Austalian state likely can't contain Delta, will let it rip

[starfro]

www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-07/nsw-delta-variant-may-never-be-controlled/100273956

Be thankful that here most vulnerable people are double jabbed, whereas over there it's far, far fewer.

Delta cannot be contained, it's too transmissible.

Woman in her 30s, with no underlying conditions, has died in ICU in NSW after being infected with the Delta strain...

www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-25/young-people-warned-after-covid-death-of-woman-in-her-30s/100321924

@TheKeatingFive what I meant by “if things get worse” I meant if / when they have increase in cases / deaths. I know they are having lock downs.

Most of my family in Aus don’t know anyone in Aus who has had the virus. Whereas not only have I had the virus, almost everyone I know has. It really makes a difference to how you view things.

I just want things to get better here and there as I miss my family terribly.

@PatrickTheFox
www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.9news.com.au/article/7605e3d5-29fc-4408-9638-b08b2ccca39f

It’s five confirmed deaths from 6.1 million doses a 6th is linked.

Are reports elsewhere in the world regarding deaths and serious side affects of vaccines more balanced?

I meant if / when they have increase in cases / deaths. I know they are having lock downs

But months of lockdowns ahead is a very bleak prospect, no?

Most of Australia isn’t facing months of lockdown at the moment. My state is currently on day 5 of their lockdown( looks likely it will be lifted as planned Wednesday).

Sure, but the bits that are

Nsw lockdown so far has been a bit half arsed but going forward it may encourage more AZ vaccines to be taken rather than waiting for Pfizer but it won’t encourage those in WA to get vaccinated.

@MoppaSprings

Most of Australia isn’t facing months of lockdown at the moment. My state is currently on day 5 of their lockdown( looks likely it will be lifted as planned Wednesday).

Only problem is, now with delta in NSW it’s going to leak back into SA again at some stage and we’ll have to go back into lockdown again. We might have ‘beaten it’ for now but it’s only a temporary reprieve. This is why we shouldn’t be giving our allocation of Pfizer to NSW.

I’m so, so glad I got my Pfizer jabs as soon as I could. Not because I’m terrified of Covid but because it’s the only way to get some certainty back in our lives. I laugh at the UK Mumsnet gets whinging about having to holiday in the UK when I can’t even travel interstate without having to worry about border closures. I’ve just had to cancel a trip I was meant to be taking next weekend.

Even though I’m very pro vaccine but I try to resist talking anyone into having it because it’s a personal decision (even if it impacts everyone really).

@TheKeatingFive yes - totally agree that lockdown is extremely damaging. I think we are on the same page. My point was more in terms of what will make people less vaccine hesitant - I think fear of getting the virus is what will make people more willing to take the virus. I don’t think in the short / medium term fear of lockdown will persuade people to get vaccinated. I on the other hand have found lockdown so awful I would take pretty much anything to get out of it!

To be totally fair, the lockdown is fairly boring but even if we have to do that until September it’s not too bad compared to lots of other places. I mean, it’s not great, but I still feel like we’ve got off pretty lightly.

Hello from NZ. I'm still very happy to be here but we urgently need to crack on with the vaccination programme, which is well underway. We are in a precarious position at the moment, there's no doubt. Delta is knocking at our door and I personally feel it is only a matter of time before we have another outbreak. If and when that happens I think our government will have to take a tough approach (as they have always done) if there is still large numbers unvaccinated. Yes, delta is harder to control but Victoria has once again brought its outbreak under control and will hopefully be able to open up again soon. The NSW situation is on Gladys for not locking down early enough.

I think there's also a lot of complacency here around covid. Unless you have family overseas it's easy to dismiss it as something that isn't any immediate danger to us. I obviously dont want an outbreak to occur here but part of me thinks this might be what's needed to shock people into taking it seriously and getting vaccinated.

I still wonder what the endpoint for Australia is. We have seen quite a lot of vaccine breakthrough here in the U.K. and the stats from the Israel are very concerning — VE is now at 39% with Pfizer against Delta, for symptomatic infection. The vaccines are holding up very well against severe illness but how does a country like Australia ever open up when they cannot tolerate 150 cases a day? There will be tens of thousands of cases in the unvaccinated and the unlucky (breakthrough) if international borders are reopened next year.

And I’ve just read that Scott Morrison intends to take this closed border policy to the election, to make it the long term default. Is Australia going to be cut off for a decade?

@IndigoC where did you read the ScoMo plan on border closures? That may send me moving back to England

If it's going to be an election issue, then it will only be a long term policy if it's what the public want.

I guess if Australia does opt for long-term border control, nobody can accuse Morrison of failing to tackle climate change. He'll be doing his bit - reducing polluting flights.

the stats from the Israel are very concerning

Er, no they're not. Reassuring more like. The data from Israel indicates the vaccine works well at preventing serious illness and death. Possibly a booster might be needed at some point (and perhaps just for the vulnerable) but that's not the end of the world. Flu jabs are annual. It's nothing new.

Data from America is positive too. Hospitalisations and deaths are nearly all in the unvaccinated.

@Tealightsandd

the stats from the Israel are very concerning

Er, no they're not. Reassuring more like. The data from Israel indicates the vaccine works well at preventing serious illness and death. Possibly a booster might be needed at some point (and perhaps just for the vulnerable) but that's not the end of the world. Flu jabs are annual. It's nothing new.

Data from America is positive too. Hospitalisations and deaths are nearly all in the unvaccinated.

The point is transmission not severe illness, I stated in my post that the data remains positive there. Australia has a sizeable part of its population that will never get vaccinated. It has a stronger anti-vax community than the U.K. (I know, my mother is one of them). The assumption at the moment there is that vaccines will allow them to attain herd immunity and enable a relatively safe opening up.

But that is a delusion because poorer efficacy against Delta means a much higher HI threshold (NZ calculate it at 97%). How can a society that won’t tolerate 150 cases a day now ever accept thousands?

[quote beingsunny]@IndigoC where did you read the ScoMo plan on border closures? That may send me moving back to England [/quote]
It’s an “exclusive” in the West Australian paper today. Apparently federal government sources have told WA officials that the border will remain firmly shut until at least the election.

How can a society that won’t tolerate 150 cases a day now ever accept thousands?

Why do they have to?

Not tolerating 150 cases is about basic infection control - when dealing with a highly contagious disease that has killed and disabled millions around the world. It's key to control that you suppress and contain - so that 150 cases doesn't turn into 15,000 (or 150,000).

Issues around hesitancy won't be solved overnight but there are measures that can help. Mandatory vaccination for certain roles (like health and social care, and border control, customs, and quarantine workers). Also perhaps to travel abroad or interstate. Plus outreach work to help educate people on the risks of Covid (including Long Covid) and the benefits of vaccines - including explaining the reality that, even if the majority of the public support shut borders (recently something like 70-80%), big business will keep pushing against - and they will get what they want (whether it's safe yet to do so or not), and so therefore vaccines are needed.

The handling of the pandemic is going to be an election issue, so it will soon become apparent what they public want - including with regards the borders.

They’re only stressing about 150 cases because we don’t have a vaccinated population, so if they allowed it to spread, thousands would die. We don’t have to stomach for that over here as we’ve had so few deaths so far (still fewer than 1000 I believe?).
But once we are vaccinated that will change and they will have to allow cases to spread, probably slowly.
The closed borders is an interesting one as so many people are against them opening and I can see why, even though I personally would like them open, I can see that for the safety of the community they can’t be fully opened until vaccination is more widespread.

"They’re only stressing about 150 cases because we don’t have a vaccinated population, so if they allowed it to spread, thousands would die."

Not sure if that's true for everyone, though. I mean, the Ozzies I've talked to all seem to think the same as you---once the vaccination level is reasonably high, then you accept some level of risk and open up. Online discourse in Australia, however, seems to have an awful lot of people who are just utterly, utterly terrified of COVID and are talking as though any level of COVID is completely unacceptable. I think the question mark is going to be how numerous this group is. Are there a lot of people who think like that, or are they just very loud and vocal online? Hard to say.

With Delta in particular, there is probably no feasible level of vaccination that would completely prevent spread and the virus is now showing every sign of becoming permanently endemic across the planet. In the UK, probably well over 90% of the population has a good level of immunity to COVID due to our unusually high vaccine takeup rate AND a lot of past infections, and yet it still hasn't resulted in COVID going away in the UK, it has just made it much less dangerous. And I can't see any country (including Australia) getting over 90% vaccinated including children, so hard conversations may have to be had, going forward.

I think the media narrative is already changing though towards accepting that we will have to be vaccinated and if we don’t, that’s up to us but it’s our risk to take.
It is hard as I am in a bubble of well educated, well travelled people who nearly all have family overseas and so we are probably a more pragmatic bunch overall. I guess I can understand that people who don’t have skin in the game, don’t travel often etc would think “why should we let this virus in?” And I do have sympathy for them, although I don’t necessarily agree with them.
I also know so many people who have had Covid who have been totally fine so that probably skews my thinking too.

I'm surprised by the vaccine hesitancy as we have very high levels of compliance with children vaccines.

Online discourse in Australia, however, seems to have an awful lot of people who are just utterly, utterly terrified of COVID and are talking as though any level of COVID is completely unacceptable. I think the question mark is going to be how numerous this group is. Are there a lot of people who think like that, or are they just very loud and vocal online? Hard to say.

It started out that way here as well, but shifted as more and more people a) got exhausted with the restrictions, b) knew people who'd had covid and recovered, c) were vaccinated. I assume the same will eventually happen in Australia, it's just slower because their non-lockdown restrictions are much easier for most people to live with in the medium term. In a few years when the population is vaccinated and covid is (hopefully!) more controlled in the rest of the world, I don't think the majority of Australians will still support closed borders, quarantine hotels and snap lockdowns to keep out every single case while everywhere else has started getting back to normal.

The conversation in Aus is definitely turning, many there really get the dilemma. International press is also starting to question the whole zero Covid approach seeing the predicament Australia and New Zealand are now in.
New Zealand is much slower though. I’ve just read an article in rnz by some guy that wants to sue the U.K. government for our “ freedom” day. What a bizarre argument to make, showing his ignorance and 2020 mindset.
I’ll be interested to see at what levels New Zealand opens up, if our immunity levels are not good enough