Jail terms for COVID-19 rule-breakers
Terms of up to six months behind bars will be introduced on Thursday under a legislative amendment.
Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young says fines for individuals haven't been enough to stop them from breaching restriction rules.
Despite the threat of a visit from police and a huge bills, law-breakers have continued putting lives at risk – many just to party or, in some instances, play Pokemon Go.
Do you think jail terms are what's needed to thwart would-be rulebreakers?
OFGS what is it with these football nutters -- this should NOT be allowed -- this is the time when we have to hunker down till we can beat this sickness -- dam ridiculous and unbelievable that so many can be so bloody stupid!
what rule was broken (other than Collingwood winning)?
"What rule was broken?" ...I'll tell you what rule Farside, the rule of social distancing. Even people who attended the match said all rules were broken.
I am very disappointed with our Premier at present. After asking everyone to hunker down...look what happens!!!!!
Oh, and we even had a streaker!!!
What social distance rule was broken? It seemed to be conducted within the phase 4 guidelines with only 22,000 of the permitted 30,600 at the game.
And I'm sure you are old enough to remember better streakers than the poor excuse the other night, he did not even get his kit off!
Watching them walk out of the game on TV tonight, if someone did have it and sneezed, the person walking next to them or behind them could possible pick it up.
My Sister attended a funeral service last week here in Sydney. She said she went along to the Church expecting to be turned away if there were too many people . She said there was about 100 people at the funeral service and the same amount at the wake, nobody was turned away???????
I wonder if they were keeping the right amount of space away -- I bet they weren't
No they weren't. She said everybody seemed to mingle.
I thought Perth was COVID free
They are all isolated in hotels or in the hospital.
Two new cases yesterday I thought, my own son was not feeling well on Monday and had to be tested he is waiting at home for the results.
WA’s hard border has been pierced by the Victorian COVID-19 outbreak after a 45-year-old West Australian man returning home from the eastern state tested positive to the virus.
The case is the first time an interstate traveller has been allowed through the hard border and tested positive to the virus.
It was one of two new WA cases overnight, the other an international traveller, for the state as Health Minister Roger Cook announced Victorians arriving in WA would now be placed in mandatory hotel quarantine effective immediately.
The move comes exactly two weeks after the Queensland Government brought in the same measure.
Victoria records 428 virus cases, three deaths Melbourne cop tests positive Big bonuses for Bunnings staffMr Cook said the situation in Victoria, which recorded 428 new cases overnight, was devastating.
“The situation is escalating and we need to respond,” he said.
“Anyone coming into WA who has come from or who has travelled through Victoria in the last 14 days will be directed to hotel quarantine at their own expense.”
Mr Cook said he urged any West Australians in New South Wales with a pre-approved exemption she could home now because they too would be subject to tighter restrictions.
From midnight on Sunday people flying into WA from NSW will be limited to the same reduced exemption list brought in for Victorian travellers earlier this month.
The situation is escalating and we need to respond.
Victoria’s active caseload is now at 2462 including 122 people in hospital of which 31 are in intensive care.
New South Wales had eight new coronavirus cases overnight.
There are 26 active cases of the virus in WA.
The 45-year-old man who tested positive to the virus had been in home quarantine since arriving in WA on Wednesday.
The man’s partner and children have also gone into self-isolation.
Contact tracing is in full swing in regards to the case and at least one passenger who was on the same flight as the man has been notified as being a close contact.
Mr Cook said the new measures would allow WA to control the public health risk which was “potentially confronting us at this point in time”.
He said WA did not want people travelling back to the state from Victoria unless it was absolutely essential and urging West Australians to reconsider any travel to the east.
“We can’t guarantee you will be able to come back when you’re planning,” Mr Cook said.
The Minister said having a streaker at last night’s AFL game in Perth was “pathetic”.
“I’m glad he didn’t get very far and I hope he’s punished to the full extent of the law,” he said.
Who is paying for all this chinese corona virus treatment and testing? WE ARE!! If people break the rules fine them, record a conviction. IF they don't speak ENGLISH then FINE them. If I get caught speeding I get fined because I could kill someone. So if these idiots break the chinese corona virus restrictions FINE them because not only can they also kill someone, they are also destroying jobs, peoples lives through being unemployed AND destroying our great communities. Fine the rule breakers and if they can't speak english and plead ignorance, send them the fine in their language so they know how much the fine will cost them. If you want to travel now by plane, you pay the quarantine costs, you stick to the rules and NO EXCEPTIONS.
I am 100% sure China did not want this virus any more than we do.
Your tone is offensive and racist.
If you had to flee Australia with your children in fear of your life and you were offered a safe haven in a foreign country,say Denmark or Korea you might have a problem with the language too.
You will find educated Asian people have English as their second language and are fluent at it so much to the state they are better than some Australians that don't continue with their education in this country.
While you are right about highly educated Asians we have to take into account all the migrants, refugees especially, from the middle east and Africa and Myanmar who have not had the benefit of the same kind of education.
We may look down our noses at them but many of them speak several other languages than English.
It is so amazing when the word racist is used. Even more when china did not want their virus. Well I am not a racist, but who is the racist? The one who comes to a country and comes for their own economic gain and sticks their hand up for medical services, welfare, home ownership and education? Yes I speak generally because there are so many of them so not all are educated, speak English fluently and arrive on our doorstep with a Masters Degree and prepared to invest. Why did china not stop their virus being exported to the world? Why did china imprison the doctor who warned the world of it and oops they would not release his dead body to his parents? Why did the Greenland Group - yes a chinese developer in Australia task its employees to search, obtain and export BACK to china PPE, including masks, gloves etc. And this is a group in Australia, owned by china 'our trading partner'. If all these people coming to Australia were bringing with them skills, and loyalty to Australia why is ENGLISH not made mandatory for entry. I mean, if you are not fluent in english then: no welfare, no child support, no benefits and NO briding visa, no benefits for 15 - 20 years. It is ironic they come from countries where there is no 'pension', public health and a University system with HECS. And yes I do not look down my nose at them, rather even Maggie has said many of them speak several languages BUT NOT English! If that is the case, why don't they go to one of the countries where they understand the language? This chinese virus issue is greatly complicated by the many languages people in this country practise and english is not one of them! Melbourne example 1. How many of them will then be able to be called up to defend this country if they don't understand the language and they don't have any attachment to this country other than financial. What a future some people have given us all by their multi cultural and love all, attitude. People are starving and dying and what is china doing about it? Nothing, unless it advantages them, understand it is not the world of 60 years ago, they want more than a lot of contented Aussies understand. Why are they buying milk companies, mining companies, Cubbie station, water rights and yes OUR POLITICIANS, they do not donate to the polical parties for love. Fortescue metals isn't owned by an Aussie, S Kidman and Co isn't even 70% Aussie, wakeup. Why are my taxes spent on bollards, Federal security investigations, and monitoring. I want my taxes put elsewhere where it can be used for the homeless, returned veterans, farmers in need and real Australians and bring the indigenous people up to a standard their people can be understood. I don't want our country going in the direction to no where, us taxpayers deserve more.
I find it hard to understand that you, Aussie focussed don't know that the poor people fleeing literally for their lives, cannot just sit back and choose where to go.
I agree with you that at the onset of the virus some Chinese officials in Wuhan panicked about the virus and acted very badly indeed. Shame on them.
There is an English language requirement for migrants who come here through the usual process.
Nearly all the new settlers make a go of it here and we are indebted to them for their contribution to the country. Some of our brightest minds are migrants. You only need to look at the field of medicine for evidence.
China is still a developing country and when I was there just a few years back the average monthly wage was AU$300. They don't have much to give away . Of course they spend millions on defense- so do we.
I am not pretending not to know how ambitious they are and how cleverly they are now trying to grab what does not belong to them.
As to the properties, factories and other assets the Chinese own in Australia: who were the fools who sold them all this?
As to our products being bought in bulk from our supermarkets and shipped off to China. Just how did that happen? Profit making is all our supermarkets care about.
And you know it's our politicians who have allowed themselves to be bought. They all knew full well what they were doing.
Further to my earlier comments on covid-19, and in response to retorts I received about some babies and some young persons dying. What is the true cost of covid-19? What are the true costs of all nation's Government's responses? I refer to a Blog posted in the London Review of Books on the 20th of July 2020 by Ms Sophie Cousins. Ms Cousins reports on research undertaken by McGill University. I am reproducing the results of that research here. Doubting Thomas's can read the article for themselves. McGill University's results are that there will be 400,000 additional deaths from malaria this year alone; 700,000 additional deaths from HIV in Africa alone; 15 million additional pregnancies; up to 1.4 million extra deaths from TB by 2025; 80 million children under age one at risk of vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, rubella, and polio as a result of disruptions to immunization services in almost 70 countries; 113,000 additional maternal deaths in the next 12 months due to disruptions to pre-natal, during pregnancy, and post-natal care; and that global poverty, a major driver of poor health, is set to worsen. When the economic devastation is added to that list, how does a decent, intelligent and humane person weigh the health costs of covid-19 against the costs of the responses? What should our responses really be when all the global effects are gathered in?
I have read with interest what Ms Cousins has found in her research. It leaves me at a loss to know what to think, other than attending to our own problems first and then only to giving aid where we can.
Malaria was almost eradicated in parts of Africa way back in the 1970s. Then for example, when the Mugabe government came to power in Zimbabwe, the checks and treatments were neglected.
HIV can be almost wiped out in one generation if promiscuity is reduced and safe sex is practised.
South Africa has made great strides in that 90% of the carriers are aware of their status, 64%on treatment and 54 ,% virally suppressed. However with streams of illegal migrants pouring into that country and funds going to Covid that will change.
It seems to me that we keep pouring money into programmes that are repeated over and over.
What do you think our responses should be?
In my post on the costs of covid-19 I incorrectly dated the Blog in the LRB I refer to as the 20th 0f July; the correct date is 9th of July. My apologies.
Good Idea but Potentionally Spreading Covid 19 Virus to Inmates and Guards, then the Guards Family.
Since the States and Territores jails are over crowded all ready it's a "Petri Dish Situation".
Then that adds to the Expense/Budget of Jails, increase Fines.
If we are for dealing harshly with the "rule breakers" ... then what about what's happening in Perth tonight!
From your link Sophie ...
Under WA's phase four restrictions, 30,000 fans are allowed to attend — half the stadium's capacity — meaning every second row will be empty. A number of COVID-19 safety measures will be put in place, including spraying disinfectant on footballs kicked into the crowd, keeping the front row empty, and fines of up to $50,000 for any supporter who invades the field.
Might not be breaking the rules but perhaps not the wisest direction in the middle of a pandemic.
However having said that, news reports today from Australia's current COVID-19 hotspot Victoria, have Daniel Andrews saying that 80% of cases in that state since mid-May are from workplace transmissions.
Hard to know where to draw the line ... work or play.
The "rule breakers" I am referring to are the fans who attended the match. Once inside the stadium, many threw caution to the winds...even admitting later on that much social distancing was not being observed.
I am well aware of WA's Phase Four restrictions...I live here!
If we are for dealing harshly with the "rule breakers" ... then what about what's happening in Perth tonight!
As tens of thousands of fans head to Perth Stadium to watch the state's first AFL game in front of a crowd in more than 10 months, the West Australian Government is being warned its decision to allow the event "could come back to haunt it".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-16/afl-returns-to-perth-stadium-amid-coronavirus-crowd-fears/12461094