Wtf is gladys doing. Get it sorted.

So am I missing something Gladys tells everyone to stay at home for new years but the fireworks is still going head as planned.

If that correct am I only thinking that is a incredably stupid idea ?

Small government, let the free market sort it out, can’t hurt the economy blah blah blah.

It’s pretty obvious now we need the vaccine here ASAP. The current Federal government plan to have it completed by October is too late. Even the Conservatives in the UK are rolling out their vaccination schedule to have an effective end to the pandemic by Northern Spring, 6 months before Australia according to their Health Secretary. Now obviously the situation is worse over there but no reason our government can’t expedite the arrival and rollout of the vaccine here as much as possible and show us they’re going to make it priority one.

But I can’t see much about it, on the PM’s FB page a few touchy feely messages for Sydney, a cheesy Christmas message, some military personnel being sent to Fiji, some religious message, but very very little about the vaccine and the plan to bring it here ASAP, which should be priority one.

So where exactly did the Northern Beaches outbreak originate? Usually the news takes delight in blaming "foreign flight crews" and "returned travellers".

Do we have a Victoria style lapse of protocol here that nobody will admit?

Well Dan will not loose his 60 odd days he has another column “cases squired interstate” that’s the blame column. Vic will do a hard border closure to NSW and WA will close to Vic standby for Queen P up in the north they will close by weeks end. Get ready for stand downs

Just taking a stab in the dark but could be because domestic pilot salaries are directly linked to borders being open and people buying tickets to fly somewhere?! This is a pilot forum after all.

I won’t even argue whether it’s right or wrong to close anymore- it’s pointless. 10 cases a day has the same effect as a 1000. Some borders shut and consumer confidence disappears. SA govt tells people to come home from NSW being one such example. 2021 will drag on just as much as 2020 I suspect. :ugh:

So borders close whenever someone sneeze's now but you will wait 6 months for vaccinations to start?

Bring on the vaccinations tomorrow. No arguments from me. But just another thing out of mine (and your) control. :ok:

Has anyone seen published any coherent plan to distribute and administer the vaccine doses when they finally do arrive? Watching the USA train wreck from afar reveals that poor planning is a disaster: their current rate means more than four years to vaccinate 75% of their population.

The local medicines authority here insists on conducting their own data review before they approve any vaccine for local use despite competent authority approvals overseas. Why? Protecting their turf in the face of obvious immediate need?

60 day streak has now been flipped to 0

The local medical authorities in the UK and US have given emergency 'approval' for the use of couple of vaccines because their situation is critical and bordering on unmanageable. Ours is not.

Some months ago most medical authorities around the world, including here, suggested that the complete results of testing of a number of the vaccines would be complete in March. I guess it was on that basis that the Australian Government set it's timeline.

Seriously - why would anyone have expected anything else??

Dealing with a new virus with mutations, for all the pain Vic appears to have demonstrated that if people isolate/don't travel the spread stops.
Conversely, of course, once travel starts again there will be new cases as sure as night follows day.

Anyone who thinks this virus can be eliminated is nuts.
At best maybe it can be controlled whilst life goes on - some people will get sick, some may die but at some stage the siege mentality has to give way to getting on with life and taking the knocks.

Federally at some stage the govt gotta say "enough", Australia is one country and must look to move forward as one.

Maybe the removal of additional funding to states who don't want to "move forward as one" would give pause for thought?
Don't have the answer but at some stage a tipping point has to be reached where the good of Australia has to override the perception/whim of individual state and territory leaders.

With the present mentality W.A. will NEVER open again - and that is both bull**** and intolerable.

And don’t think that the vaccine will mean borders open to those who are vaccinated in a vaccine passport (yellow fever style).
Now gaining awareness mainstream but the vaccine doesn’t appear to stop you catching and spreading it. Rather it stops YOU getting sick but you might still be able to spread it all the same.

Yes, but the emergency use authorisations weren’t slapdash, and full licences won’t be issued before March anyway.

Yes, so eventually the unvaccinated will be the at-risk population, same as for any illness. The wilfully unvaccinated should feature how prominently in our future border closures?

Any aircrew subject to the WA hotel quarantine system can expect to be treated little better than a criminal - orders barked at you, little common courtesy, and seemingly no awareness that air transport might actually be of benefit to WA.

Since that’s their attitude, as far as I’m concerned, any returning WA residents should only be allowed to re-enter Australia through Perth, and not via any of the eastern states. And when international aircrew start bring vaccine supplies into the country, WA can be last cab off the rank to receive them.

(and yeah, I know this is divisive & unhelpful etc, but right now I don’t care - just a bit fed up with the arrogant smug attitude)

If ScoMo thought he could get away with that he'd have done it by now.
His government was elected with a two seat majority, lost that majority for a while, but now has it back.

He would be on a flogging to nothing if he was to further tread on the toes of three (of six) Labor states while pushing a federalist wheelbarrow over closed borders.
He tried it for a while by backing Clive Palmer's High Court challenge but someone must have had a whisper in his ear.

In 2018-19, Western Australia's gross state product was A$260.6 billion (14% of Australia's GDP), making it the nation's most productive state with a GSP per capita of A$100,367 (compared with the national average of A$74,605).

Perhaps the less productive states should pay attention. In 1933, 2/3 of the voting population voted in favour of secession. Only the pommy government at the time stopped it from happening.

very true, however once everyone who is not medically unable has had the vaccine, then it should be free for all. The world could do with a fee less anti vaxxers who continue to sprout their hours of research from YouTube whilst on the ****ter.

anti vax = no rights as far as I’m concerned.

Yes for clarity - I should have mentioned they prob won’t open until such time that a pre determined percentage of the population has been vaccinated. (I wasn’t intending to consider the scourge of anti vaxers)
That will be the next political football “war” - determining that percentage. Cue opposition politicians with nothing to lose saying the number is 25% below the figure determined by the relevant CMO.

Any country who believes they can eliminate the virus before a vaccine is rolled out is displaying nothing but sheer arrogance. We aren’t better than anyone else, we’ve been lucky and have plenty of things working in our favour like low population density, geographical isolation and lots of sunshine with an outdoor based lifestyle.

If you want to see arrogance, look at the WA Premier, who thinks he is a hero and is absolutely brutal in following his hard border policy for two reasons:

(1) It keeps the mining companies happy and making money. He knows where his bread is buttered!
(2) It’s popular with the public narrative of “screw everyone over East”. Not to mention that plenty of the population are employed directly or indirectly in mining (see point 1).

Let’s start tackling it as one country, enough of this state by state nonsense!

The current thinking from Anthony Fauci is that in America approx 85% vaccination rate is required. Different population densities and cultural behaviour would change that, but I don’t know if anyone can say by how much

Just in: South Australia imposing "hard border" with NSW excluding regional border towns and returning SA residents (which will be undergoing mandatory self-isolation with regular police checks).

IMO, I wonder how long will it be before returning SA residents' "mandatory self isolation" becomes "mandatory hotel isolation at own expense" in SA.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-...break/13023328

Covid: How close is the light at the end of the tunnel?

This article from the BBC from earlier this month makes a valid point regarding the amount of people that need to be vaccinated, and why the impetus is on vaccinating the elderly first.

“There are 12 million over-65s (in the UK). Once significant numbers are vaccinated, the risk of the NHS being overwhelmed disappears and the high number of excess deaths being seen across the population dwindles.How long will that take? Well, GPs managed to vaccinate the over-65 population against flu in a little over two months this autumn - 77% came forward for the jab”.

About time jobkeeper was turned off so this border madness can end. None of this would be ocurring if the States actually had to pay for it.

Just out of curiosity...if the borders were open but infections still simmering along at a low rate what fraction of the usual traffic do you think would exist? Enough to sell paying loads, or would people behave rationally do you think?

Exactly how do you keep infections simmering along at a low rate without lockdowns or severely restricting people’s movements?

90 percent of West Australians think he is a hero. All those that work in mining do. All those pilots that have kept flying aircraft to mine site all year do. All the people in WA that have a fairly normal life do. I fail to see your pint.

On another note.. I think WA’s hard border will be up again within the next 24 hours.

Except if you’re in mainline you’re still sent on flights that attract an isolation requirement on return to WA rather than having other bases operate the service saving the isolation requirements and giving more work around. VA have taken off all WA crew.

He hasn’t managed the situation through any skill or
expertise, he’s actually made the easiest of decisions by simply throwing up a fence. He’s also made some slip ups along the way, deviating from the “medical advice” line and mentioning things like people going on holidays from WA spending their money “over east” instead of in WA.

He could also eliminate the road toll tomorrow if he banned cars, but what good would that do?

Comparing cars/road toll to COVID Is stupid. What’s your solution?

Time to roll out these 15min test kits. Test the test kits. Get 20 people 10 already covid positive and 10 that are not and check the accuracy.
If all 10 positives are accurate and the other 10 are negative as per the real covid test then impliment these immediately.
All the negatives fly on the day. Even if it means arriving at the airport much earlier do this test and if
all good everyone in that pressurised tube is covid free keeping borders OPEN.

You don’t, obviously. I am always bemused at pilots clamouring for open borders as though that would restore the loads and the industry to normal. From the start of modern pandemics aviation has always spread the problem. More aviation won't fix that.

But given the incubation period travellers would still have to quarantine which would kill the demand anyway. Its not like coming to the Gold Coast is that compelling in the first place.

If Gladys had gone hard just prior to Christmas ala what Steven Marshall did in SA in November Sydney could’ve been enjoying a Covid free NYE. Instead she went for a half assed approach, concentrating on the Northern Beaches whilst the virus is now all over the city and no mask mandate. And they’re letting NYE fireworks and the cricket go ahead??? Insanity, I’d like to find out who will profit from those events and how they’re connected to the NSW Liberals.

Say what you will about the Victorian government they’ve gone for mandatory masks indoors, capacity restrictions and tighter borders less than 24hrs after the cases were announced, which gives me more confidence they’ll remain on top of the outbreak than Gladys will.

100,000 aviation jobs lost in the US this year without a single US state border closure.

You’re quite right. We’ve all got much more chance of dying in a car accident!

Nope, USA 2019 road toll 35,000, 2020 USA Covid deaths 350,000. UK 2019 road toll 1900, Covid toll 69,000.

That’s what happens if the virus is left to run around unchecked, and don’t forget those places have had some mask mandates and restrictions in place.

I’ll rephrase. If you’re in good health, not overweight, and under 80, the car accident would surely be a more likely cause of death.

I’m not advocating for “letting it rip”, just a common sense national based approach. Take the power away from the State Premiers. Define a hotspot, define a cluster. Allow people to book holidays and plan to see relatives with some sort of confidence. The current situation in Australia is getting ridiculous.

So now you want to change the constitution?

The enemy in containing the virus is the people, not the government. If more people applied a bit more common sense and a bit more caution, then the virus could probably be managed. Unfortunately that’s not happening and enforced restrictions are required.

Yep, with the honourable exception of NSW, the collective responses of all state governments to COVID have amply demonstrated that jurisdictions with such parochial concerns should be nowhere near the levers of executive power. Get rid of all of them.

Along with that, I agree with Transition Layer

The national government that pays the bills should get to make the decisions.