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.

Those of you who have reached a higher plane where Covid deaths are not upsetting-
What are your thoughts about the rising numbers globally of Delta in children? What about Australia's First Nations people who are 92% unvaccinated and are living with massive generational trauma?

1. Delta has just washed through the UK, and we have seen very few sick kids. The "kids x Delta = hysteria" appears to be mainly a US media thing. The risk may not be zero, but that was always true of glandular fever, rotavirus, car accidents and a whole lot of other things. Schools need to stay open and kids need a social life. I do however agree that we should be offering the vaccine to teenagers and keeping masks on in school. My daughter (10) wears a mask at school and in indoor public places (we are not in the UK).
2. Regarding indigenous Australians and NZers--there should have been a bigger and earlier push to fast track the vaccine to these groups. Given that this has not been done anywhere near as fast as it should have been (!), I agree that trying to lockdown and slow the spread of the virus right now is the right choice.

However, you will not be able to keep borders closed forever, and I am simply telling you this as a fact. "We'll keep our borders closed to protect our vulnerable indigenous people!" is the sort of "nice" thing that white Ozzies and Kiwis will say at the start, enamoured of the kindness of it all. Eventually fatigue will set in, there will be a lot of argument, and then the borders will open. It might take a couple of years, but it will happen.

It's like lockdown fatigue. It comes to us all eventually. I have a couple of very sweet and lovely Kiwi friends on FB, and they are busy rocking it like it's March 2020 right now--posting inspirational memes about how "We are isolating now so that we can all be there when we meet again!!" and #LovingMyLockdownLife type photos of them baking and doing crafts with the kids and lovely pictures of isolated sunset walks and all that. Yes, very nice, and I think it's nice when people do their best to be positive about a crappy situation. But I remember people doing all this stuff in the UK in the spring and even perhaps the summer of 2020. They got bored after a while. You don't often see the LovingMyLockdownLife baking-with-kids posts except when someone is being sarcastic. Borders will be the same. Eventually.

Those of you who have reached a higher plane where Covid deaths are not upsetting-
What are your thoughts about the rising numbers globally of Delta in children? What about Australia's First Nations people who are 92% unvaccinated and are living with massive generational trauma?what thoughts do you need to have other than mainly white people trying to bully black and Asian people in to doing what they want or lease their make them black and Asians in pretty much every county have spoke and Hasidic Jews we don’t want the vaccine thanks

And we’re not gonna take it because lots of middle class white people think we should you can threaten to sack us from our care jobs fair enough look after your own old people 🤷‍♀️

@sashagabadon

Ozgirl - I'm a kindred spirit too - albeit one in the UK I completely agree. We had a massive problem here in the UK last summer with teaching unions actively telling their members not to engage with the Government to re-open schools. The unions openly celebrated when only a few year groups went back last June rather than all the children. It was infuriating and outrageous. Schools did always stay open for keyworker kids though so that is something. IMO children's welfare was neglected here in the UK to protect older mostly retired people and no doubt Aus will go down this same road, but I really hope not.

This is one version but not the version I experienced as a teacher. I wish the unions were as powerful as you think and I really believe that it IS important to protect adults who work within schools. Schools can’t function without adults to run them - something which seems to be forgotten in England.

I do hope Australia doesn’t go down the ‘Us 4 Them’ route. Their campaign to open schools with NO mitigation last September impressed many Tory MPs but I feel that the impact of this contributed significantly to school closures in January and isolations/bubble closure by June. Don’t veer too far the other way!

@user1477391263 thanks for your thoughtful answer. You don't have to tell me about lockdown fatigue! I'm in Melbourne and yesterday was our 200th day in hard lockdown. I realise I am in a place of great privilege as I am still employed. However lockdown has come at great personal and emotional cost to my family and to every family I know. I am still proud that we did it and given that our government has stuffed up vaccination purchase and rollout I can do it for longer to protect the vulnerable.
Gladys' let it rip approach in NSW is being soundly disputed by epidemiologists, medical professionals and every other state leader. It has been a catastrophic failure of public health.

Can you acknowledge StartupRepair that some people just cannot keep this up for much longer?

It doesn't matter what the health advice is, it doesn't matter how dreadful the outcome is going to be, it doesn't matter how harsh the penalties, or how strong the judgement. They just cannot.

Once you understand that, you will understand the futility of the zero covid idea.

I see Gladys has caved to some of the pointless “show” rules - I’m embarrassed for her that she has so little spine to stand up for what she knows is correct. So now we’re in masks outside (for no reason) unless we’re exercising, and the areas already really suffering under stricter rules are now under curfew.
Luckily I’m always “exercising” when I’m outside anyway (walks count as exercise) so I shall continue not to wear a mask unless I’m inside, where I’m more than happy to wear one.

I’ll be interested to see what the “freedoms” are that we’re due to be handed next week if we’re fully vaccinated.
To be fair unless schools go back it’s kind of irrelevant anyway.
I’m hearing more and more calls for schools to go back next term (Oct) to get in at least one term of school before they go on the long summer break.

When do you normally have holidays (im v aware its different to uk. So we have 6 weeks summer holiday now, then 1 week october, 2 weeks xmas). When you say october term - they're homeschooling now arent they? Is there a holiday between now and October?

We have four more weeks of this term (in NSW) then two weeks off at the end of September, then 10 more weeks and break up in the second or third week of December (private schools normally week 1/2 of Dec).

And then we go back the last week in January.

Greater Sydney lockdown now extended until end September + masks to be worn everywhere apart from when exercising.

but not surprised.

• curfew of 9pm-5am for certain LGAs (a la Melbourne).

Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool, Parramatta, Strathfield and some suburbs of Penrith

Thanks Ozgirl. Yes I can see getting back for a final term would be good. Especially for school leavers (primary and secondary.) Its really hard not knowing if you will finish school/see your friends or not.

My suspicion is that until there is high vaccination rate places like sydney maynot see that...

More pressure for the cooker. This weekend will be interesting.

I guess if your goal is to 'peak lockdown' people, pointless rules are the way to go?

Happily we are bushwalking this weekend. I won't be wearing a mask.

"Commissioner Fuller said local police had said young men in areas of concern were becoming “difficult to manage” and were not complying with health orders."

No Shit?!

I think we’re kayaking and playing tennis this weekend and I won’t be wearing a mask there either.
I find it baffling that she has to bring in more, pointless rules just because some people won’t follow the rules that we already have (which probably do help to stop the spread)
They’ve now closed all retail apart from supermarkets and pharmacies (click and collect only) and yet they’ve accepted in press conferences this week that it isn’t spreading in those locations.

@StartupRepair it’s truly bizarre the way you keep referring to “let it rip” approach of NSW. It’s incredibly draconian even before these latest measures. Let it rip is texas or Brazil. Not Sydney!

Lots of room to go before you start to see daylight out from the edge of under that doona of yours

It’s so weird isn’t it @flyornofly. I read the same on forums over here “lock down hard!” “This is such a soft lockdown” and it’s like, ahem, kids are off school, most shops are closed, we can’t travel through our own city, yet alone state or even country, can’t go on holiday. It’s spreading in workplaces, homes and childcare, all places that can’t really be closed anyway. It’s hardly “letting it rip”, it’s taking about 2-3 weeks for cases to double and even after 9 weeks we’re still only at 650 cases per day. Back in March 2020 cases were doubling every couple of days!

I would love to know what bushwalking is?!! It sounds dangerous 😁

It’s walking, in the bush. Hiking basically.

Hiking newstart1234, at the moment Sydney is broken into LGA's which we are not supposed to leave.

Lucky for me, most of my LGA is native bushland.

Biggest danger is taking a wrong turn and ending up lost (which can and does happen), but we will probably stick to the fire trails so not much danger of that.

I expect there will be other families out doing the same thing, I am comfortable given the size of the area we will be able to physically distance. We might EVEN stop for a picnic, alone, in the bush, far from others, the Covid rebels that we are. :P

@AllHailTheGreatGoddess we’re also in Hornsby Shire and have been out bush walking nearly every weekend, doing sections of the great north walk. Even though it’s a well recognised walk, it’s never busy, the most we’ve seen was last weekend when we went to an area that’s near a reserve and even then, it wasn’t busy, just busier than the week before when I think we saw one other person even though we started in Berowra.
We are very lucky living here - the only thing I miss is the beach! One of the “freedoms” I’m hoping for is that vaccinated people might be able to travel out of the LGA as I would love to head over to the northern beaches for a stroll.

Ahem, of course I don’t mean stroll, I mean exercise.

@AllHailTheGreatGoddess

Can you acknowledge StartupRepair that some people just cannot keep this up for much longer?

It doesn't matter what the health advice is, it doesn't matter how dreadful the outcome is going to be, it doesn't matter how harsh the penalties, or how strong the judgement. They just cannot.

Once you understand that, you will understand the futility of the zero covid idea.

It’s also so important that we stop with this “protect the vulnerable” by locking down idea. Yes, lockdowns protect the clinically vulnerable, but the utterly screw over the socio-economically vulnerable and this has to be part of the conversation about what is and isn’t proportionate (my favourite phrase too ozgirl!)

My relative in a care home during this pandemic may have in theory been protected from covid by being effectively locked in his room for 9 months (he wasn’t protected as it happens, he caught and survived covid but I understand totally trying to keep covid out of care homes) but wasn’t protected from spending the last months of his life confused and upset about why his family didn’t love him anymore and had stopped visiting him.

Lockdown is such a complex thing in terms of its relative harms and benefits.

@Ozgirl75

It’s so weird isn’t it *@flyornofly*. I read the same on forums over here “lock down hard!” “This is such a soft lockdown” and it’s like, ahem, kids are off school, most shops are closed, we can’t travel through our own city, yet alone state or even country, can’t go on holiday. It’s spreading in workplaces, homes and childcare, all places that can’t really be closed anyway. It’s hardly “letting it rip”, it’s taking about 2-3 weeks for cases to double and even after 9 weeks we’re still only at 650 cases per day. Back in March 2020 cases were doubling every couple of days!

I agree NSW is definitely not letting it rip from what I can see. Stupid phase anyway. U.K. gets tarred with same brush all the time, Boris letting it rip / freedom day etc. Seems like NSW is at around 600-700 cases per day and it might go up to 1000 but that is still tiny numbers really in a city and shows the measures are working to keep a lid on it. Gladys probably had to crack re. outdoor masks as it must be hard and relentless if the media etc wants a particular thing and they go on and on till they get it. I suppose you have to pick your battles. My overwhelming emotion for the people leading in any country is sympathy. It’s a very very hard thing to get right day after day and exhausting for them to stay ahead. Most crisis last a day or two or maybe be a week or two then respite.This goes on relentlessly for months and months and months. The pressure must be intolerable.