Australia vs UK

[JC17fj74]

Ok so I follow some celebrities and influencers on Insta who live in Australia, I've just watched their stories of them out yes that's right OUT in bars and clubs dancing, drinking and partying all close together having FUN 😫 Do you remember what it was like to go out and have Fun? 😂🤦🏻‍♀️
I understand Australia is the other side of the world but they had bad cases not so long ago didn't they?!
HOW are they at that stage where they even have bars and clubs open, let along be able to party with no masks inside in close proximity?!!!
I can't see us doing any of that anytime soon 😭
What are we doing wrong? Why are we in lockdown with no date or plan to get out of this hell when other countries are getting back to normal? Dubai is another one I've seen people enjoying life there too. But surely the Rona is still around in these countries?

One of the main reasons has to be their ability to shut their borders and do the hotel quarantine. Which just wouldn’t work for us as the queue of lorries in the days before Christmas show. We also have the Irish border which can’t be closed for obvious reasons. Shutting our border Australia style would be impossible here. All it would take is one truck driver to be infected and covid is back in the country.

Shutting our border Australia style would be impossible here. All it would take is one truck driver to be infected and covid is back in the country

Every day in Australia there are positive cases from people, usually returning travellers. Keeping cases under control is a dynamic process.

Some of the things Australia has done I just can't see working here.

Locking up whole apartment buildings, snap lockdowns stranding people in the wrong state, not allowing 30k+ citizens to return.

Just on the population density point, australia as a whole country has “low” population density because most of it is unoccupied. If you look at the city populations tho it’s a different story - eg inner melbourne with 21k people per square km vs inner london with only 8.6k people per square km! There are a LOT of high rise apartments in the major cities in Oz.

@eaglejulesk it’s nice of you to make that determination on behalf of the tens of thousands of Australians who are stranded overseas and the tens of thousands more who are trapped in/out and can’t see family.

I'm not in Australia, but why are these tens of thousands of Australians stranded overseas? We have been in pandemic mode for almost a year, if they were that desperate to get home why didn't they try at the start? As for not being able to see family, that is sad, but really something that needs to be considered when one moves to a far away country. When I was young people didn't fly around the world nearly as much as they do now, and if you moved to the other side of the world not seeing family for years was just an accepted fact of life. It's been a year, not a decade or ten!

In many cases the people stranded had lives and jobs overseas and didn't think it was wise to dismantle all that and come back to unemployment here. A year later it is very different.

In many cases the people stranded had lives and jobs overseas and didn't think it was wise to dismantle all that and come back to unemployment here. A year later it is very different.

Then unfortunately they have to face the consequences of their decisions, as we all have to do at some stage or other.

We have been in pandemic mode for almost a year, if they were that desperate to get home why didn't they try at the start?

There were no flights, my parents had several flights cancelled and finally got home 8 weeks after their original flight date. And that was going the other direction which was considerably more straightforward.

@eaglejulesk

I'm not in Australia, but why are these tens of thousands of Australians stranded overseas? We have been in pandemic mode for almost a year, if they were that desperate to get home why didn't they try at the start? As for not being able to see family, that is sad, but really something that needs to be considered when one moves to a far away country. When I was young people didn't fly around the world nearly as much as they do now, and if you moved to the other side of the world not seeing family for years was just an accepted fact of life. It's been a year, not a decade or ten!

Do you really think people are unaware of the distance when they move overseas? It is obviously a huge consideration, but everyone I know has said it has always just been 24 hours away and you can be home. We don’t have that now. I’ve got friends who have missed funerals, births, weddings and it is really hard. And yes, we are also all well aware of how things were in the past.

@eaglejulesk

I'm not in Australia, but why are these tens of thousands of Australians stranded overseas? We have been in pandemic mode for almost a year, if they were that desperate to get home why didn't they try at the start? As for not being able to see family, that is sad, but really something that needs to be considered when one moves to a far away country. When I was young people didn't fly around the world nearly as much as they do now, and if you moved to the other side of the world not seeing family for years was just an accepted fact of life. It's been a year, not a decade or ten!

When I moved to Australia I was under the impression that it’s only a couple of flights to get back to the Uk or to have people come visit us. I wouldn’t have moved here if not seeing family for years was an accepted fact of life.

I am happy with how the pandemic has been handled here and I don’t mind being cut off from the rest of the world for another year, but I wish we had more certainty over when the borders will open.

I agree Thedramasummer, not sure I would have moved either 😔

Exactly @Thedramasummer. Who cares what it was like 3 or 4 decades ago. The reality is, most people who moved in the last 10-15 years at least, would have done so on the understanding that flights home were relatively easy to obtain. I don't believe anyone who says potential global pandemic ever came into their decision making process.

When this all started, I don't think many of us had any idea how long this would go on for. I know I personally thought it would be like SARS or MERS. We heard about them but they didn't impact us. People had commitments, contracts, homes overseas and couldn't simply pack up in a weekend. By the time it was clear how severe it would be, Aussie borders had already closed with limits on the number of arrivals and a requirement for 14 days hotel quarantine.

Australia purchased the license for the AZ vaccine and we are producing it at CSL in Melbourne starting in March.

The University of Queensland developed a vaccine that showed promise but unfortunately caused false positives on HIV tests so it was abandoned.

There were Phase 1 clinical trials in Australia. Sorry we didn't have the numbers for Phase 3 trials.

A lot of our research funding has been diverted to Covid.

I think we're also in the process of developing our own mRNA vaccine.

But it's more fun pretending none of that is happening.

In Western Australia people are starting to talk about covid in past tense, as in "back before covid happened". We know that if we have a case escape from hotel quarantine we will do exactly what Queensland did and lock down hard for a few days. I'm happy with that.

and now in breaking news Perth has 1 active community coronavirus case. We are going into lockdown from this evening for 5 days including schools shops, gyms restaurants... Track and trace is working overdrive to identify possible close contacts.
This is the kind of quick response that will help to keep Western Australia safe!

@theyoungishman

and now in breaking news Perth has 1 active community coronavirus case. We are going into lockdown from this evening for 5 days including schools shops, gyms restaurants... Track and trace is working overdrive to identify possible close contacts. This is the kind of quick response that will help to keep Western Australia safe!

Quite. And yet there are comments on the Newscorp "Australian" that this is a overreaction. Possibly related to the WA premier being Labor. Whereas NSW's Glady's (Liberal, AKA conservative) shit smells of Parma violets. She could do no wrong while she fiddled Nero-like as NSW infected other states

Still, sense will prevail and WA is on it.

I’ve got friends who have missed funerals, births, weddings and it is really hard.

I understand that, but many in the UK and other parts of the world have also had those issues. There is a pandemic affecting us all, and everyone just has to go alone with the way things are until we can all open up again. No-one is special.

Just for the sake of clarity with PP ...the "lizard of Oz" with his arm around the Queen was Paul Keating, not Tony Abbott (of budgie smuggler fame. One us one of our greatest, most progressive PMs and the other is a British citizen now working on trade deals for the British govt . I am sure neither would like to be confused with the other

Here is Keating with QEII

I'd just like to point out that kids in UK schools are sanitising hourly, masks are being worn in public including outdoors for many and we are being encouraged to be tested even if symptomless (community lateral flow testing). Many of us are staying at home (again) and have been for weeks/months. The vast majority are doing as asked and more.

My kids schools have said any child who is remotely unwell should be off and community tested.

Oz are having lockdowns but due to the geography and size of the country they are proving more effective. They are able to shut down fast and contain. The UK is small, most people commute to work and cross county borders frequently.

Heat and sunlight are known to kill covid 19. Cold and damp encourages it. Remember our summer 2020! Hot weather and hugely reduced numbers. We had no new cases for weeks where I live during summer.

It's like comparing biscuits with cakes!

All credit to Australia and New Zealand for getting things right.

This is what we have going on:-

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/flights-into-uk-travel-rules-restrictions-quarantine-hotels-b901157.html

Along with not getting a test unless you have one of the 'three' symptoms - and the totally forgotten 'world class track and trace system' The UK is not doing well. It is half-hearted decisions all the way through.

I mean - of course a garden centre is of vital importance to stay open and of of course people travelling on public transport to go and quarantine at home is fine . The whole shebang is one giant shitshow.

I am not at all sure about the population density argument. Yes our house blocks are bigger but public places like supermarkets and transport are just as crowded in Melbourne as they are in any big UK city. Similarly people aren’t more spread out in work places. The 4 big Australian cities may be smaller than London but have populations greater than many UK cities.

What I do think made a difference is in July when we hit our peak of 700 a day we locked down Victoria. in July the Uk had the same number of daily cases but were opening up so people could enjoy their summer. If Victoria had remained open then I have no doubt it would have spread through the rest of the country. Similarly if we had had no quarantine where we have had lots of cases from it would have looked very different. Because numbers have been low our track and trace system has worked.
As pp have said the UK is a travel hub in a way that AU or NZ isn’t and out ability to quarantine and close borders is the biggest factor I think.

The Lowy Institute published the findings mentioned in a post above. Compares how “well” 100 countries have done and all the variables.

Findings include that smaller countries have done well, rather than it being an issue of population density. Plenty of the high ranking countries aren’t islands. There are so many variables and some policies were obviously not a good idea, but some worked through pure luck. One thing is I think there has been similar levels of compliance from the people of both countries and that any results are on the head of the leadership with part good planning and part dumb luck.

Personally I think both prime ministers are boofheads, but the state premiers have sufficient power in the federal system, and had just come from a spring and summer of complete incompetence from ScoMo. So they took charge.

ABC new on the Lowy report
www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-28/new-zealand-tops-list-as-country-with-best-covid-response/13095758

The Lowy Institute
interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/covid-performance/#region

If our idiot Australian PM, good old Scotty from marketing, had kept all the borders open between states and overseas we would be in a very different situation. Fortunately all the state premiers pretty much ignore him and go hard to protect their populations.

NZ and Oz have natural advantages - which we ran hard with when the pandemic hit (and then again when community transmission was detected). Why on earth wouldn’t we?!

The UK doesn’t have some of those advantages, and so the response from leadership, at least in the early days, was almost ‘why even bother trying?’ The arrival of spring and summer almost seemed to lull people into a false sense of security.

The virus was inside both NZ and Oz, and it was spreading. Without the measures we took, it would have run rampant through our communities, killing tens of 1000s, just like it has elsewhere.

Yes, parts of our countries might be empty, but the cities and suburbs are populated enough for the virus to sweep through. We know that, because it was doing just that.

In NZ, the biggest cluster/spreader event was a wedding (which killed the groom’s father, incidentally).

COVID-19 is highly contagious. Our less densely populated countries would’ve made very little difference, if we hadn’t taken the measures we did.