Swine flu snafu

Victoria has suddenly become a pariah state. And it will be parents and employers in other states that will suffer. In an absurd move, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia announced yesterday that children returning from Victoria will be banned from school for seven days. Seven days! What are you meant to do with presumably healthy kids for a week when you are meant to be working?

In Victoria there have been interviews with contractors who lost weeks of wages because they have been quarantined with healthy children – in case they got swine flu. Now Victoria has raised its alert level from “contain” to “sustain”. This means only those people living with a confirmed case of swine flu are quarantined whereas during the ‘contain’ phase, those who have had contact with swine flu carriers are quarantined.

As Victorian Premier John Brumby sensibly puts it: “You get to a point where the number of cases continues to escalate, and to be honest, it becomes physically impossible to track everybody who’s got the virus and everybody who’s come in contact with them.”

Brumby is highly annoyed at the latest move by states to control the spread of swine flu.

“I think that is the most bizarre thing I have ever seen, or heard, or read in my life,” Brumby said on Fairfax Radio Network this morning.

“It is completely contrary to all of the advice of the Australian Health Protection Committee.”

He should add that it will be a complete waste of time. In little over two weeks time, hoards of Victorian swine flu exposed kids and teenagers will be heading north (Tassie, you’re probably safe).

It is the start of Victoria’s school holidays and traditionally those people that can, escape the Melbourne chill by heading to warmer climates.

And we all know what kids are like. I, for example, am a Melbournian. And I’m on the way to Queensland in two weeks time with three teenage boys in tow who intend to spend many happy hours chatting, chucking balls and swimming with other teenagers.

In the long run, measures to control the spread of swine flu may not only prove fruitless but also affect businesses already struggling in these hard times.