Covid 19 -

[DJR-351]

Melbourne declared a COVID-19 hotspot for Queenslanders

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nat...21-p554mf.html

All of Melbourne's 31 local government areas have been declared COVID-19 hotspots for Queenslanders, meaning anyone who travels to the city must self-quarantine for 14 days on their return to Queensland.

On Sunday morning Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young updated the list of hotspots, adding all of Melbourne's local government areas and another five council areas bordering that city.

The update comes as Queensland forges ahead with the easing of restrictions.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles announced on Sunday morning that stadiums would be allowed to have up to 10,000 spectators for football matches from next weekend.

"We want to keep going forward ... but we won't be able to do that if we import cases and have local community transmission, and that's why that new quarantining requirement on all of those local government areas is incredibly important," Mr Miles said.

Meanwhile, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has cancelled further plans to ease restrictions in that state after a worrying spike in cases on Saturday.

Twenty-five new cases were recorded in Victoria on Saturday, up from 13 on Friday, which the Premier largely attributed to a rise in families ignoring social distancing rules while having large gatherings.

Victoria has had 1817 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in total, of which 110 are active and 200 were acquired through unknown transmission.

Mr Miles said calls from LNP politicians to reopen Queensland's borders were "reckless" given the current situation in Victoria, and that the state government would continue to assess the July border reopening date.

Opposition leader Deb Frecklington on Sunday again called for the Queensland borders to be reopened, saying the shutdown was costing thousands of jobs and dollars a day.

Queensland currently sits on 1066 cases, of which just three remain active, with one person in hospital, but not in intensive care. No new cases were recorded in the state in the past 24 hours.

On Sunday Dr Young was meeting with her peers from other states to discuss the escalating case numbers in Victoria and the potential impact on other states.

She confirmed that anyone flying into Melbourne's Tullamarine airport to transit elsewhere would not be considered to have visited a hotspot unless they leave the airport and go into the community.

Queensland's borders remain closed but residents may leave their home state if they have the appropriate permission, and if they are not going to a declared COVID-19 hotspot, they can return home without self-quarantining for 14 days.

But if a resident travels to or lives in a declared hotspot within 14 days of travel to Queensland, they must self-quarantine for a fortnight when they return home.

The stadiums reopening to large numbers of fans next weekend will have a COVID-Safe plan, including extra cleaning and sanitising, seating in segmented zones, and dedicated entry and exit points.

Sport Minister Mick de Brenni said the reopening of stadiums was not just a vote of confidence for football codes but was also a return to work for many employees.

When asked about the question of Queensland borders reopening, Mr de Brenni said: "Queenslanders have to come first."

[Tickford.]

When you test people, you're going to find more cases.

So Andrews needs to tell his people to slow the testing down please.

[Franco Cozzo]

Those local transmission cases have come from those families in Keilor Downs and Coburg (Cohannesburg - seems to be a large group of South Africans moved into the area recently )

Lock down Coburg and Keilor Downs and let the rest of us go about business as usual

[zilo]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

I was going to say the same thing. Most of the new cases are imported.

Depends on what you call imported...

Some of the new vic cases are due to hospitality/security workers from the hotels engaged for isolation.

They became infected while servicing isolation facilities or having contact with clients.

The jury is out as to whether some magic midnight fairy visits on the 14th day of isolation and makes it all okay to go out into the community far and wide...

My bet is that people are still infectious...dunno for how long but there have been instances of people "cleared" then been re-tested to being positive....after 14 days.

[zilo]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Those local transmission cases have come from those families in Keilor Downs and Coburg (Cohannesburg - seems to be a large group of South Africans moved into the area recently )

Lock down Coburg and Keilor Downs and let the rest of us go about business as usual

Better lock down all of Essendon and their supporters...

FFS...risking death just to kick a stupid piece of oval leather around and then having an excuse for a man hug....

[Polyal]

Bloody VIC, just re did my leave to come down in July for Easter 2.0 but thats going south quickly!

[blueoval]

Originally Posted by Polyal

Bloody VIC, just re did my leave to come down in July for Easter 2.0 but thats going south quickly!

My Camping trip for July/Aug in regional Vic is also looking questionable.

[zilo]

In Hobart a worker in a major transport company (starts with "T") of Nepalese origin closed the whole lot down by testing positive for the bug.

He had not been overseas, did not have a sniffle or cough etc etc.

Oh yeah...one of the questions they didn't ask...

He shared a house with 7 other Nepalese...one of who was in home isolation...

talk about slipping through the cracks...

[russellw]

25 new cases for Australia (nearly all in Victoria) and no deaths so CMR drops to 1.367% but active cases rise to 463 (6.2%).

2 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.456% and active cases rise to 7.

The UK had 1,221 new cases and 43 deaths so the CMR is down to 14.008%.

Just over 33k new cases in the USA yesterday and 573 deaths sees CMR down to 5.234% and active cases down to 53.0% although the raw numbers are rising.

Other notable points:
Global cases pass the 9M mark;
USA completes 28M and Spain 5M tests;
Australia (1.367) displaces Russia with the lowest CMR;
The USA passes France for deaths per 100K adults;
NZ displaces Russia with the lowest rate of cases (41.2) per 100K adults;
Kenya (260), Azerbaijan (491) and Bolivia (1,036), all recorded new daily highs, those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.

[FTE217]

Why the heck people go to freezing Vic for hols during winter astounds me.....worse with covid plague.

[marty351]

Originally Posted by FTE217

Why the heck people go to freezing Vic for hols during winter astounds me.....worse with covid plague.

Gotta look trendy on those snowfields, and broke too.

[Bossxr8]

I'm glad dan andrews has finally considered locking down melbourne suburbs, and opening up restrictions in regional areas. It sucks we still have restrictions when most regions outside melbourne have only had 1 or 2 cases the past couple of months, or none at all, yet we still have to follow the same restrictions.

It's a melbourne problem, not a victoria problem.

[Polyal]

Originally Posted by marty351

Gotta look trendy on those snowfields, and broke too.

Funny, skiing was on the list while we drive down but restrictions are proving to make this year not worth it..so yeah I ski 'cause I can.

Originally Posted by FTE217

Why the heck people go to freezing Vic for hols during winter astounds me.....worse with covid plague.

Family mate, otherwise it could wait to Christmas but some grandparents getting on and this virus has made me realise sometimes putting things off because its not convenient doesnt work out in the long term. As long as we dont infect them....

[FTE217]

Originally Posted by Polyal

Funny, skiing was on the list while we drive down but restrictions are proving to make this year not worth it..so yeah I ski 'cause I can.



Family mate, otherwise it could wait to Christmas but some grandparents getting on and this virus has made me realise sometimes putting things off because its not convenient doesnt work out in the long term. As long as we dont infect them....

Ah re family ok I get that.
Understand - have tests before you leave just in case IF borders open.
Takes 5mins, results next day.

[T3rminator]

This is a car forum but no one has asked the important questions.....


Is Calder Park drags open? I see there is nothing on their schedule. You could practice social distancing very easily.

[CoupeKing]

Type into Google any three or four digit combination followed by ''new cases'', then hit enter.

[Franco Cozzo]

The problem with VIC was the heavy handed approach to enforcement right out the gate with ridiculous fines - the girl doing driving lessons with mum, the guy at the car wash in the early hours of the morning, the guys in the car watching a movie, people playing video games together etc.

This drives community resentment, it's the difference between VIC and the other states that we had our draconian revenue raising mission going over the top to **** people off.

Once you lose the support of the community then that's it people just couldn't care - you can see it in behaviour in shopping centres, the road is flat out again.

People are over it, hand shaking is back and no one cares about the 1.5M rule.

[galaxy xr8]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

The problem with VIC was the heavy handed approach to enforcement right out the gate with ridiculous fines - the girl doing driving lessons with mum, the guy at the car wash in the early hours of the morning, the guys in the car watching a movie, people playing video games together etc.

This drives community resentment, it's the difference between VIC and the other states that we had our draconian revenue raising mission going over the top to **** people off.

Once you lose the support of the community then that's it people just couldn't care - you can see it in behaviour in shopping centres, the road is flat out again.

People are over it, hand shaking is back and no one cares about the 1.5M rule.

Daniel Andrews and Co could do with a lesson or two in "reverse Psychology".

[russellw]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

This is a car forum but no one has asked the important questions.....


Is Calder Park drags open? I see there is nothing on their schedule. You could practice social distancing very easily.

Not as yet.

[guzzis3]

We had some compliance for a while in brisbane but it didn't last. The border closure is a joke.

Australia got lucky and within australia the less populated states got lucky. I attribute very little to the government lockdowns, fines and other BS.

The USA has a culture of disobedience and much bigger exposure to overseas arrivals. That's the main reason they have done poorly.

Governments have tried of course but I think we all know governments are pretty hopeless.

[russellw]

13 new cases for Australia (nearly all in Victoria) and no deaths so CMR drops to 1.365% but active cases rise to 469 (6.3%).

2 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.454% and active cases rise to 9.

The UK had 958 new cases and 15 deaths so the CMR is down to 13.969%.

Just over 26k new cases in the USA yesterday and 267 deaths sees CMR down to 5.187% and active cases up to 53.2% although the raw numbers are rising.

Other notable points:
USA completes 29M, Russia 17M, the UK 8M and Italy 5M tests;

Palestine (168), Kyrgyzstan (205), Israel (304), Kazakhstan (507), Oman (1,605) and Argentina (2,148) all recorded new daily highs, those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.

[Tassie f100]

And if we take Trumps advice we stop doing testing so the number of active cases comes down.If we had done this in Aust at the start I presume we wouldn’t have had any active cases LOL

[smoo]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

And if we take Trumps advice we stop doing testing so the number of active cases comes down.If we had done this in Aust at the start I presume we wouldn’t have had any active cases LOL

That’s how NZ got to zero cases.
Except the media applaud her but vilified Trump.
NZ have let at least 2500 recent arrivals out of ‘isolation’ without testing them. Perhaps this will see the 30,000 or so deaths that was going to sweep across the country
At least now that the government has ****ed it up they’ve taken a much more blaze attitude to it and it appears the risk and concern isn’t as great as what it was back in March. What a farce.

[russellw]

Australia has performed a bit over 2M tests or about 11k/100k adults. NZ isn't far behind at 9.4k/100k while Russia (14.7), the USA (13.8), Spain (13.3), UK (15.4) and Italy (13.6) are all higher.

In terms of total population Bahrain has tested 26.7k/100k, the Cayman Is (29.4), UAE (30.2), Gibraltar (30.9) and Monaco (41.2). We are well back at 7.4k/100k.

[Ben73]

We need, to build, a wall, on our southern boarder. Victoria will pay for it

[prydey]

Originally Posted by guzzis3

The USA has a culture of disobedience and much bigger exposure to overseas arrivals. That's the main reason they have done poorly.

I often see lots of references to USA as though they are the benchmark for how bad the virus can be, yet the UK is nearly 3 times worse. People just see the big numbers without realising the population in the US is similar to all of Europe.

Originally Posted by guzzis3

Governments have tried of course but I think we all know governments are pretty hopeless.

Not directed at anyone but it's easy to criticize any government from the outside and with hindsight. If you think you can govern a country and keep everyone happy, especially in this day and age with professional whingers, then you are very naive.

[EgoFG]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

And if we take Trumps advice we stop doing testing so the number of active cases comes down.If we had done this in Aust at the start I presume we wouldn’t have had any active cases LOL

He *says* he was joking about that (while it was tied to a trump 'joke', I think he was not really joking)


The thing to note is the difference between someone who is positive and symptomatic, and someone who has no symptoms that would cause alarm.


Now that the US is testing people that would not go to the doctor, that figure cannot be compared to when they were only testing sick people.
So the curve of positive test results becomes meaningless.


In the US there was some early sampling of asymptomatic and symptomatic people in a location.


This revealed (IIRC) that there were over 50 harmless cases to every case sought medical advise.



So, if all that people read is the positive test rate, then good testing gives bad results.

[PhilT2]

This may not be a problem here but perhaps worth a check. In the US the FDA has issued a warning about hand sanitizers that were found to contain methanol instead of ethyl alcohol. Methanol can be absorbed through the skin and cause permanent nerve damage.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...vernment-warns

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by Ben73

We need, to build, a wall, on our southern boarder. Victoria will pay for it

You do that you will never see our penguins!

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

You do that you will never see our penguins!

We have little penguins up here. That's good enough for me