Coronavirus 3 - Al Pacino's turn to mumble

[eddiesmith]

Victoria keeping up their track record of exporting the virus and have sent it to QLD with one new case there who was infectious in the community having come from Melbourne.

[roar]

It's pretty clear that this thing isn't going away any time soon so setting up proper quarantine facilities and procedures at state and national levels should be an urgent need but I'm not hearing much on the topic.

All States should be working Together to stop Spreading instead of Fighting with each other

Yes, and the federal government should have set up a national facility for anyone entering the country but unfortunately Scomo seems to be scared of any kind of action or movement.

[Pies4shaw]

Today's Victorian presser will be at 11.15 am.

[Pies4shaw]

In NSW, Gladys reports 78 community cases - 27 people "infectious in the community" out of those cases.

[stui magpie]

^

2 good things about that.

1. The numbers aren't exponentially going up. It suggests that the virus is contained if not controlled and with any luck should start to go down.

2. Low levels of community transmission can be tolerated if it's localised and contained. Once all the members of the family have been infected it's got no where else to go

[Pies4shaw]

Dan says: "13 new cases of community transmission in Victoria. That takes us to a total of 85 the number of active cases. Pleasingly, of those 13 cases, nine of those 13 were isolating 100 per cent of their infectious period. So they were tucked away, away from others, no risk to public health. That is very, very promising."

"With hope that continues and develops as a trend and with see more and more days where the majority and then hopefully 100 per cent of any new cases have been isolating for the entirety of their infectious period. That is really how we will know that we have brought this under control."

[KenH]

Victoria keeping up their track record of exporting the virus and have sent it to QLD with one new case there who was infectious in the community having come from Melbourne.

And just a side note, this case is a Queenslander who went home and got contacted while she was on the Sunshine Coast and told she was in a Tier One exposer site. she then did the right thing and got tested and it returned negative. She then went out to a few places over a few days and then traveled home via Uber and Plane to Cairns got picked up by a relative or friend back to her house. Got tested again and found positive and she has been isolating since then. Not sure what info she was following but I believe that seeing she was at a tier One site she should have been isolating the whole 14 days. Will be interesting to find out if that is what she was told to do?

[Pies4shaw]

NSW has, as usual (and amongst a bewildering flurry of mostly trivial tweets), posted the infection control detail.

Thus, of the 78 new cases in NSW, "Thirty-seven cases were in isolation throughout their infectious period and eight cases were in isolation for part of their infectious period. Twenty-one cases were infectious in the community, and the isolation status of 12 cases remains under investigation."

That's another way saying that at least 29 and up to 41 of the 78 new cases were infectious in the community for part or all of their infectious period.

That's the thing NSW is simply not managing, so far. The number of people infectious in the community for at least part of the time is creeping steadily up.

I see that COVID Live has picked this data up and is reporting it, here: https://covidlive.com.au/report/daily-wild-cases/nsw

The summary is that NSW is averaging 40 "wild" cases a day for each of the last 7 days.

[Pies4shaw]

Victoria will stay in lockdown for another 7 days - and there will also be a temporary "pause" on people entering Victoria on "red zone" permits.

[stui magpie]

Victoria keeping up their track record of exporting the virus and have sent it to QLD with one new case there who was infectious in the community having come from Melbourne.

And just a side note, this case is a Queenslander who went home and got contacted while she was on the Sunshine Coast and told she was in a Tier One exposer site. she then did the right thing and got tested and it returned negative. She then went out to a few places over a few days and then traveled home via Uber and Plane to Cairns got picked up by a relative or friend back to her house. Got tested again and found positive and she has been isolating since then. Not sure what info she was following but I believe that seeing she was at a tier One site she should have been isolating the whole 14 days. Will be interesting to find out if that is what she was told to do?

The rules are somewhat different from state to state as is the terminology which can be confusing.

In Victoria, the Tier 1 is get tested and isolate for 14 days regardless of result.

In Qld, that's what they call a Close Contact. https://www.qld.gov.au/health/condition ... ct-tracing.

So if she was at a tier 1/close contact exposure site she should have been self isolating for the full 14 days. It will be interesting to see what she was told and by whom

[Pies4shaw]

From the ABC blog:

South Australia will go into a one-week lockdown from 6:00pm tonight
Health authorities have confirmed the state’s outbreak is the Delta strain, prompting them to tighten restrictions.

From 6:00pm, there will be just five reasons to leave your home:

Care and compassion reasons, such as caring for a loved one
Essential work
Purchase of essential goods, such as a food
Medical reasons, including vaccination and testing
Exercise, but it must be limited to people from the same household
They have so far identified five cases linked to the current cluster.

[eddiesmith]

Victoria keeping up their track record of exporting the virus and have sent it to QLD with one new case there who was infectious in the community having come from Melbourne.

And just a side note, this case is a Queenslander who went home and got contacted while she was on the Sunshine Coast and told she was in a Tier One exposer site. she then did the right thing and got tested and it returned negative. She then went out to a few places over a few days and then traveled home via Uber and Plane to Cairns got picked up by a relative or friend back to her house. Got tested again and found positive and she has been isolating since then. Not sure what info she was following but I believe that seeing she was at a tier One site she should have been isolating the whole 14 days. Will be interesting to find out if that is what she was told to do?

The rules are somewhat different from state to state as is the terminology which can be confusing.

In Victoria, the Tier 1 is get tested and isolate for 14 days regardless of result.

In Qld, that's what they call a Close Contact. https://www.qld.gov.au/health/condition ... ct-tracing.

So if she was at a tier 1/close contact exposure site she should have been self isolating for the full 14 days. It will be interesting to see what she was told and by whom

Hearing from quite a few that DHS are not actually contacting people who have been to exposure sites but simply sending them text messages saying they are a close contact and some are getting multiple contradictory messages.

Also makes you wonder how they can possibly say people aren’t at home isolating if they haven’t made contact and would therefore have no idea where they’re supposed to be?

There are a lot of close contacts but there is also a team of thousands in the contact tracing department.

[Pies4shaw]

From the ABC blog, Mr Weimar's rundown on the Victorian outbreaks:

He says the Cremorne restaurant Ms Frankie has had a total of 19 cases, including 840 primary close contacts. Mr Weimar thanked management that the "outstanding" record keeping with QR codes helped them to get to the bottom of the outbreak quickly

At the MCG: there are 14 cases there in total, including two new ones today. Nine people were actually at the game on the 10th. There are 3,800 primary close contacts.

Trinity Grammar: There are 9 cases in total including two new cases today and 2,500 staff and students are in isolation.

Phillip Island: There are five cases associated with the island all from one social group. Mr Weimar is encouraged that there has been no further spread in the community but urges people to get tested because of a wastewater detection of coronavirus there.

Roxburgh Park: This new case today is associated with the City of Hume outbreak which has 11 cases to date.

The Crafty Squire: This is the Euro soccer event and there is still only one positive case with 450 primary close contacts.

AAMI Park: This is the rugby international and there are no new cases today. There's a total of 3 cases to date and 2,100 primary close contacts.

[Pies4shaw]

[Pies4shaw]

The Cth Health Minister is referring to the massive reduction in flu cases and the absence of reported deaths from flu. From the ABC blog:

"I will add another little point, which is related in terms of public health in Australia. That in an average year, over the last five years, at this stage, we would have had 53,000 diagnosed flu cases and 157 lives lost," Mr Hunt said.

"At this point [this year] there have been 408 cases diagnosed of influenza in Australia, and zero lives lost."

Without wanting to suggest that we should go into lockdown to avoid the flu, that does tell us that there is good reason to wear masks in risk situations and to practice social distancing each flu season. Perhaps even more importantly, it flags that we should stop treating people coming in to the workplace with mild (or worse) symptoms of illness as "soldiering on" and start treating them as social pariahs. Probably sick leave allowances need to be increased for people who have to do face to face work - people who can work from home should simply refrain from going to the office when they are "under the weather". Some additional assistance for casuals would also be required to ensure they don't go to work and pass on nasty diseases because they have "no alternative". Alternatively, perhaps we have now reached a tipping point at which we can recognise that the "benefits" for employers of casual employees under the present model are outweighed by the public health damage and that there should be no such thing as work that comes without sick leave.