I take it you don’t live in Liverpool or the Merseyside area. Over the past two weeks, there’s been mass testing here and you don’t need to have symptoms. I tested negative last week and I’ll go for another test next week. We’ve also received three home testing kits. Unfortunately, not everybody feels the need to be tested, so far less than 50 per cent of the population of Liverpool have bothered their backsides.
3 Likes
Anyone on the forum from South Australia? I know we have Victoria, Sydney area, and Queensland, but don’t recall anyone from the Adelaide area. Just looking at those lockdown rules, quite something, and sort of surprising headed to summer.
1 Like
Thats me. Moved to Adelaide in July (which meant two weeks in lockdown) and now we have another, hopefully only 6 days, to enjoy! I’m not complaining though as we in Australia have been really lucky to avoid the terrible scenes elsewhere - primarily by dint of geography rather than any good planning. However I’m glad that the SA govt, which I’ve felt is a little insular and complacent, have decided to try and get control of this outbreak when it may still be possible with a short sharp lockdown. Its just a shame that it didn’t start two days earlier when it would have had a 100% chance of success.
Moving forward, it should be abundantly clear that Australia needs to rethink its ‘Hotel Quarantine’ policy for international returnees. There have been several breaches and this one and the one in Melbourne show that risks of continuing this policy are unacceptable - the chance of cases of community transmission is significant and the harm is very great. Federally the Liberals have made ‘border security’ such a (myopic and inhumane) focus of their governments; are constitutionally responsible for quarantine matters; and have effectively empty facilities for quarantine on Christmas Island yet continue to leave the states to flounder along with managing over 400,000 returning citizens and permanent residents quarantining in hotels, usually in the middle of the CBD! Unfortunately the current lot of federal liberals are even worse than those preceding them and don’t want to take control of the situation when they can instead carp from the sidelines and offer ‘the army’ to help and somehow receive high approval ratings.
4 Likes
RE Australia, I thought it was fascinating to see two reports on the same day - 50,000 attended the State of Origin match while the upcoming Aus Open in Melbourne is likely to be played without fans. Does this represent real geographical differences in the status of the outbreak or just different attitudes of the respective state governments?
EDIT: or actually an admission that there is no way you can stop people going to the SoO while no one GAF about tennis?
2 Likes
Hi Limie, yes absolutely geographic differences. Before the first community transmitted case in Adelaide on Saturday, Victoria (which has now had like 20 days without a COVID case) was the only state to have any instances of community transmission - apart from two quickly controlled outbreaks in NSW. Until recently many states (including SA - hence the need for us to isolate for 14 days when we moved) have had ‘hard state borders’ which has limited mobility between states. These had been relaxed, except for VIC, but now SA has also had borders put up by several states due to the uncertainty about this current outbreak. If Australia didn’t have any international arrivals - or they were quarantined away from population centres - then having a full house at the Origin may seem okay. The fact that we don’t tells you that there is indeed a different attitude between a state like VIC which has undergone very long lasting lockdown and a state like QLD which has not - and is also more heavily reliant upon tourism.
1 Like
Perhaps that too. Queenslanders are a bit mad…
1 Like
Its worth keeping in mind how Aussie Rules were handling crowds throughout the pandemic. Aussie Rules had crowds from mid-July until the end of the season, with all games played in WA and Qld, mostly due to the risks associated with NSW, Victoria and SA where most if not all returning travellers were flying back into. Even though Victoria has had a number of weeks without a case, its worth keeping in mind that both NSW and Victoria will continue to be the high risk cities as Australians are continuing to return to Australia from overseas, and imo its a wise decision to keep major events closed for the near future.
Having been in Qld until September, life is very much normal there. As it is in other states such as Tasmania. Victorians are obviously on more of a European path atm. Having said that, all the state Premiers are broadly trying to navigate this in the same way, and its really the extra burdens that are on each state (Kingsford Smith airport in NSW and Tullamarine airport) of returning international travellers being the difference between success and failure. Qld, like WA, are both saved by their isolation from the main risk factor, which is returning international travellers.
2 Likes
But they had the prior games in the SoO series in Adelaide and Sydney with crowds. Im guessing based on the size of the crowds those were very limited capacity events (like 25%)?
2 Likes
New cases falling now in Switzerland (around -25% compared with last week), but it has been announced today that almost all Swiss hospitals are now at 100% capacity regarding their intensive care units. From now on, any person who needs intensive care, due to an accident or any serious illness, won’t get it, at least not immediately.
A couple of two difficult weeks ahead I’m afraid, with possibly a lot of casualties, not only from covid-19.
2 Likes
No, I live just south of Nottingham. I would have gladly had a test yesterday, like when I was sat in the car at the empty testing centre that had something like 800 unused tests in a cupboard.
But they probably know best, right?
Every city should be doing what Liverpool and Manchester are doing.
5 Likes
Doncaster:South Yorkshire…no contact for tests, no contact with doctors, no testing stations near…so do what I’ve been doing for 10 months, no visiting family, no visiting town, no ‘just looking’ visits to town…weekly visit to the end of the drive to collect the bins…can’t wait (hopefully) till Dec 2nd…I wish…
2 Likes
This could go in the Politics thread as well but here’s an interesting poll. Scottish based but some interesting points of views in it, namely the proportion of people asked and thought that Johnson has done a good job. I’m a but astounded to be honest.
1 Like
How many of those questioned thought that Nicola is just a Mini-me ginger Boris?
1 Like
That’s interesting. I didn’t get to see the SoO this year and it surprises me that NSW and SA had 30k+ crowds. I don’t think that changes the overall point about Victoria still being a higher risk area and Qld being quite relaxed internally though.
2 Likes
I’d argue not that many given the numbers in the poll
1 Like
I don’t live in the US, I live in the UK. Watching a little TV and listening to a little radio leaves you in no doubt (in this country) of the severity of the disease.
I have a friend on the edge of life and death with it. He’s been on a ventilator and sedated for almost 5 weeks. If he dies, he sure as shit won’t be saying anything before he passes.
So I treat stories of people at death’s door doing videos of how they were mislead with the tiniest pinch of salt.
6 Likes
Absolutely, but they won’t. The’ll all blame the Rodesia solution and sweep it under the gold weaved carpet.
1 Like
That is not what she said. Her account is of her patients denying the virus is real until the end, not of doing videos - and refusing even then to acknowledge or realize they were mislead.
As with some of your other observations, n = 1 is probably not the most robust foundation. That woman has been treating a ward with 20 full beds since August (Sturgis rally for the win…). She will have seen a significant percentage of South Dakota’s 700+ fatalities, I am sure she has seen some quietly slip away after weeks as well.
6 Likes
From the tweet:
“Their last dying words are, ‘This can’t be happening. It’s not real.’ And when they should be… Facetiming their families, they’re filled with anger and hatred.”
I’ve seen 4 people die. In all cases doped up to the eyeballs at the end so zero communication. None of them Covid, all cancer. Thinking about it, OK everybody has last words before they die, however few I suspect are speaking as they die (well, except “of course this rope’s strong enough” etc). Me being pedantic I guess. However dying words does imply they’re speaking as they die. Tricky when you’re on a ventilator and in a drug induced coma is my point.
2 Likes
Ventilator use is rather less frequent now, so that may be a difference. In the Spring, physicians were using it as a default last resort, whereas now some patients are recognized as not likely to be helped, and more likely to be harmed.
1 Like