‘Heartbroken’ travellers locked out of Queensland for Christmas due to Covid testing delays

Many forced to cancel family reunions and holidays amid requirement to return a negative test 72 hours before arrival

Heartbroken families are being forced to cancel Christmas and holiday plans as Queensland Covid testing requirements leave them locked out or turned away.

Almost 260,000 Australians have crossed the border into Queensland since Monday but many more have been turned away and sent home or forced to cancel family reunions and expensive holiday bookings because of testing delays.

Continue reading...

Coronavirus | The Guardian

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The world’s economic recovery from Covid-19 looks likely to be uneven | Nouriel Roubini

The bounce-back will be stronger in the US and China, but Europe and Japan face a slower restart Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage After the most severe global recession in decades, private and official forecasters are increasingly optimistic that world output will recover strongly this year and thereafter. But the coming expansion will be unevenly distributed, both across and within economies. Whether the recovery is V-shaped (a strong return to above-potential growth), U-shaped (a more anemic version of the V) or W-shaped (a double-dip recession) will depend on several factors across different economies and regions. With the coronavirus still running rampant in many countries, one key question is whether the emergence of virulent new strains will trigger repeated stop-and-go cycles, as we’ve seen in some cases where economies reopened too soon. One particularly ominous possibility is that more vaccine-resistant variants appear, heightening the urgenc...
Read more

As Australian I’m lucky that I got my first jab. I’m confounded why luck had to come into it | Van Badham

Is Australia really in the grip of ‘vaccine hesitancy’, or is the national affliction ‘government vaccine failure’? I got my coronavirus vaccine last week. I celebrated at a favourite burger joint, slurping a milkshake as big as my head and dancing around the table to Daft Punk, even as news broke that an outbreak in my home state of Victoria foreshadowed another lockdown. Even as my needled arm began to gently throb. Missing a childhood measles vaccine almost killed me ; it’s now unlikely coronavirus will have that chance. I woke up the next day with a warned-of hazy brain, a little nausea and a strong feeling I may need to gnaw my aching arm from a bear trap. Mostly, however, I felt relieved – as if the one decision I made to try my luck with eligibility, book an appointment and hop to the pop-up clinic at my local Mercure has negated a lifetime of more – ahem – questionable self-care choices. Continue reading... Coronavirus | The Guardian
Read more

In spite of Omicron, Britain’s schools must remain open | Devi Sridhar

Home schooling harms children. And we now have the knowhow and tools to mitigate the risks from Covid We still don’t know how severe the Omicron wave will be, and debates are raging about closing nightclubs, alcohol curfews and work-from-home guidance. It can sometimes feel like last Christmas all over again. But one decision should be clear. Given the tools and knowledge we have now, school closures should be off the table. Why were schools closed at all in previous lockdowns? The best approach was to minimise risk , given the limited knowledge about Covid-19 transmission and with no vaccination available to protect against severe health outcomes and death. Concerns about many different groups factored into policy decisions on schools. Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Continue reading... Coronavirus | The Guardian
Read more