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Aussies: Football, Meat Pies, and Rampant SARS


Stubby

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On 9/5/2021 at 6:36 PM, Stubby said:

I'm not saying they didn't take it seriously. I'm saying they played politics with it. The WA govt has prefaced every decision as based on medical advice. It might well be that the medical advice aligned with policy views, but the clear fact is that it has worked.

It's actually the accusation of playing politics with it that I really bristle at. Yes there has been a bunch of playing politics with the rhetoric of taking pot shots at other states and all the premiers are engaging in that. I also want to preface this again by saying this is solely about the NSW state government - Morrison has done nothing but play politics with it and despite being an utter failure of a hack marketer he's getting a pass on failure of leadership after failure of leadership.

But it's simply not the case that playing politics with the pandemic is why the outbreak got out of control. The delay in locking down was a mistake, but it was a good faith mistake based on a miscalculation about the efficacy of contact tracing against a Delta outbreak among essential workers. The times that she has played politics with it is in caving to bullshit demands coming from the media that had embraced Dan's lockdown misery theatre and wanted to send police and the army to intimidate minorities and people that came here for asylum - and the "playing politics" part is when she gave in to those demands for measures that haven't helped. She opposed doing that initially because it wasn't recommended by the health officials, policing the pandemic reduces willingness to co-operate among the targeted population.

On the subject of hectoring I certainly haven't noted McGowan keeping his mouth shut any more than Gladys, but happy to agree on Morrison doing nothing but shit stirring every time he opens his mouth on inter state subjects.

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On 9/6/2021 at 12:08 AM, Skyrazer said:

Hence why I'm doubtful the virus can realistically be kept out permanently.

Agreed. Smaller nations that are currently free of Covid are playing a short term game. That’s not to say it’s the wrong game - it’s amazing for them that they can retain a pre-Covid stance within their borders and avoid hospitalizations and deaths in (mainly unvaccinated) citizens. But I don’t see zero cases as a long-term, post-vacc strategy.

On Gladys’ re-opening plan…my $0.02 is that some aspects are a little too aggressive. Things like private indoor gatherings are hard to enforce when it comes to vacc status. Here in Ontario, private gatherings weren’t permitted until later in the reopening plan, which I think was sensible. Go and support a local restaurant or sit in a park instead!

I’m also not overly fond of the Freedom Day tag that some segments of the media are going with. Should be “Step 1 of Re-opening”!

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Meanwhile, Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Friday denied going against health advice by unveiling plans to reopen for the fully vaccinated at 70 per cent double-dose coverage, but acknowledged her need to "weigh up health advice with public policy".

The unvaccinated in NSW have a little over a month to get double-jabbed if they want to visit friends, dine out, travel to the regions or go to the barber or gym.

Under a roadmap out of lockdown announced by Ms Berejiklian on Thursday, a suite of restrictions will be eased when 70 per cent of the state's eligible residents are fully vaccinated.

70% of the eligible population seems like a pre-delta vaccination target. 30% of the eligible population remaining unprotected, plus all the kids that are not able to be vaccinated, and the fact that breakthrough infection in the vaxxed is a thing, is a recipe for runaway infection, and a huge increase in hospitalisation and death. It is impossible to keep the vaxxed and unvaxxed population isolated, which means the virus getting into the unvaxxed population at multiple points.

Sorry to be the annoying, self-righteous neighbour, but I don't see us opening up to the wider world with only 70% of the over 12s being fully vaxxed.

@Skyrazer It's not about keeping the virus out, as such. It's about maintaining a state of elimination of active infection in the community on an ongoing basis. We already know it is impossible to prevent outbreaks, even with border restrictions the way they are. One should base long term strategy on both feasibility and social licence. If, in the case of many Pacific Islands and NZ our starting point is elimination, no community spread. It is appropriate to try to design an approach which maintains that status long term and not just dismiss it. If the modelling shows that a more open border (but not as open as pre-COVID) will work to keep outbreaks to 1 or 2 a year then this should be put to the public, to see if there is general support for continuing the elimination policy with the understanding there will be occasional lockdowns for the forseeable future. If there is widespread general support (like at least 70%, but better to be 80% or more). The the policy can be put into action. If there isn't widespread public support then something else needs to be worked out. Because to much public opposition will mean a theoretically effective policy will not be able to be implemented in practice.

I think countries (and maybe states) with a current status of free / eliminated could work out a long-term elimination policy while being more open to inward and outward travel. But I think most populations won't want to pay the price (esp a few lockdowns every year) that comes with it. 

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5 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

70% of the eligible population seems like a pre-delta vaccination target. 30% of the eligible population remaining unprotected, plus all the kids that are not able to be vaccinated, and the fact that breakthrough infection in the vaxxed is a thing, is a recipe for runaway infection, and a huge increase in hospitalisation and death. It is impossible to keep the vaxxed and unvaxxed population isolated, which means the virus getting into the unvaxxed population at multiple points.

 

Yeah almost every expert I've seen talk about it seems to think they're lowballing there and should hold out for 80% like Vic seems to be planning.

The one thing that makes me think it may work is that NSW is well on target to end up at over 85% of over 16s double vaxxed, and possibly over 90% in much of Sydney. They've hit 75% single dose this week with a pretty minimal slowdown, and still dosing at a solid 0.7% first doses a day. So while they'll "only" be at 70% 16+ double vaxxed it'll be a pretty short window before it hits 80%+, with the vast majority of the rest of the 16+ population on 1 dose which is still significantly protective in itself.

And that's not including that we're going to start jabbing the 12+ population quite soon.

In any case this is quite a bold move, which could kill a lot of people and cost Berejiklian her job if it backfires.

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1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

@Skyrazer It's not about keeping the virus out, as such. It's about maintaining a state of elimination of active infection in the community on an ongoing basis. We already know it is impossible to prevent outbreaks, even with border restrictions the way they are. One should base long term strategy on both feasibility and social licence. If, in the case of many Pacific Islands and NZ our starting point is elimination, no community spread. It is appropriate to try to design an approach which maintains that status long term and not just dismiss it. If the modelling shows that a more open border (but not as open as pre-COVID) will work to keep outbreaks to 1 or 2 a year then this should be put to the public, to see if there is general support for continuing the elimination policy with the understanding there will be occasional lockdowns for the forseeable future. If there is widespread general support (like at least 70%, but better to be 80% or more). The the policy can be put into action. If there isn't widespread public support then something else needs to be worked out. Because to much public opposition will mean a theoretically effective policy will not be able to be implemented in practice.

I think countries (and maybe states) with a current status of free / eliminated could work out a long-term elimination policy while being more open to inward and outward travel. But I think most populations won't want to pay the price (esp a few lockdowns every year) that comes with it. 

I think the public has just about reached the limits of its tolerance for lockdowns (atleast here in Aus), especially once we start hitting vaccine saturation. There is an expectation that lockdowns will more or less cease once we start hitting 70%-80%+ vax rates, or atleast the kind of lockdowns that we're currently going through.

Which brings me to my first point of vaccine passports. How can we avoid continuing crunching our population through rigorous lockdowns, which the public is increasingly becoming fed up with, without causing a vicious outbreak that overwhelms our healthcare system? The only way you can really maintain a point of elimination is through hard lockdowns and i just can't see the public continuing to agree with the strategy once vaccine targets are being met. We'll likely have targeted lockdowns going forward sure, but they'll probably come with caveats such as certain measures only applying to the unvaccinated while the vaccinated get mostly exempted.

I think we need to plan for (unfortunately) living with the virus while keeping it manageable.

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I’m wincing a little at the Keneally story. It’s hardly surprising when a political party parachutes a senior Senator into the House. And of course it’s shitty when someone misses out on preselection as a result.

But let’s not pretend that any party is actually choosing candidates on the basis of being representative of their electorate. We have pathetic representation of the true diversity of the electorate across the House and that is an entrenched problem of which this story is only an example.

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8 hours ago, Skyrazer said:

I do wonder what aspirations Keneally has?

Party leader maybe eventually? She's a darling of the right-faction who tend to be the kingmakers/slayers.

Federal Labor couldn’t really be doing much worse, so perhaps she’s worth a try. ScoMo is still easily preferred PM and I don’t think Labor has enough cut through or the right leader for swing electorates. I expect they will just mop up the same city electorates as last time and lose the rest.

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The NSW Health map for case locations now shows there have been no locations of concern within the past 14 days. This looks hopeful for when restrictions are relaxed in October. The worry is, zoom out of Sydney to take in the rest of NSW, and case locations are still developing.  

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On 9/15/2021 at 10:27 PM, Paxter said:

Federal Labor couldn’t really be doing much worse, so perhaps she’s worth a try. ScoMo is still easily preferred PM and I don’t think Labor has enough cut through or the right leader for swing electorates. I expect they will just mop up the same city electorates as last time and lose the rest.

If you'd told me everything that was going to happen two years ago, including the incredibly shit handling of the fires etc, I wouldn't have believed that Morrison would look set to walk it in while NSW Labor look like they actually have a pretty good chance at the next state election.

Not sure how much of it you're seeing, but the new Labor leader has taken a very savvy approach of visibly putting public good ahead of playing politics and working with the government, meanwhile Gladys has probably been mortally wounded by all the bullshit media frenzy while the right faction of her party seem to be constantly undermining her - I doubt she even makes it to the election.

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8 hours ago, karaddin said:

If you'd told me everything that was going to happen two years ago, including the incredibly shit handling of the fires etc, I wouldn't have believed that Morrison would look set to walk it in while NSW Labor look like they actually have a pretty good chance at the next state election.

Not sure how much of it you're seeing, but the new Labor leader has taken a very savvy approach of visibly putting public good ahead of playing politics and working with the government, meanwhile Gladys has probably been mortally wounded by all the bullshit media frenzy while the right faction of her party seem to be constantly undermining her - I doubt she even makes it to the election.

I dunno, I'm not willing to write Gladys off just yet. I think pandemic incumbency is very useful and the fact that Victoria has had no more success than NSW in managing the latest outbreak should lead to some voter forgiveness. 

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3 hours ago, Paxter said:

I dunno, I'm not willing to write Gladys off just yet. I think pandemic incumbency is very useful and the fact that Victoria has had no more success than NSW in managing the latest outbreak should lead to some voter forgiveness. 

I think the coalition electoral odds are better if they keep her, I just think there's enough that really hate her within their own ranks that they'll topple her now they've seen "weakness"

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48 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I think the coalition electoral odds are better if they keep her, I just think there's enough that really hate her within their own ranks that they'll topple her now they've seen "weakness"

The ICAC investigation into Dodgy Darryl can't be good news for Gladys.

Sitting in lockdown in Canberra, I probably don't have such a positive view of the NSW government, even acknowledging the pressures from within the party and from business as well as the media frenzy. I think there is some reasonable criticism to be made of the early days of the current outbreak. The initial infection of the driver was a gap in protocol that should have been plugged, although probably a shared responsibility between the company and the two tiers of government. There is also an argument to be made that lockdown should have happened immediately that case was identified, which was likely the only chance of stopping the outbreak.

I haven't been much of a fan of Gladys' communication style. In the early days, there was a lot of NSW exceptionalism and a bit of shade thrown at other states. I don't think that played so well outside NSW. We all guessed when the pivot happened from pursuing zero cases to Vaccinate, Vaccinate, Vaccinate but Gladys should have sat down and had that serious conversation with the public. Nowadays, she's a bit too inclined to skim quickly over the daily numbers and deaths to get to more hopeful issues but those cases and deaths are important and deserve proper weight. Annoying as the journalists' questions can be, accountability is important and announcing that withdrawal from press conferences was ill-judged.

Our Chief Minister has made the point that the National plan for re-opening was designed to activate once the whole country had reached vaccination targets, not just individual states. While I understand the pressures on the Premier, there is a bit of feeling in Canberra (and likely elsewhere) that NSW is straining the leash and forcing other states and territories to follow its timetable, whether we're comfortable to do so or not. Being surrounded, ACT residents obviously have a fair bit of trepidation about what will happen when NSW does open up.

Anyway, I don't mean to start an argument as I always respect your point of view and your posts. Hopefully, you are starting to flatten that curve and it will keep on bending.

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Thoughts?

It's almost 30 minutes, but easily watchable at 1.5x speed.

From the outside it looks like it does a pretty good analysis. The refrain that lockdowns don't work against Delta, at least not to reach zero, may be 1 part self-absolving excuse and 1 part circumstantially true. I guess we'll see whether Delta can be defeated in a few weeks with Auckland.

It was a very tight timeframe between receiving the science that Delta was substantially different and the evolving situation in NSW. Delta was pretty well known to be significantly more contagious in May, but that did not give NSW a helluva lot of time to develop a different response to a Delta outbreak.

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2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Thoughts?

It's almost 30 minutes, but easily watchable at 1.5x speed.

From the outside it looks like it does a pretty good analysis. The refrain that lockdowns don't work against Delta, at least not to reach zero, may be 1 part self-absolving excuse and 1 part circumstantially true. I guess we'll see whether Delta can be defeated in a few weeks with Auckland.

It was a very tight timeframe between receiving the science that Delta was substantially different and the evolving situation in NSW. Delta was pretty well known to be significantly more contagious in May, but that did not give NSW a helluva lot of time to develop a different response to a Delta outbreak.

Sorry, but how have they lost control? Cases are minuscule compared to almost anywhere else in the world. 
 

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I don't think Gladys' leadership has too much to be worried about. Yes she's going through a rough patch at the moment, but the next state election is not till '23 and NSW is tracking well on vaccinations. They're looking to hit 80%+ vax rates early and if this happens in conjunction with lessening COVID hospitalisations and easing of restrictions, public sentiment will almost certainly swing in her favor. Not to mention that an internal challenge to her leadership during a pandemic will be deeply frowned upon by just about everyone. NSW ALP are also barely a threat at the moment.

Fed LNP though is going to have a rougher time. Election is going to need to be called pretty soon and the ScoMo govt has been dropping the ball on multiple fronts. They're probably hoping for vax rates to continue going strong and to start reopening in time for election by which time, much of the public undergoes a case of "forgive and forget".

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