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.

@milkyaqua

I’ve read your posts back and am quite happy that I’ve got the correct end of the stick based on the words you used

Given you have misinterpreted my tone, and clearly by your own example misinterpreted my words, I really don't think you have a strong skillset in reading and comprehension.

Resorting to insults about my ability to read. Ok.

I’ve actually quoted the words you used and am still waiting for my proof all of us UK MN posters think we have “singlehandedly saved the world” (a verbatim quote but please tell me if I am too stupid to read or understand it properly) but I guess it was just a highly embellished and inaccurate jibe at people of a certain nationality and I’m not going to get my proof.

Read around 8-9 people can be infected from 1 person. Original strain was around 2. It's as infectious as chicken pox. Not good.

Yes I think we're all a bit weary and sensitive. We need to support one another.

Isn't Pfizer more effective?

Against the Delta variant. Yes.
And potentially other variants too.

If people had a choice (and in the UK they didn’t), the preference is Pfizer. The political line is trotted out to every country that restricts AZ .
Tbh discussing the AZ vaccine on a primarily UK site is never going to be a balanced discussion. IMO it’s due to the UK Gov sending such mixed messages and making it up as they go along - people are grasping on to the belief that they are right in all they do - from Borris shaking hands when the rest of the world was promoting social distancing to ministers now not having to self isolate. They have no choice but to go along with it. There literally isn’t an alternative. It’s a similar situation in Europe but there are alternative vaccines and countries are taking their time opening up/restricting travel. Of course variants are ever changing and things will change accordingly.

The discussion about Australia V the UK is another one not worth having. Australia has an enviable lifestyle in comparison to grey and wet Northern Europe. Again you won’t get a balanced discussion from people who haven’t lived in Australia for five years or more so save your energy for people who don’t get all their information from talking to other non Australians they know on WhatsApp. Rise above it and don’t respond.

The discussion about Australia V the UK is another one not worth having. Australia has an enviable lifestyle in comparison to grey and wet Northern Europe. Again you won’t get a balanced discussion from people who haven’t lived in Australia for five years or more so save your energy for people who don’t get all their information from talking to other non Australians they know on WhatsApp. Rise above it and don’t respond.

Yet so many choose to move to London (usually). Common path for me and Aussie friends. Why people wrote this stuff about being the envy of everyone - it’s what makes people 🙄

Of course major northern European cities are attractive to many.

Have you actually lived in grey and wet U.K.? I expect you had a miserable time if you did.

Rise above it and don’t respond.

Yes. It's doing my head in, all this debating of reality. Whether it's the reality of Aus at the moment - definitely not "letting it rip" - or some wally or other nitpicking some post they are absolutely ruthlessly determined to find insult or some byzantine extra meaning in.

It's like a sport to some people, and akin to bullying. Not on this thread for reading or for understanding of Australia. Nor posting coherent comments. Nor following an actual discussion. Just bobbing up and objecting when not enough tiny British flags are waved.

@milkyaqua

Rise above it and don’t respond.

Yes. It's doing my head in, all this debating of reality. Whether it's the reality of Aus at the moment - definitely not "letting it rip" - or some wally or other nitpicking some post they are absolutely ruthlessly determined to find insult or some byzantine extra meaning in.

It's like a sport to some people, and akin to bullying. Not on this thread for reading or for understanding of Australia. Nor posting coherent comments. Nor following an actual discussion. Just bobbing up and objecting when not enough tiny British flags are waved.

Oh dear

So unaware of own posts.

Aggression insults and not much else.

Actually at the beginning of the U.K. rollout, the preference was not Pfizer. That was considered the riskier option as a newer technology. The preference was AZ. Partly because it was “our” vaccine and also because it was a more traditional vaccine. We had plenty of media reports that people were asking for the Oxford vaccine and turning down Pfizer. I remember lots of discussions about this back in January.
We were never allowed to vaccine shop though unless there was a very good reason. That turns out to have been a very good decision as it stopped vaccine hesitation and kept the roll out moving along. We got what we got.
Now all this is a moot point anyway as everyone is more or less vaccinated. Some people want a different vaccine to their first one but I don’t think there’s enough evidence yet about the safety of this but it’ll be the case for the autumn boosters I reckon.

@milkyaqua

Rise above it and don’t respond.

Yes. It's doing my head in, all this debating of reality. Whether it's the reality of Aus at the moment - definitely not "letting it rip" - or some wally or other nitpicking some post they are absolutely ruthlessly determined to find insult or some byzantine extra meaning in.

It's like a sport to some people, and akin to bullying. Not on this thread for reading or for understanding of Australia. Nor posting coherent comments. Nor following an actual discussion. Just bobbing up and objecting when not enough tiny British flags are waved.

You posted a transparently snarky comment and don’t like being called out about it, and we see more nastiness and snark in your post here. I don’t understand how you can say your post was anything but sarcastic and rude.

I’ve been extremely positive about Australia. You have just been unpleasant. You’ve insulted me by saying I struggle to read and understand. You lack self awareness if you truly believe what you’ve written in your last post.

I’ll now rise above it and leave our discussion here with us agreeing to disagree about our relative conduct on this thread because I don’t think it’s going to get us very far.

Australia has an enviable lifestyle in comparison to grey and wet Northern Europe

I fall short of your 5 year requirement but from when I was there, I agree that the quality of life in oz is off the scale! That’s even before the pandemic. I’m not sure what that has to do with covid vaccines though. We do need to discuss AstraZeneca fairly but I think any such discussion can legitimately bring in whether some criticism of it has been political because there is a lot of reasons to think it has been. If people don’t agree then that’s fine but that doesn’t mean it wrong to discuss it in the first place.

Paper currently in Lancet pre-print that clotting from AstraZeneca no more risky than from Pfizer: bit.ly/3zJnz5r

Just to clear something up, I was the person who mentioned WW2. Below is a quote from a post from last year, and it was not the only one in the same vein.

Because we won. We stood alone against most of the world to defeat Germany. A massive point of national Pride. Something we remain grateful for

I was merely pointing out that there is a faction on MN who have been crowing about "our vaccine" and said that they were no doubt the same posters who wrote posts such as the above. Believe it or not, there are people who believe that Britain is the saviour of the world.

mandalay

That comment wasn’t on this thread though. And they got called out for it by loads of posters pointing out it was bullshit.

I think there are definitely British people with a warped sense of nationalism. I don’t think it’s right to attribute that attitude to British people generally. I think having nationalistic idiots is true of many nations. I also have been on this thread throughout and posted sporadically and I can’t remember any “crowing” about AstraZeneca, but I’ve read a lot of covid threads and possibly I’ve just not remembered them.

I don’t see anything wrong with people expressing pride that the UK vaccine effort was successful though. I suppose it comes down to the tone of the specific posts. I remember a bit of twattery when they stopped production of the vaccine in Aus to the effect of “ha ha but you need the vaccines from the rest of us” but this wasn’t many posters that I saw, and wasn’t AstraZeneca specific. It was more about isolation from the rest of the world. And was in the context of twattery to the effect of well I’ve just been to a sold out gig in Melbourne so hope you’re enjoying the lockdown. But it was all really nasty and unfortunate. As I said above, this pandemic is brutal and everyone should wish each other well rather than want things to go wrong for others so they can be “right”.

Anecdotally- DH went for a covid test today (Sydney, north shore). The pop up testing clinic also does AZ shots and the queue was pretty big, with quite a fast turnover. Majority of those in line/coming and going were 30s-40s

I was merely pointing out that there is a faction on MN who have been crowing about "our vaccine" and said that they were no doubt the same posters who wrote posts such as the above. Believe it or not, there are people who believe that Britain is the saviour of the world.

Yes, and I committed the mortal sin of writing "MN posters in the UK" rather than "Many MN posters in the UK", who have this attitude.

There is certainly a faction who is hypersensitive to any possible or even imaginary slighting of "their" vaccine. I've not noticed anyone from any other country be so nationalistic or jingoistic around any other particular vaccine. All of which were developed by scientists who communicated with other scientists from all over the globe. It would not have been possible to have developed so many so quickly (any of them, not just AZ or Pfizer or whatnot) without the generous sharing of information, on genomic sequencing first off. But to say this, and to say it is a global effort countering this fucking virus is...somehow insulting.

It’s up to Aus what vaccine role out they do.

Parents have had one dose AZ but still in zero Covid state so not concerned.

I don’t see why people get sensitive about AZ U.K. success. It is great U.K. scientists took approach they did. And other vaccine developing countries. We’re all benefitting from efforts.

Role - roll

All nations do this though. Some Brits often think they are superior to Americans and then Americans reply , well why do you all want to live here then?
I’ sure the same narrative exists between NZ and Aus and between U.K. and Aus and between regions within countries too, hence all the who has toughest lockdown between NSW and Victoria. Same as we did though between Scotland and England etc. Even within England there is rivalry between Yorkshire and Lancashire etc etc.
Currently there is some great competition in the Olympics between U.K. and Australia. We’re almost neck and neck on the medal table. It’s fun. We don’t compete with China or US as we’d lose
It’s mainly because we have a shared history and similar cultures and people. We compete regularly with cricket / rugby and probably loads of other sports.
I actually think it’s a good thing and ultimately improves both our countries.

Just had a thought but: one problem with such a slow vaccine rollout is that by the time you've got the kids or teens vaccinated (or however young Australia decides to go), you're then likely to start hearing a chorus of "Oh, but the old folks' antibodies will have petered out by now, it's been nearly a year since they were jabbed! Better start another booster round for everyone just to be sure...." and more and more months pass by...

(From what I have heard, by the way, immunity is actually likely to be long-lasting, because the vaccine trains the b-cells and t-cells which hang around for years or decades, regardless of antibody levels in the blood. But a country which is very nervous about COVID may be reluctant to take the chance on this one).

The UK vaccine drive was fast in large part because it was propelled forward by panic at our fairly dire situation. On the other hand, I guess there is something to be said for a fast and furious roll out, when you just shove the whole vaccination program through quickly and go for the exit wave while there is still momentum there.

I don’t honestly know why acknowledging that Australia has history of being a place we sent convicts is xenophobic.

I love Australia and I think the history is fascinating. It’s one of the reasons I spent time living there. There’s a lot about the Australian psyche that seems to be rooted in that history - for example the ‘larrikin’ character (showing dissent to authority) and how everyone roots for the underdog.

I linked the two because I found Australia quite rule- bound in comparison with the uk, and I’m fascinated to know whether that stems from its history.

Many Aussies I knew were disinterested in their own history, the pluck and determination shown by the early pioneers was out of this world. The Fatal Shore is a brilliant book and there are some great museum pieces in Sydney.

It’s a fantastic place, but the Aussies do like to remind us of the myriad of ways in which it’s superior to Britain. Look up the Bundy Rum commercial ‘I wish England was Australia.’

m.youtube.com/watch?v=0OidSD14mGE

SlipperyDippery

I know that comment wasn't on this thread, I know that poster was called out for it - but there have many comments in a similar vein (which I said in my post), just as there have been many people crowing about "our" vaccine. The point I was trying to make is that there is a faction, NOT everyone, on MN who sincerely believe that Britain is so much better than any other country, and who have never apparently heard of the word collaboration.

Each time there is a thread on MN about life in Australia/USA/Canada/NZ/any other country people pile on to say how shit life in those countries are, how backward etc. etc. Can you not understand how the people who live in those countries feel when reading all that rubbish? At the start of the rollout of the AZ vaccine there were numerous posters saying they wouldn't have any other vaccine than "theirs" because it was so superior.

Then we read on this thread about the wonderful scientific community in Britain. That in itself is not wrong, but the implication is that no other country is as good. I just don't understand this mindset, and really I find it is more prevalent in the British than in any other people I've met.

To be honest, I didn’t read the comments about our scientific community as throwing shade at Australia or anywhere else. Maybe I need to re-read but when I read it originally I didn’t take that from it. Nor have I seen much “crowing about our vaccine”, and I honestly think more people in the UK want Pfizer not AZ.

I think you’re right that people in Australia or NZ are pissed off about comments they’ve heard. I understand that. I don’t agree it’s one way traffic though. There have been some really shitty comments thrown the way of the UK, such as:

By the time Australia is ready to open its borders, Delta will be eclipsed by a squadron of new variants cooked up in the UK, among other places. Why people are 'worrying' about hypothetical futures in other countries, who have taken a different approach, rather than the shitstorm on their own horizon escapes me

Another post I remember on this thread said places were “kindly cooking up variants for the rest of the world”, which given Delta is thought to have originated in India is a dick comment because given how large sections of their population have to live, they hardly have the opportunities for effective lockdowns and social distancing in India as they do in Australia. The start of this thread was peppered with how Aus is “looking on in horror” at the UK etc

This is just off the top of my head, there have been numerous references on this thread from posters upset by such comments and even a couple of Aussies saying how embarrassed they were about them.

Anyway surely you can understand how it feels to be on the end of such comments when it’s 2 degrees outside, you’ve lost a family member to covid and you’re into your 10th month of effective lockdown (we in Greater Manchester barely came out of it as it true of much of the north of England)?

A lot of people have been unpleasant about covid generally sadly. You may think that’s more prevalent from Brits but that’s honestly not my perception.

I love Australia and I think the history is fascinating.

And yet you don't seem to consider its history as existing prior to the arrival of British invaders.

By the time Australia is ready to open its borders, Delta will be eclipsed by a squadron of new variants cooked up in the UK, among other places.

How is that offensive? That is just factual. Variants are occurring in countries and areas that allow unrestrained spread of pre-existing variants.

The UK did already produce the Alpha or Kent variant. India, the Delta. Lamda spread from Peru through South America. There was considerable concern expressed by over a thousand scientists over the wisdom of the UK's relaxation of restrictions potentially giving way to a new and worse variant, as that seems to be how Covid-19 rolls.

@Malteser71 I’m interested in your examples of Australia being more rule bound? It’s not something I’ve really noticed here and funnily enough, I find the U.K. a lot more restrictive when we come back, both in “actual” rules and societal expectation “rules”
For example, over here children ride scooters and bikes all over the place without a second thought. We visited the U.K. and had scooters there but the kids couldn’t use them in any of the type of places we would use them in Aus (parks, walks etc).
Another example - we had been for a walk over here and the kids had gone puddle jumping and were soaked and filthy. We got a couple of indulgent smiles and “looks like they have had fun” comments. We came to the U.K. and the kids decided to paddle in a small stream and we got a couple of horrified looks and two comments of “won’t they be cold?” and “I hope you brought a change of clothes”. A definite disapproval on an activity that i wouldn’t think twice about doing over here.
I’m trying to think of things that we have rules about over here that are not rule based in the U.K. and the only thing I can think of where rules are MUCH stricter here is around driving. Speeding cameras are everywhere and you can get fines for so many things like parking, using a phone etc.