Originally Posted by
ruprecht
At some point in the future, the borders will be open, and people will be able to leave and return with no quarantine requirements. I used to say that the trick was figuring out when that point would be, but now I’m not so sure. Now I think that the trick is to convince people that this point actually exists.
In my secondary employment I work with people who have all their friends and relatives within 100km, who “went to Queensland once” and “didn’t like it”. They want the borders closed, and I quote: “forever, keep them shut, no one out or in until the virus has gone”. If anyone thinks we are going to get 100% consensus on the border opening they’re deluded.
Once everyone has had the opportunity to be vaccinated in this country, the government needs show some leadership and start looking at a date for a gradual reopening.
If you actually wade through the comments of Jill and Joe Public re the India ban, they are largely very supportive of the government's ban. WA and QLD and to a lesser extent TAS and NT won state/territory elections based on locking out "others". Qld Premier "Qld hospitals are for Qlders". I would argue it is highly unlikely that ScoMo would seek to take this step in opening the border in an election year. Vaccine hesitancy appears rife in some sectors, but anecdotally where the virus impacted last year the most (VIC), people are more prepared to take the "risk" of the vaccine. Why the govt doesn't spend $50M rolling out a massive ad campaign and use carrot and stick incentives I don't know...