The virus may have a 98-99% survival rate but don’t mistake survival with recovery. I’d like to keep my Class 1 by ensuring I don’t get complications arising from the virus such as scarring of heart and lungs. Many studies are being conducted into the long term effects and they’re barely scratching the surface. That’s not to say I agree with these draconian measures either, we need to live alongside the virus. Heck, even with the vaccine we’ll have to live alongside this thing.

I can’t find the link but there are now reports from France that a few cases have sent people blind. The virus is attacking the optic nerve. This is not the flu.

There is no way ourselves in the U.K. (and hopefully not the US for that matter) are pissing ourselves at the way Australia have handled this. Both countries will probably have 6-700,000 deaths combined by the end of this pandemic and livelihoods destroyed. The U.K. NHS will be at capacity in 20 days time.

What I would say is the need for balance. I see an Australian government spokesman has censured Qantas today regarding reopening of international routes on July 1... the government saying you can come in when we’re ready. It seems to be getting needlessly political.

Does closing an internal border for the sake of 8 cases benefit more than having managed risk? Because the vaccine doesn’t eradicate 100%.

An interesting point there. measles has serious complications for under 5 and pregnant women, chicken pox in Adults has serious effect particular for pregnant women but these are risk we are willing to accept. No border closures no quarantine we just accept it even shooter Mcggose on be west does.

Will there be accepted risk after October when it’s expected all citizens of the states and territory have voluntary taken the vaccine. My biggest fear is this will go on for years and years of this madness because no risk will be accepted, so how does this end?!

Shutting down economies for premiers to grand stand beat their chest over a disease that’s been elevated because of the media and how they report it and for a disease so deadly half don’t even know they have had it until they get a blood test.

Hope you guys are doing ok over there,seems quite messy at the moment.
Do you wish your government had closed borders for longer or put other measures in place to try & stop it spreading or are the majority pretty ok with what the government has done so far?
Always good to get an opinion from somebody looking at us from the outside so to speak.

At least Governments are waking up to whom the culprits are - International aircrews.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/f...05-p56rw0.html

Can we please have rational discussion of where the pandemic is going?

The UK and South African mutations are ominous. We need to stop them getting a foothold here.

As for the chatter about closures, seriousness, etc. I think its been established that Covid is a serious health risk because it attacks the health system. If the health system fails we get deaths from preventable causes - accidents, pregnancy, etc.

As for the economy, it will bounce back. Unfortunately air services and interstate tourism are going to continue to be badly affected.

I rely on international air travel for work having done 130 flights as SLF between 2018-2019. I need it to return!

If you go back to the start of last year - we didn’t know what we were dealing with. Of course if you look at recent history with Ebola with a virus that isn’t as transmissible but incredibly deadly, people were rightly panicking. As a result, the virus is deadly probably in 1 in 150 cases. Out of 75k deaths in the U.K., only around 4000 were under 60, and the odds decrease further if you don’t have any underlying health problems. We also have capacity for 500k tests every day and yet today we still have 60k cases and statistically 1 in 50 have the virus right now... but on the other hand 49 in 50 don’t have it.

The day the US closed its border to Europe, I was being pulled out of Istanbul being there for work reasons.

Politicians and the public at large think everyone gets on the plane to go on holiday - people need it for work, to see family as well. To do a total shutdown of international aviation makes it very difficult for those who have genuine travel reasons. We have a long list of quarantine exemptions of which I have used the airline one for certain occupations.

The best way is to have a solid testing regime both at the departure and arrival location. If you test negative twice, perhaps 5-6 days apart, that should be a ticket to freedom, not to spend another 14 days in a hotel room. I think the UAE has now struck the correct balance.

To shut a country down with no exit plan for the sake of a handful of cases I find a bit ludicrous. It has to be cost / benefit.

For the Australian government to say the vaccine isn’t going to be qualifying for a quarantine exemption, I find that quite incredible - because you will never reopen otherwise. The England CMO today has said restrictions vaccine or not could remain until next winter 2021-22 as this becomes a background seasonal disease but with a manageable risk. The purpose of the Oxford vaccine was to prevent serious disease, not complete eradication.

While I don’t like the border closures, isn’t the fact that we have such low infection rates testament to the effectiveness of limiting movement of people and thus the virus. We mustn’t forget that this whole thing started with a handful of individuals with “the flu”, and look at the world now.

P.S. It isn’t the flu, this virus comes with severe physiological and neurological side effects. The ongoing economic burden for the health sector due to life long illnesses will be enormous.

Fair enough - but don't tell me the problem, tell me the fix.

Your inference is don't travel and the virus won't spread - so we'll never open up and forever live in a siege mentality.
I dare say that's NOT your intent.

So what's the fix? Open/don't open? Domestic open and accept infections, maybe deaths? Open international and be guaranteed mutations and guaranteed infections, probably deaths?

SO what's the plan??

Maybe the solution is a more generous aviation/tourism financial support package for workers beyond March, and have airlines use it as intended to keep people properly current in sim etc?

Just accept aviation is screwed until vaccine covers most of the population.

Yep it will cost the Govt a large sum, but if they want the other 80% of the population largely unaffected by COVID and contribute to the economy that is one solution. (80% is a guess and that large sum is still peanuts compared to expenditure with a debilitating UK style lockdown.)

That’s the double edge sword isn’t it. No I’m not suggesting we live a siege existence indefinitely, but we have been incredibly successful in saving lives. Economically speaking, we are also holding our own, the rest of the world is in bad economic shape but with a death toll to boot.

My feeling is that our state and federal governments are waiting to see vaccine data from overseas and also to see what our vaccine rollout yields. It’s hard to make a call on letting the population roam until there is data.

It’s a shame our vaccine was abandoned, apart from the false positive for HIV, it was doing very well.

Giant face palm emoji. MMR and chicken pox vaccines are readily available. What's your question?

Personally I don't think it's about the vaccines - it's about when Australia will be open for business again - and NOT be arbitrarily closing certain areas.

This would mean accepting there will be outbreaks, possibly deaths but minimised as much as possible with contract tracing, maybe isolated suburb closures....whatever.
Along with that an improved fast result testing protocol, 14 days is becoming unacceptable and increasingly unpalatable to many.

Now how the feds "encourage" various states/territories to fall into line for the greater good - that appears to be a major roadblock.

No question, the covid vaccine will be readily available as you state about the others but they’re not 100% effective but we accept the risk of some of the population getting those and it’s ok.

If you want a question- what will be the acceptable risk for covid once a vaccine is readily available?

Give yourself a massive face palm.

he didn’t say that at all. He speculated that some restrictions “may” be reintroduced next winter if the virus was to run away again and put pressure on the NHS. He didn’t say which restrictions they would be.

Measles vaccine is very efficacious at about 95%. With MMR immunisations and immunity coverage (remember a lot of people born before 1970 actually caught measles) at about 70%, this means we effectively have herd immunity from measles in Australia.

Howard Springs is nowhere near big enough for what you suggest. We are currently receiving around 6800 arrivals into Australia per week. Howard Springs can only accept 500 arrivals per week. What we need is a remote place that is comfortable for arriving pax but is somewhere Australians don't want to go; may I suggest Canberra?:ok:

I think the Fed Gov is waiting to see real world data on the vaccine's effectiveness, particularly with different strains emerging, and its being reported the South African strain may not be protected against.....

Well that rules out Canberra then.

Ayers Rock??

COVID-19: South African variant ‘unlikely to bypass the protection provided by vaccines’

“It is not anticipated that this mutation is sufficient for the ‘South African’ variant to bypass the protection provided by current vaccines. It’s possible that new variants will affect the efficacy of the COVID vaccines, but we shouldn’t make that assumption yet about the South African one.”

Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology and director, UCL Genetics Institute, University College London.

Every scientist knows this virus will mutate into different strains, just like the flu. It’s just that there’s no initial base herd immunity against the SARS-COV-2 virus now. In future years different strains will emerge and be countered with vaccines against that strain, just like influenza.

Actually, this virus doesn't mutate anything like the flu.

The flu mutates aggressively, which is why we can't eradicate it despite massive vaccination rollouts annually.

This virus only has minor mutations in comparison, so eradication is plausible.

Internal borders would not be an issue if international quarantine was in order.

Until it is, the problems will continue.

High stakes game, betting mandatory hotel quarantine cash injection against potential escape into the community and economic disaster.

Or as I mentioned a few pages back, how about Nauru or Christmas Island - Australian taxes are already paying for this already.
The policy of housing people 1000s of miles away in these "situations" puts a stain on the international credibility of a great nation.

You're probably correct about who's paying for Nauru but you do realise that it's a sovereign nation, right?

Australian COVID-19 vaccine rollout brought forward two weeks to early March

He said the first doses of the vaccine would be delivered to frontline workers and those with exposure to international travellers, and that the medical advice on what order the vaccine would be delivered to other priority groups and the rest of the population was "still being finalised".

So I would guess that would definitely include international aircrew, maybe even domestic aircrew although they wouldn’t be too far behind in the queue. And it’ll probably be a case of “no jab, no job”......

Interesting insight from what's happening in Israel.
Already 15% jabbed and over 60% of over 60yo done.
By the time March arrives Israel could well be done.
Thought I add the interview here.

It will be interesting what will be put first. Covid vaccination or the Flu jab. Article in the paper today suggesting the flu jab will be put first halting the covid vaccination in late March just after the roll out in early March.

Howard Springs is up to 1000 a week now isn’t it?

If it was ramped up properly it could have a constant 3000 people in it. Yes it would require the logistics to go with it. The facility is there, the beds are there, the airport is there.

Yeah, nah.

The UK has started vaccinations in December.

Why is Australia planning for March?
Nearly four months behind the UK and even Europe and USA?

Prudence? .

Has the little fella started selling tickets to Washington yet? Might need to take face masks and riot gear with you.

Several reasons:

• We are not experiencing uncontrolled and dangerous spread like US and UK so emergency approval is not required.
• TGA is still reviewing detailed results particularly in relation to A-Z vaccine as to how the 2 doses are administered.
• We have not yet received any imported vaccines and will not receive these in sufficient volumes before March
• CSL is not yet able to produce local Astra-Zenaca vaccine in sufficient volumes to create meaningful vaccination program
• Linfox and DHL are still establishing logistical supply line for vaccines particularly Pfizer vaccine which has special cold-handling requirements

PM announcing vaccine roll out to be moved further forward, mid to late Feb now.

Good news. As they aren’t too keen on removing the obvious threat (quarantine in capital city hotels, a Queensland casual hotel worker tested positive today), it’s good to see they are stepping up the rollout of the only thing that’ll bring this pandemic and the disruption to our industry under control.

Now if they aimed to have enough immunised prior to winter to allow lifting of restrictions that would be ideal.

EDIT

And upon further reading they’re aiming for 4 million Australians immunised by end of March. So perhaps 15 million by start of winter? Maybe enough for herd immunity.

Either way - get the jab, encourage others to get it and let’s end this soon!

Greater Brisbane locked down from 6:00pm Friday to (at least) 6:00pm Monday. The Premier and CHO implied that further cases identified over the weekend will see this extended indefinitely.

PM and CMO cleared up the vaccine roll out and regarding the voluntary up take up of the vaccine. It will not be mandatory for ppl to get it, but a requirement to get it to be able to move about. Examples they provided ICU nurse it’s a requirement to have MMR vaccination to work in that area for aged care workers it’s a requirement to have the flu shot every year to work in aged care. I know there is a few here that believe they don’t have to get it, I guess you could find yourself on an extended stand down I guess.

I guess you could learn how to punctuate sentences and improve your English grammar. It would make your posts a lot easier to read.

WA shut to Queensland. Western Australians being told not to travel. Won’t be long to all the borders are shut.

How long can the airlines hang on for? This madness can't go on all year. They don't have unlimited money like the State Governments seem to have.
Maybe it will take a major bankruptcy with people in their thousands unemployed for the States to get a grip on reality.