Covid 19 - Updates from your zones

[Róisín]

Just to brighten the day completely: (bitter irony) the local Australian music and arts communities have been doing it very hard, and at present many music festivals, concerts and other performance venues are being shut down all over, with no help for the performers who of course don’t get paid for these gigs which are being cancelled at the last minute. So in the middle of cancelled music festivals in the same area, Hillsong Church holds a ‘youth camp’, part of which involved over 200 people dancing and singing, maskless, inside a large tent.

Hillsong is the Church whose founding ‘Pastor’ is a man currently on charges of concealing sexual molestation charges against one of his family members. Our Prime Minister, Morrison, has acknowledged this man as a mentor, and last year tried to get him an audience with Donald Trump at a dinner party. The Trump White House chose to distance itself from the scandal at the time.

Hillsong will not be fined, according to today’s news. Superspreader event? When it is difficult to get permission for one singer at a regular church service, and music venues are being closed all over the country? Rank hath its privileges.

[thorny]

Good grief, they were too scandalous for Trump? I didn't think that was possible.

[midwestmutt]

The wife of my sister's oldest son lost an uncle to Covid a few days ago. That's the 3rd death in the Missouri branch of the family. I didn't know him myself.

[Opaque]

Wow! Trump (the walking scandal that he is) is lucky he had people around him who knew better than to get into that mess. They already had their own messes to sweep under the rug.
But, yeah. That church needs to stay away from any children. They've got a history (according to wikipedia).

Midwestmutt that sounds rough. Hope she's okay. Death is never easy to cope with.

[Lenny]

Yeeeah, Hillsong has a bad reputation, even among Christian circles. The only people I know who liked it got sucked in by the music, and I said liked for a reason, haha. Not surprised they've managed to be above the law, though =_=

[Róisín]

Midwestmutt, sympathy about the deaths in the family. It’s rough to lose so many people close together.

Covid infection figures in Australia are getting worse, which is scary, and in the wake of the recent fuss about a probably non-vaccinated Serbian tennis player, who had been given a special exemption to come to Australia to play in the Australian Open by one branch of the government and then chucked out and deported by the federal government when the PM needed to brandish his toughness, it all gets very confusing. Especially since the PM has said that the reason for deporting Djokovic is in case he becomes an anti-vaccination icon.

It is now being suggested that the PM should do something to bring to heel  the members of his own party who are being openly anti-vax on social media and are actively agitating against vaccine mandates. Personally I think that insisting that staff in nursing homes, hospitals and such be vaccinated is a good idea. Politics, bloody politics.

[wavewright62]

The deporting of said tennis player (not using the name deliberately) is very peculiar indeed, given the stance over holding the Australian Open in the first place.
I wonder whether the dude is actually not fit to play and has negotiated an exit that can be utilised later for political gain by both camps. 
*smacks tinfoil hat off head* Who put that there?

[Grade E cat]

Covid infection figures in Australia are getting worse, which is scary, and in the wake of the recent fuss about a probably non-vaccinated Serbian tennis player, who had been given a special exemption to come to Australia to play in the Australian Open by one branch of the government and then chucked out and deported by the federal government when the PM needed to brandish his toughness, it all gets very confusing. Especially since the PM has said that the reason for deporting Djokovic is in case he becomes an anti-vaccination icon.

Considering a hashtag I noticed trending while checking Twitter recently, I'm afraid you can scrap the "in case".

[JoB]

and then chucked out and deported by the federal government when the PM needed to brandish his toughness

Dunno whether I'd want to believe that that was his entire motivation. The federal government has stated that there never was any exemption in the legalese allowing unvaccinated people to be permitted in, and it has been said that the PM was at liberty to make a final ruling, even in the spirit of said legalese if he so chooses, rather than merely revisiting lower levels' decisions and correct whatever mistakes he finds there.

I have to say that I'd like to hear the first judge explain his reasoning, though. By allowing Djokovic to remain, in my opinion, he either stated that the feds' statement "no exemptions" was a falsehood, or that the causa Djokovic was somehow above that law (possible IMHO, but sure merits an explanation). Which one was it, your honor ... ?

Personally I think that insisting that staff in nursing homes, hospitals and such be vaccinated is a good idea. Politics, bloody politics.

It is a good idea as long as you can get enough staff with that additional qualification, and there are enough people who think that that can be done that several nations already made that mandatory (France) or are very likely to follow suit (Germany).

General mandatory vaccination is a much stranger beast, alas. I think that it would still be a good idea, what with our vaccination rate being 75%-ish and the rate thought necessary to keep the 5th wave well manageable having been upped to 95% by omicron, but that alone doesn't make such a thing legal for our federal gvt to enact. In order to suspend constitutional rights, the suspension must be demonstrated to be strictly necessary, and mandatory vaccination is too late for the current 4th wave while the variant promising to fuel the 5th, omicron, has several renowned epidemiologists thinking about whether that might already be the one changing COVID-19 from a pandemic to an endemic illness ...

[JoB]

Dunno whether I'd want to believe that that was his entire motivation. The federal government has stated that there never was any exemption in the legalese allowing unvaccinated people to be permitted in, and it has been said that the PM was at liberty to make a final ruling, even in the spirit of said legalese if he so chooses, rather than merely revisiting lower levels' decisions and correct whatever mistakes he finds there.

I have to say that I'd like to hear the first judge explain his reasoning, though. By allowing Djokovic to remain, in my opinion, he either stated that the feds' statement "no exemptions" was a falsehood, or that the causa Djokovic was somehow above that law (possible IMHO, but sure merits an explanation). Which one was it, your honor ... ?

OK, two corrections, lest someone beats me to it:

• The decision wasn't the PM's, but up to minister Alex Hawke. Morrison merely publicly welcomed the result.
• The first court decision was based on Djokovic's side not having gotten the time to properly prepare their case. So, not above the law, but not yet fully under its rule.

[Opaque]

In Oklahoma, the government is saying that if you are completely vaccinated then you should still go to work. It doesn't matter if you test positive or not. It's up to the individual companies to decide to protect their employees or not. The only excuse for quarantine is if you have symptoms. This is the reason the hospitals are swamped with people looking for tests. People who have tested positive still get called into work.
This is completely unacceptable. I really, really don't like Oklahoma right now...

[Róisín]

Opaque, similar things are happening here. Including that medical staff and other essential workers are being ordered to work whether or not they are positive, unless they have obvious symptoms. This includes staff at the Narracoorte abattoir, which supplies meat to several big supermarket chains.

And the medical centre down there, where one of my cousins is a doctor, has been authorised to get a lot of vaccines, but no refrigerated transport or storage has been provided for the doses. The doctors are trying to get a refrigerated truck to get the doses there from Adelaide and store them. There’s nothing like organisation……

[tehta]

Woo, we're in a plateau! For five days now, the number of currently infected people has held at one in twenty-three.

[Róisín]

Rough here today. 13 deaths in our state, about 1500 new infections. Not good.

[Grade E cat]

Had a day with more than half a million new cases country-wide recently. Apprently we have also reached the point where one person out of ten has had Covid at some point.