Posted on 10/27/2014 4:58:54 PM PDT by knak
AUSTRALIA has temporarily banned visitors from Ebola-stricken Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone in west Africa.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told Parliament that immigration had been suspended, and no new visas were being processed.
Citizens and permanent residents can re-enter the country, but tourism, study and humanitarian visas were temporarily halted as long as a fortnight ago.
Were not processing any applications from the affected countries, Mr Morrison said.
We are cancelling and refusing non-permanent or temporary visas from persons from Ebola-infected countries who havent departed yet.
People on humanitarian programs with visas were still being allowed in, provided they had three separate health checks before their departure and submitted to a 21-day quarantine on arrival.
At least four West African families are under quarantine in Queensland, including the family of a woman, 18, who fell ill earlier this week.
That woman, understood to be a refugee from Guinea who arrived 12 days ago with seven relatives, was yesterday cleared of the virus by Queensland health officials.
Mr Morrison said 830 people had been referred for screenings. None had been required to attend hospital.
The minister pleaded with anyone intending to travel from the Ebola zone to alert Border Protection officials.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten yesterday continued to attack the Federal Government over its refusal to send any Australian health workers to the Ebola zone.
Saying the Australian Medical Association had called the Governments response a shambles, he asked when Australia would join other developed nations in tackling Ebola at its source.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Government took the views of the AMA very seriously but didn't always agree. We are well prepared to deal with any Ebola case here in Australia, he said.
We also have a ready reaction team that can deploy at a moments notice to our region to deal with any outbreak in countries which are less well prepared than Australia to deal with this matter.
That is our priority: at home, and in our region.
Nevertheless, we are continuing to talk to our friends and partners about what more might be done to address the situation in West Africa.
I certainly dont rule out Australia doing more.
They didn’t get that Idea from Obola!
Sounds reasonable to me.
Proving once more that quarantines work. As if we need to see that...common sense escapes our Representatives at all levels!
Our president's plan to deal with the outbreak is to expose as many US citizens to the disease as possible.
Only that way will the selfish & racist americans get serious about funding a cure.
Well, at least there is one nation in the world that has leaders with some common sense.
(hat tip to: fivecatsandadog!)
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the Bring Out Your Dead ping list (formerly the Ebola ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the Bring Out Your Dead threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
M O O N
that spells the best book (and TV movie) ever
GO, OZ!!!
How dare they? Obola’s gonna chew their ass over this.
Huh. Guess the Aussies did not get the memo. Don’t they believe in SCIENCE!
At least the Aussie liberals are being a bit more honest about what they want (if not totally INSANE!).
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
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