The Reality of Living in Australia and Covid

[El Pinguino]

Back in about 2000 my pup and a few of his chums were legging it from near the mouth of the Gordon down the coast to Low Rocky Point and from there inland and back to Strahan.
Somewhere between the Gordon and Low Rocky one of them took a bad fall and had possible spinal injuries. They activated their 121.5 EPIRB ( one of those little pocket jobbies made in SA and sold in Paddy Pallins and elsewhere). Helicopter turned up 1 hour later, dropped off a medic - went to Strahan to refuel and then came back picked up patient and took him back to Hobart. Luckily no lasting damage to his back.

Oh - if its Tigers you want you can't go past New Year and Christmas Islands, NW King Island.

[JPA Cate]

@fxykty:

Google Tasmanian tiger snake images. Agree with Wottie it is probably a tiger you saw. What you need to know is that they are aggressive (they will come at you) in mating season: February. The bite is seriously poisonous.

If bitten, lie very still, wait for the anti-venin to arrive to you.

Remember, some of Oz's poisonous snakes live in trees.

Ann

[Jim Cate]

I can’t imagine how the 50+ boats of the VDL Circumnavigation fleet will fit in these areas

Oh, it's simple: by overcrowding...Dunno if you have been into Stanly yet, but it is a tiny little artificial harbour... and they go there, too.

We were unfortunate to be in Port Davey when they arrived a few years back, and the mob was everywhere. Then we had a forecast Southerly Buster (frontal passage) with some 60 knot winds. Lots of dragging, best anchorages jammed, not nice at all IMO. Will try to avoid that confluence in the future.

You saw PD at its finest! Good one!

Jim

[Apollo19.5]

Everytime an overseas visitor comes here to see us, it is the snakes that get them twitchy the most. They seem to not appreciate that our venomous ones are not categorized as deadly or not, but rather how many humans can be be killed by one drop of venom. Those Tassy tiger snakes are a pretty thing, especially the fully black ones.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Meanwhile in the next life I am going to drive one of those little Tugs that haul the cargo containers and the baggage trolleys - they have such a fun time.

Did that in a previous life at LAX. The golden rule was to give the jets a wide birth going round behind them, which one of my workmates forgot just as the jet was firing up its engines - Mayhem and madness was at hand, with hundreds of suitcases blown across the tarmac half of them opening and spilling their contents everywhere, funnily enough I did not see him at work again!

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by UFO

Did that in a previous life at LAX. The golden rule was to give the jets a wide birth going round behind them, which one of my workmates forgot just as the jet was firing up its engines - Mayhem and madness was at hand, with hundreds of suitcases blown across the tarmac half of them opening and spilling their contents everywhere, funnily enough I did not see him at work again!

Totaly off topic. This was at LAX last Wednesay, sitting with mind in neutral - common state these days - I had about 8 hours to kill. Somewhere in Tom Bradley. My vision to the left obscured by some sort of finger thing. On the right an Aeroflot flight Moscow direct loading strings of those little container thingos. Still wondering what Calif exports to Moscow - stinger antidote??. Maybe half a dozen passos max boarded.
Meanwhile - no other aircraft had been seen - tugs ignoring the stop sign.
And then an A380 comes rolling past from stage left. Didn't get any tugs - think they heard it coming.

I am beginning to think air travel is like childbirth

[El Pinguino]

An interesting piece in 'WAToday' which suggests that McGowan should be looking at what is happening in Tas and SA rather than NSW and also gives a very good look at the state of play in those two states.

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/...jobid=29361612

[HankOnthewater]

Most Australian states except for maybe NT and definitely not WA, for most states the numbers are going down: new cases, hospital admissions, active cases. That is good news. and that gives us hope there is life after covid.

Well, there may be not such a thing as "Post covid", as covid will be with us for a long time, likely forever. What will be different is how we accept or not accept certain level of infections, certain number of deaths etc. Right now we accept that the Flu causes X number of deaths a year, so does malaria and so do car accidents.
Covid will go from pandemic to endemic.
However a new variant might delay that kind of transition. Here is a good article on that: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...othing/621423/

[HankOnthewater]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

An interesting piece in 'WAToday' which suggests that McGowan should be looking at what is happening in Tas and SA rather than NSW and also gives a very good look at the state of play in those two states.

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/...jobid=29361612

Indeed a good article. Strange though that Tasmania peaked with only 5% of its population infected, while with Victoria and NSW that percentage was 11 and 12 % respectively. Note figures are since 26 November, official start of Omicron in Oz.

Regarding WA, most decisions are made (and not only in WA) not for clinical or medical reasons, but they are made by politicians, with some medical input I guess. And all the changes since the 20th of January announcement are pollical adjustments, to please certain groups, without losing the support of the majority of his electorate. And the health system in WA had 18 months to prepare for this, and another 6-8 weeks will not make a lot of difference.

[JPA Cate]

Tassie has good vax and boost stats for the over 60's, probably the most vulnerable, except for people of all ages with additional vulnerabilities.

Ann

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by HankOnthewater

Strange though that Tasmania peaked with only 5% of its population infected, while with Victoria and NSW that percentage was 11 and 12 % respectively. Note figures are since 26 November, official start of Omicron in Oz.

Dinkum?

QLD Health commissioned two random surveys on the Gold Coast. Volunteers door-knocked suburbs to randomly test residents, aiming to show how many people had the omicron variant without knowing it.

Note that the Gold Coast is home to cruisers, marinas, and respectable boat yards.

Of the 177 people tested on the weekend in late January, 20 came back positive, or one in six.

Only four of 20 who were positive reported any symptoms.

“There were people walking around the Gold Coast who had no idea they had COVID-19,” QLD Chief Health Officer Gerrard said.

The test was repeated a weekend later where 143 people were tested and 11 tested positive. Six of the 11 reported having symptoms.

The bottom line: goodness knows how much virus is in the community. 17%?
8%? Whatever it is, QLD clearly has more infection than has been confirmed by testing and reported officially.

See: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nat...03-p59tgw.html

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Note that the Gold Coast is home to cruisers, marinas, and respectable boat yards.

Of the 177 people tested on the weekend in late January, 20 came back positive, or one in six.

Only four of 20 who were positive reported any symptoms.

“There were people walking around the Gold Coast who had no idea they had COVID-19,” QLD Chief Health Officer Gerrard said.

Amazes me the lack of masks on the covid coast.

Pregnant women, no masks, elderly the same, bizarre

We are on the hard, twice as long as wanting, eagerly trying to GTF out of here but weather ain't helping.

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

We are on the hard, twice as long as wanting, eagerly trying to GTF out of here but weather ain't helping.

Sorry to hear that, Simi60.

At Scarborough, we received around 53 mm. Moderate rain with a bit of heavy stuff (in terms of mm/h). Sure not a good time to be on the hard trying to get work done (I've the head off my genset donk at the moment).

Sad to hear your report of behaviour on the Covid Coast.

I personally thought that CHO Gerrard's idea - that a "random" test of 148 persons somewhere in Gold Coast City was a measure of anything - was the joke of the day.

If you know the demographics of a locality, you can do random sampling that is representative. But such a tiny sample size?

I've reasonably sure they did not knock doors on the Isle of Capri or any of the high end apartment towers. Nor do I think they sampled across the socio-economic spectrum below the level of Isle of Capri.

So junk science. GIGO.

Makes me think that Gerrard and the QLD Dept of Health are clowns perpetrating a joke on all us taxpaying cruisers.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Amazes me the lack of masks on the covid coast.

Pregnant women, no masks, elderly the same, bizarre

We are on the hard, twice as long as wanting, eagerly trying to GTF out of here but weather ain't helping.

Maybe the Gold Coast along with the Sunshine coast have wised up a bit.


Perhaps you should watch this from 9 News (WHO and other organisations have also said similar)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=WUobFNFnEz0


I for one appreciate the lack of mask wearing, as the idiots out there are less likely to hassle me for not wearing one and yes I have a legitimate written doctors exemption that I carry with me, but its really none of the general public's business why I am not wearing a mask, even though some Nazis think it is.

[poiu]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Dinkum?

The bottom line: goodness knows how much virus is in the community. 17%?
8%? Whatever it is, QLD clearly has more infection than has been confirmed by testing and reported officially.
…[/url]

That’s not the bottom line. The line that follows is if 15% are asymptomatic and presumably contagious and we know Omicron spreads like wildfire then isn’t a matter of time before everyone gets it? Doesn’t that mean the current restrictions are pointless? The real bottom line is to decide to either throw away the book of rules or lock everyone up in their homes again. Are you following China or Denmark?