AJF, yep and how many similar stories like you've quoted, talk about mental health issues amongst family members.
These so called leaders/health experts we have all over, wonder how they sleep at night.

pala, vaccine roll out the fingers pointed towards the Feds but they alone are not to blame on the delays/issues I expect.
Besides were told its not full proof anyway right.
IMO The media been biggest offender in the big picture, we have a large % of the pop holding off having the jab due to their click bait headlines to this day.
Even if the roll out went to plan originally how many people wouldn't have taken it up.
And just the other day we another great leader showing their true form, the palace chook up there taking the pfiizer jab in lights when most cannot get access to it for according to all its the best vaccine around.
I'm waiting on blood clots to develop being I had no choice but take the AZ jab the other week.

I'm wondering where all the people power movement is tbh, like there was other movements go ahead remebmber BUT what about one regards to the vaccine jab, people marching to protest and be heard to the powers get your act together OR you Vics/melbournites, marching on State parliament over Dans and those below him fups, his dis apperance, lockdowns out of hand, people closing up shop, un employed, terrible family situations as AJF posted.
Why so many aged care facilties haven't had the jab yet !
I'm actually dumbfounded us Aussies are just sitting back and taking it up the you know what, again especially in Vic.

There are actually a lot of parallels between Covid and the war on terror. In both instances Governments justify the removal of freedoms and inhumane treatment by telling the population its "for their own safety".

Interesting fact, AZ is only 60% effective against Indian Delta strain. Pfizer is 88%. No wonder there is hesitancy to get AZ.


https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57214596

Lol. After everybody slamming Victoria for its "fleeting contact" speeches, NSW are now going down the same path. Still seems to be a bit of "exception to the rule" given the absence of a major outbreak if transmission was that simple. But I expect Victoria to start demanding apologies

The good thing about the NSW strain is it travels exclusively by public transport and can be stopped exclusively by face masks

We get it. Health officials wanted face masks on public transport and in shops 14 months ago so its going to be pushed as the primary tool in every outbreak. I would have thought we'd have a more measured response by now. Who would have thought mum's or nan's knitted cloth tokenistically applied could stop a variant so infectious


As an aside: Good also to see people demanding tough and tight restrictions in NSW. Never going to get tired of these people. Get vaccinated and shut up already

My last word on this and then I'll see you in ET BB if you want to continue.
People get vaccines all the time whether they're exposed to particular illnesses or not. Polio, chicken pox, MMR, pertusis, Hep A, B, C, flu etc. (When was the last time you saw someone with polio?
They aren't getting vaccinated because they can't get vaccinated because there's not enough vaccines here.
If there were enough vaccines here, (spoiler alert: there aren't), then the government could run a big fuck off 'get vaccinated' campaign like they do everywhere else in the world.
If we had high rates of vaccinated people then crowd limits wouldn't need to be imposed. #facts
The fact is we don't have enough vaccines in Australia which is why the government hasn't gone all out nuts advertising the fuck out of it. Hence crowd restrictions and lockdowns.
Any discussions about 'plans' and 'steps' is moot because Australia doesn't have enough vaccines.

I dont disagree with this. Supply is definitely an issue. But so is uptake. Victoria's outbreak stemmed from people who were eligible but didnt want to get vaccinated

Australia doesnt have a 100% application rate for every vaccine distributed. This is going to change due to a forecasted shortfall in July / August but even if you were able to make all the vaccines magically appear, by last poll estimates, you'd only have 70% of the population vaccinated

Side effects and complications with vaccines are so small they're not worth worrying about. Seriously. Anybody would get the same kind of stats with any other medication, or even leaving their house and having a plane land on their head

But similarly the chance of somebody contracting the virus in Mildura because there was an outbreak in North Melbourne is just as small. Or the chance that somebody would get it because they didnt wear a face mask while travelling three weeks before the outbreak was identified (which is usually within a week). And this mixed expectation IMO is the issue

You cant ask people to take zero risk with one thing, and then some risk (no matter how small) with another. I cant see a (pun intended) viral campaign working in Australia until the underlying messages and attitude has changed by those in charge

NSW have a handful of infections right now, and as per all outbreaks, most from known contacts, and most already in isolation at the time of the infection being announced. There is absolutely no chance of this getting away from health officials, and no chance of hospital systems being overrun. Yet hour by hour they move progressively towards a localised lockdown

IMO they still should be at a "prepare to act" stage. Why punish a whole metro city just because 30 people decided to throw a house party when they knew there was an outbreak?

You cant make this shit up.....

Australia plans to shelve AstraZeneca Covid vaccine by October

Controversial vaccine to be given only by request later this year when Moderna and Pfizer will dominate

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/23/australia-plans-to-shelve-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-by-october

Well the public has lost confidence in AZ despite it being as good, if not better, than any other vaccine so you can see the logic of the government. 

Just waiting for the media here to get hold of the few heart inflammation cases they've had with pfizer and blow them all out of proportion and scare the shit out of everyone.

EDIT:  Nevermind.  Front page of news.com.au. Should almost be illegal.  I hope one of the editors rellos gets sick as a dog because they were scared off getting vaccinated by stories just like this. 

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/latest-tga-report-cites-possible-link-between-heart-condition-and-pfizer/news-story/76225419b46130b830e050cf0a922ab8

Nationally vaccination rates for the ones I mentioned before are about 94% despite many of the diseases being vaccinated against are practically non-existent in this day and age.  (Polio? Measles?).  Although if you're in fuckhead central like Byron, Mullumbimby and Woodford etc (also Manly and Mosman bizarrely, yay Karens) the rates can be as low as 40%. 

https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/immunisation/childhood-immunisation-coverage/immunisation-coverage-rates-for-all-children

So people do take vaccines despite you saying they don't.

Now I'm no virologist but I've read 70% will just about do for herd immunity for Covid so if they get to 70% that might just do.  

My point is this.  Had they had millions of doses of Pfizer and AZ in March, April, May or whatever we'd be approaching 40 or 50% of the population.  The government threw all the eggs in one basket and it blew up in their face. 

Also, politically, whilst lockdowns are limited and deaths are rare the government (Scomo) doesn't need to 'force' people to get the vaccine which suits their 'personal responsibility'/'freedom of choice' narrative just fine.

Here's my thing.  We're a first world country and it's 6 months since a vaccine was available and to date we have 2.8% of the population vaccinated.  I mean WTF?! Scomo is just lucky we haven't had a massive breakout with a resultant ugly death toll.

If your brother, sister or mother died from Covid and they could've been vaccinated against it but weren't because they don't have them you'd be pretty pissed off.  Anyone saying different is a liar.

And also why we're at it.  Don't get vaccinated and get sick from Covid?  No medicare.  

Also yes.  Locking down Mildura because Melbourne has a few cases is fucked.  Move to NSW.  Gladys seems to be handling it better.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/australians-seem-happier-to-be-locked-down-than-vaccinated-and-it-makes-no-sense/news-story/4f0b4dbd43b555e8d556f15e8d687f6d

Sydney....jeepers

All cases announced were linked except one. This is why the daily numbers dont mean a thing

There have only been 5 or 6 instances of unknown transmission to date which falls in the usual 10% rate we have seen in other outbreaks

The fact is with contact tracing you have over 90% of the virus isolated within 24 hours for every case found. A bit of chasing ones tail as an unknown case emerges here or there but, rinse and repeat, this thing will be done and dusted in 2 or 3 weeks like we saw in January

Like I said, NSW should be at nothing more than a high alert stage right now. People know what to do and those who are overly concerned or feeling vulnerable can get vaccinated and isolate until its over

No need for anything above the federal baseline restrictions - quarantine when ordered, isolation when ordered, testing when unwell or potentially exposed, social distancing and adhere to venue caps. Thats all we should see from here on out. Not face masks because health officials wanted them as a baseline restriction over a year ago. Not lockdowns either

This will not be over by lunchtime today no matter how much people shake their fists and yell at it. People just have to be calm, patient, and realistic about this

Not crazily out of control (neither was Vic's most recent one) but there are enough unknowns to be concerned.  A lockdown (sorry "Stay at home order" ;) ) seems appropriate. This winter is shaping up to be really stressful and it didn't have to be this way.

Gladys has pulled the trigger and its probably for the best. Timed to fit in with the school holidays too...

It took her long enough but shops still open ? 

Some shops will be.

Every lockdown is a another fuck up on scomo's part.

Those fucking idiots couldn't organise a root in a brothel.

Maybe watching too much 'Yes Minister' has made me cynical but here's my take-

These overreactive measures are being done so Gladys can appease any criticism that she didn't do enough to combat the outbreak, with minimal damage. As other people have mentioned, the numbers have not skyrocketed. Transmission has been traced for virtually all cases to date. So Gladys can announce a snap lockdown on a weekend with no NRL or major sporting fixtures in Sydney. Then, assuming the numbers remain low or well under control, she can announce a softening of regulations in the coming week before the weekend. This way she can answer criticism from the other side (i.e her government overreacted) by pointing out that she eased lockdowns as soon as "it became apparent it was safe to do so" or words to that effect and did so in time for the NRL and other coming sporting fixtures in Sydney to remain.

All this state v state stuff was annoying. Truth is I was really hoping it was right that all outbreaks could be controlled without lockdowns, it's really deflating to see that isn't the case.

As Muz said, this is on the feds. I said earlier this year their most important job this year is ensuring everyone is vaccinated. Going into winter with such low levels of coverage is disastrous.

Yup. Agree that vaccination numbers should be much higher. UK and USA are near 50% vaccination and things are looking great. 

This all comes down to cheapening out on the 40m Pfizer dosages which we could have had.

I agree that the vaccination program has been a stuff up but the logisitcs of it meant it was never going to be done by the end of October at the earliest even if it was absolutely perfect. How would an end of October vaccination program have prevented a lockdown in June? Its the same as these facilities which are going to take 6 months to build to stop one case a month, but wouldnt have prevented the NSW outbreak which was a limo driver. These are just scapegoats of a bigger problem

Australia doesnt have a plan for today and even NSW have started to go down the hard route. Thats why there is lockdown. No plan

When Australia was first in lockdown there was a breakdown of numbers so people could study the data and know exactly what was happening, instead of panicking over a single daily total. Thats what we need to revert back to. IMO it should be this:
. No risk / Grey - person in hotel quarantine or monitored facility
. Low risk / Green - person acquired the virus after being put into isolation (ie- household contact or exposure site who developed it later)
. Medium risk / Yellow - person directed to test and isolate and was discovered to have the virus before orders (ie- exposure site and other contact tracing)
. High risk / Red - person tested on own accord and was discovered to have virus (ie- not found by contact tracers)

If you look at NSW cases yesterday there were 12 Green, 16 Yellow and 1 Red. That means contact tracers were able to find and isolate 96% of the viral activity. So why is the city in lockdown if contact tracers are on top of things? Like I said, there is always going to be a bit of chasing the tail but its hardly an unmanageable outbreak

Australia needs thresholds like no lockdown until there are a minimum of 25% red cases and 50 total (excluding Grey). And lockdown ends when that drops to 5% for 3 consecutive days. A secondary threshold of % of people hospitalised

Face masks, the favourite of epidemiologists, once again have proven to be useless. Nothing should be legally regulated when there is no standard. Everything in our response to date has a standard. 14 days, 1.5 meters, testing approval, vaccine approval, PPE, venue limits and spaces, etc... Yet with face masks its just nans tired and worn cloth tokenistically applied. And thats what NSW led with for the most contagious variant the country has seen. Even Gladys had to spend 2 press conferences explaining to people that a face mask doesnt replace the other systems which is what typically happens when thats the only thing being pushed, and pushed the hardest

Everything in our response is just political squabbling and preferences instead of looking at the data in light of the suppression approach everybody seems to have forgotten we have. NSW should not be in lockdown

Don't know how or why you made this rule up. The issue is the virus is getting ahead of the isolation/contract tracing (i.e. your yellow cases). We have over 200 exposure sites already. This is why we are in lockdown.

Australia has a suppression approach. It is an approach designed on making sure the hospital systems arent overrun with the sick, and that people arent dying. There is always going to be viral activity out there. QLD discovered two cases today

The fact is NSW are able to quickly find and isolate these cases. This is something we have never been able to do before. Like I said, 96% of yesterdays cases were found as opposed to self identified. If over 90% of cases everyday are being found within 24 hours and isolated then this is going to burn out pretty quickly. We saw the same thing in December NSW last year, and again in June before that

Yes there are 200 exposure sites. So what does that mean, 5 or 10 cases per exposure site... So thats 1000 to 2000 cases right? An exposure site is just another stat out of context. 200 exposure sites and counting, yet less than 10% of those have actually resulted in transmission

Daily numbers arent a reflection of the actual health risk. Its baffling that our methods have gotten better, our most vulnerable are largely vaccinated, yet the responses are getting tougher

Australia has to stop trying to eliminate the virus with a 100% perfect system and learn to live with it in a balanced way. The damage being done by lockdowns and restrictions far outweigh the damage being done by a few cases

Edit: Todays figures of 30 - 11 green, 19 orange (to use consistent terminology), 0 red. 100% found by contact tracers

So we now have active community cases in Vic, NSW, QLD, NT and WA. But yeah, we can eliminate this thing with lockdowns right?

Are you talking about right now or plan to do it in the future?

It's a wait and see, we are in a privileged position in that we haven't had large numbers of cases and deaths. Other countries have and we should be observing what happens in the UK, US and Israel (as well as other places with high numbers of vaccinated people) to see what their hospitalisation and death numbers are like. So far, the numbers of hospitalisations and deaths amongst people vaccinated in those places is looking pretty promising.

We have appallingly low rates of vaccination here and its clear the level of control measures we have in place here will quickly spiral out of control so our best strategy is to keep bringing things back to 0 community cases whenever an outbreak occurs.  If we had high rates of vaccination it's highly unlikely that it would have spread as quickly as it has and we probably would have been able to handle way more outbreak scenarios with contact tracing.

https://twitter.com/chaser/status/1408655180996898816?s=19

I dont disagree with anything you have said. It comes back to a definition of what is "out of control" and also potential for out of control. Yes this is an alarming situation but as I have said, there is a lack of people presenting that arent already in the scope of contact tracers. Most cases are the usual household / work / facilities we are used to seeing. Every venue identified as an exposure site results in those people isolated. That is your lockdown. Strategic, balanced and measured. We have seen outbreaks like these controlled without lockdown and without masks. It just takes time and patience

If you look at Australia compared to the other countries you have to understand why we dont have the same level of activity they do. The reason is because we have a simple system that doesnt depend on the average idiot to work
. Quarantine - automatic
. Isolation - directed and regulated by contact tracers
. Social distancing - markers on the floor and venue caps where applicable

Something that is quick, easy and understood by every social and language barrier. Contrast this to America or the UK where the success of containing the outbreak depended on everybody doing the right thing. How did that work out?

It is undeniable Australia's approach changed this year. Once you shift the balance of burden to the average person then the success of the outbreak depends on people doing the right thing. Is this something quick and easy and that can fit on a poster?:
https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1408931896701063170/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1408931896701063170/photo/2
https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/rules/face-mask-rules

Because if you cant understand that you'll get a $200 fine

We currently have mask rules in Vic, NSW, NT (despite obvious cultural issues), WA and now even ACT (despite no outbreak). Everytime we see them there is a flurry of responses on the ABC feed as to what they mean because they dont make sense. People are even asking if they need to mask up their babies. A reporter at the WA press conference asked "Why not let the AFL game go ahead with face masks". To cynically paraphrase the response it was "Dont be stupid, as if that would make a difference"

You have to understand that once people start becoming non compliant and flaunting the rules thats the end of everything Australia has worked towards and can boast about. These snap lockdowns and restrictions will only work for as long as people tolerate them

This is not a one sided response. The virus needs to be weighed up against every aspect of our lives including education, work, sport, cultural ceremonies, leisure, travel etc... These should not have to stop on a week by week basis just because the virus has been detected somewhere in the state

As I said above, the success of Australia's vaccination program depends on the ability of those in charge to convince at least 80% of adults (as said today) to get vaccinated. This wont happen until people's faith are restored in the current response. Lockdowns (and any restrictions above the federal baseline measures) should be a last resort

https://www.smh.com.au/national/my-fellow-over-60s-you-need-to-be-vaccinated-yesterday-your-vaccine-is-available-abundant-and-safe-20210627-p584mx.html

isn’t the AstraZeneca vaccine currently available to people aged 60 and over just too dangerous to be acceptable?

I'm actually happy about South Australia and I honestly applaud them

Face masks introduced in high risk areas only such as hospitals and aged care homes which is fair and can be expected of people visiting these areas given the status of vaccination programs. But nothing more than a strong recommendation on public transport which is a good balance for the general public given their limitations and the other measures in place

I dont mind the venue caps because capacity and distance in venues are always regulated whether or not there is a pandemic. Turn up and follow the rules. Nothing new there

There is no burden or reliance on the general public regardless of demographic or social / cultural / educational or economical limitations. Its the same automatic system I described above with the added caution of protecting the most vulnerable, and reminder for people to remain vigilant


ACT is a new pandemic low. No viral activity yet introducing mask laws with threats of an $8000 fine. Given the 48 hour transition period its likely this is going to be a long term thing

QLD, WA and NT are an overreaction. No outbreak of any threat, just a bit of caution, yet they have hit the public with restrictions including everybody's favourite. So what are you going to do when there is an outbreak if you burn your citizens out during a drill? This is the exact point I was making above about only going beyond the current control mechanisms in place when absolutely necessary. If these places think they have already lost control of the situation then a review of their systems are in order

Victoria - we know there will always be restrictions and its just accepted whatever is in place is the COVID normal. No point flogging a dead horse on this one

NSW - once again all but one case linked. People seem to forget we already have systems in place like social distancing and contact tracing. Lockdown nullifies these and puts all social activity behind closed doors. They have played their full hand and are now at the mercy of the least compliant state doing the right thing (responsible for 3 of the 4 biggest outbreaks). NSW were successful because they recognised the non compliance early on (during the national lockdown when NSW were the worst) and used this to their advantage. By controlling outbreaks with a good life balance it meant outbreaks of 200-300 instead of what we saw in Victoria. This is the first outbreak they have led with restrictions and lockdown and people in NSW simply arent used to this. Over the next day or two the numbers will change because they are a literal representation of social movement. We'll see whether the lockdown was the right thing


On the balance of things the last day or two has been borderline satirical and couldnt have illustrated my point any better. This is exactly what I meant when I said we dont have an answer for today. We dont have a response for controlling an outbreak and everything is the same mask and lockdown template

Australia's initial response worked because it was national, uniform, fair, non intrusive, minimal, and perfect for all demographics and limitations that the less fortunate people struggle with. Today's response is aimed at the educated and socially well off. I literally walked past 3 places today that said "no mask, no entry" and was reminded of the hundreds of clients I encountered when I used to work in welfare. No cases today, no outbreak of concern, every venue already has social distancing and capacity caps to minimise risk, and some places even have shields installed at checkouts. But yeah, no mask no service. That 7th or 8th layer of protection is important


South Australia and Tasmania leading the way. Who'd have thunk it

About farking time.

https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/national-cabinet-agrees-to-mandate-covid-vaccine-for-aged-care-workers-opens-avenue-for-under-60s-to-receive-astrazeneca-c-3250394

Scomo dragged kicking and screaming to the realisation that sitting on your arse hoping won't beat this thing.