Coronavirus 4 - Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[What'sinaname]

57 new cases..44 in iso, 13 infectious in the community

[Pies4shaw]

I think it's likely that the bulk of any significant increase will prove to be from the large school and associated contact populations that were sent into isolation and would be coming up for their mandatory testing before being released from isolation.

[What'sinaname]

^ that's what they are speculating. Most of these should be linked to the Al Taqwa cluster.

Bit of a sigh of relief.

[Pies4shaw]

^ There's a jump of about 10,000 (around 25%) in testing numbers today, so the mandatory day 13 testing might be a part of it.

Anyway, the Government says that "Of the 57 locally-acquired cases, 54 are linked to known outbreaks and 44 have been in isolation for the entirety of their infectious period."

The 3 unlinked cases are a concern, as are the 13 "wild" cases but the overall number of new cases is (subject to what they tell us about the detail in the press conference) probably not too important.

[Pies4shaw]

No new cases in Qld today.

[Pies4shaw]

[Pies4shaw]

The Victorian Premier just confirmed that 41 of the 44 in isolation were doing their day 13 test.

"57 seems a very big number but when the vast majority have been in isolation, that's the system working as we expect".

[Pies4shaw]

16 new cases in the ACT.

No new cases in the NT and Darwin will come out of lockdown. Katherine remains in lockdown - they're waiting on some further testing results.

[stui magpie]

looks like Gladys has abandoned any pretense of trying to get back to 0 cases and is planning on vaccinating her way out.

This will set up a very interesting clash between premiers all with self interest guiding them.

[Pies4shaw]

She's plainly not getting NSW out of lockdown before November, (at the earliest) for the reasons I outlined yesterday, if she is depending upon getting cases down. If, for political reasons, she thinks she can't stay in lockdown for that long, she's got to hope vaccination will do the trick. The Doherty Institute modelling is to the effect that vaccination targets only work with low case numbers and depend, in any event, upon additional public health and social measures for their effectiveness, so it will be interesting times for her government.

Meanwhile, the numbers in the US are creeping back up, despite vaccination levels - 158,000 new cases and 1,055 new deaths in the last 24 hours, there. It's a high-risk strategy for her to break ranks.

[think positive]

qld have the army on their border, we should too! even if they move the border a bit!

[Dark Beanie]

Armed forces don't have the power to detain people if they do runner, only the police do. So if you have the army on the border then you need police there as well.

Army is there to act as support eg. logistics, medical. Only have power to detain if a national emergency is declared.

[stui magpie]

They haven't set up a proper checkpoint near Toc, apparently they have some cops there during the day checking permits but not after hours. Generally it seems they're just looking out for NSW licence plates.

[Pies4shaw]

The WA Premier just twisted the knife in his presser (this from the ABC blog):

"Because we've been COVID free, we've kept all our industries operating, therefore generating enormous revenue that can go to assist the people and government of New South Wales with the bail-out packages the Commonwealth is putting in to that state," he said.

[Jezza]

^ In the long run, WA is screwed if they maintain a zero-COVID stance even when vaccination targets are reached.