Coronavirus

[Ridley]

I keep saying it: dedicated quarantine facilities, not bloody hotels in the middle of town.

This is Australia, we know how to do quarantine, there are a pile of diseases we don't have, we just need to do this properly.

DS

Yep if the Vic authorities go back to hotel quarantine when we start taking international arrivals they are *smile* idiots. Talk about once bitten twice shy.

They need to set up quarantine facilities/camps like the one outside Darwin. Where people can quarantine but still get outside and get some fresh air and exercise without being exposed to the public. Little used military bases could be used for this.

 

[MD Jazz]

You're being very naïve if you think that was an over the top comment. The economy needs open borders to function correctly. The virus needs closed borders to contain it. You have competing needs.

If every state had the strength to weather the public, political and media driven storm that Victoria has had, Australia might be ok, but I don't see it.

Every state except VIC has managed the situation competently for over 6 months. Right through winter. With small outbreaks/clusters and no onerous restrictions.

Lets not start predicting doom when evidence to the contrary is right in front of us.

 

[AngryAnt]

Oops.

I guess we are water-locked? AKA an island

 

[Baloo]

Every state except VIC has managed the situation competently for over 6 months. Right through winter. With small outbreaks/clusters and no onerous restrictions.

Lets not start predicting doom when evidence to the contrary is right in front of us.

I'll bookmark this post I think.

 

[MD Jazz]

I guess we are water-locked? AKA an island

Girt by sea?

 

[MD Jazz]

I'll bookmark this post I think.

I can understand your trepidation we still have Dan pulling the strings.

 

[tigerman]

Yep if the Vic authorities go back to hotel quarantine when we start taking international arrivals they are *smile* idiots. Talk about once bitten twice shy.

They need to set up quarantine facilities/camps like the one outside Darwin. Where people can quarantine but still get outside and get some fresh air and exercise without being exposed to the public. Little used military bases could be used for this.

The Federal Government flew Australians out of Wuhan, and quarantined them on Christmas Island. Why didn't they continue to use Christmas Island for returning Australians?
They probably wanted to shift the cost to the states, by making them quarantine them in hotels.

 

[AngryAnt]

The Federal Government flew Australians out of Wuhan, and quarantined them on Christmas Island. Why they didn't they continue to use Christmas Island for returning Australians?
They probably wanted to shift the cost to the states, by making them quarantine them in hotels.

Bingo

 

[Panthera Tigris]

Its especially important to do it this way now we are re-opening Domestic economies.

If we retain that then I can see us being successful in managing and suppressing the virus within Australia.

It is highly likely that support for certain industries (hospitality etc) will be required for a significant time period. For example, we can encourage Australians to holiday within Australia, but there are stats (and I can't remember where I saw them) but I think there was a stat showing that overseas holiday makers spend 4 times as much within Australia as Australians on holiday do.

My family still lives in the UK and its pretty clear they have surrendered to the virus, they have also had a shockingly poor response to it. Those that criticise Andrews government should take a look at the UK government response which has been nothing short of awful.

I can see Australia will continue down the route of travel bubbles, obviously first with NZ, then probably Asian countries less impacted by Covid, potentially even China in order to drive the growth back in our university sector.

Travel to and from many countries (mainland Europe etc, US etc) will not be available for a long long time. I've never felt further away from my family as I do right now.

I read quite different Posh. The figure I heard was that outbound Australian tourists spend about $59bn on overseas holidays per year. Inbound international tourism was worth about $54bn to the Australian economy. Remarkably close to net/net (slightly more going out in fact).

This is obviously just tourists though. Doesn't include inbound international students. Not sure where working holidaymakers and other similar schemes fit in calculating the figures.

 

[IanG]

The Federal Government flew Australians out of Wuhan, and quarantined them on Christmas Island. Why they didn't they continue to use Christmas Island for returning Australians?
They probably wanted to shift the cost to the states, by making them quarantine them in hotels.

They may have been concerned by the optics on this. I would prefer they find a solution on the mainland, agree that hotels should not be used. There's probably many unused facilities in country areas. I used to work at La Trobe University and they used to have a facility in Beechworth that was an old mental facility which would be ideal or army bases as Ridley said.

 

[Ridley]

The Federal Government flew Australians out of Wuhan, and quarantined them on Christmas Island. Why they didn't they continue to use Christmas Island for returning Australians?
They probably wanted to shift the cost to the states, by making them quarantine them in hotels.

Whilst I'm not an expert in quarantine procedures I think it would be easier and more effective for each state and territory to have its own quarantine facility; ACT could probably piggy back on NSW. Removes the double handling of everyone going to Christmas Island for example. That way people can fly directly to the state in which they live, quarantine and then head straight home when a negative test result is received after 14 days.

 

[Panthera Tigris]

The Federal Government flew Australians out of Wuhan, and quarantined them on Christmas Island. Why they didn't they continue to use Christmas Island for returning Australians?
They probably wanted to shift the cost to the states, by making them quarantine them in hotels.

To spread the load across all States. Temporary facilities like you suggest should have been built on land surrounding our airports. Plenty of space to do it at most airfields around Australia (the Federal Govt generally owns quite a bit of extra land around all of our airports earmarked for future development).

NSW and VIC (and to a lesser degree, QLD) have been doing most of the heavy lifting on the quarantine front. No reason States like mine (TAS) along with WA, SA, NT, ACT can't also take some in facilities adjacent to their airports. Rather than smugly sitting back contributing nothing, looking at NSW and VIC as some sort of dirty pariah, pointing the finger for having the virus existing on their soil.

 

[Althom]

To spread the load across all States. Temporary facilities like you suggest should have been built on land surrounding our airports. Plenty of space to do it at most airfields around Australia (the Federal Govt generally owns quite a bit of extra land around all of our airports earmarked for future development).

NSW and VIC (and to a lesser degree, QLD) have been doing most of the heavy lifting on the quarantine front. No reason States like mine (TAS) along with WA, SA, NT, ACT can't also take some in facilities adjacent to their airports. Rather than smugly sitting back contributing nothing, looking at NSW and VIC as some sort of dirty pariah, pointing the finger for having the virus existing on their soil.

Bit of a misconception that WA hasn't been shouldering any load. 2-3 flights a day and over 12000 people have passed through hotel quarantine.
NT is now also handling all the repat flights through the Howard Springs facility.

 

[Althom]

Whilst I'm not an expert in quarantine procedures I think it would be easier and more effective for each state and territory to have its own quarantine facility; ACT could probably piggy back on NSW. Removes the double handling of everyone going to Christmas Island for example. That way people can fly directly to the state in which they live, quarantine and then head straight home when a negative test result is received after 14 days.

I think one issue may have been that Christmas Island is a detention facility with somewhat limited medical facilities.
If someone did get really crook with COVID whilst there they'd have to be flown to a hospital.
Hotel quarantine at least allowed for an easier transfer to hospital.

 

[Panthera Tigris]

Bit of a misconception that WA hasn't been shouldering any load. 2-3 flights a day and over 12000 people have passed through hotel quarantine.
NT is now also handling all the repat flights through the Howard Springs facility.

Sorry, "Contributing nothing" a bit too strongly worded. But my point stands that NSW and VIC were shouldering huge load. And by spreading the load across Australia more, would also have prevented such a backlog of returning Australian travelers.

TAS has had hotel quarantine. But not as part of the "Australia inc" effort. This was an extra layer of quarantine. So if anyone had already served their Federal level quarantine arriving in Australia (in say NSW, VIC QLD etc) they also needed to do another 14 days quarantine arriving in Tasmania. And of course anyone else coming into Tasmania from any other State or Territory.

 

[tigerman]

All good points on why the States should share the load.

It seems a waste of taxpayers money that not long ago Christmas Island was sitting there empty, after hundreds of millions of dollars was spent building it.

They don't mind using it when they think they can get some political mileage out of it.

"The Christmas Island detention centre has cost taxpayers almost $27 million since being reopened this year (2019) despite holding just four detainees.

The Morrison government recommissioned the facility in February, over fears of an influx of asylum seekers tied to changes to refugee medical transfer laws."

Christmas Island detention centre cost $27 million to 'detain four people'

It’s been revealed almost $27 million has been spent reopening the Christmas Island detention centre this year with only four people so far detained at the facility.

www.sbs.com.au

 

[mrposhman]

I read quite different Posh. The figure I heard was that outbound Australian tourists spend about $59bn on overseas holidays per year. Inbound international tourism was worth about $54bn to the Australian economy. Remarkably close to net/net (slightly more going out in fact).

This is obviously just tourists though. Doesn't include inbound international students. Not sure where working holidaymakers and other similar schemes fit in calculating the figures.

Sorry I don't think I was fully clear. It was compared to what Australians spend on Domestic holidays, ie much lower per person than International visitors. Maybe because of the relatively high proportion of Aussies that would camp / caravan as opposed to using hotels (and therefore eating out more).

Overseas I suspect Australians are similar to International arrivals into Australia, but Aussies tend to holiday very differently at home compared to abroad. Sure with International borders closed, maybe people spend more on Domestic holidays than they usually would.

 

[Althom]

Sorry, "Contributing nothing" a bit too strongly worded. But my point stands that NSW and VIC were shouldering huge load. And by spreading the load across Australia more, would also have prevented such a backlog of returning Australian travelers.

TAS has had hotel quarantine. But not as part of the "Australia inc" effort. This was an extra layer of quarantine. So if anyone had already served their Federal level quarantine arriving in Australia (in say NSW, VIC QLD etc) they also needed to do another 14 days quarantine arriving in Tasmania. And of course anyone else coming into Tasmania from any other State or Territory.

Looking at the numbers NSW has certainly accepted the lion's share at +50% of total arrivals so Gladys does have grounds for demanding other states pay up.
However what is interesting is that numbers for QLD and Vic are quite close; 17% of total arrivals vs 20% of total arrivals. On a per capita basis QLD has taken in more than Vic.

 

[Panthera Tigris]

Looking at the numbers NSW has certainly accepted the lion's share at +50% of total arrivals so Gladys does have grounds for demanding other states pay up.
However what is interesting is that numbers for QLD and Vic are quite close; 17% of total arrivals vs 20% of total arrivals. On a per capita basis QLD has taken in more than Vic.

Just remember, VIC ceased pretty much all incoming international flights (agreed to by the Federal Govt) over the recent months long lock down. So that may have skewed things.

But on a side note, If you had a whole of "Aust Inc" strategy (rather than the selfish sniping attitude of every State for itself - as we have seen at times during this whole saga) I don't think it even needs to be States living up to 'per capita' benchmarks. It's about getting the best outcome for the nation as a whole. So for example, my State, Tasmania only has 2-2.5% of the population of Australia. But if there was a quarantine facility sitting out at Hobart or Launceston Airport as part of a national strategy, that had capacity so it was taking 10% of international arrivals and quarantining them, so be it, I have no issues with that. Just like NT, ACT and SA, Tasmania is a disproportionate recipient of Federal tax revenue, so it all swings in roundabouts. It's all part and parcel of being part of a Federal Commonwealth - a bit of give and take.

 

[Althom]

Just remember, VIC ceased pretty much all incoming international flights (agreed to by the Federal Govt) over the recent months long lock down. So that may have skewed things.

But on a side note, If you had a whole of "Aust Inc" strategy (rather than the selfish sniping attitude of every State for itself - as we have seen at times during this whole saga) I don't think it even needs to be States living up to 'per capita' benchmarks. It's about getting the best outcome for the nation as a whole. So for example, my State, Tasmania only has 2-2.5% of the population of Australia. But if there was a quarantine facility sitting out at Hobart or Launceston Airport as part of a national strategy, that had capacity so it was taking 10% of international arrivals and quarantining them, so be it, I have no issues with that. Just like NT, ACT and SA, Tasmania is a disproportionate recipient of Federal tax revenue, so it all swings in roundabouts. It's all part and parcel of being part of a Federal Commonwealth - a bit of give and take.

Per capita is quite relevant because states have health facilities relative to their populations. Smaller population states can obviously not absorb the same incoming load as higher population states without potentially overloading their health systems.
Setting up a quarantine facility in somewhere like Hobart so the load could be spread would require a commensurate increase in the capacity of their health system. Difficult to achieve in the short term.
Best solution would be some sort of permanent facilities located close to cities with the largest health facilities and funded by the Feds. Much like we used to have.