Most of the information seems to have come from a call in to a talkback radio station from the patient's father. It's a sad situation but some things aren't so accurate. For instance it would not have taken 16 hours for a medevac flight to Sydney to be arranged in an emergency case.

It wasn't. Clinicians from RPA in Sydney were consulted and the decision was made to do the surgery in Sydney so no need to apply for a quarantine exemption (they would not have needed anyway because it was an emergency case)

It won't be known for privacy reasons but that must have been the assessment of local medical staff at the time.

They wouldn't have needed too, because it was an emergency case no quarantine restrictions (as confirmed by the Qld Chief Health Officer). But Qld Health have also confirmed no request was sought from the patient.

It's a sad situation but there is nothing in this story that was the fault of any government for instituting border restrictions (which do not apply if it is an emergency medical case). It has been misrepresented by the media, and seized upon by those looking for a political angle.

It's been known that essential medical care is exempt from border restrictions when the restrictions were instituted. I'm sure the medical staff in NSW close to Qld know far more about this than the posters on this forum.

My guess is they made an assessment that the situation was not critical enough to warrant a medevac so a lower priority transfer was arranged. Unfortunately the situation deteriorated after the patient made it to Sydney.

You guys can stop blaming our premiers for closed borders, they are doing what we the citizens of the state (83%) want them to do and that's close the borders quarantine the infected.
Medical advice has nothing to do with our borders, we have listened to the arguments and conclude it's still high risk because we know the remaining 17% won't help contain the pandemic, they don't give a ****, if your 17% infects our 17% our state will fall just the same as Victoria.
Before we agree to open our borders one of two things must happen, a vaccine or a quick test similar to the lick drug test that can identify an infected person within minutes. That will change how we manage the virus and our borders.
About Canberra and funding. The states fund Canberra by way of taxes, Canberra doesn't produce anything it's a cost and good at borrowing money that the states have to pay for.

The Good news.
The vaccine developed in South Australia is going well and exceeds expectations.
What we know
It works
What we don't know
For how long it will work, it must be good for at least 9 months and ideally 12 months.
The vaccines efficacy. No vaccine is 100% effective, (they don't work for everyone) but must be in the high 90's%
Whether or not there are any health risks as a consequence of the vaccine.

The vaccine should be ready for production by April 2021, provided it passes all the required tests. It will still take 12 months to distribute and vaccinate most of the population.

From what I understand, I would anticipate a change in border controls by mid 2021, most likely (hopefully) due to a quick test becoming available. everyone is working on it.

Finally; no-one wants the borders closed any longer than necessary, that said and as it applies to the Airlines, no-one is rushing off on holidays when the border opens either
One shouldn't have the expectation that once the borders are open domestic travel will return to 100%, there will still be a way to go for international travel including cruising.

This tragedy will get messy as more is revealed. Those words spoken by Anastasia last week regarding QLD hospitals are for QLD people have come back to haunt her.

Mum told to head south: doctor

EXCLUSIVE

NATASHA ROBINSON
https://theaustralian.smedia.com.au/...20200828162656NSW doctors treating a pregnant woman whose twin babies needed urgent surgery claim senior clinicians at Queensland’s Mater Hospital told them that “given the political situation” of border closures the mother should be transported 750km south to Sydney rather than be operated on in Brisbane.

A political row over border closures has gained intensity after it emerged that one of the twin girls carried by Ballina mother Kimberley Brown died after intrauterine surgery performed by doctors at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

On August 13, an obstetrician at Lismore Base Hospital in northern NSW spoke with the director of maternal fetal medicine at the Mater Hospital and discussed Ms Brown’s urgent need for surgery. Lismore paediatrician Chris Ingall, who sits on the executive of the medical staff council at Lismore Base Hospital and has spoken directly with Ms Brown’s treating obstetricians, said the case was agreed by all clinicians to be urgent.

“The Mater Hospital agreed it was an urgent case but they said given the political situation the woman needed to be sent to Sydney,” Dr Ingall said.

Mater denies the claim. “We didn’t deny access and always were happy to provide care if RPA weren’t able to do so,” a spokesperson said.

Patients requiring emergency medical care are allowed to be treated in Queensland hospitals despite the border closure, but Dr Ingall said that in practice, doctors were facing bureaucratic barriers to getting patients urgent care.

“We at this point here are totally bamboozled by the answers we’re getting from both the governments and also the hospitals,” Dr Ingall said. “Because we need to get a double tick. We need to get a tick on both the bureaucratic and political masters and also the health administrators that cases are an emergency. So we’ve got no way of telling what is going to happen.”

The Northern NSW Local Health District said surgery in Brisbane would not have been a feasible option because Ms Brown would have been required to quarantine in Queensland for 14 days before having surgery.

Queensland Health says, however, that emergency cases receive urgent care. It’s unclear whether Ms Brown’s case qualified as an emergency despite doctors on both sides of the border agreeing the situation was urgent.

“While the preferred location for the family to give birth was at a hospital in Brisbane, under the Queensland Border Direction at the time, the woman and her partner would have had to quarantine in a government hotel for 14 days, at their own expense, prior the procedure,” said Northern NSW Local Health District chief executive Wayne Jones.”

Ms Brown’s babies, which at the time were 24 weeks’ gestation, were affected by twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, in which twins share one placenta and the blood flow of one baby is channelled through the other. Ms Brown required highly specialised intra-uterine surgery that could only be performed in Sydney or Brisbane.

“The twin that’s giving blood to the other twin doesn’t grow as well. So that’s what was happening here and it was being closely monitored,” Dr Ingall said.

“But it got to a point where the smaller twin was in jeopardy. And the surgery requires actually in utero surgery to stop the twin-totwin transfusion from occurring.”

Ms Brown and her husband Scott remain in Sydney as doctors monitor the progress of the surviving twin. Ms Brown’s father, Allan Watt, told The Weekend Australian he had “done nothing but cry for the last 24 hours”.

“The other bub is struggling along and they want to keep her in the womb until she’s 28 weeks,” he said. “If they had both been at 28 weeks there would have been a fair chance of saving the other bub, but she was just too young to be born.”

Mr Watt, who is in Ballina while his wife and daughter are in Sydney, said their family had been “divided” by border closures and travel restrictions. Despite the Queensland health department saying exemptions were not necessary in emergency cases, it is understood the family was told that a medical exemption was needed for Ms Brown to cross the border.

“They took the option to go to Sydney because it would take too long to get an exemption,” Mr Watt said.

Mr Watt said his daughter waited at Lismore Base Hospital for 16 hours before she was flown by air ambulance to RPA to undergo emergency surgery. Mr Brown took a Jetstar flight to Sydney and arrived there 10 hours before an air retrieval flight carrying his wife landed at 1am.

Dr Ingall said it was not possible to determine whether Ms Brown’s baby would have survived if she had received surgery sooner in Brisbane. “It is possible that if she’d been quickly transferred to Brisbane, she may have had a better outcome. That’s a possibility.”

That timeframe seems realistic.

This Aussie company has developed a rapid 15-minute test, it's around 6-9 months away due to patient trials and regulatory approval:

https://www.anteotech.com/covid-19/

A recent SBS show on migration to Australia had partner visa application that had the couple separated in different countries for 4 years, race off to the bathroom to overdose after the visa was refused. Luckily the film crew reacted quickly. These applications are very hash and often have long periods of separation of families - the government know this and are happy with it being normal.

As for hospital funding - Public hospitals are funded by the state, territory and Australian governments, and managed by state and territory governments.

Almost 68% of total health expenditure during 2013–14 was funded by governments, with the Australian Government contributing 41% and state and territory governments nearly 27%.

But yes her comment was pathetic.

KRviator -

Why not quote the rest of the article that you link?

"Asked by Commonwealth Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue QC if his advice to keep the border closed was based on an assumption he had to work on and all-or-nothing approach, Dr Robertson agreed "

“But the other risk is that you would then become dependent on the decisions of another state for them opening their borders, so if they opened their borders, then people could pass through the state into your state without restriction.”

Despite the small risk, his advise is to remain closed.

The only reason why you would close a border is not allow the clingons attack you and annihilate the whole human race.
I do believe though we have homo sapiens on each side of the border of the same species.
Covid is not as bad as Clingons. Clingons will kill all 26 million of us. Covid will only kill a minuscule of people with serious underlying
conditions. The only other reason to close a border is to catch a criminal on the run.

In June 2019 14.7% of all Australian Workers were aged between 55 -64 years, another 4.7% were over 65 years - almost 20% of the work force.

Healthcare is one of the largest industries with an older workforce.

Protecting the vulnerable, opening up and just living with it - would be an interesting project - lots of lost talent.

https://www.aigrouptalent.com.au/wp-...force-2019.pdf

Several groups of Australians are at higher risk than the general population of being infected with COVID-19 and a higher risk than the general population of developing severe symptoms once infected.
* Older Australians: starting at age 60, there is an increasing risk of disease , and this risk increases with age. The highest risk of serious illness and death is in people older than 80.

* People with compromised immune systems and/or existing chronic health conditions: these existing conditions, like diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and autoimmune conditions. can make it harder for peoples's immune systems to fight the virus.

* Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are at risk because of the higher rate of conditions in these populations.

* People living in group residential settings such as detention facilities and aged care facilities, where infections can spread quickly.

https://ama.com.au/article/latest-information-covid-19

In 2016 - 21.4% of the population were 60 or over (and growing).

Turnleft my old mate, how many times do I have to tell you it's not about dying. If we lost the number of medical staff you have, that would collapse our entire health system and unlike us you wouldn't be able to send anyone to help. Not that there are too many putting their hands up for that.

Bend a lot, what your saying in last two posts is pretty much what I said in #776.
80% of us can get working now. 20% lockdown.
Here is another thing about borders. If every state/territory registered say 20 cases each then we are all on a level playing field.
What difference does it make. The only difference is if the aliens attack. Then all the states would then work together. Far fetched yeah but the principle
is interesting. Funny that.

Ah ha Xeptu my old mate. The health system has already collapsed. Read in an article 50% not bothering to go to GPs/hospitals to do check ups on heart/cancer other conditions.
Apparently heart disease and cancer have fallen off the map. Your saying April for a Covid vax. That's when their will be a spike with all other diseases.
Still think clingons are a greater threat.

The problem with that is that 20 cases can become 100 cases literally overnight. See definition of "exponential".

A national framework defining a "hotspot " may go some way to helping the situation, but then the problem becomes one of enforcement.

Case in point with VIC.

Toughest and earliest but let down by enforcement of said measures.

Personally, I'm all for using the same measures as Taiwan.

But the time to move on that was Dec.31 2019, like Taiwan.

No quite - that is just 20% of the work force not 20% of the population. (non workers and workers under 60 with health conditions,severe obesity etc diabetes is 1.25 million people alone up to 54 years old)

They not only need protection if they were singled out for "lockdown" but they also need to be replaced in the workforce.

2016 in the medical workforce 33.7% males and 17.8% females were 55 years or older.

A quick look across the top end of Australia finds 2 hospitals with ICU beds, both with similar numbers of patients and bed numbers in 2018/19. Cairns reported being over capacity, so Darwin would be similar. Both this time of year attract lots of tourists. Excepting 20 cases in the North would make a level playing field - does not pass the pub test.

I am interested in how your idea of "isolating the vulnerable" would actually entail such as what isolation would consist of, how services are supplied, what the compensation would look like (or the age discrimination lawsuits from Clive, Gina & Twiggy) given you can not discriminate by age in the workplace. Also how the hospitals would hope with a second/third wave as people other than vulnerable still get sick with this.

Currently in many places (in Australia) travel is possible even if a 2 week isolation or quarantine is required (not always the case) then movement is pretty normal - should there never be a vaccine how long would your age lock-down last indefinite? Given retirement age is 66 and vulnerable age starts at 60, not a lot of incentive for people near 50 to work - Sell the house, the cars, the kids and live it up before lock-down.

Well there you go, the 17% that don't give a **** about infecting other people and are happy to lie, cheat, abscond, cross a state border and attempt to disappear into the community are exactly that. Criminals on the run.

......and then everyone in Melbourne went to the friggin beach!

Muppets!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/h...s-testing.html

This is interesting.

The PCR tests can be extremely sensitive at detecting COVID virus. So sensitive they can test sewage to see if there are infected people in a city.

The PCR amplifies the viral RNA with each cycle. You can run as many cycles as you want in order to crank up the sensitivity. The fewer cycles required to turn positive, the more virus on the swab. The more cycles required to turn positive, the less virus on the swab.

Looks like no one in USA has agreed how many cycles constituted a real positive (who may get sick and may infect others) from someone with minuscule traces of virus that pose zero risk.

Most experts suggest the test should be limited to 30 cycles.

But most tests do 40 cycles.

If you stopped after 30 cycles and called the test negative, 90 % of current positive results would be negative. So USA would have 4000 meaningful infections each day rather than 45,000 cases.

This helps explain all the asymptomatic cases - the test is repeated until it turns positive, even though most of these positives won’t get sick.

It also means we have been quarantining and isolating many people who are not going to get sick and who won’t infect others.

If China are still testing, maybe they have set a much lower cycle threshold. And thats why numbers are way down there.

China does not count positives tests that remain asymptomatic.

"The tally of confirmed cases was further suppressed, with the Government initially not including clinical diagnoses and later excluding people who test positive without symptoms.

But public pressure helped forced China's National Health Commission to rectify those omissions, even though it continues to exclude asymptomatic cases from the headline daily figure of cases."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-...overy/12594828

Did they? News to me, I stayed home all weekend. Lots of my neighbors were home as well so clearly, not everyone.:hmm:

Living near the beach, I drive along Beach Road to go shopping.
And yes, most afternoons the bike path and walking track along the beach are crowded while the shopping centre is deserted.

Rather be a muppet than a Dan Andrews puppet.

The opportunity to suppress this virus with social distancing, limiting numbers in groups etc has passed. We had the winter to achieve this and now that the warmer months are coming people will congregate in the masses in the outdoors which could possibly make this virus run out of control up and down the eastern states. I have been informed off a reliable source that the NSW and VIC border will be closed until February so it is time to plan for the future.

The real question that needs to be answered by these premieres that continue to play god for political gain- What is the plan to generate jobs and what is the economic road map? the borders are closed we don't need to hear that every press conference anymore. I want to hear a plan for real action now what are you going to do?!

I was wondering when you would comment on my criminals on the run quote. I set it up so you would answer it with 17% couldn't give a toss, meaning 83% are in favour of lockdowns.
How about we take away their toy? Jobkeeper.
Then 83% would be saying "OPEN THOSE BLOODY BORDERS I GOT A FAMILY TO FEED".
State premiers love power, they eat it night and day. They even supplement with vitamin P.

Funnily enough remember the last few days of last summer when Bondi and Manly beaches were packed lapping up good sun (you know what UVA/UVB does to covid as I expressed before) their was
not one case of transmission, until the Sea Princess docked.
Funnily enough the European summer is about to end and cases flatlined because of the warmth. France, Italy, Germany, Spain their cases will now increase coming into winter. Hope they don't though.
Same can be said for North America. Texas & Florida I can't explain though. US news reports suggest that walking in and out of air condition rooms could be a factor.
From the graphs thus far I find Covid spreads more easily in winter than in summer.

As far as jobs and economic road map, I think Dan will talk to the private sector today. Details to come.

Well actually no we won't. The economy in our state is pretty much back to normal. Our covid wards are empty and our reserve staff waiting to be called are still waiting, hopefully we won't need to call upon them. The only ones on jobkeeper are about half the state based airline staff and a significant number of the tourism industry. Otherwise you would'nt know there's a crisis going on. It's really important to us to keep covid out here, we can't depend upon any other state for our essential services, nor can we access them. We are pretty much self contained. We produce everything we need locally To allow covid in would collapse our health system and most likely our essential services as well. we really don't want to end up like Victoria and possibly NSW as well.
The only thing we can't do is travel outside of our state, unless you want to mandatory quarantine at your own expense when you return. We can wait. It's not a big ask. when the quick test arrives we will review our position.

Same applies to Sydney!,check out the pics of coogee beach on sunday.
Im sure theres plenty of people on the beaches in every state when the sun is out.

Well both of those things will happen, you just need to be patient. Being an Airline discussion it comes as no surprise you think the way you do. A pandemic hasn't happened like this for 100 years, Airlines are the first effected and the last to recover when there's a crisis, an industry hazard. The last 30 years of growth in air travel hasn't happened before either, you have grown up with it, it's natural to think that is forever. Well nothing is forever, airlines will again be deeply impacted by something like this, all it would take is an armed conflict to break out between China and the USA, that would be even worse than a pandemic. One thing is for sure air travel will change one way or another eventually. It's just another issue we can't keep ignoring, like plastics in the ocean.

According to Federal Treasury data, five local governments — Exmouth, Shark Bay, Dundas, Augusta-Margaret River and Denmark — had 50 per cent or more businesses apply for the payment.

That was the highest number of all the States and Territories.

Closing the borders totally is a good idea,.....as long as you don’t live in those local Govt areas I suppose.

Always has been, and always will be...Western Australia and the rest of Australia. Probably keep the borders closed even when the pandemic is over. Now all they need is their own military, customs, consular, currency, taxation, education welfare system.etc etc

I'm not surprised. The majority of their tourism income traditionally comes from international and eastern state visitors.

Just like a bigger version of the Principality of Hutt River! :bored:

Three months since the OP and borders, Tasman included, are still locked up.

Those businesses employ very few people, it's not a major drain. It's not like a manufacturing plant that employs hundreds.

As for our military, well special ops and half the navy is based here, :) just saying

Conveniently didn't answer the question though.

"A vaccine will come, I promise". Standard politician speak.

So I ask again, what do you foresee as happening if a vaccine (or quick test as you said) doesn't become available? Should the desire of those 2.2M people in WA outweigh the wishes - and the constitutional right to not be penalised based on their state of residence - of the other 23 million Australian citizens to keep the WA border closed?

I think the way I do because I look at the big picture. A statistical human live in Australia is valued at $4.6M AUD ($4.2M 2014 adjusted for inflation) Source. The political response to this pandemic, including border closures, lockdowns, etc, has seen a $90 billion turnaround in the budget, from a projected $5B surplus to an $85B deficit and it isn't stopping there. The statistical value of that is nearly 20,000 lives saved, true. But that is only the current cost - not the costs going forwards which I reckon would be an order of magnitude higher. To what end? We lost more people from the common flu last year, and much more again in 2017. Hell, lung cancer kills nearly 9,000 people every year - yet Governments refuse to ban tobacco!

The response to this pandemic needs to be proportional and reasonable, yet a border closure while effective yes, is not the be-all and end-all, for the judge in the recent Palmer v WA trial found other reasonable alternatives exist to a hard border closure. Mandatory hotel quarantine has been found - legally - to present no increase in risk to the current border closure. In WA's case, though, the issue is one of capacity.

WA can stay closed, I would vote to turn off the Fed money they can look after themself. QLD premier just saying now that borders will remain closed she will not be moved she said she won’t worry about the economy until the health of QLD is assured. So she does not give any economic road map out of this or understand that one I needed not even entertaining a balance of learning to live with it. QLD VIC and TAS are really dragging their feet in the sand with this.

I have a genuine fear of what our great country will look like this time next year Aviation aside which by the looks will not be the same by density and by what carriers we have.

[QUOTE=KRviator;10874556]Conveniently didn't answer the question though.

"A vaccine will come, I promise". Standard politician speak.

So I ask again, what do you foresee as happening if a vaccine (or quick test as you said) doesn't become available? Should the desire of those 2.2M people in WA outweigh the wishes - and the constitutional right to not be penalised based on their state of residence - of the other 23 million Australian citizens to keep the WA border closed?[QUOTE]

Then I'll be bold and answer the question. We would continue doing what we are doing, keep the borders closed and find a way to allow easier access to the state without risking exposure to general population, something like inbound services into a central hub like merredin and setup a screening and quarantine operation before allowing travellers to continue into the state. I'm sure it won't come to that though.

Xeptu who will want to come to Australia to have to isolate on a random island and when our own citizens can’t travel domestically?

We would'nt have any objection to cutting off federal funding all together if it comes to that, so long as you don't expect us to contribute to it either.

Unless they plan to stay awhile, probably not many, but then International visitors are out of the question for any state at this point in time.

Dundas is an interesting one!
It is great to see % used to make a point! 50% businesses sounds a lot, but the total population of all these places is only around 20,000 people ( I used a near replacement for Dundas). As mentioned tourism is a big part to these places as is backpacker labour.

Denmark had a population of 2,558; however, the population can be several times the base population during tourist seasons.

Denham is the administrative town for the Shire of Shark Bay, Western Australia. At the 2016 census, Denham had a population of 754. Denham survives as the gateway for the tourists who come to see the dolphins at Monkey Mia,

The Shire of Augusta Margaret River had a population of over 14,000 at the 2016 Census, about half of whom live in the towns of Margaret River and Augusta. Margaret River is a small town south of Perth in western Australia, known for its craft breweries, boutiques and surrounding wineries. Beaches and surf breaks line the nearby coast, whose waters host migratory whales.

Dundas is the name of an abandoned town in the Goldfields-Esperance Region of Western Australia. The town is located about 22 kilometres (14 mi) south of Norseman. Norseman is a town located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia along the Coolgardie-Esperance Highway, and the last major town in Western Australia before the South Australian border 720 kilometres to the east. At the 2016 census, Norseman had a population of almost 600.

Exmouth is a small resort town on Western Australia’s North West Cape. It’s a gateway to nearby Ningaloo Marine Park with its coral reefs, colourful fish and migratory whale sharks. Nowadays, the town relies more on tourism than the US military station for its existence. At the 2016 census, Exmouth had a population of 2,486. At the height of the tourist season, the population swells to 6,000.