NZ and Oz - 2020.

Some info from today's NASJA Zoom meeting:
Thredbo was instructed to run at 50% capacity. People waited as long as hours online to reserve tickets. The entire season is sold out through August 30. Thredbo refunded season ticket payments but charged passholders 30% of day ticket prices for any days they reserved.

New Zealand is business as usual, no restrictions, no masks. But of course you're not skiing there if you don't live there.

South America is in big trouble. We knew about Las Lenas, but Valle Nevado will also not open at all this season. Portillo is "closed indefinitely."
 
Australia's Covid situation has regressed somewhat with a bit of a flair up in Victoria. The numbers are completely insignificant compared to many other places in the world. The move has today been made to shut the border between NSW and Victoria. Whilst this doesn't affect my skiing plans for next month I can see it is the precursor to Queensland (the state in which I live) shutting borders again.
It's been a slow start the season as far as snow goes. Hopefully things improve in the next few weeks.

NZ has had a great start. Most ski hills are fully open.
 
Tony Crocker":1slddebz said:
Sbooker":1slddebz said:
NZ has had a great start. Most ski hills are fully open.
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No they are not.
None have as many as half their runs open and only Mt. Hutt has a 100cm base even at top elevation.

There is abundant snow in South America but all the areas there are locked down. Snow-forecast thinks another 3-5 feet have fallen since June 30.
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Sorry Tony. I will admit to using social media reports as a reference. My mistake.
 
Falls Creek and Mt. Hotham are shut down from July 9 - August 19 due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne. The Victoria outbreak is on the order of 100+ new cases per day, slightly more than the prior peak in March/April. NSW and WA are seeing a handful of new cases per day while other states/territories are essentially COVID free.

For some perspective consider that Australia (population 25 million) has had 9,769 total cases since the virus arrived in January. Meanwhile Florida (population 21.5 million) has averaged 9,208 new cases per day over the past week.

The Victoria-NSW border is closed so Thredbo and Perisher remain open, though with advance reservations required.

Interestingly, Mt. Buller remains open to "our local community and fellow regional Victorians," but not to those locked down in Melbourne. Again, I'd be interested in sbooker's take on how this can be enforced.
 
Tony Crocker":3mpdz25p said:
Mt. Buller remains open to "our local community and fellow regional Victorians," but not to those locked down in Melbourne. Again, I'd be interested in sbooker's take on how this can be enforced.
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ID check at the entrance?

Tony Crocker":3mpdz25p said:
For some perspective consider that Australia (population 25 million) has had 9,769 total cases since the virus arrived in January. Meanwhile Florida (population 21.5 million) has averaged 9,208 new cases per day over the past week.
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Are all my fellow Americans enjoying our status as the laughing stock of the world?
 
I knew that piece of chum would be irresistable to some. The answer to your question is yes. Surely James would agree that his desired result in November has greatly increased probability due to this debacle.
 
I’m not well in tune with American politics but I wouldn’t think there is any certainty with regard the result in November. Still a long way to go.
Edit. While we're here could someone explain why The Democrats can't find a candidate more likely to secure a victory than their current choice? Surely there's someone else in a country of 300 million?

Back to skiing.
My plans of skiing next month have nose dived but I’ll keep some hope.
The Victorian/NSW border was open when the cluster appeared in metro Melbourne. There are now cases appearing in western Sydney. The border between NSW and Qld is now open so I’m certain we’ll have cases here soon.

The fear is our government will slap a quarantine order on returning Queenslanders if (when) case numbers increase in NSW. That is now hotel quarantine at the expense of the ‘consumer’. I can’t afford the 16 days off work and the bill for 4 people would be horrendous. It’s just not worth the risk.
 
So why wasn't NZ a safer bet than Thredbo this season?

The Democrats wanted to avoid nominating someone many people actively dislike, which was a big part of the problem last time. The strategy seems to be get out of the way and let Trump self destruct. So far it's working quite well.
 
Tony Crocker":2b3miit4 said:
So why wasn't NZ a safer bet than Thredbo this season?

The Democrats wanted to avoid nominating someone many people actively dislike, which was a big part of the problem last time. The strategy seems to be get out of the way and let Trump self destruct. So far it's working quite well.
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NZ is not an option yet Tony and it doesn't look likely anytime soon unfortunately. There is some talk of November but the way we're reacting to relatively minor outbreaks in Melbourne it doesn't look good for international travel.

I get the Democrat thing now I guess. But surely there is still some Kennedys left that would have put their hand up? :-D
 
I thought there was talk of allowing travel between NZ and "clean" states of Australia, which should mean everywhere other than Victoria and New South Wales.
 
Tony Crocker":2kqqypwa said:
I thought there was talk of allowing travel between NZ and "clean" states of Australia, which should mean everywhere other than Victoria and New South Wales.
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There was but Queensland opened the border to NSW (which had theirs open to Victoria for a couple of weeks when community transmission infection numbers were rising). NZ not so keen now apparently.
So frustrating in many ways.
 
It’s official. Covid is certifiably atrocious.
Had to cancel our planned few days on the snow in August today. Our state government declared we would have to do 14 days paid quarantine on return to Queensland if we even drove through a declared ‘hot spot’ in New South Wales.
Props to Thredbo resort though. They offered a full refund of our eye wateringly expensive lift tickets as long as we produced proof that we were flying into NSW.

I’m concerned my kids are going to forget how to ski. Myself and my wife had 11 wonderful days on skis in Feb/March in the US Rockies but the kids haven’t been on skis since December when we had 5 days on various hills in Hokkaido. When are we going to ski again?
I’m hoping it comes back to us all quickly.
 
Most skiers go 8-9 months between seasons. Only us nutcases cut that down to 6 months or fewer. I would not be concerned about your kids at all. Being in not great physical condition is the primary reason for an extended warmup period in the new season, rarely an issue with active kids.

I'd still hold out hope for a COVID-free Queensland in late September, allowing you to go for North Island NZ during your spring school holiday. Queensland's draconian policy about quarantine from NSW may be reassuring from the NZ government point of view.
 
Tony Crocker":12ir6e3w said:
Most skiers go 8-9 months between seasons. Only us nutcases cut that down to 6 months or fewer. I would not be concerned about your kids at all. Being in not great physical condition is the primary reason for an extended warmup period in the new season, rarely an issue with active kids.

I'd still hold out hope for a COVID-free Queensland in late September, allowing you to go for North Island NZ during your spring school holiday. Queensland's draconian policy about quarantine from NSW may be reassuring from the NZ government point of view.
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Thanks Tony. Hopefully you’re right about the kids.
And being able to go to Ruapehu in September would be tops.
 
Great news from here in Australia.
Our state government has flagged that it will likely open the borders to our southern neighbouring state of New South Wales by Christmas. Our state Premier has the border locked down due to rampant Covid in NSW. The daily community transmission numbers spiked to 14 cases a month ago but has since fallen to (obviously still a worrying figure) of 2 to 3 cases per day.
There is almost no chance we will be allowed to travel to Victoria who yesterday had a huge number of new cases - 38.
Some cynics have suggested the hard line on borders have little to do with public health outcomes and more to do with the state government election in early November however I'm uncertain why people think these actions are going to have our Labor government re-elected.

Now to be a little more serious. These politicians are so drunk on power that they have refused people entry into the state to visit dying relatives. In fact a media worthy case a week or so ago told of two young girls who were denied entry to see there father before he died even though they lived in Canberra who hasn't had a covid case in over 2 months.
It is certain we don't live in the land of the free and home of the brave.
 
sbooker":3tsx77fz said:
The daily community transmission numbers spiked to 14 cases a month ago but has since fallen to (obviously still a worrying figure) of 2 to 3 cases per day.
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Florida and California cases are down some from mid-summer: both states now in the area of 3,000 new cases per day! L.A. County restaurants are outside dining only.

Liz and I left Florida Aug. 28 and drove through 12 states on our way home, arriving Sep. 14.
 
Tony Crocker":1n1bfs54 said:
sbooker":1n1bfs54 said:
The daily community transmission numbers spiked to 14 cases a month ago but has since fallen to (obviously still a worrying figure) of 2 to 3 cases per day.
Click to expand...
Florida and California cases are down some from mid-summer: both states now in the area of 3,000 new cases per day! L.A. County restaurants are outside dining only.

Liz and I left Florida Aug. 28 and drove through 12 states on our way home, arriving Sep. 14.
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Rub it in.
I can only hope that the announcement and not complete roll out of a working safe vaccine will signal a quick widespread lifting of restrictions.
 
Sbooker":1g4l683b said:
Rub it in.
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I find it truly shocking the manner in which Oz and Kiwi lands have handled the virus. They've taken the concepts of one of the worst dictatorships in history (Communist China) and decided that that was the gold standard in how to treat people in the face of a moderate virus threat. SO many more paths are and were possible (eg South Korea or Sweden as very different examples - yet neither has locked down citizens).

While the quote was intended a bit differently at the time it was said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" is something that comes to mind, but then I do have a strong Americanized view of how those two topics interact with each other.

I've been in-state/in-county only ~9 of the last 20 something weekends since this started, have flown cross country, and etc... Again seems shocking what I see in Oz and Kiwi lands. Very surprised I have not read about big backlash there given that even Europe has seen significant pushback to non-nuanced and over-broad lock-down style government concepts.

going back in the time-machine of this thread:
jamesdeluxe":1g4l683b said:
Are all my fellow Americans enjoying our status as the laughing stock of the world?
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Does this mean that James thinks that France, UK, Spain, India and Brazil and others are now the laughing stock of the world? The only comparison that can be made of how any country actually did will be about 2-3 years from now.
 
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