Thread: Corona Virus

Sadly it is just populist politics at play now. The border could have been opened fully to VIC and NSW from this week if the WA premier wanted.

I wonder how many (or should that be how few) local cases another state would need to have for WA to close the borders and enforce quarantining again.

Originally Posted by DiscoDB

Sadly it is just populist politics at play now. The border could have been opened fully to VIC and NSW from this week if the WA premier wanted.

And he said that in the press conference. "The medical advice we've received is we could open the border on the 4th, but we've decided to allow blah blah extra time to prepare for the influx so we'll open it on the 8th.".

We've just jagged 4 seats on Tuesdays direct flight at ~$700/seat, so we're booked. We've got a workable seat config where we can box in the little guy in the back corner up against an air vent, so from an airflow perspective he should be reasonably safe. All we need is to get Qantas to agree to the boarding guidelines and we're as good as it's going to get.

Originally Posted by Arapiles

At those prices a private suite on the train would become realistic .... if the trains are running?

Is there a train to Perth that doesn't pass through SA? We'd still have to quarantine if we transited SA.

Originally Posted by BradC

And he said that in the press conference. "The medical advice we've received is we could open the border on the 4th, but we've decided to allow blah blah extra time to prepare for the influx so we'll open it on the 8th.".

Other premiers have been quite excited and upbeat about opening borders, whilst Mark sounded like someone conceding defeat. Too much time spent with the preamble justifying the decision than on just getting on with welcoming people back to the state.

Good luck with the return - let’s hope we can go another few weeks with no more local cases.

Originally Posted by BradC

And he said that in the press conference. "The medical advice we've received is we could open the border on the 4th, but we've decided to allow blah blah extra time to prepare for the influx so we'll open it on the 8th.".

We've just jagged 4 seats on Tuesdays direct flight at ~$700/seat, so we're booked. We've got a workable seat config where we can box in the little guy in the back corner up against an air vent, so from an airflow perspective he should be reasonably safe. All we need is to get Qantas to agree to the boarding guidelines and we're as good as it's going to get.

Of all on here, I think you've probably had one of the rougher rides through this **** storm. I hope it all works in your favour and that the little guy is looking forward to Christmas.

All the very best for this festive season and many more to come.

Originally Posted by DiscoDB

Good luck with the return - let’s hope we can go another few weeks with no more local cases.

6 days. All I need is 6 days of quiet on the Eastern front.

McGowan is between a rock and a hard place. Election coming up and he’s trying to keep in with his supporters with the puffed out “me strong” chest while trying to appeal to his detractors with a whiny “you happy now? I’ve done what you asked but I’ll be screaming I told you so if it goes pear shaped”. With an election 3 months away it’s all populist politics.

At the end of the day it’ll be what it’ll be. I just hope other states have learned from Victorias blunders and beefed up their contact tracing and management. From what I’m hearing from inside both health and the police, everyone is terrified it’ll all turn to soup because nobody has done the groundwork. I hope it’s all unfounded speculation.

From the USA." When will I get a vaccine?". Our problems seem small compared to the USA.

When will I get a vaccine?

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee met today and voted on guidance about who should get the vaccine first. Their recommendation: Health care workers should receive the first doses, along with residents of nursing homes and of long-term care facilities. The C.D.C. director will decide by Wednesday whether to accept the recommendation.

But the agency does not have the final say. The distribution of the vaccine is up to individual states, and they don’t have to follow C.D.C. advice (as we’ve seen with masks or travel restrictions). Still, experts say that most states probably will.

For insight into the vaccine rollout, and when you might get the vaccine, I turned to Carl Zimmer, a science writer for The Times.

We now know who the C.D.C. says should get the vaccine first, but who’s next in line?

We won’t know until the advisory committee votes again later this month. But it’s likely that the next group in line will be essential workers — firefighters, police and so on. And then after that, it may be people over 65, and people with comorbidities like diabetes, obesity, cancer that put them at high risk of death or severe disease.

When should the general public expect a vaccine?

Nobody should be marking their calendar with “Vaccine Day.” But I think it would be reasonable to expect that the general public would be getting vaccines in May or June.

Is that the time frame without other vaccines entering the market?

It will definitely take longer to vaccinate the U.S. with just Pfizer and Moderna than with Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. But there are also two other vaccines that are going to go into late-stage clinical trials probably this month. One is from Sanofi, one is from Novavax. If their results come through quickly, and if everything looks good to the F.D.A., they could be also adding their vaccines to the supply, that would speed things up as well.

So after I’m vaccinated, can I just return to normal life?

No. Sorry. You can’t. First of all, you’re going to need two shots. After your first shot, you’re not fully vaccinated. Second of all, after your second shot it’s going to take awhile for you to get maximum immunity. Third of all, we don’t know yet if these vaccines simply prevent people from getting the symptoms of Covid or actually stop the spread of the virus from one person to the next. They might, but we don’t know. So you do not want to be walking around feeling fine and breathing viruses all over people who haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, or people who can’t get vaccinated.

Any thoughts, then, on when normal life will return?

This is an experience that none of us has gone through before, so we’re not going to get the kind of precise timetable that we might want. But Tony Fauci has talked about life getting back to normal by late 2021. But that comes with a big asterisk — that timetable will depend on at least 75 percent of the country getting vaccinated promptly.

Originally Posted by BradC

And he said that in the press conference. "The medical advice we've received is we could open the border on the 4th, but we've decided to allow blah blah extra time to prepare for the influx so we'll open it on the 8th.".

We've just jagged 4 seats on Tuesdays direct flight at ~$700/seat, so we're booked. We've got a workable seat config where we can box in the little guy in the back corner up against an air vent, so from an airflow perspective he should be reasonably safe. All we need is to get Qantas to agree to the boarding guidelines and we're as good as it's going to get.

Are you aware whether that vent is Supply or Return air? Not great if it turns out to be Return & getting heaps of crap air from the rest of the Tube is it?