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Australia doesn’t have it. Wasn’t impossible, just had to stop air travel and lockdown for a period. Now the only people with COVID are returned Australian trav

Australia doesn’t have it. Wasn’t impossible, just had to stop air travel and lockdown for a period. Now the only people with COVID are returned Australian travellers from overseas who have to go on hotel quarantine

paublyrne 6y ago
It's likely this will change next year when Australia lifts quarantining. It will be considered an acceptable risk given that most people will not be vulnerable to it.
walkingolof 6y ago
Helps to have no land borders, not saying Australia didn’t do a great job curbing it ..
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  Does it really? Has it been found that a significant source of infections was illegal immigration? Or that without it there would not have already been internal spreading?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - iso1631 6y ago
    Doesn't matter. If you don't have covid, and nobody comes in, you won't get covid. But that's not feasible in most countries. Austrailia and NZ don't rely on a just-in-time cross border economy like the US and Europe. Goods arrive after being on boats which have been off shore for days or weeks. Compare with the US-Canada "border closure", where thousands of trucks, and their drivers, have crossed each way every day all year.
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      Canada-US could do what they already do with trains: crew change at the border. Or even trailer drop-off and pick-up for no-chance-of-personal-contact changes. They just choose not to.
      - iso1631 6y ago
        That's still orders of magnitude more goods crossing a border without a quarentine period than you get from air freight to Aus/NZ
        Scoundreller 6y ago
        I don’t think the issue is quarantining/isolation of goods, but the people transporting it. Canadian cross-border truckers arriving back from ??? USA are largely exempt from quarantine requirements upon return.
  - geomark 6y ago
    That's what is happening at this moment in Thailand. There were no local transmissions for many months. Borders are closed and anyone coming into the country has to go directly to 14 day quarantine and test clean before they get out. But then some Thais went to Myanmar and snuck back into Chiang Mai in northern Thailand illegally. They were infected and have now spread the infection locally in Thailand to at least a few people. Some cases took flights to Bangkok. There is a frantic effort to track and trace everyone who might have been exposed.
- peterkelly 6y ago
  Thailand has done an even better job, with just under 4,200 infections total since January. It has land borders with four other countries, the most porous of which is Myanmar. Very recently there have been some cases of infected people crossing over illegally from the latter; health authorities have been doing very thorough contact tracing so it remains to be seen if this will escalate. But last week was the first time in months there was more than a handful of cases nationwide, excluding foreign travelers in quarantine. Why has it worked so well here? I don't know the full answer, but by and large people have been very responsible. The last time I was at an airport, back in early February, every single person was wearing a mask, and in lots of public places the majority of people continue to do so. Mask wearing has not been politicised here. Also every shopping mall and most restaurants/public places scan you for temperature on entry and have a book where you can (optionally) write down your name or register with an app to be notified if it is later discovered an infected person has been there the same day you were.
wrinkl3 6y ago
Yeah but for how long? Unless Australia is willing to keep screening all arrivals and containing outbreaks indefinitely, Covid is gonna start circulating there at some point.
- taejo 6y ago
  They could make proof of vaccination an entry requirement. Combine that with widespread domestic vaccination and you've got a very good chance of containing any infections that make it into the country.
  - thinkingemote 6y ago
    vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around. it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus. Those vaccinated, because they have less symptoms, less coughing basically, might not spread it around as much, but we don't know that yet. Remember asymptomatic spreading is a big concern for this virus.
    - nl 6y ago
      This is getting downvotes, but it is at least somewhat correct. > it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus. There isn't really evidence either way for this. To quote Nature[1]: "Tests on more than 43,000 people have shown that the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing disease" > vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around. This might be true: "But none has demonstrated that it prevents infection altogether, or reduces the spread of the virus in a population. This leaves open the chance that those who are vaccinated could remain susceptible to asymptomatic infection — and could transmit that infection to others who remain vulnerable. “In the worst-case scenario, you have people walking around feeling fine, but shedding virus everywhere" [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8
      - weddpros 6y ago
csjr 6y ago
This! I was thinking about this recently. How the politicians have failed to implement such simple policies?
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  Blame the World Health Organization. > Countries may gain time in the short-term as they limit travel to fight the new coronavirus pandemic, but the World Health Organization thinks overall that “it doesn't help to restrict movement," a top adviser to the U.N. health agency's chief said Thursday. https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/13/world-health-organization-don-t-expect-travel-bans-to-beat-coronavirus https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/13/world-health-organizatio...
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    It probably depends on when you do it too. If it’s already widespread in your population, closing borders isn’t going to help much.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      That was in March. The messaging from Jan was pretty much the same, if not even more lax. The WHO is to be blamed significantly for not communicating properly.
ChrisRR 6y ago
And are you going to keep your borders closed forever? And i guarantee some people still have it. There's no way it's been eradicated completely. All it takes is for one infected person to visit 2 people, and those 2 people to visit 2 others.
- prawn 6y ago
  And presumably that's been happening for months, yet there are limited outbreaks and they are swiftly contained through contact tracing and quarantine. Victoria was swamped yet has not had a case for 30 days now. Cross-border travel varies depending on the status of each state, but is tracked and quarantine enforced at various levels if it's available. Testing is freely available and fairly fast. Nationwide, there is currently one locally acquired case over the last 7 days, and 74 from overseas in the same period. Presumably we'll bubble with NZ at some point and carefully go from there, plus see how the availability of vaccines starts to change the equation beyond that. In my circles, people are keen to travel again, but everyone is pretty matter of fact about the situation and curious about timings rather than desperate to open up.

paublyrne 6y ago

It's likely this will change next year when Australia lifts quarantining. It will be considered an acceptable risk given that most people will not be vulnerable to it.

walkingolof 6y ago

Helps to have no land borders, not saying Australia didn’t do a great job curbing it ..

PurpleFoxy 6y ago
Does it really? Has it been found that a significant source of infections was illegal immigration? Or that without it there would not have already been internal spreading?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- iso1631 6y ago
  Doesn't matter. If you don't have covid, and nobody comes in, you won't get covid. But that's not feasible in most countries. Austrailia and NZ don't rely on a just-in-time cross border economy like the US and Europe. Goods arrive after being on boats which have been off shore for days or weeks. Compare with the US-Canada "border closure", where thousands of trucks, and their drivers, have crossed each way every day all year.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Canada-US could do what they already do with trains: crew change at the border. Or even trailer drop-off and pick-up for no-chance-of-personal-contact changes. They just choose not to.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      That's still orders of magnitude more goods crossing a border without a quarentine period than you get from air freight to Aus/NZ
      - Scoundreller 6y ago
        I don’t think the issue is quarantining/isolation of goods, but the people transporting it. Canadian cross-border truckers arriving back from ??? USA are largely exempt from quarantine requirements upon return.
- geomark 6y ago
  That's what is happening at this moment in Thailand. There were no local transmissions for many months. Borders are closed and anyone coming into the country has to go directly to 14 day quarantine and test clean before they get out. But then some Thais went to Myanmar and snuck back into Chiang Mai in northern Thailand illegally. They were infected and have now spread the infection locally in Thailand to at least a few people. Some cases took flights to Bangkok. There is a frantic effort to track and trace everyone who might have been exposed.
peterkelly 6y ago
Thailand has done an even better job, with just under 4,200 infections total since January. It has land borders with four other countries, the most porous of which is Myanmar. Very recently there have been some cases of infected people crossing over illegally from the latter; health authorities have been doing very thorough contact tracing so it remains to be seen if this will escalate. But last week was the first time in months there was more than a handful of cases nationwide, excluding foreign travelers in quarantine. Why has it worked so well here? I don't know the full answer, but by and large people have been very responsible. The last time I was at an airport, back in early February, every single person was wearing a mask, and in lots of public places the majority of people continue to do so. Mask wearing has not been politicised here. Also every shopping mall and most restaurants/public places scan you for temperature on entry and have a book where you can (optionally) write down your name or register with an app to be notified if it is later discovered an infected person has been there the same day you were.

wrinkl3 6y ago

Yeah but for how long? Unless Australia is willing to keep screening all arrivals and containing outbreaks indefinitely, Covid is gonna start circulating there at some point.

taejo 6y ago
They could make proof of vaccination an entry requirement. Combine that with widespread domestic vaccination and you've got a very good chance of containing any infections that make it into the country.
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around. it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus. Those vaccinated, because they have less symptoms, less coughing basically, might not spread it around as much, but we don't know that yet. Remember asymptomatic spreading is a big concern for this virus.
  - nl 6y ago
    This is getting downvotes, but it is at least somewhat correct. > it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus. There isn't really evidence either way for this. To quote Nature[1]: "Tests on more than 43,000 people have shown that the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing disease" > vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around. This might be true: "But none has demonstrated that it prevents infection altogether, or reduces the spread of the virus in a population. This leaves open the chance that those who are vaccinated could remain susceptible to asymptomatic infection — and could transmit that infection to others who remain vulnerable. “In the worst-case scenario, you have people walking around feeling fine, but shedding virus everywhere" [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8
    - weddpros 6y ago

csjr 6y ago

This! I was thinking about this recently. How the politicians have failed to implement such simple policies?

barry-cotter 6y ago
Blame the World Health Organization. > Countries may gain time in the short-term as they limit travel to fight the new coronavirus pandemic, but the World Health Organization thinks overall that “it doesn't help to restrict movement," a top adviser to the U.N. health agency's chief said Thursday. https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/13/world-health-organization-don-t-expect-travel-bans-to-beat-coronavirus https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/13/world-health-organizatio...
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  It probably depends on when you do it too. If it’s already widespread in your population, closing borders isn’t going to help much.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    That was in March. The messaging from Jan was pretty much the same, if not even more lax. The WHO is to be blamed significantly for not communicating properly.

ChrisRR 6y ago

And are you going to keep your borders closed forever? And i guarantee some people still have it. There's no way it's been eradicated completely. All it takes is for one infected person to visit 2 people, and those 2 people to visit 2 others.

prawn 6y ago
And presumably that's been happening for months, yet there are limited outbreaks and they are swiftly contained through contact tracing and quarantine. Victoria was swamped yet has not had a case for 30 days now. Cross-border travel varies depending on the status of each state, but is tracked and quarantine enforced at various levels if it's available. Testing is freely available and fairly fast. Nationwide, there is currently one locally acquired case over the last 7 days, and 74 from overseas in the same period. Presumably we'll bubble with NZ at some point and carefully go from there, plus see how the availability of vaccines starts to change the equation beyond that. In my circles, people are keen to travel again, but everyone is pretty matter of fact about the situation and curious about timings rather than desperate to open up.