Australian Response

It's part of our society to disagree as well. Currently I don't think that neither quarantine nor any sort of travel restrictions work. It would have and did, way back when Italy had such high numbers and Austria didn't, for instance. However it's never a long term solution and in the end, the negative effects outweigh the reality by far. The virus is already there, with all the variants.

It's not really that by setting one foot across the border that you're infecting yourself, or are automatically at risk. Same as airline travel, infections in airplanes are actually lower than in supermarkets. Also that 5km ruling within Ireland was a bit overblown, no other EU country had that. In the end, no government regulation can and could protect you from getting infected, it's your or everyone's behaviour.

Also governments and lawmakers are not very realistic on this. Ever seen these large crowds and queues at Heathrow airport recently? ( no distancing options and long wait times created by all the ridiculous entry requirements whilst at the Euro finals in the Wembley arena, nobody cared about distancing rules? ) Obviously money talks here. and there is lot's of it in football.....

As it says in the song: You'll be sent to Van Diemen's Land, far away from friends and relations, betrayed by the black velvet band.....

And I can't wait to emigrate from Ireland and have been planning on doing so for years.

Are you Australian?

If so you can get back there now.

I'm Irish and I'm heading to Australia next month.

Yes I am, but I have my sights set on NZ.

I think I'd rather prefer staying at home voluntarily, than somebody imposing ridiculous fines for being out alone not meeting anybody but in the late night.

I've also never been too concerned what others are doing whatever that was.

I would have suggested some form of extra charge for those who end up needing intensive care hospital treatment rather than some ridiculous travel rules or fines of being out and about at 3am at night completely alone. ( Germany had those rules )

However the easy part was that I am single living / staying alone in an apartment. It's certainly more challenging if one is living with a partner a family and having children, especially if schooling is involved.

In the same storm but not in the same boat is the best description.

However there is no excuse for those long queues at airports these days, or that idiocy they did at Dover port in the UK just before Christmas. This is clearly not science based.

In Germany they could fine you when you were out and about at the wrong time at night, even if you were alone. There was a case where one guy went at 3am to the automatic wending machine to buy cigarettes and was fined. I am an avid non smoker myself, but it was then and there, when I understood that the corona mesures were getting ridiculous. This guy was walking alone without meeting anybody to buy something at a vending machine.

Germany never had a 5km radius limit on movement, but various different states in Germany had a night time stay at home order. So in practical life, if you were caught in a traffic jam on the way home from work, or something else, or your tire had a puncture and needed changing, you could either speed home and risk lives or demerit points on your license, or drive according to the rules, but face fines for not being at home at a certain time.

In Germany they also did other ridiculous things like limiting shopping hours of essential food stores, meaning the same amount of people was congesting at a shorter period of time.

Last time I was in Dublin, was in 2017, and there was a massive, massive housing crisis to the likes I've never seen. Even renting in London was cheaper. People were renting and sharing properties, even with salaries of 50 to 60 k upwards and viewings for rental apartments were with 30 or 40 other punters and was more like a lottery getting a letting agreement. I would largely believe that that situation alone would have been a massive driver in upwards figures in Covid 19.

I'm an Australian living in Ireland. You think I should be disinterested? I don't think my post count on this thread is in the many hundreds, like the clown I was referring to. I might be forgiven for thinking you couldn't think of an adequate come back. I suppose it was one step better than posting nothing but a link to some Youtube video of a guffawing head like some other dimwit did recently.

Yes, so trustworthy 🥴 https://twitter.com/abcmediawatch/status/1434843095632265221?s=21

The problem is that the quarantine is completely senseless. Australia can't keep the virus out this way anyway.

14 days in a room is one thing, but listening to all these f-words and punching walls by other "inmates" is another thing.

It's probably wise to avoid Australia.

A 14 day hotel prison sentence for a crime one didn't commit isn't worth Australia.

Australia has a very long history of hardcore bio-security and of keeping things out to protect the agriculture industry, and has been quite successful at it, particularly WA. No foot and mouth, no rabies, etc. I once flew back to Perth with my son, and they ran a beagle over all the bags. The pooch nabbed my son's and I was asked if there was any food in it, particularly meats or dairy. I replied that it hadn't and it was searched thoroughly - then I was asked had there been any food in the bag earlier, and I replied there had been a ham sandwich that had been duly eaten in Singapore. :-) I won't bother describing what goes on with asking people about having been anywhere near a farm overseas and the cleaning of the soles of footwear with chemicals if they have.

Try taking a family pet to Australia - usually it would have to spend months in quarantine, with a hefty bill. They arrested Amber Heard when she and Johnny Depp thumbed their noses at the strict rules and brought their two dogs with them on a private jet, and presumably lied about it in the declaration.

The eastern states managed to get starlings, so WA had Agriculture Protection Board officers stationed at the border with SA with rifles on the lookout, and awaiting reports of sitings of of a starling or two, then they would be off to hunt them down if a report came in, as they did. Last I heard, they had been pretty successful in finding and killing them. They were also stopping vehicles entering WA from SA or the NT and checking for and confiscating all fruit and vegetables because of fruit fly. I remember way back in the 70's, a newspaper story of the APB getting reports of brambles and hunting down and exterminating the last of them. I believe they actually did manage to hunt down and eliminate brambles from WA. The one that they were hot on, last I heard, but which I think might have been gaining the upper hand, was the European Wasp, the ones we get.

They managed to keep the Spanish flu out for all of 1918 with tough measures, but a case slipped through in 2019 and then 15,000 Australians died.

https://www.naa.gov.au/blog/closed-borders-and-broken-agreements-spanish-flu-australia

So what's happened here is just an extension of that mindset and history, only I think you are right, this one couldn't have been kept out without far, far more stringent measures. Had Covid been a latter day Bubonic plague, with a 50-75% mortality rate, Australia could and probably would have kept it out, even if it meant using the military to kill any and all trying to get in. With Covid, the stakes aren't high enough to warrant such measures, thankfully.

Quite a lucid post from an American fanboi. Congrats

Very apt username/post combo there!

648,000 Americans have died, and even now US still more Covid deaths every day than Australia has had during the entire pandemic. But Australia's the basket case, apparently.