Just some thoughts and musings on the current situation Iâve had this afternoon.
As much as it would be fantastic for the whole nation to get back to Covid-Zero, with the promise of vaccines on the horizon, and ideally a situation where everyone who wants one has got one by December -at what point do we start looking at alternative mitigation strategies to lockdowns?
Certainly it seems that with this Delta variant that once it is introduced it is near impossible to eradicate. NSW has shown what happens when you donât respond quick enough, but remarkably with the current situations in Victoria and Queensland we are seeing that Delta can put up quite a fight even with very strict lockdowns and restrictions.
My thoughts are, we are at the point where it is almost certain that NSW, and possible that Victoria and Queensland as well, will be facing continuous lockdowns and restrictions until at least December if we keep the current target of Covid-Zero.
While Melbourne has shown that the community can come back from a dire Covid situation, the lockdowns there did come at quite a cost, and the game has simply changed with this Delta variant being so much more easily spread. Back then, we didnât have vaccines either which is very important to consider as our most vulnerable community members should be vaccinated (or about to be vaccinated by now).
As such, as a community, should be consider setting a point where we abandon the Covid-Zero strategy (even with only part of the community vaccinated), and run with say the level of restrictions in regional NSW at the moment (which are about as good a balance you can get between keeping the community somewhat open and preventing superspreader events) for the next few months- while we focus on getting the community vaccinated.
I know the general tone on this forum is generally very pro-lockdown, so I fully expect to be shut down/told off for daring to think otherwise, but for mine, when these weapons in our Covid defence arsenal stop being as effective (as appears to be the case now), I think it is important to at least consider and weigh up the potential alternatives as the mental health impact of these lockdowns is only going to get worse and worse the longer this drags on.
It is different in that we bring forward the timeframe by a couple of months, as it seems that as it stands weâll be in this situation until December.
To clarify, my idea is that we start easing off of restrictions gradually in say September/October (regardless of the case numbers), as opposed to the national strategy which would appear to be lockdowns and zero Covid targets (despite what the official strategy of âlast resortâ says) until vaccination rates get to 70-80% which wonât be until December (by the sounds of it)- and even then I would still have my doubts about WA opening up at that point based on McGowanâs attitude.
I was thinking about how to maximise vaccination uptake. I suspect that the roll out could fall short of the percentages that have been talked about for herd immunity needed to end interstate and international border closures and lockdowns.
The key is going to be near-mandatory vaccination of some large chunks of the population. We are already heading that way with aged care residents and workers plus some primary health care providers. The federal and state governments can extend this sort of thing to other key parts of their workforces so that it was a condition of employment. Starting with areas like health care, education and eventually police, military etc.
Eventually everyone who works for any level of government from local to federal or a QUANGO would have to be vaccinated.
At the same time, large employers would also need to start to bring in compulsory vaccinations to their workplace like QANTAS has suggested. Perhaps government contracts and other payments to employers could be used to encourage this by making these companies preferred suppliers.
To comply with anti-discrimination laws, there may be options needed for those who decline such as have to be regularly tested or employment conditions that those workers cannot enter any workplace and must work at home.
Eventually, being vaccinated would be needed for things like air travel, entry to entertainment venues etc.
Those who donât vaccinated are endangering the health and prosperity of the rest of the population.
The virus will still be active unless there are enough vaccinated and vaccinated people will be getting unnecessarily sick and losing work.
The potentially more severe illness for those who are not vaccinated would take up valuable resources in the the health care system that should be going to elsewhere and would be a huge burden on the economy.
Additionally if Australia wants to open itself up to international tourists it needs to have the virus under control and not circulating in the community.
So the consequences of not being vaccinated donât just fall on that person but impact the wellbeing of everyone in society.
I was under the impression that vaccinations have no correlation to the virus spreading? So whether weâre 50% vaccinated or 100% vaccinated, the virus can still spread - probably at record numbers because thereâll be no restrictions, just that the symptoms will be minimal or wonât be seen at all in those who are vaccinated?
Not once the âherd immunityâ level is reached,
The point of aiming for the suggested vaccination rates is to reach a level of community immunity where a large portion of the population is immune to a disease, making further disease spread unlikely. That is helped because fully vaccinated (or immune) people are less likely to transmit the virus to others.
Almost daily for the last few weeks there has been new reports coming out from US and UK that with delta double vaccinated people who do end up contracting covid have the same viral loads and unvaxxed and are just as likely to transmit.
Of course having the double jab means you are less likely to contract it.
But if you do, youâre equally likely to contribute to spread as unvaxxed
Hence usa and UK having 115,000 and 31,000 cases respectively despite having high vax rates
Wonder if they ever will? Would rather they started testing for both Covid and influenza and publishing both numbers as part of a return to normal, especially since both will likely be on equal footing in terms of virulence once Covid vaccination is widespread.
In the UK there are no plans to stop. The government is scared stiff to lose control again like the first two waves of death and the scientists have immense control over government policy right now
Last week in UK covid was around 800 deaths and flu / phenomena was over 1400
Europeans and Americans en masse are going on holidays in the 10s of millions domestically and overseas to Places where covid is still in wide circulation
Perhaps Asian tourists less likely - you could be right there.
Americans in their millions never stopped going to Mexico and are hitting Europe in droves this summer
Also - once Australia opens the borders the virus will be circulating widely in Australia. Itâs endemic
Genuine question here. AstraZeneca vaccine is used in so many countries around the world (the UK in particular with AZ being the backbone of the rollout) yet it seems like here in Australia weâre getting a lot of concerns and hesitancy over this vaccine. Is it because compared to the likes of UK and other countries that use AZ weâve somehow had more cases of TTS compared to them or is it another case of our government and ATAGI constantly changing advice and created that fear in people because of this?
The core of the issue is the differing underlying risks owing to the different position Australia used to be in. With âcovid zeroâ in the community, the calculations as to whether the tiny risk of death from AZ are compared to a the chance of death from a tiny chance of getting covid. In the UK and elsewhere, their rollouts were against a backdrop of mass deaths - a tiny risk of the Vaccine is a much easier decision there.
The thing is AZ risk level remains constant, whereas the Delta outbreaks dramatically change the chance of death calculation from Covid itself - thus the age at which the risk of death from AZ is significantly lower than that of contracting and dying of Covid has fallen dramatically.
The awful communication of this certainly has contributed to vaccine hesitancy - thereâs people over 60 who are dead now because of it - people who were eligible to be vaccinated, but frightened into âwaiting for Pfizerâ because of the way that the risks were presented, the backflips and late night press conferences, and every single clotting incident being hyped up.
