AFTER an extended period when Newcastle Airport was all but empty, and with essential workers virtually the only ones flying, the Hunter Region's main aerial gateway has reopened with a steadily increasing roster of flights.
Through a combination of social distancing, rigorous testing, quarantine and lockdowns, coronavirus had all but disappeared from our part of the world.
But with flights having resumed between Newcastle and a range of east coast destinations, the potential for coronavirus to be brought from elsewhere in the country is now more likely, at least in theory, than it was when the various government bans and restrictions were in full force.
Now, however, the rapidly deteriorating situation in Victoria has the whole nation on notice, and as part of a new statewide health order, passengers who disembarked on the Jetstar flight from Melbourne yesterday had their temperature checked, with police waiting at the terminal as part of the state government's measures to attempt to protect NSW from developing its own hot-spots.
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As the Victorian government has now acknowledged, at least some of the blame for the escalating situation in and around Melbourne can be sheeted home to lax supervision at the various hotels set aside for quarantine isolation.
But Victoria is not the only state administration to get things wrong, as the NSW inquiry into the fateful consequences of the Ruby Princess March 19 arrival in Sydney has heard.
Yet despite an overwhelming need for caution as the various COVID-19 restrictions are unwound, passengers arriving in Newcastle yesterday said there was no screening before boarding at Tullamarine.
Given public health orders in NSW and other states against arrivals from designated Victorian hot-spots, it would seem the least the Andrews government could do would be to help out at its end by ensuring that nobody with a temperature or other symptoms leaves its commercial airports.
And yes, airlines are businesses, and need to make money, but the celebratory nature of some of the airline advertising - Jetstar offering cut-price getaway flights as parent Qantas takes big hunks of JobKeeper money while sacking staff - seems in questionable taste.
Because if cases do flare up away from Melbourne, the border openings now under way will likely be reversed, and the finger of blame - fairly or not - pointed south.
ISSUE: 39,650.
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