Australian Response

Mehapoy

ceadaoin. wrote: »

But the hospital came up with a plan to let them in, they are happy to do so. The government said no. The same government who stated they are happy for movie stars and celebrities to break quarantine because they bring value

Does being fully vaccinated not count for anything? They don't have covid and are highly unlikely to be incubating covid due to their vaccination status. Their child absolutely will be damaged from a lack of bonding and contact in his first days. But that's ok? Disgusting.

Exactly my point, so the medical professionals were able to come up with a way of not exposing everybody else in tbe NICU to any potential infections, BTW new born premmies would be as suspecible to other common infections but, as they are not the subject of such hysteria, they are not considered.

josip

It's a fair point about the risk to preemies' lungs, but if the hospital were able to come up with a plan that they thought was ok, then I don't think it's correct for the rule enforcers to go full Aussie on this.

When our son was born early, we tried to spend every hour we could with him.
An essential part of this for us was the ironically named 'kangaroo care' where he'd get 6 hours of lying on our chests.
Every time we did it, his heart rate dropped by at least 10% when he was in NICU.
When he was out of NICU and trying to remember to breathe all the time (sounds funny but you'll understand if you had one), he never had an O2 sat alert when he was doing kangaroo.

As regards Aussies liking their rules, it's like they took a snapshot of society norms from the post war wave of emigration from Europe and have never changed. eg. the entry rules for the Leagues Clubs.

ceadaoin.

Peregrinus wrote: »

You can be fully vaccinated and still (a) contract and suffer from Covid and (b) infect others with Covid. Your chances of either of these things happening are greatly reduced, but they are not nil. And when you're living in a quarantine facility, then your chances of these things happening are much higher than they would be if you were living in the community because, hey, quarantine facilities have lots of infected and infectious people in them.

Nobody is saying that it is OK that the child will suffer from a lack of bonding and contact. If you have to make stuff up in order to oppose it, that's a pretty strong sign that you're on a hiding to nothing.

The obvious solution here would be to take the child to his parents, rather than taking the parents to the child - but only if it's safe for the child to leave the ICU for a few hours. And the fact that nobody seems to be even canvassing this solution might be a pretty strong indicator that, no, it's not safe to take the child out of ICU for a few hours. Which, if so, tells us that this is a pretty sickly child. Surrounded by lots of other pretty sickly children.

So, should pretty sickly children be brought into contact with adults who are at elevated risk of being infectious with a disease which, if the child contracts it, will likely kill him? There are arguments against this which cannot be dismissed simply by saying "Disgusting!"

It's not OK that the child is being deprived of boding and contact. But it would be even less OK if the child, and other children in the ICU, were being exposed to a risk of Covid infection. And that's the thing with a pandemic; things are not OK. You will often be in a situation where none of the options can be characterised as "OK". The fact that one option is not OK doesn't mean that the other option is.

Why did you ignore the first part of the post? The hospital devised a plan to allow them to see their baby so they are clearly happy it can be done without risk. Also, according to the dad, the child is in his own room, not a ward with other babies.

He said they had appealed to Health Minister Yvette D'Ath and Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young to grant them a quarantine exemption so they could see their son.

"It is just heartbreaking. You start questioning why things happened the way they did. It's really just deep anger at this point. And I'm just trying to compose myself," he said.

Mr Haidar said RBWH had enacted a plan that would allow the couple to see their baby safely, but they were still not granted exemption.

"In summary, it involved PPE: gloves, a hazmat-type suit, a face shield, testing for COVID-19 and screening beforehand," he said.

He said he believed plans were agreed upon across multiple departments at the hospital.

"My email just said, 'It's been discussed with the Chief Health Officer and the answer is no'," he said.

Mr Haidar said their son Ilyas was staying in his own room and that both he and his wife had tested negative to COVID-19 multiple times as well as being vaccinated.

"It doesn't make sense. It isn't justifiable what their responses are," he said

So if you're saying vaccines are no reason to let them in, you just going to live like this forever then since covid isn't going anywhere?

ShineOn7

Australia - home to possibly the heaviest restrictions since last March in terms of keeping Covid out of the country - now has 80 cases of Delta

If they can't keep it out, what hope does anywhere else in the world?

Australia also has a low amount of people vaxxed. They took a "wait and see" approach because they were so isolated from it

So far, just over 3% of the adult population have been fully vaccinated and about 25% of Australians have received a first dose. Government critics have argued that cities will not need to endure lockdowns again if a majority of the population is vaccinated.

Definitely a story to keep an eye on

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57621552

The Australian city of Sydney has gone into a two-week lockdown after a rise in the number of coronavirus cases.

More than one million people in central and eastern suburbs were already under restrictions imposed on Friday following a jump in cases.

The lockdown now covers the whole city and some surrounding areas, and is extended from one week to two.

More than 80 cases of the highly infectious Delta variant were confirmed in the city in recent days.


"When you have a contagious variant, like the Delta virus, a three-day lockdown doesn't work - if we're going to do this we need to do it properly," she said.

"We do need to brace ourselves for a potentially large number of cases in the following days."

The outbreak of new infections emerged a week ago in Bondi, the famous beach suburb, and spread first into the city centre and then to its western fringes.

It has been linked to a driver who transported international arrivals from the airport.

State Health Minister Brad Hazzard described the Delta variant - which first emerged in India - as a "very formidable foe".

"No matter what defensive steps we're taking at the moment, the virus seems to understand how to counter-attack," he said.

This article says the limo driver the outbreak was traced back to wasn't vaccinated

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/covid-19-cluster-worsens-in-australian-city-1147757.html

The cluster began last week when a Sydney airport limousine driver tested positive.

He was not vaccinated and is suspected to have been infected while transporting a foreign air crew.

gral6

Australia is fecked... Zero covid strategy does not work

Wolf359f

gral6 wrote: »

Australia is fecked... Zero covid strategy does not work

Zero Covid strategy has worked for NZ though. Obviously Australia dropped the ball somehow. I know NZ have all quarantine facilities workers vaccinated, I'm not sure if Australia have done the same.

ceadaoin.

Wolf359f wrote: »

Zero Covid strategy has worked for NZ though. Obviously Australia dropped the ball somehow. I know NZ have all quarantine facilities workers vaccinated, I'm not sure if Australia have done the same.

They are still shut off from the world though. What's their exit plan? Any dates or criteria for reopening borders?

Gael23

They are screwed now without any sort of plan. Cases in 3 major cities

ceadaoin.

Gael23 wrote: »

They are screwed now without any sort of plan. Cases in 3 major cities

Yep. Its winter. Did anyone really not see this coming?

Noo

What do you expect them to do? Open up the borders and let it run rampant just because thats what everyone else is doing? You are right in that zero covid approach will not work long term, the borders have to open eventually, which is all well and good when your population is vaccinated. Australia's is not. Only when enough of the population is vaccinated will they consider reopening the borders. Bowing to international pressure for anything less would be a disaster.

ceadaoin.

Noo wrote: »

What do you expect them to do? Open up the borders and let it run rampant just because thats what everyone else is doing? You are right in that zero covid approach will not work long term, the borders have to open eventually, which is all well and good when your population is vaccinated. Australia's is not. Only when enough of the population is vaccinated will they consider reopening the borders. Bowing to international pressure for anything less would be a disaster.

Even when everyone is vaccinated its no guarantee of the borders being opened. The prime Minister said as much. There is no exit plan

PhilipsR

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Even when everyone is vaccinated its no guarantee of the borders being opened. The prime Minister said as much. There is no exit plan

Link? Once Australia hits herd immunity the borders will be open. The lack of urgency from Federal Gov to get jabs in arms is hampering this though.

PhilipsR

PhilipsR wrote: »

Link? Once Australia hits herd immunity the borders will be open. The lack of urgency from Federal Gov to get jabs in arms is hampering this though.

https://www.cimbusinessevents.com.au/health-minister-warns-vaccines-not-enough-to-open-borders-as-morrison-hits-the-panic-button/

Greg Hunt said a few months ago that "if the whole country was vaccinated, you couldn’t just open up the borders."

Scott Morrison said something similar: "He further said that it was still unclear if it was safe to reopen even after the vaccination rollout completion and that he has no plans to abandon a "zero cases" target."

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/international/covid-australia-s-borders-to-remain-closed-indefinitely-says-pm-morrison-121050900416_1.html

ceadaoin.

PhilipsR wrote: »

Link? Once Australia hits herd immunity the borders will be open. The lack of urgency from Federal Gov to get jabs in arms is hampering this though.

See the link posted above. Also, some states are looking into mass quarantine facilities to be used starting from next year. They arent opening borders.

Australia got it right though apparently.

crooked cockney villain

gral6 wrote: »

Australia is fecked... Zero covid strategy does not work

They have certainly had more enjoyable lives than we had for the past 15 months. To say it didn't work is bollix.

It could have worked here but they didn't want it to work. The government has used Covid to its advantage. Simon Coveney opposing hotel quarantine says a lot. Wonder what the Bilderberg meeting's position on it was......

gral6

crooked cockney villain wrote: »

They have certainly had more enjoyable lives than we had for the past 15 months. To say it didn't work is bollix.

It could have worked here but they didn't want it to work. The government has used Covid to its advantage. Simon Coveney opposing hotel quarantine says a lot. Wonder what the Bilderberg meeting's position on it was......

MHQ are a lot of bollix when thousands of people are exempted from it every day. MEPs can not spread it? Only plebs are paying for their detention in these useless jails now.

fun loving criminal

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Even when everyone is vaccinated its no guarantee of the borders being opened. The prime Minister said as much. There is no exit plan

What about other countries and their exit plans? We seem to be putting all our hopes into vaccines. Nobody knows how that will go because vaccines are still so new and people coming out with breakthrough infections.

Hope Australia gets a hold on this, they have done good so far.

pc7

Have family in Oz, one registered for vaccine as soon as they could and getting their first pfeizer next week. Other waited and is now being told they won’t be done until October due to supply issues with pfeizer.
Their government had a chance to really get ahead of this and try buy vaccines, encourage vaccination but it was very much ‘we’re alright mate’. Looks like it may bite them in the as8 now.

Gael23

fun loving criminal wrote: »

What about other countries and their exit plans? We seem to be putting all our hopes into vaccines. Nobody knows how that will go because vaccines are still so new and people coming out with breakthrough infections.

Hope Australia gets a hold on this, they have done good so far.

They won’t the number to still be at zero even after vaccines. They will need to be a closed state, like a democratically run Korea to achieve that

fun loving criminal

Gael23 wrote: »

They won’t the number to still be at zero even after vaccines. They will need to be a closed state, like a democratically run Korea to achieve that

Well I hope our goal is to get to zero after vaccines. But I think I'm living in cuckoo land with that idea. Australia tries to stamp it out, ourselves we only encourage infection and do something afterwards.

gral6

fun loving criminal wrote: »

Well I hope our goal is to get to zero after vaccines. But I think I'm living in cuckoo land with that idea. Australia tries to stamp it out, ourselves we only encourage infection and do something afterwards.

Well, I hope everyone understands now that zero covid approach does not really work.

Peregrinus

gral6 wrote: »

Well, I hope everyone understands now that zero covid approach does not really work.

It doesn't work to produce zero covid (defined as "zero community transmission"), obviously.

But it may well work to produce less covid, at less economic cost, with less societal disruption, than other approaches have worked. You have to think about what your goal here is before you can talk meaningfully about which approaches work and which don't.

Gael23

fun loving criminal wrote: »

Well I hope our goal is to get to zero after vaccines. But I think I'm living in cuckoo land with that idea. Australia tries to stamp it out, ourselves we only encourage infection and do something afterwards.

Smallpox is the only disease to ever have been fully eradicated, TB not far behind but it’s still out there.

fun loving criminal

fun loving criminal wrote: »

What about other countries and their exit plans? We seem to be putting all our hopes into vaccines. Nobody knows how that will go because vaccines are still so new and people coming out with breakthrough infections.

Hope Australia gets a hold on this, they have done good so far.

Several countries have already gone back to normal, Iceland being the most recent one: https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/politics_and_society/2021/06/25/domestic_restrictions_in_iceland_to_be_lifted_tomor/

"This means there will be no more mandatory use of masks, no social distancing rule, and no limits on the number of people allowed to gather. Fitness centers, swimming pools, stores, restaurants, night clubs and bars will be able to operate without restrictions."

Denmark will also be back to normal in a few months time: https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0610/1227244-coronavirus-global/

The Netherlands is half back to normal: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/06/coronavirus-in-the-netherlands-what-changes-from-june-26/

Unfortunately I don't see Ireland ever going back to normal. But at least there will be countries for people to go to.

Peregrinus

Peregrinus wrote: »

It doesn't work to produce zero covid (defined as "zero community transmission"), obviously.

But it may well work to produce less covid, at less economic cost, with less societal disruption, than other approaches have worked. You have to think about what your goal here is before you can talk meaningfully about which approaches work and which don't.

Spot on about less economic damage and societal disruption. I think most people, or a lot of people at any rate, would give their right arm to be in Australia. Maybe not in Melbourne, but life has been normal, or almost normal, in the other states while countries like Ireland have been locked down for over a year with no sign of certain restrictions ever being scrapped.

TomSweeney

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57633457

hmm almost like it's impossible to control a seasonal endemic respiratory illness ...

ClosedAccountFuzzy

Ireland will go back to normal.

We could do with paying more attention to what is working in Denmark, Iceland and other neighbours a couple of hours flying time away, with whom we share a lot of similarities (and normally a common travel zone and single market) and perhaps not getting lost in what’s happening in two relatively much more isolated islands nearly 20,000 km away and trying to apply that here, just because we speak the same language.

We’re going to be fully vaccinated here very soon, with very likely one of the highest uptakes in the world.

There’s no reason why life won’t be back to normal.

Even if you get reluctance in aspects of politics here, the EU will drag us back to normality regardless. We can’t just keep endless restrictions on travel etc beyond a certain point when risks are low.

Noo

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Spot on about less economic damage and societal disruption. I think most people, or a lot of people at any rate, would give their right arm to be in Australia. Maybe not in Melbourne, but life has been normal, or almost normal, in the other states while countries like Ireland have been locked down for over a year with no sign of certain restrictions ever being scrapped.

And interestingly, Melbourne seems to have avoided this latest blip. And thats generally why the lockdowns have been accepted within australia and why it looks worse on the outside, because its not always you.

All you hear another australian lockdown, another lockdown, oh theyre totally screwed etc. In terms of affecting my day to day life about where i can go and what i can do, my covid experience has been this ...the global lockdown back in march/april 2020, a week in Jan 2021, and a week in April 2021 (even those two were pretty tame). Thats it. Outside of those lockdowns its been business and life as usual.

TomSweeney

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

Ireland will go back to normal.

We could do with paying more attention to what is working in Denmark, Iceland and other neighbours a couple of hours flying time away, with whom we share a lot of similarities (and normally a common travel zone and single market) and perhaps not getting lost in what’s happening in two relatively much more isolated islands nearly 20,000 km away and trying to apply that here, just because we speak the same language.

We’re going to be fully vaccinated here very soon, with very likely one of the highest uptakes in the world.

There’s no reason why life won’t be back to normal.

Even if you get reluctance in aspects of politics here, the EU will drag us back to normality regardless. We can’t just keep endless restrictions on travel etc beyond a certain point when risks are low.

This is it, whereas Australia will just have a series of unending lockdowns, their vaccine uptake is slow, and even if they get to 100% vaccination as they are such a paranoid nanny state I can't see them ever opening up their borders - which is a shame, I had hoped one day to see Ayers rock or Uluru as they call it now.

Mehapoy

Gael23 wrote: »

They won’t the number to still be at zero even after vaccines. They will need to be a closed state, like a democratically run Korea to achieve that

Yep 0 has become the only acceptable figure for covid in Australia now, any politician that would suggest abything less would be hammered in the polls. Even the vaccine takeup is sluggish, alot of people are happy to be cut off from the rest of the world, gives them a sense of superiority to the rest of the world, as if they're all trying to get into the lucky country
Cant see borders open in 2022, it'll be into 2023 and god knows when they'll give up quarantine.