Only to facilitate people right on the border who live in VIC or NSW but work over the border.
I feel bad for the regional areas that still have heavy restrictions when most cases now are concentrated to a specific area of Melbourne. Plus the fact that most public environments are not where there is transmission. I do wonder what’s next given Scomo mentioned that he is catching up with Dan later today to provide full support on the next steps and given Jenny said today that majority of cases are still concentrated in these areas.
I just feel something needs to be done to get the message across but then is it fair to punish everyone given the positive rate is still only 0.2% even in these hot spots? I wonder if what they’ll do is mandate testing in these hotspot areas (which will be easier to do with the saliva test) and unless you and the members of your household have a negative test within a specific recent time period it will be a stay at home order (obviously with no visitors). Also during this time the direction should be no travel to these areas unless you live there. That concept will be hard to police but if you put stronger police presences in the areas with random checks it could help enforce.
What about people who live in places like Beechworth and commute to Albury for work?
Well if you put this “border” north of Albury, they won’t be affected. Could then affect those up near Gerogery or Holbrook who work in Albury or Wodonga, though fewer people impacted.
1 Like
They may have to use the submarine to commute via the Murray and Hume Reservoir.
85 cases were confirmed today across Australia, with the majority coming from VIC and 7 in NSW and 3 in SA.
2 Likes
The border is too big a hassle and unnecessary at this stage. The problem would have to become a lot worse and far more widespread to make it worthwhile going to all those lengths to do that. They keep saying that cases in Victoria are concentrated in those few western suburbs of Melbourne so I think the efforts need to be more focused on containg it to those areas than focusing on border closures hundreds of kms away.
We can’t just jump to border closures or lockdowns everytime a state gets an outbreak. It is not a practical use of resources. There has to be better solutions and the Government need mechanisms to be able to contain cases if they are concentrated in an area.
2 Likes
Good on ya Bugs! 
Should have happened LONG ago!
Seriously, hoping VIC gets its numbers down again real soon.
The climate of the Riverina suddenly got a whole lot cooler and wetter.
1 Like
That right Bugs, send Victoria to the USA!
3 Likes
So this is apparently the breakdown of where active cases are (According to 10News)
COVID HOTSPOTS | Currently 288 active cases in Victoria. Here’s where they are according to the local government area:
- Hume: 54
- Brimbank: 32
- Moonee Valley: 29
- Moreland: 26
- Whittlesea: 16
- Casey: 16
- Melbourne: 11
- Maribyrnong: 9
- Yarra: 9
- Wyndham: 8
- Darebin: 8
- Kingston: 7
- Knox: 6
*Areas with five or fewer cases have not been included in this list.
Priority testing suburbs include Keilor Downs, Broadmeadows, Maidstone, Albanvale, Sunshine West, Hallam, Brunswick West, Fawkner, Reservoir, and Pakenham.
3 Likes
Nine News Brisbane released preliminary results of polling tonight showing that 80% (of those who responded) want the Queensland border to remain closed in light of the deteriorating situation in Victoria.
Melbourne may need to revert back to a stage 3 lockdown if it wants to join the rest of Australia.
How is a statewide lockdown a solution for an outbreak? It doesn’t address the problem. You have to put some perspective here - in a population of 5 million there are less than 300 active cases with most new csses concentrated in a few western suburbs. There are only 9 people in hospital for Coronavirus and 99.8% of people testing are negative in one of the highest testing rates per capita in the world. The transmission in these areas are not happening in public areas either, it’s in people’s homes (as continually mentioned by the CMO yesterday).
We just can’t keep jumping to full scale lockdowns everytime there is an outbreak. It’s not a solution if we need to learn to live with the virus. If it has to get to that then the Vic Govt are not doing their job. You have to address the cause of the spike in new cases. Address the situation in the areas the new cases are happening which is what the Govt is doing. Maybe reduce household guest numbers further in those areas if that is the problem or mandate testing in hotspots. Hopefully when they have found most cases, isolate them and we get on top of it this week.
3 Likes
We need to keep the reproduction number down - if that means more widespread lockdowns, then so be it but it needs to be a scalable approach - start with local communities and work up from there.
The practicality of shutting a whole state because of an issue in a few suburbs is questionable
5 Likes
I agree. The Victorian Government should be targetting the hot spots while allowing regional towns which has no cases or less than 10 cases to ease restrictions.
3 Likes
2 Likes
Two big press conferences today.
Dan Andrews presser is 2pm.
Anastasia speaking 12 to 1230 still not confirmed
All eyes on Victoria.
I feel like the entire state of Victoria is being punished by other states only because of spike in infection cases in metropolitan Melbourne. They didn’t give any consideration to people living in rural areas where case numbers are very low (or zero in some cases). The ABC reported last week that people living in western Victoria will face years of delay on elective surgeries, because specialists from Adelaide cannot travel freely to and from the region without taking a 14-day self quarantine after returning home. Surely some rural regions must get exemptions.
1 Like