$80 wouldn't go far. $80 million on the other hand...
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Victoria is now isolated from the rest of Australia. That is sad to see and not something anyone should want but unfortunately it is necessary.
The grim news from Victoria's CMO is that he does not think the current outbreak has peaked.
We do need to keep some perspective that while it sucks, individual US states are recording daily increases that are 50-100x higher than what Victoria has been having.
Hopefully after a couple of weeks lockdown the number of new positives are heading back towards single figures
This is great.
Elimination is not possible unless you want to remain isolated from the rest of the world indefinitely. With 12 million confirmed cases worldwide, which probably means 100-200 million actual cases, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle.After the Melbourne experience the coming debate in Australia has to be elimination v suppression. Scott Morrison has always advocated suppression in order to get the economy up and running. What is happening in Victoria suggests that eliminating the virus as as happened in many Australian States and Territories and across the Tasman in New Zealand is the way to go if you do not want a stop start economy. Suppression is a quick fix but while there is infection in the community there is the chance of a flare up and further shut downs as we are seeing in Melbourne.
Early in June Victoria had just 21 cases in a week and many of those were returning travellers, the Cedar Meatworks cluster was under control and for a week between the 6th and 12th of June the entire nation was returning single digit new infection numbers. Then the sh*t hit the fan and now Melbourne is back in lockdown at an estimated cost of 1 billion per week.
Elimination can be achieved, Australia was so close but it needs the Federal Government to set that as it's goal not take the easy path and settle on a suppression strategy that is never going to work.
Elimination is a national issue and what happens internationally is a different question and one over which Australia has no control. We cannot control what happens in places like the US and Europe all we can do is eliminate the virus in Australia, form travel bubbles with low risk nations, maintain tight border control for high risk nations and wait for a vaccine.
July in Victoria has clearly shown the dangers of relying on suppression as a strategy.
Victoria's lockdown will cost $6b — and it brings our whole strategy into question
This second wave of the coronavirus that's hit Victoria will test whether the strong public support we've seen for Australian leaders during COVID will hold, writes Michelle Grattan.www.abc.net.au
Elimination is not possible unless you want to remain isolated from the rest of the world indefinitely. With 12 million confirmed cases worldwide, which probably means 100-200 million actual cases, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle.
So we can open up our borders and still eliminate the virus from our shores?This has nothing to do with international borders.
So we can open up our borders and still eliminate the virus from our shores?
Here in NZ while it's widely hailed as a success story in terms of 'elimination', there have been so many idiotic decisions and selfish assholes breaching conditions of re-entry it will be at least partially lucky if there isn't at least a few small outbreaks post-elimination... and NZ is 100 times easier to manage those outbreaks than Melbourne would be. To give a few examples (and remember these are just the ones we hear about):
A returning NZer from Aus climbed over a security wall in a hotel in central Auckland and went off the map for over an hour. Tested negative.
Two sisters returning from England bargained their way in to a "compassionate exemption" from their stay in an Auckland hotel to drive to Wellington. They claimed they did the whole thing with no stops (physically impossible in most cars), then as more of their lies were unravelled it was found they also went in to Auckland city and hugged and kissed family members while 'asking for directions' (because they "got lost" and accidentally headed North instead of South - which is basically impossible unless someone was literally blind), and then ended up in Waharoa "on the way" to Wellington... to give an example of how ridiculous this lie is, it would be like driving from Adelaide to Melbourne and just stopping off in Naracoorte "on the way". Both tested positive.
A man returning from India a few days ago snuck out through a whole in a security fence and went to a central Auckland supermarket which has now been shut down for full disinfecting. His story is also complete bullshit and doesn't add up - leaving around 40 minutes of totally unaccounted for time in Auckland CBD. Tested positive.
I think the elimination strategy is a good one, but you sacrifice a lot to achieve it, and it is very difficult to maintain post-elimination. You have to be really careful not to underestimate the capacity for utter idiocy and selfishness in people.
They'd be much more. Testing per million is better here, so it's more likely they are closer to 100x per capita.Did some quick sums.
Australia: 9000 cases in a population of 25 million = 360 cases per million
United States: 3.2 million cases in a population of 326 million = 9800 cases per million
So on a per capita basis the US has had 25x more cases.
I wonder how travel will change for those that don’t want to Vaccinate?
The overlap between anti-vaxxers and people who believe in unicorns is quite high so by Hogwarts express I imagine.I wonder how travel will change for those that don’t want to Vaccinate?
"We also agreed today that they would be a nationwide review of hotel quarantine.
"That will be undertaken by the former Health Secretary Jay Holton, she currently sits on the COVID commission as part of that group.
"She will be undertaking that review working with states and territories and that again is an important step in providing reassurances, making sure that as we look into each of these states and territories and how they are managing the quarantine.
"As our country opens up again, with the exception of Victoria, we can make sure we have even greater confidence in those quarantine arrangements as they have been put in place."
"We also agreed today a reduction in the number of inbound arrivals into Australia across those ports that are able to accept returning Australian citizens and residents.
"Of course there are no flights going into Melbourne, into Victoria, for obvious reasons, and to ensure that we are mitigating and managing that risk.
"They will be cut by just over half across all the various ports that are taking those visitors. Sorry, those residents returning to Australia."