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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Coronavirus
- Thread starter Tigers of Old
- Start date
Personally, I reckon a lot of the thought behind this was the medical services. Imagine the stockpiling and profiteering by the public if the govt had said "Quick, everyone needs to wear masks now in order to save your life."
It would have put the dunny paper shortage to shame - with much more dire consequences for the medical services.
Yes i agree.
But say 'we have a shortage of masks and doctors and nurses need them most so please dont wear them yet'
I just dont think deceit is a viable governing method.
Ive got no dramas at all with withholding information strategically,
But i cant abide outright bullshitting
Did they err not taking that approach initially?
As Melbourne college's COVID-19 cluster nears 150, parents question if schools should be open
The coronavirus outbreak at Al-Taqwa College revives debate over whether it is safe for schools to remain open during the pandemic lockdown.
www.abc.net.au
I can't see how they can say it's safe for any student to be at school right now.
One of the wildest nights I've had in my life was at the Wiluna pub. Was talking to the publican the next morning when he was cleaning up the mess outside, he said it was a fairly quite night
20 per cent of people in ICU for COVID in Victoria are under 50 years of age.
Interestingly the locals reckon there's more booze consumed up there now post The Club being closed. Convoys shuttling backwards and forwards to the Royal Mail in Meeka to pick up supplies.One of the wildest nights I've had in my life was at the Wiluna pub. Was talking to the publican the next morning when he was cleaning up the mess outside, he said it was a fairly quite night
You've just given me an idea, I always wanted to have a crack at bootlegging. It's a bit of a hike though, I mightn't have much product left by the time I got there
I could sell a bit of Richmond memorabilia while I was at it, a few of the locals would be Tiger fans.
Of course they did. They had plenty of intel from overseas, but took too long to close the borders and lock things down, not to mention the criminal negligence of the Ruby Princess. I thought they opened things up too soon, and so it proved. I, and I'm sure many others, would have been prepared to cop another month of iso if it meant snuffing the spread and eradicating it. We have a second chance now, with far greater public awareness. We must take it.Did they err not taking that approach initially?
As Melbourne college's COVID-19 cluster nears 150, parents question if schools should be open
The coronavirus outbreak at Al-Taqwa College revives debate over whether it is safe for schools to remain open during the pandemic lockdown.
I can't see how they can say it's safe for any student to be at school right now.
That can't be right. I heard it was Old People Flu, and they should take one for the team. And by take one for the team, I mean shut up and die.
Lots of mistakes have been made by all sides.
I'm over pointing the finger because nobody has been through this & I don't think even the experts really yet understand how contagious this thing is.
Many Melbourne health workers have been infected in the past week & they would be covered head to toe in PPE. Didn't stop them getting it though.
Is it air born? They simply don't really know yet.
Enough of the blaming. All the leaders now are working their asses off on shutting this virus down.
It's an incredibly difficult challenge for not just Australia but the globe. The leaders need support, not pot shots from the cheap seats.
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Great post TOO. Its very easy for those not in power to make statements now, but lets put the other shoe on. Lets say the government shut the country down immediately (and would have been smashed by the public over it) and then the virus turned out not to be as deadly or virulent as it is. The same people bagging them out now, would be bagging them out for something different, ie. you buggered the country up for no good reason.
There was no winner in government here. They were winging it as much of us were, just they have a lot more of an impact on peoples lives. As this has never happened before in anyones lifetimes (that is alive now and wasn't in nappies when it happened before - and probably back in nappies now), then I'm willing to give them more leeway than they would for any other crisis.
We're only six days from the start of the lockdown. Hopefully the numbers stabilise over the next several days and don't get away. From next week they should start to reduce... if the lockdown is working.
Sorry, Oldie. You asked me a question, I answered it, now you're telling me to shut up. Righto.
Yet from the 2307 active cases, 2229 have mild symptoms and 28 critical.
Just a bit of perspective to more political scare tactics.
Correct. They have always said it will get worse before it gets better. But the government contributes to the hysteria by mentioning Stage 4 at every opportunity.
1400 ADF personnel rolling in as Andrews belatedly accepts federal assistance.
Black Lives Matter protest linked to tower cluster
Rachel Baxendale
The Australian
July 14, 2020
Victorian health authorities have confirmed a link between two COVID-19 cases in people who attended the Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne’s CBD just over a month ago, and the cluster of at least 242 cases in public housing towers in the city’s inner northwest.
But the Department of Health and Human Services has refused to say whether members of the cluster, which includes the protest attendees, live in the public housing towers.
DHHS says it has still not established the source of any of the interlinked clusters, with Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton on the record expressing scepticism that the protesters caught the virus at the rally.
The confirmation of the link follows 10,000 people attending the June 6 rally. The event went ahead after the Andrews government and DHHS advised people to “consider other ways to show support” for the Black Lives Matter cause, but backed a Victoria Police decision not to issue fines to those who attended.
While the confirmation stops short of establishing the protest as a cause of the public housing megacluster, it demonstrates clear links between the mass gathering, attendees who tested positive, and the state’s largest COVID-19 cluster to date.
It also poses new questions about when authorities first became aware of the risk to the 3000 residents of high rise public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne, who were last week subjected to the harshest lockdown in the world.
On the day of the protest, the health department confirmed 14 COVID-19 cases had been linked to a cluster associated with hotel quarantine breaches at the Rydges on Swanston hotel.
A high proportion of Victoria’s current cases have been genomically linked to that cluster and another at the Stamford Plaza hotel, with Professor Sutton saying earlier this week that he could not rule out all of the current cases being linked to hotel quarantine breaches.
Five days after the protest, on June 6, DHHS confirmed a man who attended the rally had tested positive and “may have been infectious” while there.
Four days later, a second protest attendee was confirmed positive, and three days after that, on June 18, a third case, in a protester who had worked at an H&M store at Northland, was revealed.
The department said the H&M worker “was not infectious at the time” of the rally, but made no comment about whether the rally could have been the source of the infection other than to say there was no known link to the other COVID-19 positive protesters.
By June 22, four days later, a total of four cases had been linked to H&M, including that of a fourth protester and H&M worker who the department said was “not thought to have acquired the infection from the protest” that took place 16 days previously and likely at least 14 days before the person was tested.
That day, Professor Sutton said the department was not able to trace where the first infected H&M employee, who attended the protest less than 12 days before testing positive, had acquired the virus. He downplayed any role the protest may have had in Victoria’s increasing number of infections.
“I don‘t think the Black Lives Matter protesters contributed. We’re not seeing people who’ve clearly acquired it there,” he said.
On June 25, the department opted to rename the H&M cluster as the “North Melbourne family cluster”, after it had increased to 10 cases, most of which were within a “large family group”.
By July 1, the North Melbourne family cluster had increased to 30 cases.
A DHHS spokeswoman said on Tuesday the department “first became aware” of cases in the North Melbourne and Flemington towers on the evening of July 2. On Saturday July 4, the state government ordered an immediate full lockdown of nine towers and testing of all 3000 residents after confirmation of 11 cases in North Melbourne and 12 in Flemington.
Asked whether there was a link between the “North Melbourne family cluster” and the public housing towers, a DHHS spokesman said: “Cases linked to the North Melbourne towers have links to other cases across Melbourne, including the North Melbourne family outbreak.”
“It is not clear which direction the virus was transmitted in. In many cases, we will never know for sure how large clusters began and the order in which the virus spread,” he said.
Asked what the link between the clusters was, and whether members of the family outbreak lived in the towers, the spokesman said: “We won’t be able to provide that level of detailed response”.
Rachel Baxendale
The Australian
July 14, 2020
Victorian health authorities have confirmed a link between two COVID-19 cases in people who attended the Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne’s CBD just over a month ago, and the cluster of at least 242 cases in public housing towers in the city’s inner northwest.
But the Department of Health and Human Services has refused to say whether members of the cluster, which includes the protest attendees, live in the public housing towers.
DHHS says it has still not established the source of any of the interlinked clusters, with Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton on the record expressing scepticism that the protesters caught the virus at the rally.
The confirmation of the link follows 10,000 people attending the June 6 rally. The event went ahead after the Andrews government and DHHS advised people to “consider other ways to show support” for the Black Lives Matter cause, but backed a Victoria Police decision not to issue fines to those who attended.
While the confirmation stops short of establishing the protest as a cause of the public housing megacluster, it demonstrates clear links between the mass gathering, attendees who tested positive, and the state’s largest COVID-19 cluster to date.
It also poses new questions about when authorities first became aware of the risk to the 3000 residents of high rise public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne, who were last week subjected to the harshest lockdown in the world.
On the day of the protest, the health department confirmed 14 COVID-19 cases had been linked to a cluster associated with hotel quarantine breaches at the Rydges on Swanston hotel.
A high proportion of Victoria’s current cases have been genomically linked to that cluster and another at the Stamford Plaza hotel, with Professor Sutton saying earlier this week that he could not rule out all of the current cases being linked to hotel quarantine breaches.
Five days after the protest, on June 6, DHHS confirmed a man who attended the rally had tested positive and “may have been infectious” while there.
Four days later, a second protest attendee was confirmed positive, and three days after that, on June 18, a third case, in a protester who had worked at an H&M store at Northland, was revealed.
The department said the H&M worker “was not infectious at the time” of the rally, but made no comment about whether the rally could have been the source of the infection other than to say there was no known link to the other COVID-19 positive protesters.
By June 22, four days later, a total of four cases had been linked to H&M, including that of a fourth protester and H&M worker who the department said was “not thought to have acquired the infection from the protest” that took place 16 days previously and likely at least 14 days before the person was tested.
That day, Professor Sutton said the department was not able to trace where the first infected H&M employee, who attended the protest less than 12 days before testing positive, had acquired the virus. He downplayed any role the protest may have had in Victoria’s increasing number of infections.
“I don‘t think the Black Lives Matter protesters contributed. We’re not seeing people who’ve clearly acquired it there,” he said.
On June 25, the department opted to rename the H&M cluster as the “North Melbourne family cluster”, after it had increased to 10 cases, most of which were within a “large family group”.
By July 1, the North Melbourne family cluster had increased to 30 cases.
A DHHS spokeswoman said on Tuesday the department “first became aware” of cases in the North Melbourne and Flemington towers on the evening of July 2. On Saturday July 4, the state government ordered an immediate full lockdown of nine towers and testing of all 3000 residents after confirmation of 11 cases in North Melbourne and 12 in Flemington.
Asked whether there was a link between the “North Melbourne family cluster” and the public housing towers, a DHHS spokesman said: “Cases linked to the North Melbourne towers have links to other cases across Melbourne, including the North Melbourne family outbreak.”
“It is not clear which direction the virus was transmitted in. In many cases, we will never know for sure how large clusters began and the order in which the virus spread,” he said.
Asked what the link between the clusters was, and whether members of the family outbreak lived in the towers, the spokesman said: “We won’t be able to provide that level of detailed response”.
