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.

You can see the change in the UK. One of the biggest supporters of the zero covid approach is now accepting we need to live with it.

The UK? We were never zero Covid, it had engulfed us too quickly to decide on an approach.

Planes I didn't say the UK had a zero covid approach but some experts in the UK wanted.

In fact the UK doesn't have a single approach and it never has. Sturgeon did try for an elimination strategy but really that was never feasible, not for Scotland anyway.

Here is an expert who seems to have changed her mind.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/10/covid-vaccines-britain-scientific-solution-jabs

I really hope once the 80% threshold has been met and people realise they will still be restricted there will be a revolt of sorts.

Even living in Adelaide with no lockdowns I’m not free. We have no community cases but are still forced to wear masks. Our nutty CHO tells us to ‘think of your mask as a friend’. The possibility of a snap lockdown at any time looms large in my life. I was considering travelling to Tasmania for a holiday but it all just seems too hard and stressful. A friend of mine has just come back from Darwin and is now doing 14 days home quarantine after they had one case there.

There will be a tipping point.

Elliot can kiss my arse.

It will be a cold day in hell before I "inform" on my neighbours. I have read that book. The body count gets a lot higher than Covid's once you head down that path.

I was talking to my husband last night about how I had always wondered how societies move towards totalitarian states and accept massive restrictions, and yet now, I can totally see how.
What is interesting is how people themselves are so willing to give away their freedoms without even being asked in the name of the “greater good”.

On my local Facebook group, people are talking about how they are self limiting themselves to 5k from their homes and won’t travel within our large LGA despite how few cases we have (about 1 active case), and talking about how they want even stricter restrictions, curfews etc. It’s utterly baffling to me.
The narrative from politicians about how all freedoms are on the line to save the lives of some people is really worrying - we don’t do this for any other disease or illness.
The thing I also find so irritating about it is that it’s like we’re back in 2020 - we’ve had had 18 months to plan and prepare for these cases, stock up on oxygen, PPE, even build a whole load of new Covid hospitals if necessary and yet we did NONE of those things. And yet now we’re being asked to severely curtail our lives because the pollies totally failed to prepare for the inevitable cases that we would have.

Agree on lack of preparation, its frustrating, the federal government has been completely ineffective throughout.

Agree Ozgirl75, people so quick and willing to hand over their freedom.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I work with scientists and lawyers, I understand the immediate necessity to keep the numbers low while we vaccinate. But the measures must be proportionate.

Kiefel CJ is pretty keen on proportionality. It will be interesting to see whether anyone challenges these and how the High Court approaches it. And I don't mean rich morons like Palmer.

Most other countries have reached their tipping point. It will come, hopefully we won't have traded away too much liberty before that.

Citation is of course Benjamin Franklin.

@IndigoC

Things have changed.

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/16/scott-morrison-criticises-was-absurd-plan-to-pursue-covid-zero-strategy-even-when-vaccination-high

Absolutely agree @AllHailTheGreatGoddess. Proportionality is the key and Dan Andrews is way over that mark. I wish someone would bring a test case over this and I suspect they will if the lockdowns drag on. Andrews has painted himself into a corner with such a strict lockdown for 20’cases. How does he ever leave the lockdown?
I find it worrying to hear that Gladys is now saying we will need more restrictions even with 80% vaccinated, especially as so many children won’t be vaccinated. The Australian newspaper at the weekend mooted the idea of long term home schooling which will be a tragedy for a huge swathe of children. We’re on the “affluent north shore” (as the papers call it) and yet the differences between schools is huge, even here.

[quote disco123]@IndigoC

Things have changed.

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/16/scott-morrison-criticises-was-absurd-plan-to-pursue-covid-zero-strategy-even-when-vaccination-high[/quote]
But:

www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-17/nsw-covid-19-restrictions-to-remain-after-vaccination-high/100381078

I’m honestly confused about what the end game is.

Proportional is a word that is forever tarnished by Gladys' constant use of it to praise herself while letting the Outbreak run rampant.

"Proportional is a word that is forever tarnished by Gladys' constant use of it to praise herself while letting the Outbreak run rampant."

It really isn't. Proportionality is a legal doctrine that has stood us in good stead for a long time.

I am not ready to roll over just yet. Some of us have noticed that the water in the pot is starting to warm.

I am a quiet, easy going, educated, woman, I am not inclined to protest too readily and my job (which I love and which buys my family a lot of privilege from which we could easily and comfortably ride this out) will be on the line if I get arrested breaking laws. But there will come a point where I believe that pushing back is the right thing to do.

Anyone who has ever studied history knows that we must always be careful and be on guard for this stuff.

Covid is dangerous, no denying that. But it isn't the most dangerous.

ScoMo's attacks on Mark McGowan are partisan bullshit, as are the Murdoch media, they've taken his statements completely out of context, and if you read the full interview he's saying the same as Gladys has come out and admitted and the guidance from the Doherty institute. I don't know how long or if WA can avoid what's happening in other states, but I'm so happy so far with how things have been here, we've had 14 days of restrictions, my kids have only missed 5 days of school, there's no masking, sports all still going etc, and we've got the best economy in the world. I'm sure we won't get through entirely unscathed, but most important for me is kids keeping going to school and I'm grateful they've been barely impacted so far.

Again, I fully agree with you @AllHailTheGreatGoddess, I am also educated and finding this lockdown ok - I have two older primary children who are finding home school fine. However, I still don’t agree with jettisoning freedoms for no proportional reasons.
@DetMcNulty I assume your Premier is busily planning for what happens when the cases arrive there. Have you been given your projections of cases based on your vaccinations and our cases? You’re lucky in that you have the gift of time. I hope your leaders don’t squander it like ours did but any leader that fails to plan after watching so closely how other states have been affected is frankly negligent.

There is a massive investment going into hospitals (around $2 billion), there's 100 new doctors and 500 new nurses coming this year, new beds etc and I mentioned earlier, a friend of mine is in the Dept of Communities, I know there is a lot of investment going into how we can reach them, but whether it can be done in time is a different story. I do think he's giving us the best possible chance of getting through it.

See that’s exactly what we should have done @DetMcNulty - accepting that cases will come but being prepared for them. Making sure that the remote communities have a plan. The good thing on your side is that you can use the modelling from NSW to see how many cases you’ll get at the different levels of vaccination, where they spread most effectively, how many extra hospital beds you need etc.

@Ozgirl75

See that’s exactly what we should have done *@DetMcNulty* - accepting that cases will come but being prepared for them. Making sure that the remote communities have a plan. The good thing on your side is that you can use the modelling from NSW to see how many cases you’ll get at the different levels of vaccination, where they spread most effectively, how many extra hospital beds you need etc.

If you look at the link I posted on the previous page there are plans in remote communities. Although the RFDS can only do so much --depends on how much money etc the government provides for their programs I suppose.

Looks like Auckland in NZ is about to go into lockdown. 1 community case with no current known links. Cabinet meeting taking place now and announcement at 6pm NZ time. Rumors from border workers are that will be level 4 for 7 days initially.

I fully agree NSW could have been better prepared for this in so many ways but I don't agree that building lots of facilities would have done much. The drs and nurses who run these have so many years of specialised training that there is a limit to the just add beds approach. Even bringing students/less qualified people through faster has its limits because they report to and are guided by more senior drs/nurses. Our drs and nurses here in NSW and in NZ are already under a lot of pressure with regards to hours and staffing.

Thing is, presumably the government has had plans in the past for an outbreak of infectious disease. You would assume most governments would have a plan for, say, a flu pandemic with a lot of people getting sick at once.
From what I’ve heard from friends who work in the Sydney hospitals, they are pretty well prepared for a lot more cases but then I hear in the news about how regional areas are totally unprepared and just think “you’ve had a year and a half!” If they aren’t prepared now, they never will be.

You have to understand @Sagealicious, carparks can be expensive.

LOL.

Apparently Melbourne has now banned more than two family members from taking walks together unless one is a dependent (so, for example, a husband and wife plus a child cannot walk together; one parent would have to hang around at home and go out at a different time for no apparent reason).

What's the idea here, that imposing extra layers of pointless misery on people will make the virus go away? I get that Australians are stressed right now, but the pandemic is caused by a virus, not by some vengeful plague-god that will cease punishing us with pestilence if we make big enough sacrifices when the moon is in a certain phase.