If Tasmanians track their symptoms and activities it can be invaluable data.

If everyone documents their symptoms and experiences, where they go and who they see, then in the event they fall ill the Tasmanian and federal governments can use the data and the diaries to identify hot spots, deploy services and monitor disease spread.

By providing data to the Flu Tracker website (it takes just 15 seconds) every Tasmanian can take on a front line role in the fight against coronavirus.

It is vital Tasmanians keep up the good work of physical distancing, because complacency has dire consequences.

Four weeks ago there were 300 cases across all of the US. Now there are more than 500,000. That's how quickly this thing can spread. I urge all Tasmanians to get onto Flu Tracker, and to keep a diary of where they go and who they are in contact with. We are all in this together - let's look after each other.

Brian Mitchell, Federal Labor Member for Lyons.

ON APRIL 8, a huge area (more than 350,000 hectares) of our Tasmanian native and old-growth forest became available for logging.

We need to stop this kind of timber harvesting for so many reasons, a big one being that it's economically unsustainable.

The government and the industry tell us that forestry equals jobs and economic growth, but that's a picture of the past.

Two independent reviews of the state-run forestry business (now known as Sustainable Timbers Tasmania) have shown that over the past 20 years they've lost more than $400 million, which is more than $20 million a year.

This money has come straight from the taxpayer's pocket. In the current pandemic, we have a social, health, and economic crisis looming in front of us. Can we really afford to keep an industry afloat with millions of dollars of taxpayer's money each year? What we need is to stop this unsustainable logging and progress to other industries, such as health care, firefighting, tourism, and renewable energies, to name a few.

The government needs to support all the people who currently rely on logging of native and old-growth forest, to transition to jobs that will not only support them and their families, but also help support the rest of our economy in the hard times to come.

Joy Pfleger, Ulverstone.

THE operators of the Ruby Princess should have cancelled the cruise weeks before the 2700 passengers were allowed on board on March 8, 2020.

The cruise should have been cancelled and passengers given a full refund.

The Diamond Princess cruise ship was in lockdown in Yokohama since February 5 with 712 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus after an outbreak swept across the vessel in February. Twelve passengers died from the outbreak. The 712 confirmed cases from that vessel do not include infections discovered among passengers after they had gone home. Thirty-six Americans were infected by the time they had arrived home in the United States. Princess Cruises is a cruise line owned by Carnival corporation. Hence the Ruby Princess and the Diamond Princess are both owned by the same company.

Carnival Corporation had first-hand knowledge of the Diamond Princess lockdown that had occurred on February 5, 2020, 34 days before 2700 passengers were allowed on board the Ruby Princess.

To make matters worse not all the 2700 passengers on board the Ruby Princess were from Australia; about 1000 had recently flown to Australia from all parts of the globe. In addition the 1100 crew members were from 50 different countries.

The ship has cramped living quarters for its 1100 crew, with as many as five crew members in tiny cabin accommodation.

The perfect breeding ground for germs and serious diseases. How can cruise ships guarantee cleanliness when crew members are forced to live in poor conditions and with huge language barriers to overcome among the 50 different nationalities? Cruise ships should never be allowed in Australian waters until crew members can be given living conditions that are acceptable to Australian standards. Cruise ships are not environmentally friendly and many Carnival Corporation cruise ships have been heavily fined for dumping oil, sewage, plastic and grey water.

Alwyn Johnson, Legana.