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.

I don't think people are any more terrified of COVID here than people are in the UK (from evidence of friends and family back home as well as news reporting, mumsnet etc). The UK complied with months and months of lockdowns. We're only being asked to do 4 days in QLD. We're complying because we realise that most people aren't vaccinated yet and we've seen what's happened elsewhere. And we also have experience of previous short lockdowns which have been effective. So we trust the process and follow the rules. Having short lockdowns and international borders shut is accepted because it allows life to continue as normal for most of the time.

Practically this whole time we've been eating out, at school, domestic travel is booming, until recently we were able to travel to NZ and vice versa, many people took the opportunity. Once we're all double vaccinated and if there is some spread of minor infections, I very much doubt people are going to start cowering inside. I've never heard anyone here disinfecting post or anything like that, even right back at the beginning. Our mindset is not that of the UK in April 2020 because our perceptions have developed over time along with the rest of the world.

Some people have switched to working from home and have enjoyed that. Hopefully that will remain an option for those who wish to do so, fo the sake of work life balance and flexibility. Hopefully companies will continue to consider whether meetings can be conducted online rather than face to face, for the sake of the environment. Similar to the UK really.

There were also good reasons for our vaccine roll out to be slow. We just didn't have the same urgency they the UK did

There were not good reasons. Incompetent federal government did fuck all. They had one job. One job.

Sorry, another job. Complete lack of help when hotel quarantine shown to leak. Oh, hang on, it was happening in a Labor-governed state.

Federal are a bunch of cunts. As an English teacher of 40+ years, I am certain this is the collective noun.

Oh and I also meant to say something regarding lorry drivers coming from Europe in the UK. We have lots of interstate lorry drivers here in Aus too, but we have managed to shut the state borders to tourists etc whilst still allowing the essential lorry drivers to carry on. So it is possible. I suppose lorry drivers are mainly in a cab by themselves so that might be why this hasn't caused any outbreaks. Also regular testing for them. So even when we say our internal or international borders are "shut", there have always been exemptions.

There were also good reasons for our vaccine roll out to be slow

What were the good reasons?

My family in aus thought it was a good idea for Australia to take a back seat and watch what happened with vaccines in other countries for a) operational reasons (see what works/doesn't work) and b) side effects. I think they may regret that now as if they'd gone with az vaccine at speed from the start, before the anti az stuff had a chance to grow legs, they would be in a better position. Anecdotally my parents friends that were hanging out for pfizer have now gone and got az due to the risk profile changing. It's a shame that they could have got it months ago and wasted that time but I do hope that is being replicated all over.

Why didn’t the government focus its efforts on the over 60s, the groups that were OK’d for AZ by Atagi. There could have been targeted messaging that the wall they had built against the virus was good but not invincible, and that there could, with just a few days notice, be a spread that could not easily be contained, and that over 60s were at much greater risk.

Those groups count for about 25% of the population, plus the smaller amounts of Pfizer available that could be used on other younger groups.. In my opinion the government could be in a much better place at this point regarding its vaccination rates if they had had a focussed strategy.

@callinda

Oh and I also meant to say something regarding lorry drivers coming from Europe in the UK. We have lots of interstate lorry drivers here in Aus too, but we have managed to shut the state borders to tourists etc whilst still allowing the essential lorry drivers to carry on. So it is possible. I suppose lorry drivers are mainly in a cab by themselves so that might be why this hasn't caused any outbreaks. Also regular testing for them. So even when we say our internal or international borders are "shut", there have always been exemptions.

No-one is saying it's impossible to shut the borders to tourists and still let lorry drivers in The point is they'd be coming in from infected countries, unless mainland Europe also went for zero covid. If NSW alone was seeing 7000-8000 new cases daily, which would be proportional to the numbers in the UK and France at the height of our biggest waves, do you think other states could still have exemptions for their drivers without seeing outbreaks themselves?

May not have prevented all outbreaks but it could have been tried. I don't think the answer is, well we can't stop the lorry drivers so we'll just let anyone in with no quarantine!

@callinda

May not have prevented all outbreaks but it could have been tried. I don't think the answer is, well we can't stop the lorry drivers so we'll just let anyone in with no quarantine!

It could have been tried, maybe it should have been tried earlier but 10,000 lorries a day come through Dover alone. Against that background stopping tourist travel/business travel completely would have had a fairly minimal impact.

The supply chain issues mean zero covid just isn't achievable in the U.K. (in my view). Once you've accepted that we can't stop covid from entering the U.K. then it becomes a completely different situation.

Not to mention the UK’s land border with another country that can’t be closed under the terms of an international treaty.

The U.K. border is just a totally different entity to the Australian border. Useful comparisons can’t be made.

I mean you are simply asserting that keeping out/quarantining millions of potentially infectious people would have had minimal impact. I think at the time it needed to be done, it was not obvious. I remember a thread on mumsnet where the DD was supposed to be going on a ski trip to Northern Italy. The parents were not letting her go, but they weren't happy, they wanted the whole trip cancelled. I remember thinking at the time that this was too much to ask, that they were being ridiculous. Yet, looking back, after all we've been through, I can see they were right.

I think will be important for all countries to look back critically and honestly at decisions that were taken. Limiting travel is one of the things that I think should be investigated and modelled in preparation for the next pandemic, rather than just stating that it wouldn't make a difference.

”My family in Aus thought it would be a good idea to take a back seat and to watch what happened with vaccines in other countries”

Great. And if every other country in the world had done this?

@callinda

I mean you are simply asserting that keeping out/quarantining millions of potentially infectious people would have had minimal impact. I think at the time it needed to be done, it was not obvious. I remember a thread on mumsnet where the DD was supposed to be going on a ski trip to Northern Italy. The parents were not letting her go, but they weren't happy, they wanted the whole trip cancelled. I remember thinking at the time that this was too much to ask, that they were being ridiculous. Yet, looking back, after all we've been through, I can see they were right.

I think will be important for all countries to look back critically and honestly at decisions that were taken. Limiting travel is one of the things that I think should be investigated and modelled in preparation for the next pandemic, rather than just stating that it wouldn't make a difference.

I don't disagree but at that time the WHO was advising against restricting international travel.

With the benefit of hindsight there may be lots of things that might have made a marginal difference but I still think stopping international travel with what we knew at the time would have been disproportionate given that we would have known even then that complete elimination was unachievable in the U.K.

Elimination in Australia and NZ was achievable (certainly in the short term) so that made a border closure more proportionate at that time. It was in pursuit of a very clear aim.

The U.K. never had that aim because it was pretty obvious it wouldn't have worked. There also has to be a consideration of what people will tolerate (or what it is expected they will tolerate).

Closing borders in Australia and NZ was accepted because it was pretty much the only restriction in place. In the U.K. that restriction would have been on top of all the other restrictions that were placed on people at the time. Plus it has a huge economic impact. I can see why it was decided against.

Oh yeah, closing the borders to international tourism would still have been a good move (in hindsight). Sorry, I thought you were saying we would also have been able to attempt zero covid by keeping tourists out and only letting lorry drivers in.

In today's telegraph a journo has written
'Australians were quietly smug that they had got it right and that swift lockdowns and nothing else would do the job'
But are not so smug now that they realise they should have been cracking on with the vacinnes instead of shunning the Astra Zeneca.
They are panicking now!

Should have said, the journalist is currently living in Australia so has a good idea of how things are.

Lol. Australians don’t really do “panic”

I do think we should have cracked on earlier but we are now. I’ve not seen any panic

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/australians-quietly-smug-now-trapped-scared/

I guess they’re in Victoria rather than Sydney.

Does it need the word "quietly"? 😆

It’s actually a pretty good article, especially written from someone in Melbourne - I don’t get a sense of panic from it in the slightest, more a sense of resigned acceptance.
I think that’s how a lot of us feel - pleased that we avoided the mass deaths that would have happened if we hadn’t closed borders, keen to open up again whilst understanding that we need to do it slowly to not kill lots of people. Wary of what the opening up means for us whilst understanding that it’s necessary for normality to happen.

Interesting to see this thread again

Delta is hard to contain even with lockdown.

Speaking to family in Aus they think vaccine has been slow, still waiting second dose, but they are still in Covid free state.

DS (late 20's) is in Sydney and booked to have his AZ vaccine the day after it was offered to anyone under 40 prepared to 'take the risk'. He did his research, and was happy to do so, but the nurse at the clinic asked him why he didn't wait for 'a few weeks' for Pfizer, as he was more likely to have blood clots or die with AZ.

He was quite cross that having made his decision, he was being told this, and she said that although she appreciate the statistics of a problem were minute, they have to tell patients.

Four weeks later, he's now being chased to have his second jab.

Many of his friends were reluctant to have the AZ jab that is now being offered, although with Delta taking off, more are coming round to the idea.

Hopefully whatever happens with the numbers in Aus and NZ, the impact won't be so massive as it was initially in Europe, as there are proven treatments that help enormously.

@Toomuchtodoo

In today's telegraph a journo has written 'Australians were quietly smug that they had got it right and that swift lockdowns and nothing else would do the job' But are not so smug now that they realise they should have been cracking on with the vacinnes instead of shunning the Astra Zeneca. They are panicking now!

I don't know anyone here who felt smug about what was happening in the UK and Europe. Nor has anyone been panicking.

Agree - I don’t think we were smug at all. Lots of us were extremely worried about family and friends in the U.K. or other European countries or America. We had enough outbreaks over here to know that we were always quite close to it taking off here. Yes, it was nice to not have many restrictions but were not stupid, we do read (well lots of us do) and we can see how quickly other countries had succumbed.