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.

I meant it must be incredibly rare to get that unwell if a high proportion of kids around here have actually had it and none of them been ill.

Vaccinating kids is an interesting one and I did wonder if that is why those stories are in the Australian press, to encourage vaccination. It was decided here it was unethical to vaccinate non-vulneravle kids basically to protect adults. But I suspect that might change here if just to preserve time in school.

Numbers creeping up again in Victoria today. Really curious about how this is all going to play out. Are NSW and Vic going to be cut off from the rest of the country in the medium to long term? (I saw NSW referred to by a WA scientist on Twitter as a “rogue” state) The leaders of QLD and WA sound pretty adamant that they will continue to pursue lockdowns and state border restrictions to keep their people safe.

NSW is the outlier. SA and Tas are both Coalition run and they are not opening up any time soon. Gladys is on her own.

@StartupRepair

NSW is the outlier. SA and Tas are both Coalition run and they are not opening up any time soon. Gladys is on her own.

So what does Australia look like in a year’s time to you? NSW as an enclave, interacting with the rest of the world while the other states keep hard borders to NSW and internationally? Honestly curious.

Honestly, I can see WA keeping their border closed for as long as they possibly can. But I think Vic and NSW will get majority vaccinated and then live with it

NSW doesn't really have any other choice, their numbers mean it's out there and that's it.

@BootsScootsAndToots

Honestly, I can see WA keeping their border closed for as long as they possibly can. But I think Vic and NSW will get majority vaccinated and then live with it

NSW doesn't really have any other choice, their numbers mean it's out there and that's it.

It’s going to make for an interesting federal election next year, with the country fractured like that.

I’m not sure all hope is completely lost for NSW suppressing this. Once they get to 70-80% vaccinated there will surely be some reduction in R. I read that it’s only 1.03 currently. If the will is there it’s not impossible they could get back into low hundreds or even double digits with reduced transmission thanks to the vaccine effect. Zero would likely be a bridge too far, though. And so much depends on how high it goes over the next few weeks.

Ideally I’d get it to a manageable number, unlock, but keep a mask mandate and some social distancing. The countries doing best at the moment are those that are combining vaccines with other measures.

@L1ttleSeahorse

I meant it must be incredibly rare to get that unwell if a high proportion of kids around here have actually had it and none of them been ill.

Vaccinating kids is an interesting one and I did wonder if that is why those stories are in the Australian press, to encourage vaccination. It was decided here it was unethical to vaccinate non-vulneravle kids basically to protect adults. But I suspect that might change here if just to preserve time in school.

Well I guess that depends on the safety profile of the particular vaccine. Even if rare, it's still protecting those kids who would have got very ill or died.

NSW is in a mess. twitter.com/Peter_Fitz/status/1431736871080448001?s=19

Obviously a nurse that’s never seen a bad flu - the rates of death from a novel flu are higher than Covid, and the death rates for children and younger people are worse. Maybe she’s never worked through a bad flu season.
Not saying Covid is not bad, it obviously is, but if this pandemic had been a novel flu, the death rates of children (and probably everyone) would have been higher.
And as for NSW being the outlier - that’s only within Australia, and to be honest I would prefer to be travelling through the outbreak now, to allow us to get back to normal. I also don’t think the people of NSW will be prepared to hang around waiting for the people of WA and Tassie to get vaccinated before they get back on with life - being totally honest, to most people, those states have very little impact on the daily life of people on the east coast and if they stayed locked down for years, most people wouldn’t even notice.

Queensland, people would be more affected by, but as soon as we’re allowed to fly again, people will just go overseas rather than risking booking holidays in a place that locks down for a couple of cases. I know I wouldn’t book there and I used to love a Qld holiday.
Businesses will also move away from the lockdown states due to the difficulty of doing business there - I see Qantas is already doing this, moving their Aus-U.K. hub to Darwin.

@Ozgirl75

Queensland, people would be more affected by, but as soon as we’re allowed to fly again, people will just go overseas rather than risking booking holidays in a place that locks down for a couple of cases. I know I wouldn’t book there and I used to love a Qld holiday. Businesses will also move away from the lockdown states due to the difficulty of doing business there - I see Qantas is already doing this, moving their Aus-U.K. hub to Darwin.

I had a holiday booked for the Daintree Forest. We haven't been away for a few years and I've never been there so I was really looking forward to it - but with some reserve. We ended up cancelling a few days before Queensland went into lockdown.

Oh yes the daintree is lovely. I really like Qld, especially the far north, around Port Douglas and those areas. Love the Sunshine Coast as well, and the islands. I feel quite relieved that we’ve travelled there quite extensively in the past as I can’t imagine going there again for a very long time, sadly.
We were on the verge of booking a trip to Tassie for the holidays just before this lockdown, but chickened out and went up the coast in NSW instead. The good thing about not being from Aus originally is that I’m more than happy to explore NSW, whereas a lot of my friends who are Aussie born and bred find it boring as they went to all these places as children!

Interesting to see how the Victoria cases are escalating. @StartupRepair - honestly, how long would you be happy to live under the restrictions that you currently have?

I was scouring nsw health comments yesterday and came across this.
Do you think there’s any truth to it?
A person claims that they are not allowed to present themselves or be taken to a hospital if they are positive and have to wait for an ambulance, a second person backs that claim. If this is true I’m at a loss for words.
I understand protective measures need to be put in place to stop the spread but they are denying timely medical care which has ultimately cost the person their life.

As a Victorian I'm happy to live under our current restrictions until everyone who wants to get double vaxxed is able to.

Then I'd like DC back at school, hospitality opening with social distance and the very last should be those that can work from home going back in the office.

www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-29/push-for-young-people-to-get-vaccinated-in-the-uk-covid/100389022

An article about the problem of unvaccinated children and young people in the UK.

@Ineedsomebody

I was scouring nsw health comments yesterday and came across this. Do you think there’s any truth to it? A person claims that they are not allowed to present themselves or be taken to a hospital if they are positive and have to wait for an ambulance, a second person backs that claim. If this is true I’m at a loss for words. I understand protective measures need to be put in place to stop the spread but they are denying timely medical care which has ultimately cost the person their life.

I imagine that ideally yes people come by ambulance because then their entry to their hospital is controlled. In other states every single person with covid is under regular review if they are at home (or in medihotels) so they know they are safe. You don't want people coming by uber or being driven in by someone else who then comes into triage with them- that's how hospitals get shut down. That only works if covid is under control and ambulances can respond quickly. Which is not the case in NSW because it is so out of control and the health care system is unable to cope

@disco123

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-29/push-for-young-people-to-get-vaccinated-in-the-uk-covid/100389022

An article about the problem of unvaccinated children and young people in the UK.

Well duh! If that is the group that is not vaccinated then that's the group it will spread most........

We don't know what will happen with over 12's. There are growing voices calling for them to be vaccinated, especially in the Government. But the JVCI won't be rushed into it. Up until now they have not been convinced that vaccination is beat for this age group although it's constantly under review. One thing we should never do is vaccinate children, because adults won't get vaccinated.

As for under 12s, I fully expect my children to get the virus in the next few months. It is what it is, I very much suspect they will be fine. They will catch it many times in their lives.

DH and I will potentially get it and if we do then fine. We are double jabbed so i am sure we will be fine, albeit we may feel shit for a few days.

It may be some further restrictions will be needed in the Winter, but at the moment we need to let kids / youngsters live as normally as possible. They have given up so much to protect us that are older.

Are there any initiatives in aus to improve vaccination in over 60s? For context, 1st dose vaccine rate of 25-29 yo in UK is 71%, in aus it’s 70% in the 50-55 age group.

I can’t fathom why it’s being opened to 12-16 yo when the vast vast majority of illness occurs in older people. It’s not clear that the vaccine offers any personal health benefits to teens. It reduces transmission by 70% or something. I’ve no doubt the vaccine is safe in teens and being vaccinated means you don’t have to isolate (in the UK) so obviously good to protect their education and social life. The r rate of delta is around 8 so it’s reduced to 1.8 or something like that if 100% vaccine coverage.

Point is, in terms of health system being overwhelmed, it really doesn’t matter how many people are vaxxed but who is vaxxed. The article posted above is all about the strategies used to improve vaccine coverage in a group of younger people in UK when older people in aus are still not taking it up. Surely it does mean that if lockdowns happen (according to the 4 stage plan) when hospitals are overwhelmed, then it seems that lockdowns will be here to stay.

I’ll be interested to see what happens with flu. Is here a bad flu season this year in aus? It’ll be interesting to see what happens with excess deaths in Europe over the next few years. I won’t be surprised if the UK has terrible stats, the last big health news story before covid was that people in parts of England have now got declining life expectancy. To an extent covid is a small problem in UK compared to Brexit and all the shit coming from that at the moment.

Yes exactly. I don't understand their push to vaccinate a low risk group when their high risk groups arent vaccinated.

I wonder if the fear factor is so high that they need the vaccinations to feel safe returning to school?

It does look like Gladys has a very difficult role now. They do need to power through the vaccinations and "live with" it as there is no other way. Once enough are vaccinated I'd want to open up too. But she is being scapegoated for the existence of covid.

@Ozgirl75

Obviously a nurse that’s never seen a bad flu - the rates of death from a novel flu are higher than Covid, and the death rates for children and younger people are worse. Maybe she’s never worked through a bad flu season. Not saying Covid is not bad, it obviously is, but if this pandemic had been a novel flu, the death rates of children (and probably everyone) would have been higher. And as for NSW being the outlier - that’s only within Australia, and to be honest I would prefer to be travelling through the outbreak now, to allow us to get back to normal. I also don’t think the people of NSW will be prepared to hang around waiting for the people of WA and Tassie to get vaccinated before they get back on with life - being totally honest, to most people, those states have very little impact on the daily life of people on the east coast and if they stayed locked down for years, most people wouldn’t even notice.

My understanding from a friend in ICU is that the difficulty isn't so much the death rate, but the weird complications. The blood clots, heart issues, sudden kidney failure, onset of diabetes etc. The lungs don't respond quite the same because the issue is vascular rather than fluids, so patients and prone. Clots and heart issues can occur with flu, but not as often nor coming on so quickly. Especially early days, for UK ICU it was traumatic trying to figure out how to help each patient. Even though they're well trained in covid now, it can still be harder work with all the checks in ICU. My endocrinology consultant used to barely go into ICU before, yet had months at a time in there fighting for his patients to live. Some of their difficulty may be the "novel" nature of these cases, and some is that it's a horrible disease, but I see why she's trying to get across that for healthcare staff this isn't flu - and that isn't just about death.

Age groups Over 65 are all over 80% single vaxxed, presumably most of these will be intending to have 2nd jabs. They are having AZ and a 12 week gap in areas without an outbreak.

60-64 are 76% single vaxxed. So they are getting there too.

The more supply we get, the more groups become eligible. This doesn't stop any of the already eligible groups coming forward for a jab whenever they want. More hubs are also opening.

This is my concern too.
A lot of over 60s have opted to wait for Pfizer due to the negative messaging at the beginning of the roll out or medical reasons making them ineligible for AZ.
The TGA has given the green light to start vaccinating 12+ but advises offering choice to the older population first. Advice that the government is ignoring since they hope to start vaccinating 12+ this year. Meanwhile over 60s are still waiting.

Oh and the CHO in Melbourne said that the flu is gone 🙄

We aren’t really having a flu season again - mainly because children have been off school through most of the winter term (all of it in NSW, some in Victoria) and also because lockdowns stop spread of the flu too. Not sure about Tassie and SA which are also cold in winter but I can’t imagine even they’re having much of a flu season as there isn’t the movement of people around to spread it.
And @MRex I do totally get what you’re saying, and don’t disagree. It was more that the nurse in the article was like “as if this is like the flu” as if flu is some lightweight little cold, when we know that a novel flu, or even just a bad flu season can be absolutely devastating in the effects on children, pregnant women, and older people (even Swine flu in 2009 (I think) which wasn’t terribly bad in flu terms still killed thousands of children worldwide - over 1000 in the USA alone).