Australia/New Zealand New Thread

[Kokeshi123]

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/

Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

This is... really really disturbing, honestly.

I grew up admiring (and, let's be honest, envying) Australians because as a nation, they always came across as a down-to-earth, fearless lot who had a healthy skepticism of authority while also being basically very civic/community minded.

What's gone wrong?

Thank you! Seems like something must have happened with our applications as that’s what we went for

How are the Kiwi's feeling about tomorrow's move to the new traffic light system?

Seeing our cases fall and R at less than 1 in the last week or so has been great. The vaccines are clearly having an impact.

@Turangawaewae

How are the Kiwi's feeling about tomorrow's move to the new traffic light system?

Seeing our cases fall and R at less than 1 in the last week or so has been great. The vaccines are clearly having an impact.

I’ll admit to being out of the loop on all things Kiwi and Covid. Is Auckland still in lockdown and are Aucklanders still not allowed to leave the city?

Retail opened a couple of weeks ago, kids are back - mostly half time. Aucklanders will be able to travel within NZ for a month over Xmas.

We move to a vaccine mandate based system at midnight tomorrow. Hospitality will be open again for the vaccinated. Our vaccine rates are close to 90% x2 in Auckland. Lower across the rest of the country.

We are still locked in Auckland but no longer in lockdown @bluetongueKids back at school part time. Basically not doing any lessons though. This year has been a write off.

I must admit I am getting really, really sick of people’s handwringing about Aucklanders being allowed to leave the city and bringing Covid with them. We are 95% vaxxed.

Hopefully someone is still keeping an eye on this thread. I’m an Aussie hoping to travel back to see family in February. I’m so confused and stressed about entry requirements. I’ll be travelling to Melbourne and fully vaccinated. Can I home quarantine in my sisters house? Can she stay there too or would she have to move out? How do you get to your homes? My sister lives 2 hours from Melbourne so I assume I wouldn’t be able to be driven home by her and be in the same car as her for 2 hours or take the train? What does everyone do? The websites are clear as mud with lots of links that never answer my questions.
Can I just hotel quarantine for 3 days at Melbourne airport? Could I get a PCR at Melbourne airport?
I just want to go home and see my family can’t believe I’m so unwelcome in my own country.

Oh Sahgah (my iPad autocorrected your name to Shagga twice 😂) I'm from Melbourne too.

I'm going to assume you are pretty keen to see family because I'd hate to be there right now, it seems pretty shambolic with the testing and isolation requirements but I think they are having a National cabinet meeting today to define "close contact" etc.

I'll keep an eye out for any details for you but if you are on social media there is a Facebook group "Australians stranded abroad" with some knowledgeable people who probably have the answers to your questions.

Sagah sorry to hear it's so shit. A friend of mine has her mum over from the UK at the moment and she was allowed to quarantine at my friend's house so long as everyone else in the house quarantined too. They didn't want to do that so got her a motel room instead, I think the rules just said that it needed to have its own front door. Friend was still able to collect her mum from the airport and drove her to the motel. This was about 2-3 weeks ago so if anything I think the rules will be less strict now.