The so-called "Patriot Act". I.e, if you disagree with any of the new measures we're introducing that infringe on your personal liberties, you clearly don't love 'Murica!

Which has now morphed into the propaganda you see on the TV every day. "If you're complaining about these measures, you obviously don't care about killing grandma or if this moderately attractive 20-something girl is in intensive care hyperventilating!" 

Until you can provide some specific examples this train of thought is going to fall into the realms of conspiracy.  You are taking about thousands of local, provincial/state and national governments around the world that have implemented some form of restrictions, of various political persuasions, democratic, authoritarian and everything in between. They all have the same, unified sinister goal the "control" us more, even if it means devastating their economies  in the process?

The day I see a freedom rally like in Sydney today that doesn't involve someone spouting absolute nonsense about vaccines I might start listening.  There is absolutely an argument to be made that we shouldn't be resorting to lockdown at this stage as a solid percentage of the population should be vaccinated. 

Unfortunately that isn't the case and here we are. So grin, bear it until you get vaccinated.

And if you don't get vaccinated when given the opportunity you are an ignorant selfish fool who belongs in the dark ages. Go fuck yourself.

The difference with responses in other countries is the bottom line of the pandemic is about preventing hospital systems from being overrun. That's it. If 70% of ICU or hospital beds are occupied by people with COVID, then what does that leave for everybody else? It has never been about "OK guys, Mark has the virus so therefore sport is banned and nobody is allowed to leave their houses. Lets all wish Mark a speedy recovery"

People are allowed to buy cigarettes, alcohol and junk food during the pandemic. There are even rules for intimate partner visits even though there was a syphilis outbreak in Melbourne. You'll never get 100% of people following health advice or any advice for that matter. Everything you have expressed frustration about stems from having to wait until every single person makes the exact same decision and values the exact same thing

Australia shouldnt open up based on number of people vaccinated. Australia should open up based on the people who have been given the opportunity to get vaccinated. There are people who cant get vaccinated so there needs to be separate protection measures in place for those people such as a bubble arrangement because the every day reality is the virus can be in the community. And its true for other diseases and products too such as those who are lactose intolerant or have food allergies

But for everybody else, why should you not be allowed to leave your house, despite doing everything right, just because others have chosen not to get vaccinated or not to practice social distancing / hygiene? This is hand holding the ignorant, intolerant and stupid. This is impounding every car because one person chooses to speed. If somebody doesnt want to make an appointment to get the jab then their choice is to get the virus. There are plenty of beds and ICU units to aid their decision just like if they chose to smoke or excessively drink

Before NSW went into lockdown there were 20 or 30 people catching it, most doing the wrong thing, all identified within 24 hours, and contact tracers isolating those most at risk in an instant. But the important thing to remember is the significant majority of people werent catching it. It was no different to January or even June last year. We have systems in place that not only stop a continuous influx of patient zeros, but also social distancing that helps slow the spread, and contact tracing that helps break down transmission chains at the core. There was no chance of hospital systems being overrun nor has there ever been. So some people, most of who are doing the wrong thing, are catching the virus. Big deal. Cry me a river. Now the whole of Sydney are stuck in their homes until everybody does the right thing. I can write a novel on why that was never going to work and why numbers have gone in the other direction but I feel like I have already done that

Australia seems to have the strategy of using lockdown to eliminate the virus until it reaches a stage where 100% of people are vaccinated and cant catch it. A no virus approach with lots of hand holding. It wont work

The day I am looking forward to is the day there is an outbreak of 10 or 20 cases and the only thing done is a few SMS reminders and news alerts to remain cautious while contact tracers do their thing. I cant see it happening this year

OMG the whole of Sydney is locked down....here in Victoria this is our FIFTH time.

Even if you have 80% vaccinated, 20% of Sydney is still around 1 million people.  There is no way that the health system can cope with letting the virus run loose on that number of people  The health system will collapse.  The economy will collapse.

And to what  end? 

Mainly to heed calls for international travel mostly coming from young people who are not at risk of dying from the virus ( curiously the same people who also support climate change action but happily engage in this most environmentally-destructive activities which is international tourism) and is actually is a net negative for the Australian economy) or the businesses who want more foreign workers which we now know for sure drives local wages down.

OTOH with lockdowns, the economy is going gangbusters, wages are rising , and unemployment is low

As for doing the wrong thing, what most people who are not getting vaccinated are doing is waiting and seeing.  With very good reason too- don't forget people over 50 were told to get the the astra zenica.  Then they were told not to.  Bad luck if you did and died of clot.  We also now know learned pfizer's vaccine increases risks of heart inflammation.

No-one knows their *individua*l risk to dying or getting very sick from covid or the vaccines.  Population-level risk mean nothing if you're the one that is dead.  The risk then was 100%.

Brett Sutton calling football football while talking about the exposure site at a venue showing the Euros final. "I'm sure there would have been lots of shouting, or for the English, crying." Legend.

What exactly is that percentage?

What exactly will you do when you have tens of thousands sick and dying lining up at hospitals?  Turn them away?

Will you extend that to all those who then attend hospital with disease and injury that result from choices they make too?  Ignorant selfish fools too?  You smoked- Fuck you. Die.  You drank.  Fuck you.Die.  You rock-climbed.  Fuck you. Die.  You engaged in high risk sexual behaviour.  Fuck you.  Die.

You hear it here from Enzo first:

Within weeks of the Wuhan outbreak, the prestigious journal The Lancet published a statement by 27 prominent public health scientists condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” and hinting that to say otherwise was racist.At the time, almost nothing was known about the origin of the virus so the statement by these scientists seems to have been driven less by good science than by protecting careers and funding. The Lancet has gone to ground but appears to have put political correctness before science.In what the British Medical Journal is now referring to as “a conspiracy to label critics as conspiracy theorists”, it transpired that the statement was orchestrated by Peter Daszak, a zoologist who has been a close collaborator with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on SARS-related coronavirus research.The same Peter Daszak was selected by the WHO for the joint WHO-Chinese government team to investigate the origins of COVID, the one that effectively ruled out the lab leak hypothesis.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/suddenly-the-lab-leak-theory-can-t-be-so-readily-dismissed-the-stifled-search-for-covid-s-patient-zero-20210716-p58agn.html

This is actually not true.  In fact its the opposite.  Australia's economy is going gangbusters- low unemployment, wages starting to rise. Oh BTW International tourism is in fact a net negative for Australia ie Australians spend more internationally than international tourists spend here.

I'm obviously talking about whilst in lockdown or other hard restrictions. Thought that was pretty clear Enzo.

It doesn't matter what happens to the economy whilst in lockdown does it? 

Thats not true. The 20% of unvaccinated people arent all together on their own community. There is something called herd immunity. 70%-80% of uptake in any system will show resistance to the unprotected 20% because they are spread

The other thing you are forgetting is there are already systems in place. Hotel quarantine stops 99.99% of the virus. Regulated social distancing significantly minimises transmission (look at number of contact sites and contacts vs actual infections). And contact tracing breaks down the root of the infection. There is no chance 20% of people in Australia could get infected today let alone with 80% of people vaccinated. As long as Australia remains shut then the virus will never get out of control

Read this article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-18/covid-lockdown-health-emergency-not-a-crisis/100298320

The overwhelming majority of Australians are doing the right thing. Dont forget Australia did nothing during the Swine flu and that only reached 35,000 people over 3 years (arguably double due to recording at the time). People arent going to voluntarily get sick and risk death on a large scale. Most of what you are seeing are just daily numbers of those who do the wrong thing. THe prospect of an out of control outbreak wrecking our health system with shut borders is just the usual paranoid tin foil hat tripe we read every day

This is a social disease. If it was spread by mosquitoes then a mosquito expert would be warranted. If it was spread by rodents you would ask a rodent expert. But its spread by people. So where are the social experts?

Imagine 4 people in a life boat with little to no rations at sea for a week. There is a likelihood 3 of them will eat the other. If those 4 people were in a restaurant and the food was 15 minutes late then the likelihood of 3 eating the other is lower. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of studies on social structures and how variables can drive behavior. Look at Victoria with its 40,000 infringements a while ago compared to 2,000 from NSW. Same people, same backgrounds, same demographics yet 20 times less compliance. A stat you'll not see in anything else when comparing NSW to Victoria in anything but one that was driven by different social parameters

What is happening in NSW is the result of an artificial and unnatural social structure which is driving unnatural behaviour. In normal circumstances you wouldnt have that many people breaking the rules. This is a result of the stress of the lockdown which has undeniably made the situation worse. People also cant understand their actions on a macro scale so the "its just me" or "Im only going to do it once" also gets lost. Lockdown might work if its short, purposeful, and has a deliberate goal but its not something thats going to work when applied repeatedly and disproportionate to the threat

Australia's response is a health response, not a pandemic response. I saw two people from a household today walking a dog together alone while wearing masks. The chance of the virus lurking behind a bush, pouncing out and violating their innards was zero. Yet this is a health mandate because you can never do too much to stop the virus right? And thats the problem. The health response isnt balanced

Australia's response is also a stat response. Pumping numbers into Excel and projecting chaos (like you did with your 20% stat). Watching balls bouncing around changing colour as they hit one another, and then reducing the number of balls and thinking "minimising movement in supermarkets" is going to make a difference. The number of people in NSW interacting is the same today as it was before lockdown. Every day you have the same number of people making decisions and this is what causes the daily virus numbers

I wrote weeks ago that NSW had the least compliance of any state so the no lockdown approach was a driver of their success. Yet with this outbreak after leading with a mandatory dress code for a week they then go with a hard lockdown. No surprise the numbers increased 5 fold

This is more complex than economy vs death. The situation in NSW was driven by restrictions in the same way Victoria's outbreak was last year. The other states with their snap lockdowns got away with it because there wasnt any real virus activity. There is an approach in the middle of total shut down and being completely open that people who live and work with sensationalised extremes arent able to grasp

NSW should not be in lockdown and neither should Victoria. We already have systems in place and compliance to drive figures downwards

Sure mate that's what I said wasn't it.

@blurbird2.

Herd immunity theory works on the basis of  the probability of infection causing illness and death.  

This depends on the chance of a non-immunized person coming into contact with the virus and the chance of that person actually being infected when that contact happens.  Then, once infected, what is the probability of that non-immunized person suffering illness and finally what is the probability of that person dying.

This virus is unique in terms of its highly infectious nature.  In other words the probability of being infected if someone not immunized comes in contact with the virus is actually relatively high, and the probability of disease and death is dependent (amongst other things) on the strain, which is as we've seen is not constant.

The fact is anti-vaxxers do follow a geographic pattern so yes if someone ventures out and gets infected they will bring it back in to their community.  Interestingly, anti-vaxxers in general are almost 200% as likely to be found in high socio-economic areas than lower socio-economic ones.  It might be the distribution of COVID anti-vaxxers is different however.

No-one really knows how herd immunity will pan out for COVID.

But tell me, how many sick and dead is "acceptable".  Don't forget, many of the sick but not dead will end up with lifelong complications that will need managing.  How many of those are "Acceptable"?

you claimed the "economy was being devasted".  It isn't.

I take it you didnt read the article I posted

50,000 dead from cancer, 20,000 dead from heart disease, 1000 from road accidents, 3000 from suicides and 700 from the flu types that wont have the same response when COVID goes. How many of those 700 deaths are acceptable that current measures arent indefinite?

As I said, the bottom line of this pandemic is not to prevent people from getting it or dying from it. The bottom line was the risk of hospital systems being overrun and we simply arent seeing that in Australia

We have systems in place that curb the trends of any outbreak and compliance levels unseen in other countries. Lockdown should be a last resort particularly as we have a vaccine which is something we didnt see last year

The UK recorded 50000 daily infections and 40 deaths. There is no chance countries / regions like that are going to eliminate the virus. Contrast this with Indonesia with the classic 2% ratio with work to do. This virus is not going anywhere. Australia simply has to vaccinate and open up. Changing the sensationlist mentality is a good starting point

The no acceptable amount of COVID and no acceptable amount of deaths will always be applicable given we cant vaccinate 100% of our population. But that is never the objective and given we are all mortal and dying of other things is a stupid one at that

After avoiding a few of the melb lockdowns while on holidays in NZ I drove back to Melbourne from Newcastle last sunday and here I am stuck in another lockdown. Living by myself and having been made redundant it sucks beyond belief. But with low vaccination rates I understand why they went hard and fast here with the delta strain.

For me, these lockdowns are almost a sideshow to the big decision which will shape our society and our politics for the next 12 months or longer: At what percentage of the population vaccinated do you open up society and borders? This decision will tear friends and families and political parties apart. Some want to reopen right now, some will want to be closed together. People are scared, emotional, exhausted and over it - not a right mind to make decisions of life and death. And this is a matter of life and death because herd immunity does not exist on vaccination alone (for delta most mathematical epidemiologists say you need 97.0% vaccination rate of everyone including kids). When we open up there will be a substantial exit wave of cases and deaths - more than Australia has experienced before but overwhelmingly most of those cases will be in people who decided not to get vaccinated.
There will be a lot of commercial pressure to open up - businesses want cheaper labour, then you have tourism and education reliant on overseas visitors and students) and their will be a lot of aussies wanting to get o/s for a variety of legitimate reasons. On the other hand, it will be very easy for the media to project fears of opening up - asking politicians and the like (what if it was your grandmother?) and medical experts like Norman Swan et al painting worrying scenarios of hospitals overwhelmed. In the meantime the rest of the world gets on with their lives and we will feel incredibly frustrated.

Like many on here, I support the view that once everyone has access to the vaccines we then set a date to open up and we prepare as best we can and we follow through. That could even be by mid next year in a best case scenario. But thats the best case scenario, worst case is that we get bogged down in these arguments and endlessly kick the can down the road while tearing each other apart. I enjoyed my time in NZ just because I didnt need to think about this issue. I'm now thinking of how I could move to another country for 12 months just to avoid these arguments and somehow make enough money to feed myself while Australia (and NZ) has this emotionally wrenching argument. (honestly, anyone have any ideas of where I could go).

People talk about personal risk and population risk and these are all complex factors. When you've had covid in your community at high levels like the rest of the world, getting cases and deaths down to low levels make you more tolerant of risk and the extra burdens of getting to elimination dont seem worth the social, economic and personal pain. When covid cases and deaths have been very low for a long time, personally and at population level we view those cases and deaths as avoidable and unnecessary. Morrison and Hunt have really used this cognitive bias to take attention away from their vaccine rollout stuffups - pointing to 50 deaths a day in England when the english people seem perfectly fine with that death rate as long as they can have their freedoms back. The media has also assisted in this gaslighting of our personal risk perceptions.

Anyway, thats just my rant. I'd be interested in how you think this will practically play out. We will be vaccinating over a million doses per week from next week and we should get to about 70% first dose by end of Sept. So this argument will become big very soon. Albanese did a press conference this week about opening up but was extremely coy about setting targets, dates etc. SCOMO says he is still waiting on Doherty institute modelling and that his decision will be driven by science not politics which is absolute bullshit - this is a decision on risk and reward, there is no pure right or wrong answer - its how many cases and deaths are you willing to put up with. Personally I cant ever see all the state premiers agreeing on a vaccination number or date - what happens if some hold out - will they permanently close their state borders, will it be a constitutional crisis? Oh and we have a federal election between October and May 2021. Interesting times.

Have you seen the debt we have? And debt that was climbing before covid.
Also as for the unemployment rate, when you have a system that counts an hour a week as being employed, then of course employment rate are good.
IMO this pandemic has shown how little job security and long-term, well paid fulltime work the majority of the population have.

Cancer, heat disease and road deaths don't have simple solutions.  Covid does: lockdown.  That is the reality.

Covid is far more infectious than the flu.  Open things up and the death rate is likely to be higher, even with immunization.

I can guarantee once the deaths increase and then starts affecting people on a broader scale- they or someone close to them dies, then we will have a hot political potato.

 So again-what is the number of deaths that you are willing to accept?

Debt only matters if you can't manage it or you use it to purchase depreciating assets.  Interest rates are at historic lows making it the best time in history to manage debt.  And the debt is being used on productive things so no worries about depreciating assets

The system that counts unemployment is the same as it was before COVID.  Nothings changed with the system.  Unemployment is down below pre-Covid levels.

Wages are on the way up, of course, as we don't have absurdly high level of overseas immigrant workers driving wages downward.  Fact, BTW.

Excellent post.

As you say we are balancing health and economics. 

Lets dig deeper.  On the economics side of it, you rightly point out, we really mean four things: people wanting and some needing to travel overseas, tourism which is a net negative for Australia and is on a global level one of the most environmentally-destructive human activity , cheap overseas labour that drives local wage downward, and the tertiary education sector drunk on overseas student money with their $million dollar salary Chancellors, declining education standards and a backdoor to permanent residency for overseas students.

Of those four. the need-not want- to go overseas is the only one that I might think is worth a risk my life for the overall good of the country

@Podiacide. How will this play out?

That will depend on the outcome of the UK's experiment that begins on the 19 July 2021.

I agree with podiacide. Set a date that is reasonable for everyone to get their 2 doses and open up after.

Don't want to be vaccinated? Run the risk.

We grudgingly accept that about 1500 people will die every year in car accidents even though we try and limit that. That's an 'acceptable' price to pay for society to function with cars. (There's plenty of other examples.)

With vaccines available and free there is no reason we can't accept that covid is endemic and get on with it.

A doctor mate of mine was saying in the years to come you'll get your flu shot and your covid shot.  Eventually they might even roll them into one.

I said lockdowns and tough restrictions devastate economies.  I wasn't referring to Australia specifically either, which for the most part has avoided the current state we're in.

Perhaps you should actually read my entire post instead of cherry picking bits out of context and looking like an idiot.

Yes but what exactly are you going to do when the COVID ill and dying front up at the local hospital.  Turn them away and say bad luck, you're fault no go die somewhere else I have this fat guy with chest pain to treat, or the druggy who OD'd, or the mum with the crying 3 year old with the snotty nose?  How do you think that scenario will play out with the victims and their families?

but they don't, do they?

I wouldn't call 5 lockdowns in Victoria "avoiding the current state we are in".

but they don't, do they?

I wouldn't call 5 lockdowns in Victoria "avoiding the current state we are in".



Perhaps you should stop writing bullshit and then later try and walk it back when its been pointed out that it is in fact bullshit?

And really I'm more interested in reading about your answer to the "Fuck You if you haven't vaccinated" you made earlier  Who else that makes more poor choices and gets sick will you be saying "fuck you" to?

Got it Enzo.  Lockdowns are not bad for the economy. 

Lockdowns are bad for the economy of course, it's just the government actually gave adequate payments in the form of Jobkeeper and a special doubled Jobseeker rate. Such a huge surprise that the economy bounced back when people had money to spend....

Might be a bit different this time, the emergency payments are below minimum wage, so unbelievably short sighted to abolish all those things while the pandemic is still raging.

What are you going to do? Treat them. Just like you treat victims of car accidents.

Who said 'turn then away'?

Any other questions?

Its not even a reality. Victoria were already under restrictions when the current outbreak occurred. Caps on household visits, dress code for indoors, and other venues not even given a chance to open up. They also went into lockdown immediately. Yet despite this the cases have grown during the restriction period and during the lockdown period. They are also likely to extend lockdown because they didnt have the specious reasoning element that the states with no activity had. This is the second time also they have had to extend a "snap lockdown" due to actual activity

Lockdown isnt a solution. Its a template tool applied tokenistically and whatever the data shows is "proof" that it worked. The ease at which you dismiss significant economical, social and psychological impact shows that you arent willing to give this any amount of serious thought

If you look at the 50,000 infections and 40 deaths in the UK its because they have vaccinated their most vulnerable. This is something we have known for 18 months. 4 deaths in NSW, all over the age of 70. Once your vulnerable is vaccinated the death rates plummet. And yes there are younger people in hospital and in ICU but hardly a concerning trend and definitely not one that is going to overrun hospital systems

Last year Australia had let over 4500 infected people into the country and with a few restrictions in place and nothing more than a (I think they called it) stage 3 lockdown they were able to trend the numbers downwards. It was national, new, purposeful, uniform, and able to do its job

Today we see 1 infected person let into the community and 2 weeks later there are over 100 local cases in a single day. And this is despite a stage 4.5 lockdown. This is a complex social problem and I'm not sure how much you are trolling when you say there is a simple solution, and the answer is lockdown. Particularly when there are places that have far more knowledge and resources than we do but have battled with the same problem

If it is possible for one person to encounter another than the virus will spread. A lockdown is not an isolation order and an isolation order can only be enforced with limited resources for specific key contacts. Australia had a working suppression model that gave the best balance of life and infection. And today it has a vaccine which mitigates the risk of the dying part. Opening up internally and opening up externally are two different things and there is no reason we couldnt open up internally given quarantine, testing, isolation and social distancing mandates

Lockdown is the problem and the only people who cant see that are the people who have kept their jobs and have a stable household full of caring people