Australia - Remote Quarantine (shades of Ellis Island)

[GADDay]

It looks like remote quarantine camps seems to be growing legs.

Howard Springs in the NT is already in operation.
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/13055008
Toowoomba in Queensland
www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/7101288/toowoomba-quarantine-facility-gains-traction/

Avalon in Victoria
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/13157224

The premise, as I understand it is that flights will land at the airports adjacent to these purpose built facilities which will have capacity to house upward of 1000 passengers. All quarantine support workers will live on site (2 weeks on 2 weeks off).

It makes sense but to me brings another dystopian twist to the tale...

Not sure why I am posting. Just seems never ending. This pesky pandemic.

I'm in Australia with my family in the UK, and much as I'd love to see my mum again, this is absolutely fine with me. All the measures being taken are enabling us to lead a pretty normal life, except for no international travel. When I hear what life is like in the UK it sounds bloody awful, so I'm happy to accept the few restrictions we've got. Once the vaccine is rolled out, we can start to consider opening up more.

One thing that I think hasn't been mentioned is that one of the main drivers for opening camps is that it will allow more Aussies stranded above to return, as they will be able to raise the quarantine caps. I know a few who have been trying to get back for months, they are only too happy to quarantine wherever they are put, if it means they can get back.

@Changi

That's how we used to quarantine ships arriving. Where I live I can see the island, in the harbour, that was used from aroud 1840.onwards. It was a bit bleak, with the single men off on another island. But effective.

That is what I was referring to earlier. There were similar places near most big port cities. Woodman Point near Fremantle, for example. More recently, last year, they were talking about using Rottnest as a quarantine area.

@echt Not sure what 🐨 means. Sorry.

Google Q Station Hotel or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Head_Quarantine_Station

The old quarantine station on North Head in Sydney is now a heritage listed 4 or 5 star hotel in what is now a national park.

It provides quite a bit of information about quarantine from the 1930s onwards and gives an insight into how quarantine was both used and viewed in the past.

Until the vaccine is rolled out and everyone who wants it is immunised I’m all for remote quarantine. It will have to work better than the hotel system. FYI, I’m in Melbourne.

The only way out of the pandemic is through global immunisation, same as with every other global virus transmitted through close contact. Until we acquire a minimum of 70% of our population inmunised, life won't return to normal no matter where you are.

I keep chuckling to posters asking what is Australia exit strategy when the UK, Europe and America are in a health emergency situation which Australia is not. My understanding is that Australia will begin opening international travel some time next year, depending how the rest of world is dealing with the virus.

With the exception of Victoria, most of us have led a normal life since the original lockdown a year ago. Restaurants, gyms, pools, beaches and meeting friends and family have been mostly normal (as long as you don't want 500 guest to your wedding).

Australia is not in a hurry to open international borders. Some people have not been able to see their family overseas....but hey, this is a pandemic. Our stats are outstanding....909 deaths, with 56 deaths in my estate NSW out of a population of over 8 million.

The majority of Australians agree wholeheartedly with remote quarantine. It gives people a bit more freedom to get some air and it protects the cities. The majority of our deaths came because it's impossible to completely contain the virus out of the community no matter how many precautions are taken.

Australia's policy has never been zero Covid. That's New Zealand. And yes, we're doing quite well financially.

Australia's stats ...

www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers

I think it's a reasonable idea as long as it's set up/carried out properly.

I would be worried about contracting Covid while quarantining but it would enable more compassionate travelling/returning of those who have been unable to until now.

"I would imagine Australian see some cases as inevitable once they open up."

It will be interesting to see if that psychological shift from "1 case = new lockdown" to "cases but not too much of a problem as we now have the vaccine" happens straight away, or whether fear of corona is likely to last at current levels even with nearly universal vaccination. I don't know what experience in the UK is telling us so far - it's quite early days.

On the other hand there has never been any pressure to lockdown when a measles case happens. (Maybe that will change of course, now that lockdown has been establsihed as a possible measure.) Many reasons for that, including of course that we have very high vaccination levels.

Interestingly, one of the frequent scientific commentators was talking earlier this week about whether the right way to treat corona would be to think of it as being like measles - thus to try to go for very low levels/almost zero.

Agree about the vaccination levels (as mentioned at the end of my post) - one interesting question is whether we will try to extend vaccination to dc. Presumably that is what the a/z trial on children is looking at.

Sorry, realise this is getting away from the thread, which was remote quarantine!

Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead

The MMR vaccine has been given to children since the 70s. It's a vaccine thoroughly proven and with the except of anti-vaxxers, acquired herd immunity in our countries decades ago.
'
Corona is a new virus causing over 2 million deaths worldwide and that's with restrictions. Vaccines have been approved on emergency levels in the UK, Europe and USA, they are first lot of vaccines. In 5-10 years time, there will be new vaccines and kids will be vaccinated with our countries acquiring herd immunity from the get go.

This is NOT where we are now.

@turquoisewaters

I think it's a reasonable idea as long as it's set up/carried out properly.

I would be worried about contracting Covid while quarantining but it would enable more compassionate travelling/returning of those who have been unable to until now.

This is the reason it is being set up- people HAVE been catching covid in quarantine in the hotels...

@Youhavetoquitwhileyoureahead Here in Aus we have a really high take up rate of mmr (excluded from daycare and public schools, denied govt childcare rebates if not up to date with the vaccination schedule). Even so when we had a few measles cases in my area from an arrived tourist it became a really well publicized health alert. It was all over the mum groups, notes home from daycare, announcements on the news etc.
Samoa had an outbreak in 2019 also which saw them enforce a state of emergency, cancelling Christmas, introducing curfews etc.
So down here in the pacific region we already are treating it the same way as measles. Test, isolate, enact measures to prevent spread, and focus on vaccinations.

That is really interesting gymbag - so there was a kind of lockdown (not full) in Samoa for measles in 2019/early 2020? Just looking on the internet it suggests that MMR vaccination rates had fallen there - that may be part of the reason for closing schools and so on?

Yes, sadly samoa had an incident a few years back where the vaccine was mixed with an expired anesthetic instead of water and two babies died so it put a lot of parents off and herd immunity dropped. Most cases were children and babies because the adults were still covered by their vaccinations. I remember seeing red flags hung outside homes on the news that meant residents weren't vaccinated so vaccinators could go door to door.

We were just talking about the measles outbreaks because when it started popping up in our local postcodes DH and discussed not taking DD certain places because it's so infectious and she wasn't considered fully immunised yet. We avoided playgrounds, public transport and kept her out of the supermarkets and shops for a few weeks. Seems a bit surreal that we were doing the same a few months later for covid, only at much more intense level.

Australia/NZ exit will be interesting. Will citizens be so desperate for vaccination given they’ve not lived through the chaos. It’ll be interesting.

@Oaktree55 77% of Australians want the vaccine from a proper survey company. I don't know about NZ.
I know it's hard to believe given news coverage of people frolicking in the sun on beaches but we've been living through our own trials down here and think we will all be glad to see the back of covid (as much as possible).
Tired of repeated shutdowns, working from home (been almost a year now), figuring out if DD's birthday can and should go ahead and what restrictions are in place, plans being cancelled at a moments notice, not able to see family, friends stuck in other states, testing and isolating for each sniffle or temp etc etc.
No it's not as bad as what the rest of the world has and is experiencing but it has been exhausting in its own way.

@spottygymbag

That is not surprising at all. We are ready & waiting