Australia says no to AZ and J&J vaccines--vax rollout likely to be delayed by months

[Kokeshi123]

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/13/australia-wont-buy-johnson-johnsons-one-dose-covid-vaccine-due-to-astrazeneca-similarities

I know quite a lot of Ozzies who are completely stranded outside their country due to the fact that they cannot keep small children within a hotel room for two weeks and pay a fortune for the priviledge. As it is, it's looking like Oz will not be removing its quarantine requirements until well into 2022 at the earliest.

I mean, I do think that a basic strategy of "(1) Hold borders tight with Zero Covid until the vax>(2) Unroll vax> (3) Open borders" is a sound one, but it does depend on the second and third bits of the plan actually happening...

Mine are the same. At first they were happy to stay in. Now they’re like “we’re fully vaccinated and have wasted a year of our retirement, let us on a plane, we’re going everywhere!”

I’m the same @Ozgirl75. Even if one set of us had to quarantine in Singapore, if it was shorter(5 days or less) and/or allowed to take place in an environment suitable for young children ie not a sealed hotel room that would be a massive win. Stay flexible and hopefully something will pop up!

I am booking for Oz just as soon as I’ve had my second vaccine. Assume it’s fine to fly after it? Will wait 48hrs to make sure no horrendous side effects and then go straight away.

Is it possible to do that Fly? I appreciate that as things stand, it would be necessary to quarantine in Australia, but I'd be happy to do that. Although DH and I may need separate rooms, so that I didn't kill him if we were cooped up for 14 days!

Just thinking that DH has his second jab early May and I've had mine - once Boris gives the go-ahead, maybe we should just book?

Yes it’s possible. Ofc it’s not guaranteed your flight will go, or that your seat will be available. But you can certainly try.

(As an aside I have heard of some expats getting on the May DFAT flights into Darwin. Registering might not be a bad idea if you don’t have time constraints - I need to wait until June for my 2nd vaccine and will register right after that.)

Aahhh - we're not expats. Would just be visiting DS. When he first said he was moving to Aus for 2/3 years, we thought 'great - lots of lovely holidays!' Still waiting for our first trip to happen! Oh well, hopefully things are looking up for many of us.

@ajandjjmum

As far as I know you can only fly to Australia if you are a citizen or permanent resident ( or movie stars, tennis players...)

Just a heads up:

Macau has just announced that travellers from Indian, the Philippines and Pakistan will now have to quarantine in a hotel for twenty-eight days upon arrival. Because apparently they have experienced some cases that have slipped quarantine by remaining infectious and infecting other people even after two weeks quarantining in a hotel room.

I know it's Macau, but I'm wondering if quarantine periods for entering the no-COVID-allowed countries will possibly grow longer rather than shorter.

I feel really sorry for my MIL (and it's not often I'd say that )

She's divorced, in her 70s, doesn't have a huge pension or savings and had saved up for years to visit BIL who moved to Aus with his DD who she had a close bond with as a baby (they lived with her) but hasn't seen for a few years now (FaceTimes all the time)

She was so excited to finally get to go in 2020, tickets booked, itinerary planned etc and then it was all cancelled due to COVID. No chance for this year and now looking like maybe no chance next year either. She's not getting any younger. I really am sad for her.

My non Australian parents have booked for December this year. They’re fully vaccinated and just hoping they might be allowed in, even if they have to quarantine at our house for a few days and get tested here. I don’t hold out too much hope but they were willing to book (with changeable flights if they can’t come).

The hotel quarantine in Aus totally prevents us from going back to the U.K. even though I believe we will be able to fly there with no quarantine at that end. But we can’t do 2 weeks in a hotel here as we have two children.
I’m hearing murmurings about home quarantine though which would be totally doable.

[quote MoppaSprings]@ajandjjmum

As far as I know you can only fly to Australia if you are a citizen or permanent resident ( or movie stars, tennis players...)[/quote]
Best brush up on my tennis then!

We have flights out beginning of November Ozgirl with a return three weeks later. They're cancellable, so we'll just keep our fingers crossed - although we've had four confirmed flights cancelled so far since March last year.

At least we're still (relatively) young in our retirement - really do feel for those in their last years of travelling long distances.

As much as I would LOVE home quarantine I don’t see how it is an option before the whole population has been offered a vaccine

We know that a proportion will not obey it - whether that proportion is 5 or 90% is almost irrelevant. And we know that some vaccinated people will have covid. It’s inevitable that cases will get out in the community when home quarantine is introduced. I don’t see how that’s politically acceptable before you’ve offered everyone the chance to protect themselves via vaccines. I desperately want home quarantine to be a thing but I think it’s inextricably linked to the vaccine rollout.

Yes from what I’ve read it will be at least once the most vulnerable are vaccinated.
I believe Hong Kong did home quarantine with GPS trackers. I’d happily stay at home with an ankle bracelet on!

I just don't understand how the home quarantine is supposed to work until we have the majority vaccinated.
So (hypothetically) my boss gets vaccinated and needs to travel to Europe for business. He comes back with covid and, as per guidelines, quarantines at home, with his family. His three kids go to school, his wife goes to work...
I hope the state premiers hold up against it until vaccinations are wide spread. Otherwise it will be like the last year has been for nothing. And I say that as someone who hasn't seen any extended family since December 2019, or introduced them to our new DS who arrived late March '20 and is now one.

No I don’t think home quarantine is strong enough to do what it has to do. Even hotel quarantine has cases escape.

This makes me think of earlier post re Japan, Japan is not Covid zero so I don’t see how a travel bubble would help if you didn’t hotel quarantine them still. Not sure what is proposed.

From what I read on the ABC today they were saying that by the end of the year they hope to have most adults vaccinated (which should be easy, there aren’t that many of us after all), then bring in home quarantine and have to accept that we will have cases but as most people are vaccinated they won’t be serious cases.

We will certainly have to move away from zero covid, but surely most people would accept that? I mean we can’t wait forever.

I hope so! I think it will shift

That sounds more palatable.

I see also that they hope to make a big push oct-dec. I agree we will need to shift gears

We will certainly have to move away from zero covid, but surely most people would accept that? I mean we can’t wait forever.

I think the shift will be politically... interesting.

The shift will take 12-18 months. Same as it did here. My bet is some kind of relaxation by Christmas 2022/ early 2023.

I do hope it’s sooner,@Flyornofly, for very selfish reasons. Being shut out of my own country and away from every blood relative I have bar my sons is becoming so very difficult.

I’m with you, @JassyRadlett. But have been scouring media on this one and I just don’t think it’s going to shift anytime soon.

I know. And talking to my family they’re increasingly pessimistic too. Their view is that Australia will have to get used to a low level of Covid, same as the rest of the world, but with the federal election and then state elections in the second half of 2022 the fed/state politics has the potential to become really toxic and a science/risk-based approach will get lost in the mudslinging.