Two interchanges to get to town from the airport? Ouch.

Victoria's just hit the WHO definition of elimination of community spread (28 days / 2 incubation cycles of no unlinked/mystery cases). But also, we've just had 28 days of zero cases regardless...

AFAIK, from a legal perspective, each state is activating their relevant emergency powers acts (or powers vested in public health acts and the like). We had an issue a few months ago in Vic that the emergency powers were running out of time (the legislation, when it was written up long before...

The other thing we're now doing - Vietnam started it, pioneered in NSW, proven toward the end of the lockdown across multiple outbreaks and now in Victoria and now being deployed in SA: for contact tracing (which is only effective at small volumes) you isolate contacts of contacts. 1 infected...

More antipodean news - a cluster has emerged in Adelaide and has been linked back to a breach of quarantine hotels from early in November. Only 22 cases have been found so far but the SA government just did what Vic should have done in the beginning: slammed on stage 4 restrictions: all...

The station locations for the first section of the SRL here in Melbourne were unveiled yesterday, along with a whopping $2.2 billion in next week's state covid budget for early works. The actual designs for each station are still underway and will include interchanges with existing lines...

This Globe and Mail journo has done a very comprehensive report on the second waver here in Vic. I'm a bit perturbed by more than a handful of commenters on the article that can't seem to grasp the concept that the lockdown restrictions all happened in late autumn (i.e the same season you're in...

8 days of donuts now, big speech from our Premier tomorrow (Sunday) about lessening of more restrictions. The city has come alive (and with a vengeance) again. Casual reminder: lockdowns work.

no donuts today - we had two new cases and two deaths. The new cases are linked to existing outbreaks and were already quarantined. BUT I CAN NOW GO TO THE PUB *punches air*

Double donuts, again! I can go to the pub tomorrow (Wednesday)! This is your (now, as a consequence of two posts by me in 24 hours, daily) reminder that lockdowns suck, but they work - really well. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-27/coronavirus-zero-cases-victorias-achievement/12815424

^ Lockdowns (long ones) have resulted in our first donut day since June. I still can't go to the pub yet :(

The Western Sydney Airport metro line documents/EIS just got published this week - this is one of two more metro lines (beyond the existing one under construction and operating) that are proposed in Sydney. https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/major-projects/project/35016 Nitty gritty detail...

So I'm going to be able to go to the pub in 2 weeks, maybe 1............ yippeeeeee! And hairdressers open tomorrow........ no more iso mullet! Lockdowns suck, but jeeze they work. 2 cases today, 1 yesterday. Still getting mysteries but at least the significantly beefed up and...

There was widespread community spread in our second wave that triggered the lockdowns. Out of 20k cases, 4200 of them are classified as community transmission. The peak daily cases we hit was 720 and today we had 6 - all of which had no mystery source - and despite the lockdowns being long...

Also, Metro Tunnel now has 50% of its tunneling complete. Two TBMs are now being disassembled at the eastern portal and will be trucked back to their starting area (Anzac station) and then be pointed in the opposite direction - this happened at the western portal and those TBMs have finished...

One of the first posts I did in this thread had renders of a sunken Cheltenham station... well, the level crossing has been removed and the new station is now. Render: The new station https://www.facebook.com/levelcrossings/photos/pcb.4168103643264289/4168079836600003...

this line/type of argument still gives me the giggles. This is literally hot off the press, posted on the LX removal authority's facebook page the other day.... what new DC overhead looks like on a new elevated section of track on the Upfield line here in Melbourne...

Re: electrification and the work that might need to happen on lines for you guys when/if the project goes ahead.... we've seen some standards shift recently re: clearances to plan for the eventual introduction of double-stacked freighters into the port of Melbourne. Much of the freight networks...

by the way, aggressive suppression: ringfencing/working hard to bring case numbers right down to levels that are manageable for contact tracing. One of the key outcomes of the hotel quarantine debacle here has shone a spotlight on how inept our public health system has been in Victoria - no...

Australia is not officially pursuing an eradication strategy.... aggressive suppression which might eventually lead to eradication. We are not NZ which has far less tolerance than us for the virus: they are the epitome of an eradication strategy..... that's kind of failed for the same reason...