Handle our borders with care
GREAT to see the Premier proceed with caution accepting returning Australians into quarantine. Given the Victorian and now South Australian outbreaks related to quarantine workers, it should be clear to anyone this virus is highly infectious and must be treated with the utmost caution.
Operating quarantine facilities without a high level of infection control and enforcement is clearly a recipe for disaster. Australia nearly had the virus eliminated until this latest escape. I think the NSW premier making comments about learning to live with the virus is silly. If this virus gets out of control, as in the US and Europe, it’s more about economic destruction and learning to die with the virus.
People need to feel safe to go about their lives and if this happens normal economic activity returns. If there are continuing outbreaks more lives will be lost and lockdowns and other measures will send more businesses to the wall. I suggest eliminating the virus across Australia is possible, creates certainty, saves lives and saves business.
Peter Turner
Sandy Bay
LOSING CONTROL
IT’s patently clear many countries have completely lost control of COVID- 19. With US mortalities exceeding 250,000 and setting daily records ( 1400 deaths, over 180,000 new cases with 32,000 serious critical, just on Friday), Premier Gutwein is right to push back on Commonwealth arrangements for overseas
returnees (“Repat flights grounded”, Mercury, November 17). Given the South Australian outbreak, concerns over our capacity to cope supports why international borders should remain a sole Commonwealth responsibility, moving repats through fit- for- purpose isolated Australian government- owned centres only. Tasmanians should also push state government to accept “if our track- and- trace efforts aren’t good enough” ( Editorial, November 17).
We need real- time contact tracing. Complex privacy issues aside ( which can be addressed), contactless QR code logging with GPS tracking ( or similar) should be mandated at all state entry points, restaurants, cafes, sport venues, etc. No smartphone QR code, no entry. Mick Bendor
Danby
MASK COMPROMISE
WITH the opening up of borders we face the worrying prospect visitors may be infected and spread COVID in the local population, thus the state government’s reluctance to drop the two weeks quarantine.
A compromise solution to the quarantine- no- quarantine switch is an intermediate step, what we might call localised quarantine, that is, that visitors be required to wear a mask during their visit, perhaps surgical gloves as well. Thus the probability of transmission of COVID from visitors who have not quarantined will be greatly reduced and we have an intermediate step between freedom and isolation.
Robert Stonjek
Kings Meadows
QUARANTINE QUANDARY
RESTRICTIONS at the state borders have been relaxed. Now we are again seeing a threat, this time from South Australia. As with Victoria it seems transmission has arisen from provisions for hotel quarantine.
I can fully understand the difficulty hotels are facing, along with the rest of the tourism industry. I can understand the use of their accommodation as quarantine facilities may provide a source of income.
The efficacy of this system is troubling. The system involves bringing potentially infected carriers from interstate and overseas into major population centres. Security guards have spread COVID- 19 to their families then to community clusters. Hotel workers are at risk of doing likewise. It is possible these workers have employment in other facilities, so the risk is present. In Tasmania we have been fortunate and life has returned to a semblance of normality. We could lose this quickly if a slight error of judgment reintroduced the virus.
Surely we should return to the tried systems in place when ships potentially brought in typhus and influenza? Could state government not set up a quarantine station far from major cities, especially now they are being required to bring Australians home from countries suffering major outbreaks.
It is all very well to use the cheapest and most convenient options but an outbreak would further devastate the health system, economic recovery and the wellbeing of us all. A more precautionary approach would surely be advisable. It will be too late if we become wise after the event.
Lilian Macdonald
Eggs and Bacon Bay
ISOLATED ISOLATION
I’M pretty sure hotel quarantine doesn’t work. At the end of the Great War, returning soldiers were quarantined on Bruny Island to protect Tasmanians against the Spanish flu.
Any modern quarantine facility also needs to be well away from the locals, not smack bang in our capital city. It’s just asking for trouble. Politicians trying to make themselves look good by rushing back Australians from overseas for Christmas will deliver a world of pain to us all.
Tim Beaumont
Battery Point