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?

@KowhaiWhy

Melbourne will now be in lockdown longer because some of our Vax supplies were given to NSW and our exit date is determined by reaching vaccination levels. I don't think the outrage at that situation should be called 'sniping'.

And we will be forced to face the continual risks of seepage from NSW as it "opens up" thanks to its higher vax rates - in part because it got a proportion of other states' and territories' allocations to get ahead.

Andrews reckons Vic has been shorted 300,000 Pfizer shots - enough to have it already at 70 per cent with one dose.

Andrew Barr, ACT Chief Minister, says 12-15 per cent of the Pfizer they have used has gone to NSW residents - priority cases for jabs who live in NSW but work in Canberra.

Thanks Gladys, thanks Liberal "freedom". What a disgrace.

Seems like a lot of this is Dan Andrews politicking:

www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/secret-vaccine-doses-for-nsw-well-not-exactly-20210908-p58py7.html

And the brought forward doses supposedly saved up to 380 lives. Shouldn’t that be what matters, ultimately? NSW needed them when other states didn’t. They will now forego doses in the middle of this month.

It's not politicking. It's pointing out inequity and lack of Federal government support.

It seems like there's a lot of anger in some parts of Australia at NSW for being the state where the breach happened, but wasn't that pretty inevitable given that NSW has the biggest economy and so on? I bet NSW heavily subsidies a lot of other regions that are heavily rural.

In other news--wow, NZ has squashed Delta. My NZ friends are coming out of lockdown and expressing relief!

@Kokeshi123

It seems like there's a lot of anger in some parts of Australia at NSW for being the state where the breach happened, but wasn't that pretty inevitable given that NSW has the biggest economy and so on? I bet NSW heavily subsidies a lot of other regions that are heavily rural.

In other news--wow, NZ has squashed Delta. My NZ friends are coming out of lockdown and expressing relief!

No we haven't yet. Auckland is still at level 4 and some unexpected cases still popping up but it's on track to be eliminated I hope.

@Kokeshi123

It seems like there's a lot of anger in some parts of Australia at NSW for being the state where the breach happened, but wasn't that pretty inevitable given that NSW has the biggest economy and so on? I bet NSW heavily subsidies a lot of other regions that are heavily rural.

In other news--wow, NZ has squashed Delta. My NZ friends are coming out of lockdown and expressing relief!

There's anger because the NSW state government and federal government have been completely hypocritical throughout the whole thing, going back to Victoria's lockdown last year, and the constant criticism from them at the Labour states (Vic and WA in particular). Gloating about their gold standard of contact tracing and how well they've handled it, it now doesn't sit well at all. If the situation was reversed, and it was rife in WA and NT, does anyone really think there would be the same push for them to open up to us?

And per capita, WA, ACT and NT all contribute more than NSW.

The anger is not that the breach happened. The anger is that there were minimal efforts made to contain it. It was completely predictable that this wave could spread across NSW into Aboriginal communities, Canberra and Victoria. Gladys was so caught up in her no lockdown ideology that she refused to take obvious measures. This combined with sniping at other states, insisting on her own prowess, minimising the impact of deaths, getting extra vaccines under the table and boasting about herself. As of next week she is going to stop fronting up to press conferences so will no longer have that level of accountability.

You say NSW will now forego doses in the middle of this month but that wasn't the plan until the inequality was pointed out. The plan was that NSW continued to be prioritised until the end of the year which would have resulted in at least as many extra deaths in Victoria as were saved in NSW because our outbreak is also increasing and is just a few weeks behind theirs ( and they had been receiving extra doses at this level of cases while we are still getting less than our share). The Federal and NSW governments are both Liberal while many other states, including ALL the ones receiving under their allocation are Labour. It shouldn't matter but with ScoMo it does.

And of course it's ridiculous to ask a state with zero covid to open their borders as soon as they hit 80% and invite in covid. Clearly they will need to at some point but the timelines can be different when you are in very different circumstances.

@thingsarelookingup

And of course it's ridiculous to ask a state with zero covid to open their borders as soon as they hit 80% and invite in covid. Clearly they will need to at some point but the timelines can be different when you are in very different circumstances.

Exactly, I believe it takes up to 3 weeks from the jab for immunity to kick in. We were talking about this at work yesterday, nearly all of us (even those leaning more towards just open up and get it over with) would rather we got through Christmas and summer holidays without any restrictions and would prefer Feb at earliest for opening our internal borders.

NSW doesn't seem to be taking into account at all the lower vax rate for Aboriginal communities either, and I can't believe that Gladys and Brad Hazzard have decided they won't come to press conferences, just at the point that the peak is expected to hit.

I'm in Melbourne and actually agree with the freeze with the addition of emergency trades (for .e.g the burst pipe situation). it would mean a food grant to anyone with an income under a certain amount though, because having food in isn't something you can do below a certain income. I think it would get us out of lockdown faster. We're going to get the square root of fuck all meaningful extra freedom at 70% single vaxxed, because as a figure it is epidemiologically meaningless. Also, I'm the parent of two children who are well under 12--there is no vaccine in the world approved for them. The long term heart and cognitive impacts of COVID 19 in adults are HUGELY widespread and well demonstrated (the cognitive impacts were, on average, higher than stroke www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext). Lockdown isn't impact free, for sure, but there are policy measures (like fucking well paying parents to homeschool their kids) that would reduce them. I don't think it's ok to just cross our fingers and hope the kids will be alright when they (inevitably) get infected.

The anger is not that the breach happened. The anger is that there were minimal efforts made to contain it.

Yep - the driver of international air crews with no mask mandate and no vaccine requirements, because hey gold standard 👍🏻. And then the utter bullshit hubris of "gold standard" (little air brackets here).

COVID zero was never forever, just as long as possible - to give us that valuable chance to get vaccine numbers up. And Gladys pissed that up against a wall - and now says the rest of Australia has to follow her supreme management and bold example. While she dips into the pockets of vulnerable states for their priceless vaccine doses.

Outrage is too mild.

So NSW people should just die so that states that have no Covid and sealed borders (like QLD) can continue short-term vaccine parity? You will all be at 70-80% very soon, I would have thought the priority would be saving lives.

I admit when people talked about Pfizer being used in zero Covid country (earlier in thread, but rejected by PM) whilst we were in hell pretty much made me feel ill at the thought.

So hard

COVID zero was never forever, just as long as possible - to give us that valuable chance to get vaccine numbers up.

Well, why didn't you all do it before then? You had months since the vaccine came out, and it was always completely obvious that COVID was going to break its way in at some point.

Oh yeah, I remember now--fussy boomers vaccine-shopping and "waiting for Pfizer".....

Well, why didn't you all do it before then? You had months since the vaccine came out, and it was always completely obvious that COVID was going to break its way in at some point.

I got a vaccine within days of being eligible for one. Like seriously - you cannot imagine the days spent waiting in phone queues for an appt, and the repeated doom-scrolling to see if I could have one.

I'm not a boomer. I have been fully vaccinated since the end of June. I agree, this shit-storm was clear months ago and boomers have been ... less than perfect.

But that said, gen x's and millions (literally) of others did like me. But many, many others in Australia could not.

The major issue in Australia is supply.

Honestly, because we had zero Covid for so long there didn't feel any urgency for the risk of taking vaccinations, I have an autoimmune disease and was very much in the camp of I will wait and see.

I'm now double vaxxed since early august.

There was a reluctance across the country because the risk from the vaccine was higher than the risk of Covid.

Obviously delta has changed that and everyone I know is either fullly or partially vaccinated now (NSW)

The major issue in Australia is supply.

Is it? I thought you had a plentiful supply of AZ?

It's not supply, we have AZ available for everyone who wants it, the government and media have created fear for people under 60.

Having said that I know a lots of people in their 40s who have opted for AZ as Pfizer was too long to wait

DS (late 20s) went for his first AZ dose in Sydney around 10 weeks ago. The nurse suggested he wait for the Pfizer as the AZ was 'more likely to kill you or cause blood clots'.

As an intelligent, logical chap, he had looked at the research and made the decision to go ahead with the AZ, but did question the nurse on what she said, and how disheartening it was to hear. She said they were told they had to say this.

He's now had his second jab, and is fine.

Also many of his reluctant friends have now had the AZ jab too.

Let's do it again ... AZ is still restricted in Australia, despite the contact to make 1m doses a week here,.

I'm not sure exactly where we are at now because it has gone from - everybody ( we have a contract, *sovereign vacccines , fill yer boots!) to not under 60s, not under 40s, to everyone over 40 should have it, but not anyone in that 16-age range and if you are younger the medical professionals were doing all they could to put off AZ, to oh now there's a breakout in NSW give it to everyone, 12 week gap is good actually six weeks will do it, four if you live in Sydney, to sorry ... where are we now?

I'm not in Sydney, nor a boomer.

In my family = two adults, two mostly grown kids. 1x fully vaxxed Pfizer, 1 same AZ, 1 1x dose AZ, 1 1x dose Pfizer.

We've done everything we could, and we are doing better than many, I believe. It has been a *complete balls-up

@IndigoC

So NSW people should just die so that states that have no Covid and sealed borders (like QLD) can continue short-term vaccine parity? You will all be at 70-80% very soon, I would have thought the priority would be saving lives.

It is not just zero covid states the vaccine was 'borrowed' from. It was mostly from Victoria which also has an outbreak and where people will also die due to low vaccine coverage. And on top of that so many people here are just broken from well over 200 days in lockdown. My daughter is a shell of her former self. It is heartbreaking to watch. She did not fall apart to this degree in lockdown 2 which is the equivalent with what Sydney is going through now. Living people matter too.

@MarshaBradyo

As an aside it was always a reason I found the argument re zero Covid here fanciful- we’d let small number of cases in to U.K. via road freight if we shut borders. We’d spend so long in lockdown trying to get back to zero, more so than Melbourne, we’d not get the any of the upside.

And its why I don't understand the "if we got cases a bit lower before unlocking then we wouldn't have such high cases now" argument put forward on here (referring to UK).

@beingsunny

It's not supply, we have AZ available for everyone who wants it, the government and media have created fear for people under 60.

Having said that I know a lots of people in their 40s who have opted for AZ as Pfizer was too long to wait

To be fair, getting AZ for younger people involved (initially at least) jumping through more hoops. I heard stories of young people following the advice to see a GP to be approved and being refused. Not because of any personal health risk but because the GP didn’t want to recommend AZ for younger patients.

There’s been way too much red tape. If nothing else GPs have better things to do with their time than participate in a box ticking exercise (often they didn’t even administer the vaccine, just gave approval.) I believe the process has been streamlined somewhat now but it always should have been easy for anyone to get AZ provided they gave informed consent.

@beingsunny

It's not supply, we have AZ available for everyone who wants it, the government and media have created fear for people under 60.

Having said that I know a lots of people in their 40s who have opted for AZ as Pfizer was too long to wait

Yep - this. People had the fear of God put up them re AZ, and then oh big surprise when everyone wanted Pfizer instead!

My local clinic didn't have Pfizer available when I first looked in July (am in 40+ cohort). So I talked to my GP, he explained the risk (albeit small), I accepted the risk and have now been fully vaccinated with AZ as of this week. Otherwise I'd probably still be waiting.

@IndigoC

So NSW people should just die so that states that have no Covid and sealed borders (like QLD) can continue short-term vaccine parity? You will all be at 70-80% very soon, I would have thought the priority would be saving lives.

So instead people from QLD and VIC (where the vast majority of the vaccineslike 350kare missing from) can die because NSW infects them over and over and over again while Glady gets extra vaccines to make up for her ideological muppetry and incompetent leadership?