Border closures

are back. This time Downunder's western most state has an issue with the virus. A security guard at a "medi-hotel" has tested positive with one of the highly contagious new variants. 

The state has gone into a five day lock down in an attempt to contain the spread. There was the usual panic buying - although one person in  a household is allowed out to shop for essentials. The economic impact will be enormous.

All this made me think again about two things. First, the desirability of trying to get stranded Downunderites home from overseas. I don't have a lot of sympathy for some of these people. They were warned to get on flights and come home. Some of them chose to "finish" their holidays even when offered the opportunity to get home. Now they can't get home they are complaining about it. I know others were working and chose to stay where they were because of that. Of course they didn't know "how bad the situation was going to get" but demanding they be brought home now is what is causing so many of the problems. There is a belief that the government should somehow pay for their flights and for their time in quarantine.

What happened yesterday was the result of someone who did manage to get a return flight testing positive while in quarantine - and then somehow managing to infect someone else. That person has gone back into the community and put thousands of others at risk. Perhaps we should cease allowing people to come into the country at all for now? Certainly we should not be allowing "sports" people and their  "support" people in when we cannot get others home.

Air lines of course do not want to have to fly people in and then leave with an empty plane because others cannot travel abroad. It's a problem.

And that raised another thought - about vaccinations. Perhaps we do have an argument for vaccinating Downunderites early. The more people who are vaccinated the better not only the health outcomes but the economic outcomes. If we chose to go that route and then did two more things then we could actually contribute something useful rather than be seen as selfish. We could put maximum effort into producing more of the vaccine here. That would employ people. Yes, we vaccinate people here. Then we work on providing vaccines where they are most needed as part of our foreign aid efforts. The Pacific region is obvious but there are other areas where vaccine is desperately needed and could, with some work, be supplied. 

Oh yes, it would all be a lot of work on many levels but surely this is the way we should be thinking?