allowing people into the state if they claim that they aren't from an infected zone. Well, that didn't work so well for NSW, as they took too long to completely close the border, and it allowed people to spread the virus into a second state (it is never a good idea to just ask people to stay at home and not travel if they were from a hotzone, as there would always be those who don't care or don't take the situation seriously and do whatever they want... particularly if it is not a requirement, with significant penalties).
QLD now has a range of penalties from $4000 to 6 months in jail if someone was found to be from an exclusion zone and didn't declare it... but there will still be people who find a way around it, and as seen in the Sydney outbreak, it only takes one person contaminating a high-traffic location like a hotel, to spread it everywhere (like an airport, just not as fast).
One of the news programs last night when talking about the human trials that started in QLD yesterday (I think it might have been on The Project), claimed that there were new results from an ongoing study of infected people in Europe who have recovered from the virus, suggesting that only 17% of people still had the virus anti-bodies in their system after 3 or 4 months. If that is actually true, or close to it, it will not be possible to gain a "herd immunity" (having most people catch the virus, recover or die, and then it is over more quickly - which is the theory that Sweden is using, sacrificing a lot of lives in the belief that the virus will die out if enough people have been infected and recover).
It also means that a vaccine will be virtually useless, if the anti-bodies it creates in the people who get it, don't stay active for more than a month in over half of the people.
(best estimates of a vaccine being ready for general use is still at about middle of next year (12 months), with 6 months being the absolute earliest if everything goes right with the trials, and the test subjects don't catch the virus & there are no major side-effects... and even then, the rollout of the vaccine will take a few months as each batch is manufactured and distributed)
Hopefully we hear more on "long term" studies of people who have recovered, to see if people are indeed vulnerable to Covid several months later, and see if any people catch it a second or third time by the end of the year. If it does happen, it might take a while to know for sure, because most people have no symptoms, so they might develop symptoms the second or third time, and not know that they've already caught it before.
That would then be the worst case scenario (even if there is a vaccine), if people can catch it more than once, as it would never be able to be eradicated globally... and isolated countries like Australia would have to start adopting an eradication program, to eliminate the virus (which we had pretty much done in all states before the outbreak in Victoria occurred from the breach in security at a quarantine hotel). Once eliminated, the country would then need to have all arriving people be isolated in quarantine (preferably on an offshore Australian territory to prevent future breaches), and rebuild our economy away from international tourism and education, as inbound arrivals would stay.
That's my thinking at least.
Got abused by a Social Distance Warrior (my phrase I coined it lol, someone taking it upon themselves to tell people off) for not doing enough to monitor social distancing. Beyond me making announcements to people, what else can I do? If I had to call the police every time people didn't adhere to social distancing or listen to me, I'd have police on my train the whole time. It's not possible.
This page is worth a read, for a look at how each state has been with the virus... including the sharp increase in Victoria, overtaking all other states in terms of case numbers and per-capita numbers.
The state-based graphs also show that NSW is currently where Victoria was 4 weeks ago, when they had just one area as a hotspot, with daily case numbers in the teens... which became 40-50 3 weeks ago, to 70-80 2 weeks ago, to 200-300 last week to today.
Worldwide, the only measure that has proven to work in reducing the virus numbers (not even trying to eradicate it), is total lockdown that only has people out of their houses for vital services, food/medicine shopping, and employment that isn't in the services sector and observes social distancing and cleaning. New Zealand did it, Singapore did it, Australia did it, and even New York did it... but every location or country that re-opened before the virus was eradicate, EVERY country, has seen a resurgence of the virus.
And countries that do eradicate the virus (like Australia and New Zealand) only takes one slip-up for the virus to repopulate (the quarantine hotel breach in Melbourne and the quarantine breach in New Zealand)... and no matter how much testing is being done, no matter how many people are tasked to find all contacts that could be infected, and how much we have selected suburbs being told to not travel out of their area, the virus will not be contained while people are allowed to mingle in public, especially before they know that they are infected (if they are eventually tracked down as a contact of someone else).
I would recommend QLD close its border again to NSW, and any states that are still virus free, to open up to each other. Then NSW and VIC need to go back to the April-May level of lockdown, to kill off the virus again... and they have to realise or remember, that a lockdown takes about 1 week to take effect, so what ever the daily case numbers are when you start it, double it and that will be the peak, with more deaths from the higher number.
It might not be something people there want to return to (especially for people who never returned to work since the first lockdown started), but if NSW locks down now, it will take less time to kill off the virus and return to the process of re-opening.... the state will only have a peak of 100 cases a day, which should limit deaths to 4 or 5. This would compare to waiting a couple weeks, with the virus hitting 100 cases per day, thinking in vain that the virus could be contained while people are able to interact with each other (masks, hand-washing and social distancing reduces the spread, but doesn't prevent it... and that's only if every single person does all three, which we know will never happen here).
If the state waits until 100 case per day to start acting, it will be another week of increases and deaths before the lockdown takes affect on reducing case numbers.
The same with QLD - they need to close the border now before any infected NSW people enter (with most going to themeparks and holiday locations that have concentrations of people, many of whom also travelled there from somewhere else, taking the virus back with them to more places, than if it was just a hotspot in a suburban location). Business groups and tourist companies have been pressuring the QLD government to open up the border, and they are not going to let it shut back down, even after we have virus cases show up in the state. But they need to understand that, if they close the border before the virus gets in, they can still do business with people from SA, WA, NT, TAS and QLD... however, if they force the border to stay open to be selfishly trying to make money from people in NSW, 2-3 weeks after the virus starts showing up here, every business in QLD will have to shut down again completely, preventing them from doing business with any state, including their own.
Having an economy crawling along at 50% and remain virus free, is much better than having a 70% economy for just 2-3 weeks and be operating at 0% for another couple of months during a new lockdown.
Since I'm in QLD, this bothers me, because it was really feeling like life was back to normal up here with more people returning to work and schools back to normal, without a risk of being infected after 3 months of no new domestic cases and our premier being so tough with locking up our borders for longer than necessary. But now I feel that with the state election just 3 months away, she is going to bow to business groups to not close the borders while there are no cases found within QLD... even though it will be too late after cases are found here. (if she closes the borders before infections appear, she will be targeted as being too hasty, but then how do you prove that it was the right time to do it)
The third alternative is to slog through the virus like in America, with businesses open for about 2 months, before too many cases and deaths force people to shut down voluntarily to avoid getting sick themselves (or infect their elderly relatives and friends).
Some stats are circulating on facebook at the moment about the true cost in lives and value to the economy if the virus worked its way through all of America, resulting in the average of 1% death-rate and the 10% of people who will have life-term health problems after recovering from the virus.
1% sounds really small, but in America that's 3.8 Million people dead, which would be the entire population of Brisbane wiped out. Each death costs money to the businesses they work for (if they were employed), and costs money to the families they were providing for, not to mention the insurance payouts of those who are life insurance.
Then look at the 10% of people who will never work again (another 38 million people - more than the population of Australia), or even be able to live life to the full ever again, needing constant medical treatment or assistance, as people who ended up with serious symptoms leave hospital with damaged lungs, organs and nervous systems. That's an extra 10% of people on the welfare system, who will be costing hospital systems through ongoing treatments (and the original covid treatment, on expensive ventilators and Intensive Care beds).
That's at least 11% of the entire population removed from the employment pool, and collecting welfare instead of paying taxes.
All the talk from business groups and politicians about lockdowns costing the economy... preventing deaths and serious illness, would save the economy more in the long run.
Covid-19 is very efficient in finding holes in a country's pandemic response. In Australia, it was initially the Ruby Princess, and it's now Victoria's quarantine process. In Singapore, it is the migrant working population. In America, it is...well everything.
Speaking as a someone lucky enough to be in W.A., I'm befuddled as to how Queensland and NSW don't immediately close their borders. I guess there's a real normalisation of travelling up and down the East Coast that us Sandgropers can't relate to. We feel pretty isolated ourselves so the idea of closing the border hasn't been given a second thought.
I heard from somewhere the nsw will go back into lockdown when they reach 100 cases
I think it was the news
Part of it is the fact that there are border cities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Wiggum
The reality is that Albury-Wodonga functions as one unit - Wodonga's (landline) area code is a NSW code, for example. Similarly, Tweed Heads (and Tweed Heads West, Banora Point, Kingscliff, Tweed Heads South etc) is a suburb of the Gold Coast.
There was a not unreasonable suggestion by the mayor of the Gold Coast this week that the "line" for the purposes of the Queensland bubble be drawn at Banora Point (which is on the north bank of the Tweed River). The catch with that is that Kingscliff & Chinderah are two suburbs on the south side of the river... and you'd be splitting the Tweed Shire up - making the delivery of services (such as rubbish collection) very difficult. Sure, the garbage trucks could be waved though, but they'd still be caught in the checkpoint queues. How to you ask garbos to spend 3 hours of overtime on every shift waiting to pass the checkpoint?.
I guess a Perth equivalent would be... do you cut off at Bibra Lake? Rockingham? Mandurah? No matter where you draw the line, you're bisecting interconnected settlements.
Sorry if this has already been asked, but is there such a thing, yet, as face masks made to look like the lower faces of Prime, Soundwave, Wheeljack etc?
I'd like to know too. I checked the Internet but found nothing fit for purpose within a reasonable price range. How hard can it be to design it to look like a OP or SW's faceplate?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan
For Wheeljack's design, i think we can get away from wrapping a bandage around our nose and mouth area like a mummy :D.
That 'bandage' look is already rather surgical. Hey maybe it even contributed to my childhood conflation of Wheeljack and Ratchet as the same character. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Q
Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Q
Ive seen a Prime one floating around the net (reddit I think)
The numbers in Victoria are staying stubbornly high around 400 each day... but I guess the good thing about that is that it stopped increasing at the same rate it was in the first three weeks of this current outbreak (20s in the first week, 80s in the second week, 200s in the third week). The fact that the numbers aren't going back down like last time, suggests that people are still interacting with each other too much in public. Even though the VIC government is offering to pay people to get tested ($300, and then $1500 if they are positive, so that they don't keep going to work while waiting for the test results), people probably don't trust what government says, even if they are a popular one at the time. (and the payment probably takes a couple months to be processed and paid, which could be too late to pay for bills or food if they live week-to-week on minimum wage or a family)
NSW on the other hand, is surprisingly still having its case numbers stay in the 10s-20s.... considering how spread out the cases have been so far. In Victoria, most of the cases were in Melbourne, but in NSW, most of the cases have been outside of Sydney. Maybe that will change as cases show up in the city and then spread more easily as more people are concentrated together.
Tasmania, WA, SA and NT have set up a travel bubble, but not with QLD, probably while they keep their border open with NSW. I expect cases to show up in QLD by the end of next week from NSW, as people try to escape the virus, but end up bringing it with them. Once the virus shows up in QLD, it will follow NSW and VIC, attempting to test and trace a virus that is always 2-4 days ahead (when the news programs alert people to a case in certain area and that people need to get tested, it is always a few days ago, and everyone at that location during that time have already travelled around other areas and had contact with lots of other people).
QLD needs to re-close its borders (if it isn't already too late, as hundreds of people have given false details or not declared being in virus zones), and then be able to join the travel bubble. With most of the NSW population now considered a prohibited hotspot, QLD businesses who were demanding the border to be opened to NSW, would make more from the other "clean" states, than the limited number of NSW people who are currently allowed in. It would also give QLD earlier access to New Zealand when they open up their borders to Australian states that have no current outbreak.
The medical experts have mentioned that they can trace a strain of the virus (when they noted that all of the VIC cases came from one of the quarantine hotels), so I'm thinking that this more contagious outbreak means that the March-May outbreak killed off the weaker strains, leaving behind the more aggressive strains behind. It would explain how "second waves" are often worse than the first outbreak, despite communities and people already experienced in combating the virus, and more people are taking preventative measures than before (masks, distancing, staying home, testing, washing).
The number of deaths in Victoria is something people should know who are opposed to adhering to community guidelines on preventing the spread, as 1 out of every 100 people infected will die... and 1 in 10 will have life-long debilitating effects (nerve damage, lung damage, brain damage, organ failure, trouble walking, etc.).
There is no way of predicting who it will be, so it could be someone you know or are related to if you get infected and think you are too young to die from it. And a reminder of the much rarer, but still possible occurrence, to people on the other end of the age scale (children), who are still being struck down in more infected countries by the mysterious anti-body reaction, who had caught the virus without symptoms and now had anti-bodies that are supposed to protect them, but are being violently rejected by their immune system.
Welp, it's back in Queensland. :(
Well, damn!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
Like I've been saying. Short term gain from having NSW tourists coming to QLD to spend their money, will be undone by long term lockdowns when we end up like VIC in a few weeks time.
As soon as the virus spread into NSW from VIC, there was no way it could be guaranteed that certain areas of NSW were free of the virus, as it takes 3-4 days for outbreak areas to be identified and the public alerted, and it only takes half a day to travel into QLD by road (or just a few hours by air).... and yet, the QLD premier kept the border open to everyone that wasn't from a *known* area of infection. Any area that had a new outbreak, had at least 3-4 days before it was on the exclusion list, and by then, an infected person could have already travelled into QLD (freely). As soon as the QLD government started adding parts of NSW and Sydney to their exclusion list, and the list was growing, everyone else who wanted a holiday before the expected lockdown, started flocking into QLD trying to escape the virus (but ended up bringing it with them).
Some of the outbreak locations in NSW & VIC have clocked up 30-60 infections, so even if we are lucky to have most people not infect anyone else, it just takes one of these "super spreaders" to enter QLD before their location is on the exclusion list, an infect 30 other people in high-traffic tourist locations that most NSW people are heading to.
We had all these sports teams move to QLD a couple weeks ago, and if we start having 10-20 cases per day like in NSW (and VIC 4 weeks ago), they are all going to have to re-locate again, or end the season early if the remaining states don't have the resources to host dozens of teams from several sports codes.
8 days... they were wandering around a large portion of brisbane for 8 days before this came to light. And the 2 people only get fined $4000 each. They should be paying for the costs of testing, deep cleaning and business closures from these two.
And judging from the work those 2 have done on their faces (not even 20 yet), they are probably loving the attention they are getting with their faces on tv every 5 minutes.
It's very frustrating when this happens, and they only get a minor slap in the wrist relative to the potential (and let's face it, almost certain) spike in infections and financial costs that they will cause. This is why the declaration system is flawed when you just trust people to properly disclose information, because there will always be a group who don't care and lie. These very people are filming themselves deliberately antagonising and breaking the rules to post online to get views, it's so screwed.
And now you have the tourism group complaining about the border shutdown to people from Sydney, when the alternative is wait for it to inevitably cause a spike in infections in Qld and close the whole state again. Just when I felt it was almost back to normal this happens in my area...
After a lower number for Tuesday of 295 new cases for VIC, Wednesday gave us a new record of 723 new cases... and 13 more dying.
The news got worse, as only one of the two is revealing where they went (seems they didn?t both stick together) so we can?t do contact tracing of businesses and places the other one went to. They face court tomorrow thoughQuote:
Originally Posted by griffin
OMG. I just looked up these two idiots. Those are two of the most unnatural looking faces I've seen since Micheal Jackson. Clearly they want to look like the Kardashians but the skill of their surgeon wasn't up to the task.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin
Well that didn't take long to go from outrage to body shaming in one day and yet no one is concerned that 2 people of colour were pretty much fixed by the Australian MSM, yet other people who have acted much the same have not because they come from more, "affluent" suburbs across Australia.
So I should have also posted my outrage at yet another medical professional from Rockhampton putting CQ at risk of COVID a couple of days ago???Quote:
Originally Posted by SMHFConvoy
Pretty sure there is no other case like those 2, a few have tried to sneak around and got caught but these two have just shown total contempt, their planning to do what they did is pretty infuriating for someone close to the aged care sector in Melbourne. Even the stealing of the bags in Melbourne, what the?!?!?!Quote:
Originally Posted by SMHFConvoy
Still to name and shame, that's not the Media's responsibility, it's been said there's an investigation underway and charges to be laid. The media has exceeded it's reach and we all should be very concerned.
I couldn't care less about the colour of their skin or their "background" - I also don't particularly care about their overdone botox jobs (which is more sad than anything else). I DO care about their wanton recklessness.Quote:
Originally Posted by SMHFConvoy
I feel the same anger towards these two as the couple (no idea whether they were Pacific Islander, white, black, Asian or Jovian) from Southbank who got stopped at a police checkpoint on their way to their holiday house on Philip Island with a warning, who then got FINED at a second checkpoint on a different route. Both cases of people who are selfish, possibly at the expense of the LIVES of othes.
Most of the backlash seems to be from the fact that everyone's hard work in containing the virus in Queensland has seemingly gone to waste. That's a situation that hasn't really happened in the other states. If we still had daily cases up to this point, it definitely wouldn't have received so much attention.
However, they have not done themselves any favours with their behaviour. From attending an illegal Melbourne party to lying to border control and now refusing to co-operate with police, it's all a bit hard to feel sorry for them in the slightest.
We've already had multiple anti-mask people be named and shamed on mainstream media and that Eve Black woman was found and arrested for lying to border control so I kind of have a hard time believing they're being targeted solely because of their race and/or wealth.
I do however agree that it was a bit too early to identify them but if they didn't want any backlash, they shouldn't have done it in the first place.
You still took the time to dunk their "overdone botox jobs" though, their appearance has no bearing on their irresponsible actions but you still had to say it.Quote:
Originally Posted by dirge
Tell me, do you think the SMH or the Courier Mail will call Eve Black, "Enemy of the State"? That idiot from Bunnings screaming about her rights was given airtime on Seven before she was arrested. The attendees from the Melbourne party haven't been named, there's no need to but for "some reason" the Courier Mail decided that it was okay to make these 2 the face of Covid-19 in Queensland.Quote:
Originally Posted by nalops
I get what you're saying. The media has been way too happy to take them down. I certainly would've waited to reveal their details, if at all and hope no-one decides to take justice into their own hands or something crazy like that and they should probably have police protection for a while.
Again, it's the fact that Queensland had 0 new community transmitted cases in so long and only 4 active that's making this a bigger deal than it would've been. We were so close. Unfortunately for them, they are the face of Covid-19 in Queensland because without them, we wouldn't have it spreading again. It'll certainly be horrifying if people end up dying because they were so reckless.
Could be definitely wrong but I have a feeling anyone, regardless of background, who'd done what they did, would be condemned. In saying that, I'm sure this'll blow over. It always does. As strong as the outrage against them is right now, it'll promptly be forgotten in favour of something new that people hate.
There must have been a third person with the two ladies that have been featured on the news, as three people have now been officially charged with several offences pertaining to fraud (false information), with a potential penalty of up to 5 years in prison and fines of up to $13,000 each. If people start dying from the virus and it can be traced to these three people, then I hope they end up with the full penalty, as their attitude so far suggests that they aren't going to know or care about other people dying from their actions, or be financially responsible for the millions of dollars that will now be spent on testing and tracing, closing and cleaning, and paying people to stay home while waiting for test results or if they test positive. I bet they even set up a go-fund-me type page to avoid paying any fines placed on them, avoiding any culpability or liability burden.
(all of this would have been avoided if the QLD premier had closed the border when the virus started showing up in NSW from Victoria, and there was no way of guaranteeing any person in NSW was not infected just because they weren't from a known hotspot, which is only known days after the virus has spread to that area - these 3 people then would have been tested and forced into hotel quarantine, regardless of if they had admitted to being in Victoria)
I haven't heard anything on the news yet that even implied that these people were highlighted because of their race, but because these people have so far been the most intentionally deceptive to fly down to Melbourne to party (and allegedly shoplift) while it was in lockdown, and then fly to Sydney on the way back to Brisbane so that they could be allowed to return without being forced into quarantine... all the while, not even bothering to be tested just in case. These were not negligent or accidental acts, they were calculated and uncaring, to be doing what they wanted without a single concern for their fellow human beings. The psychology of these sorts of people is one of over-entitlement, believing that everyone else is beneath them, and are not going to accept responsibility or even accept a punishment, as they see themselves as being above it all. Remember, with every 100 people who get infected now by these girls, an average of 1 person will die, and about 10 of those people will have life-long debilitating injuries... and if they don't care about that, then do they deserve to be forgiven and forgotten.Quote:
Originally Posted by SMHFConvoy
It wouldn't have mattered what they looked like, how old they were, or what race they were, these have been the worst of the worse so far, and they shouldn't be playing the race card to get special treatment. Our news programs and papers up here have already been featuring people trying to sneak across the border (one hiding in the back of a car, one running from the police at the border checkpoint, several people jumping the border fence, and people not declaring their intended residence), and those people were of different ages, genders and colours.
I would imagine, just like those people in VIC and NSW who have been suffering through a partially closed economy and now have to endure tighter restrictions again, the people in QLD are now also feeling just as frustrated at doing all this hard work as a community, to be undone by three selfish young girls who just wanted to party with friends in Melbourne, knowing it was wrong because they made sure they returned via Sydney and not declare being in Melbourne at all. That collective anger is going to go somewhere, and if those three people still haven't shown any sign of remorse for what they have done, and the lives that may now be lost for their weekend party... it is just going to make people even more upset over their lack of morality by staying silent.
At least in the case of my comment, I was making an observation of what appeared to be cosmetic surgery on two people who are supposed to still be teenagers. Faces don't look like that naturally, which makes me think that they were led to believe that they were not beautiful without that much work, and I blame the modern day social media celebrities misleading young girls into thinking that they are not beautiful if they don't have lips, cheeks, noses and eyebrows that don't come naturally like that. Commentary on the lengths young people go to with plastic surgery, because they think that their natural look is ugly. Body shaming is when you target people for how they naturally look, causing them anxiety or depression, or to take drastic action to change their natural look, which they wouldn't have wanted to risk doing if they were just allowed to be happy with who they really are, because they can't help how they are born. If anything, those two "girls" and their parents are the ones who must have been ashamed of their natural beauty to do that to themselves at such a young age, before their bodies had started to even age and deteriorate to warrant "fixing". This superficial culture of cosmetic surgery by young people who don't have any physical defects, and dependence on make-up from a young age, hiding their natural beauty for the rest of their life. That sort of thing is self-body-shaming, and if we don't call out these unnatural results, more young girls will want to look the same, thinking that their natural look is ugly. Their faces are distorted into something that looks like a plastic mannequin with over-inflated lips... I think we should be really worried if our teenage and pre-teen children want to do that to themselves, just because they are ashamed of how they normally look.
Just quickly, so that it doesn't go too far off topic, but as someone who has a degree in Criminology, and studied the different outcomes of different punishment techniques, I found that shaming offenders best works in smaller communities on people who depended on the interactions of those around them, but unfortunately, it isn't as effective in large cities... while of particular note, is that the people who most should be identified, are the ones who are allowed to remain anonymous (like sexual offenders against children, because we don't want the children to be identified and tormented by others for the rest of their life), and those type of amoral, power-control predators, are more likely to not feel remorse over their affect on others, and will re-offend, because they haven't felt the fear of a reasonable potential penalty. (if you had a paedophile in your neighbourhood attack a child and you have children of similar age, there is a pretty good chance that you'd be wanting the media to name and shame the offender so that you know who they are and where they are, to be sure that they are no where near your children... similarly, if you lived near these covid girls and didn't know their names or faces, would you be comfortable in not knowing if you had been in close contact with them, on the same day you were visiting elderly relatives - if we could eliminate internet trolls it would be great, but until we can find a way of doing that, it is an unavoidable side-effect of knowing, and rational venting... which we can all do with right now after 6+ months of this global crisis)Quote:
Originally Posted by SMHFConvoy
(now for the off-topic bit)
One thing I studied was the history of the concept of shaming offenders, and it used to be useful before we had big cities, which made it impossible for it to be an effective tool of deterrence. That's because, small town communities had people knowing just about everyone, and if you wanted to continue living comfortably with your community, you feared being caught doing something that everyone would quickly find out about. It was an extension of fearing having your parents finding out about something you did wrong (if you have a close relationship with them)... the town was your extended family, and the phrase of "being run out of town" would be your only option if you did something seriously wrong and everyone you knew, knew about it.
With modern big cities, filled with thousands and millions of people you don't know, most people don't really care what a complete stranger thinks about you, or knows what you have done. The fear of restraint isn't there, and negative corruptive influences from social media makes it even worse, as you can be an uncaring troll online by remaining hidden and anonymous. The result of trolls on offenders can either lead to them to reflect on what they have done and want to change their ways so that they don't go through that ever again, or to be more determined to be a criminal in retaliation... and in today's self-entitlement, superficial look-at-me, social-media environment that these girls are a part of, they won't be the type to do any self-reflecting and have any moral revelations.
Considering those two ladies were in Brisbane and the other people were not, I think it wouldn't make much sense having any of those other people you mentioned being featured heavily in the QLD paper.Quote:
Originally Posted by SMHFConvoy
The Melbourne party people didn't sneak into QLD to infect people with Covid and lie to police on a legal document.
Neither did the Bunnings lady or Eva... nor did they covertly and fraudulently bring the virus to an area that was clear. But each of them still got significant air-play, but these Brisbane ladies got more attention because what they did was commit a more serious crime (those other people aren't facing 5 years in prison, so they aren't going to get as much attention from the media).
I was referring to it only because you mentioned body shaming. I find it sad they feel the need to do it, but it has no relevance to their recent behaviour.Quote:
Originally Posted by SMHFConvoy