Probability of International Travel from January

The management of the virus is part medical and part statistics. I am not a medical person but I understand statistics. At the moment, in NSW we have 9,500 people with Covid staying at home in quarantine. At the same time, the number of people entering the country with Covid is bouncing around 0 or 1 yet all of these people are locked up in strict hotel quarantine for 2 weeks. It makes zero sense and if anything, the hotel beds should be freed up as health hotels to accommodate those in Australia with Covid that can't quarantine safely at home.

This isn't going to change when we open up again at 80%. There will still be moderate numbers of people with Covid in the community.

Fully agree hence Toowoomba (and Howard Springs and a couple of other places) for those international arrivals who don’t have home to quarantine in. Hotels are hopeless so they should be phased out, and as you said they can be used for Australians who need it.

What's worse is we have people arriving in Australia without Covid and picking it up at the hotel.

Interesting that the Netherlands has just introduced 10 day quarantine for travellers from the US regardless of vaccination status with a COVID test on day 5.

That would have something to do with their very low vaccination rates. Despite a flood of vaccines they are only at 52% of the population or 65% of the adult population. To make matters worse, they just threw the gates open with no controls in place. Australia will be aiming at 80% and still keep contract tracing, masks, etc.

In my professional opinion (and I have no professional expertise whatsoever), I don't think international travel will occur before April 2022. This will allow the government to review all the vaccination figures and see whether boosters are needed, figure out whether quarantining is still required and also to get a robust vaccine passport system in place along with countries with whom we will accept travelers from and travel to.

There's no way politically that the PM and NSW Premier will wait that long. The only advantage of having a delayed vaccination program is that we learnt what not to do from other countries. Yes, we will need boosters (they are already ordered) and there still will be mitigation measures in place like QR Codes, contract tracing and masks.

I am confident enough to have booked flights to Europe in March 2021. I'll be away for at least 4 months and will have had my booster on top of the full vaccination I already have. I reckon by that time fully vacced will be able to get an exemption plus I have in my book at least compassionate grounds of not having seen my daughter and grandkids, sister brother for over two year. I'm 75 and tempus fugit!

If necessary I'll become a reverse boat person and try to get someone to smuggle me out of somewhere like Broome to Indonesia!

I predict it won't happen until after the next federal election.

Why would you even have a snap lockdown once we reach 80% vaccination levels is beyond me

See what is happening in countries with 80% vaccination coverage. They are still having targeted lockdowns, and restrictions.

They won't allow international travel even at 80% - they will just change the goal post and say now we need 90%.

It will never end - if over 18 months ago you told me that there would still be closed borders "AFTER" a vaccine had been invented with over 95% efficiency to prevent death and serious illness i would have laughed but now it's a reality.

There are people that have been vaccinated fully with two doses and no pre-existing health conditions that are still terrified to leave their house in case they become infected and die - am i missing something here?

The goalposts shift in the quest for zero risks, zero death, and zero cases (especially if you live in WA or QLD).

We have to move away from zero risks to some risk - People will die yes but the number of people dying will be significantly reduced at 80% vaccination rates.

Every time each of us had stepped on a plane - we took "risk", risk from terrorism, risk from other infectious diseases etc

For the average person if you catch Covid-19 you will recover without serious illness - so when you add being vaccinated on top of that - the risk of death or serious illness must very small

I believe you are referring to Israel as very few countries have reached 80% vaccine rate (Singapore just reached 80%).

Yes cases are up in the thousands but deaths are low and the deaths they are seeing are among the unvaccinated.

Denmark just abolished all Covid restrictions after they reached 70% - how this will pan out is that the duration of the pandemic will depend on your countries level of risk.

For countries like New Zealand the pandemic will be going for years for other countries like Denmark or the UK the pandemic will become be over next year or year after.

If a country has a zero covid tolerance approach then technically that country would be in a "state of emergency" forever as Covid isn't going away.

Iceland has 86% fully vaccinated and bringing back restrictions as their hospital system is under severe stress: as vaccination will bring hospitalisations down, a small percentage of a very large number is still a large number.

I just think it's going to be a hard sell to the average Australian who's been fully vaccinated & reached our 80% to then still ask the population to go into a lockdown and ensure continued Covid restrictions (beyond the basics of mask-wearing and social distancing - the difference between Australia and Iceland is that we have endured some of the most harshest Covid restrictions in the world and i believe Covid fatigue will set in.

For me I have stopped worrying about Covid as I am now fully vaccinated - I think you need to get vaccinated and stop living in fear.

Commonsense will prevail I hope!