Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) outbreak discussion

moXJO said:

Hasn't the Melbourne lockdowns already failed?

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Has it ? Well then we should congratulate the anti vaxxers, COVID deniers, and other free spirits who have relentlessly and successfully managed to overpower the State Governments lockdown rules.

Clearly their message is getting through to enough people to ensure a steady virus leakage through the community. Of course if they all manage to get together and help spread COVID properly through their groups, AKA the last 4 days, then their success will complete.

Update on the Freedom Fighters.

Caitlin Cassidy

Protestors have released four locations to “penetrate” today across Melbourne’s CBD.

They are advising demonstrators to mark their trek to the locations as “civilians, armed with an excuse”.

The riot squad and a number of plainclothes officers are back in the city gearing up for day five of the protests and are checking a number of IDs, 9News is reporting.

Large crowds are yet to have gathered.

basilio said:

Has it ? Well then we should congratulate the anti vaxxers, COVID deniers, and other free spirits who have relentlessly and successfully managed to overpower the State Governments lockdown rules.

Clearly their message is getting through to enough people to ensure a steady virus leakage through the community. Of course if they all manage to get together and help spread COVID properly through their groups, AKA the last 4 days, then their success will complete.

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Bas, you consistently use hyperbole to make your point.
There are most certainly anti vaxxers, COVID deniers, free spirits etc in the group of protesters.
There are also anarchists, right wing trouble makers.
And there way mell be pro vaxxers, and people who have been vaccinated, once, maybe some twice.
What is common is the angst against the lockdowns and other restrictions that have been imposed.
Once the state denies people an ability to protest, there will be trouble.
The lockdowns have failed for two reasons.
1. The spread of the virus has not been prevented. The increases in virus numbers started before the protests began.
2. The numerous videos of state sponsored Police brutality has served to feed the angst of the lunatic fringe of the protests, as well as cause increasingly large numbers of Victorians to view Vicpol with a sense of alarm.
Mick

And then you get this... where will it end

Exhausted ICU Nurse Immediately Joins The CFMEU After Seeing Them Punch On With Anti-Vaxxers​

There are a number of legal challenges that will need to be resolved around some of the responses to COVID.
The first thing to establish, is that in all cases, wherever there is conflict, a Federal Law will overide a state or territory law.
One of them is the Commonwealth Disability Discriimination Act of 1992.

The Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act makes it illegal to discriminate against a person in employment because of:

the presence in the body of organisms capable of causing disease or illness;

…

and includes a disability that:

(h) presently exists; or

(i) previously existed but no longer exists; or

(j) may exist in the future (including because of a genetic predisposition to that disability); or

(k) is imputed to a person.

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This act was brought about because of the treatment of a young girl with AIDS, who was effectively hounded out of Australia because she was one of first children to contract aids.
It was not her fault, she didn't inject things into her arm, or have unprotected sex with someone who had AIDS.
She was unlucky enough to contract the AIDS virus through a blood transfusion in a time before there were screening procedures to check the blood samples for various unpleasant things.
A liberal reading of this Act might well have found vast numbers of people would be found to have run foul of the Act by making pronouncements about those vaxed, partially vaxed or unvaxed.
Do not be surprised if someone instigates legal proceedings against someone else, particularly where there is media reporting of potential adverse statements.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

There are a number of legal challenges that will need to be resolved around some of the responses to COVID.
The first thing to establish, is that in all cases, wherever there is conflict, a Federal Law will overide a state or territory law.
One of them is the Commonwealth Disability Discriimination Act of 1992.



This act was brought about because of the treatment of a young girl with AIDS, who was effectively hounded out of Australia because she was one of first children to contract aids.
It was not her fault, she didn't inject things into her arm, or have unprotected sex with someone who had AIDS.
She was unlucky enough to contract the AIDS virus through a blood transfusion in a time before there were screening procedures to check the blood samples for various unpleasant things.
A liberal reading of this Act might well have found vast numbers of people would be found to have run foul of the Act by making pronouncements about those vaxed, partially vaxed or unvaxed.
Do not be surprised if someone instigates legal proceedings against someone else, particularly where there is media reporting of potential adverse statements.
Mick

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Please cite these legal challenges.

mullokintyre said:

Bas, you consistently use hyperbole to make your point.
There are most certainly anti vaxxers, COVID deniers, free spirits etc in the group of protesters.
There are also anarchists, right wing trouble makers.
And there way mell be pro vaxxers, and people who have been vaccinated, once, maybe some twice.
What is common is the angst against the lockdowns and other restrictions that have been imposed.
Once the state denies people an ability to protest, there will be trouble.
The lockdowns have failed for two reasons.
1. The spread of the virus has not been prevented. The increases in virus numbers started before the protests began.
2. The numerous videos of state sponsored Police brutality has served to feed the angst of the lunatic fringe of the protests, as well as cause increasingly large numbers of Victorians to view Vicpol with a sense of alarm.
Mick

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Nothing about COVID has been easy. From the very beginning in January 2020 to now it has been a xxxxxx nightmare in terms of illness, death, social, political and economic disruption.

But it was not a surprise. For years we have been warned about the risks, in fact practical certainty, of a major pandemic. Bird Flu, SARS have always been an the radar.

To that end there have been medical processes in place to deal with such an event. Having said that it has always been clear that without effective vaccination or treatment options the only way to stop the spread of such a disease is quarantine.

From the very start of the pandemic the conversation was how hard could democratic governments impose a quarantine on it's citizens. We watched while China pursued a ruthless approach in Wuhan and other cities. Lot's of tutting about authoritarian dictatorship.

Then in March 2020 it became clear that COVID was exploding across Italy and then Europe and of course the US. There was no stomach for the strict China type quarantines so the lockdowns were only as effective as the political will and public acceptance of COVID as a grave problem would allow. And at this stage there was the China experience of thousands of deaths and multiple illnesses across the country. And most people believe the Chinese severely under reported the deaths/illneses.

It was at this stage that new stories were unfolded. "It was just a flu" "It's a fraud" 'We can't lock down it will destroy the economy"."We can cure it with X, Y, Z" So from the beginning we wrestled with the US President, the Brazilian President and some European counties undermining the public health approach to this problem and giving further credence to the the "flu/fraud/" story.

So not surprisingly efforts to stop the spread of COVID through isolation always faced a challenge.

This year we finally found vaccines that could slow the spread of COVID and reduce the severity of any infection. Not perfect but pretty good. Enter the anti-vaxxers and the multitude of conspiracies that propagated story after story after story. And all this happening with a communication system that enabled instantaneous and simultaneous transmission of ideas around the world.

The new delta strain of COVID is far more infectious than last year. That meant that we needed an even tighter lockdown and a lot more luck to stop it spreading once it got a hold in the community. It's fair to say that it is much like the spread of a bushfire. On a pleasant summers day with average moisture a fire can be spotted , attacked early and controlled. But if the winds are up, the temperature is high then unless the fire is stopped immediately it goes totally out of control. This was why the notion of going early and going hard were adopted .

But it hasn't worked has it ? And again I have to say that the actions of the anti vaxxers, the COVID deniers, the "it's only a flu" champions have been instrumental in helping this happen. Governments are imperfect. People are imperfect. There are always personal failures. But having a widespread core of people deliberately undermining support for necessary public health measures and then creating their own superspreader events through massing in the streets . I think it's sickening and heartbreaking.

Police officers confirmed as close contacts of COVID-19 positive protester​

There are also fears of a super spreader event after a protester who attended Wednesday's rallies tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to hospital.

At Friday's COVID press conference, Health Minister Martin Foley said it was clear "protesting against COVID-19 does not work".

"Vaccinations work against COVID-19," he said.

"To pretend that something doesn't exist, and then for that very thing to put you in hospital is a message loud and clear that protesting against COVID-19 is futile."

He said the full picture of how much spread had resulted from the person's involvement in the protests may not be clear until next week or the week after.

Victoria Police confirmed in a statement that a small number of officers were identified as close contacts to the COVID-positive person who attended the protest on September 22.

The officers involved have been informed to get tested and isolate. A police spokesperson said they would not specify how many officers had been placed into quarantine, for operational reasons.

Protest 'doesn't make sense'​

Melbourne's Lord Mayor Sally Capp labelled the behaviour of protesters as "disgraceful".

"It is beyond disappointing and it is completely disgusting that rioters would target people who [are] frontline workers, health care workers and doing their best to help us get out of this situation we are in," she told ABC News Breakfast.

"It doesn't make sense. I call them rioters because there is really nothing about this that is a protest.

"There is no cause. It is all about self-interest. It is all about causing as much disruption and destruction as possible."

Ms Capp said a vaccination hub set up at the Melbourne Town Hall was designed to cater to vulnerable people including those experiencing homelessness, linguistically diverse people and those without Medicare cards.

"It has been packed every day," she said.

She said the fact it had to close because of "disgraceful behaviour" was really disappointing and had "multiple ripple effects".

"We are hoping to be open again next week," Ms Capp said.

"The efforts, particularly for those who are the most vulnerable in our community, will continue to get them to other sites but what we can't continue is to have a very small minority of very aggressive rioters take over our city," she said.

On a more note. Three cheers for the kids..!!

But having a widespread core of people deliberately undermining support for necessary public health measures and then creating their own superspreader events through massing in the streets . I think it's sickening and heartbreaking.

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Perhaps, but why is it hat these people seem concentrated in Melbourne?
There have been protests in Sydney and Brisbane, but nothing like in Melbourne.
There may be many reasons, but one might treasonably argue that there is a link between the level of protest in Melbourne and the fact that lockdown no 6 has now given the city the embarrassing title of the city that has been in lockdown the most number of days in the world.
In its 235 day under lockdown (some with curfews), It has surpassed Buenos Aires.
If Melbourne is allowed out of lockdown as planned on October 26 it will have been in lockdown for 270 odd days, almost 9 months.
And already there is talk that the date may be pushed back.
Mick

This story encapsulates almost all the issues around COVID, vaccination, ease of infection and consequences. At least it has happy ending.

mullokintyre said:

Perhaps, but why is it hat these people seem concentrated in Melbourne?
There have been protests in Sydney and Brisbane, but nothing like in Melbourne.
There may be many reasons, but one might treasonably argue that there is a link between the level of protest in Melbourne and the fact that lockdown no 6 has now given the city the embarrassing title of the city that has been in lockdown the most number of days in the world.
In its 235 day under lockdown (some with curfews), It has surpassed Buenos Aires.
If Melbourne is allowed out of lockdown as planned on October 26 it will have been in lockdown for 270 odd days, almost 9 months.
And already there is talk that the date may be pushed back.
Mick

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It has been xhit in Melbourne. Absolutely. People are tired and fed up. We/They want this to be over so, so much.

The balance is just how many more sicknesses, deaths and pressures on our hospital system do we want ? We want to believe that once 80% plus of people are vaccinated we can open up and control the illnesses. But we have to get there first. ASAP.

I feel really, really angry at a Federal government that just didn't take this situation seriously enough to go full bore on vaccinations while we didn't have any infections. Back earlier this year when we thought that the Delta variant would stay in Delta and somehow respect our borders That was the time we needed to put our skates on. Unfortuantely now we just have to make the best of a difficult situation and cerainly not wilfully, deliberately, stupidly create more mayhem.

Apologies if this has already been posted. Be interested in other takes but looks bad to me:-

basilio said:

I feel really, really angry at a Federal government that just didn't take this situation seriously enough to go full bore on vaccinations while we didn't have any infections. Back earlier this year when we thought that the Delta variant would stay in Delta and somehow respect our borders That was the time we needed to put our skates on. Unfortuantely now we just have to make the best of a difficult situation and cerainly not wilfully, deliberately, stupidly create more mayhem.

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Don't really understand why its all the fault of the feds.
In hindsight they might have ordered a different combination of Vaccines.
But ordering them and getting them are two different things.
Yes Scotty from marketing screwed up badly in thinking the State Premiers would all work together in a National Cabinet for the good of the country. Fat chance.
The feds should never have agreed to each state control their quarantine levels.
Yes the feds should have closed the national borders to anyone coming in from overseas much sooner, and then not allowed ANY exceptions..
And yet so much of what occurred was out of their control.
They didn't enforce the lockdowns.
They didn't send out riot squads.
They didn't arbitrarily close state borders but exempt celebs, politicians and sports stars.
And most importantly, they did not cut their wages or the wages of the phalanx of state government employees who "worked from home".
And it does not explain why Victoria has had the lions share of problems.
And that really can only be sheeted home to the Victorian Government.
Mick

Diversionary Mick.

I'm not going to be simplistic. Dealing with COVID was always going to be messy. Hindsight and second guessing is endemic in politics. But the one issue I picked as critical in 2021 was the process of getting Australia vaccinated as soon as possible. Obtaining vaccinations in sufficient volume and organising processes to ensure rapid vaccination was a Federal Government responsibility. ScoMo said this is our job.

He stuffed it up. If this had been done with any sort of reasonable swiftness and imagination by May-June this year we would have 80% plus vaccination and the problems of dealing with Delta Covid would have been signicant but nowhere near as challenging as they have proved since July-August.

And just to be clear. When rioters roam the streets and behave the way they have you call out the riot squad. And we don't "blame" the Government for protecting the rest of the community
_______________________________________________________

I think the example of Bhutan is an important one to recognise when considering what role a Government can play in protecting it's community.

Bhutan , a poor landlocked, largely rural country in the Himalayas. Ruled by a King who is a doctor. Because of the countries determination to effectively tackled COVID they organised 85-90% vaccination across the country in the space of under two weeks for the first jab and less than a week for the second one. This was an exercise in leadership, organization, logistics and community participation that frankly shames the First World countries that have not recognised the priority and then done something effective about it.

basilio said:

Has it ? Well then we should congratulate the anti vaxxers, COVID deniers, and other free spirits who have relentlessly and successfully managed to overpower the State Governments lockdown rules.

Clearly their message is getting through to enough people to ensure a steady virus leakage through the community. Of course if they all manage to get together and help spread COVID properly through their groups, AKA the last 4 days, then their success will complete.

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It was logistics that spread it around. Lockdowns failed hard. Remember everyone crowing about how great Dan was a few months back? Locking down fast and hard. And that how the lockdown would only be for a short time because of the ring of steel
Turns out it didn't matter.
Also turns out that Dan's an authoritarian dkhead. No one will want to visit Australia after the images coming out of there.

The differences between cities and states is amusing.

So I'm wondering if we get similar riots in nsw. Maybe a future 'flashpoint' in coming weeks.

basilio said:

I feel really, really angry at a Federal government that just didn't take this situation seriously enough to go full bore on vaccinations while we didn't have any infections. Back earlier this year when we thought that the Delta variant would stay in Delta and somehow respect our borders That was the time we needed to put our skates on. Unfortuantely now we just have to make the best of a difficult situation and cerainly not wilfully, deliberately, stupidly create more mayhem.

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Bas you always feel angry at the Liberal governments, no matter what the issue.
They have thrown away millions of AZ vaccines, due to the bad press, essential service people were given access to what limited pfizer vaccines were available, but they didn't even take them. It has only been since the federal Government has made it mandatory that aged care workers had to be vaccinated that they have come forward.
The biggest issue Australia has had is a reluctance to get vaccinated, as one would expect when we didn't actually have a serious outbreak.

Now we have had the outbreak of the Delta strain, the uptake of the vaccination has been nothing short of incredible, especially in NSW.
Maybe putting 'skates' on people would have helped but I doubt it, even now in W.A we are lagging behind the rest of the nation regarding vaccination rates, because we don't have a covid issue, if we did I'm sure our uptake would increase markedly also.
Making silly observations, just undermines the credibility of the debate.

W.A is also offering pfizer to those over 60, if they want it, the problem is most don't want anything, so even if the Federal Government had obtained millions shots, now you would be blaming them for buying too many and having to give them away or dispose of them as they would have gone past their use by date.
The media and their salivating entourage of readers, are to blame for the hesitancy, it was pure luck we couldn't get vaccine that would have been wasted.
There is always cup half empty people.
As for making the statement "I'm not going to be simplistic", I can't understand why you would say that, it is one of the things you excel at.

If it was just a case of having enough vaccine, W.A would be up there with the other States, the issue was and still is most people would rather not have the $hit shoved in their arms, until it is absolutely necessary.

In the early days of the outbreak the urge to get the vaccine was low, as the numbers were low, then the media blew up the incidence of clots with AZ, which we produced here.
So hesitancy grew, yet the numbers of infections didn't so the urge to be vaccinated due to fear fell.
Now a year and a half on and people are sick of being stuck inside, the hesitancy is being overcome by a feeling of what the hell, we can't live like this forever.

You will always have the ranters and chanters, some rant and chant about everyone should just go and have it, on the other side you have the ranters and chanters that say the vaccine is poison and will kill you.
In the middle you have normal people, like the wife and I, who are just fed up and want to get on with what remainder of their lives they have. Second shot in five weeks time.

NSW vaccination status



W.A's vaccines status

sptrawler said:

Bas you always feel angry at the Liberal governments, no matter what the issue.
They have thrown away millions of AZ vaccines, due to the bad press, essential service people were given access to what limited pfizer vaccines were available, but they didn't even take them. It has only been since the federal Government has made it mandatory that aged care workers had to be vaccinated that they have come forward.
The biggest issue Australia has had is a reluctance to get vaccinated, as one would expect when we didn't actually have a serious outbreak.

Now we have had the outbreak of the Delta strain, the uptake of the vaccination has been nothing short of incredible, especially in NSW.
Maybe putting 'skates' on people would have helped but I doubt it, even now in W.A we are lagging behind the rest of the nation regarding vaccination rates, because we don't have a covid issue, if we did I'm sure our uptake would increase markedly also.
Making silly observations, just undermines the credibility of the debate.

W.A is also offering pfizer to those over 60, if they want it, the problem is most don't want anything, so even if the Federal Government had obtained millions shots, now you would be blaming them for buying too many and having to give them away or dispose of them as they would have gone past their use by date.
The media and their salivating entourage of readers, are to blame for the hesitancy, it was pure luck we couldn't get vaccine that would have been wasted.
There is always cup half empty people.
As for making the statement "I'm not going to be simplistic", I can't understand why you would say that, it is one of the things you excel at.

If it was just a case of having enough vaccine, W.A would be up there with the other States, the issue was and still is most people would rather not have the $hit shoved in their arms, until it is absolutely necessary.

In the early days of the outbreak the urge to get the vaccine was low, as the numbers were low, then the media blew up the incidence of clots with AZ, which we produced here.
So hesitancy grew, yet the numbers of infections didn't so the urge to be vaccinated due to fear fell.
Now a year and a half on and people are sick of being stuck inside, the hesitancy is being overcome by a feeling of what the hell, we can't live like this forever.

You will always have the ranters and chanters, some rant and chant about everyone should just go and have it, on the other side you have the ranters and chanters that say the vaccine is poison and will kill you.
In the middle you have normal people, like the wife and I, who are just fed up and want to get on with what remainder of their lives they have. Second shot in five weeks time.

NSW vaccination status
View attachment 130694


W.A's vaccines status
View attachment 130695

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Vaccine purchase and distribution is controlled federally and, to date, only 40% of all vaccinations have been the responsibility of State/Territory administrations.
Health experts and State Premiers have been critical of the federal maladministration of our vaccine program since inception and there are dozens of media articles - like this one - detailing these failures.
NSW led the charge to get more State control of the rollout and this in part has helped it's better than average vaccine rate, as well as the "secret deal" that recently saw hundreds of extra GP clinics in NSW receive Pfizer via federal distribution arrangements.
A revamping of Operation Covid Shield in August proposed improved distribution, eg:

• "Pilot programs for drive-thru clinics are set to be rolled out in September and would operate from October at scale in most jurisdictions".

Does anyone know of any pilot program drive-through vaccination hubs that Covid Shield is implementing? What about industry involvement (a la Bunnings hubs) involvement? So far it looks like another failure to launch. In the meantime ...
In Craton's Private Members' thread I outlined what Queensland's government is now doing via mass vaccination centres, which is an excellent model and will continue until targets are reached.
In NSW local shires are getting into the hang of mass vaccinations, with Narrabri a recent example.

While vaccination hesitancy is a thing, the reality is that surveys suggest it has been significantly less than the number of people that want to get vaccinated and have not had the opportunity. The States, and Shires like Narrabri, are proving that accessibility to vaccinations is an important driver of take up. It is also universally the case that as covid vaccination rates increase, hesitancy decreases.

There is no doubt that AZ got a bad rap early on and this affected take up. However, the feds could have engaged more GP clinics and also involved pharmacies to make accessibility the key to increasing vaccination rates, and it did not. As competent as LT Gen Frewen is, he's not a health professional and has had difficulty in fully engaging the industry sectors which have been successfully rolling out millions of vaccine shots year after year. Coupled with a PM who in over 18 months has shown little capacity to achieve consensus at National Cabinet meetings, we have a continuing politicisation of covid issues rather than a shared sense of responsibility in getting over the hump.