Opinion Will there be any home games this season

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arsesmart

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I don't think they would have introduced those precautions tbh, just told everyone to get the flu jab.
Covid's respiratory illness as is the flu, covid has a much higher mortality rate. Hence they did introduce those precautions.
I would argue that 99.9% of the 0.08% of people who will die with a positive covid-19 test are already known to the health and aged care systems.

Those people are the ones that are being protected, those are the ones who should be in isolation.

And I'd also argue that at least a third of those people will pass away within three to five years, probably more like three to five months.
Yeah, what's 5 million deaths? They're expendable yeah? Gonna a die anyway. Nevermind any ongoing pulmonary, cardiological or neurological effects. Why should I be inconvenienced?

Who's in isolation? Over the past two years of the pandemic, our lives have hardly been affected in any serious way in this neck of the woods (even with one of the strongest economies going around to boot). We're in a transition phase and Omicron's been a spanner in the works, so it is best to be treading carefully for a bit. Trying to wish it away or ignore it just increases the likelihood of more variants and potentially more lethal strains if left to rampage unfettered.
 
Covid's respiratory illness as is the flu, covid has a much higher mortality rate. Hence they did introduce those precautions.

Yeah, what's 5 million deaths? They're expendable yeah? Gonna a die anyway. Nevermind any ongoing pulmonary, cardiological or neurological effects. Why should I be inconvenienced?

Who's in isolation? Over the past two years of the pandemic, our lives have hardly been affected in any serious way in this neck of the woods (even with one of the strongest economies going around to boot). We're in a transition phase and Omicron's been a spanner in the works, so it is best to be treading carefully for a bit. Trying to wish it away or ignore it just increases the likelihood of more variants and potentially more lethal strains if left to rampage unfettered.

We had over sixteen thousand people die in WA the last twelve months including a family member who spent literally all day in an ER waiting to be seen before going home, returning via ambulance a day later and dying in hospital. Our hospital systems are stuffed because we haven't invested in staffing nearly enough, including when we "knew" there was a pandemic.

Don't start pretending deaths matter. We have sixty million people die every year.

When the average age of deaths from covid is 83 we aren't talking about something that is picking off the healthy and vibrant.

The effects of covid on the world that will impact the most and last the longest has been the government action. The supply chain, the isolation rules, the mandates and the passports all impact the economy far more than the virus.

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We had over sixteen thousand people die in WA the last twelve months including a family member who spent literally all day in an ER waiting to be seen before going home, returning via ambulance a day later and dying in hospital. Our hospital systems are stuffed because we haven't invested in staffing nearly enough, including when we "knew" there was a pandemic.

Don't start pretending deaths matter. We have sixty million people die every year.

When the average age of deaths from covid is 83 we aren't talking about something that is picking off the healthy and vibrant.

The effects of covid on the world that will impact the most and last the longest has been the government action. The supply chain, the isolation rules, the mandates and the passports all impact the economy far more than the virus.

And other single lines of positions to make it easy to consume!
That's just untrue - sorry.

The correct statement is 'Our hospitals are stuffed because we don't have enough staff to work in them. This is because: (a) The shutting down the international borders to skilled workers has deprived us of one of our major supply chains of experienced staff; (b) The closing of internal state borders has meant a number of interstate FIFO health workers that work in regional WA have not been able to get into WA; (c) The universities/TAFEs are not producing enough graduates to meet demand; (d) we have an ageing health workforce (especially nurses) and have seen a large number of people retiring from the service; (e) increasing specialisation within medical/nursing degrees means we are running low on generalists (GPs, General Surgeons, General Physicians) who are the lifeblood of most hospitals.

WA pays their doctors and nurses more than any other state in the country and in mid-2021 the government announced funding for enough additional beds equivalent to a medium sized hospital - unfortunately we can't get the staff to manage those beds for the reasons above. Per patient, we have the most expensive hospitals in the country other than ACT. The issue we see in our hospitals has nothing to do with lack of investment.
 

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That's just untrue - sorry.

The correct statement is 'Our hospitals are stuffed because we don't have enough staff to work in them. This is because: (a) The shutting down the international borders to skilled workers has deprived us of one of our major supply chains of experienced staff; (b) The closing of internal state borders has meant a number of interstate FIFO health workers that work in regional WA have not been able to get into WA; (c) The universities/TAFEs are not producing enough graduates to meet demand; (d) we have an ageing health workforce (especially nurses) and have seen a large number of people retiring from the service; (e) increasing specialisation within medical/nursing degrees means we are running low on generalists (GPs, General Surgeons, General Physicians) who are the lifeblood of most hospitals.

WA pays their doctors and nurses more than any other state in the country and in mid-2021 the government announced funding for enough additional beds equivalent to a medium sized hospital - unfortunately we can't get the staff to manage those beds for the reasons above. Per patient, we have the most expensive hospitals in the country other than ACT. The issue we see in our hospitals has nothing to do with lack of investment.

So why are the hospitals asking for more grad places to be funded all the time?

Amazing that a statement suggesting we don't have enough resources leading to our staffing problems can be called untrue because it's the staffing shortages caused by inadequate resourcing over a long period of time.
 
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That's just untrue - sorry.

The correct statement is 'Our hospitals are stuffed because we don't have enough staff to work in them. This is because: (a) The shutting down the international borders to skilled workers has deprived us of one of our major supply chains of experienced staff; (b) The closing of internal state borders has meant a number of interstate FIFO health workers that work in regional WA have not been able to get into WA; (c) The universities/TAFEs are not producing enough graduates to meet demand; (d) we have an ageing health workforce (especially nurses) and have seen a large number of people retiring from the service; (e) increasing specialisation within medical/nursing degrees means we are running low on generalists (GPs, General Surgeons, General Physicians) who are the lifeblood of most hospitals.

WA pays their doctors and nurses more than any other state in the country and in mid-2021 the government announced funding for enough additional beds equivalent to a medium sized hospital - unfortunately we can't get the staff to manage those beds for the reasons above. Per patient, we have the most expensive hospitals in the country other than ACT. The issue we see in our hospitals has nothing to do with lack of investment.
(f) The state government not keeping up with the times and offering better shifts, work life balance and a modern real world roster. This system is so broken they should be hauled over the coals like George Calombaris for short paying staff.
(g) The state government not staffing to adequate levels for the pre-pandemic times when graduates couldn't get jobs and instead opted for quick fix foreign workers with experience.
 
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So why are the hospitals asking for more grad places to be funded all the time?

Amazing that a statement suggesting we don't have enough resources leading to our staffing problems can be called untrue because it's the staffing shortages caused by inadequate resourcing over a long period of time.


Every hospital is operating below their established headcount and budget, and some country hospitals are shutting overnight because of a lack of staff - so my point is that the issue is not caused by a lack of $$. Docs and nurses are paid more here than any other state in Australia and we have more places funded than we have staff to fill those roles.

In addition to a national/global lack of health workers it would be 100% fair to say a lack of workforce planning and a hugely out of date health workforce strategy have contributed to the situation we are in.

For years, the main strategy has been 'persuade docs and nurses from other states and overseas to come and work in WA - we pay more and just look how nice our beaches are.' It's been a very effective strategy - the schools in the western suburbs are full with the kids of expat doctors.

But COVID has shut off that supply line and we now know how flawed that strategy was.
 
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(f) The state government not keeping up with the times and offering better shifts, work life balance and a modern real world roster. This system is so broken they should be hauled over the coals like George Calombaris for short paying staff.
(g) The state government not staffing to adequate levels for the pre-pandemic times when graduates couldn't get jobs and instead opted for quick fix foreign workers with experience.
Agree with the first half of your first point.

Hospitals have historically been staffed to adequate levels or they wouldn't get through accreditation - but as per my previous posts, the reliance on overseas staff has now been proven to be a complete folly. Serious focus needed on establishing proper training pathways from school through university/TAFE and into placements because this isn't going to be fixed quickly.
 
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Agree with the first half of your first point.

Hospitals have historically been staffed to adequate levels or they wouldn't get through accreditation - but as per my previous posts, the reliance on overseas staff has now been proven to be a complete folly. Serious focus needed on establishing proper training pathways from school through university/TAFE and into placements because this isn't going to be fixed quickly.
Yep, no quick fix but to let so many staff walk due to the issues and not think that a s**t storm is approaching is very dumb. Turnover rates would have told a story and they have resources to fix it but they just kicked the can down the road.
 

G Mus

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There’s a massive oversupply of graduates to graduate positions

There’s a lack of willingness to teach, or space to teach as the priority is to hire skilled staff because a new grad doesn’t help with a shortage
 
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There’s a massive oversupply of graduates to graduate positions

There’s a lack of willingness to teach, or space to teach as the priority is to hire skilled staff because a new grad doesn’t help with a shortage
That's the problem, you need a controlled pathway to get a grad experience. The government decided to let grads move into other industries while filling the needs with experienced oversea workers. Basically trading in players instead of going to the draft. We all know how that turns out long term.
 

Paracleet

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Yes delta variant and back had significant side effects, omicron has a very low chance of having significant side effects (especially if fully vaxed)...like a bad flu.

The issue is it is a bad flu that is highly contagious
There are actually numbers on this.

Basically they show
A) Anyone who was arguing the heavy restrictions over the last 2 years were mistaken were wrong.
B) Anyone arguing we should be continuing with those heavy restrictions now are wrong.

COVID before vaccination:
1644215317187.png


COVID post vaccination and the emergence of the Omicon variant:
1644215370034.png
 

arsesmart

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We had over sixteen thousand people die in WA the last twelve months including a family member who spent literally all day in an ER waiting to be seen before going home, returning via ambulance a day later and dying in hospital. Our hospital systems are stuffed because we haven't invested in staffing nearly enough, including when we "knew" there was a pandemic.

Don't start pretending deaths matter. We have sixty million people die every year.

When the average age of deaths from covid is 83 we aren't talking about something that is picking off the healthy and vibrant.

The effects of covid on the world that will impact the most and last the longest has been the government action. The supply chain, the isolation rules, the mandates and the passports all impact the economy far more than the virus.

And other single lines of positions to make it easy to consume!
Yeah nice logic in trying to deflect from your seemingly sociopathic dismissal of lives lost. We're talking one cause here, Covid...in a once in a 100 year pandemic, so maybe hold off on illogical deflections and feigned indignation.

There's multiple measures put in place to reduce the death rate for all the multiple causes you're lumping together to try and minimise the Covid tally. So that's just maybe what we might try with measures to manage a pandemic. Albeit (hopefully) at the tail end.

None are perfect, but we can be thankful we've had a pretty good run of it here.
 

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7 days now makes it more of a possibility of home games this season. Particularly since we often get a run of Sunday games anyways. And yes, quarantine footballers can train in controlled environments during the week (the girls are doing it now). And yes, it's actually 6 days because Day 1 can start at 9am when you fly in or 11.pm.
 
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7 days now makes it more of a possibility of home games this season. Particularly since we often get a run of Sunday games anyways. And yes, quarantine footballers can train in controlled environments during the week (the girls are doing it now). And yes, it's actually 6 days because Day 1 can start at 9am when you fly in or 11.pm.
The border will be open by round 2/3 at the very latest.
 

Johnny Dalmas

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So why are the hospitals asking for more grad places to be funded all the time?

Amazing that a statement suggesting we don't have enough resources leading to our staffing problems can be called untrue because it's the staffing shortages caused by inadequate resourcing over a long period of time.
What do you mean by "inadequate resources" (or lack of "investment" in an earlier post).

Because if what you mean is mere money in hospital payroll or in TAFE/uni programs, then I would disagree. It's not about mere money. .

There are health organisations who have payroll they can't spend because qualified health professionals won't work in the sector. A minor part of that is people refusing to get vaccinated. A much larger part is fully qualified people who just aren't interested. The money might be good (in comparison to elsewhere), but money isn't the big motivator to get people to work that we often think it is.

Just giving hospitals, nursing homes, etc more money to hire more staff, or getting uni/TAFE to pump out more grads, is simply increasing costs without solving the underlying problem: many health organisations are shitty places to work and so qualified people walk out the door, wasting the educational investment.
 

Paracleet

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The border will be open by round 2/3 at the very latest.
New Zealand changed their policy (or backflipped depending on your views) when Omicron cases went past 150 a day. Population wise that's 75 a day for us. I would not be surprised if A) It's around that mark we do the same and B) We also adopt a version of their staged opening which will happen to allow footy (E.G. fully vaccinated residents or business travellers may enter without quarantine with a pass and negative result etc.)
 

SupermanCapes

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Given McGowan has greenlit AFLW teams not having to quarantine when they play our women this weekend, surely this will extend to the men later on? No idea how that's meant to work for the team playing away, but at worst it means there is flexibility to split the season into a couple of away blocks and a couple of home blocks.
 
As long as the anti-government voices don't kick up a stink over the difference in positions in a way that embarrasses the government - we should be fine.

So no comment.

The science is currently suggesting that it's not a risk to the community for teams to play during quarantine period, if the public outcry about it for fear of some of the most frequently tested people in the nation bringing the virus (that is already here) here, then the science will change advice will change.
 
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Given McGowan has greenlit AFLW teams not having to quarantine when they play our women this weekend, surely this will extend to the men later on? No idea how that's meant to work for the team playing away, but at worst it means there is flexibility to split the season into a couple of away blocks and a couple of home blocks.
yeah, apparently they're using aflw as a test for other sporting teams coming over here e.g. mens according to the interviews on 6pr i heard
 
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