The tail is not stubborn. Its our reluctance to upgrade our #TestTraceIsolate and Infection prevention/Control in high risk settings that is holding us back. https://twitter.com/vicgovdhhs/status/1315770675030831104

How do we upgrade?
Testing - be far more flexible with our criteria for testing in outbreaks, ESPECIALLY with CASUAL contacts. And for both close/casual contacts we need to consider testing on day 5 as we know home based quarantine is flawed. Once lockdowns are over, tata.

Testing (more) - every casual contact/anyone who stepped foot on a ward during a hospital/aged care based outbreak should be tested on day 5, not people who spent more than 29 min there. Somehow this got through to Vic gov after days of questioning.

Tracing - obvious change in approach needed re: up and down stream tracing. And when numbers are low, and we have capacity trace casual contacts in high risk settings.
Also feds, fix the app.
Also, where those 2 other local tracing hubs at?

Isolation - thankfully we are now 'trialling' the vietnamese model of isolating 'contacts of contacts'. How is this going? Can we provide people with the RIGHT incentives so they aren't discouraged from being honest with tracers, but also we don't get compensatory 'spread'

Infection prevention/control in high risk settings:
This is hospitals, aged care, abbatoirs, factories where phys distancing is hard and workforces are casualised. Lots of places. We need to support them through education and auditing. Without this combo, kiss compliance goodbye.

Of course, we're told 'PPE is the last line of defense'. Righto, let's think about the others shall we? Ventilation studies in hospitals - where we at?
Co-horting staff working on COVID wards - where we at?
All COVID facing staff Fit tested - where we at?
ZERO ZERO ZERO

Hopefully we get validated antigen tests so we can do cheap/rapid/frequent tests in high risk settings to spot infections early. If we don't test these populations, #covid19aus will leak out back into the community. Infection control in hospitals is about protecting the COMMUNITY

People hyperventilating about hotel quarantine need to wake the hell up. Bro we can't stop the infection leaking out of hospitals, supposedly designed for infection control with qualified staff, you reckon private security guards was the real problem here?

This list of measures is so not comprehensive. It's just showing MANY of the levers that remain unpulled. And we need to pull them because believe it or not, we are not having another lockdown. Yes.

The government can impose more lockdowns, but good luck trying to stop superspreading parties in December January. We are ON THE CLOCK as public patience is running out, for better or worse, and the levers need to be pulled yesterday.