I was in WA in December in that short period that NSW people were allowed to roam free. It was amazing seeing the lack of social distancing going on at pubs around the city. Lots of of tracking people via the WA government app they require everyone to have so you’d think their contact tracing would be spot on but scratch below the surface and it was complacency central.

WA has had 8 months to put in place it’s processes to deal with what was always inevitable. It appears they’ve done SFA given the shortage of masks in all supermarkets.

Some comparisons with NSW and the most recent outbreak. NSW ‘locked down’ the northern beaches for a bunch of days due to a couple of super spreader events. Meanwhile the rest of the city masked up, checked in our app everywhere we went including gyms, cafes, restaurants, etc, socially distanced, and got on with life. Six weeks later we’ve had zero Covid for 14 days. Even when locked down my understanding the northern beaches residents could still exercise for as long as they liked, weren’t required to wear masks whilst doing so, and were allowed to do so with others. WA has said one hour for exercise, (why? What does it matter if someone exercises outdoors for three hours), with one other person, and locked people down who are literally hundreds of km away from the outbreak.

What. A. Joke. Talk about getting the government you deserve!

I am not so sure that he was smug prick, possibly steadfast in his attempt to keep the virus from spreading in a state with a small population that is distributed over a massive area (and with its tertiary hospitals in the metropolitan area), but I concur with the prick sentiment.

Now that WA has had community spread, I wonder if they’ll still insist on other jurisdictions such as NSW getting to 28 days before they open up to us?

I do wonder what the A380 drivers and all of the other long haulers are thinking at the moment... they're probably too busy doing their duty being Amazon delivery drivers by now.

I think the Australian response has been laudable, but whilst it is fashionable to bring up the drawbridge to Johnny Foreigner with any sign of Covid, surely it is completely unsustainable in the long term. How is locking down a whole city for ONE case a sustainable and measured response, with the armory of testing, contact tracing and vaccines. I say that as a member of UK Labour. That said, looking on the echo chamber that is Twitter, it seems to have been lapped up.

It is so endemic in the global population, there is widespread medical agreement that it'll become a seasonal illness akin to the flu, needing top up vaccination.

Look at NZ - strictest of strict quarantine rules, someone does 14 days in the stalag and STILL gets sick. You can't keep it out forever I hate to say.

All of which takes us further away from getting back to or close to normal.

I'm no fan, but the deputy NSW premier was on the money when he said words to the effect of - McGowan better be careful because it might bite him on the bum! No daily testing for guards arranged for 20 days after national decision to do it. Well done.

This is what epidemiologists were saying in November last year, since then we’ve had 2 more hotel outbreaks and nothing has been changed:

South Australian cluster shows we need to stop hotel quarantine in cities: epidemiologist

South Australia’s COVID outbreak - Adrian Esterman Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of South Australia

This will not be the last hotel outbreak before a critical level of vaccination is reached.

I bet we don’t see huge lines of ppl getting tested in Perth tomorrow. Do they even know how to set up testing clinic and able to turn a test around in less than 24hrs. Mr Barilaro will be having a little chuckle to himself now.

I don’t know whether McGowan’s a smug prick or not, but someone over there certainly is. This really hasn’t aged well, has it?

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ba37a4804.jpeg

Wow the hatred towards West Australians is ridiculous. It's 38 degrees here today and the hospital closest to us has a line of people outside in the sun around the corner and down the street. People are responding and getting tested, same as everywhere else when there's been an outbreak.

I agree there is a ridiculous amount of "she'll be right, it ain't here" by a large proportion of the community here. They are also the people who didn't buy masks when this thing hit, even as recent as when Brisbane locked down McGowan was still telling people to buy masks because we will need them if we get an outbreak. Why would shops stock them here if people aren't buying them? They aren't government run.

As recent as yesterday's press conference he was saying hotel quarantine should be a Federal run program at remote locations but Scomo doesn't want that so we have to deal with the situation as best we can. He comes across smug and a lot of people that I interact with have been saying it's only a matter of time until we get a case and he will get slaughtered by the east coast media for the way he is carrying on.

What's our alternative though? He was elected well before this mess, the opposition government has stood behind him on border closures since about May last year and their party is an absolute shambles?

WS - I guess you haven't repeatedly been abused by the WA public as you walk along the street in your mask to your crew transport or the COVID test?

To be fair it did happen in QLD a bit, but that was always at nighttime and they were pissed on XXXX at the bar over the road from the hotel. Not at lunchtime, nor repeatedly.

Oh, they have testing clinics - that appear to only be able to handle 500 (no, there's not a missing '0') on a normal day. Here's yet another of McGoose's examples of excellence...

Yesiree! Here's the gold standard folks! 2,000 tests a day and you have to turn people away in WA. What did NSW get around the same time? Nearly 70,000 tests done in a single day?!?

And here's another one - from only a few minutes ago!
Nothing quite like a testing centre with no test kits, is there?

If you're going to quote someone, and indeed quote them in bolded script, then you need to be able to substantiate your quote.

Otherwise you're simply telling lies to emphasise your contention.

What makes you think that??

The above link for starters.

Because on Thursday, there was no known Covid in the wild in WA and had not been for 38 weeks.
Why even 2000 people presented for testing is beyond me.

Different this afternoon - within hours of the announcements being made.

​​​​​​This is the right response. They have kept the virus out of the community for so long that their dream run doesn't require widespread testing like its counterparts. McGowan has also made the recommendation to close the borders to WA, in line with his own rules.

If you’ve been in QLD, NSW and VIC your required to get tested on day 11 after your return - this is what most of those tests are - not sick people

It amazes me to see the joy people are
heaving at seeing an outbreak in WA. I thought you all wanted the borders to open, so that things can go back to “normal”,and you can go flying again.

We get an event in WA, that has the potential to shut borders hard again, and you could not be happier. It’s very strange.

( remember, the individual in question, could have spread it to someone that has already flown to the Eastern States and it is currently spreading in the east.. I hope that’s not the case.)

It’s one of the most idiotic proposals known to man kind. Introduces a whole bunch of risk transferring people with Covid from their point of arrival vast distances by bus, or air and then bus, to a remote location. Then you don’t have the critical mass of support workers required to run a proper quarantine system and need to ship people in. You also don’t have the same level of medical support available if someone gets seriously crook. And if it does get out into the community in that ‘remote location’ you then have to shut down that entire quarantine facility because the odds are you don’t have any surge capability of other staff to come in and take the place of those staff now in isolation.

SOPS - No joy from me for reasons of jobs, economy and social life. However having had random strangers in Perth CBD abuse and yell at my crew on many occasions over the past 7 months as we were wearing masks (sometimes in uniform and sometimes without) I can't help but feel a little bit of karma striking down those individuals.

Would you characterise Victorians on the basis of the actions of the sovereign citizen movement?

Neither would I.

Second job as a ride share driver no less

No of course not and you know it. Did you notice my feelings were directed and limited to “those individuals” who by the way on every occasion did not appear “fringe” in any way. From the times we understood the words, the abuse was about going back east, not that COVID is a myth.

I chose not to direct any feelings of karma towards the two policemen on a compliance check who berated the sleeping crew for not answering their doors at lunchtime in a timely manner when the crew had arrived at dawn and were leaving that evening. Nor any other people involved in other “interesting” WA COVID experiences too numerous to list.

"one of the most idiotic proposals known to man kind"? Like I posted above, multiple prominent Australian epidemiologists were calling for a remote Quarantine program last year. This was also suggested in the National Review of Hotel Quarantine by the AHPPC last year:

The Australian Government has the capability to declare a human health response zone, as seen with evacuations of early quarantine cohorts to national facilities or State/Territory facilities gazetted for this purpose, including the Learmonth RAAF base or immigration detention facilities, and the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs facility

Not if you fly them directly there. There's plenty of remote airports with runways capable of international widebody flights in this country. Temporary accommodation, medical and CIQ can be constructed quickly if we have the will to do it.

The mining industry gets around this by paying their workers good money. Maybe they could work 2 weeks on, 2 weeks quarantine, 2 weeks off for a few months? Yes it would be expensive, but far less than the cost of all these major city outbreaks.

Temporary medical support at the remote location, aeromedical evacuation on standby to more intensive care facilities as well. Yes this does introduce a risk to a major city, but far far less than quarantining all travelers in a major city rather than a solitary case or two.

It would be a remote location where personnel are confined from outside communities. Surge capability would come at a cost but again far less than all these capital city breakouts that are detrimental to the economy.

I'm sure if this nation's professionals put their minds together (with the necessary funding) they could come up with workable solutions. Problem is the government just doesn't want to spend the money, or they're thinking the vaccine rollout is close enough now that minor outbreaks won't pose a large scale threat soon.

If you ask me housing international arrivals smack bang in the middle of major cities is an idiotic idea.

Curiously I was in Sydney around the same time (2nd week of December), where I was also amazed at the lack of masks or distancing compared to Melbourne!

An outbreak of 1. What a load of ****!
F U McCLown! I will not comply. Get F#%Ked!

Probably has something to do with the condescending attitude from the WA Premier in particular towards all the eastern states when they’ve had an outbreak.....

Even watching from overseas (as I am), most expat Aussies were waiting for WA to cop it. McGowan will be tested now, so his actions better back up all the talk of the last few months!!

The only certainty in this pandemic is if you haven’t had another outbreak yet it’s only a matter of time!!

And if it breaks out.. and we get locked down for a 100 days and you can’t fly, .. you will be ok with that?

and from a few of the WA posters here.....

yep there’s a little bit of karma for being such pricks to the rest of Australia. Especially those with the belief that WAxit is a real thing and you’d survive or even prosper once off the funding of the rest of us. To you, I say ‘eat it’.

to the rest of WA, it sucks, 5 days will be over before you know it. Do some stuff around the house, hang with the kids, and let’s get back to work ASAP.

Even when the syd outbreak was at a critical level(just before xmas) i remember seeing hundreds of people at the fish markets & shopping centres not wearing masks or not standing apart.
I guess this is what happens though when people have a choice.
Im sure everyone is aware that in melbourne masks are still compulsory in shopping centres etc & its really odd to ever see someone not complying.
We would all rather not have to wear them but if it helps stop a case spreading or starting i am more than happy to do it & live as freely as possible.

Great, could you please let us know how comfortable the seats are in the back of a paddy wagon, I’ve always wondered.

Also do they throw you into a big holding cell once you get to the station with a whole bunch of other arrestees just like in the movies?

By any chance could you also film your interaction with police when you are “not complying”, I do enjoy watching those “Karen” videos. Are you going to scream about your “constitutional rights” or claim you “don’t recognise the authority of the police”?

Won’t need to. He’ll just flash his ASIC. ;-)

Its not an outbreak, despite what McClown is feeding you.

Howard Springs is already being used. It is hardly a ‘remote isolation facility’ with decent hospitals and a decent size city with all their capability about a 20 minute drive away. You’re proposing Learmonth for goodness sake. Anything near to them that can deal with the sort of things we’re talking about? Imagine the outcry were we quarantining people in the sort of accommodation available at a bare base.

Oh but now you want to have staff on standby in case there is an outbreak, using the Flying Doc and introducing massive risk for them if they need to move people to a capital city hospital, doing FIFO for the quarantine the workers on site for the two weeks they’re working, then quarantine them somewhere else for two weeks (and what about the workers looking after these people who are now quarantining, what are the rules for them), before allowing them a couple of weeks back in the community? Plus you now need to organise a bunch of repat flights from all corners of the globe direct to this ‘remote place’.

Sure, we can solve this problem with truck loads of money and about 12 months to get suitable accomodation available at Learmonth for your idea. In the mean time we do precisely what with those trying to get back into Australia?

Come back to me when you’re fair dinkum dre.

Why should it ‘break out’? Northern beaches of Sydney had 30 cases in a single day on December 20. Meanwhile those of us in the Southern side of Sydney wore our masks, ensured social distancing, and got on with life. Less than six weeks later and we’ve had zero Covid for fourteen days. No lockdown required.

I mean we stick refugees with complex medical needs on Christmas Island / PNG etc.....

We have indigenous people living with complex medical needs in extremely remote communities that health care managed to serve......

And the "Celebs" are allowed to isolate at the country houses.....But no lets stick the return travellers in the CBD what a good idea

In that case the government should contract these flights to Australian airlines who are familiar with operating into remote CTAFs, rather than mostly use foreign carriers as is done now. This would be a benefit to Australian pilot jobs.

The Chinese managed to build a temporary hospital within 10 days. Why can't we erect temporary accommodation within a similar time frame, even in a more remote location? Or use existing mine accommodation as is being proposed in Queensland? Doesn't have to be a 5 star hotel, tented accommodation could probably suffice for most returnees.

My main point is the current system of storing returned travelers in CBD hotels is not working. So unless we want this to be happening for most of the year we're going to have to think of a solution. Some more concrete form of quarantine will have to be implemented, otherwise these events will keep occurring. One simple thing could be the paying of quarantine staff a decent salary so they don't need a second job and a housing allowance so they can rent a place alone for the duration of their contract. There's not going to be a solution to this that doesn't involve spending money.

The problem is that remote camps just won't have the capacity. Up until last week, international arrivals into hotel quarantine were capped at 4127 per week. This may increase on 15/2 but it is equally likely that WA will ask for a temporary suspension whilst it sorts out its outbreak of 1!

To get remote camps accepting these sorts of numbers per week (and even then we accept that this isn't enough), we would need a remote camp capacity of over 8000. Currently Howard Springs has a capacity of 600 which limits it to 300 arrivals per week though the government has announced a plan to increase capacity to 850. Those 300 per week are outside the hotel quarantine capacity limit.

“McGowan serves, down 0-5, but Berejiklian absolutely smokes the return down the line. 0-40.”

Gladys’ Border Control