Covid 19 -

[Tickford.]

Commsec released their forth quarter State of the States report for best performing economies post COVID-19 year (2020).

• First place: Tasmania
  
• Second place: ACT
  
• Third place (equal): Victoria / South Australia
  
• Fifth place: Quennsland
  
• Sixith place (equal): NSW / Western Australia
  
• Eighth place: Northern Territory

For the fourth quarter in a row, Tasmania holds the mantle of the best performing economy. But notably there has been compression in the rankings with little to separate five of the other seven economies. The ACT remains in second spot, ahead of Victoria, in equal third spot with South Australia. Queensland is in fifth sport. NSW and Western Australia are just behind in joint sixth spot from the Northern Territory.

Tasmania has now been on top for four straight surveys – either shared with another economy or in its own right. The second ranking for the ACT maintains its highest ranking for over three years (April 2017). And the joint third ranking for South Australia is its highest position in just over a decade. The equal sixth ranking for NSW is its lowest position for eight years.

https://www.commsec.com.au/stateofstates

Tasmania has done very well. They have leaned more towards the 'elimination strategy'. NSW, with their 'we have to share the virus strategy', is in 6th, worst in 8 years!

[Tickford.]

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

Gladys Berejiklian hits out at Annastacia Palaszczuk after JobKeeper extension proposal, coronavirus border closure

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-...nsion/13097582

I see the Murdoch Systematic Media is back at work!

QLD Premier is calling on Federal govt asking for Job Keeper to be extended to tourism operators impacted by international border lockdowns. Particularly in FNQ and the islands. But don't let that get in the way of your bull**** posts hey??

[Tickford.]

On the subject of spreading bull****, here's a good insight into how someone who's quick to attack other Premiers on border closures, but not so quick to take action, or answer questions about someone who's a member of their own party, who is deliberately spreading Covid-19 misinformation on vaccines, masks, etc.

https://twitter.com/BreakfastNews/st...71473749970944

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Tickford.

I see the Murdoch Systematic Media is back at work!

QLD Premier is calling on Federal govt asking for Job Keeper to be extended to tourism operators impacted by international border lockdowns. Particularly in FNQ and the islands. But don't let that get in the way of your bull**** posts hey??

Which part of the article mentioned International borders.?

[FairmontGS]

Originally Posted by Tickford.

I see the Murdoch Systematic Media is back at work!

Crikey! Has Murdoch acquired the ABC?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-...nsion/13097582

[Work Horse]

Australia is not going to reach herd immunity until after most people have had 2 doses of vaccine. If the vaccines don't kill us or induce zombiism we are still looking at the other end of this year before that happens.

We will all have to endure another winter of being Covid safe. It would be really good if our leaders both state and federal could all work together for the common good.

I suspect agreeing on a national approach to boarder controls would be a great start.

Am I living in a fool’s paradise believing this will happen?

[FairmontGS]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

Australia is not going to reach herd immunity until after most people have had 2 doses of vaccine. If the vaccines don't kill us or induce zombiism we are still looking at the other end of this year before that happens.

We will all have to endure another winter of being Covid safe. It would be really good if our leaders both state and federal could all work together for the common good.

I suspect agreeing on a national approach to boarder controls would be a great start.

Am I living in a fool’s paradise believing this will happen?

Yes. Governments that have no confidence in their ability to contact trace and contain minor outbreaks will always throw up the borders. Add ALP versus Liberal differences and we’ll just have to wait for the vaccine...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[cs123]

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

Yes. Governments that have no confidence in their ability to contact trace and contain minor outbreaks will always throw up the borders. Add ALP versus Liberal differences and we’ll just have to wait for the vaccine...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Agree Scotty. I think the rapid border closures are a sign of lack of confidence.

It was poor what happened over Christmas with Tourism QLD advertising in Sydney and Melbourne, the shutting down like that.

If Anna wants to operate that way then she needs to accept the consequences.

[T3rminator]

Wowee...do people not bother with facts anymore? The QLD premier was referring to International tourism, which QLD is heavily dependent on. The full press conference is publicly available for everyone to see. Who in their right mind thinks NSW "tourists" (or ANY other state) could make up for the shortfall . In fact, put all the "tourists" from every state together and I doubt it'd even come close.

You gotta be kidding yourself if you are trying to convince other states to look up to NSW's model. There are 4 other states and 2 territories who have handled it much better, recording less deaths, and who have not been responsible for seeding multiple outbreaks. I'd be following their example, and funnily enough, they have all used very similar strategies. Stats say their economy is not any worse off either.

It appears there is an election coming in 2021, and the campaigning has started.

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

Crikey! Has Murdoch acquired the ABC?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-...nsion/13097582

Thats what happens when you keep cutting funding and threaten to cut some more. Meanwhile Murdoch gets an award on Australia day

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

Wowee...do people not bother with facts anymore? The QLD premier was referring to International tourism, which QLD is heavily dependent on. The full press conference is publicly available for everyone to see. Who in their right mind thinks NSW "tourists" (or ANY other state) could make up for the shortfall . In fact, put all the "tourists" from every state together and I doubt it'd even come close.

You were saying.....


Over 28 million tourists and other visitors arrived in Queensland between July 2018 and June 2019.1

This total includes 2.8 million international visitors and 25.3 million domestic overnight visitors.

https://camperchamp.com.au/statistic...nsland-in-2019

[MITCHAY]

How can QLD cry foul about international tourism when they have shut everyone else domestically out a great deal of the year. I know plenty from down south would have come up for sun in the winter months. They could have cashed in a lot.

Everyone was freaking out about the NSW clusters but even if the other states shut their borders if it was a big problem you would still see it in Sydney in particular.

That did not happen and it is under control. Still gold standard as far as I can tell without crippling their economy.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by GasoLane

You were saying.....


Over 28 million tourists and other visitors arrived in Queensland between July 2018 and June 2019.1

This total includes 2.8 million international visitors and 25.3 million domestic overnight visitors.

https://camperchamp.com.au/statistic...nsland-in-2019

Interesting. I stand corrected. Will be interesting to see state by state break down. ANd more importantly, international vs local spend, after all, its the dollar figure that counts, not the number of heads.

Edit: Actually, reading it again, it compares international to domestic "overnight". What does that mean? Me spending a weekend in QLD is hardly comparable with someone from the UK spending 2 weeks.

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

How can QLD cry foul about international tourism when they have shut everyone else domestically out a great deal of the year. I know plenty from down south would have come up for sun in the winter months. They could have cashed in a lot.

I haven't really been following QLD a great deal, but did they shut their borders? I thought most of the time they just required interstaters to quarantine.

[MITCHAY]

The problem is no one has any confidence to travel in Australia when states shut their borders on a dime.

At the very least there needs to be consensus and consistency. We can't go anywhere else in the world so it could be booming for domestic travel. I can't book anywhere with confidence at the moment.

[cs123]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

Interesting. I stand corrected. Will be interesting to see state by state break down. ANd more importantly, international vs local spend, after all, its the dollar figure that counts, not the number of heads.

Edit: Actually, reading it again, it compares international to domestic "overnight". What does that mean? Me spending a weekend in QLD is hardly comparable with someone from the UK spending 2 weeks.




I haven't really been following QLD a great deal, but did they shut their borders? I thought most of the time they just required interstaters to quarantine.

14 days isolation paid for by the traveller if you were from a designated hotspot.

I think SA have a system where you need to isolate and test then get a negative result and you can go about your business with day 5 and day 11 testing. I think this would work OK for allowing people in from hotspots.

I don't want to see things get out of control, but the constant opening and closing of borders is really damaging.

[MITCHAY]

I was talking to a lady at work who got caught up in the ACT soft border BS. All she did was go to a hospital in Sydney, dropped someone off and had no contact with anyone.

She was telling me that the cops rock up outside your place and then call and make you wave to them to make sure you're there. ****en nuts!

[danzvtil]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

The problem is no one has any confidence to travel in Australia when states shut their borders on a dime.

At the very least there needs to be consensus and consistency. We can't go anywhere else in the world so it could be booming for domestic travel. I can't book anywhere with confidence at the moment.

I pulled the pin on a cairns holiday with my sister and her family a couple of weeks ago, she still went, but I couldn’t handle an outbreak or border changes while I was away from home. She didn’t seem to care that if 1 case on either flight was confirmed, she and the whole fam would be in 2 weeks quarantine, no if’s or buts.No thanks.

[MITCHAY]

For anyone that is interested these are official provisional arrival stats for Australia for November and December and it is quite clear that NSW is doing the heavy lifting while taking shots from everyone else.

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...latest-release

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

For anyone that is interested these are official provisional arrival stats for Australia for November and December and it is quite clear that NSW is doing the heavy lifting while taking shots from everyone else.

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...latest-release

It should flatten out once Vic starts to take its full quota again. There is some sort of agreement with Tassy, where Tassy will quarantine Vic arrivals, and Vic will quarantine pacific islanders arriving to help with rural farmers, so Tassy numbers will start to rise. How good is it to see states working together even though they are from opposite political parties?

Vic and NSW will always bear the brunt of incoming overseas arrival numbers, because thats just the route the airlines take. When Vic had the 2nd wave, there was an article that mentioned that they were taking in 50% of international arrivals during that period, I don't have stats to check though.

The thing is, everything was chugging along nicely, no one was taking pot shots at each other, until GB had a crack at the QLD premier. Have noticed NSW doesn't like to be lectured to but loves lecturing others. Always plays the victim. All I can say is, its quite telling that very rarely do any of her colleagues in other states ever publicly come out and back her comments. It is so political now, it will be very hard to get a national consensus on border and outbreak controls, unfortunately.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

Yes. Governments that have no confidence in their ability to contact trace and contain minor outbreaks will always throw up the borders.

Thats a furphy. You only throw up borders if you have no confidence in your neighbour. Doesn't matter how good your own contact tracing is, if 50-100 zombies cross over and start infecting others, no amount of contact tracing is going to help you. Winter is coming.

[FairmontGS]

The UK defends AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine after Germany recommends against its use for over 65s

Germany's vaccine commission said on Thursday it could not recommend the use of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine for elderly people, the latest twist in a row over the jab that has put Britain and the EU on a collision course.

The panel of scientific experts, called STIKO, said the vaccine should only be given to people aged 18 to 65 years old as "there is currently insufficient data to assess the efficacy of the vaccine for persons aged 65 years and older".

AstraZeneca and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson immediately defended the jabs, which have already been widely used in Britain on older people.

A spokesperson for the British-Swedish company said the latest clinical trial data for its vaccine, developed with Oxford University, "support efficacy in the over 65 years age group".

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-uk-d...e-for-over-65s

[FairmontGS]

And there we go... So we'll have to rely on CSL and their AZ local production now. Should be ok still. We may well end up being exporters once Australia is immunised.

‘Dangerous signal’: Europe gives itself power to block vaccine shipments to Australia

London: European leaders have given themselves sweeping powers to block crucial coronavirus vaccine shipments to Australia in a ploy condemned as unethical, dangerous and selfish.

The new export restrictions, unveiled overnight Australian-time, grant the European Union final say on whether jabs produced on the continent by pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and AstraZeneca can leave the territory.

The EU exempted more than 120 countries from the controls but Australia did not make the list. EU officials said the export controls would not apply to shipments bound for poor countries or its closest neighbours, although the UK was also not given an exemption.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/...30-p56y08.html

[FairmontGS]

More reporting...

EU imposes vaccine export controls on rich nations from Saturday

Some 92 countries, are exempt from the regulation, Dombrovskis said. An EU official specified these include the EFTA countries of Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland, along with the Western Balkans, North African countries, and other Mediterranean countries such as Lebanon and Israel, as well as poor countries covered by the COVAX facility.

The United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and other rich countries will however not be exempt, the official added.

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-i...from-saturday/

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

I was talking to a lady at work who got caught up in the ACT soft border BS. All she did was go to a hospital in Sydney, dropped someone off and had no contact with anyone.

She was telling me that the cops rock up outside your place and then call and make you wave to them to make sure you're there. ****en nuts!

Yeah that is what was happening here,have a friend who came back from SA couple of months back.She had to provide a home phone number,NOT mobile which police would ring randomly every couple of days and say,we are at your front gate,come out and identify yourself

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

Interesting. I stand corrected. Will be interesting to see state by state break down. ANd more importantly, international vs local spend, after all, its the dollar figure that counts, not the number of heads.

Edit: Actually, reading it again, it compares international to domestic "overnight". What does that mean? Me spending a weekend in QLD is hardly comparable with someone from the UK spending 2 weeks.




I haven't really been following QLD a great deal, but did they shut their borders? I thought most of the time they just required interstaters to quarantine.

I thought the same a few years back until it was pointed out to me domestic tourism is bigger than what you think, pity Annastacia Palaszczuk and one other state keeps on shutting the border or imposing harsh restrictions as I have now cancelled my holidays for QLD this year, I will now have my holiday in Tasmania instead with more confidence.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Officemanager

I thought the same a few years back until it was pointed out to me domestic tourism is bigger than what you think,

You only have to be on the Newell Hwy around April/May to see most of Vic heading Nth with caravans. Then all heading back home in Sept/Oct.

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by Officemanager

I thought the same a few years back until it was pointed out to me domestic tourism is bigger than what you think, pity Annastacia Palaszczuk and one other state keeps on shutting the border or imposing harsh restrictions as I have now cancelled my holidays for QLD this year, I will now have my holiday in Tasmania instead with more confidence.

Good idea,and by the way it is not as cold here as some of the QLD & WA wussies try to tell you.They just need to toughen up a bit.

[russellw]

Data valid as at 00:00 GMT January 29th, 2021.

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

7 new cases for Australia and no deaths so the CMR is 3.156%.

6 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.085% and active cases 72.

The UK had 29,079 cases yesterday and 1,245 deaths.

Just over 166k new cases in the USA yesterday and 3,946 deaths sees CMR up to 1.685%. Note that the USA is actually minus one day due to time differences.

Other notable points:

Global deaths pass 2.2M, the last 50k in 3 days;
Europe passes 30M cases.

Only -

Albania (896);
Mozambique (1,275); and
Malaysia (5,725) - 34% above the previous high

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

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by GasoLane

You only have to be on the Newell Hwy around April/May to see most of Vic heading Nth with caravans. Then all heading back home in Sept/Oct.

Actually, a mate from brissy recently sent me a video of him driving past some caravan park entrance. ALL bloody VIC plates. Cashed up bogans

[MITCHAY]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

It should flatten out once Vic starts to take its full quota again. There is some sort of agreement with Tassy, where Tassy will quarantine Vic arrivals, and Vic will quarantine pacific islanders arriving to help with rural farmers, so Tassy numbers will start to rise. How good is it to see states working together even though they are from opposite political parties?

Vic and NSW will always bear the brunt of incoming overseas arrival numbers, because thats just the route the airlines take. When Vic had the 2nd wave, there was an article that mentioned that they were taking in 50% of international arrivals during that period, I don't have stats to check though.

The thing is, everything was chugging along nicely, no one was taking pot shots at each other, until GB had a crack at the QLD premier. Have noticed NSW doesn't like to be lectured to but loves lecturing others. Always plays the victim. All I can say is, its quite telling that very rarely do any of her colleagues in other states ever publicly come out and back her comments. It is so political now, it will be very hard to get a national consensus on border and outbreak controls, unfortunately.

Of course it will pick up again eventually. I don't know where you read it but 50% during their 2nd wave is just pure BS.

You can look at past ABS releases to know that is not the case. No where ****en close to 50%. Even now that is picking up VIC is way behind 50%

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/jul-2020

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/aug-2020

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/sep-2020

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/oct-2020

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/nov-2020


It will depend on your view, but IMO GB is doing the right thing and balancing concerns.

The only states that have comparable experience is VIC and NSW therefore any other states and territories has nothing to offer them.

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

Of course it will pick up again eventually. I don't know where you read it but 50% during their 2nd wave is just pure BS.

You can look at past ABS releases to know that is not the case. No where ****en close to 50%. Even now that is picking up VIC is way behind 50%

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/jul-2020

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/aug-2020

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/sep-2020

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/oct-2020

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...ional/nov-2020


It will depend on your view, but IMO GB is doing the right thing and balancing concerns.

The only states that have comparable experience is VIC and NSW therefore any other states and territories has nothing to offer them.

Victoria was not taking any international arrivals during the second wave between June and December 2020. It was one of the strategies that allowed Victoria to beat it.

Before the second wave all international arrivals landed in Melbourne or Sydney and were quarantined there no matter what part of Australia they actually lived. Sydney took slightly more arrivals as it always does because more planes fly there.

We are now trying to share the load of international arrivals with most states doing their bit.

We need more co operation between the States, Covid has at least another year to run. We need to be way better coordinated and prepared for the next pandemic IMHO.