Australia is fast approaching 80% vaccination rates for those aged over 16. Despite knowing for more than 18 months that this day was coming, Australia is woefully unprepared to reopen, with a massive to-do list to sort out.
This raises the question: why haven’t governments been laying out the rules, regulations and infrastructure crucial for social freedoms?
Vaccine passports
Across Europe, vaccination passports in the form of QR codes that can be scanned before entering venues have been in place for months.
Australia’s national vaccination certificate has been plagued with problems, from it being incredibly easy to forge (with more than 10,000 sellers of fake vaccination certificates) to others waiting weeks for their vaccinations to show up on the MyGov site.
There are also no federal public health orders or laws that make COVID-19 vaccine passports mandatory, and no consistent passport in place; states and territories are developing domestic passports linked to their check-in apps. Victoria is starting to trial its certificate in regional areas.
International passports are set to be issued from next week but the details are still murky.
Hospitality and retail workers have also raised concerns about having to police vaccine passports as a condition of entry. Casual, low-paid and often young workers are set to be on the front line for abuse from those who take issue with the certificates. Customer violence towards these staff members has escalated throughout the pandemic.
New South Wales hasn’t issued a public health order so it’s not known what fines businesses will face for allowing entry to non-vaccinated patrons, but failing to comply with QR code check-ins can lead to fines up to $55,000.
Officials have said the details of checking and enforcing passports have yet to be worked out.
Vaccine mandates
Just like pretty much every other aspect of Australia’s COVID strategy, vaccine mandates have been introduced ad hoc by states and territories. The federal government has mandated vaccination only for residential aged care workers.
The vaccine hasn’t been federally mandated for disability workers, with a surge in demand for vaccinated workers among clients with a disability.
The Australian Medical Association has called on the government to implement nationally consistent public health orders for mandatory COVID vaccinations for healthcare workers, with many states introducing this mandate themselves.
International travel
“Home by Christmas” has been the mantra of federal, state and territory governments for some time — but the details have, yet again, not been released.
Qantas plans to resume six international routes to COVID-safe destinations from December 18, but we haven’t finalised travel bubbles with many other countries.
State borders are another issue, with Qantas pushing back planned interstate and international flights from Western Australia due to its hard border stance.
Home quarantine
For those lucky enough to score a flight abroad, getting home is yet another problem. Trials of home quarantine started only earlier this month, and Victoria launched a home quarantine “selfie” app yesterday. Each state has varying timeframes for quarantine, from seven days in NSW to 14 days in South Australia.
Rapid antigen home testing is set to be available from November, but rules around what happens when someone tests positive have yet to be devised by state and territory governments.
Those stuck abroad since the start of 2020 are still struggling to get home, with Australians forking out upward of $2000 to nab a repatriation flight from Argentina, but struggling with visas to get into the South American country.
Back to school
Victoria and NSW have been criticised for reopening pubs before classrooms, although there are a lot of questions around safety measures for teachers and students. Children under 12 aren’t eligible for a vaccine, although Pfizer this morning submitted initial trial data for its vaccine in kids aged five to 11.
Some governments plan to invest in ventilation for classrooms to lessen the spread of the virus’ airborne particles, though most of these are only in the trial phases.
With Parliament sitting weeks cancelled or postponed in Canberra and across state governments, it raises the question: if not preparing for Australia’s reopening, what exactly have our legislators been doing?
Morrison is the most transactional PM Australia has ever had, and COVID has shone a light on these inadequacies. To him, planning is unnecessary and strategy is just a poncy word. Every action – and more importantly, every message as the result of every inaction – is through the lens of getting Scotty reelected. He is incapable of lining up two actions one after the other, so what hope has he on executing a complex program of tasks to get to COVID normal?
He’ll wait until the States do things. If it works, he’ll claim credit, if doesn’t he will attack them, or Labor premiers anyway.
True, but Morrison is starting to look as useless as the proverbial ashtray on a motor bike. It’s one thing doing bad things that some voters might like, but doing absolutely nothing? Not long ago, I wondered if Australian State Governments were no longer needed – now not just are they completely indispensable, but it looks like it’s the Federal Government is superfluous.
Starting? I realised the other day, that he says nothing relevant to my situation. Actually, there is one thing – he’s actively trying to get people in my state killed, so I do dread when he’s giving another word salad exhibition (aka press conference).
Switch him off or leave the room these days . .
I reached the same conclusion some time ago.
but it looks like it’s the Federal Government is superfluous.
A loose form of confederation is looking increasingly attractive (from a western perspective at least)
Oh, I dunno. He’s pretty good at making announcements about plans!
That’s the preacher in him, all promise, no substance. In the the Aussie vernacular, a 1st grade BS artist!
Its ‘policy’ that makes him wince!
They’re waiting for the Freedom Fairy, Amber. As soon as we hit 80%, she will wave her magic wand and everything will return to pre-Covid normal- but better. Just ask our Treasurer. That’s why all the Covid disaster payments end then. No longer needed. Needful inflation, wage increases, jobs growth, interest rate rises, housing affordability- all fixed!
Instead of nitpicking about details you should get on board with Team Australia and help. All you have to do is close your eyes and shout “I believe in fairies” really, really loudly.
Worth reminding ourselves that this is really only around 64% of total population. Not to be confused with the Singaporean real 80%. And they are having to reimpose some restrictions following increased infection rates.
An article in The Guardian Australia about Guam and what has happened to its 90% vaccinated population is a salutary lesson for our nation which no doubt will be ignored
Yes Guam is a world leader.
The LIBERAL Tasmanian Premier has warned that the island state will not reopen its borders to all of the country until it reaches a 90 per cent vaccination rate against COVID-19.
Here you go, have a laugh
https://www.thejuicemedia.com/honest-government-ads/
They are brilliant – incredible group. We need one on honest gov ads re: pandemic! When is does 64 = 80? When is modelling important? – remember Berejikian saying modelling can’t be trusted, sometimes right and often wrong back in July at a presser? move on to the Gospel According to Doherty and their heresy in of claiming to follow it- could go on, but should be enough to support a much needed parady – not forgetting deathishorriblebut and scottyfromfunerals . . .
Add it to the list of other countries . . . Scomo & Co don’t give a toss what happens to the public. Do we have any idea how much Qantus and others who may benefit (I find it hard to think of any tho as business and tourism won’t flourish with covid about) donate to LNP?
Yes, in fact the strong recommendation coming out of Singapore is to aim for 90% total vaccinations before any significant easing of restrictions. But then again to aim for 90%, and by this I mean a real 90% of the total population not Morrison’s fake figures would spoil Scumo’s big fat Christmas present of having all the family around the Christmas dinner table.
This of course would derail Morrison’s Christmas fairy tale of how he re- united families in time for Christmas. Why this would be presented as Morrison’s Christmas miracle much like Morrison regards his re-election as a miracle and a sign that he has been chosen by God to lead this country.
So why wouldn’t you vote for him yet again at the next election!!!!!!
Come on now Amber – they have been really busy with other stuff:
It’s an already long and not exhaustive list of activities that keeps them busy.
Oh Australia has a great plan. Just peachy.
I’m a manager of a customer facing venue. Our teenage staff are expected to confront and police people twice their age and make them follow the rules. Great plan! Yep, let’s ask the lowest paid and youngest in the country to be the Covid police.
It’s called the ‘social contract’ and in a hospitality setting personnel have mandated qualifications and conditions inc. no smoking for a safe environment, RSA while customers do too i.e. proof of age and behaviour.
Elsewhere customers are simply asked to show vaccination certificate (hard copy or app) which takes seconds and they comply, but too difficult for Australians?
Throughout Covid people have been difficult when it comes to restrictions. It is really unfair to put the burden of Covid compliance onto young and lowly paid customer service workers. Well paid office workers sit back doing remote work while some 18 year old is brought to tears by a 65 year old yelling at them over IDs or masks.
False equivalence, equating supposed non compliance of general population with a purported ‘burden of compliance’ of customer service workers (what happened to hospitality in previous comment?) and further you assume, without evidence, that both workers and customers do not want to be protected?
Contradictory telling people to be both toughen up without vaccinations etc. and at same time claiming they are victims?
Simply muddying the water and trying to confuse people on sensible and common sense Covid measures, that work elsewhere; sure the IPA, employer bodies, LNP etc. would agree with you….
I am not sure what you are not understanding. The Covid plan places a large compliance burden on the lowest paid and often youngest workers in the country. There has been no mention of extra pay or grants to make up for this regulatory burden.
And no, plenty of customers do not want to be protected and have kicked up a fuss throughout Covid. As they already do about smoking and RSA.
As for ‘work elsewhere’ in America and the UK there have been many reports of aggro customers. Are you seriously denying that aggro customers don’t exist when this has been widely reported? Customers have even killed people over masks.
We want everyone to be safe and I am not saying the rules don’t make sense. I am saying that everyone has dumped this on us with no compensation. Here, do extra work and aggro for nothing.
And as for smoking and RSA we already have problems with that too. Now on top of that we have Covid compliance. I want to be Covid space but we is so much of the Covid burden falling on the lowest paid. We should be given a monthly payment to the venue by the govt to compensate for the extra, time, staff and stress. We already have thin profit margins and difficult customers now we have extra regulations and no more money for it. Every low paid worker should get a Covid raise and venues a grant for the extra time to takes to do all this and how that slows us down and even sometimes requires extra staff.
Just dump it all on us for nothing.
I do typos when annoyed
Agreed. We’ve already seen abuse of retail staff skyrocket because of lockdowns. We’ve already seen them attacked. We’ve also seen the Freedom Fighters attack health workers and members of the public for wearing masks and complying with public health orders. Does anyone seriously believe the Freedom Fighters are not going to attack retail staff?
And retail staff have been told “Oh, jjust call the police if it’s too much for you, but really it’s up to the business whether or not they let unvaccinated people in. Businesses won’t be fined for it or anything.”
Businesses will just let ‘‘em in and the retail staff will just have to hope they and theirs aren’t the unlucky vaccinated ones with underlying health conditions COVID finishes off.
I’d be terrified to work in retail right now.
So a crucial component will suffer from profiteering https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/29/medical-entrepreneurs-poised-to-grab-slice-of-covid-home-testing-kit-market?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other .
Why is it that antigen testing is not being purchased directly by the federal government and distributed? No it’s for companies like Panton to profit from. Are pension card holders going to get them free from pharmacies are they on the PBS or subsidised?
Ensuring rapid testing and isolation will limit infection rates, otherwise what’s the purpose of these lockdowns if straight afterwards we still have 30-40% infection rate and a 10% hospitalisation rate?
My family in the UK pick them up for free at the pharmacy. They do the test before visiting 5 month old twins. Mum & Dad are both vaxxed, but ensuring the babies are kept safe.