Corona Virus

On the good news front - after 7 days of no new cases, active cases in Victoria is now below NSW, SA, and even WA.

Now a caveat on this - different states calculate active cases in different ways and to be fair to other states, they are still accepting overseas arrivals. But it looks like community transmission in Victoria is a very low risk now.

Let’s hope we can keep it this way. 🤞

Victoria will be announcing soon when it will start to take overseas arrivals again, and will be accepting direct arrivals from NZ from Monday.

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As mentioned the High Court has upheld the WA border closure, answering questions posted here about whether the border closures are unconstitutional. They are not.

NSW town on COVID alert as a new cluster emerges.

NSW town on COVID alert as new cluster emerges

Interesting that the suppression strategy of Vic and NSW could lead to elimination.
Coronavirus could disappear in Australia if NSW and Victoria maintain control over next few weeks, experts say - ABC News

Was thinking the same Rick - would certainly now hope so. To truly achieve that aim of elimination I guess we would need to not only have localised lockdowns whenever a cluster forms, but also to not accept any international arrivals at all even if they went into quarantine.

It would also have to be a uniform approach across all states based on what works best. And then hold this position indefinitely until we have a vaccine. Big price to pay to achieve full elimination but could be done.

Victoria has got very close by having a long and hard lockdown combined with not accepting international arrivals, whilst maintaining borders open to the other states but restricting the movements once inside “the ring of steel”. At the same time they went from having a poorly resourced contact tracing team of only 50 people or so, to more like 2,500 by the time they got on top of the situation.

Would be interesting to work out which of these elements had the most impact. Everyone will have a different opinion on this.

I think NSW has the right approach at present. Good contact tracing and a strong response whenever a local cluster forms. I expect we will see this will be the same approach now in Victoria.

You will note politicians are now talking about what is an acceptable risk level by using terms like “very low risk” as opposed to “no risk”. A dilemma anyone working in high risk industries would be very familiar with.

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Originally Posted by bob10

As mentioned the High Court has upheld the WA border closure, answering questions posted here about whether the border closures are unconstitutional. They are not.

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Actually, maybe not the case:

While it is clear from the High Court's order in Palmer v Western Australia that Palmer lost , it remains unclear whether the border closure was and remains valid.

The reason for the lack of clarity is because the High Court has not yet handed down its reasons, which may take weeks or months. In the meantime, all we have is its orders – and they are phrased in a rather peculiar and limited way.

Clive Palmer just lost his WA border challenge — but the legality of state closures is still uncertain

It sounds like they HC may have fudged the issue by deciding that the WA enacting legislation itself didn't offend s.92.

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Originally Posted by Arapiles

Actually, maybe not the case:

While it is clear from the High Court's order in Palmer v Western Australia that Palmer lost , it remains unclear whether the border closure was and remains valid.

The reason for the lack of clarity is because the High Court has not yet handed down its reasons, which may take weeks or months. In the meantime, all we have is its orders – and they are phrased in a rather peculiar and limited way.

Clive Palmer just lost his WA border challenge — but the legality of state closures is still uncertain

It sounds like they HC may have fudged the issue by deciding that the WA enacting legislation itself didn't offend s.92.

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It would appear Palmers legal team didn't ask the right questions. And even so, they might not like the answers to those right questions.

The real question, then, is whether the direction falls within the scope of the legislative power. This is not a constitutional question, but a question of administrative law. The High Court then said in its order that it had not been asked this question, so it did not need to answer it.
On the basis of this technicality, the High Court (or at least a majority of the Justices) concluded it was not necessary to address whether the actual directions that stop people going in or out of Western Australia were valid.

I think the High Court will find something like that States cannot arbitrarily close borders (ie without a reason) as inferred by the Constitution BUT the borders were closed under a Health Order/ Emergency Order which is allowed under the Constitution by inference - maybe this needs to be clearly spelled out in the Constitution (an expensive exercise) but is not really needed given the precedent now st by the High Court (parameters will be set by the reasons for the decision).

Garry

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Originally Posted by 101RRS

I think the High Court will find something like that States cannot arbitrarily close borders (ie without a reason) as inferred by the Constitution BUT the borders were closed under a Health Order/ Emergency Order which is allowed under the Constitution by inference - maybe this needs to be clearly spelled out in the Constitution (an expensive exercise) but is not really needed given the precedent now st by the High Court (parameters will be set by the reasons for the decision).

Garry

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A very expensive exercise , considering the States were always allowed to close their borders under said health order under the Constitution. A point made even stronger by the Federal Government withdrawing from the case.

America waits, but the virus does not

While Americans are transfixed with the razor’s edge presidential election results, the country’s coronavirus situation has become catastrophically bad — and continues to worsen.

Less than 24 hours after the U.S. broke its daily national case record, it added 121,500 more cases — more than Japan, Egypt or Hungary have recorded during the entire pandemic. Twenty-eight states have added more cases in the last week than in any other period.

It’s hard to imagine a more alarming moment since early April, when 2,000 people were dying a day, and there are few signs that things will improve in the near future. The country has recorded well above 1,000 deaths every day since Election Day, and infection rates in hot spots are accelerating. Governors across the country continue to plead daily with Americans to take the virus seriously.

“Colorado, I love you. This is an intervention,” said Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado. The state recorded more than 3,800 cases yesterday, around 900 more than its previous record, and hospitalizations have risen to their highest level since the beginning of the pandemic.

“Cancel your social plans the next few weeks — avoid interacting with others. Wear a mask. Keep your distance,” Mr. Polis begged.

Hospitals in hard-hit areas around the country are quickly reaching their limit. At Trinity Health in Minot, N.D., the entire floor dedicated to coronavirus patients had no more available beds. Dr. Jeffrey Sather, the chief of staff, called other large hospitals around the state to see if he could transfer some patients, but every facility was also full. Dr. Sather was also worried about his staff members.

“They are witnessing people suffocate to death on a regular basis,” he said. “And it’s a heavy psychological toll.”