Thereās not much point comparing Australia with the UK at this point.
Australia has pursued a zero Covid strategy.
Never once has the UK pursued that.
If the UK had pursued zero Covid for 12 months like Australia we would be in a different position. But they didnāt. They fucked it up every step of the way and now we have to live with it
That said if we open up and we see a 4th wave / lockdown in the months ahead - there is going to have to be some serious conversation if they need to completely switch tactics and pursue the zero Covid strategy.
For that to happen borders need to close. Track and trace needs to be functioning (itās still not) And the government has to be prepared to pay everyoneās wages for many more months. Some industries in the UK have been closed so long they are facing permanent closure now. People have been kept out of hospitals / doctors for so long now there are also rising deaths from things other than Covid.
So, is this reopening fails - they will Have to have a serious conversation about zero Covid. So far the concept has very little support in Europe. Of course it IS possible. It would require huge sacrifice. The question is can any government in Europe sell that to citizens.
Zero Covid strategy from day 1 makes sense. Zero Covid after 12 months of lockdown is a tough sell.
The movement that epidemiologists in Europe are supporting is localized openings and green zones. As cities and states and regions get to no new transmission in 14 days - those local areas open with hrs enforced local and regional borders. Protect the green zones so as many people can get back to normal as possible
This green zone openings strategy seems a more likely path for the EU/UK than zero Covid
There are similar concerns here in Australia that more people could die from cancer or heart disease because either they hadnāt been able to go to regular check-ups, or were scared to go to the doctors/hospitals.
But not enough people have been fully vaccinated. This is a start and obviously being half vaccinated helps. But they need to rollout that second vaccination.
The re-opening is still a few weeks away and most things arenāt really starting till at least mid-April or May. If you balance that with the decline rate and the vaccination roll out, then they will definitely be better placed by then. Keeping in mind that most at risk groups will be vaccinated by then too.
Reading some of the comments above where people keep comparing things to Australiaā¦ I just donāt think some people realise that the position that Australia is in now unrealistic for most of the world. The UK has been locked down for months, they have made massive progress (and will continue too) but they also canāt stay like that forever. Yet they are still taking a very phased and cautious approach out on the back of vaccine roll outs.
They have built a road map out exactly like they did in Melbourne. Iām sure the dates are based on some level of modelling and Iām sure itās flexible like it was here as well.
says who? but I do suppose that is the sort of excuse the UK politicians will have to come up with to defend the indefensible. They have only recently come down to the levels they were at in december when they had their last disastrous reopening, and now they are talking about doing it again? 120k+ people dead and they still arenāt realising their strategy is wrong.
donāt see why that is relevant, the virus is not going to give special consideration to the UK for good effort. They canāt be in lockdown forever, but they are the worlds worst performing country, it should be a fair expectation that it will take the worlds longest and strictest measures to rectify it.
Very happy to report. 95% reduction in cases and 95% reduction in deaths is fantastic progress. Coming off the insane high numbers we had (60,000 a day) most or which was the Kent variant which transmits 70% faster. 4th highest vaccination rate in the world. Yes these things we are very happy about here.
The single shots are being credited with saving thousands of lives. All the studies are showing that 1 shot massively reduces severe cases and symptoms and hospitalizations and deaths. Canāt remember the % - but itās high. With 20 million vaccinated that is thousands of lives saved already
They are. They have computer modeling that shows when hospitalizations and deaths and vaccine targets will be reached. The dates given are the earliest possible dates these data points can be met under various modeling, and if theyāre not met the government made it clear the dates would be pushed back
Well when youāve had months of transmission in the UK as high as 60,000+ cases per day and our peak was in the 700sā¦ itās a very different scenario. Plus we didnāt have these other more contagious variants then either. Yet it stil took Melbourne months to get down to zero. We are one of the very very few places that has been able to achieve that. Itās an unrealistic goal for a lot of the world right now. Things will get better but that will be when the impact of vaccinations takes hold and itās what a lot of these countries will need to rely on.
Oh please. Nobody has made any comment here even remotely along those lines.
Exactly, just like how we had modelling done in Melbourne to produce our roadmap out of lockdown. Our modelling ended up being pretty close to how long it took us to get out.
UK is down to September levels now, not December levels. Thatās 3 months apart and tens of thousands of cases. So thatās just not corre t.
And based on the rates of decline for the last 6 weeks, If similar levels of decline happen the U.K for the next 6 weeks will be at even lower levels than we reopened at last Summer. In fact last May when we reopened we were testing 100,000 a day and now we are testing 680,000 a day.
This lockdown will actually end up being longer than the first. And this time will be re-opening slower with 5 week intervals, with 6x higher testing, surge door to door random testing and with 30 million vaccinated. And with borders heavily restricted Weāll better position than last summer.
The lockdown needs to end. It will have been 205 days from Nov 3 to April 12 It has a huge cost
We are praying the useless U.K. govt has put in place the tools
To manage the numbers during the lockdown so we can open safely
Yep. To get down from 60,000 a day to 6,000 a day - WITH open borders, a failing track & trace system and a variant that is 70% more transmissible - shows you the work that has been done - really - by the public.
