The Reality of Living in Australia and Covid

[JPA Cate]

Three posts have been removed, all from posters with US locations, all antivax propaganda, which is contrary to this part of the Sticky instructions for posting in the Covid 19 forum: In addition, posts that exhibit fear-mongering, politically charged statements or other anti-social behavior may result in the author’s posting privileges being restricted.

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[Wotname]

Most Aussies (but not all apparently) know the following but I'll post it anyway for those anywhere who don't know.

Quarantine for incoming arrivals is solely in the hands of the Federal government as stated unambiguously in the constitution. At the beginning of the pandemic, the feds didn't have suitable facilities, understandably I suppose. As a stop gap measure, the states stepped up to the plate and took on the role in the short term. This has morphed into the longer term as the feds simply refuse to accept their responsibility in this area. I guess it helps them to be able to fool the voter into thinking the various states have failed.

Likewise the feds are responsible for vaccine supply and the states are responsible for pushing it into the arms. All states (ie regardless of party allegiance) have complained about supply shortages.

Things might change nearer to election time but this is pure speculation on my part .

[GILow]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Three posts have been removed, all from posters with US locations, all antivax propaganda, which is contrary to this part of the Sticky instructions for posting in the Covid 19 forum: In addition, posts that exhibit fear-mongering, politically charged statements or other anti-social behavior may result in the author’s posting privileges being restricted.

If you want to contribute to Cruisers Forum, please follow the Community Rules.

Aaawwww.... spoil-sport.

I love reading what the tin-foil-hat brigade are pedalling this week.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Most Aussies (but not all apparently) know the following but I'll post it anyway for those anywhere who don't know.

Quarantine for incoming arrivals is solely in the hands of the Federal government as stated unambiguously in the constitution. At the beginning of the pandemic, the feds didn't have suitable facilities, understandably I suppose. As a stop gap measure, the states stepped up to the plate and took on the role in the short term. This has morphed into the longer term as the feds simply refuse to accept their responsibility in this area. I guess it helps them to be able to fool the voter into thinking the various states have failed.

Likewise the feds are responsible for vaccine supply and the states are responsible for pushing it into the arms. All states (ie regardless of party allegiance) have complained about supply shortages.

Things might change nearer to election time but this is pure speculation on my part .

Good to see Qland has gone their own way on building a dedicated quarantine facility - at one third the price of the federal proposal.

Also interesting to see that the Feds walked away from the one federal facility they were managing - Howard Springs.

Today's state of play
https://www.theage.com.au/national/e....html#comments

[RaymondR]

Ah Pingo, you got it wrong again mate.

The feds have a number of perfectly good existing quarantine facilities mate which could have been pressed into service since the Abbot government stopped the boats, there's a big one on Christmas Island, another in the NT one in WA and a few more scattered around the country.

The truth is it's the old "lack of resources" excuse that our heavily unionized public services employees use every time they have another inevitable failure.

There is nothing functionally wrong with using hotels as quarantine facilities, all the modern ones have ventilation systems ideally suited to isolation purposes but you can't use night club bouncers, who smuggle in booze to have parties and sex with those supposedly being in isolation, providing security, these folks build their entire lives around a bacchanalia theme, they are just not reliable for any other purpose.

Now we know they had a big inquiry about it which found that no one in the government had actually hired any of these characters and I guess they had just snuck into the treasury in Melbourne to make out and sign their own paychecks but apparently that's how it goes in Dangerous Dan land and quiet obviously Scomo is to blame.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Ah Pingo, you got it wrong again mate.

The feds have a number of perfectly good existing quarantine facilities mate which could have been pressed into service since the Abbot government stopped the boats, there's a big one on Christmas Island, another in the NT one in WA and a few more scattered around the country.

The truth is it's the old "lack of resources" excuse that our heavily unionized public services employees use every time they have another inevitable failure.

There is nothing functionally wrong with using hotels as quarantine facilities, all the modern ones have ventilation systems ideally suited to isolation purposes but you can't use night club bouncers, who smuggle in booze to have parties and sex with those supposedly being in isolation, providing security, these folks build their entire lives around a bacchanalia theme, they are just not reliable for any other purpose.

Now we know they had a big inquiry about it which found that no one in the government had actually hired any of these characters and I guess they had just snuck into the treasury in Melbourne to make out and sign their own paychecks but apparently that's how it goes in Dangerous Dan land and quiet obviously Scomo is to blame.

So where are these Federal facilities ?

Hotels fit for purpose? You must have missed this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_0zFEtPbiA

Interesting that Gladys doesn't think Slomo is 'PM for NSW' but 'PM for Morrison'.

[JPA Cate]

Unfortunately, this is incorrect. It is that they do not have filters fine enough to remove virus, nor systems to sanitize the filters. So, unless they have opening windows and a way to close off the air conditioning, they will potentially be big spreaders.

You'd be better off on your boat in the fresh air away from people.

Ann

PS Here's a link to a brand new thread. Apparently, the Mexican Navy vaccinated some cruisers so they could more safely enter the country. https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...us-255005.html Interesting idea.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Unfortunately, this is incorrect. It is that they do not have filters fine enough to remove virus, nor systems to sanitize the filters. So, unless they have opening windows and a way to close off the air conditioning, they will potentially be big spreaders.

You'd be better off on your boat in the fresh air away from people.

Ann

I really hope you're just speculating and don't have concrete information, as we're in day 2 of a 14 day quarantine in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Surfers Paradise. Given that we're vaccinated, we left New Zealand before any Covid cases made it up to the Bay of Islands, and we spent 8 days on passage with no outside contacts, we would be much safer ourselves and less consequent risk to Queenslanders if we had been allowed to quarantine on our boat. Oh well.

Contrary to what someone posted above, it is absolutely the State governments that have responsibility for quarantine rules. Whether they have the legal authority is another question, but for practical purposes they must given that police are used to enforce health regulations.

We had put in a request for quarantine exemption to Queensland Health and unfortunately one of the first emails to come into our inbox on turning off airplane mode was the one telling us that our exemption request was denied. Sigh.

But I want to make clear that the Australian Border Force, Agriculture, and Queensland Police officers that came to our boat at the Southport Yacht Club were throughly professional, polite, and considerate. And firm (the police especially). We had no problems with any of the processes and are fine with the arrangements. Certainly it's $6K that we wouldn't have spent otherwise, but oh well, we're in Australia and right next to the brilliant Coral Coast for several months of cruising before coming back south.

We had arranged 2 weeks of berthing at the Southport Yacht Club prior to leaving New Zealand in case of having to quarantine, so there was no problems moving our boat from the quarantine dock to its berth. The police arranged for a taxi to take us to the hotel and followed it in their SUV - apparently in the early days of quarantine people would bribe their taxi driver to take them someplace else.

Regarding biosecurity - if we had left more meat products in their store packages and eaten up all of our pre-made meals (we typically cook double what we will eat and freeze the other half for a future meal) we would have lost a whole lot less frozen food. Oh well. Same for rice and popcorn kernels - unopened original packaging is OK if from certain countries, but opened is not OK and gets taken.

[OutOfControl]

Originally Posted by OutOfControl

Warning Offensive Language: Some may find the following link offensive click at your own risk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkIVvjZc9Y

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by fxykty

I really hope you're just speculating and don't have concrete information, as we're in day 2 of a 14 day quarantine in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Surfers Paradise. Given that we're vaccinated, we left New Zealand before any Covid cases made it up to the Bay of Islands, and we spent 8 days on passage with no outside contacts, we would be much safer ourselves and less consequent risk to Queenslanders if we had been allowed to quarantine on our boat. Oh well.

Contrary to what someone posted above, it is absolutely the State governments that have responsibility for quarantine rules. Whether they have the legal authority is another question, but for practical purposes they must given that police are used to enforce health regulations.

We had put in a request for quarantine exemption to Queensland Health and unfortunately one of the first emails to come into our inbox on turning off airplane mode was the one telling us that our exemption request was denied. Sigh.

But I want to make clear that the Australian Border Force, Agriculture, and Queensland Police officers that came to our boat at the Southport Yacht Club were throughly professional, polite, and considerate. And firm (the police especially). We had no problems with any of the processes and are fine with the arrangements. Certainly it's $6K that we wouldn't have spent otherwise, but oh well, we're in Australia and right next to the brilliant Coral Coast for several months of cruising before coming back south.

We had arranged 2 weeks of berthing at the Southport Yacht Club prior to leaving New Zealand in case of having to quarantine, so there was no problems moving our boat from the quarantine dock to its berth. The police arranged for a taxi to take us to the hotel and followed it in their SUV - apparently in the early days of quarantine people would bribe their taxi driver to take them someplace else.

Regarding biosecurity - if we had left more meat products in their store packages and eaten up all of our pre-made meals (we typically cook double what we will eat and freeze the other half for a future meal) we would have lost a whole lot less frozen food. Oh well. Same for rice and popcorn kernels - unopened original packaging is OK if from certain countries, but opened is not OK and gets taken.

There have been a number of cases where people have gone into hotel quarantine healthy and come out with delta. One who went into Sydney HQ healthy and then took it to South Australia.
One from South Australia - man went in healthy - came out and took delta to Victoria.
Another flying from Victoria via Brisbane to a mining job in the NT. Left Bendigo healthy - placed in quarantine in Brisbane - came out with Delta and took it to NT. So it does occur.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/hea...tion-c-3230517

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-...ning/100370300

Quarantine is a Federal responsibility that they have duck shoved onto the states.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-...ralia/13070108

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Unfortunately, this is incorrect. It is that they do not have filters fine enough to remove virus, nor systems to sanitize the filters. So, unless they have opening windows and a way to close off the air conditioning, they will potentially be big spreaders.

You'd be better off on your boat in the fresh air away from people.

Ann

I'm fairly certain they are destroy-able with UV or microwaves, or ozone or something which would be fairly easy to install in a centralized system or you could just not recirculate any air and keep the isolation rooms positively pressured. I suspect that after this pandemic it will become a requirement for high density accommodation anyway.

The problem with locking them away out of the cities is that you also lock them away from the extensive services, including medical, available in the cities. It's actually a sort of medieval "begone unclean" solution. This is probably why the federal government chose only to make some of the remote, mothballed, illegal immigrant detention centres available.

The problem with the Toowoomba thing announced by the Queensland government is that it's too far from the primary air and maritime entrance ports as is the federal government proposed facility near the port and airport in Brisbane. At the moment the one in Toowoomba is an air freight only airport.

Prime minister Morrison foresaw the problems that the pandemic would create and attempted to form a cooperative decision making body with his national cabinet. That he has not been able to achieve this is no fault of his. Face to face the state premiers will commit to an agreed agenda but as soon as they leave the room their political instincts override any commitments made. Such has it always been. Another one of Mr Keating's adages was "Never stand between a state premier and a bucket of money." Or in other terms "greed will always prevail over the national interest with these people".

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by fxykty

.........

Contrary to what someone posted above, it is absolutely the State governments that have responsibility for quarantine rules. Whether they have the legal authority is another question, but for practical purposes they must given that police are used to enforce health regulations...........

The states only took over the quarantine responsibilities after a deal was struck with the feds way back in 2020 at the start of the shebang. There is plenty of speculation as to the reasons why the states choose to make this deal but as the minutes of the so called national cabinet have yet to be released, we remain ignorant. The feds have cited 'cabinet' business is secret (and it is at a federal level) but this has been overturned by some court or another as the 'national cabinet' isn't true definition of the loose arrangement between the premiers and the PM. We now have to wait for the appeals to work their way through the legal system. One day we may know why the states accepted the quarantine role in this instance.

Nevertheless, at a constitutional level, Q is in the PMs bailiwick and even the current head wallah in Canberra hasn't been able to spin his way out of it so he does the next best thing, ignore it.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

............

The problem with the Toowoomba thing announced by the Queensland government is that it's too far from the primary air and maritime entrance ports as is the federal government proposed facility near the port and airport in Brisbane. At the moment the one in Toowoomba is an air freight only airport.
........

Crikey RayR, don't you ever fact check anything or are you knowingly posting incorrect stuff?

Or have you been going out and about in the Queensland noonday sun too much...

https://www.wellcamp.com.au

[Icarus]

Life is full of dangers, at some point most of us realise that bad situations can't be easily eradicated.
Eventually we all going to pick up this virus, like we all at one time or another got a dose of influenza.
If a vaccine helps to ease the pain good, if not adapt.
I had cov in the Philippines 3 month ago, I am 73, the kids and wife had it..no vacc available.
I had mild flue like symptoms for 4 days, kids had the sniffles, my partner had a bad cough.
Anyway, all good now and we are taking the boat to Cebu and on to Mindoro, Carmen.
Life is good

[Catarama]

Originally Posted by UFO

A friend of mine and his father who came down to WA from NT were stopped covid tested and told to self isolate until the results were in - 5-6 days!!!!


They stuck the swab so far up his fathers nose that it caused a very large nose bleed!



Both of them have had BOTH vaccination shots and when they told them this they were told that you can still catch and spread Covid even if vaccinated and that they still must isolate until the results come in.


What sort of Mickey Mouse world (sorry Country) do we live in where HEALTHY (Vaccinated) People are locked up?



As for 5-6 days to get the results back, well that is truly taking the pi$$.


Vive la Révolution

Glad you see it. Mickey Mouse World, HMMMM, hang on, its 11am what rules are changing today. (Aussie Joke - the politician hour of DOOM on Tele) Don't be sorry as you are not referring to "AUSTRALIA the SOME people" merely a misinformed Government spreading fear with no actual science. Science being medically journaled peer reviewed papers. Another example of how the Government has misinformed, hood winked people. By the way, I support the vaxed, unvaxed and everyone who wants to make their own decision, FREELY. Cause what's happening in Australia is your freedom is going, going, you know what's next.... May have to live at sea.. Love to you all....