Probability of International Travel from January

I think it will be targeted lockdowns on a go hard go early basis, which won’t affect international travel. A bit like NZ locking down Auckland. I don’t think we will go back to Gladys’ ‘go soft and wait a few weeks’ catastrophic approach again. I am sure we will be travelling abroad by December.

patrickk...that's a bold assumption to claim "targeted lockdowns on a go hard go early basis, which won’t affect international travel". Whilst the various states continue to behave in such a haphazard way, I would doubt very much that these states will change their Health Orders to allow for any kind of travelling into Australia from overseas anytime soon. Good luck with your December prediction. Perhaps you meant December 2022?

My take as a doctor is that this will never end until most of the population opposes it. Unless they can foresee continuing the restrictions etc to cause them to lose elections, they will continue the status quo. Covid-19 has never been a health crisis, it has always been a political crisis. Left to right wing of the spectrum doesn't really matter.

Covid is dangerous, it always has been, but are we over-exaggerating how bad it is? For sure covid is worse than the flu, annual flu seasons do not cause hospitals to be overrun as you can see in many parts of the world. Yet when you look at the death toll of the disease all over the world, over 18 months, adopting various forms of lockdowns, restrictions, no restrictions, there has been no difference in rates of death across the globe. Total mortality in 2020 is 10% greater than 2019, but that happened everywhere regardless of lockdowns, even Australia weirdly enough despite having minimal cases. We just transferred covid deaths to deaths due to heart disease, COPD, cancer and suicide due to the strict lockdowns and missing medical appointments.

In my ICU in the past week, over here in north QLD, we just had 3 deaths due to parainfluenza and a couple more in the general wards, but have we locked down the entire town or state due to this outbreak? Nope, we chugged along trying our best to don PPE before seeing those patients. According to covid logic, we probably should lockdown Cairns and Brisbane as well due to a paraflu outbreak here.

My colleague in the ICU just remarked the other day, "this is the 7th hanging we've seen this year, and I've only seen 3 the entirety of 2020, I wonder why we have so many more suicides." I didn't have the heart to tell him why suicides are going up, it was pretty obvious. We are trading the lives of our youth and children just to "save grandma". In one of those grandmas who had paraflu and was dying, her son wasn't able to travel from Sydney, or rather was stuck in Brisbane due to bureaucracy and wasn't able to say his goodbyes. We actually kept her artificially going for a further 48h just for the hope that the son can arrive, he never made it.

One doesn't need to think hard to see why it is political and never about medical. Somehow we need curfews now because of covid, no leaving the house after 8pm, because somehow covid spreads more quickly overnight. One case in Brisbane and staff need to mask up in Cairns and restrict visitors because obviously the virus can spread telepathically through QLD health facilities.

As long as politicians can see that they'll win elections by "keeping everyone safe", they will continue to do it. If it becomes unpopular by a large swathe of the population, they will fold immediately. See how the goal posts keep changing, 15 days to slow the spread, mask up and social distance, get the jab, get boosters. I don't foresee this will end anytime soon.

The only reason why I'm so passionate against this is because people are becoming more skeptical towards doctors and healthcare in general because they can see the exact same thing I'm seeing. Things make no sense and TV doctors (who have not practiced medicine for >10 years) are helping politicians get their way. Covid has actually eroded many previous issues that we have won in public health and this will honestly bite healthcare in the future.

CreditDr....some good points there. And what about the fact that influenza and assocciated deaths have also disappeared since March 2020. Before then we seemed willing to accept that death was a tragic but inevitable result of flu for some people. Now our politicians and their health "experts" can't even tolerate the idea that anyone could die of a virus, but they go on easily accepting that people will die from cardiovascular diseases etc. As long as we accept that death is no longer acceptable, the longer we will allow politicians to keep us in this Perpetual Pandemic.

The way I see it is that there will probably be some limited travel during the period from December 2021 through June 30, 2022, but it will come with restrictions like being vaccinated and having to do home quarantine, or being unvaccinated and being required to quarantine in a facility (except for maybe New Zealand and Noumea), as part of a reciprocal travel bubble.

From July 2022 onward, we could start seeing a return to relatively normal international travel. At this point it's still a bit early to tell, so this could easily be pushed back to January 2023 or later.

If you're still needing to socially distance and wear a mask at an 80% vaccination rate, when in 2020 before the vaccine, Australia, as one of the few countries anywhere in the world barring Africa, went for almost a year without anyone wearing masks except Victorians, then either there is a problem with the vaccine or the goalposts are being moved so quickly that you'll never get out of this mess.

I mean think about it - in 2020, when Asian and European countries were mandating masks as early as mid-March, Australians were blissfully mask free and told not to wear one. By May, much of the USA got into the mask wearing game but surprisingly not Australia, despite being a nanny state and one of only two countries in the world, which mandates adult cyclists wear helmets. In other countries, one case has been enough to warrant a nationwide mask mandate almost since the beginning.

Now fast forward to 2021. One case DOES result in a mask mandate for an entire state (case in point Queensland) despite the vaccination being available and lots of people taking it. Not only that but even with near full vaccination, masks are set to be required indefinitely into the future.

I can't think of anything more depressing than the realisation that power hungry tyrants want to forever restrict how we live our lives.

Thefreq the data is in masks do work, and so not sure what the fuss is given people’s reluctance to get tested with symptoms and the several days infectious without symptoms. Sewerage testing is telling us the bug is about much more than we think.

patrickk...I thought that this blog was about international travel? But all you want to talk is s##t or sewerage or whatever it is that you are fixated on.

GoRobin my point was about the need to quarantine even with international travel. That is all my point is about. I suspect governments agree. Even Boris is now talking about lockdowns.

patrickk....The UK has only a PLAN A. And that in my view is the only way to go. Plan A has been delivered with the so so vaccine, lockdowns and face muzzling. The people should accept that this is the best Plan that any government could be expected to deliver under the circumstances. And hurray for the UK government. So if the UK government goes into further lockdowns, face muzzling etc, it will be an outright admittance that PLAN A failed. I am not sure that Boris will do this. But if he does there will be a rebellion because there is no PLAN B. Let's see if Boris has the kamikazee in him to go that route! But you however, are free to dream of eternal lockdowns.

GoRobin Israel, Scotland, Iceland and any number of other countries are tightening up (face masks etc) simply because their hospital systems are being overwhelmed. If someone wants to get into hospital with a broken leg and they can’t in, is not a good look.

most people here say Jan 2022 is may be. I disagree with that. thats pessimestic. Reason is below

its going to start in November of this year in NSW
Government is under immense pressure from liberal voters, who travel more, to UK and US to open up and enough is enough.

not to mention the plight of families separated and students sitting idle putting more mental and economic stress on the country.

happy travelling!

It's a big beautiful world out there.. come on already!

It's a big beautiful world out there.. come on already!

It's a big beautiful world out there.. come on already!