lol, why else would the government purchase an aircraft with that sort of range?

Climb150

It seems RPT flights can be a bit a lottery

Only a sample size of 2 Australian diplomatic staff but 1 was on a wait list to fly back to Australia - rung in the early morning, flew later in the morning. 2 weeks in quarantine (finished Netflix!)

Another has been waiting to return for two weeks - had their 2nd flight cancelled on Monday.

The government could have used a Qantas 787. I’m sure Alan would have given them a good deal. You know quid pro quo. The crew are all vaccinated and so is the minister. Could have combined it with a repat flight on return via Darwin. Business class is off limits to returning passengers. Just a thought but there is certainly no security issue with it since many heads of state have travelled on Qantas flights in the past. Prime ministers, The Pope, The Queen. Standard run of the mill dignitaries.

It's more a comment that they haven't been overseas for most of 2020 with the only real exception being the Corman round the world.
So international VVIP flights have resumed.

My most current gripe with HQ is the designation of your arrival day as "day zero" and the academic decision that you will be released at 23:59 on day 14.

This leads to different crews isolating for different lengths of time.
So a pilot arriving early morning has an additional 15+ hours of isolation compared to a crew arriving late evening.

The DHHS (VIC) doesn't want to have a bar of it and continue to hide behind the line that any early release from nominated quarantine poses a health threat to the community.
If this day zero concept is really health based, as opposed to an administration short cut, then why are some crews isolating for 336 hours and others for 350 plus?

Not all states do that. WA is to the minute from your touchdown time.

But mid last year it was 14 nights no matter what time you checked in.
Tas was 14 days/13 nights.

This makes me even more angry. One of the excuses given by the determinations team was that this a national strategy and thus it is hard to change things at a state level.

The NZ quarantine rules and the apparent hypocrisy of our own rules for aircrew now have the attention of most state and the federal governments. It will be interesting to say the least to see how this plays out. They either relax rules for Australian quarantining aircrew or require NZ to quarantine their own crew in order to keep the bubble alive. Highly unlikely. If there is no relaxing of the current draconian rules then one could surmise that the rules are completely arbitrary and not based on science. Most probably the likely outcome. Thanks LNP in advance. As an idea would those affected by this matter write to the Minister of Home Affairs and highlight the fact. Also write to your local MP. Makes some noise. Get their attention.

Does the 7 day at home 'pilot' (I know, not pilot) program for SA announcement create any relief for crew? Or is this just more of the same hypocrisy, whilst NZ crew mingle with green zone travellers without an eyelid battered.

Or your mates at Cathay get quarantined in a HOTEL ROOM for 5 WEEKS. Despite being fully vaccinated. And Hong Kong having done vastly better at COVID than Australia. Go figure.

Chinese overlords are hard Masters…

So in Queensland the idiotic Premier and her lapdog Dr Young are responsible for;

Saying it’s to dangerous for two pilots flying in an Anzac Day flyover to do so.

Saying that children 12 years and under don’t need to wear masks but close down schools for deep cleaning if any age child has Covid. So a child 11 years and 364 days old turns 12 half way through a lockdown. Apparently they are more contagious from one day to next.

Saying that movie stars and football teams pose no greater risk then anyone else so they get home quarantine and special treatment because they bring money to Queensland.

Saying the virus will spread more at 1800pm on Tuesday so we need a 3 day lockdown but between 12pm and 17:59pm it’s ok to panic and be at supermarkets across Qld with no masks and no social distance. Gee that virus can read a clock good.

Saying wearing masks for 2 weeks now to stop the spread of no virus in the community even though there’s no one in hospital and we have had records broken of vaccinated people last week.

Saying vaccinated people will still be quarantined. WTH! And why did the Premier and CHO stall being vaccinated themselves??

Yep, COVID, a virus from which only 0.01% of those who catch it, die and the rest recover and get on with life. What an absurd joke this has become.

Having just had to endure time in a queue next to someone who was obviously not well, I found myself feeling very grateful that we were both wearing masks. I do not want to get sick in the current environment - even if it's not covid.

I am no fan of the Qld team but I have to pull you up on 0.01% CFR

It is between 1.8% and 3%, maybe less because many have it and are asymptomatic.

I do agree with your last line however.

Probably they meant to say 0.01% of the population will die from COVID as not everyone will catch it in the first place. But in fact 0.05% of the population have died from COVID…

And of that 0.05%, how many died from COVID alone, ie no other underlying health problems?

Actually, USA, UK, most of Europe and South America are about 0.2% deaths per total population.

Peru is around 0.6%.

This has been argued here plenty of times before.

To put it simply we know there has been a massive increase in excess mortality for the time period starting from March 2020 compared to the previous 5 year average. Check out the stats in the article below:

Excess mortality during the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19)

Who is going to grant Anastacia Pallachook permission to leave QLD for the Tokyo Olympics? Will the chook be locked in a hotel room for 2 weeks on return?

Or will there be a series of Special Dispensations to allow the old duck to leave and return, but regular humans can just wait in the queue?

Hopefully the federal government wont give her permission to leave Australia!