COVID-19: Discussion of Impact 😷

The roadmap isn’t what they are saying though. This is why SA is so confusing. I am not sure if you listened to the whole press conference. Steve Marshall said one thing (although he is extremely hard to understand) and Nicola Spurrier said another thing. There is too much confusion at the moment. And the roadmap doesn’t align to what either of them said.

You’re expecting somebody with no regards for rules or public health to have respect for the law system? Cute. :joy:

Which is why I said the roadmap should be just:

  • 80% = Domestic travellers who are fully vaccinated do not need to quarantine. No exceptions with regards to LGAs’ vaccination rates and stuff.

Or do it at 90%. None of this different requirements for the LGAs with different vaccination rates.

Clearly this is a very rough copy of a roadmap that was rushed rather than fine-tuned. Marshall needs to get on the same page as Spurrier.

Sadly that’s the best hopes for these great unwashed. It’s one thing to break the rules unknowingly but it’s another when you deliberately do it because of your stunted beliefs. These people are absolutely shocking and I hope the law throws the book at them.

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Yet they said they wanted people to get clarity today? It just seems this comes with more questions and more conditions than other states have given. It again goes against what we have been told the National Plan is.

I noticed that he’s been very defensive today and kept referring to the roadmap for details. But really it made him sound like he wasn’t even sure what on earth was happening.

He needed to stick with the 80% that he and others have been banging on about or 90%.

I actually don’t care if it was 90%. I would actually rather that than all of this confusion. I am living in Melbourne. Where the population is widely disputed. The vaccination is 70%. Under the current requirements detailed by Nicola Spurrier I will not be able to ever come back to SA unless Melbourne hits 80%.

It has never been mentioned that LGA’s would be used to determine border exemptions. I shouldn’t be discriminated against just because I live in the CBD but am fully vaccinated. And yet someone who lives in St Kilda, but frequents the city every day, can still go to SA. It just makes no sense.

Instead of constantly pushing for closing borders is there anything he can do to push the vaccination rates right up without having to resort to border closures? It’s starting to become tiresome that he’s resorting to this so frequently.

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He really is something isn’t he? Those poor people who have family there and can’t see them but the rest of the country can see each other. Shame on him.

Mandates will easily get WA to 90%, but the deadlines have been set so that it meshes with what I assume is whatever roadmap they have under wraps (likely involving opening up to other states in February or similar). @MrJ bought up an excellent point when the mandates were announced last week, questioning whether there may be some regret after the fact about been too generous with the deadlines.

Polls in recent weeks indicate 80%+ support in WA for the current border arrangements.
Obviously this is subject to change, I think if the current claim that WA will have no indoor masks, gathering/density requirements over Christmas or similar where TAS / SA / QLD will turns out to be untrue, that people will feel somewhat deceived and we’ll start to see that level of approval decline. Personally I think the WA government is starting to over-rely on that argument, and it will likely backfire.

However, there’s a precedent of the state government underpromising / overdelivering when it comes to COVID policy, so I’ll reserve full judgement until we see a roadmap.

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My family are in WA and I’m in the US. I haven’t seen them for almost 4 years. I would have visited last year if none of this had happened. Despite everything I still fully support McGowan’s border policy, as do all of my family.

McGowan has done what almost everyone in WA has wanted. The hate he gets from other states is nothing more than jealousy for a job well done and selfishness from those who don’t care about anyone except themselves. Thankfully McGowan doesn’t have to please anyone outside of WA.

Everything appears to be on track for WA to open early next year. I can’t see any justification for prolonging that unless something major happens.

In the meantime WA will get to have a mostly normal Christmas with no COVID cases and no COVID related deaths. Something that some other states will not be so lucky with.

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Jealously? I think it’s more bewilderment.

People not agreeing with locking your state off as a cave to the world is not selfishness, it’s a fundamental difference in the viewpoint of how democracy and freedoms should work

The number of people who have died from COVID in WA is all I care about. No one else’s “freedom” is more important than that as far as I am concerned.

Others can disagree all they want but my point was McGowan doesn’t care what anyone outside of WA thinks and nor should he. He’s doing what the people of his state elected him to do. I see nothing wrong with any of it.

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I don’t have a problem with WA’s border policy, in that they should only reopen when it’s safe to do so and not an arbitrary date (i.e. before Christmas). Given the vast remoteness of some of the areas that need to be vaccinated it is understandable that this is a logistical challenge and you aren’t going to get the same level of coverage as quickly.

However, it does seem to me that McGowan is becoming increasingly unhinged and sensationalist with some of his comments especially the past few weeks. For mine, if you were to substitute “NSW/Vic/Eastern States” for “Mexicans”, you’d half think it were Donald Trump speaking with some of the comments he has made of late.

I don’t doubt that he has good intentions, however the way he is expressing this is not doing the image of Western Australia any favours in the long term.

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Do you not see any of it as politically driven?
Create fear and crisis.
Become to the savior to keep people safe
Win popularity and re-election

He’s played the oldest political game in the book

If he cared so much for human life he wouldn’t preside over a woefull close to the brink he healthcare system

I’d call him the D word again but SydneyCityTV will get upset.

As a WA boy, living (trapped) in Melbourne with all my family and friends back in Perth, I too was happy with how they’ve handled things. But even I’m getting over the attitude and McGowans stance on things. Something has to give.

I get your point but comparing McGowan to Trump is a bit much.

I have mentioned in here before that WA dislikes the eastern states so none of that is surprising to me.

Not at all. The opposition didn’t stand a chance without COVID so Labor would have been re-elected with a big margin anyway.

It isn’t fear driven at all. Every single person I have spoken to about this in WA says they approve of everything that has been done so far and they wouldn’t have it any other way. And why would they? The rest of us have been through repeated lockdowns and mask mandates and WA has mostly escaped all of it. The few times they were briefly locked down and had to wear masks they did it without bitching.

The thing you don’t understand about WA is that they like their isolation. It’s something that was talked about long before COVID. Perth is known as the world’s most isolated capital city. The people there love that which is why they are mostly content with being locked off from the world right now… and I can’t blame them.

I won’t argue on WA’s healthcare system since that has been a problem for a long time and that isn’t something McGowan can hide from.

And it will. As long as people continue to get vaccinated there is no reason they shouldn’t be able to open up early next year. WA never was fast with anything, but they will get there.

I can’t wait for WA to open either. I will be looking to visit as soon as they do. But only once vaccination numbers are where they need to be.

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You’re overseas tho right? Bit different domestically.