Hopefully with the statement from Sutton in Victoria that its impossible to keep out the strategy to 'live' with it will be the primary direction of at least Victoria. That has little comfort for particularly international aviation as its quite apparent already the borders are slamming shut and travel will stop. All this will do is really dent any comeback to travel overseas as people come to realise Covid ain't going away anytime soon. Travel plans are best to be shelved until something significant happens that says you won't have your plans and money lost to the ether time and again.

The cycle of new variant is getting faster , Pfizer saying 100 days to make booster , oil has gained %50 of its losses , futures back up in states . Borders will be closed just in time to reopen . Whiplash will be only concern .

100 days to CREATE the new vaccine. Another 9 months to manufacture sufficient quantities and then actually get them into people. Or in short, a year to get back to where we are now with around 90% fully vaccinated.

however I heard an interview this morning with the South African doctor who was the first to find this new strain. She seemed not to be overly concerned as it appears that while it is more infectious, the symptoms are mild with no hospitalisations. So far of course and we will need another two or three weeks to confirm. But the sharemarkets are bouncing off their days low quite convincingly. I have bought in. So fingers crossed this will be a storm in a Petri dish.

No they are not, no it won’t.
Israel has gone hard but they always do.

Australia’s international border is OPEN.

“We can start SHIPPING in one hundred days” is what he actually said.

dr dre, thanks but that’s a study of those who had the jab, 43 and I were on about those that hadn’t

I watched the same interview in the UK, closely followed by another specialist warning that the SA age and comorbidity demographics are markedly different from those of many Western populations, so no conclusions can be drawn yet. As you say, another two of three weeks of data gathering required, during which politicians and their advisors across the Western world will (hopefully) prepare for the worst, while we all hope for the best.

This may or may not be relevant

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/hea...he-delta-beast

"Xi" is the name of the president of China so naming a virus variant after him wouldn't have gone down well. Most of the cases of the new variant were in unvaccinated people, so the present vaccine seems to offer some level of protection and most of the cases only had mild symptoms. With the start of the vaccination campaign being nearly a year ago, most people would be looking at another jab next year anyway. We're in a much better position to deal with the new variant now compared to being totally unprepared for the initial outbreak. Defences are up and we're learning how to live with COVID.

As predicted, all borders never to open , still can’t go to many places in Australia. Will not get to WA until the masses form a civil war at the border .
we’re mostly 90% vaxed and there is really no concessions.

Foxxster, the people in "little" Australia couldn't give a stuff about the NHS, so he lost me in the first ten seconds and went downhill from there. A mocking tone of voice when talking dangerous nonsense really isn't the way to change anyone's opinions.

Australian border is open.

We can travel overseas without an exemption.

Australians can return with a 72 hour isolation.

Only WA and QLD are holding up the border freedoms.

Strange that some people always single out WA and QLD and ignore SA, TAS and NT, all of which have restrictions on international arrivals in excess of 72 hours. I wonder why that is?

Because WA and QLD have the most obnoxious premiers.

I think you proved the point StudentinDebt was alluding to.

Reports on the radio just now that Jetstar have cancelled all flights to WA until the end of January. Looking at the Jetstar web site, it appears to be true.

I think pointing out abject hypocrisy is always welcome. And deserves mocking. As for dangerous nonsense.. ????

Good! I hated going there.

The Jetstar website?

Looks as if WA is intending to open up next year and throw some money behind it:

The package focuses on international education, airlines, tourism and sourcing skilled labour.

It includes $65 million for re-establishing pre-COVID flight routes to Perth and securing new direct routes to Perth from countries such as Germany, India, China and Vietnam.

There will also be $10 million for more intrastate flights.


WA government to spend $185 million in effort to lure students, tourists, workers back when borders open