Covid 19 -

[T3rminator]

Australia stops quarantine-free travel for New Zealand after COVID-19 cases

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-...vid19/13154240

Travel bubble shut to NZ after 3 cases. Seems drastic after all the hoohah about proportionate response? Or is the unknown patient zero concerning them?

Mate from UK recently moved his family to Auckland. After 2 days in quarantine in NZ, they were hit with news of the UK strain being detected. Now after a few days free from quarantine, they are back in lock down . Wanted to come to Aust for a visit but that's now off the table. Talk about bad timing.

FairmontGS - despite all the banter, here is hoping you make it back to gold standard state. Good luck.

[PooDog]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

Australia stops quarantine-free travel for New Zealand after COVID-19 cases

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-...vid19/13154240

Travel bubble shut to NZ after 3 cases. Seems drastic after all the hoohah about proportionate response? Or is the unknown patient zero concerning them?

Mate from UK recently moved his family to Auckland. After 2 days in quarantine in NZ, they were hit with news of the UK strain being detected. Now after a few days free from quarantine, they are back in lock down . Wanted to come to Aust for a visit but that's now off the table. Talk about bad timing.

FairmontGS - despite all the banter, here is hoping you make it back to gold standard state. Good luck.

It sounds like a circus down here , but apparently the UK is still in lockdown and have been since before xmas .....heard something on breakfast tv from a reporter in the UK .....Boris is only now thinking of setting up a quarantine system for people entering and exiting the country ???....like the system weve had down here since the start of it WTF

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by PooDog

It sounds like a circus down here , but apparently the UK is still in lockdown and have been since before xmas .....heard something on breakfast tv from a reporter in the UK .....Boris is only now thinking of setting up a quarantine system for people entering and exiting the country ???....like the system weve had down here since the start of it WTF

Yes that is correct. First hotel quarantine resident arrived yesterday Bojo mismanaged the outbreak, but he has done exceptionally well with the immunisation program. I hope we learn from it.

The other aspect is that their hotel quarantine is being managed centrally by Bojo, so lets see how that fairs.

Is the NZ hotel quarantine being managed by the central gov? So far you gotta say having NZ PM managing the crisis seems to have worked quite well. There seems to be a consistent message from right up the top. There is no nashing of teeth or biffs whenever you guys go into lock down.

[russellw]

Data valid as at 00:00 GMT February 14th, 2021.

Note: As not all Australian States report at the same time, the data below is based on the previous full day reporting.

6 new cases for Australia and no deaths so the CMR is 3.146%.

2 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.073% and active cases 47.

The UK had 10,972 cases yesterday and 258 deaths.

Just under 86.5k new cases in the USA yesterday and 2,272 deaths sees CMR up to 1.759%. Note that the USA is actually minus one day due to time differences.

Other notable points: (weekend reporting)
Asia passes 24M cases;

No countries (for the fourth consecutive day)

... recorded new daily highs; those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.

[Citroënbender]

Victoria has apparently today logged a case of Schrödinger’s Coronavirus, according to reports.

Unrelated…

Not that he deserves a whole lotta love^(TM), but Neil Mitchell late yesterday was credited with an op-ed piece on the Nine channels where he outlined a farcical contact tracing event:

A few days ago our "elite" contact tracers contacted a man to tell him he was COVID-19 positive. Let's call him patient N, for nebuliser. They tracked him down to an intensive care ward where he was being treated for the virus and had been for days.

Source

[russellw]

I've been trying to come up with something that might approach an 'acceptable' level of community infection based around what we currently accept for influenza. It's currently estimated that around 10% of the global population gets it each year and that results in ~0.5M deaths or 0.06% of cases - much lower than the current global 2.2% of case mortalities for COVID-19.

If 0.5M deaths is what we are prepared as a society to tolerate then with the current mortality rate for COVID 19 that amounts to ~25M cases annually or to put it another way about 311 cases per 100k of population or ~0.853 cases per day.

Using the tables from yesterday, Australia is there (at 0.02) as are India (0.8), Algeria (0.6), Angola (0.1), Egypt (0.5), Ethiopia (0.6), Kenya (0.3), Nigeria (0.5), Afghanistan (0.1), Nepal (0.4), Pakistan (0.6) and S Korea (0.8) while none of the European or North/South American countries are at that level - in fact for most not even close.

The Asian average of the countries we are watching is 12.2 with Israel worst at 67.7;
The European average is even higher at 23.3 with Czechia worst at 91.3;
The South American average is 14.6 with Brazil worst on 22.4;
The North American average is 9.5 with Panama far an away the worst on 20.4.

Even if you doubled the acceptable rate to 1M that's still only 1.6 cases per day as a global average (based on 50M cases for 1M deaths at the 2% CMR).

We're going to need a lot of help globally from the vaccination program.

[tweeked]

One thing I have not heard about the vaccine concept saving us. If the vaccine does not stop you being infected, but stops progression to disease, then in what way will a vaccine allow travel? Go overseas, get infected but stay healthy, then go to the nearest Bunnings/Cafe/RSL club? Will these "infected" people not be any risk to the rest of the public?

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by tweeked

One thing I have not heard about the vaccine concept saving us. If the vaccine does not stop you being infected, but stops progression to disease, then in what way will a vaccine allow travel? Go overseas, get infected but stay healthy, then go to the nearest Bunnings/Cafe/RSL club? Will these "infected" people not be any risk to the rest of the public?

Its working on the theory that once you get it, then its unlikely you will get it again. So once you get over the initial infection (without dying) , then you are all good. So when you go to bunnings, everyone else in there will have already had exposure to the virus, and won't get it again. The virus can't pass on to another host and will just die out. That's how how people who can't take the vaccine will be protected. Its not 100% fool proof, people still die from the flu.

Its going to take a long time before we get to that stage, which is why experts have been saying that restrictions won't be completely lifted in the early days of the vaccine. And again, this is why its critical to vaccinate the entire world equally. YOu don't want someone from an unvaccinated country going into bunnings, catching it from you for the first time, then passing it on to the vulnerable who can't be vaccinated.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by tweeked

Go overseas, get infected but stay healthy, then go to the nearest Bunnings/Cafe/RSL club? Will these "infected" people not be any risk to the rest of the public?

Presumably, travel will be re-opened when we've reached a threshold required for herd immunity. At which point, even unvaccinated people carrying the illness are of little concern.

[EgoFG]

Originally Posted by tweeked

One thing I have not heard about the vaccine concept saving us. If the vaccine does not stop you being infected, but stops progression to disease, then in what way will a vaccine allow travel? Go overseas, get infected but stay healthy, then go to the nearest Bunnings/Cafe/RSL club? Will these "infected" people not be any risk to the rest of the public?

A couple of important concepts in here.

How likely is reinfection ? To date there has been 49 confirmed reinfections in 109,000,000 cases (a 1 in 2,000,000 chance ?)
(Updated Daily - https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/0...ction-tracker/)

How likely is asymptomatic transfer ? Between 1/6 and 1/30 as likely as symptomatic transfer. (https://fordforums.com.au/showpost.p...postcount=9261)
(Interestingly chance of getting it from someone in your home with symptoms is 28%, the chance of getting it from someone in your home without symptoms is 0.7%)

[CoupeKing]

Age doesn't matter. A good immune system will laugh at this Virus.

[T3rminator]

Dumb question. If herd immunity through vaccination is achieved through people being infected but not falling seriously ill, then how are we going to achieve the herd immunity if there is no virus in the community?

Does that mean once vaccination is x% through, then we need to deliberately introduce the virus into the community and let it spread?

[Citroënbender]

The other burning question about Victoria’s situation, is what happened to Marty’s one-time girlfriend, Eve Black, after her high-profile arrest?

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

Dumb question. If herd immunity through vaccination is achieved through people being infected but not falling seriously ill, then how are we going to achieve the herd immunity if there is no virus in the community?

Does that mean once vaccination is x% through, then we need to deliberately introduce the virus into the community and let it spread?

Perhaps by way of a booster? Like how some immunisations we take have a potency of x years before they need to be re done?

[PhilT2]

The mortality figures coming out of Russia have always been a bit suspect. The official number is around 60,000 but this paper suggests it could be closer to 500,000.

https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...740-9713.01486

The author found the usual problems, claims of low death rates didn't fit with stories of overflowing hospitals and morgues. i think it would be naive to believe that the Russian govt was the only one fiddling the numbers.

[russellw]

Data valid as at 00:00 GMT February 15th, 2021.

Note: As not all Australian States report at the same time, the data below is based on the previous full day reporting.

2 new cases for Australia and no deaths so the CMR is 3.145%.

6 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.070% and active cases 47.

The UK had 9,765 cases yesterday and 230 deaths. That's the first day under 10k cases since October 4th last year.

Just under 68k new cases in the USA yesterday and 1,186 deaths sees CMR steady at 1.759%. Note that the USA is actually minus one day due to time differences.

Other notable points:
None.

No countries (for the fifth consecutive day)

... recorded new daily highs; those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.

[car10002]

Hi everyone

Have you’d noticed that shops are getting busier than same time last year and one before because of border closures, just wondered when shops especially cafes restaurants and pubs will go back to what it was before or will it likely be same for as long as particular people are working in it for.

[zilo]

An interesting website showing virus progression.

https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global?dmin=2020-03-01

[FTE217]

Your a bad man Citroenbender
Unfortunately I would stand down after the number of failures my Team had incurred (people forget like they did with information) and the cost my fellow Victorians have bared and in the future !
I might take the award as a consolation prize showing my supporting blinded Karens I did something right and pass on the baton to Mitch and Fairmont the mighty GS lol......
I must go for the burley has been let out they will come.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Tickford.

Why don't you hand in your resume and show them how it's done??

Honk. Honk.

But i have a job i’m competent at already. Unlike vic’s hotel quarantine managers who keep screwing up. Maybe they should throw another party to celebrate their success at going one day without new cases, just like the party they threw for “successfully” managing the hotel quarantine for the tennis players and staff, days before they had another outbreak

[russellw]

Data valid as at 00:00 GMT February 16th, 2021.

Note: As not all Australian States report at the same time, the data below is based on the previous full day reporting.

5 new cases for Australia and no deaths so the CMR is 3.145%.

1 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.070% and active cases 46.

The UK had 10,625 cases yesterday and 799 deaths.

Just over 52k new cases in the USA yesterday and 955 deaths sees CMR steady at 1.759%. That's the first day under 1,000 deaths since November 30th last year. Note that the USA is actually minus one day due to time differences.

Other notable points:
Global cases pass 110M, the last 1M in 3 days;
South America passes 17M cases.

Only:

Jamaica (468)

... recorded new daily highs; those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.

[Tickford.]

Case zero for Northern beaches, apparently "unknown". Case zero for Berala BWS, incorrect/falsified reporting of "friend of infected airport worker".

We will investigate how the Berala cluster spread happened at the BWS, and report back they said. STILL waiting for that report. Wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the NSW government to release any accurate and truthful report. It's just not their way. The document shredder has been working quite a bit in GB's office lately.

[MITCHAY]

It is a joke to even compare contact tracing between NSW and Vic. NSW wins that every day of the week and the evidence is numbers of cases and deaths and the fact it has been managed without locking down.

There is an element of luck of course but there is obviously confidence in NSW contact tracing and so far events bear that out. May not be the case in the future but it is now.

How can anyone argue any different is beyond me but each to their own. Some cases will hit a dead end, it is just reality.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

It is a joke to even compare contact tracing between NSW and Vic. NSW wins that every day of the week and the evidence is numbers of cases and deaths and the fact it has been managed without locking down.

There is an element of luck of course but there is obviously confidence in NSW contact tracing and so far events bear that out. May not be the case in the future but it is now.

How can anyone argue any different is beyond me but each to their own. Some cases will hit a dead end, it is just reality.

Don't think anyone is disputing that the gold standard contact tracing trophy belongs to NSW, Mitchay. My post wasn't intended to be a ****ing contest. Was just comparing the result of the whole system. Contact tracing is just one piece of the puzzle. The whole gamut includes quarantine controls, testing, public health orders etc. If you look at the outbreaks / leaks since the hotel quarantine inquiry, its pretty black and white which method has worked better.

Anyhow, whats worrying now is that there is a weak positive detected at an aged care facility. So we (vic) may not be out of the woods yet.

The thing is, science and odds tell us there WILL be another hotel quarantine leak in the future. Even ranked 1 standard NZ has had breaches. So round and round in circles we go.

[T3rminator]

If you look at the outbreak model posted at 5.36pm in the article below, you will see Victoria dodged a BIG bullet at the coburg cluster. If they did not go back and retest and retest the initial coburg seeder, this could have been a flash point. This is why I will always support 3-5 day breakers if needed. But easy for me to say, as I'm not a business owner.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/c...17-p57361.html

edit: chart here
https://public.flourish.studio/visua...sation/5299320

[Tickford.]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

The thing is, science and odds tell us there WILL be another hotel quarantine leak in the future. Even ranked 1 standard NZ has had breaches. So round and round in circles we go.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all states and territories in favour of moving away from the hotel quarantine model, bar one state? A state that has had repeated hotel quarantine breaches?

Now tell me this is not a political move by said state.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by Tickford.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all states and territories in favour of moving away from the hotel quarantine model, bar one state? A state that has had repeated hotel quarantine breaches?

Now tell me this is not political.

Yes. So apparently the builders that built Howard Springs say they can replicate that at Avalon for a cost of $120-$170m. That would be a 850 unit facility. But I don't trust builder's estimates, so lets double it and say $340m. Then lets add another $200m to operational costs, that's pretty conservative?

Given that the 5 day lock down in Vic estimated to have cost $500-$1b, seems like a no brainer to me.

The facility will be semi permanent, and can be reused for things like bush fire response etc.

[PHANTMXR6]

The Howard Springs facility is a 3500 person facility.
It’s only being used for less than 1k currently though.

[MITCHAY]

I agree it shouldn't be a ****ing contest at all. The states should work together to understand the lessons learned and take what works best. You can't eliminate risk, you have to manage it.

[russellw]

Data valid as at 00:00 GMT February 17th, 2021.

Note: As not all Australian States report at the same time, the data below is based on the previous full day reporting.

6 new cases for Australia and no deaths so the CMR is 3.144%.

3 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.068% and active cases 49.

The UK had 12,717 cases yesterday and 738 deaths.

Just over 64k new cases in the USA yesterday and 1,803 deaths sees CMR up to 1.762%. Note that the USA is actually minus one day due to time differences.

Other notable points:
The USA passes 500k deaths.

No countries

... recorded new daily highs; those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.