Because the government has (rightly in principle, but poorly in execution) determined that a slightly open border (for controlled return of expats and continuation of flight crews for freighters etc) outweighs medical risks of a virus escape turning into an overloaded health system. The mitigator is lockdowns.

Re funding - How many ICU rooms can you build and equip from scratch in - say - 6 months? Or maybe 12 months? And how many frontline health workers would we have spare if it spread like Europe or USA? Would they have been built in time to stop the health system being overloaded? With a huge country like AU with many regional areas remote from hospital facilities it would be a disaster. That's why many communities have been off limits. In WA you fly a pregnant woman the same distance as London to Budapest to get to hospital if she goes into labor more than 4 weeks early.

I'm getting a bit tired of these knee-jerk Lockdowns.
Crippling a city again because some infected returnee in a hotel gave it to a guard who went free-range.
I'd like to know how these 6 people are doing...are they really friggin' sick? Is one of them going to die?
Sure would like Channel 10 to do a story on this, but I'm guessing that there is nothing much exciting to relate.

It does seem frustrating, but every wide scale outbreak which overwhelmed a health system started with 1 or 2 patients. If the level of underlying positive cases circulating in the community isn’t stamped out by the time winter comes around they’ll increase exponentially.

Of course immunisation stops that. The government needs to ensure all workers within 50m of a potential Covid case are fully vaccinated at the earliest opportunity.

The more vaccinations the less strict precautions will need to be. As pilots the best we can do is get vaccinated and then become braggarts. Tell everyone we know we got vaccinated and encourage them to do the same, show it’s safe, quick and free. It’s the only way this lockdown/closure/isolation cycle will end.

I understand your point. I just don’t think it’s worse than all the other ways we lose our Medicals. Diabetes / Coronary Disease / Cancer etc are much worse. The under-reaction to those diseases makes the over-reaction to CV that much worse.

Can you catch coronary disease from being in a close space for a few minutes with someone who has coronary disease?

Can you catch diabetes from touching the same door handle that someone with diabetes did?

Sometimes pilots should just stick to piloting.......

Gladys has done an outstanding job so far, her downfall will be allowing the bluefest music festival to go ahead. This will be end of NSW streak which will result in a state wide outbreak. We will be back to where we were in April last year.

Seems like Melbourne is the place to be now!

Brisbane was going to fall over eventually just a matter of when.

Why are unvaccinated nurses dealing with positive cases with the assorted strains? Madness.

No but 3000 people take their own life in Australia each year.

Another 3000 people a year die in car accidents. Should we ban cars as well?

meanwhile that health care backwater of the USA is pumping out 3.5 MILLION shots a day. Ok even on a per capita ratio we should be at 350,000 but no…… Australian exceptionalism

I think you missed the point again.
It’s ok that we disagree on this. Someone had to vote for Labor and buy into the “chicken little” song and dance.

why arent they and the doctors in iso

There's licensing, policing, awareness campaigns and once upon a time people protested seatbelts, just like the fools protesting masks.

Well perhaps because the Australian government even mid 2020 was saying they were not required.

probably wait a day or two then make a decision I reckon. The testing que’s in Byron today were huuuuge. Any positive results she might can it. If it’s all clear, there’s a chance Byron might have escaped this one.

utter incompetence from the Queensland government. Given the way P and Miles carried on, it was only a matter of time.

Once upon a time a scientist somewhere reported “possible” or “a chance” that the vaccine may not prevent infection. Once that headline goes out, it’s incredibly hard to change the narrative (even with clear results suggesting otherwise!).

Real world results in countries doing a far better job of vaccinations (USA/UK/Israel/UAE) would suggest the vaccine DRAMATICALLY lowers your chance of getting infected, let alone passing it on to someone else.

Overall, there were 170 SARS-CoV-2 infections among HCWs in the period between Dec 19, 2020, and Jan 24, 2021, of which 99 (58%) HCWs reported symptoms and were designated as COVID-19 cases. Of the 170 HCWs who became infected, 89 (52%) were unvaccinated, 78 (46%) tested positive after the first dose, and three (2%) tested positive after the second dose. Among the 125 infections that could be traced, 87 (70%) were community acquired and there were no nosocomial clusters.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...448-7/fulltext


A case control study, which has been peer reviewed and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared 596 618 people who were newly vaccinated in Israel and matched them to unvaccinated controls. Two doses of the mRNA vaccine reduced symptomatic cases by 94%, hospitalisation by 87%, and severe covid-19 by 92%, according to the data from the Clalit Institute for Research which is Israel’s biggest healthcare provider.

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n567


The ONLY thing that will change your life and get aviation back up and running in Australia, is saying YES to a vaccine when it’s your turn.

*For the record, I’m overseas in a country that actually gets s*** done. Wife and I have already had both doses, so we are keen to see Australia get a move on so we can actually visit family again.


Thanks faction, the link below should be widely shared and reported on!!

The lock down in Brisbane won’t end on Thursday ( my thoughts).


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-...down/100039466

Nobody wanted to see this happen but as you say the way P & miles carried on its nice to see them get a slap in the face. They were so arrogant & thought themselves invincible.
Hopefully there arent more cases today & everybody can look forward to easter being somewhat as planned.

Going off the news this morning, Brisbane cluster has expanded waiting to be confirmed. Easter is not looking good now and with NT are on the fore foot by declaring Byron Bay a hot spot anticipating an out break there. I wonder if the emperor of the West will just close to NSW for being idiotic and continuing with the Byron Bay blues festival.

If cluster has grown you can bet the lockdown will be extended.
Hopefully Byron bay shows no more cases but always a chance.
Although they are saying all healthcare staff will get the jab,wouldnt it be appropriate for ALL healthcare & hotel quarantine staff to be tested at the start of every shift so that the chances of a transmission happening are reduced as much as possible.
As far as states slamming borders shut i guess its really a case of them being dammed if they do & dammed if they dont,the people in the unaffected states dont want it to enter so not an easy choice,just my opinion,many will disagree so no easy choice.

It was also reported the original cases in Brisbane Dr and Nurse had not been vaccinated. It’s been discovered QLD and other states including NSW have been with holding up to 40% of doses on the shelf incase of short fall for the second jab even after the federal gov have assured them of enough supply now. States are responsible for this Australia is an embarrassment after seeing the statistics of the UK and USA