What's on your mind?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

I feel your pain. I don't have any crops myself but we just came through the 2nd wettest summer on record here as well. We had days with as much as 10" (25cm) of rain. And just my luck the heavy rains and endless thunderstorms started about a week after we had cut one side the roof off this place and then with the absolute worst timing the town inspector came by and slapped a stop work order on us til the building permits were finalized which took 6 more weeks and came with a $1,000 fine. We tarpped it up the best we could while we waited but tarps aren't all that waterproof (who knew?) 'twas a long hot shitty wet summer with way too many hours spent checking the latest up to the minute radar and entire days wasted upstairs emptying countless buckets out the windows, and on my knees shop-vaccing up errant puddles when the drip holes in the tarp I had carefully positioned my buckets under shifted and started missing their targets or when the rains just came down so hard I couldnt empty the containers fast enough. And then at some point my sump pump carked it and the basement filled up with water which months later ultimately led to the death of our furnace. So I hope your skies clear up soon Kuke and may they stay that way for a bit.

[AlSymerz]

I've got all sorts of things in the garden this year but it just doesn't seem like the weather wants to let them grow. Once they get past the seedling stage they wont be so bad fruit production my be a little slow but the plants will grow. However I've still got seedlings in the hot house, usually I plant out seedling in October after the last of the frosts have disappeared. We haven't had the frosts but we've had some shitty cool days. Today it's not that warm, only about 19, but at least the skies are giving us some solar today.

[Dead1]

Tomorrow Tasmania is welcoming COVID in with open arms as our borders reopen.  We have had virtually no COVID here, nor any restrictions.  Now we're literally expected 52,000 cases by July and hundreds of dead (probably more - the government reckons they'll need a couple of hundred ICU beds a day but they only have under 50.  They reckon they have 114 but as a health official I can tell you that's fudge accounting).

All to appease capitalism ie tourist operators (that fucked industry whose main purpose is destroying the planet whilst entrenching exploitation).

We will now be able to calculate the exact value of human life in terms of number of extra airline tickets and coffees sold and hotel rooms booked.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/14/last-days-without-covid-relief-and-anxiety-as-tasmania-prepares-for-border-reopening?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR0t0onVQvp8t6lvcRl0tZp_qh1TIDMs2Sh6SWlLtoI4QF2KyNX81uliAao

 

[AlSymerz]

Awe cmon, why always taking the absolute worse case scenario? A a scenario that has been proven wrong in every other state and territory in the country?  Every state other than Victoria has managed their covid cases, and even Victoria as fucked as it is has coped. No over run ICU's, the one case of major ambulance ramping proved to be fake within 5 hours of it being posted by the news services and even with their stupidly high numbers the state is actually moving forward. If Tasmania was to suddenly be over run with covid simply because they are opening with rules and regulations then Melbourne should have been wiped off the planet by now.

It's not a case of putting a value on a human life, if that was the case we'd have a value for every day we live, every breath we take, every decision we make. It's also not about the tourist industry, it's about people and their livelihoods. The way this country has treated it's own people during this pandemic with new rules, state border closures, ostracisation of citizens and the general well being is a fucking disgrace. Keeping borders closed is not protecting people, but it could easily be making things worse in the future.

[Dead1]

That's not the worst case scenario.  That's the middle of the road scenario.  Worst case is 82,000!  I just spoke to a senior state health manager who said that the consensus is in her words "we're fucked."  Our medical system was at crisis point pre-COVID.

 

Closing borders certainly protected Tasmania - virtually 0 COVID cases and no deaths.

And yes it's putting a value on human life.  

[AlSymerz]

It's fucking ridiculous speculation, the same speculation every other state has made and not seen. It's the sort of speculation that the media eat up, run with for a few days, then drop like a hot potato. The same thing happened a few weeks ago when Omicron hit. We were all going to die, it was so dangerous ICU beds were going to be filled in days, meanwhile CHO's around the country said stop, listen and let science and doctors learn about the new variant. The news media ignored it ran with their hype scared the shit out of heaps of people and now they've backed off because of the results medical science have found.

Closing the border might have worked in the short term but it wont ever be a long term prospect. It's been nearly 2 years or border closures in one form or another. Tasmania can't afford to keep it's borders closed any more than the rest of Australia can.

Tasmania will cope better now opening the borders under the strict rules they have, than they will waiting another six months or more in the hope the covid just disappears. Tasmania might well be an island but it can not be it's own island, just like WA can't be it's own sovereign state because that's not the way the world or this country works.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Can't hide under the covers from the boogeyman like scared little children forever. It's become apparent that Covid and its variants aren't going anywhere, and even if they were all going to miraculously disappear next week it's not like there won't be another virus coming down the road to infect us in a few years and then another and then another. The entire world is just going to have to learn how to manage living with these deadly viruses the best we can.

With little Tassie typically racking up between 50 and 100 influenza deaths each year (mostly among the elderly) it doesn't seem to me like the 13 Covid deaths you've had over the last 2 years is barely even a drop in the bucket. You've lost 3 times that many in 2020 alone just in car crashes. 5 times that many due to suicides. When your time is up you're gonna go regardless. Couldn't find stats just for Tassie but Covid was only the 38th ranked cause of death in Australia for 2020 and the median age of those Covid deaths was 86. Seems like y'all have this Covid shit figured out pretty well relatively speaking. I know you'd feel safer if the number of Tassie Covid deaths were 0 instead of 13 and you could just stay closed off forever but like it or not in our modern global world that's just not realistic.

Yeah I know, easy for me to say, I live in New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the US, where we've had over 28,500 Covid deaths among our 9 million residents, 19 just yesterday. Over the last few months our NJ 7 day Covid death toll averages have been running from single digits on the low end up to about 20 per day on the high end. To me that seems downright acceptable since when we were going through the worst of it back in April/May 2020 our 7 day NJ death averages were upwards of 250 per day. And then during the other 4 month spike in cases we had last winter (Dec - March) we were averaging roughly anywhere from 40 or 50 up to north of 100 deaths per day. The big difference of course being that 70% of us in NJ are vaccinated now finally and since May 2021 our numbers have fallen dramatically and stayed consistently low ever since. And our state borders have been open.

I'm not a soothsayer or anything but with airlines and cruise ship operators requiring proof of vaccinations and Covid tests to fly/cruise, I wouldn't panic that your little island is suddenly going to be overrun with 50,000+ cases and end up with thousands hospitalized within a few months. That's just the alarmist media doing what they're paid to do, sensationalise the shit out of everything for more clicks and views. Because we both know if you were to get even a small fraction of that number of cases they'd just close shit right back down again anyway and quarantine those sickies. Australia don't fuck around. Sure, I imagine there will be a few virus carriers that slip through but you're still much better off down there on your little island in the middle of nowhere even with your borders open to tourists than you'd be almost anywhere else in the civilized world. After nearly 2 years of sealing yourselves off from the rest of the country and the world to the detriment of so many, don't you think it's about time you lot at least tried to test the waters and see how it goes? Fair suck of the sav mate.

From July 2018 to July 2019 Tassie received 3.5 million visitors. 300,000 of those were international visitors and 3.2 million were domestic overnight visitors. Those tourists and business travelers spent $3.2 Billion in Tassie over the course of those 12 months. Your job and income might not be negatively impacted by tourism or by Covid, but surely you can see that many other Taswegians and their businesses have been affected gravely and people are hurting. After nearly two years we're talking about over $6 Billion gone from your economy which represents not just corporate losses but also many regular middle and working class people's income that has been taken away for two years in a row. Could you survive two years without any or with drastically reduced income? Tens of thousands of working families have been irreparably fucked with no way to recover or to make up even a small portion of that lost income. We have yet to understand and feel the full economic and social repercussions of this catastrophic turn of events.

You can look the other way or stick your head in the sand but the 13 Taswegians dead from Covid in 2020/21 is hardly the only tragic story to be told here. Thousands more Tassie lives have already been destroyed by economic asphyxiation. Pull yer head out. You seem to only be able to look at it from the privileged perspective where opening up for tourism would put a price on your life. But you're completely ignoring the fact that the alternative of staying closed indefinitely to protect some people's health and safety would mean that the price of your safety will then be extracted from many other's lives. That extra little measure of safety and protection that closed borders would provide for you, which would for the most part just be a psycological benefit anyway, would literally make others' lives expendable. Let them eat cake, eh?

[Dead1]

Whitenoise, those tourists just fuck everything up.  One of my favourite places is the Cataract Gorge and the tourists come en masse and it loses its natural beauty (plus they leave rubbish every where and we locals can't get a park and get charged tourist rates at cafes and restaurants and Hobart just gets inundated and fucked with massive congestion.

Oh and the tourist joints survived COVID and thrived thanks to massive government subsidies - Tassie economy did veey well thanks to government  handouts.  Many put on staff so they could milk government  payments (but didn't get staff to work hours- happened at the hotel my mother in law works at.).  

Most local tourist enterprises rip staff off endemically.   It is why nearly all the service staff are now Chinese or Filipino.  Those middle class tourist operators hate paying a living wage or giving staff any conditions.  I know proper trained chefs who prefer to work as cooks in hospitals or on the overnight ferry  because the conditions and salaries are better.   My wife's cousin sacked every single Aussie staff at her cafe and replaced them with Asians on fixed term visas pre COVID.  She complains about not being able to find staff (foxed term immigrants dried up) but pays peanuts and expects them to work like dogs (eg double shift on Saturday finishing late and then start Sunday morning).

 

I have tales and tales of people O know eho were massively exploited in the tourist industry.

COVID presented  a massive opportunity to reindustrialise but instead they wish to keep the old exploitation based "service" economy going.

I know you Americans see everything through the prism of a dollar, but there is more to life than just making pofits.  

 

 

So fuck capitalists, big or small.  I have never met one who did mot try to rip their staff off.

 

And I would rather they suffer financially and squirm than risk my family or I to COVID (noting both in laws are at risk and daughter has resporatory issues).

 

 

In fact in my ideal world, the capitalists get to experience the joys their peers experienced in  1920s-30s USSR and 1950-60s China.

 

 

Oh and finally as of tomorrow no COVID tests required, just vaccine confirmation. Test only required if you are from a high risk area.  And just cause you are vaccinated doesn't mean you can't catch it.

 

 

And we can revisit this topic in July assiming Adblue shortage or COVID or results of invasion of Ukraine and/or Taiwan doesn't wipe us out first.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Well as much as I wish it weren't so Deadovic, I think we Yanks at least have been left with no choice but to see everything through the prism of the almighty dollar because that's the society we have inherited to live in. Since most of us modern people don't possess the skill sets of rugged 19th century homesteaders who chopped down trees to build their own houses, killed and grew their own food, sewed their own clothes and required no fossil fuels because they used horses for transportation and burned trees for heat, it's imperative that most of us denizens of the 21st century go out and acquire a bunch of these dollars in order to keep a roof over our heads, keep the lights on, put food in our bellies and keep the SUV in the driveway. We're all players in a game we had no hand in creating. I don't know how anyone can be expected to live in western society today and divorce themselves from the need to acquire dollars. Some people have managed to figure this out but clearly they're the exception.

I reject your characterization (yes I know my American Z's must be driving you nuts haha) that staying closed to visitors and tourism indefinitely will simply make people "suffer financially and squirm" as if it was just some minor inconvenience they should just be able to harden the fuck up, shake it off and get over having no money coming in. How are the people most affected supposed to live? I can't comprehend this "I've got mine so fuck everyone else" attitude I see so much of these days. I realize we're in completely different parts of the world though Deadly and I freely admit that I have no idea what it's been like during the pandemic financially for most Taswegians. But I can tell you that over here things are pretty well good and fucked.

I know our government made available some large amounts of "PPE" money to corporations and businesses both big and small last year much of which was acquired shadily by businesses that didn't really need it when it was supposed to be used for paycheck protections for workers who had been laid off due to covid. I'm sure a lot of that money found its way into Congressmen's pockets as well. The US government really dropped the ball bigtime on that shit. But still most middle and working class people haven't been getting so many subsidies over here except that one token check for $1,200 plus $500 for each kid that all taxpayers got last year. Which was little more than a symbolic gesture beacuse it did very little to actually help all the people who legitimately had been forced to stop working or had their businesses and workplaces close down permanently because of Covid. They should have targeted those who were truly in need and given them more and the rest of us could have gotten by on our own as could the big corporations. I remember hearing rumors around election time last year of the govt possibly issuing another check to taxpayers but I know I never got one. There were unemployment benefits which included extra special Covid bounuses for many workers who'd lost their jobs last spring but time has expired on all of that and a lot of people in need were never eligible for those benefits in the first place for various reasons. But we're mostly opened up and back to work now since the vaccines became widely available, although the employment statistics are misleading as there are many more underemployed people now than there were before who are reduced to working jobs and in some cases multiple jobs that even together don't pay them nearly enough to survive. And people who have given up looking for work aren't included.

I hear you though about the shitty tourism industry fucking up your lovely little island, both the throngs of inconsiderate tourists themselves and the tourism industry employers that are treating workers like rubbish because they can get away with it. I understand that when times are tough and other industries dry up that some places resort basically to whoring themselves out for money (tourism) because they can't think of an easier better way to bring in that very much needed money. I'm sure most of us hate this new service based economy and the gig economy but what are most people's options? Funny, you bring up the reindustrialization of Australia like it was a simple little thing that could be accomplished in a week or a month or even a year. You sound like a thousand politicians I've heard who stand up at the podium and claim they're gonna bring the jobs back and then nothing happens after they're eected because it's not as feasible as you think for a multitude of complicated reasons not the least of which is $$$ but that's better left for a whole 'nother discussion altogether.

I felt similarly to you I think though when I lived on Long Island. Over time it had just gotten so unbelievably crowded that you can't get anywhere because the roads are always chocka with cars that don't seem to be moving, and continually having so many new arrivals (both tourists and immigrants) just made the congestion that much worse. LI is only about 15 miles (25km) wide (varies in spots) and they're at the point now where there's literally just no more room. It was so noisy and dirty and run down and prices & taxes got so high that my wife insisted we leave to raise our son elsewhere in 2016 and I was only too happy to pack up and get out of Dodge. My parents are dead, my daughter is in Florida, my sister is here in Jersey so I have no one close to me left living there anymore which means I have no compelling reason to ever go back.

When I was a kid in the 60's Long Island was mostly farm country once you got about 25 miles out from NYC. But by the 2000's or even by the late 90's it had become total suburban sprawl with heavy traffic, massive generic clusters of big box stores, asphalt parking lots and strip malls as far as the eye can see for about 85% of the 120 miles from NYC (200km) almost all the way out to the end. Not saying I wish we could roll back the calendar and put things back like they were in 1970 because progress is progress, it's inevitable, time marches on and you have to take the bad byproducts of progress along with the good ones. Not saying you have to like all the bad parts but what choice do you have but to accept them? Guess that makes me a hypocrite because I got out of the big city rat race and relocated to a semi-rural area off the Island where I'm exponentially happier. 

Bottom line though Deadovic, I sincerely hope that you and your family and the other rellies won't be adversely affected by the Covid virus and make it through this pandemic unscathed. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and check back in July and give us a report.

[AlSymerz]

Victoria has copped the brunt of Australia's covid cases, for multiple reasons ranging from the politicians to the people in general. 140K infected with more than 2000 dead for the entire period, more than half the cases of covid in Australia happened in Victoria. Something like 70% of the deaths in this country have been in Victoria. Yet I still don't know a single person who has been tested, let alone getting the virus.

Before NSW opened up back in November it was predicted they would get more than 3000 cases a day and up to 100 deaths. Even with the new variant NSW have had nothing of the sort, their daily cases barely even went up, they started coming down within days and kept trending that way. NSW began accepting both national and international travellers again, yet their figures still went down. The numbers have risen a bit since Omicron but last I checked they still hadn't broken 500 a day. Call it luck, call it good management, call it whatever you like but the bottom line is the doomsayer predictions, supposedly from reliable and reputable sources, of more than 3000 cases a day not only didn't come true it didn't come anywhere close. Even in Victoria where people just seem to want to catch the virus and keep the numbers high haven't reach the predicted daily figures the media told us would happen.

 

The risk is real and every state has to deal with it but not opening up only prolongs that risk. WA and Tassie were very complacent with vaccinations, WA is still struggling to get needles in arms. Wait six months with zero cases and that wont change, people already thinking there is no rush to get the vax will continue to think that. Then come 6 months down the track the state is desperate to open because it's going broke and needs support from the rest of the country and the current problem will still be there. The difference will be is that the rest of the country will have learnt to live with it, the closed states wont have and they'll be overwhelmed with a small number of cases.

[Dead1]

2 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Yet I still don't know a single person who has been tested, let alone getting the virus.

Before NSW opened up back in November it was predicted they would get more than 3000 cases a day and up to 100 deaths. Even with the new variant NSW have had nothing of the sort, their daily cases barely even went up, they started coming down within days and kept trending that way. NSW began accepting both national and international travellers again, yet their figures still went down. The numbers have risen a bit since Omicron but last I checked they still hadn't broken 500 a day. Call it luck, call it good management, call it whatever you like but the bottom line is the doomsayer predictions, supposedly from reliable and reputable sources, of more than 3000 cases a day not only didn't come true it didn't come anywhere close. Even in Victoria where people just seem to want to catch the virus and keep the numbers high haven't reach the predicted daily figures the media told us would happen.

 

The risk is real and every state has to deal with it but not opening up only prolongs that risk. WA and Tassie were very complacent with vaccinations, WA is still struggling to get needles in arms. Wait six months with zero cases and that wont change, people already thinking there is no rush to get the vax will continue to think that. Then come 6 months down the track the state is desperate to open because it's going broke and needs support from the rest of the country and the current problem will still be there. The difference will be is that the rest of the country will have learnt to live with it, the closed states wont have and they'll be overwhelmed with a small number of cases.

 

 

Little wonder COVID's been running rampant if you're not testing.  I've been tested multiple times and so have my wife, daughter, in-laws, friends etc.  The rules were if you were sick you couldn't go back to work without a negative COVID  test.  You actually couldn't go to a doctor without a COVID test.  A mate of mine works on the ferry and he is tested regularly.

 

 

And it's total bullshit Tassie was complacent with vaccinations.  We were leading the country in vaccinations until the NSW outbreak forced them to go into overdrive.  We were first state to reach 50% vaccination rate.

 

https://www.premier.tas.gov.au/site_resources_2015/additional_releases/major_milestone_in_vaccination_effort

Tassie is not going broke either - economy is going gangbusters - best performing economy at times.  

 

https://www.9news.com.au/national/tasmania-australias-best-performing-economy-as-population-booms/2f313599-1180-49b2-9b8c-d53b9e5fdc9a

.  

Of course it's all bullshit growth - housing etc - houses are now unaffordable even to people on full time wages (yep I know several people who are employed full time in retail, teaching, hospitality who can't afford to buy a house due to skyrocketing prices and equally skyrocketing rents).

Tassie always received a large government subsidy as one of the poorer states.  

 

Finally the states don't directly receive income tax revenue, corporate tax revenue, a large chunk of royalties, any GST revenue or excise tax revenue.  These are collected by Commonwealth government and doled out based on agreements and archaic historical practice.

So states can't go broke as they collect very few taxes (stamp duties, motor vehicle registration, payroll tax).

EG nearly 50% of Victoria's revenue comes from Commonwealth grants, 11% from sale of goods and service (eg transport, health, any government tourist operators), and only 34% from state taxes (5% comes from other sources like dividends from GBEs). 

These days even a lot of health and education dollars don't go to state governments, but rather private sector.

 

 

2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

I hear you though about the shitty tourism industry fucking up your lovely little island, both the throngs of inconsiderate tourists themselves and the tourism industry employers that are treating workers like rubbish because they can get away with it. I understand that when times are tough and other industries dry up that some places resort basically to whoring themselves out for money (tourism) because they can't think of an easier better way to bring in that very much needed money. I'm sure most of us hate this new service based economy and the gig economy but what are most people's options? Funny, you bring up the reindustrialization of Australia like it was a simple little thing that could be accomplished in a week or a month or even a year. You sound like a thousand politicians I've heard who stand up at the podium and claim they're gonna bring the jobs back and then nothing happens after they're eected because it's not as feasible as you think for a multitude of complicated reasons not the least of which is $$$ but that's better left for a whole 'nother discussion altogether.

 

Actually it's a deliberate 40 year policy of deindustrialisation.  Eg the urea shortage.  Over last few years several companies have wanted to produce more of this in Australia but the issue is obtaining natural gas.  Australia is the world's biggest natural gas producer but we have shortages because it's all exported (and the exporters ala Shell or Chevron pay next to no tax or royalties).

The situation is so dire a major urea plant in Brisbane is closing down due to lack of gas despite demand for the product going through the roof.

The Australian government solution is to buy more urea from other international sources, not support long term development of it in Australia.

The Australian government deliberately destroyed the cargo ship building industry (last ship produced 1991), the maritime industry (by allowing offshore companies using foreign flagged ships and crews for interstate trade*) and then the car industry (last car produced 2017).  There is only 2 oil refineries left out of 8 and one of those is considering closing down.

*In 1989 Australia had over 100 large Australian flagged commercial ships, it's now 13 (and this an island country reliant on imports)

COVID gave us an opportunity to reverse this.  Yes I know it would take 5-6 years for some of this stuff to come on line and some 10 years +.  But the government decided the only thing it wanted to pursue was more export of fossil fuels.

I wrote a letter to quite a few politicians about the need for self sufficiency in key industries (agriculture, petro-chemicals, agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals, shipping etc).  Only two politicians responded - one said she agreed we need to think more about self sufficiency but international trade is more important, the other wished me merry Christmas.

 

 

So we're down to tourism as the only industry.  And it's a shit one for a ton of reasons - environment, exploitation, congestion, housing (especially when rental stock is converted to Air BnB), it enforces poverty, it monetizes natural resources and creates terrible social inequality.

 

 

---

 

Finally it sucks what has happened to Long Island where you live.  This is the problem with unsustainable economic growth models pursued by our governments at the behest of their capitalist masters.

 

 

 

 

 

[AlSymerz]

Why get tested if you have no symptoms? Even asymptomatic people will show signs around them. Testing just because one has the sniffles is a waste of time and resources better put to use elsewhere. Victorians as a whole are still getting tested, maybe not in the numbers they were at the height of the outbreak. 55K people got tested yesterday with 1.2K found to be positive, those are about average numbers for Victoria for the last 6 months. 54,000 tests in a state of 6.6 million people may not appear to be many but 1200 positive tests isn't many either.

(Queue the comment about the virus laying dormant in the millions who don't get tested because they don't want to be put into isolation, or miss work, or miss a Christmas party.)

I do understand the anxiety of some Tasmanians, we lived through a similar thing between lockdowns 5 and 6 where Dan's Ring Of Steel failed to keep covid out of regional areas. We weren't keen to open to city dwellers either, but it had to happen because just like no state in the country is self sufficient, no regional area is self sufficient. Freight was always coming through, medical was always coming through, the ring of steel was never going to work in real life the way it did on paper, just like border closures. I also understand that the anxiety many Tasmanians are living through right now is mostly fear of the unknown, not known, they don't know what will happen, and estimates and forecasts do little more than scare people.

If people want to live their life in the worst case scenario that's fine but for those who don't perspective is a wonderful thing.

 

 

[Dead1]

20 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Why get tested if you have no symptoms? Even asymptomatic people will show signs around them. Testing just because one has the sniffles is a waste of time and resources better put to use elsewhere. Victorians as a whole are still getting tested, maybe not in the numbers they were at the height of the outbreak. 55K people got tested yesterday with 1.2K found to be positive, those are about average numbers for Victoria for the last 6 months. 54,000 tests in a state of 6.6 million people may not appear to be many but 1200 positive tests isn't many either.

(Queue the comment about the virus laying dormant in the millions who don't get tested because they don't want to be put into isolation, or miss work, or miss a Christmas party.)

I do understand the anxiety of some Tasmanians, we lived through a similar thing between lockdowns 5 and 6 where Dan's Ring Of Steel failed to keep covid out of regional areas. We weren't keen to open to city dwellers either, but it had to happen because just like no state in the country is self sufficient, no regional area is self sufficient. Freight was always coming through, medical was always coming through, the ring of steel was never going to work in real life the way it did on paper, just like border closures. I also understand that the anxiety many Tasmanians are living through right now is mostly fear of the unknown, not known, they don't know what will happen, and estimates and forecasts do little more than scare people.

If people want to live their life in the worst case scenario that's fine but for those who don't perspective is a wonderful thing.

 

 

The testing was required if we exhibited any symptoms or if we worked in a higher risk area.

That's one of many reasons Tasmania hasn't had much COVID and virtually none for a long time.

 

As for fear of the unknown, yes I agree there is a lot of that.  There is also fear because of what is known - and that is that the Tasmanian healthcare system is poor compared to the rest of the country.  We have shortages of every type of medical personnel you can imagine and in some cases are well below UN guidelines on a per capita basis.   What staff exists are often subpar dregs from the mainland who come here because they can't get work anywhere else as our salaries are too low to attract decent staff.  

A lot of it is the government's fault - refusal to acknowledge our salaries are uncompetitive, cutbacks in terms of bed numbers and services as well as creeping privatisation.

The main Tasmanian hospitals (and I work for them) are essentially crap.  Launceston one was featured as a headline story in 4 Corners for medical negligence - something like 14 patients effectively killed by it in a few short years.  And nothing has changed after the report.

Negligence is endemic - we literally started up one service without a model of care and a patient was dead within 2 weeks of it starting.

Access to private specialists is limited as wait times are long and many don't bulk bill and charge anywhere up to $130 in gap payments.

 

The other known factor is Tasmania's population is the second least healthy after Northern Territory  - most respiratory diseases, diabetes, obesity, heart diseases and  high instances of smoking and alcohol abuse etc etc. 

 

Thus once COVID is here, we will struggle because we were already struggling before COVID for above reasosns!

 

 

[Natassja]

People are going crazy here to get their booster jabs, NHS site booking shows queueing in the thousands. Been trying to avoid the news cos it's all pretty frightening, would love to know if two jabs really are not cutting it? I dunno what to think anymore. 

In other news I'm recovering from no. 7 molar extraction due to abcess, it broke and dentist had to drill to get it out, then I got a dry socket , honest to god worst pain ever..

[AlSymerz]

No state was 'prepared' for their out breaks, but in the same context no state has suffered as bad as the doomsayers claimed they would. Melbourne has had ramping of ambulances for years at some hospitals, so it was logical to assume they were going to have ramping when covid hit but it was only an assumption. The unions made a stink about it, the unions tried to remind people they were valid by leaking a video of ambulances parked outside a hospital supposedly ramping, it was quickly proven wrong and the media stopped talking about how bad our medical system was going to be and started reporting the daily situation. At no time ever was that situation as bad as the 'experts' claimed it would be. We had experts trying to tell us that normal people would die because they'd go to hospitals with a simple ailment and the hospital would be so overrun with covid they'd either contract it and die, or they wouldn't get any help because there was no nurses or doctors to help them. None of it happened and the so called experts that made all the predictions moved on to something else to scare the people with. The same thing happened in Sydney, numbers increased and medical staff worked their arses off but lives were not lost because covid took over hospitals.

Covid is obviously something we all need to worry about, but we don't need the doomsayers, often masquerading as 'expert doctors' to keep pushing people to the limits of their fear with guesses and estimations of what could happen. Look at the likes of the ABC, a station many claim is the only one to present facts, biased or unbiased. Their go to doctor throughout this pandemic specialised in medical conditions for kids, after failing to get into acting school, and has been working predominately as a tv and radio host for more than 3 decades. Obviously this person has some medical background, but they are a TV/Radio doctor who until the ABC needed a pandemic voice had little to no experience in the field, but is now their go to choice for covid opinion. The worst part of it is that every radio station, newspaper, magazine and TV station have their own medico like that to scare the shit out of the people who can least afford to have to scared out of them

(I deliberately removed the doctor's name and their exact field of study but they are easily identified, I just wont give them advertising or the warm feels of having their name mentioned somewhere they'll probably never see it.)

[Dead1]

49 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

No state was 'prepared' for their out breaks, but in the same context no state has suffered as bad as the doomsayers claimed they would.

I don't believe the media doomsayers.  Literally I have worked for Tasmanian public health for 15 years and have observed the system slowly decay. The decay started becoming a collapse ever since Liberals won power in 2014 and politicised the whole thing. 

We do have ambulance ramping here at the LGH - I can see them every day I go to lunch!   We also have emergency patients parked in hallways etc. 

The stats say the wait times in Emergency Departments are huge (and those are fudged numbers too - they count intra hospital transfers as admissions and discharges to lower wait time).  And again I and plenty of other people I've known have experienced this - 4 hours or more is the average!

 

Sadly I and family members have also been patients in this system and have witnessed how bad it is - eg 6 month wait for my daughter to see an Ears Nose Throat specialist and that's us as private patients, not government waiting list which is longer.

We know there are 12,000 people on elective surgery waiting lists (over 2% of the actual population) and we all know people who are on those lists for everything from busted up knees to bursting ovaries.

I also know ambulances are barely available (probably cause they're being used as glorified hospital beds).  One of our friends' sons pacemaker stopped working and he collapsed - there was no ambulance available and his parents had to take him to hospital in their private car.  In another case at our kids school, a kid fell off something and was seriously hurt - no ambulance available and he was driven to hospital in a private car.

 

 

So how do you think this decayed system will cope with any large COVID outbreak?

[AlSymerz]

The same medical decay has happened in every state, and the Feds severely fucked aged care, Tasmania is not unique and therefore wont have unique issues when it comes to covid.

[Dead1]

8 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

The same medical decay has happened in every state, and the Feds severely fucked aged care, Tasmania is not unique and therefore wont have unique issues when it comes to covid.

It didn't happen as bad because salaries and wages are higher elsewhere in the country (metro areas anyway - rural ones suffer regardless) so they a.) don't have as many vacancies and b.) they get better staff .  Our new Clinical Director is from Melbourne and his previous unit never even had locums whereas for us it's 50% of our workforce (and at times up to 80%).  

Our junior doctors are paid about $20,000 - $25,000 (20%) less than mainland states. 

Nursing salaries are on average 7.5% less than mainland ones (and 12% less than best paid ones in QLD).  Senior nurses are paid considerably less - our former Director of Nursing went to NSW for a lower graded NUM role yet only lost $,2000 in pay for far less responsibility.  Our Clinical Nurse Educator also took a demotion cause they could earn more working shifts than in a higher graded position.

 

Here's some other stats as to why Tassie is worse than other states:

 

https://www.fortysouth.com.au/tasmanian-voices643/tasmanias-healthy-opportunities

 

1. Tasmanians 28% more likely to die from avoidable causes

2. Higher instance of cancers, respiratory illness, diabetes, etc etc

3. 65% of presentations in Tasmanian emergency departments seen on time compared to 74% in mainland

4. Median waiting time for elective surgeries 52 days - more than any other state and 20 days more than national average.

5.  Last 10% of patients had to wait 120 days more for elective surgery than national average.

6. Depending on surgery types, Tasmanians are 15-93% more likely to be readmitted to hospital for complications than mainland (one of our friends near died because of an infection caused by a doctor not using gloves).

7. Ambulance call out time near 60% longer than mainland.

8. Greater difficulty accessing a GP than mainland (little wonder as we have less GPs per capita than UN guidelines).  There is 10% less GPs in Tasmania than on the mainland,

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JonoBlade]

6 hours ago, Natassja said:

People are going crazy here to get their booster jabs, NHS site booking shows queueing in the thousands. Been trying to avoid the news cos it's all pretty frightening, would love to know if two jabs really are not cutting it? I dunno what to think anymore. 

In other news I'm recovering from no. 7 molar extraction due to abcess, it broke and dentist had to drill to get it out, then I got a dry socket , honest to god worst pain ever..

I spent a while trying to book yesterday via NHS. After long waits I got through a couple of times. The first time I got right through to the end and then got an error message. The nearest site option was at least 12 miles away The second time I got through, totally different site options, slightly further way.

My wife had some bad tooth pain about a year ago. Needed root canal. For weeks afterwards she still complained about the pain. So, I sympathise with your pain....but it passes.

P.S. just got through now on NHS again. Nearest is 13.5 miles away. I am afraid I just don't want it that bad. I work from home and school finishes today for my daughter. 

Famous last words.

 

[MacabreEternal]

1 hour ago, JonoBlade said:

I spent a while trying to book yesterday via NHS. After long waits I got through a couple of times. The first time I got right through to the end and then got an error message. The nearest site option was at least 12 miles away The second time I got through, totally different site options, slightly further way.

My wife had some bad tooth pain about a year ago. Needed root canal. For weeks afterwards she still complained about the pain. So, I sympathise with your pain....but it passes.

P.S. just got through now on NHS again. Nearest is 13.5 miles away. I am afraid I just don't want it that bad. I work from home and school finishes today for my daughter. 

Famous last words.

 

I got through on Monday after ten mins and got in next week 1.5 miles away, could have gone this week but too much on at work.  Hope the tooth gets better @Natassja

 

[JonoBlade]

1 hour ago, MacabreEternal said:

I got through on Monday after ten mins and got in next week 1.5 miles away, could have gone this week but too much on at work.  

Forgot to mention my daughter's best friend in class was off school yesterday with IT, so must have contracted on Monday. So, if I'm gonna get it, it will happen imminently. And the booster will be too late. Otherwise, we withdraw into our bunker for Christmas and get deliveries. A reverse "it puts the lotion in the basket!"

Besides, just got an Audient ID44 to play with. I never need to leave the house again.

[FatherAlabaster]

12 hours ago, Natassja said:

People are going crazy here to get their booster jabs, NHS site booking shows queueing in the thousands. Been trying to avoid the news cos it's all pretty frightening, would love to know if two jabs really are not cutting it? I dunno what to think anymore. 

In other news I'm recovering from no. 7 molar extraction due to abcess, it broke and dentist had to drill to get it out, then I got a dry socket , honest to god worst pain ever..

Dental stuff sucks. Hope recovery goes smoothly. Glad they caught it, abscesses are no joke.

 

Still waiting to get my son his first shot, he's scheduled for early next week. My wife had her booster; I'm hoping to get mine soon too. The kid has been an absolute lunatic at home lately - lots for all of us to be stressed about, so I kind of get it, but damn dude. He couldn't sit still for my wife to help him floss his teeth, and that somehow turned into an argument that culminated in him (age 9) yelling that he was "moving out" and storming out of the apartment in his pajamas. Good thing it's all supposed to be smooth sailing once they hit puberty though, right?

[navybsn]

The boosters have been shown to be effective in research trials. I got my third a month or so ago. I don't believe the doomsday prophets anymore than anyone else, but I'm not taking chances. I work in healthcare. I see too many sick folks to take chances not too mention I've been through way too much already to do so. I didn't survive cancer twice to die from a preventable respiratory infection...

One thing that does worry me is that COVID is bad, but there is endless potential for more diseases that are worse in the world. Ebola, Marburg, COVID, H5N1, smallpox, Nipah, Q fever...those things are all known quantities. It's the ones we don't know about that are scary. I highly recommend Spillover by David Quammen and The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett for anyone that is interested in reading about infectious disease and emerging threats. Great books that will keep you up at night. Overpopulation and encroachment in environments where people have not previously been in large numbers is increasing our risk for new zoonosis and most worrisome is that it is happening in places in the world with the worst healthcare systems (SE Asia, South America, Africa).

The healthcare system is fucked if H5N1 ever jumps from birds to people, it will make COVID look minor league. Read The Great Flu by John Barry or any of the myriad of books about the 1918-19 epidemic and imagine how much worse an event like that would be today. The worst impact hasn't been the virus, negligence, or even the tin-foil hat Q-anon bullshit. It is the number of experienced healthcare workers who have died or decided they no longer want to work in the field. Added to the reduced number of people in the pipeline for medical/nursing/med tech training and the pre-existing shortage of healthcare workers, it's a recipe for disaster. The healthcare system in most countries is ripe for collapse unless major intervention/overhaul is done. Healthcare costs, wages, patient expectations, drug prices (in the US), and public health education all need major attention. Now look at me, I'm the doomsday prophet.

[FatherAlabaster]

34 minutes ago, navybsn said:

The boosters have been shown to be effective in research trials. I got my third a month or so ago. I don't believe the doomsday prophets anymore than anyone else, but I'm not taking chances. I work in healthcare. I see too many sick folks to take chances not too mention I've been through way too much already to do so. I didn't survive cancer twice to die from a preventable respiratory infection...

One thing that does worry me is that COVID is bad, but there is endless potential for more diseases that are worse in the world. Ebola, Marburg, COVID, H5N1, smallpox, Nipah, Q fever...those things are all known quantities. It's the ones we don't know about that are scary. I highly recommend Spillover by David Quammen and The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett for anyone that is interested in reading about infectious disease and emerging threats. Great books that will keep you up at night. Overpopulation and encroachment in environments where people have not previously been in large numbers is increasing our risk for new zoonosis and most worrisome is that it is happening in places in the world with the worst healthcare systems (SE Asia, South America, Africa).

The healthcare system is fucked if H5N1 ever jumps from birds to people, it will make COVID look minor league. Read The Great Flu by John Barry or any of the myriad of books about the 1918-19 epidemic and imagine how much worse an event like that would be today. The worst impact hasn't been the virus, negligence, or even the tin-foil hat Q-anon bullshit. It is the number of experienced healthcare workers who have died or decided they no longer want to work in the field. Added to the reduced number of people in the pipeline for medical/nursing/med tech training and the pre-existing shortage of healthcare workers, it's a recipe for disaster. The healthcare system in most countries is ripe for collapse unless major intervention/overhaul is done. Healthcare costs, wages, patient expectations, drug prices (in the US), and public health education all need major attention. Now look at me, I'm the doomsday prophet.

When I think about all of this stuff I seriously do feel pretty fucking hopeless. Another thing I read about recently is how climate change is going to expand the range of mosquitoes and mosquito-borne illnesses across the southern USA. The article said something about a "superplague" or "megaplague" or something. No silver lining. Neither of those are even good band names.

[navybsn]

1 hour ago, FatherAlabaster said:

When I think about all of this stuff I seriously do feel pretty fucking hopeless. Another thing I read about recently is how climate change is going to expand the range of mosquitoes and mosquito-borne illnesses across the southern USA. The article said something about a "superplague" or "megaplague" or something. No silver lining. Neither of those are even good band names.

Malaria and other mosquito borne illnesses are still a huge threat to humanity that get little attention in the west. We tend to think of them as a "third world" problem, but as Zika proved a few years ago, we are certainly vulnerable. And don't forget tick-borne illnesses that continue to threaten to become a bigger problem. Global warming and population encroachment continue to increase our exposure to new vectors of disease that do not bode well for humanity in general.