The Reality of Living in Australia and Covid

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I'm not saying it is relevant in any way, but my Finnish doctor has been forcing me to take vitamin D supplements for years.

Thats probably because they don't see the sun for 9 months of the year.

[Cadence]

It sounds as if you Aussies are as dumb as we are. Putting politics above common sense. Hell, I read this morning that our Governor wants to use 360M of Fed. Covid money to widen a highway. What?

[Stevenc]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

If a high percentage of the elderly are vaccinated (and vaccines are currently known to be well over 90% effective in preventing severe illness and death) and everyone is expected to eventually become infected, it does not make any sense to me withholding vaccines from those overwhelmingly at highest risk of dying.

Yes, AZ is widely available, but due to the hype about blood clots (both from the media and comments made by “health advisors” such as Queensland’s Dr Young, as well as ATAGI who have not recommended AZ for those at lower risk) uptake is hesitant.

Why not cover these most vulnerable groups with any available dose of Pfizer?

The statistics are overwhelming.
In Australia 0.07 % of those infected under 60 have died.
Over 60 it is 11.7 %.

I cannot see how it is possible to justify withholding Pfizer from over 60 year olds who are at greatest risk of dying for the sake of reducing spread, which is expected to eventually occur regardless.

SWL

Your right, you can’t see why. Only the experts can.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

What I find incredibly frustrating in Australia is the prioritising of children aged 12 and over for Pfizer vaccination, a group that has been almost unaffected during this pandemic (at least from the virus itself).

After all the fuss with blood clots following AZ vaccination, there is still a lot of hesitancy amongst senior Australians, yet this group currently only has access to the AZ vaccine. It has been announced that anyone over 60 waiting for Pfizer to become available to them, will be put at the end of the queue after all the 12 year olds when this finally occurs.

The following data is a few days old, but out of the 1006 COVID-19 deaths in Australia since this pandemic began 973, ie 97% were aged over 60.

Merely 0.3% were aged under 30 (3 of the 1006) and just one was aged under 20.

Yet Pfizer is currently being pushed on the very young and withheld from the old.

Absolutely stupid policy decisions are being made by state premiers .

SWL

Not sure if I see any hesitancy in the over 60s.
Just under 90% of the over 70s - Group - have had at least one shot and about 85% of the 60 to 70 group who are in Group 2. They don't look too hesitant to me.
You can see on the bar chart in this link https://www.theage.com.au/national/c...28-p56xht.html how the percentage vaccinated in each age group tails off in the younger brackets, this isn't due to hesitancy so much as the dates when vaccination gradually became available.
The hesitancy I have seen up here in the covid free bush has been mainly of the ' I haven't got around to it yet' type - nothing to do with what is on offer.

The logic regarding getting the youngest vaccinated is as much about protecting their parents and grandparents as the children themselves.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Not sure if I see any hesitancy in the over 60s.
Just under 90% of the over 70s - Group - have had at least one shot and about 85% of the 60 to 70 group who are in Group 2. They don't look too hesitant to me.
You can see on the bar chart in this link https://www.theage.com.au/national/c...28-p56xht.html how the percentage vaccinated in each age group tails off in the younger brackets, this isn't due to hesitancy so much as the dates when vaccination gradually became available.
The hesitancy I have seen up here in the covid free bush has been mainly of the ' I haven't got around to it yet' type - nothing to do with what is on offer.

The logic regarding getting the youngest vaccinated is as much about protecting their parents and grandparents as the children themselves.

The graph shows that anywhere between 10 and 22% of those older than 60 have not received their first dose yet. Not a small number.

Protection is overwhelmingly accorded by vaccinating the over 60’s who are at such high risk of dying, not by vaccinating the young hoping to reduce spread, particularly now that the thinking is that spread will eventually occur regardless.

SWL

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

PS The young who are at low risk of severe illness are not just given the opportunity to be vaccinated in Australia, but in NSW and Victoria they are being coerced by withdrawing the ability to visit many public venues and possibly even restricting employment once lockdowns are lifted.

There has even been the suggestion of bribing them (lotteries etc). Not sure if this is still proceeding, but it is disturbing.

These vaccines have been approved for provisional use only in Australia. No long term data is available. Their mode of action is so new that we don’t even have any other vaccine or drug to compare them to. Mass vaccination of the young who are at negligible risk of severe disease by vaccines using modes of action never before approved for human use is a risky path to take, particularly if the only reason is to reduce spread of an infection that will eventually occur regardless.

SWL

Getting a bit alarmist there methinks.
The unvaccinated population ****in general**** will be denied access to superspreader events such as the footy.
The governments are mandating vaccination for workers in quite a few industries such as health and aged care.
Some private companies are mandating vaccination.
I'm not sure what the problem is here.
Oh - and I'm in the Qantas draw to get free flights for a year!!! How good will that be.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Q? Was that a state or a federal run establishment?

I don't know. It appears to have federal funding, but is run in a medical clinic that says "doctor led"...whatever that means. The doc was good.

Anyhow, here's a link, maybe you can figure it out from there: https://www.google.com/search?q=Hoba...hrome&ie=UTF-8


Ann

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

The graph shows that anywhere between 10 and 22% of those older than 60 have not received their first dose yet. Not a small number.

Protection is overwhelmingly accorded by vaccinating the over 60’s who are at such high risk of dying, not by vaccinating the young hoping to reduce spread, particularly now that the thinking is that spread will eventually occur regardless.

SWL

Try looking at the graph again. Over 70's had access to vaccination from about the 20th of March. In that age group 88% have had a first shot. Some of the 12% outstanding will never get the vaccine no matter what is offered to them, some are not able to due to underlying conditions, while some will still not have got around to it. Them as are holding out for Phizer are probably a very small number of the whole.

60 to 70 year olds only had access to the vaccine sometime after the over 70s and well after the Feds started sowing confusion on the 11th of April so of course there is a lag - which can be seen in the graph.

[El Pinguino]

Meanwhile - the role of schools etc in Victoria
https://www.theage.com.au/national/v...04-p58or8.html

And I rather like this cartoon - the article is quite good as well.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/t...03-p58ogk.html

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Meanwhile - the role of schools etc in Victoria
https://www.theage.com.au/national/v...04-p58or8.html

And I rather like this cartoon - the article is quite good as well.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/t...03-p58ogk.html

One onlyhas to get into about the third paragraph to run across the left wing propaganda in the Age article wherein it states assertions like "the premiers need to close borders in the face of vacine shortages". A couple of items disprove this assertion:

Table 3: initial border restriction announcement by state and territory governments[4]

State/territory, Announcement date, Source.

Tasmania 19 March 2020 P Gutwein (Tasmanian Premier), Important information about new COVID-19 response measures, media release, 19 March 2020.

NT 21 March 2020 M Gunner (NT Chief Minister), Securing the borders to protect Territorians, media release, 21 March 2020.

SA 22 March 2020 S Marshall (SA Premier), South Australia’s borders to close, media release, 22 March 2020.

WA 22 March 2020 M McGowan (WA Premier), New border controls to help protect Western Australia, media release, 22 March 2020.
Queensland 24 March 2020 A Palaszczuk (Queensland Premier), Border control slows virus spread, media release, 24 March 2020.

So the state governments appear to have taken their paranoia out for an airing in March 2020.

However the first readily available vacine was not approved for provisional use by the Therapeutic Goods Administration until 16 February 2021.

The federal government announced it was making vacine supply agreements in September 2020.

So it appears that state governments started slamming shut borders in March 2020 which I vaguely recall being before anyone had developed a vacine (I think we should give certain countries a miss on their announcements of early development as I doubt they would even be approved for use on even lab rats in Australia)

[skipperpete]

Hey El pinguino, I’m in the same Qantas draw and I already have enough frequent flyer points to stay aloft for months...... but wait, there’s more..... I bought into AirasiaX’s unlimited international travel for 12 months, now extended to 18 months...... 19 months ago. Apart from my 2021 planner, arguably the worst investment I’ve ever made.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

One onlyhas to get into about the third paragraph to run across the left wing propaganda in the Age article wherein it states assertions like "the premiers need to close borders in the face of vacine shortages". A couple of items disprove this assertion:

Table 3: initial border restriction announcement by state and territory governments[4]

State/territory, Announcement date, Source.

Tasmania 19 March 2020 P Gutwein (Tasmanian Premier), Important information about new COVID-19 response measures, media release, 19 March 2020.

NT 21 March 2020 M Gunner (NT Chief Minister), Securing the borders to protect Territorians, media release, 21 March 2020.

SA 22 March 2020 S Marshall (SA Premier), South Australia’s borders to close, media release, 22 March 2020.

WA 22 March 2020 M McGowan (WA Premier), New border controls to help protect Western Australia, media release, 22 March 2020.
Queensland 24 March 2020 A Palaszczuk (Queensland Premier), Border control slows virus spread, media release, 24 March 2020.

So the state governments appear to have taken their paranoia out for an airing in March 2020.

However the first readily available vacine was not approved for provisional use by the Therapeutic Goods Administration until 16 February 2021.

The federal government announced it was making vacine supply agreements in September 2020.

So it appears that state governments started slamming shut borders in March 2020 which I vaguely recall being before anyone had developed a vacine (I think we should give certain countries a miss on their announcements of early development as I doubt they would even be approved for use on even lab rats in Australia)

Which government lead the way with border closures and who got second place?

[pdjb]

I feel sorry for the people of Australia, they are arresting people for being outside breathing air, and they fine them,What Re we turning into? IF YOU HAVE NO JOB,HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY THE FINES, GOD HELP US ALL, YOU MAY READ THIS AND THINK THIS IS NORMAL BEHAVIOR,,,,History repeats itself, Laugh all you want, the US will be next,,,,All because of covid, the CCP did a excellent job making this virus and no one on the planet says anything about this, but take the vaccine and you be fine,,,every GOVERNMENT on the planet know all the answers, not the citizens, Ithis will never end the virus, something to think about,,,,,believe what you what. You are borne into this world with nothing and you die with nothing this is how I see the world that I live in.My life is my own, I make my own choices in life right or wrong. I read all the comments that people say here, AMAZING. THE PEOPLE OF AUSTRALIA ARE TREATED LIKE CRIMINALS. THAT IS MY VIEW ON THIS COVID DEATH SENTENCE THAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT LAUGHT ALL YOU WANT?

[NevilleCat]

yeah...settle down fella.
Have another drink buddy.

[SV DINGO]

Can someone please remind Chairman Dan that 12 year old kids have many years to go before they can vote , over 60th can vote at the next election. Pfizer just for kids ok , over 60 votes go to the opposition.

Job done.