COVID-19 updates comments and concerns

[dirge]

I wonder why we don't have the states & territories that have been cleared (or all remaining cases are in quarantine) open up their borders with each other, so that it helps tourism and the national economy (jobs) more to offset the slower opening rate of Victoria.

Politics, mostly. WA & QLD governments have upcoming elections & are showing themselves to be "putting x state's people first" or whatever phrase they're using. Never mind the fact that (relatively small) tourist spots like Port Douglas are in an economic hole, the masses of votes are in Perth & Brisbane.

SA has started to look at opening borders, because, well, no upcoming election

NT has the added whammy of vulnerable remote communities and less of a tourism driven economy, which could explain their hesitance.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I wonder why we don't have the states & territories that have been cleared (or all remaining cases are in quarantine) open up their borders with each other, so that it helps tourism and the national economy (jobs) more to offset the slower opening rate of Victoria.

The Australian Constitution (section 117 To be precise) provides protection against discrimination on the bases of State of residence. The legal advice the WA Premier has received apparently says that to pick and choose States to re-open borders with is a clear act of discrimination. Whereas if you close borders with ALL States and Territories, there can be a lesser argument for discrimination because its not individualising States, its a blanket approach.

So basically an all-or-nothing is the basis for border closures. Theres more legal history and interpretation behind it and whether this argument holds up is being tested in the High Court with Lord Tosspot (Clive Palmer) taking legal action against the WA government.

[griffin]

Another 30 cases in Victoria yesterday, again outpacing other states, with NSW & QLD having single digit cases yesterday, with most of theirs being from returned travellers.

The politicising of the corona virus in America, resulting in different groups of people believing different things about how bad it really is, and states having a non-uniform approach to dealing with it nationally, has seen their highest ever number of cases yesterday... more than any day during its April peak.
That April peak was thanks mostly to New York City being the main hotspot of the virus, so when they went into lockdown and reduced its daily cases by over 90%, it had a significant impact on the national daily tally. But now most of the other states that re-opened, because they didn't have the same level of infections as New York, are having record infections, to result in the national daily tally going back up to a new record, compared to the total European tally still dropping since its April peak.

The scary thing is that this new record occurred very slowly, and after months of having the virus on the news, it won't be getting as much attention as when NY was having hundreds dying every day all of a sudden.... despite being worse now than it was in April.
With a president who is on record saying that he wants less testing so that they don't record as many cases, as well as not setting an example to his followers to take the virus seriously and mask up & social distance... I doubt we will see the numbers come back down, because a complete lockdown (like NY had to do) is really the only option before a cure or vaccine exists, and too many vocal Americans are against any lockdown or even compulsory wearing of masks, as their freedoms are more important than the health of themselves and others.

SBS news yesterday also noted that new-born babies are dying in developing countries, because the hospitals are running out of the limited resource of pure oxygen, as it is being used up on those infected with the virus, leaving none for the babies (not just premature babies). We already knew that over-full ICUs of covid patients could lead to other people needing ICU beds dying, but this is something new.

[griffin]

Just to copy (and clarify on) this posting - since these are current virus hotspots in Melbourne, please avoid or limit visiting stores in these areas at the moment...

Unconfirmed reports of Hot Spot found at 10 Melbourne burbs:
Broadmeadows
Keilor Downs
Albanvale
Maidstone
Reservior
Sunshine West
Fawkner
Brunswick West
Hallam
Pakenham

Stay away.

[griffin]

In contrast, the other day saw just 2 or 3 active cases left in WA and QLD, who are all in quarantine hotels. I think NSW is close to being the same, but they are still getting returning citizens, which is making their daily case numbers look bad, but most of the new daily numbers have been put into quarantine hotels.

This morning on the ABC news channel, they had a great Covid listing of statistics based on what I've been touching on - the difference between returning cases and domestic cases... and more importantly, how well each state has been doing to keep those returning cases from overseas isolated until they recover so that they don't bring the virus back into a state that has eradicated the virus.

These are the number of days since there was a positive test of the virus that wasn't a returning citizen (the last time someone caught the virus from someone else in the community)...

NT - 83 days
ACT - 75
SA - 66
TAS - 51
WA - 44
QLD - 21
-
NSW - 0
VIC - 0

A few days ago there were still a couple of active cases in WA and QLD from returned citizens, but as long as they remain in isolation (and those states continue to do better with guarding and testing of returning citizens than NSW and VIC), those top six states and territories are for all intents and purposes, virus free (as long as no one brings it across the boarder).
And what do five of those top six states and territories have in common? Aside from the ACT, the other 5 had border closures. Border closures didn't prevent the virus, but reducing the distance you know that you can travel meant that infected people were not going to spread it too far (as seen by past hotspots that end up being localised to one area or business, and then contained). If you know you can travel interstate, people will, and the virus would then travel through the main highways and airlines and then spread out across the country, as it has done in America after allowing people to travel around the country freely again.

The citizens here who obeyed the lockdown restrictions should be commended for making most of Australia virus free... and inspire the two remaining states into realising that containment and eradication is possible, if you are willing to put in the effort for the benefit of your family and friends (especially the elderly and vulnerable).

Unfortunately we have two Trump-wannabees (Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson) wanting to have the courts force the states to open their borders while the virus is still infecting two cities, for their own benefit (Palmer to help his businesses, and Hanson to earn voter support for the upcoming QLD election). They are too selfish to see how that approach to save jobs and personal freedoms in America is resulting in states shutting down a second time, because it cost lives, cost jobs, and cost voter support.
It's still 3 months away from the end of our Jobkeeper and Jobseeker increased payments, which is plenty of time for the Federal Government to instigate new support measures, or a slow scaling back of the amounts being paid out, based on how our employment levels are by then. Three months is a long time to predict that they will keep it or shut it all down... going back 3 months, no one could have predicted that we would have most of the country in varying stages of re-opening, with most states being virus-free in the community.

Speaking of the US... it is still outpacing other countries with its infection rate, and each day is setting a new record (currently over 45,000 new cases each day, and that's only from people who are tested, or want to be tested).
They are still seeing a fall in daily deaths though, which could be attributed to better experience and techniques dealing with the more serious cases, but probably more from the fact that the states currently having the most cases, are not yet over-whelming their hospitals. In New York they had such a massive surge of admissions, many people were dying because there was not enough bed and equipment to cover everyone. Currently though, they are having the same number of cases of new infections, but it is spread out among 20-30 states and more hospitals, so more people can be treated, and less of the preventable deaths are occurring. At least, so far... but a couple states are close to hospital capacity, and as more hit that level, more people will die, who could have been saved if they had kept the domestic infection rate down.

Tomorrow, the global stats will be 10 million (known) infected, and 1/2 million (known) dead from the virus. That's 1 out of every 20 people known to be infected, will die. And that's with most infections being in 1st world countries so far, with advanced medicines and hospitals. Expect the rate to be 1 out of every 10 people or worse as it makes its way through 3rd world countries and war zones.
At that high rate of guaranteed death, it is NOT just another flu virus, as the deniers and "fake news" supporters will claim.

[griffin]

Looks like the Melbourne outbreak has already spread to Darwin and possibly Brisbane.
A Darwin person returned to Australian in Melbourne and spent 2 weeks in quarantine, but before they could return to Darwin they spent 2 days in one of the hotpot suburbs with family waiting for their flight on Monday. And it wasn't a direct flight... they flew to Brisbane first and changed flights to Darwin and only got tested a day later because they had symptoms.
It means that there could be a lot of other people flying out of Melbourne in the last 2 weeks who don't have symptoms but were infected and taking it to other states.

Politicians and big business owners complaining about border restrictions ruining the national economy, but Melbourne is an example of what will happen to the national economy if borders are opened and the virus spreads to every state in a few weeks (like in America). At the moment other states are at least half open, which is better than total national lockdown from a flare-up, due to a state or federal government (or billionaire) claiming that the country would be better off with a month of open borders before a return to total lockdown (like those American states that reopened too early). Our government doesn't have an endless supply of welfare money as we will have to pay it all back in taxes... and a lot of people are too exhausted from just 3 months of restrictions, another 6 months would be unbearable.

[shockNwave]

Thankfully I'm not living in a lockdown zone and thankfully the places where I'll be shopping for TFs this weekend are not locked down.

On another note, I bet the security firms working the infected hotels are bikie owned. The security industry is infiltrated by such scum.

[griffin]

Another of around 70 cases in Victoria.
As bad as those numbers are, on the up side at least they are fairly steady numbers for the last five days... and not rapidly increasing like they have been in various states of America at the same time (some states have doubled their daily cases in just a week or two). Jumping from 20-30 cases a day last week to 60-70 this week, the rapid rollout of testing and travel restrictions (interstate and intersuburb), hopefully that is what has helped put a cap on the daily numbers, as that doubling in a week in Victoria could have been another doubling by today to over 100 new cases. (although, the Victorian government page says there were just over 100, compared to 67 on the National page... it's sometimes hard to know for sure what the actual numbers are)

Unfortunately we are seeing an increase in hospitalisations as the daily case numbers go up (Victoria currently has all but 4 of Australia's cases that are in hospital).

[griffin]

I guess I spoke too soon, as the number of new cases yesterday was about 120, and Saturday's number of about 100 was the real number.... so two of the last three days jumped up to over 100, as I had feared it would if the virus was spreading uncontrolled (two weeks of doubling of numbers, like when the virus first arrived in Australia).

Travel between NSW and VIC will now be restricted, with the border closing tomorrow night, which comes into line with the rest of the country that have already limited travel to and from Victoria.
It's a shame that this was a decision being taken by Victoria to consolidate resources and limit the spread to other states, and not something chased up by the NSW premier or prime minister (they have agreed to support it, but have spent weeks refusing to do it, and frequently chastising other states for doing it and not re-opening). It's a bit like someone wearing a mask to protect others, not just to protect themselves from others. Victoria is "wearing a mask" to limit the spread to NSW, because NSW doesn't want to wear one.


We just need to believe that the success we had in eliminating the "community spread" of the virus in all of the other states, can happen in Victoria if the people are determined and strong enough to go through a short, tough time. And it is going to be tough for people affected in Melbourne, seeing people in other states (on tv and on social media) that have been virus free for 2-3 months returning to normal.. and us non-Victorians need to do whatever we can to help and support them.

[1AZRAEL1]

Some fool jumped on a train from Victoria to NSW knowing they had been tested and had to isolate, but decided to travel. As dumb as it gets.