7/02/2012
Carelessness or thoughtlessness?
Many frequent travellers to Australia would know of the famed Australia procedures of fumigation in the aircraft on arrivals, treating every passenger and their belongings as pest ridden stuff, harbouring millions of dangerous bacteria and viruses that could bring harm to their country. That is how the Australians try to protect their country and people from harm.
Every human bean and thing is a carrier for all things floating in the air, intentionally or unintentionally. The baggage could be home to contagious disease carrying microbes or bugs and lices. So do the human bodies if unclean. They could be equally infested on the skin or inside the body system with disease and illness that could easily infect on contact or sneezing.
Our open door policies for inviting every living things to our island must also be inviting all the disease and illness bearers to our shores. And we welcome them gleefully. There have been complaints of bed bugs and lices making a reappearance after decades of non existence except in a few dark corners. TB and rare diseases are starting to creep up and so are highly drug resistant viruses.
We are so opened as a society and country that we take them in our strides. Did we ever think that such openness and callousness or thoughtlessness could bring about an epidemic like the bubonic plague or something similar in nature, and just as deadly?
Is there a need to take some precautions? Or do we think that by exposing our people to all kinds of disease causing microbes could help to build up a natural immune system to render them ineffective? Are the Australians crazy and over doing it or we are so daft and unable to appreciate the merits of those strange acts? I was told that some airlines have started to take some cosmetic measures by spraying insecticides lined with scented liquid in the aircraft when entering or exiting some countries. These acts would hardly do any good to prevent a health hazard and at most reduce the foul odour in the planes.
Just some food for thought for the thoughtless. ‘I have never met anyone so thoughtless in my life. Keep up the good work.’ Said the meditation guru to his student.
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7 comments:
Australia is hardly a model to be emulated. Look at Australia's economy for the past 40 years. Your garndchildren would not have work to do.
That is another part of the story. But they are very serious in controlling diseases and pests entering their country to pollute it.
The aussie do more than spraying the plane on arrival. They also check golf bags and golf shoes and ask arriving golfers whether the clubs and shoes have been cleaned.If not they will proceed to clean and disinfect your gold clubs and shoes free of charge.
I always enjoy watching angmo at the arrival hall cleaning my golf clubs and shoes free of charge
Hi oldhorse42, welcome to the blog.
Australia could be the only continent saved should the world be hit by a deadly and contagious disease.
"That is another part of the story. But they are very serious in controlling diseases and pests entering their country to pollute it."
It is all inter-related, like your bodily organs.
Firstly, a correction about the Aussie economy -- it has been booming for nearly 20 years now, and it is unlikely to stop. Yesterday, July 1st, income taxes came down again. (But we also got a carbon tax). Australian average weekly income: ~AUD 1200 per week. If you earn a decent wage here, you must have some serious issues. Labour is short, so the government, under pressure from business, is allowing many to come to work on the 457 Visa Program.
Now about the laws: Australia is a motherfucking annoying cuntry with too many stupid laws, regulations and taxes. It is also a robust democracy, so the people REALLY get the government they deserve.
Any market activity is strictly regulated by the government -- down to the most insignificant minutia, thus raising the cost of enterprise everywhere. Plus they have minimum wage of AUD17 per hr. And lets not forget the unions.
Add to the public welfare bill there is the dole, pensions, MediCare, public schooling, public transport etc. Plus the law for commerce is under the rubric of "Fair Trading", not "Free Trading".
These days if you want to be a cleaner, you have to be "certified" -- everything must have either a license or a qualification.
Australia has also a very sensitive eco system -- cannot suka suka introduce species. The fumigation thing comes from a 1950's foot and mouth epidemic which wiped out most of Australia's cattle and sheep. The losses were in the hundred of millions, many farmers were wiped out.
They traced the source of the epidemic to a Pakistani visitor who had brought in foodstuffs with him -- obviously contaminated.
So the governmental knee-jerk was to up the standards of quarantine at the borders.
Anyway, if you like unions, welfare and a tightly regulated market and society, quasi-socialist Australia is a marvelous model for you.
To me, although annoying, I've learnt to live with stupid laws and over-regulations, because in the nearly 3 decades here, I have found many ways to eliminate my exposure, or find borderline legal ways around it.
Singapore ought to pay more attention to public health. Antibiotic-resistent TB is a big disaster waiting to happen. Microbes are always around to kill humans -- that fact won't change. But as population densities increase, so does the risk of widespread infection.
However there is no necessity to "knee jerk" react. Australia is known to go overboard with "counter measures", which in the end end up costing the taxpayer more for very little marginal benefit/ security/ protection.
The aussie do more than spraying the plane on arrival. They also check golf bags and golf shoes and ask arriving golfers whether the clubs and shoes have been cleaned.If not they will proceed to clean and disinfect your gold clubs and shoes free of charge. I always enjoy watching angmo at the arrival hall cleaning my golf clubs and shoes free of charge
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