In the last few weeks there has been a febrile excitement about the possibility of reducing restrictions once we hit 70-80% of adults doubly vaccinated in early November – ignoring, as this does, that we need to wait 2-3 weeks after the second dose to be as safe as you can be.
Here is a typical report.
9.25AM
Case numbers are not the whole story: PM
The Prime Minister said it was “highly unlikely” there was any chance of Australia getting back to zero COVID cases.
“Case numbers are not the whole story...but right now, of course, we need to make the lockdowns effective, we need to suppress the virus as best we can, and we need for people to isolate, stay at home, get tested and of course, go and get vaccinated.
Asked whether NSW and Victoria could start reopening once vaccination rates hit 70 to 80 per cent rates, Mr Morrison said that was possible, saying that in phase b, lockdowns should be “highly unlikely” and “targeted”.
“The advice we have from the Doherty Institute is the starting point does not ultimately alter the conclusions of the modelling, and so of course we continue to always update these things.
“What we have been advised by Professor McVernon is that the starting point doesn’t ultimately change the ultimate conclusion point of where case numbers arrive.
“See, once you go in the next phase, of course case numbers will rise.”
Here is the link:
Sadly it rather seems the Doherty report is being rather misinterpreted!
From today also we have the truth from the Doherty.
Doherty report model assumed small daily caseloads
Professor Jodie McVernon, director of Doherty Epidemiology, said the Doherty report did not consider reopening when there were still hundreds of cases a day, as is the case in NSW at the moment.
The NSW Premier insisted yesterday that the state would start to reopen once vaccination rates hit 70 per cent, even if hundreds of cases were in the community.
Professor McVernon told Sky News this morning that further modelling into whether NSW could ease restrictions, given the current large number of daily cases, was being led by UNSW professor James Wood for NSW Health.
“I think it’s important to differentiate between what our [National Cabinet] report is discussing which is making a transition from a state of no or very few cases to a more immunised environment and then thinking about how transmission might be managed there as opposed to coming off a high caseload,” McVernon said.
“We were set up for a situation where caseloads would be small, that any outbreak would be managed, obviously we were not envisaging shifting from phase A to phase B from a situation of lockdown, which is where we are now.
“This ongoing piece to understand how moving from a high caseload environment through vaccination and how that can help to support the easing of public health measures is a really important parallel piece of work and we are working closely with our colleague James Wood at University of NSW who’s leading that body of work.”
“Modelling is one piece of evidence, we don’t tell anyone what to do...it’s one element that can feed into decision-making.”
“What our modelling found was as vaccination coverage increases, vaccination does much more of the heavy lifting of the public health response.”
Asked what she thought about the comments of state leaders such as Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan, who has insisted on a policy to eliminate the virus, she said such a strategy would a challenging.
“I think that will be a very challenging strategy to pursue into the future. We have seen how contagious this virus, how difficult it is to keep out,” she said.
“I think it is really important for the population to understand what we’re dealing with and to be realistic.”
Professor McVernon said children should be part of vaccination plans “as we move from this phase to the next one”, conceding “we are aware we are seeing more infections in schools”.
Same link:
Basically the PM, Treasurer and Gladys are off their heads if they think the public will be happy with 700 deaths and 5800+ admissions per week as we are seeing with a highly vaccinated UK last week (say 300 / 2500 on a population adjusted basis) – with all the figures actually rising!
Here is a link:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
(see the graphs especially)
To my mind we need to get to 90%+ of the entire population (+ age 1) fully vaccinated, better control of the current outbreak(s) and some medications that really work to treat the disease and we need to also know the dreaded “Long Covid” can be prevented by vaccination or whatever! We also don’t know how long the vaccinations last – it could be a short as 4-5 months.
Without all this the overall economic / productivity outcome will be pretty disastrous and we will take years to recover.
This also gives real pause for thought!
Highly Vaccinated Israel Is Seeing A Dramatic Surge In New COVID Cases. Here's Why
There are a lot of serious points made here! (Thanks Bernard – good find!) Note the average deaths is about 20 per day on a rising curve - JH says 269 in the last 28 days) (On a population basis that is about 45 per day.)
Cries of ‘freedom’ are one thing but a real plan is a good deal harder and needs to progress carefully. Like everyone else I wish this was all over, but sadly it won’t be till it actually is!
What do you think?
David.
2 comments:
What you have written is clearly the most sensible conclusion we can make on all this. However it's nonsensical that we even need to deconstruct our governments' communications on such a crucial aspect of our national COVID strategy. The failure from our leaders on this is almost depressing. Morrison's interview on Insiders was just pathetic. He basically brushed aside the mention of McVernon's advice, then gave us this side dish of word salad: "The starting point doesn’t ultimately change the ultimate conclusion point of where case numbers arrive." WTF?
I think that while those scared of being afraid continue to ignore simple advice and where cloth we are in for a long haul. Secondly iterative development has is value when done properly, it is not an excuse for sloppy work
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-08-23/covid-19-vaccine-certificates-forged-in-10-minutes/100390578?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_web
For many protesting - I am sure you have stuck worse things in your bodies than a vaccine.
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