djh1959

After weeks and weeks of no cases, other than returned travellers in quarantine, we suddenly have four new locally transmitted cases.  Fortunately these are at the opposite end of the city to me, but it is still frightening.

Just the thought of going back into a lock down like we had last year gives me the horrors.  At least I am due to be vaccinated in two weeks.

This just goes to show that this virus is nowhere near gone, and while people are flying around the world they are just moving it with them.

20 hours ago, Lance88 said:

Does anyone have any recommendations on a hotel in Porto where we can stay before the cruise departs.

Unfortunately my trip to Porto in January 2021 was cancelled for obvious reasons, but I did a heap of research, and from what I learned, I would agree with JP.  Pestano Vintage Porto definitely seemed the nicest at a half way reasonable price for having a lovely view.

I still actually have a reservation with them for next January, but our government will not open our borders by then, so I have to cancel it unfortunately.

My husband and I have finally managed to get appointments to be vaccinated.  Not until 7th June, but at least the appointment is made.  We made appointments for the second vaccination too.

AstraZenica is unfortunately the only option, but at least we will be vaccinated.

I am now eligible for vaccination here in Australia as we are now doing the 50-70 group.  My doctor was going to call in a couple of weeks once an appointment was available and I was quite happy to have it.

Today though there are yet more reports of blood clots, another 7 cases, and these are older people in their 60s to70s.  We were told that AstraZenica was safe for over 50s, but it is starting to appear that that is not correct.

Now I am unsure whether to go ahead or not.  The problem is that Pfizer is only for under 50s here and will not be available until the end of the year.

Decisions, decisions.

This was the last trip that we did, and we didn't bother with currency and just used our credit cards.

You can also withdraw from an ATM and you will receive the correct currency for the country that you are in.

22 hours ago, notamermaid said:

@djh1959 I know the frustrating feeling, we have been through that. Now things are a bit brighter. I do not recall - what has been approved with you? Anything beyond Pfizer and AstraZeneca?

 

 

At this stage we only have minimal amounts of Pfizer as we cannot get the supplies that we were contracted to get.  We have AstraZeneca as we are now manufacturing that here.  The plan is to start manufacturing Pfizer too, but that won't be up and running until next year.

Further Pfizer doses are on order, but won't arrive until the final quarter of the year, which means our under 50s have to wait until then to be vaccinated.

50s and over can still have AZ, so that is what I will be having.

Sadly more lockdowns are starting to happen here.  Perth is now in a three day lockdown, due to covid yet again escaping from a quarantine hotel. 

Unfortunately the man involved flew to Melbourne and has now tested positive, so I expect Melbourne will yet again be in lockdown.  

This is never going to end unless we stop people travelling from one country to another.  I know they want to come home, but until we are all vaccinated it is just madness to allow flights in.

Here in Melbourne, we have just been told that my age group, which is 50-70, can be vaccinated during May.  Now the problem will be to find someone who actually has vaccine to administer it.  The shortages here are ridiculous.

I cannot understand why anyone would want to go to France, or anywhere in Europe, at this time.

They are in such a terrible way, even the fully vaccinated can still catch covid and bring it home to vulnerable people in their country.

I really hope the French president does not open the borders to anyone.

22 hours ago, djh1959 said:

I've just got home from a long, long lunch to hear that we have decided to revive our AstraZenica program and go back to vaccinating under 50s with it, once their turn comes.  I haven't heard yet why this has happened, but Australia is incredibly careful with allowing vaccinations, since we don't have any local cases, so they must be confident that it is now safe.

I am so sorry, now I know not to post after a long, long lunch.  It turns out what I posted above was not strictly correct - it is safe for under 50s, but only if they have extenuating health conditions that mitigate the risk.  They are still not planning to vaccinate healthy under 50s, well not while we are still not getting any cases anyway.

I've just got home from a long, long lunch to hear that we have decided to revive our AstraZenica program and go back to vaccinating under 50s with it, once their turn comes.  I haven't heard yet why this has happened, but Australia is incredibly careful with allowing vaccinations, since we don't have any local cases, so they must be confident that it is now safe.

18 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Well it turns out that the U.K. has sent just a few thousand doses of U.K. made OxfordAstrazenica vaccine to Australia, make good use of it with our good wishes. CA

Yes we heard that the UK had sent us some as Europe totally let down their side of our contract, so thank you.

Trouble is that we have now announced that no-one under 50 should get AstraZenica and people are starting to panic, even older people are frightened to get it now (not me I might add).  I believe we have now ordered 20 million Pfizer doses, but they will not arrive until the last quarter of 2021.  

Australia will not be fully vaccinated until well into 2022 unfortunately.

4 hours ago, sharkster77 said:

I wonder what is going to be considered as "proof of vaccination".  I have heard some say that the cards from the CDC that we Americans receive upon vaccination are not official in any way.  If so, then how do we prove we have what we say we have?  The card has the date(s), vaccine name and batch number, and vaccination site.  What more do they need?

I have read that they are working on a world wide app that everybody will have to have.  That would seem the most sensible, if we could get everyone to agree to it.

It will be a long time before everyone in Australia is vaccinated, at least the end of this year or possibly early next.

Before international travel can really open up again properly, I do thing we need the majority of the world vaccinated.  I think it is great news that the UK population may not be able to travel over summer, it is really the best way of stopping this.

Finally, the vaccines are starting to be rolled out here in Australia.

My parents are both booked in to get their first shot next Tuesday, which is fantastic, as they are both almost 80 and have other conditions too.

Under 70s, which is hubby and myself, will probably have to wait until June, but we have only two cases right now in our state, so that is fine for us.

Happy 50th Anniversary Canal Archive.  A magnificent achievement for you both, congratulations.

I am literally currently listening the radio here in Australia and they have travel "experts" discussing the future of overseas travel in light of the vaccine rollout.

This gentleman said he fully expected that it would be early 2024 before overseas air travel is back to the 2019 levels!!  I have heard that from other sources too.  He means that we can simply decide where to go and book a ticket, without being concerned about quarantine and so on.

If this is actually the case, I would wonder how many river cruise companies could survive another three years, particularly Scenic as it is an Australian company, and Aussies are by far their largest customer base. 

16 hours ago, Daisi said:

 

@djh1959glad to hear that you can escape!  Hopefully with the strict rules, you won't have to go back into lockdown.  We have been wearing masks here for almost a year, I do have to agree, it's not fun in the summer, but we have found that in the winter, it's a nice covering over your mouth and nose and saves you from having to wear a scarf!

Yes, I remember last winter here and wearing the mask outside was quite pleasant in the chilly air.  We have been in the 30sC here for the last week though and it is truly awful in the shopping centres.  My face is a sweaty mess once I finally get to take it off in the car.
At least now we don't need to wear them outside, so long as we can socially distance.

Stay warm!

20 hours ago, pully8 said:

Really hope Melbourne will be able to open soon.

 

As you no doubt already know, our lockdown ends at midnight tonight.  We still have very strict mask restrictions, which I hate in summer, and also restrictions on visitors.  We can only have five at any time.

How lovely to visit Tasmania.  I would be too scared of going interstate due to the constant border changes.  Dictator Dan has an alarming habit of locking we Victorians out of our homes when there is an outbreak interstate.

Hopefully things will improve once the vaccine is rolled out.

Our Melbourne lockdown is due to end tomorrow, Wednesday, at 11:59pm.  The powers that be still haven't decided whether it will or not.

I suspect that the full lockdown might end, but we will still have very strict restrictions, such as mandatory mask wearing everywhere, very limited, or no, visitors to your home etc.

We are only getting 1-2 cases a day, so it is somewhat over the top compared to the northern hemisphere and people are really starting to get angry, so I hope something changes tomorrow.

Unfortunately travel is the entire issue.  We would have no cases here at all except for those brought in by returning Australians, as well as some other travellers.  I have absolutely no idea why they keep letting them in.

I really think overseas travel needs to be totally stopped until the world is vaccinated.  Unfortunately experts here have been saying that that could be up to six years away before all the lower socio-economic societies are done!

Scary thought.

Australia has just received its first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine and vaccinations will apparently start next week.  At first will only be front line workers and quarantine staff, as well as aged and nursing home residents, as it should be.  At least we are starting now.

We are still in lockdown in Melbourne, with lots of rumours that it will not end on Thursday, but will continue for another three weeks.  Let's hope that those rumours are wrong.

17 hours ago, Daisi said:

Are your restaurants not allowed to open for take-out?  That is the one thing they have kept common here, even in zones which were moving into lockdown.

Yes, our restaurants are still open for take out.  To my knowledge though, they are not allowed to sell alcohol, although bottle shops are still open.

Here in Melbourne, Australia, we have gone back into a Stage 4 lockdown.  At this stage it is only for five days, but last time it was for six weeks and went for 115 days, so I am not feeling confident.

To me it is somewhat of an overreaction as we only have a total of 19 cases, but the state government has gone into a panic as apparently it is the "dreaded UK" version.

For the next five days, only essential shops can be open.  We can't travel more than 5km from home, no visitors whatsoever, we can only leave the house for food, exercise for a maximum of 2 hours or medical care.

It is a bitter blow to our businesses that were just starting to get back on track.  Of course this is Valentine's Day weekend and restaurants were booked out and had no doubt ordered truckloads of fresh food.  They are now not allowed to open.  We have the Australia Open going on currently.  The lockdown starts at midnight tonight, so massive crowds are watching the tennis this evening, but no crowds tomorrow.  The tennis will continue as apparently tennis players are "essential".

I can't work out why this so terrifying UK strain apparently will not affect the 30,000 at the tennis tonight, but will tomorrow.

At least it isn't freezing cold, that is about the only good thing here right now.

16 hours ago, notamermaid said:

 

I hope football players and other professionals are not put on a vaccination priority list because they are essential workers for the moral of the common people. Weirder things have happened.

The Australian cricket team requested priority vaccinations before their upcoming tour of India so far, that request had been declined so the cricketers have refused to go. At this stage, the Indian government has offered to vaccinate them so that the cricket can go ahead. 

I would have thought it might be better if the Indian government worried more about vaccinating their own people. 

Here in Australia, we have now had three cases of this so-called UK strain.  All three have come out of hotel quarantine, one in Brisbane, one in Perth and one here in Melbourne.

Our governments have cracked down hard on these, especially the Perth one where the entire city went into a five day lockdown.  Here in Melbourne, we just reduced gathering numbers and increased places where masks are mandatory.

The very surprising thing is that even though this new strain is supposed to be so much more infectious, not one single person has caught covid, even though these three cases have been wandering around shopping, dining etc.  Admittedly we are only a week in, so things might change, but it is looking unlikely at this stage.

It looks like we might have dodged a bullet, or that the strain is nowhere near as infectious as the original one.  Maybe our summer warmth is the difference, who knows.

All the best for your daughter, Canal Archive.

My daughter in London just had her test prior to boarding her escape flight to New Zealand.  Thank goodness she and her partner tested negative, or else they would have been left jobless and homeless in London for another three months, waiting for a New Zealand quarantine spot.

Now we just have to pray that the flight isn't cancelled.

Thanks for the explanations everyone.

We will not even start vaccinating until late February, and I doubt that will really happen with the shortages that are starting now.

My husband and I are in our 60s, so presumably will have a very long time to wait.

Good luck to you all.