Australia in a mess - NZ with a plan

[StartupRepair]

More than half of Australia is in lockdown now, sparked (imo) by the intransigence of the NSW Premier who ignored all warnings about Delta. Our procurement of and messaging around vaccines has been dangerously incompetent.
It all feels a bit bleak today. At least NZ seems to have a plan.

@AllHailTheGreatGoddess

Yeah. Fire scares me. Covid worries me for its capacity ti make a lot of people sick at the same time. Once it is endemic it will just move to the middle/back of the pack.

I’m fucking terrified of fire. Probably doesn’t help that as a child my mum warned me not to stand too close to the heater in case my pyjamas burst into flames and stuck to me like melted gladwrap You can probably see where the propensity for Covid drama comes from in my family ...

Every year mum sends me a text telling me to get my flu shot ‘because flu could kill me’. I’m mid forties and in reasonable health. While it’s possible, it’s pretty unlikely. She’s been telling me this since I left home in my twenties. I’ve only ever got the flu shot once (am double jabbed for Covid though).

The latest assumptions here are that the young are the super spreaders, because they are often in multiple low paid jobs and like going out. So there is some targetting of them. However the vaccine rollout has been so woeful that only a small proportion of aged care and disability workers have been done so there is still massive exposure there.

@GADDay

On the covid in schools front. My children have to wear masks at all times - even during PE/sport practice.

They’re making kids in Qld wear masks during PE? That’s crazy. They’re more in danger from passing out from heat stroke than from Covid. It seems more of a ‘we’re doing everything to keep kids safe’ thing than a something based on any science.

@disco123

I think it means the government are more likely here to make vaccination a requirement for certain activities and people are more likely to accept that. In NSW they're already saying that construction workers from x suburbs must be vaccinated to come on site.

People will accept that to a point. Vaccinating health and aged care workers is a fair and reasonable request however being vaccinated to go to the pub is not. I don’t believe mandating construction workers to be vaccinated to allow them to work is fair and reasonable either, they are not caring for vulnerable groups but they are desperate to get back to work so an easy target. I will also add I’m pro vax but I’m pro choice more.

@StartupRepair

The latest assumptions here are that the young are the super spreaders, because they are often in multiple low paid jobs and like going out. So there is some targetting of them. However the vaccine rollout has been so woeful that only a small proportion of aged care and disability workers have been done so there is still massive exposure there.

There is also massive vaccine hesitancy amongst the care workforce. They’ve been eligible for months now.

@StartupRepair

The latest assumptions here are that the young are the super spreaders, because they are often in multiple low paid jobs and like going out. So there is some targetting of them. However the vaccine rollout has been so woeful that only a small proportion of aged care and disability workers have been done so there is still massive exposure there.

The issue with that is I know loads of people (in UK) who have caught covid whilst fully vaccinated. Quite a number of them have had Pfizer so it's not just AZ which is less effective against Delta.

But the are now a lot less likely to be seriously ill.

Once the dust settles it’ll be interesting to look at the numbers and compare to other developed democratic countries. This may seem crazy now but I have a suspicion that aus (in parts) will have been locked down and locked in for longer than most of Europe. And this despite the obvious advantage of being basically geographically isolated and seeing the danger and getting to zero covid ASAP. There are a plethora of ways to deal with covid available now and choosing to shut down and shut themselves out seems slightly ott now. I read that babies requiring heart surgery are not able to get treatment because of state border closures. There must be so much hurt caused by the current approach. Wrt indigenous communities, I have no idea how to reduce the risk to these groups. What do they think? I have not read or seen from any representatives on the news website that was linked to.

The best way to reduce the risk in general is to reduce the circulation. So, test, trace contacts and isolate cases. Pay people to isolate. Vaccinating any group will only go so far because vaccinated people can spread it.

Yes I agree @newstart1234. Presumably the best way would be rapid flow tests 2-3 times a week and a cash payment if you test positive. Vaccinate as well of course.
I’ve read that people don’t want to get tested in western Sydney because they can’t afford to take time off work if they’re sick. Cases presumably are considerably higher than are reported. So we need to remove the difficulties with testing positive.
I guess the best idea is to allow the virus to spread slowly through the country without overwhelming the health system.
What I really don’t understand is that we had 18 months to prepare. With the money we spend on lockdowns, it would have made more sense to build specialist Covid hospitals, train nursing staff etc and prepare in that way. I guess it seemed to defeatist to leaders.

Very ignorant viewpoint both from Scummo and from UK people who historically speaking, have a tendency to entirely forget about the immuno-compromised brown people who have been living here for even longer than everyone else. Even with vaccinations, there is a HUGE risk to the indigenous communities here in Australia, as they are already decimated by diabetes, chronic kidney disease and other co-morbid conditions.
Yes, the vaccine generally means that HEALTHY people won’t die if they contract Covid-19, but it could still have a massive impact on what is LEFT of our indigenous population. (Considering that so many were wiped out already by disease and genocide already.)
Then there is the viewpoint that Australians are unwilling to be vaccinated. Not the case.
Most Australians are waiting their turn still. Our government has been unbelievably slow STARTING the vaccination roll-out because they “donated” (sold) our first lots of vaccines to other countries. Our younger adults are only now becoming eligible for vaccination.

Justilou- I admit I’m entirely ignorant of the indigenous Australian culture. How would you suggest Australia can approach this? Genuinely interested. I cannot see how in the long term to do this aside from the test trace and isolate system.

@Justilou1

Very ignorant viewpoint both from Scummo and from UK people who historically speaking, have a tendency to entirely forget about the immuno-compromised brown people who have been living here for even longer than everyone else. Even with vaccinations, there is a HUGE risk to the indigenous communities here in Australia, as they are already decimated by diabetes, chronic kidney disease and other co-morbid conditions. Yes, the vaccine generally means that HEALTHY people won’t die if they contract Covid-19, but it could still have a massive impact on what is LEFT of our indigenous population. (Considering that so many were wiped out already by disease and genocide already.) Then there is the viewpoint that Australians are unwilling to be vaccinated. Not the case. Most Australians are waiting their turn still. Our government has been unbelievably slow STARTING the vaccination roll-out because they “donated” (sold) our first lots of vaccines to other countries. Our younger adults are only now becoming eligible for vaccination.

U.K. people now have nothing to do with what Aus choose to do re indigenous people. No point in trying to point fingers and countries across the world.

How will you resolve it?

Why am I ignorant in the UK because I don't know about indigenous people!

Why is it the fault of the UK (who has no influence over Aus) that the indigenous people are often not treated properly.

I'm sorry, we put up with a lot of anti UK shot on MN but your post really takes the biscuit!

Wakeup somehow people manage to shoehorn anti U.K. into every post ;

Like a sport. Loo broken plumber and U.K. didn’t turn up.

@MarshaBradyo

Wakeup somehow people manage to shoehorn anti U.K. into every post ;

Like a sport. Loo broken plumber and U.K. didn’t turn up.

It is pretty ignorant 😂

I actually do know a bit about indigenous people in Australia - but not that much.

These same people often have absolutely no clue about the UK too. They do spout some shit at times.

That's not to say I haven't seem some crap from UK based posters - there's ignorant people everywhere.

Very ignorant viewpoint both from Scummo and from UK people who historically speaking, have a tendency to entirely forget about the immuno-compromised brown people who have been living here for even longer than everyone else.
Covid will not be eliminated, shielding will not work forever (and is already screwed in Dubbo), and vaccines won't protect everyone fully; but you still have a chance to help people when they get sick. I don't think you've been to any of these remote communities, or you've no idea what's needed. Instead of moaning on a forum that people in the UK don't understand how special the situation is, find out from your own politicians why your indigenous communities are having to on Twitter for masks to be sent to them when they're in the middle of an outbreak. Find out if your politicians have set up supplies like oxygen locally for anyone who gets really stuck and ask what their contingency plans for healthcare. "UK people" aren't actually responsible for emergency response in your country, Australians are.

I am not blaming the UK for current government ignorance, Scummo is our erstwhile PM, ffs. I do get frustrated that there seems to be a view from UK we are all sitting on the beach having BBQs in Summer Bay, refusing to be vaccinated, fiddling while Rome burns around us. I am frustrated that Government (who has done f-all in previous National disasters also) has forgetten that it has a responsibility to protect the remaining indigenous peoples as well as city people. Yes, it’s shameful that they have frequently been forgotten by our own Government. I did state that. Lockdowns are our only defence for the time being. Our PM proudly announced that 25% of adults were vaccinated last week. This was despite the fact that vaccination directives change here faster than the wind turning around, adults under 30 have only JUST become eligible for vaccination, but the only vaccines available are the AZ ones that had been deemed unsuitable until another Government about-face. We simply don’t have enough vaccines on hand to vaccinate our population at the moment.
As for protecting the indigenous populations, yes, mass vaccination of ALL citizens would be a good start to reuse each their risk, but we also need to get ALL of our hospitals prepared. Most indigenous people live in regional areas and regional services are shameful regardless of your ethnicity. On top of that, there has been a huge (entirely understandable) distrust of the healthcare system since the Stolen Generation, and often language and other cultural barriers that we need to bridge. Our Government has not been great in this department. We should have been reinforcing the regional hospitals and providing even greater incentives for healthcare workers to work remotely, but that hasn’t happened. It hasn’t been a priority.
Of course the worst shame is that the current NSW health crisis exists at all is because the premier of NSW did not want to lock the state down until after a bloody game of football was held. If she had listened to her health advisors, we wouldn’t be in this shit.

I do get frustrated that there seems to be a view from UK we are all sitting on the beach having BBQs in Summer Bay, refusing to be vaccinated, fiddling while Rome burns around us.
I don't think that is a majority view. Comments about vaccination are largely people are explaining that there's a realistic ceiling to the number vaccinated and that's below herd immunity, it isn't clear how covid elimination strategies can work without perpetual lockdown or a change of strategy. In particular, it isn't clear that your government have done any of the physical nor emotional preparations for the exit wave you will get when you eventually open borders. I wouldn't be so rude as to suggest it's "fiddling while Rome burns", but it looks like lockdowns and testing are distracting from the other work that needs to be done; maybe more like having all the disruption of constantly repainting all your rooms, but the roof is about to fall in and nobody's doing anything about it.

I get the point about indigenous people as we don’t have this particular situation in the U.K. but we are a multi cultural country too mainly in the major cities.
Things that worked in U.K. to encourage vaccination was working with religious leaders, having vaccine centres in churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras etc. Celebrity advocates encouraging the vaccine e.g Lenny Henry and friends on social media.

Pop up vaccine vans at local community events, festivals, sports events and the like, senior doctors and health leaders in a community organising question and answer sessions, local trusted GP’s giving out the vaccines or people could go to local community hospital while there for something else. Even supermarkets and local markets had pop up centres and nightclubs ( appreciate this one is niche and for the young!)
Point is throw everything at it, get locally respected elders on board, bring the vaccines to them rather than expect people to go to the vaccines.
Rather than just well what can you do, trust is low excuses.

@sashagabadon is quite right. It’s pointless to wring your hands and say that some people are vaccine hesitant or resistant, or that vaccines don’t work, so therefore the answer is lockdown. That is a road to nowhere. It’s irrelevant why people won’t get vaccinated. For the foreseeable future the only way to return to a semblance of normality - and indeed protect the very people who are most at risk - is to push the vaccination programme.

I don’t think that anyone in Aussie is taking a laisé fair attitude sitting round on the beach etc and I’m not sure it’s a commonly held view in UK right now.

Isuppose my thinking is that I’m surprised that, at this point in the pandemic, the benefits of lockdowns still outweigh the costs. I’d have thought that there would be more nuanced approaches available and I’m surprised that they’ve not been utilised as yet in Australia.

I assume it’s because there is a psychological barrier to it; a change in approach is required that never had to happen in Europe because it’s never been close to 0 covid here. A decision has never been made to ‘let covid in’. It’s not a barrier that Europe’s had to face.

% of population vaccinated to me, to an extent, seems an arbitrary cut off point for a number of reasons. Mostly because there are other ways of stopping the spread (which will realistically need to be implemented anyway) and also because the vaccine doesn’t stop spread to a sufficient degree to create herd immunity.

I see there is a moral argument to allow everyone a chance to get vaccinated but this, for me, is cancelled out by the immorality of effectively locking citizens out their country, stopping life saving treatment on babies, stopping loved ones hug their dying relatives, stopping international families seeing each other, stopping people from starting new jobs overseas etc.

It’s a tough one for sure.

@newstart1234

Once the dust settles it’ll be interesting to look at the numbers and compare to other developed democratic countries. This may seem crazy now but I have a suspicion that aus (in parts) will have been locked down and locked in for longer than most of Europe. And this despite the obvious advantage of being basically geographically isolated and seeing the danger and getting to zero covid ASAP. There are a plethora of ways to deal with covid available now and choosing to shut down and shut themselves out seems slightly ott now. I read that babies requiring heart surgery are not able to get treatment because of state border closures. There must be so much hurt caused by the current approach. Wrt indigenous communities, I have no idea how to reduce the risk to these groups. What do they think? I have not read or seen from any representatives on the news website that was linked to.

I don't think it's going to be helpful to create league tables of which country had the most deaths or which country had the longest lockdown. I hope we can all have the confidence and clarity to take what worked well in another country's approach and adapt it to our own particular situation to plan for future pandemics.

[quote DottyHarmer]@sashagabadon is quite right. It’s pointless to wring your hands and say that some people are vaccine hesitant or resistant, or that vaccines don’t work, so therefore the answer is lockdown. That is a road to nowhere. It’s irrelevant why people won’t get vaccinated. For the foreseeable future the only way to return to a semblance of normality - and indeed protect the very people who are most at risk - is to push the vaccination programme.[/quote]
We know. That's what's happening now, but there are supply issues. That's why the PM has set vaccination targets for changing the rules.

A summary of how NSW got its most recent response wrong. [[An ongoing apprehension towards total lockdown in NSW has come at an enormous cost
www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-16/covid-policy-in-nsw-proving-costly-ian-verrender-analysis/100379032]]

the immorality of effectively locking citizens out their country, stopping life saving treatment on babies, stopping loved ones hug their dying relatives, stopping international families seeing each other, stopping people from starting new jobs overseas etc

There have always been travel exemptions for emergency situations, etc, so I'm not sure which specific story you're referring to, and it must have been very unusual rather than an intended effect. If the government had allowed uncontrolled spread of COVID then the hospitals would have been overwhelmed and many more people would have been unable to access lifesaving healthcare. Also, many more families would have been grieving their loved ones who were taken by COVID before their time.

I'm comfortable with people delaying holidays, starting new jobs etc when the result is that lives are saved in a global emergency. I say that as someone with dual citizenship and family overseas. I'd rather that we all lived to see each other again in the near future than that any of us succumbed to COVID.