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.

Fair point @Tealightsandd, I forgot about all the homemade roadblocks etc at the beginning. And we also got our share of comments in the NW last year about how northerners are clearly just too poor and thick to follow the rules and that's why we had high case numbers. I think it's still fair to say though that compared to Australia ours were a handful of insular twats being vocal on social media, whereas there even the state premiers are taking potshots at each other in the daily press briefings. It seems to be on a whole other scale compared to here.

The Federal government has contributed to the Premiers having a go at each other though, ScoMo has made plenty of potshots at the Labour premiers, whilst being very supportive of NSW and the Liberal premier. It's probably more comparable to the US with the Republican and Democratic governors, although nowhere as extreme.

But what is the long term plan for WA?

I agreed at the start closing borders and keeping them closed for a while made sense. But that cannot be forever.

It is when not if for Covid. The ships crews are clearly a covid danger, you can't leave them on the ships to die, people make mistakes and bang, it's out.

I understand the distances and the remoteness, I grew up out west. It isn't possible to police all of the borders in these spaces. Desperate people will do desperate things and if one of those people are carrying Covid then there you are again.

We need a plan and it has to be country wide. We are one country.

Continuing to lockdown/stay cut off simply won't work in the long term.

When not if.

The genie is out of the bottle, all we can do is mitigate and buy time. Which we did, with our closed borders and harsh initial lockdowns. But now it is starting to look like time may be up.

McGowan has already said, once all adults have been offered then we wouldn't lock down to protect those who won't help themselves, and I think take up here will be high as it will pretty much be mandated for any resources companies. My company has already said no international business travel without a vaccine , and HSE are looking at how / when we mandate that for any FIFO travel, and we are definitely not the only company implementing this. There's a huge focus on getting out to the communities and having them vaccinated, hopefully by Christmas.

I wondered how long it would be until Australia ended up like the rest of the world. I think NZ won't be far behind. Not sure why they thought they could escape the virus by stopping people going in and out of the country all they've done is postponed the inevitable in my view.

Postponed until there was better treatment and a vaccine, doesn't seem like a bad plan.

No. We bought time. In the time we have been closed and kept a lid on it multiple vaccines have been developed. Treatments have improved.

It is was (and still is for now) the right approach. But we need to leverage the time we bought to move to the next phase.

Keep the international borders tight for now, get everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible, lockdown if necessary in the meantime. And then once everyone has had a chance to get vaxxed, no more lockdowns or internal borders and once that wave is ridden out we can look at opening up to the world again. Possibly with next gen vaccines.

We bought time and our government wasted a lot of it. But we are not down yet. We can pull it back. Lockdown for now and get those vaccines into everyone who wants it.

Still no sign of any inclination to "let it rip," I note.

I can completely understand why NZ and Australia took the approach they did.

I think a key factor will be whether vaccination alone (even at very high levels) will be sufficient to prevent the need for lockdowns once restrictions are released.

The U.K. (as an example) has high levels of vaccination but also very high levels of infection acquired immunity. Even then we had/are having quite a large exit wave. The number of deaths we are having now would be completely unprecedented in NZ/Australia.

Obviously as NZ/Australia have not had significant case numbers they won't have the "natural" immunity element. Is that identified as a concern? Or is it hoped that vaccines will do enough?

@Sunshinegirl82

I can completely understand why NZ and Australia took the approach they did.

I think a key factor will be whether vaccination alone (even at very high levels) will be sufficient to prevent the need for lockdowns once restrictions are released.

The U.K. (as an example) has high levels of vaccination but also very high levels of infection acquired immunity. Even then we had/are having quite a large exit wave. The number of deaths we are having now would be completely unprecedented in NZ/Australia.

Obviously as NZ/Australia have not had significant case numbers they won't have the "natural" immunity element. Is that identified as a concern? Or is it hoped that vaccines will do enough?

It seems to be believed that vaccines will be enough, which is flawed IMO. Pfizer themselves issued a paper that shows their vaccine effectiveness wanes (albeit gradually and only re:infection so far). The Israeli numbers show it is not holding up that well against Delta, not for preventing infection and transmission anyway. I can’t see how Australia can ever open up to the world with this generation of vaccines. And that’s before we get the almost inevitable next, more evasive, variant.

An interesting comparison now will be the UK and China. Two countries with high vaccination rates but completely opposite policies re. containment.

Obviously China did far better in 2020, as it didn't suffer mass deaths to anywhere near the extent of the UK, and also managed the economic fallout better. But will be interesting to see if the continuing to control at all costs strategy is still wise post mass vaccinations.

@supermoonrising

An interesting comparison now will be the UK and China. Two countries with high vaccination rates but completely opposite policies re. containment.

Obviously China did far better in 2020, as it didn't suffer mass deaths to anywhere near the extent of the UK, and also managed the economic fallout better. But will be interesting to see if the continuing to control at all costs strategy is still wise post mass vaccinations.

The different vaccine effecacies will factor in too, as Sinovac etc aren't terribly effective, even at preventing severe disease and death.

I think China will struggle if/when delta gets in the door. Unless they remain closed in perpetuity? A reversion to isolation?

Who would have thought just two years ago that we’d be living in a world where all these countries are cut off from the world? And where even visiting the US from the U.K. was virtually impossible.

Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants .

Sitting and waiting for treatments and vaccines developed elsewhere - and an elsewhere they are all too keen to criticise.

Vaccines won’t be enough. As there will be a combination of people who can’t have them (children)/ won’t have them and also a small percentage where the vaccines won’t be effective for. So the lack of any natural immunity in the population is a problem and not one I’ve seen an answer to.

@DottyHarmer

Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants .

Sitting and waiting for treatments and vaccines developed elsewhere - and an elsewhere they are all too keen to criticise.

This

@DottyHarmer

Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants .

Sitting and waiting for treatments and vaccines developed elsewhere - and an elsewhere they are all too keen to criticise.

What did you do to help develop treatments and vaccines then?

No big advances happen in isolation. Brilliant work was done here, which those researchers can certainly feel proud of, but all scientific research depends on decades of previous research carried out all over the world by international scientists from many different countries. Countries that don't have centres of excellence in one particular field nevertheless can produce brilliant scientists in that field who travel work internationally. Scientific research is fundamentally an international and collaborative undertaking.

@Delatron

Vaccines won’t be enough. As there will be a combination of people who can’t have them (children)/ won’t have them and also a small percentage where the vaccines won’t be effective for. So the lack of any natural immunity in the population is a problem and not one I’ve seen an answer to.

That answer's easy and is always available. If you want widespread natural immunity, or if you decide you have no choice but to have it, you let covid spread widely at some point.

IF you're going to do that, obviously it makes far more sense to do so only AFTER widespread vaccination. Doing it before vaccination, like the UK did, just leads to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths and long-term illness.

If herd immunity IS achievable by a mixture of vaccination and infection, there will be some countries that get there from infection first and then vaccination, like the UK, and others who get there from vaccination first and then infection, like Australia and NZ. The UK has suffered a big burden of deaths, long-term health issues and economic damage as a result of doing it the way round that we did.

@supermoonrising

An interesting comparison now will be the UK and China. Two countries with high vaccination rates but completely opposite policies re. containment.

Obviously China did far better in 2020, as it didn't suffer mass deaths to anywhere near the extent of the UK, and also managed the economic fallout better. But will be interesting to see if the continuing to control at all costs strategy is still wise post mass vaccinations.

I believe China 🇨🇳 has more than 1 vaccine not just sinovac which has lower efficiency as chile found out. We also not sure accuracy of chinas or Russian reported cases.

The Australian you tuber I saw was really annoyed with some new removal team she saw on news that and covid then she felt bit sorry for them as their mother caught covid and died she said was on news.
But surely removals relocation is essential not like they on a jolly wreckless holiday.
Also lots click and collect at coles and woolworths as she can't risk going in a supermarket despite she's double jabbed with phizer and lots talk like people walked past each other in shopping centre and got it.
Lot more extra fear and risk assessment over there compared to uk.
School sound interesting where you like up in car queue and they deliver child to the car my lazy husband would love that.
Also they get loads laptops and printed work sent home bit different to UK Schools.

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/24/its-in-the-air-you-breathe-what-you-need-to-know-about-sydneys-delta-covid-variant

Also lot more cases reported in oz of virus escaping 14 days quarantinequite a bit on Australia 🇦🇺 media and investigation they believe covid 19 wasn't accident eet market but escaped lab.
Yet Asia's I guess has close ties to oz i guess.

The other you tuber brisbane doesn't seem as covid fixated and they seem to have short sharp 5 day lockdowns.

Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants angry.

Sitting and waiting for treatments and vaccines developed elsewhere - and an elsewhere they are all too keen to criticise.

And the most ignorant comment of the thread award goes to @DottyHarmer

@3asAbird those removalists were both tested positive for Covid, they were required to be isolating but they decided not to bother and spread Covid across NSW. It's sad they lost their mum, she was offered and refused medical help.

[quote beingsunny]@3asAbird those removalists were both tested positive for Covid, they were required to be isolating but they decided not to bother and spread Covid across NSW. It's sad they lost their mum, she was offered and refused medical help.[/quote]
I did bit realise that I assumed they didn't know they had covid explains people anger then.

Saw Sydney getting the army in and struggling with some contact tracing and taking 10 days get pcr test results.
In uk they say not to test after 5days of displaying symptoms if you missed the window quarantine..
10 day wait on tests sounds disaster for the economy and running of services.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9838747/Coronavirus-Australia-Sydney-breaking-point-Covid-surgery-suspended-major-hospitals.html

beingsunny I heard people were angry with them because they spread it from NSW to Melbourne, but also read they didn't know they had it when they travelled to Melbourne? In a different paper I read that they'd travelled when they were supposed to be isolating because they'd already tested positive at that point, but when the Victoria police investigated they said the only thing they'd done wrong was not wearing masks when they should have done. Quite confused about what the timeline was there.

How would Australia/NZ suffering have reduced the rest of the worlds? I am interested to know?

I guess misery loves company.

The vaccines have to be enough. There is no other long term solution.

It exists now. We can't stay locked down/away forever.

All we can do is mitigate as best we can and get on with it.

@Sunshinegirl82

I can completely understand why NZ and Australia took the approach they did.

I think a key factor will be whether vaccination alone (even at very high levels) will be sufficient to prevent the need for lockdowns once restrictions are released.

The U.K. (as an example) has high levels of vaccination but also very high levels of infection acquired immunity. Even then we had/are having quite a large exit wave. The number of deaths we are having now would be completely unprecedented in NZ/Australia.

Obviously as NZ/Australia have not had significant case numbers they won't have the "natural" immunity element. Is that identified as a concern? Or is it hoped that vaccines will do enough?

I think (hope) that a combination of a population terrified of Covid, the current situation in Sydney and talk of restrictions for the non vaccinated will be enough to get a pretty high level of vaccination once vaccine sully improves.