COVID-19: NSW wants to dump mandatory PCR testing for international Sydney arrivals

Our esteemed Premier Dominic Perottet is hoping to convince the national cabinet to drop mandatory PCR testing for international vaccinated arrivals into Sydney, and replace them with rapid antigen testing.

Currently, international arrivals must get a PCR test in the first 24 hours after arrival and self-isolate until they get a negative result. They also need another test on day 6 after their arrival, with a third recommended after 12 days.

PCR testing in Sydney has turned into a debacle, with extreme queues, multiple hours of wait times, and facilities closing earlier than advertised on a not well publicised holiday schedule. With all tourists arrivals, and those wanting to travel to South Australia (until recently) and Queensland required to evidence a negative test within 3 days of travel, testing facilities have been overwhelmed.

Government authorities have issued mixed messages – at first encouraging all with the slightest hint of suspicion of COVID to go out to be tested, and then encouraging tourists to return to normal behaviour by travelling and testing, and now, saying that only those with confirmed symptoms should get testing. The current advice ignores the fact that some states mandate testing, and international arrivals have mandated testing on arrival and at intervals after arrival!

What a shemozzle. Our state and federal governments seem incapable of organising a look out of a window.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

OMG, this is such a disaster! I’ve cancelled our NYE trip to Byron, mainly for omicron reasons, but also because we would have been mixing with vulnerable people, and would have liked either a PCR or rapid antigen test before we went for safety reasons.

And this, on a day where NSW records 12,226 new infections overnight with 746 COVID patients in hospital!

It really feels like the state and federal governments have just given up on managing the pandemic. Their neo-liberal views on ‘personal responsibility‘ are an excuse not to ensure community safety and to abandon public health principles.

I encourage all my readers who get to vote in Australia to remember this for when the federal and New South Wales government elections come around.