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Australian PM stands firm on border closure, as industries plea for reopening

26 Comments
By Renju Jose

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Hold firm! BUT BUT BUT not for the privileged like sports events, sending a team to Tokyo, etc...

Ordinary people, the peasants, etc.. rules must be applied.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Even vaccine now being doubted as some people who have been vaccinated managed to still get infected.

The vaccine reduces the chances of catching but can not eliminate it. What it does is prepare the body's immune system to fight it faster and better so that those vaccinated do not end up in hospital or die from covid or it's variants. This is true of most vaccines.

You can be fully vaccinated and still catch covid and still spread covid. But being vaccinated is the best and only insurance that you will not die or suffer long term effects from having caught covid.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

"We can't keep (COVID-19) out forever ... It will make us sick but won't put us into hospital. Some people may die but it will be way smaller than the flu," Virgin Australia boss Jayne Hrdlicka was quoted as saying in Australian media on Tuesday.

IDIOT!

3 ( +6 / -3 )

@Danny Nguyen

I am going to guess you didn't get my point, so here is the long explanation.

Australia closes, claims to do in order to protect it's people.

Then had an international sports event now going to send it's Olympic team to Japan, next there are other events scheduled but the ordinary person will still be restricted in where they can go or When and how they can return.

It is called elitism where certain special people get privileges the rest don't.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

The new normal (or great reset if you prefer)

Yawn.

Only the elites will be allowed to travel freely in the brave new world.

Hysterical.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

And make sure those pesky migrating birds know this.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

KaerimashitaToday  03:33 pm JST

Never ending hysteria on this and seems like many of the promised solutions for this either don't work or are now being called into question. Even vaccine now being doubted as some people who have been vaccinated managed to still get infected.

No one has ever claimed the vaccine stops anyone from catching Covid. What it does do is stop you getting sick and dying.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Politicians still need to travel to do their job right. Zoom calls will never replace face to face meetings for diplomacy. Sharing a meal and having hours long discussions together is much different to looking at a screen for hours where things can be happening outside your view.

With a few very rare exceptions, politicians have demonstrated that they can't do their job right, regardless of whether they blather away on Zoom or at some taxpayer-funded shindig overseas. And in between issuing orders for others to stay home and close their businesses etc, they get caught breaking the very orders they impose on others. If this virus is that dangerous, surely they'd be following their own edicts, right? Not on your life.

Sports people travel to try to keep some sort of normalcy for the population and provide real time entertainment for a populous bored with just reruns.

Nothing more than a bread-and-circuses argument. Nothing personal against someone who's good at hitting ball or running/swimming fast, but what makes them more important than anyone else? There's still plenty of sport going on domestically to entertain the masses, so by you logic, why isn't that enough?

2 ( +3 / -1 )

@Antiquesaving

Australia had 3 new cases yesterday, which makes 7 new cases on a 7-day average (source: Johns Hopkins University). Tell me what is bad about the way they handled their share of the problem then. Going to extremes to protect a country's population in front of such an extreme threat is never wrong.

If anything, it's Japan who had and still have plenty to learn from the Aussies. Not the other way around.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Disingenuous - not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

My point is not that this isn't tragic or doesn't kill. Rather that it is now globally endemic and so

It has spread globally but is not globally endemic as some nations have it all but eliminated and only get cases through returning citizens from countries that do not have covid under control. If all nations had taken the same response at the same time it would be all but eliminated world wide.

shutting everything down constantly is not a sensible response.

Not everything gets shut down during a shut down. Essential services and even supermarkets remain open. Short targeted shut downs and tracing means such things last only a few days. Do it right and get the benefit. Do it wrong and just keep complaining keeps covid active.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

JimizoToday  02:20 pm JST

The new normal (or great reset if you prefer)

Yawn. 

Only the elites will be allowed to travel freely in the brave new world.

Hysterical.

So it doesn't bother you that so-called elites such as politicians, sports players and officials can travel around the world (generally at someone else's expense) while the rest of us are essentially trapped in the countries we're currently in unless we jump through all sorts of hoops and shell out big money for plane tickets and quarantine stays.

It's not Ego Sum who's nuts.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Which means that the vaccine will not serve to stop the overreaction every time we see a spike in cases, even of the consequence of those spikes are not more deaths.

Over a year later and we are still treating this thing like the Black Death despite clear evidence as to treatment and mortality and vulnerable people and so on. And lots of what was being said by some ages ago - and treated like "misinformation - about how it transmits and the efficacy of masks and so on is now being confirmed in evidence and medical journals and so on.

Seems like "the Science" is not being analysed and applied - rather just a fairly unscientific response.

And in the meantime the hysteria continues.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Which means that the vaccine will not serve to stop the overreaction every time we see a spike in cases, even of the consequence of those spikes are not more deaths.

Over a year later and we are still treating this thing like the Black Death despite clear evidence as to treatment and mortality and vulnerable people and so on. And lots of what was being said by some ages ago - and treated like "misinformation - about how it transmits and the efficacy of masks and so on is now being confirmed in evidence and medical journals and so on.

Seems like "the Science" is not being analysed and applied - rather just a fairly unscientific response.

And in the meantime the hysteria continues.

So much disingenuousness in one post.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Hrdlicka is actually from Kansas which might explain her not-so-clever comment.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

“"We can't keep (COVID-19) out forever ... It will make us sick but won't put us into hospital. Some people may die but it will be way smaller than the flu," “

Mire or less true

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

India 278,250 deaths (every one tragic, yes) in a from over 25 million cases (so death rate about 1%) in a population of almost 1.4 billion.

My point is not that this isn't tragic or doesn't kill. Rather that it is now globally endemic and so shutting everything down constantly is not a sensible response.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

There's still plenty of sport going on domestically to entertain the masses, so by you logic, why isn't that enough?

In many cases they get caught in the wrong state at the wrong time and must stay put until it is safe to cross the border again. But it is a simple numbers game. A few thousand sports people providing entertainment for the masses to cope are different to hundreds of thousands traveling freely. Small numbers are manageable, large unrestricted travel is not. No point complaining it wont change anything. If I absolutely had to go somewhere I could. There would be a process to go and return that I would need to follow to do so just as sports people do. The difference is I do not have a club/employer/association taking care of or helping with the details as sports people do.

If you would rather everyone stay home then fine, but all you will do then is complain that everyone cant travel and say "thats not fair". Cant win with some people.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

It is globally endemic and evolving all the time. Will never eliminate it.

and you make my point. It is impossible to lock EVERYTHING down. Which is why the level of lockdown that is being done will never work.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

So it doesn't bother you that so-called elites such as politicians, sports players and officials can travel around the world (generally at someone else's expense) while the rest of us are essentially trapped in the countries we're currently in unless we jump through all sorts of hoops and shell out big money for plane tickets and quarantine stays.

No it doesnt and I will explain why.

Politicians still need to travel to do their job right. Zoom calls will never replace face to face meetings for diplomacy. Sharing a meal and having hours long discussions together is much different to looking at a screen for hours where things can be happening outside your view.

Sports people travel to try to keep some sort of normalcy for the population and provide real time entertainment for a populous bored with just reruns.

Many still need to self quarantine before or after travel to areas like India before returning or upon returning.

People complain how hard it is not being normal and yet when attempts are made to have some type or normality others complain. The old adage "you can please some of the people some of the time, but you cant ever please all of the people all of the time", comes to mind. Damned if you do and damned if you dont. People still manage to leave Australia and can also return if they make the required arrangements and quarantine upon return. Is it as easy as pre covid? No, not at the moment. But it will improve. Providing entertainment for your country and others around the world is more important than your vacation to Disneyland for the time being. One is for many, yours is for you. Please understand there is a difference and they are still taking risks traveling, and are being "managed" upon return.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Seems like "the Science" is not being analysed and applied - rather just a fairly unscientific response.

That depends on which country you are in.

And in the meantime the hysteria continues.

Go to India where the "hysteria" is real and the deaths keep mounting ever faster.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Never ending hysteria on this and seems like many of the promised solutions for this either don't work or are now being called into question. Even vaccine now being doubted as some people who have been vaccinated managed to still get infected.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

The new normal (or great reset if you prefer) is taking shape: Only the elites will be allowed to travel freely in the brave new world. We will never go back to life as it was before January 2020.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

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