[…]
[…]
You've said that most new cases are still coming into Australia from overseas.
There were some pretty confronting scenes today at Sydney Airport, where big crowds of people were arriving and going to be temperature tested in spaces where there was clearly insufficient room for any sort of social distancing.
How can a situation like that be allowed to happen?
Incompetence?
A couple of things I'd say about that:
One is, that the numbers of people returning from overseas are decreasing quite rapidly. But there's still several thousand people every day.
Now, as intelligent a person as I am (a Professor at ANU), I shall pretend that your point is about the testing, and not the amount of space.
Uh… it's interesting that you would say that people were concerned about being held up for temperature testing. Of course, a few days ago we were being criticised for not testing enough at the airport.
Christ, you sound like a politician. You're supposed to be a medical expert.
I'm not saying that they were concerned about that.
I'm saying that the concern was the amount of space that had been allocated.
Don't you have any shame?
Apparently not. Let me ignore your question and change the topic.
Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why we've gone to the 14 days of self-isolation.
Verily, before 15 March, we travelled forward in time and saw today's packed queues at Sydney Airport, and this influenced our decision to extend the 14-day isolation requirement to all international arrivals from 15 March.
That means staying at home, umm, because… airports are not set up for this sort of thing
so it's the airport's fault, for being an incompetent airport.
[…]
Can you explain to people watching tonight why the health body that advises the government is not opting for the extreme lockdown measures that are being used in the UK and in New Zealand? […]
In terms of […] should we go hard-and-fast or should we have a proportionate response
note how I use "proportionate" rather than "proportional", so as to imply, from the outset of my answer, that hard-and-fast is disproportionate
that can be scaled over time, uh… there is a difference of opinion, I'll agree with that.
[…] [COVID-19] is an infectious disease, it's transmitted from person to person, it's mostly when you're very close to another person, and you increase that by being in large crowds of people who may or may not have the infection
such as high-density queues for Centrelink or for temperature screening at Sydney Airport.
[…]
Why was the half-hour advice given about hairdressers and then changed so soon after, how does that square with the assurance that all the restrictions follow expert medical advice?
Iunno.
In terms of hairdressers […] it's impractical to keep the […] 1.5 metres […] but there are many other things that people can do […]. So minimising the time is one of them. […] Second of all if you are sick, don't go and get your hair cut. If you are a sick hairdresser, don't go to work.
But you're not answering the actual question, which is regarding how the rule can be changed from one day to the next if the restrictions are based on the medical advice.
Incompetence?
Uh look, the advice we give goes to the Cabinet; the Cabinet have their discussions; I'm not privy to how those discussions went […].
Things are changing every day here […] and that was one of the things that was changed today.
Dr Kelly, thanks for your time.
You're welcome, Leigh.