All borders to reopen.
Excerpt from Crikey.com
For a start, there’s the obvious inconsistency. If you test positive to COVID-19, you are asked to quarantine at home. That is, the Australian government trusts you to do the right thing. By contrast, if you are returning from overseas and test negative, you are still required to stay in a three-star hotel for 14 days.
Up until July, this was all at taxpayer expense (Victoria and ACT have not yet stipulated any costs for returning travellers, but theses states are also not currently accepting international flights).
So to clarify: if you test positive to COVID, please stay home. If you happen to come from another country and test negative to COVID, you’re staying at the Rydges for two weeks.
It’s also baffling that, unlike other countries such as Singapore, the Australian government treats residents returning from every country the same way. If you come from India (92,000 cases per day) you are subject to the exact same requirements as if you came from Vietnam (one case per day).
Moreover, the quarantine period is excessively long. While the virus’ incubation period does extend to 14 days, the median time for symptoms to present is around five days. Taiwan, the gold standard of COVID management, requires only five days of quarantine for those returning from low-risk countries.
Then there’s the other issue: as Victoria showed, hotel quarantine is far from foolproof. It relies on a number of checks and balances and human intervention (not to mention, it’s expensive — travellers are charged around $3000 for the stay). While Victoria was the high watermark of incompetence, it certainly was not alone — NSW and WA have also had their own hotel quarantine issues.
Given Australia has (rightly or wrongly) pursued a policy of elimination, it would make far more sense to allow returning travellers to quarantine at home under strict conditions.
The most obvious would be to require a negative test: provide a rapid test upon return and then utilise a location tracker like electronic ankle tags (or the Singapore/Canada model, which involves check-ins via phone). If a person under home quarantine breaches quarantine (or has a guest in their residence), they would be heavily fined ($10,000+) and forced to spend three weeks in a hotel. Random in-person checks could also be used.
For a start, there’s the obvious inconsistency. If you test positive to COVID-19, you are asked to quarantine at home. That is, the Australian government trusts you to do the right thing. By contrast, if you are returning from overseas and test negative, you are still required to stay in a three-star hotel for 14 days.
Up until July, this was all at taxpayer expense (Victoria and ACT have not yet stipulated any costs for returning travellers, but theses states are also not currently accepting international flights).
So to clarify: if you test positive to COVID, please stay home. If you happen to come from another country and test negative to COVID, you’re staying at the Rydges for two weeks.
It’s also baffling that, unlike other countries such as Singapore, the Australian government treats residents returning from every country the same way. If you come from India (92,000 cases per day) you are subject to the exact same requirements as if you came from Vietnam (one case per day).
Moreover, the quarantine period is excessively long. While the virus’ incubation period does extend to 14 days, the median time for symptoms to present is around five days. Taiwan, the gold standard of COVID management, requires only five days of quarantine for those returning from low-risk countries.
Then there’s the other issue: as Victoria showed, hotel quarantine is far from foolproof. It relies on a number of checks and balances and human intervention (not to mention, it’s expensive — travellers are charged around $3000 for the stay). While Victoria was the high watermark of incompetence, it certainly was not alone — NSW and WA have also had their own hotel quarantine issues.
Given Australia has (rightly or wrongly) pursued a policy of elimination, it would make far more sense to allow returning travellers to quarantine at home under strict conditions.
The most obvious would be to require a negative test: provide a rapid test upon return and then utilise a location tracker like electronic ankle tags (or the Singapore/Canada model, which involves check-ins via phone). If a person under home quarantine breaches quarantine (or has a guest in their residence), they would be heavily fined ($10,000+) and forced to spend three weeks in a hotel. Random in-person checks could also be used.
Edited to correct gross estimation of accommodation costs.
Last edited by Chronic Snoozer; 22nd Sep 2020 at 02:27.
Edit thats in a serviced apartment not a hotel
Yeah. My bad. About 5K. On top of the thousands of dollars for a flight for four people - make up what number you wish. It sucks.
No ! singles and couples are put into hotel rooms, family group with adults and minors are put into a hotels with multiple rooms or serviced apartments dpending what is available at the time. You dont get a choice you get what is given but they have (in brisbane) some serviced apartments for a families with minors if you get lucky
(edited in exclamation point for it to make sense)
(edited in exclamation point for it to make sense)
Last edited by rattman; 22nd Sep 2020 at 10:25.
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Being a rumour network, I heard someone from a charter org asking the NT chief minister whats the deal because he cant get permission to fly into Darwin from international locations. The chief minister said that Darwin is only taking international students and farm workers from international locations.
Seems a bit rough to deny charters carrying Australians, but allow farm workers and students (but only if not Australian)
Seems a bit rough to deny charters carrying Australians, but allow farm workers and students (but only if not Australian)
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Do you think he should keep his job?
Every other state/ territory is restricted, regardless of the politics of the premier.
On the advice of a non aligned Chief Medical or Health Officer.
Only one border is closed to outbound traffic though...
https://www.interstatequarantine.org...rder-closures/
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Mark McGowan is likely to win by the largest majority ever.....the WA population support the border closure by something like 93%.
I think no one expected Victoria to get their situation under control this quickly (thanks Dictator Dan!), so maybe the WA government thought Victoria will still be in trouble for the rest of the year. And for a while it looked like NSW were on the cusp of a Victorian style outbreak too. Now with Victoria driving cases numbers down hard they should where NSW/Qld are today in about a month. So on track for eastern states re-opening in December. If there’s no trouble then it could be a political disadvantage if the border is still closed for another 3 months. So preparations may have to be made to shadow the East coast re-openings by a few weeks. Contact tracers being recruited en masse in WA now.
I’ve heard rumblings about a potential early December re-opening. Fits in well with the High Court trial.
I think the key is to wait until October 26 when most Melbourne lockdown restrictions lifted, if the cases are stilling trending toward zero it’ll make a good case in order for all borders to be open by Christmas.
For some light reading here’s a Grattan Institute document explaining the reasons why aiming for zero cases is an achievable goal and the best option, and how that can be achieved this year:
Go for zero: How Australia can get to zero COVID-19 cases