I hope everyone is travelling well and getting through this.

[Nort]

Oh shutup. Everyone is still learning about how to navigate COVID. There's bound to be some mistakes along the way, and we can only learn from them. Spurrier has done an exemplary job given the circumstances.

Exactly.

Little mistakes have been made along the way for sure, but overall they've done a great job.

My standard for condemning people for these things is always this: if I was given years of education and experience equivalent to those in charge, do I think I could have done a better job?

Often in politics the answer is yes, due to laziness or corruption. In this case I can't imagine myself or anyone managing to have a better overall response.

[ghs]

Unbelievable.

Now Spurrier and Marshmallow has shut the border to Melbourne because they have 8 cases. And to make thing worse we've only been given a few hours notice!

Time for Marshmallow and Spurrier to go.

[Ho Really]

[...]

Time for Marshmallow and Spurrier to go.

I think most politicians and many public servants must go not just our own here.

Cheers

[Levesque]

As a worker in medical field I support these border closures for our populations sake. It's annoying I know, I was supposed to go to Melbourne today for work, but until the vaccine comes in its too risky, especially considering how relaxed we have become here in SA.

Nicola Spurrier has by far one of the greatest public health management of any local or international covid19 responses that I can think of.

Unbelievable.

Now Spurrier and Marshmallow has shut the border to Melbourne because they have 8 cases. And to make thing worse we've only been given a few hours notice!

Time for Marshmallow and Spurrier to go.

[Will]

Unbelievable.

Now Spurrier and Marshmallow has shut the border to Melbourne because they have 8 cases. And to make thing worse we've only been given a few hours notice!

Time for Marshmallow and Spurrier to go.

Can you please specify your qualifications to make such statements?

[ghs]

To shut the border after just a few cases in Melbourne, it's not too good for our economy, which frankly is a joke.

[Nort]

To shut the border after just a few cases in Melbourne, it's not too good for our economy, which frankly is a joke.

Can you share your medical credentials with which you are making the judgement that there is no significant risk of the breaches in Melbourne leading to community spread?

[SBD]

Unbelievable.

Now Spurrier and Marshmallow has shut the border to Melbourne because they have 8 cases. And to make thing worse we've only been given a few hours notice!

Time for Marshmallow and Spurrier to go.

It's eleven cases now. How much longer would you think would be appropriate before SA decided to risk having them or their contacts travel here before they incubate it to transmissible level? Victoria is not prohibiting people from near the known infections moving into country Victoria so there's a chance we're still doing too little. Sunbury is covered this time and was not included in the Melbourne area for the last lockdown.

[SBD]

To shut the border after just a few cases in Melbourne, it's not too good for our economy, which frankly is a joke.

Perhaps the US economy is going so much better because it hasn't locked down quickly like Australia has... as long as you and the people you love are not in the 450,000 dead people. Their population is about 13 times ours, so that would be like 34600 deaths in Australia, instead of 909.

Does reducing the population by 0.1% reduce unemployment by that much, or does it actually increase unemployment because there is less demand, particularly for aged care workers?

[Nort]

To shut the border after just a few cases in Melbourne, it's not too good for our economy, which frankly is a joke.

Well this comment aged like fine milk.

[rev]

One guy is sooking about the border being closed because the economy..The others are spouting shit as if they're experts.

Meanwhile yet again hotel quarantine in cities has failed and lockdowns are back.
Right again.

[SBD]

One guy is sooking about the border being closed because the economy..The others are spouting shit as if they're experts.

Meanwhile yet again hotel quarantine in cities has failed and lockdowns are back.
Right again.

I guess you have a perfect solution to the problem that allows safe, open travel to Australia for returning citizens, backpackers/seasonal workers, students etc?

Does it involve building a new city with an international airport and a major hospital in the outback with protection from letting the workers out into the rest of the country on their days off?

[rev]

One guy is sooking about the border being closed because the economy..The others are spouting shit as if they're experts.

Meanwhile yet again hotel quarantine in cities has failed and lockdowns are back.
Right again.

I guess you have a perfect solution to the problem that allows safe, open travel to Australia for returning citizens, backpackers/seasonal workers, students etc?

Does it involve building a new city with an international airport and a major hospital in the outback with protection from letting the workers out into the rest of the country on their days off?

Returning citizens? You mean the people the Prime Minister told nearly a full year ago that the time to come home was then?

You're asking two questions, with different solutions.

Build a new city? No, why post such extreme nonsense?
Simply use the existing facilities that we have, that are outside of major population centres.
Oh I guess because they're not illegal immigrants, but Australian citizens, we can't put them in those centres right?

That may not be the perfect solution, but it is a better solution to what we have going on now, because it allows life to continue on near as normal as possible for the majority of the population. The economy will not keep taking such a massive hit, which we can't afford to keep happening.
Would it suck for those returning or the sick? Of course.
But what's worse is for the whole country to continue to suffer, for the economic situation to continue to deteriorate.

Melbourne is stuffed again, because of another hotel quarantine failure.
How many more times will the hotel quarantine setup fail before the right call is made to move the whole operation to the detention centres outside of the major urban areas?
If the lockdown there extends beyond 5 days, and it probably will as the list of exposure sites keeps growing, that will have a bigger impact on the national economy (which affects all of us, in case you were wondering).

Keep them there. The returned, the staff, they can all stay there. Staff can quarantine for a couple weeks before returning to cities.
Pay them properly and accordingly. Provide the full complement of PPE.
We have a military and a reserve force, call them in, that way we can remove the incompetent foreign security guards, cleaners etc (mostly Indians, Pakistanis etc) who get filmed/photographed sleeping on the floors, not wearing PPE and so on.

If this is a global pandemic, it's time to start treating it like one.


International students can piss off. Who cares about them right now. Really dude, that's your concern? International students?
More Australian kids in universities is a good thing for Australia as a whole, and that should be the priority on that front.
Other nations governments are putting their national interests first, but here in Australia we're worried about how International students can return?

[SBD]

One guy is sooking about the border being closed because the economy..The others are spouting shit as if they're experts.

Meanwhile yet again hotel quarantine in cities has failed and lockdowns are back.
Right again.

I guess you have a perfect solution to the problem that allows safe, open travel to Australia for returning citizens, backpackers/seasonal workers, students etc?

Does it involve building a new city with an international airport and a major hospital in the outback with protection from letting the workers out into the rest of the country on their days off?

Returning citizens? You mean the people the Prime Minister told nearly a full year ago that the time to come home was then?

Perhaps Australians who have a life and family somewhere else, but have been in the habit of an annual visit to their parents, relatives and friends here. It's no different than the same issue with state borders.

You're asking two questions, with different solutions.

Build a new city? No, why post such extreme nonsense?
Simply use the existing facilities that we have, that are outside of major population centres.
Oh I guess because they're not illegal immigrants, but Australian citizens, we can't put them in those centres right?

Baxter and similar were designed to support community, and do not generally have the facilities to allow the returned travellers to remain separated from each other.

A facility that can contain 15,000 quarantined people, plus the people needed to provide security, medical, food, garbage collection, etc, an international airport and its staff, and if we don't want the staff rotating back to the cities on their weekends, then it also has to provide for their families, including school etc. That sounds like a city.

That may not be the perfect solution, but it is a better solution to what we have going on now, because it allows life to continue on near as normal as possible for the majority of the population. The economy will not keep taking such a massive hit, which we can't afford to keep happening.
Would it suck for those returning or the sick? Of course.
But what's worse is for the whole country to continue to suffer, for the economic situation to continue to deteriorate.

Melbourne is stuffed again, because of another hotel quarantine failure.
How many more times will the hotel quarantine setup fail before the right call is made to move the whole operation to the detention centres outside of the major urban areas?
If the lockdown there extends beyond 5 days, and it probably will as the list of exposure sites keeps growing, that will have a bigger impact on the national economy (which affects all of us, in case you were wondering).

We/they are learning more about what is needed and how to manage the quarantine. While there is lots of virus in the community, a small leak from quarantine can't be detected. We are now in the position where we can see every little leak and work to patch it before it happens again.

Keep them there. The returned, the staff, they can all stay there. Staff can quarantine for a couple weeks before returning to cities.
Pay them properly and accordingly. Provide the full complement of PPE.
We have a military and a reserve force, call them in, that way we can remove the incompetent foreign security guards, cleaners etc (mostly Indians, Pakistanis etc) who get filmed/photographed sleeping on the floors, not wearing PPE and so on.

They do have other jobs too. Are you happy to let them slide, or would you recruit a larger army to fill this extra role? Reservists also have "day jobs" so you would hurt the economy to call them up to full time service.

If this is a global pandemic, it's time to start treating it like one.


International students can piss off. Who cares about them right now. Really dude, that's your concern? International students?
More Australian kids in universities is a good thing for Australia as a whole, and that should be the priority on that front.
Other nations governments are putting their national interests first, but here in Australia we're worried about how International students can return?

You were the one who mentioned the economy. International students contribute to our economy. They enable universities to offer more courses for everyone.

So do tourists. Clearly we need the international cruise ship industry to start calling on Australia again, not just the local ship that is in SA waters at present.

[rev]

Perhaps Australians who have a life and family somewhere else, but have been in the habit of an annual visit to their parents, relatives and friends here. It's no different than the same issue with state borders.

What?
We're talking about Australians who live in Australia, who have remained overseas after the Prime Minister told all Australians, nearly a year ago, that at that time it was time to return home because their return to Australia later could not be guaranteed.
And as such we have seen a very limited number of flights to return and at a very high cost. They now also have to pay to be quarantined in a hotel, whereas initially it was the tax payer footing the bill.

Baxter and similar were designed to support community, and do not generally have the facilities to allow the returned travellers to remain separated from each other.

What, how would they remain separated from each other? A family returns from overseas, and you quarantine them together in the same facility. The same way they are quarantined together in a hotel.

A facility that can contain 15,000 quarantined people, plus the people needed to provide security, medical, food, garbage collection, etc, an international airport and its staff, and if we don't want the staff rotating back to the cities on their weekends, then it also has to provide for their families, including school etc. That sounds like a city.

Again, let me say..WHAT??!!!
15,000 people? We have a detention centre that can accommodate 15,000 people?

Why would you nee to provide for their families, schools? WTF?

You're just making up a bunch of assumptions, to use in your argument against.
None of it makes sense, none of it is logical.

FIFO workers do not get anything of the sort provided for them of the like of which you're suggesting for detention centre quarantine.
Instead they are well compensated financially, which is why a lot of people take up those jobs in mines as FIFO workers. Because a few years of sacrifice can have long term benefits for those individuals and/or their families.

Rotations on weekends? WTF, again, just another wild assumption you're making.
I haven't posted some detailed outline or schedule of workers to/from. I've made a simple suggestion that would take the risk of an outbreak OUT of our major population centres. You know those major population centres, like the one you presumably live in, that are the heart of our nation and our economies. The same places that keep taking a beating every time there's an outbreak caused by a hotel breach, which in turn batters the economy.

We have multiple centres around the country, and in our offshore territories (ie Christmas Island), that can well accommodate those in quarantine at the moment. We have disused military facilities, we have disused mining camps.
There are many solutions that are far better then quarantining people with a so called highly contagious virus or it's even more highly contagious strains in the middle of our main major urban population centres.

Let's break it down as simply as possible...

Highly contagious virus, which has now mutated into several even more contagious strains (and apparently in the UK two mutant strains have mutated together.....)

Option 1 - quarantine the returned or sick in the middle of our major urban centres, and continue to do so after several breaches.

Option 2 - get the detention centres up and running again to house these people for their quarantine period, look at other sites that would be suitable (ie military bases and mine sites) that would help cope with a major outbreak. Leave it in the hands of the ADF on conjunction with working with health and government officials.

....

Option 1 results continually in lock downs of major population centres, and entire states, state borders get routinely closed, economic activity takes massive hits, and other flow on effects such as mental health issues.

Option 2 allows life to go on as close to normal as possible under the global circumstances for the majority of Australians, we can avoid the continued lock down/state border closure cycle because we wont have hotel quarantine breaches to contend with any more.
This is partly why we have a defence force, to assist in time of need and a national crisis. We are in that time right now.


gee I wonder which option is better...
Governments have already spent hundreds of millions on this rubbish hotel quarantine system, money that could have been better spent on Option 2.

We/they are learning more about what is needed and how to manage the quarantine. While there is lots of virus in the community, a small leak from quarantine can't be detected. We are now in the position where we can see every little leak and work to patch it before it happens again.

Clearly you haven't learned much, if you still think quarantining the sick in hotels located in the middle of our major urban centres where the majority of our population lives is the best solution.

If there was lots of virus in the community, we would be seeing "community transmission" on a daily basis. We aren't.
The risk posed at present is from returned travellers. That's why they are being quarantined, not you.

Yeh, we're sure at the point where we can "see every little leak and work to patch it before it happens again", that's why WA went into lock down the other week, that's why Victoria is in lock down this week. And that's why in the coming months it will keep happening over and over again.

They do have other jobs too. Are you happy to let them slide, or would you recruit a larger army to fill this extra role? Reservists also have "day jobs" so you would hurt the economy to call them up to full time service.

There are currently roughly 28,000~ reservists in the ADF.
If all 28,000 were called up (they wouldn't, but for arguments sake with your level lets say they were), and mind you the reserves are paid when they're called up, that's a very very tiny hit to the economy compared to having the entire state of Victoria, or 6.7 million people, not at work.

Go on, argue with me how locking down entire states and continually hitting the economy with a wrecking ball is a better idea.

You were the one who mentioned the economy. International students contribute to our economy. They enable universities to offer more courses for everyone.

Yeh, that's how you think it works is it? You think with international students taking up places their parents have paid up front for, that the unis magically then have more places to offer to Australian kids? Wow..

No SBD, with international students paying fees up front, there are fewer places for Australian kids.
How do we know this? Very simply because without the paid up front foreign students from India and China this year, we have a record number of Australian kids taking up places at our universities.

International students is nothing but a cash grab opportunity for universities.
We'd also benefit by not having ugly as pig shit student towers going up on our skylines. I'd rather decades of no change to the skyline then the monstrosities that have gone up to house foreign students.

So do tourists. Clearly we need the international cruise ship industry to start calling on Australia again, not just the local ship that is in SA waters at present.

We spend $38 billion on overseas holidays. Of course it's far less then the $120 billion from international arrivals here, but that's where governments can step in and assist like our state government has with travel vouchers.
But that $38 billion is better spent here in Australia on intra and interstate tourism.
This could also be taken as an opportunity to develop our domestic tourism industry across the country. And you may or may not know, the local cruise ship tourism sector was growing before this pandemic.
See, this is another reason why we need a better solution like using detention centres rather then hotel quarantine which continually sees state borders closed and states and cities plunged into lockdowns.