Coronavirus/COVID-19

[BRWB]

I'm not at all. Hotel quarantine has been an abject failure in Victoria, and Dan has underperformed on a state-by-state basis. Fair to criticize for that.

What's not fair is to criticize him for things the federal government are supposed to be responsible for. Hotel quarantine is a federal responsibility. They hastily passed it on to the states with no notice when Covid was already taking over. This points to a completely inept federal government. They have grossly failed in their duty, and it seems many on here let their political alignment get in the way. You see the same people pile on about everything Dan does wrong yet so many of the criticisms relate to things that were never his responsibility in the first place, or never should have been. Add in the idiotic "Dan should be hung, drawn and quartered" comment from someone who is blatantly barracking for the other side, and that's why I have been arguing this point in the first place.

FYI, I'm not a Dan supporter. I'm not even Victorian. Dan Andrews has underperformed in his job and deserves criticism for failure relating to his actual duties. Scott Morrison has grossly failed in his job and deserves criticism for so many of the things Dan Andrews is actually copping the heat for.

Not sure that most people here are politically aligned. I think Vic's are pretty pissed that it got put again hence why Dan is copping it. And so he should.

The hotel quarantine failure was horrific and Dan should be held accountable. He doesn't appear to have been and gets lauded for his lock downs. Minimal faith in Andrews.

Scomo is an ineffectual weak BS artist. And yes he is technically responsible for quarantine but it all seems a bit hard for him. Zero faith in him. Someone like John Howard or Keating would have managed it not Scomo - he is the worst kind of leader - a poll driven unprincipled jellyfish.

 

[Virgin Dog]

Not sure that most people here are politically aligned. I think Vic's are pretty pissed that it got put again hence why Dan is copping it. And so he should.

The hotel quarantine failure was horrific and Dan should be held accountable. He doesn't appear to have been and gets lauded for his lock downs. Minimal faith in Andrews.

Scomo is an ineffectual weak BS artist. And yes he is technically responsible for quarantine but it all seems a bit hard for him. Zero faith in him. Someone like John Howard or Keating would have managed it not Scomo - he is the worst kind of leader - a poll driven unprincipled jellyfish.

See this is what seperates yourself from some others - you are actually willing to call out the failures of the PM. Others find that a little more difficult, which would suggest you're not the type I was referring to. Morrison has largely escaped criticism so far while Andrews has been copping it in the media on a daily basis. Both deserve to be called out for their failure to deliver, not just Andrews, and he especially shouldn't be criticised for what was actually the failures of the federal government.

Real accountability will never happen regardless - if Andrews faced repercussions for his poor performance, it would HAVE to extend to the PM's office, which we know they'll never allow to happen. Just like nothing came of the bushfires, the sports rorts, robodebt or any other past failures. Even in NSW, the Ruby Princess incident seems to have largely been forgotten about.

At the very least, I hope there are lessons learned from the last 12 months. We need a federal action plan for pandemic response, we need permanent and suitable quarantine centers that aren't just city-based hotels, and we need a consistent, national standard of response. Even WA, who has fared better than most other states, has had its mistakes along the way. No one has handled it perfect, but the biggest failure of them all is if there is never a full review into the state and national handling of Covid.

 

[maddog37]

See this is what seperates yourself from some others - you are actually willing to call out the failures of the PM. Others find that a little more difficult, which would suggest you're not the type I was referring to. Morrison has largely escaped criticism so far while Andrews has been copping it in the media on a daily basis. Both deserve to be called out for their failure to deliver, not just Andrews, and he especially shouldn't be criticised for what was actually the failures of the federal government.

Real accountability will never happen regardless - if Andrews faced repercussions for his poor performance, it would HAVE to extend to the PM's office, which we know they'll never allow to happen. Just like nothing came of the bushfires, the sports rorts, robodebt or any other past failures. Even in NSW, the Ruby Princess incident seems to have largely been forgotten about.

At the very least, I hope there are lessons learned from the last 12 months. We need a federal action plan for pandemic response, we need permanent and suitable quarantine centers that aren't just city-based hotels, and we need a consistent, national standard of response. Even WA, who has fared better than most other states, has had its mistakes along the way. No one has handled it perfect, but the biggest failure of them all is if there is never a full review into the state and national handling of Covid.

I’m happy for scomo to be hung drawn and quartered too if that is any solace to you.

Why is the use of an old school colloquialism so idiotic? Calm down a bit.

If anyone is showing their political leanings here it’s you. That’s fine too but your aggressive response to any mention of Dan seems almost personal.

Saying someone should be exempt from repercussions because another is also guilty and not punished is nonsense.

 

[BEaston]

Thank you. I feel suitably belittled by your superior intellect. I must try harder to post a comment worthy of your response.

What is so confronting about admitting the inadequacy our state government?

Nothing is confronting about it at all. Search my posts in the thread, I've criticised them at different points along the line for different things. I've also praised them for certain things as well.

My initial points were:
- People are quick to roast them for failures while ignoring the successes. This might be due to political biases (which other posters have tried to point out by highlighting hypocrisies in people's posting trends). This may be due to an innate desire to scapegoat and/or blame. Or could just be they disagree with any single part of how covid has been handled (I posted a list of examples earlier in the thread)... there are thousands of things to complain about if you so choose.
- I don't really see what the complaining actually serves in either getting the country safer or getting our economy and freedoms back and up running.
- If you look at the big picture, we're doing very well and I'm thankful we're in the position we're currently in compared with many other places around the world.




I think a detailed discussion should be held at government levels about regional centres for quarantine. I don't think any quarantine system will ever be 100% perfect, so moving them regionally greatly reduces the risk to the country. It's a shame that it's taken another outbreak for that discussion to kick back up again.

 

[dogwatch]

Well now that the shouting seems to have died down I'll stick my head above the parapet ...

It's correct that the answers are never simple, never black nor white, despite some of the claims that are sometimes made here from people who I reckon know better.

The deaths in aged care were not just a result of Federal ineptitude and callousness. Nor were they just a result of the State government's failures in hotel quarantine. They were a result of a potent mix of the two, combined with Victoria's run-down public health infrastructure, especially its inability to scale up its contact tracing at short notice.

So who should be (metaphorically) hung, drawn and quartered? Scomo and Andrews? No! It should be all those politicians of various persuasions who have overseen this train wreck for the last quarter of a century. Governments of both sides have initiated or acceded to the commercialisation and deregulation of aged care since the 1990s. Governments of both sides have initiated or acceded to the cost cutting and diminished capability in the Victorian health system over the last 10-20 years.

It just so happens that Scomo and Andrews were unfortunate enough to be in charge when Covid-19 came along and showed how flawed and venal this whole approach was. It's not that they are innocent as charged. It's just that they are the heirs to all the culpable politicians, lobbyists, strategists and economic rationalists who preceded them. None of whom are now putting their hands up and saying "mea culpa".

There's been a lot said and written about the failure of hotel quarantine in Victoria already and it's still bubbling away. Not nearly so much has been said about the running down of the public health capability (probably because both sides know they have their grubby fingerprints on it). And although there was a fair amount said about Aged Care failings last year much of that seems to have slipped from public consciousness with the help of an acquiescent press and the usual duckshoving that ScoMo and his colleagues are so good at.

So I thought I'd post this here as a reminder. It's an article from The Lancet in late October 2020.

Note that it says there were 682 deaths in privately run (i.e. federally regulated) residential aged care facilities and ZERO deaths in state run facilities which prescribe minimum allowable numbers of nurses etc to care for patients.

DEFINE_ME

For those who don't want to read the full article here are a few choice extracts:

In 1997, the Australian Government transformed the system under the Aged Care Act into a free-market model that was, in Ibrahim's words, “ill-conceived and never worked”. Transforming the model of care meant that aged care and health care would be treated as two different separate industries. As a result, private investment into aged care was able to flourish, which, experts say, turned people from patients into consumers.

“Back then, aged care was criticised as too institutional, so it was packaged as a social model of care whereby you don't need regulation”, said Kathy Eagar, professor of health services research and director of the Australian Health Services Research Institute at the University of Wollongong (Wollongong, NSW, Australia). “On that basis, they deregulated staff. By packaging residential aged care as social care, it dumbed down the care and created the perfect storm. This has been a disaster waiting to happen.”

“I don't think anything has gone wrong per se—it was already wrong”, Ibrahim said. “There were not enough workers to start with; the workforce that exists doesn't have the training for a contemporary aged care system. They're not equipped to manage disease complexity and they're not equipped to deal with ethical human rights issues. So, then COVID-19 arrives and there are not enough staff, staff who don't know what they're doing, staff who haven't been trained in infection control.”

Not only were residents infected, but hundreds of low-paid, low-skill workers in the homes were infected too. “If you depend on a low-paid casual workforce who go from home to home, then you can expect COVID-19 to just spread, which is exactly what has happened in Victoria”, Eagar said. “COVID-19 is now a major occupational safety and health risk.”

As the Royal Commission continued into 2020, it turned its focus towards the worsening situation with COVID-19 in the aged care system. “This is the worst disaster that is still unfolding before my eyes in my entire career…There was a level of apathy, a lack of urgency and an attitude of futility which lead to absence of action”, Ibrahim told the Royal Commission in early August.

Eagar, who has undertaken research commissioned by the Royal Commission into the adequacy of residential aged care staffing, found that quality and safety in homes is driven by four factors: total staff numbers, staff skill mix, staff continuity, and clinical governance.

“Our aged care sector basically failed on every one of those dimensions and that is unlike Australia—we're well above the international standards on health care”, she said. “It's unusual for us to fail so badly but we are much worse than comparable countries.”

While I argue that blame must be attributed to all those who delivered this system over the last quarter of a century, the current office holders have the responsibility of setting things right. A Royal Commission has already pointed the way.

What I find disturbing is politicians holding press conference after press conference to make feel-good announcements about the arrival of vaccines when they have pretty much shut down any discussion of the reprehensible shortcomings of the aged care sector.

 

[Fossie 32]

Great post Dogwatch.

 

[Unorth]

What I find disturbing is politicians holding press conference after press conference to make feel-good announcements about the arrival of vaccines when they have pretty much shut down any discussion of the reprehensible shortcomings of the aged care sector.

I just find there's a depressing lack of accountability at all levels.

Morrison's behaviour during the bushfires was absolutely disgraceful - but since an election was so far away, it didn't matter that for a month or two the public had turned against him. People just forget and stop caring. And that's just for his behaviour during it, not even considering his longer term bushfire managing.

Gladys and her incredibly blatant corruption is something else that's getting swept under the rug, with certain media even trying to paint her as a sympathetic figure.

Andrews and co. with their "I don't recall" answers were horrible as well. Hundreds died. And again, not even considering the failures at state level that led to these deaths, they just conveniently forgot their way through any accountability.

Which is not to say I'm on the 'both sides are just as bad' side of things. I think it's more accurate to determine who is 'least worst' and work from there.

It's pretty disheartening all in all. I think one of the impacts of Trump is that politicians now know more than ever what they can get away with, as long as it isn't close to an election. I reckon Trump himself would probably going 4 more years if not for covid.

 

[Mofra]

I think a detailed discussion should be held at government levels about regional centres for quarantine. I don't think any quarantine system will ever be 100% perfect, so moving them regionally greatly reduces the risk to the country. It's a shame that it's taken another outbreak for that discussion to kick back up again.

I would go further and suggest returning Australians should not have to rely on a mish-mash of commercial travel and independant state processes to return home.
Given how hard it is to get a ticket (let alone have that ticket honoured), we should be using Hercs/C17s to bring Australians home (and we can charge them comparable rates to reimburse taxpayers) then have them isolate away from the two major population centres at the very least.
It was sheer dumb luck that the Ruby Princess fiasco didn't turn into an outbreak as bad or worse than the outbreak in Victoria.

It is crazy that a year after all of this started we still don't have a coordinated national approach for dealing with returning Australian travellers. Given the cost and impost imposed on measures to fight the virus, it would be cheaper to just adopt a national approach and do it properly.

 

[Timewillcome]

I would go further and suggest returning Australians should not have to rely on a mish-mash of commercial travel and independant state processes to return home.
Given how hard it is to get a ticket (let alone have that ticket honoured), we should be using Hercs/C17s to bring Australians home (and we can charge them comparable rates to reimburse taxpayers) then have them isolate away from the two major population centres at the very least.
It was sheer dumb luck that the Ruby Princess fiasco didn't turn into an outbreak as bad or worse than the outbreak in Victoria.

It is crazy that a year after all of this started we still don't have a coordinated national approach for dealing with returning Australian travellers. Given the cost and impost imposed on measures to fight the virus, it would be cheaper to just adopt a national approach and do it properly.

Moff, I know your allegiance to flight centre may create a conflict of interest in your answer but why cant QANTAS do this work? They seem to be happy to sit around and collect Jobkeeper payments while their fleet sits at Avalon or in the USA desert.

Pressure should be applied to them to fly our residents home, at reasonable costs. Using miltary for this job is not cost effective and their aircraft are not fit for this purpose. Not everyone can sit 15 hours in the back of a Hercules. Passenger aircraft are available and can easily be put back into service, but our airlines are not interested. They should be doing this as a national service.

 

[Optimistic Dog]

Not sure if my information is correct but I have been told by a senior person at a leading hospital that Sutton did not want the 5 day lockdown because he was confident it could be contained without it. Dan would not agree because he is running scared from last years stuff up in quarantine. This not the first time they have lock horns.

 

[Mofra]

Moff, I know your allegiance to flight centre may create a conflict of interest in your answer but why cant QANTAS do this work? They seem to be happy to sit around and collect Jobkeeper payments while their fleet sits at Avalon or in the USA desert.

Pressure should be applied to them to fly our residents home, at reasonable costs. Using miltary for this job is not cost effective and their aircraft are not fit for this purpose. Not everyone can sit 15 hours in the back of a Hercules. Passenger aircraft are available and can easily be put back into service, but our airlines are not interested. They should be doing this as a national service.

Fair points. I'm not fully aware of the ins and outs, I do know that countries have issues with putting people on planes (e.g. Canada) and actually getting a ticket is difficult.
Qantas aircraft being chartered by the government may well be a fair compromise. Anything that is organised nationally is likely to be a better system of ad hoc arrivals, with the quarantining of those arrivals being left tot he states and begin located in our largest population centres.

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Moff, I know your allegiance to flight centre may create a conflict of interest in your answer but why cant QANTAS do this work? They seem to be happy to sit around and collect Jobkeeper payments while their fleet sits at Avalon or in the USA desert.

Pressure should be applied to them to fly our residents home, at reasonable costs. Using miltary for this job is not cost effective and their aircraft are not fit for this purpose. Not everyone can sit 15 hours in the back of a Hercules. Passenger aircraft are available and can easily be put back into service, but our airlines are not interested. They should be doing this as a national service.

How many people per week do you think our quarantine system can cope with? It’s currently around 4000, with the number of those wanting to come growing, not falling. I think Australian citizens should have priority, with permanent residents and dual passport holders taking their chances.

 

[LittleG]

How many people per week do you think our quarantine system can cope with? It’s currently around 4000, with the number of those wanting to come growing, not falling. I think Australian citizens should have priority, with permanent residents and dual passport holders taking their chances.

I think priority should go to those who haven’t recently left the country.... eg. Those stuck overseas rather than those going for business.

 

[Norm De Guerre]

I would go further and suggest returning Australians should not have to rely on a mish-mash of commercial travel and independant state processes to return home.
Given how hard it is to get a ticket (let alone have that ticket honoured), we should be using Hercs/C17s to bring Australians home (and we can charge them comparable rates to reimburse taxpayers) then have them isolate away from the two major population centres at the very least.
It was sheer dumb luck that the Ruby Princess fiasco didn't turn into an outbreak as bad or worse than the outbreak in Victoria.

It is crazy that a year after all of this started we still don't have a coordinated national approach for dealing with returning Australian travellers. Given the cost and impost imposed on measures to fight the virus, it would be cheaper to just adopt a national approach and do it properly.

The C-17 or KC-30A (a return trip from London in a Herc would be excruciatingly slow and uncomfortable) are the only two aircraft remotely fit for purpose and their is probably only a combined total of 10-12 airframes available for service at any one time, when you take into account the amount of heavy maintenance that the fleet constantly cycles through. Then you have to consider how widely dispersed the Australian diaspora really is you to get an understanding as to why this is probably not a job for the RAAF, an organisation geared towards emergency humanitarian relief from a single point of departure, but one where the government should've been be tasking commercial carriers from day one. However, they have their own issues when you consider the likes of Qantas have mothballed much of their long haul fleet and laid off large chunks of the aircrew and maintenance staff dedicated towards them.

It is very odd that the federal government didn't have a contingency in place for your above scenario when it was so obvious that so may Australian citizens would want to return to the relative safety of their homeland when Qantas was so publicly shuttering its long haul fleet. I do suspect that they looked at the option of some kind of quasi temporary nationalisation of Qantas but didn't want to take on that risk and baulked at the extreme cost of returning people from the 4 corners of the globe. It sucks for these people that that they are out of sight and out of the medias mind. It is on brand for this government though.

 

[BBBaz]

And yet they are apparently too busy to implement a federal ICAC...

There are workers wages to be cut, an environment to screw over, CO2 emissions to ignore, a refugee family to persecute, sexual assaults to cover up, media moguls to prostrate themselves before and technology billionaires to antagonise. It seems unfair to expect them to be too concerned about their own corruption or us plebs waiting for a vaccine.

 

[Charlie Bucket]

Not sure if my information is correct but I have been told by a senior person at a leading hospital that Sutton did not want the 5 day lockdown because he was confident it could be contained without it. Dan would not agree because he is running scared from last years stuff up in quarantine. This not the first time they have lock horns.

Sounds legit

 

[Mutt]

Not sure if my information is correct but I have been told by a senior person at a leading hospital that Sutton did not want the 5 day lockdown because he was confident it could be contained without it. Dan would not agree because he is running scared from last years stuff up in quarantine. This not the first time they have lock horns.

I can guarantee you that this is not true. Utter bullshit.

 

[Libba39]

Whitten Oval could become state’s first mass COVID vaccination hub

Whitten Oval in Melbourne’s west could become the city’s first mass COVID-19 vaccination hub under a proposal that would see the stadium used to help immunise thousands of Victorians.

www.theage.com.au

 

[dogwatch]

Whitten Oval could become state’s first mass COVID vaccination hub

Whitten Oval in Melbourne’s west could become the city’s first mass COVID-19 vaccination hub under a proposal that would see the stadium used to help immunise thousands of Victorians.

www.theage.com.au

Just get me there.

 

[Optimistic Dog]

Just get me there.

The last time I got vaccinated at the Whitten Oval was with quite a few VB's I was feeling much better after the dosage and a bulldog win against the Eagles in 97. It was the dogs last game at Whitten Oval for premiership points and a few dogs ganged up on Gardiner.

 

[adogsfan5]

Do we still get to train at Whitten oval??

 

[Chicago1]

Perhaps we could have a membership table set up at the WO like in the old days? Free jab with each new membership purchased?

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Perhaps we could have a membership table set up at the WO like in the old days? Free jab with each new membership purchased?

Except the jab is free anyway

 

[Chicago1]

Except the jab is free anyway

Shhh...

 

[Mantis Toboggan]

Perhaps we could have a membership table set up at the WO like in the old days? Free jab with each new membership purchased?

Maybe we could have Bont giving out the jabs. Surely that’s the answer to those hesitating whether or not to get it.