This. I had the same thoughts as Carlito at first but went out to get vaccinated a month ago because I had a feeling Delta was going to get out of hand. 

Yup. Pharma mate is expecting that we would get boosters annually like flu shots and they'd eventually roll it all into one. 

Vaccination isnt a race but lockdown definitely is. Queensland up to lockdown number 5 and level with Victoria

Interesting they have only gone for 11 LGAs instead of the entire state which means they should be under the same kind of criticism as NSW. They also only have a 10km limit instead of 5km, they havent shut down their construction industry nor have they deployed the army. So you have people jumping up and down about NSW not going hard enough and then they roll out a different response

Globally we are heading towards the peak of the 3rd wave with less enthusiasm to bring numbers down now that vaccines are available. Australia is still at the lockdown and face mask approach over, what was it, 6 linked cases?

There's going to be a major wake up call when Australia reaches its 70% milestone 6 months from now and the same "zero risk" health teams leading the response are reluctant to open up. WA have already said it will be using lockdowns when required next year and we have seen what their thresholds are

This has become an absolute joke. Who's in charge anyway?

https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-did-australia-s-vaccine-rollout-turn-into-a-train-wreck-20210729-p58dzu.html

How did Australia’s vaccine rollout turn into a ‘train wreck’?

Promises not delivered; doses announced, reannounced and still there are not enough. Vaccination has turned into a political problem for the federal government. This is how it went wrong.

Speaking about how the media has treated Gladys and Dan here's an interesting video from friendlyjordies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO1XV7SvWcg

Sky news YouTube page has been suspended for a week for posting false covid news. They can't post or do live streams . They have 2 more strikes and if they break the rules in 90 days they're gone

Interesting looking back at this posted by pala 

Don't let that rag be representative of what we think of ya :)

I know. The public here hope you do well too - we need you too :) 

Surprised no one here has commented on the vaccine rollout targets the PM detailed last friday.

From my previous posts I was wrong. So far it seems the Government is only setting targets for 16+ and its only 70%

70% of 16+ is 56% of the whole population which is easily doable this year.
80% of 16+ is 68% of the whole population which is doable by this year and definitely by March next year (when next election is likely held)

As I said in my previous posts, I expect vaccine rollout to speed up a lot over next 2 months then start to plateau around 60-65% first shot mark and then daily progress will slowly decline. Picking up maybe if there are any outbreaks that cause lockdowns. Supply will not be an issue come mid october.

Of course there are lots of complications with these targets that are already being disputed and politicised far and wide and will concentrate the public's minds as we get closer to reaching them and I'll honestly be shocked if the Fed government strictly sticks to its plan and convinces state premiers to do the same.

Issues:
Vaccinating under 16. Govt has already approved vaccines for 12-16yos (far quicker than I was expecting) and today announced 220,000 of those kids in certain categories will now get it. Will these kids be now included in targets? If not, what happens if we reach those targets before reaching those sick kids? Do we wait longer?
Go onto any social media platform or comments section of a newspaper and you'll see lots of comments screaming blue murder if we dont vaccinate all the kids before opening up. But parents are more reluctant to vaccinate their kids, especially under 12s and this would slow down the vaccine rollout a lot. As I said in a post a few weeks ago, once adults get vaccination rates up then the main spreaders will be kids and we can see a sneak preview of this in QLD today where most cases are under 10. The risk of death and long covid in kids is incredibly low (327 of 650,000+ deaths in US have been under 18) but in Australia we wouldnt allow one child death. So I expect schools to be one of main outbreak centres in next 12 months.  Anyway - vaccinating 70% of the whole population is a big ask, 80% I'd say almost impossible within 12 months (unless really tight measures on encouraging vaccines - companies forcing employees etc, vaccine passports for internal activities)

State variability: So what happens when ACT and NT get to those vaccination targets a month or 2 before WA and QLD. Will everyone in those states calmly wait till those states catch up? I can see this being a major issue even today QLD CHO has ruled out AZ for under 40s, something which is really turbocharging NSW's vaccination rates. And on the targets themselves and on issue of vaccinating kids I can see one or two state premiers falling to public pressure and demanding the targets to change to include the whole population. And then we have seen from WA already a reluctance to stick to those targets no matter if they are reached. State premiers are already at each others throats and I expect this to keep ramping up to unbearable levels. Too many giant egos involved.

Stage/Phase 4: so for a complete return to normal overseas travel, which is stage/phase 4, the government hasnt actually set a target vaccination rate yet. Expect this to be an issue as more and more people get vaccinated.

Exit Wave: Everything in this plan is the lead up to when we all allow overseas travellers to come here. I cant think of any scenario - only allowing people from "safe" countries, strict home quarantine, rapid tests etc, which still wont lead to substantial case outbreaks and therefore likelihood of deaths. As more and more us here get vaccinated more and more of us will be getting extremely impatient to bring those plans forward especially as we are already an international joke in how far behind we are. But at the opposite end, the fears of cases and deaths when fully opening up will put all governments under intense pressures to hold the line or even raise the vaccine  target levels. Even if its gradually allowed, setting the different rules will be a shitshow.

Other possible issues:
Polls: Vaccine hesitancy maybe higher than we thought. I could be totally wrong but it occurred to me on the weekend that maybe the polls are skewed when people are polled about vaccinations like with Trump and Morrison in election polls. That is, being an anti vaxxer is seen as socially unacceptable so people will hide their true views/intentions with pollsters and we only find this out once we are really needing that final 10-15% to get us to targets.
Sabotage: Maybe if some of the people arent happy with the vaccine targets - with say not including their kids or fears of the possibility of an exit wave - maybe they delay getting their vaccines the closer we get to the vaccine targets as a sign of a silent personal protest (of course having a date to open up would solve this but Fed govt plan specifically rules this out)
Election: Maybe they'll promise a few trial programs for home quarantine for o/s travellers but there is no way the Fed govt will risk an exit wave going wrong before the next election. And I cant see the ALP taking that risk either. And with the election probably not going to happen till March I cant see any of us going o/s soon.
Economics: On one hand the economy was going well before NSW lockdowns and unemployment will probably still trend down after these lockdowns end. But big business is quickly losing its patience with the vaccine rollouts and any delays with targets will cause a backlash amongst many of them, especially as they see a brain drain of skilled migrants (and some aussies) sick of this bullshit
Variants: Well if a new variant comes along that in any way significantly reduces effectiveness of vaccines we are nearly back at square one and I cant see us getting local mRna capability before 2023. And what are the chances of no variants between now and next march with infection numbers worldwide at highest levels for some time.

Conclusion: I want borders to open as much as everyone. I might be wrong, maybe the public pressure to open up creates a political u-turn in our politics and we open up in the next 6 months. Maybe we adopt rapid testing and this gets us out of our problems. Maybe the Morrison govt holds its nerves on these targets, the vaccine rollout speeds up in Sept and Oct and they go to an early fed election to avoid fallout from angry voters wanting to open up.  But if I was a betting man I can see us getting to 60% fully vaccinated (16+) by end October, then a slow grind with WA and QLD dragging the chain to get us to 80% (16+) by january or february. By then one of the premiers will have likely caved to political pressure to demand its 80% of everyone not just 16+ and there is a shit fight amongst society and probably protests over summer. If we have an election in march or later next year I reckon there is a big issue with us having another covid winter in 2023 because we will be in a political quagmire whether to open up or not (especially if there is a new variant). I'm going to decide in Nov/Dec if this is more than likely and if so I'll head overseas to escape.

Sorry for long post. Would be very interested in everyone's views on what they think of the targets. Are they reachable? Will govts "move the goalposts"? Will we open up before the end of the year? Happy to bet a jug of beer with you all that we wont allow fully open international travel this year.

Said it before and I'll say it again. Now that we finally have enough vaccines arriving we need a massive Covid outbreak and a thousand hospitalisations to scare the living piss out of everybody.

And while I'm at it. You know all those drive in testing clinics that pop up overnight when there's an outbreak?  Why in God's name are they not testing people and then jabbing them with a vaccine?! FFS !! They're right there. Take the swab and then say 'do you want a jab' and friggin' pump them full of the vax. Don't want it, fine but at least offer it.

How hard can it be?

As for targets Pod. No way will they reach 80%. Absolutely no way. Not a hope in hell. (Someone quote me so I can eat my words down the track.) I reckon they'll get to 60 or 70% quite quickly and then it'll taper right off never to hit 80%. 

 

News just in: media mega corporation uses it's power to (temporarily) censor the subsidiary of another media mega corporation. 

This.

Plus, now that we're nearing the end of winter (and the weather is warming notably) I am predicting case numbers to drop off. 

In hindsight I wish they'd done an episode of 'Yes Prime Minister' in which the UK/ Europe is faced with a virus outbreak similar to this one. It'd make for a great episode with Sir Humphrey scheming his way about it and Jim Hacker bumbling his way through it all ScoMo style. Would've been great television and eerily relevant today, I can just picture it...

The heading says it all, whats plan B?

Vaccination is not enough by itself to stop the spread of variants, study finds

By Maggie Fox, CNN
Updated 1045 GMT (1845 HKT) July 30, 2021

Vaccination alone won't stop the rise of new variants and in fact could push the evolution of strains that evade their protection, researchers warned Friday. They said people need to wear masks and take other steps to prevent spread until almost everyone in a population has been vaccinated. Their findings, published in Nature Scientific Reports, support an unpopular decision by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to advise even fully vaccinated people to start wearing masks again in areas of sustained or high transmission.

"When most people are vaccinated, the vaccine-resistant strain has an advantage over the original strain," Simon Rella of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, who worked on the study, told reporters."This means the vaccine resistant strain spreads through the population faster at a time when most people are vaccinated."

"By having a situation where you vaccinate everybody, a vaccine-resistant mutant actually gains a selective advantage."

"The individual who already vaccinated and putting on a mask should not think this is pointless but should think that there is a vaccine resistant strain running around," he said. "By preventing spread of vaccine resistant strains, you are preventing evolution of this virus," he added.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/30/health/vaccination-alone-variants-study/index.html

round up and leave politicians at the sacrificial alter to appease the angry covid gods.

Breibart is a bit of a right wing news agency (PaulC can confirm) but couldnt find this story on any other news sites and video is from CNN so it should placate the lefties, but basically US Health Official Dr Osterholm confirmed what most of us already knew, anything other than a N95 face covering is a waste of time.

Osterholm: Cloth Masks ‘Not Very Effective’ — N95s ‘Could Do a Lot’ in Mitigating Spread of Coronavirus

During a Monday appearance on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and former adviser to President Joe Biden’s transition team Dr. Michael Osterholm addressed the “confusion” surrounding how different states and local governments are handling the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“You know, I wish we could get rid of the term ‘masking’ because, in fact, it implies anything you put in front of your face works. And if I could just add a nuance to that, which hopefully doesn’t add more confusion, is we know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out. Either you’re breathing out, or you’re breathing in. And in fact, if you’re in the Upper Midwest right now, anybody who is wearing a face cloth covering can tell you they can smell all the smoke that we’re still getting.”

He continued, “We need to talk about better masking. We need to talk about N-95 respirators, which would do a lot for both people who are not yet vaccinated or not previously infected, protecting them, as well as keeping others who might become infected having been vaccinated from breathing out the virus.

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/08/02/osterholm-cloth-masks-not-very-effective-n95s-could-do-a-lot-in-mitigating-spread-of-coronavirus/

I think most people who have an issue with with masks don't believe in evolution. You may need to come up with a better strategy than that.

As Dr Osterholm has stated above, the cloth masks that most people wear dont actually do anything so maybe some people have evolved enough tobe able to discern the truth from propoganda, while other less evolved people will blindly follow any advice because they saw it on TV

More the point they dont believe in wearing helmets when they have finished cycling and are at home in their lounge. Or they dont believe in carrying a bottle of holy water and a cross when they are already wearing a seat belt. Australia doesnt have the viral activity to justify mandatory state wide mask usage when all the data we have suggests face masks are only useful to prevent somebody with the virus from spreading it, and 99% of transmission occurs indoors

I'd be more supportive of face mask laws if they were only mandated when necessary. Not this "at all times outdoors" bullshit we have to put up with. Victoria have celebrated its 12 month anniversary of a consecutive state wide mask mandate despite going months at a time without a single infection. No other jurisdiction with quarantine at the shorelines would have accomplished that level of overkill

How can SA claim 1000 people watching a sport together is safe with a mask but unsafe without? The notion that face masks make things safer when they arent even regulated to a standard is just complete and utter rubbish

The bottom line is face masks shouldnt be regulated outside of a lockdown. If everybody is mandated by law to assume they are infected then it isnt safe to open up

Australia got it entirely wrong with face masks. CHOs wanted them from the start. They found an opening. Now we are stuck with them. It really is that simple and its foolish to claim anything otherwise

The overwhelming majority of people who are anti-mask have become anti-mask because the wearing /not wearing of one has become politicised.  The fact you use terms like "propaganda" pretty much reflects that. 

This has nothing to do with the type or material of face covering used and everything to do with discrediting their use in general. You know that. 

That's very perceptive for your first post on here.

Donlt trust masks, don't trust vaccines because they don't trust science. Because if they trust science, their crutch of believing in a mythological human lives up in the clouds looking down at them is destroyed. And when that goe stheir hope goes and all that's left is a morbid fear of death or of their own dark thoughts. 

Nothing political about what I am saying, but if you dont trust me, lets see what a randomized trial into the effectiveness of cloth masks found:

A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers

Conclusions This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection. Further research is needed to inform the widespread use of cloth masks globally. However, as a precautionary measure, cloth masks should not be recommended for HCWs, particularly in high-risk situations, and guidelines need to be updated.

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

Maybe you are still not convinced, so what does the US CDC say about cloth masks:

The filtration effectiveness of cloth masks is generally lower than that of medical masks and respirators; however, cloth masks may provide some protection if well designed and used correctly. Multilayer cloth masks, designed to fit around the face and made of water-resistant fabric with a high number of threads and finer weave, may provide reasonable protection.

During a pandemic, cloth masks may be the only option available; however, they should be used as a last resort when medical masks and respirators are not available

The general public should be educated about mask use because cloth masks may give users a false sense of protection

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-0948_article

Other than the opinion of so called medical experts, do you have any evidence to show mask wearing isnt just a placebo (which makes it propaganda)?

Hmmmm, intersting, I have the US CDC and a peer reviewed research paper supporting my opinion, show me the science (not opinions but actual science) showing that cloth masks prevent infection.

Its also funny hearing people who cower from covid talking about others fear of death

You don’t even need a high school education to know that the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and god do not exist. 

Two people standing opposite each other with both wearing medically approved mask/face covering,  1 has corona and sneezes/splatters. 

Exactly.

Also someone is listening to me.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/national-covid-19-vaccine-plan-proposes-drive-through-clinics-within-months

Nice attempt at pivoting the discussion, but I am not talking about the effectiveness of medical masks, it is obvious that they work but what is also obvious is that cloth masks dont provide protection against infection (which is why they arent used by medical staff).

In addition to the above scientific evidence, lets see what the European Centre for Disease Control say about cloth masks:
There is no evidence that non-medical face masks or other face covers are an effective means of respiratory protection for the wearer of the mask.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/COVID-19-use-face-masks-community.pdf

Hang on, that cant be correct, no evidence that non-medical masks provide protection, but Aussie CHO's seem so nice and they are experts (cough, cough), that cant be right. Lets see what the WHO says about face masks:

At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (75).

A large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection with SARS-CoV-2 (76).

A recent systematic review found nine trials (of which eight were cluster-randomized controlled trials in which clusters of people, versus individuals, were randomized) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness. Two trials were with healthcare workers and seven in the community. The review concluded that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the prevention of influenza-like illness

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/advice-on-the-use-of-masks-in-the-community-during-home-care-and-in-healthcare-settings-in-the-context-of-the-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)-outbreak

So the US CDC, European CDC, the WHO and an actual scientific paper all say cloth masks do little to prevent covid infection, so excuse me if I am not gripped by covid-phobia and believe them ahead of you and your opinion, but happy to reconsider if you can provide a source proving different from a higher authority.

But back to your imaginary scenario, it's clear from the contributions on this forum that there arent many brain surgeons on here so no-one would be wearing medical masks, so based on the advice of the US CDC, the ECDC and WHO, I wouldn't be relying on my cloth mask to prevent infection, but if it makes you feel safe go ahead, I wont judge.

Surely if you're wearing a mask and you have covid you're lessening the chance of spreading it?

Conversely if you're wearing a mask you're lessening the chance of contracting it?

I mean the chances of being in a car accident are next to nothing but we all wear seatbelts.

Are you saying AJF you think mask wearing is a complete waste of time?  (Non-medical masks that is.)  Do you wear a mask when you're out?

Do you think Joe Average has a medically approved mask? Do you think they have applied it properly using the correct protocols? Do you think they are wearing it properly, and changing it for a new one when required?

This is a highly contagious strain of virus that has tripped up our best defense mechanisms and you are 100% kidding yourself if you think throwing a cloth on your face will stop it

What we have is every single high school student across ACT, who arent eligible for vaccination, forced to wear a face mask instead of getting a quality education because there is an infinitesimal chance that one of them will encounter an infected Sydney person at a close distance and both just happen to be wearing face masks correctly

Pro face mask bullshit is no different to anti vax bullshit. You cant be supportive of one and in opposition of the other

Unless you can prove that Joe Average tokenistically wearing a cloth is going to stop hospital systems from being overrun then you are just as much a believer in fiction. You really need to read your own post about believing in the tooth fairy