Appalling “journalism”.

In fairness to the author, she claims only to be a 'writer and musician', not a journalist.

More likely to be transmitted by those 5G chips in your arm.

One moment please, my shoulder is trying to talk to me

Its only a pandemic in Australia, Its almost Endemic in rest of the world. There must be a media block on showing footage of whats going on outside Australia. Are we the next North Korea!

Debatable but utterly irrelevant to the point I was making. The reason that newly emerged variants are more transmissible has nothing to do with humour or reporting, it's a simple matter of evolutionary biology.

​​​​​​?!

What an extraordinary post. Appallingly ignorant of the plight of your "fellow" Australians. Appallingly and fanatically self-righteous, deflecting the blame of incompetent governence on Australians with the misfortune of being caught out abroad.

What do you think Australians stuck overseas receive from the government? I'll tell you what they get. Nothing! You get a bill for a hotel quarantine that often presents more of a chance of catching COVID than the country you have left.

At the start of the pandemic, a panicked Prime Minister told Australians through media and DFAT to stay put if safe and gainfully employed. Despite claims from some Australians 12 months later that expatriates should have come home when they had the chance, this original instruction is overlooked. Why do you think the numbers coming home has swelled? Perhaps because of job losses months after the pandemic began? Economic turmoil was staggered.

When all is said and done, Australia has probably bungled COVID. It's also potentially been exposed, providing a template for coercion and defeat, as aggressive nations see ease of division amongst State governments and even the social fabric of our communities.

Back to your opening line. I expect no financial assistance from government. I will not ever qualify for a government handout. This is typical of many Australians returning home. However, some Australians abroad have lost their livelihoods and have limited resources. Just to simply have a chance to repatriate, it may cost a similar to what you claim COVID to have cost you- six figures wasn't it?

Yours is an indecent and once un-Australian attitude.

And with an attitude like that, you shouldn’t be entitled to any taxpayer money even if you needed it!!

I’m glad to see there is a growing number of people on this forum who are finally realising what a farce our current border policy is. It’s good to see people like you becoming the minority.

The “rights of 26 million Australians” are not dependent on your location. Just like “Queensland hospitals for Queenslanders” was abhorrent, so is the idea that somehow you aren’t “Australian” once you leave our shores.

To be clear, “rights” don’t include a handout. Seeing as you are so concerned about precious taxpayer dollars I thought it important to make this CLEAR. “Rights” include something as simple as being able to get home, something that doesn’t actually cost the government anything, seeing as quarantine is user pays and all that…. And I pay for my own ticket... And I pay for the PCR test on departure…

Where does taxpayer money come into that other than getting in my way??

Guess what?! Home quarantine would be even cheaper for the government, probably require far less staff given the high tech monitoring options available (bracelets).

And the staggering part?? Returning Australians are probably more likely to be vaccinated than plebs like you. Wife and I got ours back in March, did Australia even have the Pfizer then?? 😂

I certainly hope you NEVER become PM.

Sadly, a high percentage of Australians are equating the lethality of COVID to that of Ebola! Too much reality TV and celebrity worship? Or just the continued erosion of our education system?

However, politicians are drawing mileage out of the public hysteria and their own bungled quarantine and vaccine programs and have halved caps for retuning Australian citizens. They are looking back and not forward! As you indicated, vaccine roll-outs in other First World countries are way ahead of ours. The way forward is to adjust the quarantine system and consider science for vaccinated returnees.

Now if Aussies are equating COVID to Ebola, they are not going to have much consideration for the vaccinated. Politicians can draw mileage again, out of paranoia of the at home Aussies, and leave Australians abroad to the mercy of their circumstances ( who cares? )

So what would science say? A returning Australian is fully vaccinated and COVID tested before departure. They are put into hotel quarantine where finally, staff are vaccinated. What would science say the risks of a COVID leakage now? Requires a vaccinated to vaccinated transmission and then a further transmission into the community. But look what we've done. Instead of moving forwards, it's a backward step to months ago in the pandemic where airliners are coming to Australia empty due slashed caps.

If leaders looked forward, it is not beyond the realm of possibility to repatriate mostly vaccinated Australians. Government charters of unvaccinated Australians where leakage of COVID a historical issue, could se better concentration of quarantine protocols.

Real data from NSW for vaccinated returned travellers 1 March - 26 June 2021 shows vaccinated travellers posing a very low risk.

NSW Epi report

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f279b04a4.jpeg

You can think of it as being ignorant of those overseas or as it being unAustralian, but while I've always subscribed to the concept of 'doing the right thing', I don't believe it should be done 'at any cost'. That's what people are suggesting. "Reopen the borders, bring our people home, let them quarantine at home, it'll be fine!'

Except it won't be.The PPE for the staff to process you. The ongoing & repetitive cleaning of the vehicles used to transport you. The overtime and diversion of GD police to monitor the respective HQ sites. The salaries of the security guards who monitor the corridors, government-sponsored repatriation flights, if you can get one. And let's not forget, the hundreds of millions of dollars it costs your fellow Australian's whennot if it gets out of HQ again, because some asreclown of a driver of the flightcrew who brought you over wasn't vaccinated, caught it, and spread the love throughout the eastern suburbs, or an UberEats driver tarried in the corridor delivering someone's dinner.

More returnee's = more flightcrew = more chance of it getting out, even if you quarantine at home!. Going back to pre-Covid flight numbers, which some here seem to be suggesting happen, will likely result in a similar number of flight & cabin crew in HQ as we have returning citizens now. And as we've proven so many times, HQ can't keep it contained, and that being the case, where is the reward for the additional risk?

You say you can quarantine at home. Fat chance of that. We have seen far too many examples of returning citizens, or even interstate travelers breaking out of the HQ system, the old couple who was reported to have triggered the northern beaches outbreak after they decided to go for lunch at the RSL, HQ guards getting it on with 'inmates', the bird who climbed down two balconies and broke a door to get out.... Face facts - people cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Vaccinated or not. Home quarantine or not. Most people will play by the rules but there will always be those that don't! And that's probably why home quarantine isn't even on their radar. Because sooner or later, someone will decide home-quarantine isn't all its' cracked up to be, will go to the shops and will spread it through the community. Being vaccinated simply means there is less risk of it happening.

If I read that right, 5% of those in that chart were vaccinated of some description, and still caught, or had, the pestilence.

If you apply that to the so-called magic figure of 30,000 overseas citizens, that's still 1,500 people coming home, to suggested home quarantine, with the virus. Even reducing it to the 2% reported to be fully vaccinated still gives you 600 people coming home with it. Whether that number will stay static or reduce as time goes on, I can't say. If it doesn't though, the Government will be knowingly importing Covid at a rate of roughly 4 cases per aircraft (assuming 200 pax), with the core belief that every one of those people will not pass it on to their housemates or family while they are in home quarantine.....Until we reach herd immunity or the vaccination target, I can't see that happening...

Yes, it did.

Truly a mystery why locals don’t give a toss about emigrants.

Cases have further deteriorated overnight since 8pm. See you in September Sydney.

Nope you’ve read it wrong.

From the 1st March
- 458 total cases
- 11 of the those cases were in fully vaccinated travellers
- 405 were unvaccinated.

If you consider that as a percentage of arrivals:
- 1st March to 26th June (15.5 weeks)
- NSW takes 3000 per week
- 46,500 arrivals.

So those 11 FULLY VACCINATED positive cases represent 0.0002% of all arrivals.

But don’t let some facts get in the way of your irrational fear.

You can't draw that conclusion because you don't know what percentage of travellers were fully vaccinated.

That 11 fully vaccinated people tested positive out of a total of 456 positive results from all sources (fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated and unvaccinated) tells you nothing about the efficacy of vaccination in preventing infection. You need to know how many were in the total population of fully vaccinated people to determine whether 11 cases is significant. I can't find that data in the full report.

That’s probably because Australia considers vaccination irrelevant in regards to COVID.

I’ve read plenty of comments from people going through hotel quarantine and they’ve told the staff they are fully vaccinated. The general response is “so?”.

It would be useful to at least collect the data on how many are vaccinated.

No need for a “pilot program” of home quarantine either. Plenty of real world data exists to show the low risk of transmission from vaccinated arrivals.

Taiwan even reports a 98% compliance rate for its quarantine system (tracking location via a mobile app).

Even if we still put arrivals in a hotel, at least raising the limits on fully vaccinated arrivals would be a good start! (Just put them in a “clean” hotel, eg fully vaccinated only)

Unless there is a tightening of restrictions, Sept could be ambitious

no year specified… 2022 ? 2023 ?

Yes, it would.