If SCOMO had any balls, he would drop the arrival caps into WA. As far as I’m aware, this falls under federal jurisdiction, but the current 250 arrivals per week was made on request by the WA state government. McGowan would then have no choice but to home quarantine all the arrivals. At least get Australian’s home. But no, SCOMO needs to look after the needs of his party’s re-election before the needs of Australians stranded abroad.

Which as I believe Dr Dre said, might actually be the intention.

If it does get away from him and cases rise, he can argue that he “did everything to save WA residents” but the virus got through anyway due to (probably) “those pesky eastern states ruining our lives”.

He’ll get to save face vs opening up and. HIM being the reason the virus is there.

Dr Dre’s ‘bet’ of mid-to-late March was based on the CHO’s advice re booster efficacy, hospital bed availability, etc, which sounds reasonable. If McGowan doesn’t open then, he’ll need to wait until after the winter illness peak, but then we’re potentially back to needing further boosters to ensure maximum protection. So, mid-to-late March seems quite likely, but all bets are off if the current outbreak gets out of hand.

You can dream up other excuses for McGowan’s decision to delay the 5 Feb reopening, but the advice from the CHO clearly recommended such a decision.

I would say early to mid March. Australia wide cases peak in the Omicron wave 17 days after they took off, the UK about 3 weeks. In Queensland they peaked a month after borders open, about 2-3 weeks after spread really took off. From the UK and South Africa we can see Omicron waves last about 6-7 weeks, a rapid rise followed by a rapid decrease. Already beginning to see the start of a similar decrease in Australia. We can expect by mid Feb the East Coast wavs to have mostly subsided, meaning more RAT tests and health staff available for WA if they started their wave just after that.

March 2 was named in the CHO health advice document. March 5 is the next Saturday. I'd reckon those are the most likely candidates.

Push back domestic flying by a month, but the additional international services planned out of Perth shouldn't be effected, as they weren't scheduled to start til late March or April.

Israel found a 4th shot to be ineffective, and the European Medical Agency has said more than 3 shots can be harmful to the immune system. They recommended the boosters be timed to co-incide with prior to winter, so March-May in the Southern Hemisphere which is when we usually get flu shots. So you won't see the next round of mass vaccinations in Australia until March-May 2023.

I agree. The 'mid-to-late March' bit was an error on my part.

I did say 'potentially'. The Israeli study found the fourth dose was ineffective at preventing symptomatic infection with Omicron, despite a significant increase in antibodies. However, the study was very small and did not answer the question of protection against serious illness, particularly amongst those with compromised immune systems (https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel...d-as-it-seems/). The EMA's Marco Cavaleri said that "While use of additional boosters can be part of contingency plans, repeated vaccinations within short intervals would not represent a sustainable long-term strategy" because it hypothetically increases the risk of overloading people's immune systems (https://www.reuters.com/business/hea...es-2022-01-11/). The comment was related to the long-term use of successive boosters, not specifically to a second booster (ie fourth dose). The point being that much of this stuff is at the cutting edge of science and the jury is still out on many questions. As Cavaleri said, more data and research is needed to support decisions one way or the other. Clouding the issue further is the fact that current vaccines were not designed to target the Omicron variant and thus require the use of a booster to provide protection. The picture might well change again if Pfizer has an Omicron vaccine available in March, as has been claimed (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/covi...-in-march.html), or if yet another variant emerges.

I think it's fair to say the next few weeks will be 'interesting', particularly if the current outbreak continues to grow, as I suspect it will.

https://amp.smh.com.au/politics/fede...23-p59qhy.html

Lets open up and get people flying. It’s all going to plan.

SOPS are you still flying for a living?

No. But I’m still have plenty of friends that are or wish they were.

And do you want those friends to return to flying? The position, tone and the garbage mainstream media links you post indicate otherwise.

And here we go agen, just because someone doesn't agree with you they are an antivaxxer, political activist, ra ra ra. I'm in SA, I supported opening the borders, I am triple vaxxed, our business is closing at the end of the month for lack of supply and staff. I deeply regret opening the borders, I will not be having a fourth jab because I conclude it doesn't work according to my expectations. If we need to close the borders again down the track for all the same reasons we will. McGowan is right to keep the borders closed for now and I don't give a shit what the rest of the aviation community think about that. Have a nice day.

Missing my point completely.Take his latest link for example - first of all it’s a “may be locked out” not an “is being locked out”, secondly not all EU (including Italy and Greece, possibly two of the biggest EU markets for Aussies) will adopt the proposal, thirdly as soon as cases drop, Australia will quickly be removed from the red list.

Now you don’t have to be Einstein to come up with these possibilities, but he doesn’t seem to want to highlight the positives. Just the negatives, as indicated by his line:

[/QUOTE] Lets open up and get people flying. It’s all going to plan.[QUOTE]

Whilst he is free to speak in whatever manner, he’s doing no one any favours, especially his out of work friends.

Regarding the above link, no evidence of critical analysis, just has to throw in a doom and gloom statement. To me this just sounds like depression or resentment for the industry he is no longer part of. I hope it’s not, for his sake

and here we go again, your position / stance is directly attributable to your personal circumstance / situation. Have a nice day

https://www.news.com.au/finance/econ...99a69e074a3202

Its not just aviation. It’s everywhere. ( of course it could be just be main stream media garbage.) In my opinion, the opening of the borders around Australia was a mistake.

Especially when I hear the Prime Minister best idea to keep supply chains going, was to let 16 year olds drive fork lifts.

And your poison/ stance isn’t, Jetstar?

It would actually be beneficial for me to have WA close it’s borders. But I don’t believe it’s the right thing to do.

Yes! along with the attitude of the rest of the state and damn NSW Govt/Health to hell for their cavalier we know better attitude, despite having been present in VIC and failed to learn the lessons and failures back then.
WA will be effected soon enough, opening the borders isn't going to change anything. you are not going back to normal, you won't be flying again anytime soon, borders or no borders, everything is coming to a grinding halt. Tourism and Travel is the very last think on anybody's mind if at all. This is going to take months to recover from and more likely a year and it only started 8 weeks ago.
P.S It's not so much our professional departments, it's the public service not what it used to be. They couldn't organise a root in a brothel.

Opening the borders gets loved ones re-united. That’s what I care about. Freedom of movement is restored. That’s what I care about, not having it blocked by a virus that has such an incredibly low fatality rate. As for the logistical nightmare cases are causing, change the isolation rules.

no-one would argue with that. but that's not what going to happen, everything stops, you still can't travel at least for very long and you are left with even bigger problems. We are used to make a call and it's delivered or nip down to the store and get it yourself, wait till it's, sorry mate I don't have any and don't know when I will. when that stops your own business/ activity, now what. Do what we are doing close up for a month re-access after that.

When will MM announce a lockdown to crush this virus? He has been quick to act previously. This only means one thing. MM knows the horse has bolted and he is in the war room coming up with a plan to open sooner than later now. I have noticed over the last few days in SY the airport has got busy again in the last week either it’s ppl just going home or the initial fear of omicron etc could be over and confidence is slowly on the up.

Definitely noticed this as well. I’m hoping the initial fear is subsiding as the general population gets used to living alongside the virus. The bed wetters are still pretty vocal on social media calling for more restrictions to keep them ‘safe’ though. It’s more likely people heading home after their holidays but one can only hope.

On the isolation requirements; one of our family member, who is a doctor, tested a ‘weak positive’. Had a “tickle in his throat” one morning and did a RAT as he works in ED. By next day, is completely asymptomatic and negative RAT. His wife is also an ED doctor. Both now have to isolate for 7 days despite both showing no symptoms and coming up negative on RAT. Both had boosters. We’ll need to treat this like any respiratory virus to get back to normal. Remember the days when you stayed home until you felt better? For some it was a few days, for others it was only one day and then back into it? That’s where this needs to be heading.