Australia/New Zealand New Thread

[Kokeshi123]

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/

Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

This is... really really disturbing, honestly.

I grew up admiring (and, let's be honest, envying) Australians because as a nation, they always came across as a down-to-earth, fearless lot who had a healthy skepticism of authority while also being basically very civic/community minded.

What's gone wrong?

That is not what they have said @Kiwi09

The PM has not said elimination is still in place only until the vaccination roll out is finished. You are making assumptions. She has been specifically asked that question and has refused to say that.

They have not set a vaccination target.

They have not set out what a future loosening of border restrictions might look like (say MIQ for high risk countries, home isolation for low risk, and how that might be defined)

We don’t have access to lateral flow quick testing - what the rest of the world uses to manage covid spread - the Govt banned them in April 2020.

Chris Hipkins today expressly refused to rule out future level 3 or 4 lockdowns as “we don’t know what the virus will do”

They have made vague noises about reconnecting with the world while declining to set out any milestones about when and how that might be achieved.

Do you live here?!

I loathed John Key when he was PM but agreed with everything in his column today which was a perplexing and confronting experience @Cousinit 🤯😂

@Gennz18

I loathed John Key when he was PM but agreed with everything in his column today which was a perplexing and confronting experience *@Cousinit* 🤯😂

Don’t worry. I hate Tony Abbott but also hate that someone snitched on him for not wearing a mask outside.

What has this pandemic done to us

If nz can follow what Denmark has done they will be doing very well. I’m not sure how Denmark has done so well at keeping cases low though - the restrictions were almost never as tough (lockdown started 13 days earlier than and included border closure), but since June 2020 the restrictions were light touch comparatively. The corona pass was a short term thing as the population had unequal access to vaccine but went months ago. There was not the tough entry requirements into Denmark like U.K. even from India or other hotspots. Face coverings are now again illegal in public and have been since June. The low cases in 2021 are imo because of a mix of things like - very good housing, big houses with few large families and they like good ventilation, sick pay from day 1, deep sense of social responsibility, sick pay for days when your kids are off school sick, people quit work quickly when they don’t think their employer is good which means employers have to provide a safe working environment, basically factors that are only indirectly related to pandemic response and more embedded resilience in the society. There are zero covid measure in Denmark now. It seems like the health system is the weak link in nz But on the good side the vaccine stops almost all need for hospital treatment so for me that’s the confusing bit - what are the leaders waiting for before opening up? This is a rhetorical question tbh - more a musing.

@thingsarelookingup

I'm going to take a guess that some of the anger here is that Victorians are quite literally paying the price to let Sydney out of lockdown first. They are reaching the Vax rates to leave lockdown weeks before we are because our vaccines were given to them. I think you could take a moment to think about how this feels. Now Ozgirl75 obviously had no say in this but to constantly talk about how she is feeling that the end of lockdown is close is hard to hear. Earlier in this thread I talked about how hard it was and how it does not feel like the end is anywhere in sight and Ozgirl75 responded by again saying how great things are in Sydney. I walked away for a few hours and did not respond.

Another Victorian here and yes you summed it up well.

NSW does not seem to appreciate how they've been favoured with vaccines at a cost to the rest of the country, especially Victoria.

And then some posters are going on about how we need to live with Covid, finding any excuse not to follow rules etc when Victorian's are unable to 'live with Covid' until our vax rates are high enough...which is taking longer due to NSW.

I have been so disappointed in all the politicians at some point, but fucking ScoMo can rot in hell and it will be a long time before I'll ever trust a Liberal PM to run all of Aus for the people.

I don’t think we will replicate Denmark @newstart1234 just on the basis that over housing stock is overwhelming quite shit, damp and very expensive and overcrowding tends to be a big issue in more deprived communities (hardly surprising when it’s so expensive)

@Gennz18, yes I’m in NZ.

Yes, they haven’t said they’ll drop elimination, but they have changed their definition of what it means. They spoke the other day about how their intention is to continue to stamp out cases as they arise, but that they accept there will be cases in the community as we open up. This is different to the original elimination strategy that was put in place before vaccines were available, where the goal was to not have any circulation in the community.

Yes, no target has been set and they’ve been clear that they don’t want to give one as ideally we need everyone vaccinated and they don’t want people to think it’s ok for them to be part of the X% that they expect not to be vaccinated. Their messaging in the last week has been that the higher the vaccination rate the fewer restrictions we’ll have to have in the future and they have talked in general terms about what those restrictions might look like and that they don’t want to use lockdowns in the future. I know they haven’t ruled out l3 or 4 lockdowns in the future, but it’d be silly to do that when they’ve got no way of knowing if a variant worse than Delta is around the corner. They’ve been careful all along about following the science and making evidence-based decisions. At the moment there’s no way they can rule out further lockdowns, although they have said it’s not their intention to continue having them if they can be avoided.

They are also currently working on what MIQ changes may be possible. The first step in this process is trialing home isolation. The first group this is being trialed in is people traveling for work, because this is seen as a lower risk group because non compliance would be bad for the employee/company. They’ve also mentioned potentially requiring all travellers to be vaccinated, which wouldn’t be necessary if you planned on using MIQ for ever.

No, we haven’t had lateral flow tests and they explained that we haven’t until now because they’re not a useful tool if your goal is a complete elimination strategy. They’ve recently started trialing the use of them though for selected groups and are assessing how well they work, I think using PCR testing as a comparison. This move also signals their shift away from the old elimination strategy to the new one where some level of circulation will be acceptable as we open up.

They have said that reopening will happen in stages, no doubt guided by the situation at that time and the science. It’a tough not knowing when this will happen I agree, but picking a random date wouldn’t help either. They have no one of knowing exactly when people will turn up to be vaccinated or exactly when all the safety data for use of the vaccine in all age groups will be available to them, for example, which all affects when we can start opening up the borders.

And yes, I’ve spent way to much time watching 1 pm briefings and reading all the news that’s out there

Yes me too @Kiwi09 but you seem to have maintained your equilibrium better than me 😂

I don’t expect a “freedom day” date at all but would like to see a vaccination target, testing requirements etc set so can look ahead a bit. It’s the sense of treading water with no hope of what the future might bring which is the real head fuck for me.

@Gennz18 you’ve caught me on a Sunday - I’m less well-balanced after a day of WFH while trying to do this homeschool nonsense with 3 kids!

I’d love some more certainty too! I like to day dream that we reach 95% vaccination rates by Christmas after approving the vaccine for all age groups and have amazing uptake and can open up completely without hardly any restrictions. I’m setting myself up for disappointment I know! Lol

I think if you look for the signs you will see they have already begun to move away from elimination. The messaging has changed but it's very subtle and I think that's deliberate because an awful lot of people in NZ remain wedded to the idea of elimination. It worked brilliantly for us last year before vaccines were available and I think a lot of people will need to be gently nudged away from that way of thinking, particularly those who have no interest or immediate need in travelling overseas.

@newstart1234 But on the good side the vaccine stops almost all need for hospital treatment so for me that’s the confusing bit - what are the leaders waiting for before opening up?
I know you said it's rhetorical, but this isn't correct. A percentage of people will still be infected, a percentage of them will be hospitalised and a percentage will die. You will have some who won't be vaccinated and some who vaccines don't work on; not only known immune compromised individuals but there is huge variation in double vaccinated infection impact on individuals and nobody is quite sure of the reasons why yet. Opening up will lead to cases and inevitably some hospitalisations will follow. That doesn't mean your government shouldn't open up with sufficient vaccination, I'm just clarifying the hospitalisation point.

Wondering what John Key’s ideas were so read this

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-sir-john-key-5-ideas-to-transform-our-approach/PJH3TEOR6WEVADOOHWLKFBVK74/

I liked it as an article, wonder if any will be picked up

I found most of that article pretty sensible tbh.

I went and read it after hearing the soundbites on the radio. Apart from comparing NZ to North Korea I agreed with everything he said too. Possibly the first time I've ever agreed with him!

That article was spot on. There is too much fear in NZ and they are going to have to pivot to a living with scenario eventually so should start preparing for that. I think NZ do have a vaccine target- 90% of over 12’s so probably about 80% of total population?
U.K. is at that now although we were probably more like 60% when we dropped restrictions back in July but we also had a fairly high level of natural immunity to help us , and we still have 30,000 cases a day and around 700 hospitalisations and quite a few deaths too. I think NZ can get to these levels of vax as they don’t seem to have much of an anti vax rhetoric there?
But Keys is right that the amount lockdown is costing is astronomical and is actually a much bigger threat to NZealanders well being than Covid.
He doesn’t mention testing though and I think that should be offered to people to access social activities rather than mandatory vaccine ( although this tactic worked for the French and the U.K. threatened it but then ditched it as a policy).
He also mentioned building purpose built MIQ facilities. I’m suspicious of this as once you have done so the sunk cost fallacy means they will go on much longer than necessary and why on earth would tourists want to spend anytime at all in MIQ. There’s a whole world out there to visit.

I found it refreshing to read maybe I’ve been linked to too many Guardian articles ;

Clear, with incentives I feel like the media has pounded us instead for 18 months

www.afr.com/world/europe/in-vaccinated-britain-all-my-friends-are-getting-covid-20210924-p58uee

I liked this article too and think it’s a fair reflection of the U.K. right now. Certainly among people I know and what I see as I walk about. I think the journalist is an expat Aussie living in London.
Australia will get to this point too. From what Ozgirl says NSW is nearly there.
Queensland still going on about doughnut days though

What’re doughnut days? Yes the majority of my circle have had covid in UK. I haven’t afaik.

A doughnut day is when there are zero new cases.

Do you get a free doughnut?

I don’t get why it’s taking so long for some people to get even their first vaccine.

Just did a dummy booking for Moderna in Adelaide and there were numerous pharmacies with bookings available within 2 days and many others with bookings within 7 days.

Obviously there will be people that live in rural areas or are housebound, disabled or have other blocks but for the average person in a metropolitan area there’s no excuse any more. These people are holding the rest of us back.

@Gennz18

I don’t think we will replicate Denmark *@newstart1234* just on the basis that over housing stock is overwhelming quite shit, damp and very expensive and overcrowding tends to be a big issue in more deprived communities (hardly surprising when it’s so expensive)

I’d bet my house that Denmark has more ICU beds per capita than NZ (and probably Australia as well).

I wonder if people are waiting as they are looking at countries like the U.K. where 50 plus are getting boosters due to immunity waning (as they got their jabs first back in early 2021) and then thinking we’ll I don’t want to get my jab too early and then it wanes just as we open. It would be a reasonable thing to think!
Maybe Aussie government needs to look at a 3rd dose booster programme for high risk groups early 2022 to reassure those people?

@sashagabadon

I wonder if people are waiting as they are looking at countries like the U.K. where 50 plus are getting boosters due to immunity waning (as they got their jabs first back in early 2021) and then thinking we’ll I don’t want to get my jab too early and then it wanes just as we open. It would be a reasonable thing to think! Maybe Aussie government needs to look at a 3rd dose booster programme for high risk groups early 2022 to reassure those people?

Except what happens if there is an outbreak? These vaccine hesitant will be the ones filling up our ICUs and will be the majority of the deaths. There needs to be incentives or a deadline set.

For those of us who under 50 who went and got vaccinated ASAP (I’m 45 and have been double jabbed since July) what was the point? (I’m talking about in Covid zero states) it feels like the government is catering to the vaccine laggards.

I don’t regret getting the vaccine but I just don’t feel the sense of urgency from my state government that I want to. I’m now relying on everyone else getting off their butts to get vaccinated and it’s fucking frustrating.

@sashagabadon

I wonder if people are waiting as they are looking at countries like the U.K. where 50 plus are getting boosters due to immunity waning (as they got their jabs first back in early 2021) and then thinking we’ll I don’t want to get my jab too early and then it wanes just as we open. It would be a reasonable thing to think! Maybe Aussie government needs to look at a 3rd dose booster programme for high risk groups early 2022 to reassure those people?

Then the sensible thing would be to have one dose and the second right before opening up, or if there's an outbreak; nice long gap for goof immunity.