The Coronavirus Thread (We nearly didn't see City in the 2021 Grand Final)

[jw1739]

From https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-18/covid-live-update-latest-news/100224426

"He also says maybe Canberra needs a purpose-built quarantine facility to manage Commonwealth officials who travel overseas."

I thought they had one. It's called "Parliament House." They have no real contact with the outside world once they go in there.

[thisphantomfortress]

So I'm red zoned. Guess I lost 4D chess

[malloy]

13 minutes ago, thisphantomfortress said:

So I'm red zoned. Guess I lost 4D chess

Turns out Melb City were playing 5D chess to stop any away crowd being present for GF.....

[haz]

57 minutes ago, thisphantomfortress said:

So I'm red zoned. Guess I lost 4D chess

Shouldn't have lifted the lid. 

[jw1739]

Where we are being let down...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-30/covid-live-updates-coronavirus-lockdowns-queensland-nsw-darwin/100254064#live-blog-post-1201814854

 

[Shahanga]

19 hours ago, jw1739 said:

Where we are being let down...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-30/covid-live-updates-coronavirus-lockdowns-queensland-nsw-darwin/100254064#live-blog-post-1201814854

 

For me hotels and closed borders are only a temporary fix. We need to vaccinate quickly, open the borders, stop counting cases and treat the sick.

[jw1739]

3 hours ago, Shahanga said:

For me hotels and closed borders are only a temporary fix. We need to vaccinate quickly, open the borders, stop counting cases and treat the sick.

The major problem as I see it at the moment is that assorted so-called "experts" and faceless members of an overload of Committees and other "authorities" seem hell-bent on sending torpedoes into an already sick ship of a vaccination "roll-out." The general public, most of whom don't understand the concept of risk, not surprisingly, are uncertain as to what to do.

The Federal Government has a massive fail on its hands.

[NewConvert]

6 hours ago, jw1739 said:

The major problem as I see it at the moment is that assorted so-called "experts" and faceless members of an overload of Committees and other "authorities" seem hell-bent on sending torpedoes into an already sick ship of a vaccination "roll-out." The general public, most of whom don't understand the concept of risk, not surprisingly, are uncertain as to what to do.

The Federal Government has a massive fail on its hands.

I am getting the feeling that the federal cabinet don't understand the maths/science involved in a pandemic. There are so many basic errors and part of the issue is that they are always looking it from a standard political optics rather than an overall perspective. Complicating matters is that because over 70% of people live in an urban setting who never experience any natural disaster (lets face it, the fires, floods and droughts are mostly seen on TV like a movie far away), people have the wrong expectations.

[jw1739]

The way Sydney is going next season might not start quite when anticipated. The "Glad and Brad Show" has got it so wrong this time around. Relying on people to "do the right thing" just does not work.

[belaguttman]

They seem to be determined to make all the mistakes we made, and more. Have they learned nothing?

[jw1739]

6 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

They seem to be determined to make all the mistakes we made, and more. Have they learned nothing?

Glad was playing politics all the way. Held up by Scotty from Marketing as the "gold standard" she wanted to be the Premier who licked the Rona without a lockdown. Foolish.

[kingofhearts]

Thanks NSW for ruining it for everyone else.

[belaguttman]

17 minutes ago, kingofhearts said:

Thanks NSW for ruining it for everyone else.

Gold standard hubris from Gladys who believed the gold standard spin from Morrison

[malloy]

33 minutes ago, kingofhearts said:

Thanks NSW for ruining it for everyone else.

[belaguttman]

Only two cases of concern today as they haven't as yet been linked to an identified cluster. All the other 7 are already in quarantine so present no further risk. There's always an element of luck as to whether the infected people circulating in the community are part of the 20% of highly infectious high viral load shedders or in the 80% that are not particularly infectious. 

Time will tell.

[Shahanga]

If only we could send Dan (one way) to “help” New South Wales

[jw1739]

18 months into a pandemic and we have absolutely no standardisation across the nation. By this time the various jurisdictions - States, Territories and the Commonwealth - should have agreed on standard lockdown criteria - for example Levels 1, 2 and 3, standard border protocols such as the Victorian "traffic light" system, standard declaration forms, a national QR system (three removalists travel half-way across the nation and don't check in at a single point in the whole journey), standard quarantine procedures, etc. etc. etc. And by now the various CMOs should all be singing from the same songsheet rather than sending multiple torpedos into the sinking vaccination ship. In one jurisdiction a lockdown means that brothels are open but you can't visit your aged mother, in one you can go 10km from your home and in another just 5km (actually the area in the first case is four times the area in the second), in one you can visit your "intimate partner" (How many times a month is that, by the way?) but in another you can't form a two-person "exercise bubble." it's no wonder that there are breaches the whole time. The NSW Premier can't even define who is an "essential worker" in her State. How the ordinary person is supposed to make sense of it all beggars belief. As for the CMOs - well, they say one thing at a press conference and then go off to ATAGI and agree on another. Ms. Chant "isn't sure whether she wants the numbers to go up or down." Run that past me again, Kerry? As I recall it we increased the number of "returning Australians" allowed back about 4th May, many of these being people who had deliberately left during the pandemic, and many who had gone to the sub-continent where the Delta mutation is raging. We have shot ourselves in the foot and now it's getting fucking painful.

[belaguttman]

As usual, Covid shines a light on shortcomings everywhere in the system. Health is controlled by 3 different levels of Government in each State. It's been exacerbated by an almost complete lack of leadership in the Federal Government, exacerbated by the now obvious lack of in-house expertise and systems in all State and Federal Deaprtments as a result of decades of managerialism, and deskilling and outsourcing.

[jw1739]

2 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

As usual, Covid shines a light on shortcomings everywhere in the system. Health is controlled by 3 different levels of Government in each State. It's been exacerbated by an almost complete lack of leadership in the Federal Government, exacerbated by the now obvious lack of in-house expertise and systems in all State and Federal Deaprtments as a result of decades of managerialism, and deskilling and outsourcing.

IIRC every Enquiry and Royal Commission makes similar findings on the issue that it looks into. But we are apparently incapable of extrapolating those findings across the wider system of government, despite every indication that if things are that bad in one department it's unlikely that they will be any different elsewhere.

[NewConvert]

On 14/07/2021 at 8:25 PM, jw1739 said:

18 months into a pandemic and we have absolutely no standardisation across the nation. By this time the various jurisdictions - States, Territories and the Commonwealth - should have agreed on standard lockdown criteria - for example Levels 1, 2 and 3, standard border protocols such as the Victorian "traffic light" system, standard declaration forms, a national QR system (three removalists travel half-way across the nation and don't check in at a single point in the whole journey), standard quarantine procedures, etc. etc. etc. And by now the various CMOs should all be singing from the same songsheet rather than sending multiple torpedos into the sinking vaccination ship. In one jurisdiction a lockdown means that brothels are open but you can't visit your aged mother, in one you can go 10km from your home and in another just 5km (actually the area in the first case is four times the area in the second), in one you can visit your "intimate partner" (How many times a month is that, by the way?) but in another you can't form a two-person "exercise bubble." it's no wonder that there are breaches the whole time. The NSW Premier can't even define who is an "essential worker" in her State. How the ordinary person is supposed to make sense of it all beggars belief. As for the CMOs - well, they say one thing at a press conference and then go off to ATAGI and agree on another. Ms. Chant "isn't sure whether she wants the numbers to go up or down." Run that past me again, Kerry? As I recall it we increased the number of "returning Australians" allowed back about 4th May, many of these being people who had deliberately left during the pandemic, and many who had gone to the sub-continent where the Delta mutation is raging. We have shot ourselves in the foot and now it's getting fucking painful.

Good call. I definitely would like to see standard definitions across the nation but I would still allow the states to have a big say when they go into lock down/come out of lock down. There needs to be some flexibility if there are large at risk communities.

[jw1739]

4 hours ago, NewConvert said:

Good call. I definitely would like to see standard definitions across the nation but I would still allow the states to have a big say when they go into lock down/come out of lock down. There needs to be some flexibility if there are large at risk communities.

I wasn't suggesting taking shifting powers at all, simply that we should be capable of making things a lot simpler than they are now. For example, the situation in Sydney and Melbourne is more or less the same at the moment - the Delta mutation spreading, or likely to be, and both cities in "lock-down." However, of two shops in the same chain - say Gucci - one in Sydney can open if it feels like it, the other in Melbourne cannot. That doesn't seem, to me anyway, to be sensible. 

[jw1739]

Good to read that questions are being asked about the AFL's crowd management.

[belaguttman]

On 14/07/2021 at 8:37 PM, jw1739 said:

IIRC every Enquiry and Royal Commission makes similar findings on the issue that it looks into. But we are apparently incapable of extrapolating those findings across the wider system of government, despite every indication that if things are that bad in one department it's unlikely that they will be any different elsewhere.

It's worse than that. The Canadian health system had an enquiry after their health system became severely strained with the first SARS and MERS outbreaks. They made a series of recommendations and implemented them. Medical groups here recommended implementing them here. That was over 10 years ago.... you know where this is going.

The exact same problems, all preventable, happened here. Exactly the same problems as Canada had. What would health professionals know? they're just anxious and want to spend money.

Now, we are spending the money.

3 hours ago, jw1739 said:

Good to read that questions are being asked about the AFL's crowd management.

Yes, the recommendations that allow people to take off their masks whilst seated are bizarre. The Italian and Spanish Covid disasters happened after a super-spreading event amongst seated fans attending a Sampdoria v Sevilla UCL match. Needless to say my wife and I wore our masks during the entire time we were inside AAMI during the Grand Final.

[NewConvert]

On 16/07/2021 at 1:36 PM, jw1739 said:

Good to read that questions are being asked about the AFL's crowd management.

Is it the AFL or stadium management or both?

I was shocked when I saw photos of teh crowds going into AAMI for teh rugby. For the A-League grand final we had to maintain distance at the queue, there was a marshall letting people go through to get their bags checked and of course to go through the turnstiles. Did not see too many violations of the COVID-19 rules either. Things were different on exiting though.

[jw1739]

I'm waiting for the inevitable jokes about "the Sydney tradie and the Virgin stewardess."

[Jovan]

4 hours ago, jw1739 said:

I'm waiting for the inevitable jokes about "the Sydney tradie and the Virgin stewardess."

It starts off with a Sydney tradie, a virgin stewardess and 3 clueless removalists............

[belaguttman]

1 hour ago, Jovan said:

It starts off with a Sydney tradie, a virgin stewardess and 3 clueless removalists............

...and they walk into a bar...

[jw1739]

All jokes aside, NSW has just announced 239 new infections today - yes, they're not just "cases" but real people who will suffer, some of them seriously, from a potentially debilitating disease. Some, indeed, may die. NSW seems to be going nowhere but steadily downwards. It's a very narrow focus to be talking about football I know, but I can't see the FFA Cup continuing or the League getting started if these circumstances continue.

Edited July 29, 2021 by jw1739

[jw1739]

Well, at last some sort of "national plan" but I can't help thinking that Blind Freddie already knew that a vaccination target of at least 70% had to be reached before any sort of "herd immunity" could be expected. And even that and more detailed modelling assumes that vaccinated people won't only get less sick than unvaccinated people but they are going to have to be less infectious which, I think, means a lower viral load - and I don't know that that is proven just yet. And just one single person slipping though the quarantine net with a new mutation could throw us right off course. I shudder when I think of what we are going through.

[belaguttman]

If it turns out that the R nought of delta is around 9 rather than 1.6 then the community vaccination rate will need to be around 95% to stop transmission. We know this from chicken pox that has a similar R nought (8-10). The real problem is that the spread of infectivity rates is very high: most people will infect 0 or 1 person when infectious, however the super spreader will infect many, far greater than 8-10 people each. Even though they are a minority of those infected (10-20%) they all need to be vaccinated to prevent transmission, but as there is no way of knowing in advance who is a super-spreader, this means that nearly everyone needs to be vaccinated.

[jw1739]

37 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

If it turns out that the R nought of delta is around 9 rather than 1.6 then the community vaccination rate will need to be around 95% to stop transmission. We know this from chicken pox that has a similar R nought (8-10). The real problem is that the spread of infectivity rates is very high: most people will infect 0 or 1 person when infectious, however the super spreader will infect many, far greater than 8-10 people each. Even though they are a minority of those infected (10-20%) they all need to be vaccinated to prevent transmission, but as there is no way of knowing in advance who is a super-spreader, this means that nearly everyone needs to be vaccinated.

Whatever level we do reach, what are your thoughts on how the government - any of them - can implement "preferences" for people who have been vaccinated?  Prima facie this seems like a legal minefield

[belaguttman]

We should have started vaccinating along chains of transmission, ie those most likely to spread the virus - health workers, quarantine and transport workers, cool store and abattoir and cold environment workers. We should have used the past year to be building purpose built quarantine facilities, HQ developed in an ad hoc way from a programme to provide accommodation for health workers that didn't want to expose their families to infection. Of course, they should have spread the vaccine risk and ordered as many different candidates as possible rather than only 4: the UQ vaccine failed Phase 1 trials, Novavax has been delayed, AZ has had it's risk/benefits very poorly explained. 

The mystifying thing is that NSW seems to be repeating the same mistakes identified here - not engaging local communities but preferring a top down response, poor multi-language information, policing rather than education.

If we had sufficient vaccines (and we won't for 12 months), I would be offering a $10,000 per person payment for completed vaccinations, that would be a relatively cheap way to dissolve almost all vaccine hesitancy. Rights like freedom of movement need to be fought for and are linked with responsibilities - vaccination is one of them. We really need to be linking rights to responsibilities, all the rights we have now, we have because people have fought long and hard for them.

The reality is every person is eventually going to get Covid 19, maybe not this year or next, but it will happen. The only choice is whether it will happen with or without a vaccine. New data shows that even vaccinated people will be infectious even though very few will get even moderately ill, so the unvaccinated can't rely on the majority to protect them.

Edited July 31, 2021 by belaguttman

[jw1739]

16 hours ago, belaguttman said:

We should have started vaccinating along chains of transmission, ie those most likely to spread the virus - health workers, quarantine and transport workers, cool store and abattoir and cold environment workers. We should have used the past year to be building purpose built quarantine facilities, HQ developed in an ad hoc way from a programme to provide accommodation for health workers that didn't want to expose their families to infection. Of course, they should have spread the vaccine risk and ordered as many different candidates as possible rather than only 4: the UQ vaccine failed Phase 1 trials, Novavax has been delayed, AZ has had it's risk/benefits very poorly explained. 

The mystifying thing is that NSW seems to be repeating the same mistakes identified here - not engaging local communities but preferring a top down response, poor multi-language information, policing rather than education.

If we had sufficient vaccines (and we won't for 12 months), I would be offering a $10,000 per person payment for completed vaccinations, that would be a relatively cheap way to dissolve almost all vaccine hesitancy. Rights like freedom of movement need to be fought for and are linked with responsibilities - vaccination is one of them. We really need to be linking rights to responsibilities, all the rights we have now, we have because people have fought long and hard for them.

The reality is every person is eventually going to get Covid 19, maybe not this year or next, but it will happen. The only choice is whether it will happen with or without a vaccine. New data shows that even vaccinated people will be infectious even though very few will get even moderately ill, so the unvaccinated can't rely on the majority to protect them.

Interesting concept Bela. Haven't done the arithmetic, but possibly cheaper than the real costs of what we are doing now, which will continue with no real end in sight.

[NewConvert]

On 31/07/2021 at 5:31 PM, jw1739 said:

Whatever level we do reach, what are your thoughts on how the government - any of them - can implement "preferences" for people who have been vaccinated?  Prima facie this seems like a legal minefield

I don't think that it is a legal minefield. If you are colour blind (like nearly 100%) then there are lots of jobs you cannot do (former colleague could not even get a driver's license). So it would not be that difficult to ensure that being vaccinated is a pre-requisite. Enforcing it may be more difficult but all the legal opinions published so far (and the tribunals/courts) have said that employer can demand that people be vaccinated otherwise it is a job termination. So if employers demand that staff be vaccinated then that would take care of the bulk of the population. Venues such as the MCG may have greater difficulty in enforcing it but I am sure that if venues are provided with the technology to implement a vaccination entry system then that would be accepted.

More difficult will be smaller venues such as cafe's. Other complications would be if someone does catch covid at a venue and they sue the venue for not providing a safe place.

[n i k o]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-05/covid-vaccination-passport-how-it-could-work/100350778

As close to mandatory as you can get at this stage. 

[NewConvert]

4 hours ago, n i k o said:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-05/covid-vaccination-passport-how-it-could-work/100350778

As close to mandatory as you can get at this stage. 

True. My concern is that COVID-19 is mutating too fast and it may render the vaccines useful but not to the level politicians are stating.

[jw1739]

1 hour ago, NewConvert said:

True. My concern is that COVID-19 is mutating too fast and it may render the vaccines useful but not to the level politicians are stating.

Catch-22 isn't it? If you don't vaccinate, there will be more mutations. At this stage, vaccinations with the current vaccines, and therefore reduction in the overall viral load, is the only defence we have. Each lockdown is just getting harder to take, and as we are now experiencing, is not absolutely effective.

[NewConvert]

1 hour ago, jw1739 said:

Catch-22 isn't it? If you don't vaccinate, there will be more mutations. At this stage, vaccinations with the current vaccines, and therefore reduction in the overall viral load, is the only defence we have. Each lockdown is just getting harder to take, and as we are now experiencing, is not absolutely effective.

My thinking is similar, the vaccines are the only tools we have that will prevent mass hospitalisations but there is so much push about being the only way out, the politicians are forgetting that the vaccines are like bike helmets - protect you from serious injury but they don't prevent you coming off your bike.

[belaguttman]

Just remember that the vaccines are highly protective but they are not an invincibility shield, especially given the Delta variant — which seems as if it’s all hype, it’s not.

Vaccines reduce your risk of hospitalization and death dramatically,

they reduce your risk of infection somewhat,

they reduce your risk of passing on the virus to others a little bit.

That means that we will be using vaccines in addition to masks and distancing for several more years. ironically we are a victim of our own success, as the world gets better at suppressing global pandemics (1-2 million worldwide deaths so far compared to 20 million in 1919) it means that we flatten the curve but the pandemic will take longer to suppress. The next generation of vaccines are already in development and they are going to be more effective now that we understand Covid-19 better.

The one thing that is clear though is that there is no 'living with Covid' that involves us pretending that we can just get on with normal business, we'll have bodies in the streets just like India did

Here's a good summary on delta.

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/5-things-to-know-delta-variant-covid

[kingofhearts]

Still no different plan, a year and a half in and we're still doing lockdowns.

By the end of the year we'll be in double digit lockdowns easily I reckon