If vaccinated, do i still need to do the mandatory quarantine?

[SoniaG]

Just curious to know if I will still need to do the institutional quarantine if I get vaccinated?

[paulhand]

For the foreseeable future, yes. There seems little discussion around how the travel restrictions end ...

[Jon the Hat]

I would love this to happen for our flights mid September, but I don't believe Australia is going to end quarantine for anyone until every adult in Australia who wants a vaccine has had it.  There is no evidence in anything the governments have done so far which suggests letting in people who still have a 5%+ chance of having Covid would fit their Zero Covid strategy.  I wouldn't get your hopes up!

[paulhand]

6 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

I would love this to happen for our flights mid September, but I don't believe Australia is going to end quarantine for anyone until every adult in Australia who wants a vaccine has had it.  There is no evidence in anything the governments have done so far which suggests letting in people who still have a 5%+ chance of having Covid would fit their Zero Covid strategy.  I wouldn't get your hopes up!

Precisely my point .. and perhaps not then even. I don’t see any discussion of the end game here, only talk about expanding the quarantine capacity at Howard Springs and elsewhere....

"A vaccination is not viewed as a panacea or a complete substitute for other public health interventions; it is viewed as supplementary to other measures," a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said. (ABC Website, Today)

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by paulhand

[SoniaG]

Hmmm ok understandable.. Thank you for the responses.

[Nemesis]

Several "quarantine hotels" are currently negotiating 12 month contracts with some State governments.......

[MacGyver]

2 hours ago, Nemesis said:

Several "quarantine hotels" are currently negotiating 12 month contracts with some State governments.......

I’m surprised to hear this, I wonder if there will be a two tier policy for visitors to Australia (when all Australians are vaccinated). No quarantine for those from “safe” countries with high vaccination rates (and where the visitor is vaccinated), and quarantine for those from higher risk countries with low vaccination rates and/or visitors who are not vaccinated.

I think there will be huge pressure by year end to allow Australians to travel back and forth freely. The public seem to view vaccination as the end game for cooperation with ongoing restrictions. I suspect if Australians can travel freely, they won’t care much about a two tier visitor policy.

[paulhand]

2 hours ago, MacGyver said:

I’m surprised to hear this, I wonder if there will be a two tier policy for visitors to Australia (when all Australians are vaccinated). No quarantine for those from “safe” countries with high vaccination rates (and where the visitor is vaccinated), and quarantine for those from higher risk countries with low vaccination rates and/or visitors who are not vaccinated.

I think there will be huge pressure by year end to allow Australians to travel back and forth freely. The public seem to view vaccination as the end game for cooperation with ongoing restrictions. I suspect if Australians can travel freely, they won’t care much about a two tier visitor policy.

But that would also require a 2 tier system for returning residents who have been in ‘unsafe’ countries, which they may care about somewhat more.  The vaccines are not full-proof and there will be vaccine resistant strains out in the wild. Testing is not 100% accurate at all phases either. 
 

As @Jon the Hat says, if you’re one of the, say, 5% (so, over 1 million Australians + however many visitors that equals) who the vaccine doesn’t work for, and you’re travelling freely, how does that fit with the zero Covid strategy? Maybe that number is reduced by testing pre and post arrival, but it never gets to zero carriers out in society. 
 

Just as we accept flu deaths and, indeed, traffic accident deaths as the price of a ‘normal’ life, what level of covid is society prepared to accept going forward as the price of opening up? I don’t have an answer but I’m surprised that there is so little discussion of this ... 

[Tulip1]

1 hour ago, paulhand said:

But that would also require a 2 tier system for returning residents who have been in ‘unsafe’ countries, which they may care about somewhat more.  The vaccines are not full-proof and there will be vaccine resistant strains out in the wild. Testing is not 100% accurate at all phases either. 
 

As @Jon the Hat says, if you’re one of the, say, 5% (so, over 1 million Australians + however many visitors that equals) who the vaccine doesn’t work for, and you’re travelling freely, how does that fit with the zero Covid strategy? Maybe that number is reduced by testing pre and post arrival, but it never gets to zero carriers out in society. 
 

Just as we accept flu deaths and, indeed, traffic accident deaths as the price of a ‘normal’ life, what level of covid is society prepared to accept going forward as the price of opening up? I don’t have an answer but I’m surprised that there is so little discussion of this ... 

You’re spot on Paul. I believe at some point the world will have to accept Covid exists but not as it does now of course. There is nothing better than the vaccine and that’s similar to many infectious diseases. If a country wishes to always have guaranteed zero numbers of such things it will have to close its borders for ever. If someone is arriving from a country with very low Covid numbers, they’ve had two vaccines and have a negative test it is extremely unlikely they have Covid. If most of the natives of the country they’re visiting have had the vaccine,  even on the very tiny chance the visitor has it, it’s still unlikely to be passed on. It may never get better than that. A 95% protection rate is outstanding and it’s also been shown that even if someone got Covid in that 5% window the effects of it are much milder. A recent study showed there would be a 50% less chance of needing hospitalisation compared to pre vaccine if you caught it.  So based on the extremely low chance of a visitor bringing it in, subject to vaccines etc and the extremely low chance of the native getting it off them being vaccinated themselves it’s probably more dangerous driving about.  

[DukeNinja]

8 hours ago, paulhand said:

what level of covid is society prepared to accept going forward as the price of opening up

Bingo.

If I were a betting man, I'd say there will be pulsed lockdowns for at least half of this decade.

[MacGyver]

9 hours ago, paulhand said:

But that would also require a 2 tier system for returning residents who have been in ‘unsafe’ countries, which they may care about somewhat more.  The vaccines are not full-proof and there will be vaccine resistant strains out in the wild. Testing is not 100% accurate at all phases either. 
 

As @Jon the Hat says, if you’re one of the, say, 5% (so, over 1 million Australians + however many visitors that equals) who the vaccine doesn’t work for, and you’re travelling freely, how does that fit with the zero Covid strategy? Maybe that number is reduced by testing pre and post arrival, but it never gets to zero carriers out in society. 
 

Just as we accept flu deaths and, indeed, traffic accident deaths as the price of a ‘normal’ life, what level of covid is society prepared to accept going forward as the price of opening up? I don’t have an answer but I’m surprised that there is so little discussion of this ... 

I agree with almost everything you have said here. I’ve been a very strong supporter of the zero Covid strategy up to this point (and for the rest of this year) as I felt the benefits of closed borders and the risks of opening up were too great. 

By year end, all Australians who want a vaccine will have had one (or two), and at that point I feel the benefit of closed borders and the risk to society from open borders, will be greatly diminished.

If the vaccines perform as intended, Covid will become a mild infection that is not life threatening to the majority of the population (much like seasonal flu). It is difficult to justify keeping borders closed in that scenario. With ongoing seasonal boosters for emerging strains, and possibly vaccination passports (a whole other debate), the risk to the population would surely be low? Yes there will still be deaths, but as you say, at some point difficult discussions will be required as to how many deaths are acceptable.

[rtritudr]

12 hours ago, MacGyver said:

I’m surprised to hear this, I wonder if there will be a two tier policy for visitors to Australia (when all Australians are vaccinated). No quarantine for those from “safe” countries with high vaccination rates (and where the visitor is vaccinated), and quarantine for those from higher risk countries with low vaccination rates and/or visitors who are not vaccinated.

I think there will be huge pressure by year end to allow Australians to travel back and forth freely. The public seem to view vaccination as the end game for cooperation with ongoing restrictions. I suspect if Australians can travel freely, they won’t care much about a two tier visitor policy.

There is already a two-tier policy in place.  It's called a travel bubble and currently only NZ is in it.  Hopefully more zero COVID countries can be added to the bubble because there are plenty of them out there.

[rtritudr]

I think the key to all this is will the vaccine be able to bring the pandemic under control in the UK, the US and even Israel? The jury is still out on this one and until we know for sure hotel quarantine is going to stay around for the time being.

[Loopylu]

Yes, you will still have to quarantine in a hotel on arrival in Australia for some time to come. 

However, having the vaccine will hopefully stop you getting a nastier dose of Covid if you are unfortunate enough to catch Covid from others in quarantine hotels which seems to be a quite common occurrence in hotel quarantine in Australia. If you can come via Howard Springs I have heard first hand that this is a much nicer place to quarantine and there has been no community transmission in quarantine there.  

 

[paulhand]

4 hours ago, MacGyver said:

If the vaccines perform as intended, Covid will become a mild infection that is not life threatening to the majority of the population (much like seasonal flu). It is difficult to justify keeping borders closed in that scenario. With ongoing seasonal boosters for emerging strains, and possibly vaccination passports (a whole other debate), the risk to the population would surely be low? Yes there will still be deaths, but as you say, at some point difficult discussions will be required as to how many deaths are acceptable.

I agree ...and  the issue is going to be more difficult for Australia and NZ to manage since it will mean more cases and more deaths than the current status quo. In most countries ‘a few/some’ is going to feel pretty OK given how large the numbers have been and how disrupted life has been for the past year. 

[Parley]

Is quarantine that bad ? A small issue i would think.

[MacGyver]

28 minutes ago, Parley said:

Is quarantine that bad ? A small issue i would think.

In the short term, no. It’s absolutely necessary and vital to keep people in Australia safe. Over the longer term, when everyone is vaccinated, it seems unsustainable. The only way would be to build huge camps outside cities to accommodate the volume of returning citizens/residents and visitors, or adopt a technology based approach to “home” monitoring - but how many visitors/business travellers can afford two weeks quarantine before their visit even begins?

[Loopylu]

6 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

In the short term, no. It’s absolutely necessary and vital to keep people in Australia safe. Over the longer term, when everyone is vaccinated, it seems unsustainable. The only way would be to build huge camps outside cities to accommodate the volume of returning citizens/residents and visitors, or adopt a technology based approach to “home” monitoring - but how many visitors/business travellers can afford two weeks quarantine before their visit even begins?

You talk a lot of sense. The current approach to quarantine will become unsustainable very soon. It’s worrying that the LNP want to now prioritise new immigrants for quarantine places rather than returning residents. Money seems to matter more than people. 

[Parley]

1 hour ago, MacGyver said:

In the short term, no. It’s absolutely necessary and vital to keep people in Australia safe. Over the longer term, when everyone is vaccinated, it seems unsustainable. The only way would be to build huge camps outside cities to accommodate the volume of returning citizens/residents and visitors, or adopt a technology based approach to “home” monitoring - but how many visitors/business travellers can afford two weeks quarantine before their visit even begins?

Has anyone ever suggested that quarantine arrangements will continue forever ? Or are we making a fuss about nothing ?

[Parley]

1 hour ago, Loopylu said:

You talk a lot of sense. The current approach to quarantine will become unsustainable very soon. It’s worrying that the LNP want to now prioritise new immigrants for quarantine places rather than returning residents. Money seems to matter more than people. 

For someone who complains a lot, you don't seem to have much to complain about.

The system has worked. You applied for an exemption and got one and still complaining.

[MacGyver]

34 minutes ago, Parley said:

Has anyone ever suggested that quarantine arrangements will continue forever ? Or are we making a fuss about nothing ?

There was a comment about lockdowns for the first half of the decade, then a few comments about when might be the right time to reopen. I was replying to those comments. I am supportive of the closed borders and quarantine arrangements at present, just thinking out loud about what might lie ahead, rather than making a fuss.

[Dusty Plains]

Apart from these factors, is the manifestation of the new political strategies which present themselves after 12 months of Covid-19, in Australia's region, The Quad Nations agreement between Australia, India, Japan and the USA, being as they are, manufacturers of Covid-19 Vaccine, have agreed to provide billions of vaccine doses throughout the Indo-Pacific Region.

Raised in conversation way (way) back in the posts here on PIO was the real factor of the threats to the national security posed to Australia, by its northern neighbours, whereby we have the vaccine and the masses to the north do not, and they want it, and China could fill the gap.  The factor of China being the source of Covid-19, then denying it. when accused by PM Scott Morrison, then getting a clean slate by WHO, means that we have subsequently arrived at the crossroads. Its time to take action and to stop waiting around for the UN, WHO,  ASEAN and the rest of those seat warmers. The rich Quad Nations can assist the Indo-Pacific region and at the same time checkmate a hegemon China in the region.      

Otherwise unattended to this problem we could see Covid refugees in boats coming to Australia once again. Who could blame them?  This week Australia has once again visited its eternal problem child namely Papua New Guinea, as Aust, health teams move into PNG to vaccinate health care workers and eventually to the general PNG population, as part of its agreed role within the Quad Nations.

This will be an ongoing undertaking for the long run.

 

         

      

Edited March 19, 2021 by Dusty Plains

[Loopylu]

2 hours ago, Parley said:

For someone who complains a lot, you don't seem to have much to complain about.

The system has worked. You applied for an exemption and got one and still complaining.

Under the IHR convention that Australia has signed and ratified, it is illegal to prevent any citizen leaving a country unless they have committed a crime.  Yes - the system worked but it should not have existed in the first place. I have no issue with preventing people returning to Australia without quarantining as that is proportionate to the risk and permitted by the convention. You obviously like being dictated to by politicians - I don't.  My primary duty as a UK and Australian qualified lawyer is to uphold the law and so I am well within my rights to object when the law is broken by politicians who think they are above the law.

If people did not complain (eg through unions etc) we would all be working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and our employers could fire us if they decided they did not like us... We wouldn't have universal healthcare, free education, social services.

No doubt, you think climate change protesters are complainers....

People like you benefit from the rights that are won by complainers....

[Loopylu]

4 hours ago, Parley said:

Is quarantine that bad ? A small issue i would think.

Ask the family of the young man who killed himself while quarantining in Melbourne.... 

 

[Nemesis]

2 hours ago, Parley said:

Has anyone ever suggested that quarantine arrangements will continue forever ? Or are we making a fuss about nothing ?

it has been discussed, not least by some hotels suggesting contracts lasting several years.