Coronavirus | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
  • IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.

Coronavirus

Hoping so. Its my daughters birthday tomorrow so would be good timing.

Plus, because everythings been shut I'm resorting to making a cookie cake today (including using those icing bags), so if I stuff it up, at least things will be open to go and buy a rescue cake :D
 
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Seems reasonable, the lockdown was to stop spread, there is no evidence of a spread and there were a high number of tests yesterday.

I suspect we won't be quite back where we were a week ago but close.

DS
 
Seems reasonable, the lockdown was to stop spread, there is no evidence of a spread and there were a high number of tests yesterday.

I suspect we won't be quite back where we were a week ago but close.

DS

Yep, suspecting that mask wearing will be increased from where we were a week ago, but hopefully most of the rest back to normal.
 
Yep, suspecting that mask wearing will be increased from where we were a week ago, but hopefully most of the rest back to normal.

While a pain, that would be ok.

My question would be about how many can get to a gathering (and, can I go to the footy at Princes Park this weekend??).

DS
 
Good article in The Age today by a Melbourne Uni Infectious Diseases expert:


Has Victoria learnt anything since the hotel quarantine inquiry?

Have Victorian authorities learnt anything from the findings of the hotel quarantine inquiry? Based on the recent problems resulting in the Holiday Inn outbreak, it would seem not. In fact, given the Premier’s recent comments that “I think we could all agree on the fact that hospitals are different to hotels in many, many different ways”, one wonders whether Mr Andrews has actually read the hotel quarantine inquiry report.

From an infection control point of view, the inquiry highlighted that quarantine should be a strict system of containment and isolation, where clear health guidelines are rigorously followed. Whether this is in a hotel, a hospital, or a special facility such as Howard Springs or any new Victorian facility such as was proposed yesterday is irrelevant – these are just matters of geography. The key issue is “quarantine”, not the location in which it is carried out. After all, travellers are in hotel quarantine in case they have COVID-19 – in other words, they are considered potentially infected until, after 14 days and regular testing, they are proven to be non-infected.

From a quarantine infection control point of view, all the principles that apply to staff and patients in a hospital COVID ward, should equally apply to hotel quarantine. Yet, in Victoria, there are still clear differences in infection control procedures (N95 mask use, attention to preventing aerosol transmission, etc) between hospital-run facilities and quarantine hotels. This is totally contrary to the inquiry recommendations and, as an infectious diseases physician, absolutely exasperating and really quite unacceptable.

The hotel quarantine inquiry interim report was released in November and contained 69 recommendations specifically regarding quarantine, with the final report delivered on December 21. Thus, how can it be that almost four months later and with clear step-by-step instructions on how to manage quarantine safely and effectively, it still gets stuffed up so badly?

The very first point in the report, regarding the appropriate features of a suitable facility-based model, are that there is a: “Primary focus on public health and infection prevention and control”, and of the 69 recommendations, 10 relate to infection prevention and control. Yet, based on what we know about the Holiday Inn outbreak, at least four of these 10 recommendations have not been followed adequately. In an area as critical as quarantine, is this even remotely acceptable?

A lot of comment has recently been made about the role of new COVID variants or mutant strains that may be more transmissible. However, the whole point of strict infection control procedures is that these minimise the risk of spread of all variants. The UK variant, regardless of any possible increased transmissibility, did not cause the breaches in infection control procedures at the Holiday Inn (and potentially in other quarantine hotels) or the failure of many Holiday Inn contacts to be followed up within the required 48 hours. These are simply signs that many of the inquiry recommendations have not been implemented.

As a physician, the most distressing issue from the recent weeks is that both the Department of Health and Human Services, and now COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria, seem willing to openly blame patients for their Department’s own failures – whether it is criticising the non English-speaking family for mistakenly sending their kids to school last year; or the latest comments about the returned traveller for using a nebuliser.

Every health professional knows these mistakes are almost always due to a failure of adequate communication and that it is a system error, rather than any intentional patient misbehaviour. The AMA have recently described the DHHS as having a culture of being overly defensive and displaying a lack of transparency about the truth. These recent events seem to reinforce this view.

In hospitals, if there is a suspected medical error, there is a standard safety and quality system (the so-called Morbidity & Mortality, or M&M review) whereby the case is objectively investigated and changes enacted, including corrective training of those involved to prevent the error happening again. However, if a similar mistake is made again, the entire procedure is shut down and those involved are furloughed, until it is certain that the system is safe.

The hotel quarantine inquiry was Victoria’s M&M review – and now the problems with quarantine have occurred again and clear recommendations from the inquiry not followed. Thus, the only conclusion is that Victoria’s current system cannot be trusted to run a quarantine program and that it should be removed from the national process until it can be proven to be safe.

Professor Lindsay Grayson is Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Melbourne. He was an expert witness in the Victorian Hotel Quarantine Inquiry.

2 things immediately stick out to me.

Yes we needed some sort of quarantine system in place in a hurry back 12 months ago, but putting it in hotels was also clearly a massive subsidy to the hotel industry. How much are we paying for this and why are we propping up the hotel business?

Why is there this divide between "hot" and "cold" quarantine. The whole point of quarantine is that you assume every person in quarantine is potentially infected and act accordingly. All of quarantine should be treated as hot and all of it should be run by health authorities, not the Department of Justice.

I know this is a difficult situation but we know about quarantine in Australia (it is why we don't have rabies like everywhere else on Earth) and this could have been done better.

DS
 
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How irresponsible and dangerous are the Herald Sun and their bs right wing propaganda. Sub headline of "Chaos, fear only results of Dan's lockdown". FMD.

No problem writing about another quarantine issue/bungle but to suggest a snap lockdown - which SA, WA, NSW have all done - wasn't necessary to ensure the safety of the state and country, and not have another massive outbreak on our hands and for which a host of epidemiologists all agreed with, is just downright disgraceful.

If we didn't have a 5 day snap lockdown and as a result we ended up in a situation like we had back in July, how would the Herald Scum have reported that I wonder ? "WHY WASNT THERE A LOCKDOWN ??? ANDREEEEWS ANDREEEWS INCOMPETENT....LOSING LIVES.....LOCKDOWN SHOULD HAVE OCCURRED....BLAH BLAH BLAH..."

Worst rag anywhere. Absolute disgrace publsihing sh*t like that.
 
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How irresponsible and dangerous are the Herald Sun and their bs right wing propaganda. Sub headline of "Chaos, fear only results of Dan's lockdown". FMD.

No problem writing about another quarantine issue/bungle but to suggest a snap lockdown - which SA, WA, NSW have all done - wasn't necessary to ensure the safety of the state and country, and not have another massive outbreak on our hands and for which a host of epidemiologists all agreed with, is just downright disgraceful.

If we didn't have a 5 day snap lockdown and as a result we ended up in a situation like we had back in July, how would the Herald Scum have reported that I wonder ? "WHY WASNT THERE A LOCKDOWN ??? ANDREEEEWS ANDREEEWS INCOMPETENT....LOSING LIVES.....LOCKDOWN SHOULD HAVE OCCURRED....BLAH BLAH BLAH..."

Worst rag anywhere. Absolute disgrace publsihing sh*t like that.

Without doubt its a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario for the government. Its remarkable how many of these journos are suddenly trained and qualified epidemiologists.

Interesting point, I saw a statement on one of the social media platforms from Michael O'Brien claiming that if he was in charge there would be no state of emergency. Brett Sutton has just said that the without the state of emergency he wouldn't be able to enforce a quarantine on International arrivals, so the current govt would say no Intl arrivals without the state of emergency. Now I know O'Brien wouldn't do this, so I assume that would mean it would be hotel quarantine based on people choosing to go, but no legal enforcement. Good luck with that one.
 
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Interesting point, I saw a statement on one of the social media platforms from Michael O'Brien claiming that if he was in charge there would be no state of emergency. Brett Sutton has just said that the without the state of emergency he wouldn't be able to enforce a quarantine on International arrivals, so the current govt would say no Intl arrivals without the state of emergency. Now I know O'Brien wouldn't do this, so I assume that would mean it would be hotel quarantine based on people choosing to go, but no legal enforcement. Good luck with that one.

If Andrews says 2+2=4, O'Brien would say wrong 2+2=5
 
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How irresponsible and dangerous are the Herald Sun and their bs right wing propaganda.

Worst rag anywhere.

jeez don't you read Facebook and Twitter?

we have an extreme left wing media now.

Its all alternative energy, be-nice-to-black-people and supposed vaccines and viruses.

la de da de da.

Its really a tough landscape, for loving Eddie McGuire in.

The crazy PC fun police have gone mad.
 
If Andrews says 2+2=4, O'Brien would say wrong 2+2=5

Well, speaking of O'Brien, didn't he say that it was a no brainer to move hotel quarantine out of the city then, when Andrews hinted the other day that he would do that, O'Brien forgot what he had said previously and blurted out something to the effect of moving quarantine isn't the issue, no point, its fine in Melbourne, it's the handling of quarantine in the city that was the issue ? Hah hah hah....
 
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Yeah the journos the last 2 days have been poor. You really think some of them are hoping for more cases and the lockdown to continue.

One of them essentially asked "can you guarantee you won't do a lockdown again". What sort of answer were they actually expecting? Seriously.

The 2 girls standing next to each other were the worst. I think the blonde one was the Sky News one that always asks ridiculous questions but I wasn't sure who the other one was, brunette.
 
One of them essentially asked "can you guarantee you won't do a lockdown again". What sort of answer were they actually expecting? Seriously.

The 2 girls standing next to each other were the worst. I think the blonde one was the Sky News one that always asks ridiculous questions but I wasn't sure who the other one was, brunette.

Gabriella Power from Sky and Rachel Baxendale from The Australian.
 
Harping on about PPE recently, read this article tonight.
Extrodinary that similar standards are not set at all hotels. Unbelievable.
PPE ! the rest is all bs, imo. Smoke & mirrors to deflect away from the failings in HQ.

Couldn't agree more... I seriously sprayed my coffee on my laptop when I read that the same standard of PPE wasn't used at all hotel quarantine sites.


Victoria's beleaguered hotel quarantine program was not following the same infection control standards drawn up by a PPE taskforce, which were being applied to the rest of the state's health system

"The December advice from the taskforce said anyone in quarantine should be treated as "high risk" regardless of whether or not they had tested positive for coronavirus".

That meant the person should be treated as a tier 3 risk — the same as a confirmed case.

Tier 3 PPE requires N95 masks, face shields or goggles, and disposable gowns.

But this measure has not been applied at all hotel quarantine sites.

It has left some members of the panel "flabbergasted".

"If the PPE taskforce is not the group to set the standards for these settings, who the hell is,'' one member asked.

"This would have stopped [hotel quarantine] staff getting sick and taking it into the community."



So 800 deaths due to HQ in 2020. A taskforce was commissioned in regard to PPE and in December 2020 "advice from the taskforce said anyone in quarantine should be treated as "high risk" regardless of whether or not they had tested positive for coronavirus".

So what does Dan and his government do...completely ignore the advice from the taskforce. As one taskforce panel member said, "This would have stopped [hotel quarantine] staff getting sick and taking it into the community."

FFS the incompetence of Dan Andrews and his government knows no bounds
 
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Good article in The Age today by a Melbourne Uni Infectious Diseases expert:




2 things immediately stick out to me.

Yes we needed some sort of quarantine system in place in a hurry back 12 months ago, but putting it in hotels was also clearly a massive subsidy to the hotel industry. How much are we paying for this and why are we propping up the hotel business?

Why is there this divide between "hot" and "cold" quarantine. The whole point of quarantine is that you assume every person in quarantine is potentially infected and act accordingly. All of quarantine should be treated as hot and all of it should be run by health authorities, not the Department of Justice.

I know this is a difficult situation but we know about quarantine in Australia (it is why we don't have rabies like everywhere else on Earth) and this could have been done better.

DS
It is a good article but your first comment seems to indicate you didn't get the Prifessors point that it doesn't matter what facility the quarantine is done in, it's what happens inside the walls that counts.

Not sure what alternative to hotels you would prefer ? What publically owned accomodation would you have preferred? Uni colleges? And if you say a special purpose facility should be built it would be by private builders - propping up the construction industry?