Quote:
Originally Posted by Tourer
To clarify, not the Australian Government - it is the Victorian Government that sets the health quarantine arrangements as both the Tennis and GP are in Melbourne (capital of Victoria). Given that the Vic Govt caused the massive (by Oz standards) 2nd wave of Covid by not running hotel quarantine for returned international travellers competently, it is going OTT on any similar measures and requirements just now.
There are also public support implications, with many complaining that if Australian citizens are not able to come home as quickly as they'd like (there are numbers caps on how many can enter the country each week) then no international sports people should be given priority over Oz citizens.
Then there's the volunteer officials - it was announced a couple of weeks ago that all those working in pit lane and paddock area would have to be in quarantine for three weeks (1 week before the event, 2 weeks after) and there are (less clear) requirements for other officials too apparently. Those that I know have said that they simply can't take that amount of time off work.
So - unlikely, yeah that's the way it looks now - particularly as the country has border restrictions between the states again as a result of a small cluster in Sydney (28 cases as I write) and those border closures were announced and put in place on the same day. That means that any planning can be thrown into disarray with virtually no notice and as many officials at the Grand Prix come from interstate, that adds further risk to the event.
Unless some kind of bubble exemption is put in place for the event (political suicide possibly for the Vic Govt) then it's hard to see it happening from where we stand today.
Apologies for the long post.
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Yes, It has all gone to hell over the last 24 hours and I too think it spells the death of the 2021 race. We have not seen our Grand Children for over 12 months and yesterday they arrived to stay for a week, this morning they went back to QLD via car as we could not get them on a plane before the border closed and being unaccompanied by a parent that was going to cause all sorts of issues if they had to go into quarantine and a 12 hour car trip was a better option than the problems that quarantine would have caused. I think it would be political suicide for the VIC government to allow the race to happen, there are still too many family separations that are far more important than a car race.