Can I crowdsource for a moment and ask what the people in here genuinely think about the path forward for Aus and NZ is re: reconnecting with the world? I'm not asking for like the 'one true path that experts X and Y have written about here and here', but your own personal opinions?
I'm asking this question from the position of someone who thinks that COVID is genuinely endemic in the world outside of Aus and NZ. And I don't really see a way of keeping it out of ANZ forever. But do you? And if so, what measures are you happy to keep for that to be the case? Forever have 15 day quarantines for travellers? Always lock down when an air freight crew brings it in?
Or, if you're more of the mindset of starting to reopen once vaccination rates are higher, then what restrictions do you still want to keep? If a kid in a school gets it, do you send every kid in that class into isolation and test them? Do you keep quarantine for travellers? At 15 days, or less? Home isolation? What about vaccinated travellers?
What if it proves difficult to get to 80% or higher vacc rates? Are you ok with on-and-off lockdowns, state border closures going into late 2022?
I'm not looking to incite arguments here, just really trying to build up a picture of what people think is reasonable. And realising of course that this forum is not a representative sample. And because from what I can read online, it seems like there's a whole lot of criticism flying around about the COVID response but also a lack of really well-described visions for what the future over the next 12-36 months should look like.
I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited August 2021
Need to raise the vaccination rate.
That's the only option now. All others have been taken off the table by repeated stupidity and conspiracy theories. Once vaccination rates are high enough that you won't get hospitals overwhelmed with sick patients from COVID, then it's more or less time to open up and just live with the virus as it becomes one of the circulating viruses we'll need to deal with every year. Unfortunately, whatever percentage of the population that doesn't think vaccination works, is required or whatever is just going to have to deal with being the targets of this virus. There is a different responsibility to people who won't take justified precautions when they are readily available vs. people who have no option for protection whatsoever. Possibly that's the most frustrating part, because there are many who even if they want the vaccine cannot get it, but the horse has bolted and we just need to provide the best possible care for them in future.
Until this point, the only option are strong border controls and lockdowns exactly the way Ardern is doing it. Additionally, preparing to deal with these lockdowns repeatedly, because no system can be perfect against a virus this infectious and our immediate neighbour was a complete idiot about it.
The rate at which people can get vaccinated is probably an s-curve. What if it's more difficult than anticipated to get high rates? E.g., past 80% (mindful that that figure probably doesn't include children, so it isn't even that high). For how long is the current situation tenable?
I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.
Agreed. Iceland is really the model we're working toward here. High vaccination rate. (Eventually) growing cases. Low death rate.
The awkward part in there is that somewhere there is a line where we as a nation (just thinking about NZ here) say "good enough" for vaccinations, open up and accept that community outbreaks will happen and we will just allow it to spread without any significant reaction. Watching the way delta spreads, there just seems to be zero point in taking a luke-warm "let's isolate this one class-room" approach because by then it's already spread into multiple other clusters. We just need to get to a point where that spreading doesn't lead to lots of deaths.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
The border controls are there not to keep us isolated, but to buy us time to get our vaccination levels up.
As everyone who wants a vaccine gets one, we can start shifting our playbook from zero-tolerance towards managed risk.
This is particularly true as treatments come online as effective drugs become more available as the 'pandemic' part of the global catastophy comes under control worldwide.
We will continue to manage the borders, but isolation and restriction will depend on risk profile of the traveller. As the pandemic is controlled worldwide, hopefully travellers will face fewer and fewer barriers over time.
Domestically, the responses will look somewhere between measles and the Flu.
Measles is endemic, and even more virulent, but with a more effective vaccine.
The Flu is endemic, less virulent, and with a less effective vaccine.
With the Flu, we encourage people to get their shots, and stay home if unwell. Measles, we isolate and lockdown clusters and outbreaks in the community.
We will be keep our alert levels, and put restrictions in place to isolate communities when outbreaks are detected, but with lesser frequency. With a highly-vaccinated population and effective treatments, the risk of overloading the health system capacity will be managable, and the chance of severe outcomes reduced.
Some things will probably stay with us indefinitely. Masks when you're unwell, hopefully. Increased use of sick leave should be another.
If we're really lucky, we might find a way of improving vaccine efficacy over time, either by administering additional boosters, mixing and matching delivery methods and timings, or just iterating new and improved versions of the vaccines.
The rate at which people can get vaccinated is probably an s-curve. What if it's more difficult than anticipated to get high rates? E.g., past 80% (mindful that that figure probably doesn't include children, so it isn't even that high). For how long is the current situation tenable?
There are trials for vaccinating kids over 18 months, or thereabouts. I'd say once a vaccine is approved for children, and 100% of the population has access to the vaccine, everything can open up. If people refuse the vaccine that's their problem, not society's.
The biggest problem is people who can't get vaccinated, and I don't have any solution for that.
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
edited August 2021
I think it’s fairly cavalier to claim that we can open up with a vaccine that doesn’t reduce spread. Because even if every possible person got vaccinated with our current vaccines, you can clearly still pass them to people who can’t be vaccinated.
On that note, until the vaccine is available to kids, I don’t think unrestricted travel is an option. And even if we DO get kids vaccinated, that still doesn’t even cover adults with medical conditions that preclude vaccination.
So I actually think NZ’s proposed plan is best - once you hit a certain vax rate, you can do a staged opening, based on the risk of country of origin and vaccination status of the traveler. No quarantine if low risk country + vaccinated + negative test result. At-home quarantine if high-risk country + vaccinated or low-risk country + unvaccinated, maybe varying lengths of stay between those two. Centralized 14-day quarantine if high-risk country + unvaccinated.
I’d be down with that, to be honest. I’m seeing photos of my American and European friends getting to see their families again and it’s making my heart hurt. I really hope we get there soon, but I’ll be damned if I expose my parents or my toddler to any more risk than is absolutely necessary. It’s just shitty that the feasibility of this is based on the actions of a bunch of the silliest fucking geese.
I’m still worried about the long term health impacts of covid. I’m also not comfortable condemning a group of the population to serious illness or death, particularly when we’ve seen we can still maintain a pretty robust economy without the large foreign tourism numbers. It’s also been great for wages in quite a few sectors.
I’m still worried about the long term health impacts of covid. I’m also not comfortable condemning a group of the population to serious illness or death, particularly when we’ve seen we can still maintain a pretty robust economy without the large foreign tourism numbers. It’s also been great for wages in quite a few sectors.
If you're meaning the immuno-compromised, and other very limited reasons not to take the vaccine, fully on board.
If you're talking the wilfully ignorant, I'm much less sympathetic. People who choose to not participate in their own safety and the safety of those around them, have always been an issue, and I've lost friends and loved ones to people who have been way too cavalier about that shit (one killed by a drunk driver, at least one killed by second hand smoke).
I'm not for forced vaccination (as in hold them down and poke them), but I am for making their lives way more restrictive without it. No flights (foreign or domestic), increased health insurance/medicare fees, no sporting memberships (harder to enforce on day tickets), allowing employers certain options on termination, leave allowances, required testings, etc.
Again, exemptions from all this for people who have very specific, doctor approved reasons for not getting the jab. But the anti-vaxxer numpties? Nah, fuck 'em. Society requires a certain covenant with your fellow citizens. You don't want to take a fairly simple measure, to ensure the health of your fellows? Then you don't get to participate on an equal footing with them, either. The sovereign citizen shit that's pervading certain aspects of our nations needs to go fuck itself.
My personal dream solution is eternal border lockdown. I don't travel so idgaf. We've already seen knock on positive effects like higher wages and more employment. This doesn't mean no-one in or out. We know it works.
Vaccination is not the solution. The disease mutates too much and we're already looking at the potential of Covid mutating enough to avoid current vaccines in the near future. Yearly booster shots? Accepting a certain number of deaths like we did the flu? I don't believe booster shots will be as popular . Some would get them but most won't (eg in NZ in 2020 half a million people were fluvaxed, twice as much as usual. That's not good enough.). And if most won't then we circle back around to accepting deaths. So I think either we accept the deaths or we keep the border locked. My guess is we will choose or be forced into accepting the deaths. But I'd like the border locked and to avoid that.
Edit-a solution that's out of our control: covid mutates into a less deadly variant that pushes out the rest.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
For now. But we already see declining effectiveness in other countries that started before us. If we want it to work well in future it seems like we'll need to commit to yearly booster shots. And I don't believe that is sustainable.
I’m still worried about the long term health impacts of covid. I’m also not comfortable condemning a group of the population to serious illness or death, particularly when we’ve seen we can still maintain a pretty robust economy without the large foreign tourism numbers. It’s also been great for wages in quite a few sectors.
If you're meaning the immuno-compromised, and other very limited reasons not to take the vaccine, fully on board.
If you're talking the wilfully ignorant, I'm much less sympathetic. People who choose to not participate in their own safety and the safety of those around them, have always been an issue, and I've lost friends and loved ones to people who have been way too cavalier about that shit (one killed by a drunk driver, at least one killed by second hand smoke).
I'm not for forced vaccination (as in hold them down and poke them), but I am for making their lives way more restrictive without it. No flights (foreign or domestic), increased health insurance/medicare fees, no sporting memberships (harder to enforce on day tickets), allowing employers certain options on termination, leave allowances, required testings, etc.
Again, exemptions from all this for people who have very specific, doctor approved reasons for not getting the jab. But the anti-vaxxer numpties? Nah, fuck 'em. Society requires a certain covenant with your fellow citizens. You don't want to take a fairly simple measure, to ensure the health of your fellows? Then you don't get to participate on an equal footing with them, either. The sovereign citizen shit that's pervading certain aspects of our nations needs to go fuck itself.
Yes specifically I meant immuno-compromised and others who can’t get it for legit reasons.
I do have more sympathy for the wilfully ignorant than you, however. These dumb bastards have fallen victim to demagogues and charlatans, and if the USA’s versions are anything to go by, they have made sure they’re fully vaccinated.
My personal dream solution is eternal border lockdown. I don't travel so idgaf. We've already seen knock on positive effects like higher wages and more employment. This doesn't mean no-one in or out. We know it works.
Vaccination is not the solution. The disease mutates too much and we're already looking at the potential of Covid mutating enough to avoid current vaccines in the near future. Yearly booster shots? Accepting a certain number of deaths like we did the flu? I don't believe booster shots will be as popular . Some would get them but most won't (eg in NZ in 2020 half a million people were fluvaxed, twice as much as usual. That's not good enough.). And if most won't then we circle back around to accepting deaths. So I think either we accept the deaths or we keep the border locked. My guess is we will choose or be forced into accepting the deaths. But I'd like the border locked and to avoid that.
Edit-a solution that's out of our control: covid mutates into a less deadly variant that pushes out the rest.
It might work as a "solution", but locked borders mean a lot of bad things for a lot of people. Beside a lot of business interests, as well as the fluidity of the rich, and the obvious tourism stuff, there's also issues with agriculture.
I wasn't aware of it until I saw it in a lengthy news report, that apparently a lot of agricultural farmers/harvesters are FIFO. That they work a 3-4 months in the northern hemisphere, take a month off, fly to southern hemisphere, do the same, repeat. So much so, that despite having fairly significant bumper crops this year, the lack of trained and qualified machine operators mean that a good portion of crops may rot. Go local, you say? The only problem with that, is that there's simply not enough work to sustain them year round, they're not needed for basic crop maintenance, just harvest/planting.
There's also issues of a more personal nature. I've got family in the US and some other places around the world. A locked border, or even just a two week quarantine each way, and they're essentially gone from my life in anything but a virtual sense, forever.
If you want to take an absolutist position, then yes. I'm in no way calling for grinding the citizenry under the wheels of capitalism, or arguing against the measures that have been taken so far (I'm Victorian, in my sixth lockdown). But sometimes there needs to be a tradeoff, or are you also in favor of banning cars, boats, planes, swimming, etc.
Do the most we can do to make things safe, attempt to restrict those who flaunt that safety, and try to keep things from spiralling out of control should things take a turn.
Vaccines seem to be doing a significant job of restricting the hospitalizations and deaths in places where vaccination rates have been decent (not enough here in AU). Keeping up masking where possible, especially if numbers increase, and DEFINITELY if you're sick (for whatever reason). Lockdowns when necessary.
But "lock down everything that has the potential to cause harm" zero tolerance is just not a viable option, and definitely not a political one. While the number of "anti vax/mask" numbnuts is small, the number of people that would accept it as a permanent solution would be a blowout against any government that tried to enforce it. People seem to be okay because while it's an extended duration, it's also billed as temporary, and herd vaccination is the end result for a lot of people.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Media is reporting unconfirmed reports of cases in Wellington (Johnsonville and Miramar).
That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
The only way out of this for any country is going to be as close to full vaccination as we can get globally. Much like polio.
Now, is it feasible to keep out borders completely closed until that happens (maybe 2023 if nothing else goes wrong)? No, of course not.
But there needs to be a balance to keep the population safe and healthy, as is the responsibility of our governments, and still be able to continue with international commerce.
Getting the population as vaccinated as we can before we even think about opening the borders is the minimum.
I think back to Ellis Island, and no it's definitely not a great example, but if you had any indication of illness, you were held at the border, so to speak, until the illness went away. Sometimes you were even held in the country of origin. This was usually for things like ringworm and other visible skin issues.
Managed Isolation is likely going to be a thing for the foreseeable future. Or something similar. And that's ok! It's how it should be.
Well, I'm booked in for AZ tomorrow now in ACT as there is no way I can wait a month to get stabbed with Pfizer, having booked Pfizer as soon as I was eligible.
We're going to have to open back up eventually simply because the public will demand it. Right now the anti-lockdown crazies are only enough to stage a few minor protests, but as time in lockdown drags on and more and more people get vaccinated, eventually public opinion is going to switch from "Yes this is shit, but we're saving lives" to "I've got my vac and everyone has had the opportunity to get theirs, let me go to the fucking pub already". The problem is at the moment everybody hasn't had the opportunity to get theirs yet.
I think eventually we're probably going to end up with some kind of "vaccine passport" like in the UK or France, whether at a Federal or State level. But people are going to be super mad if its introduced too soon since they'd basically be saying that the 40+ year-olds who were allowed to get vaccinated months ago can go out in public but the 18-39 year-olds who were just following what was until recently the official advice to wait for Pfizer can't.
The practically of vax passports died with the introduction of Delta. Vaxed people need to follow the same procedures as unvaxed as they are also spreaders.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Also, I'm somewhat happy that after the end of this conference, there is at least something remembering Michael Cullen - he was a massive influence on NZ in the time he was in government.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Also, I'm somewhat happy that after the end of this conference, there is at least something remembering Michael Cullen - he was a massive influence on NZ in the time he was in government.
Yes, and indications that there will be locations of interest added along SH1 between Wellington and Auckland that one might stop at, as well as a domestic flight.
The only way out of this for any country is going to be as close to full vaccination as we can get globally. Much like polio.
Now, is it feasible to keep out borders completely closed until that happens (maybe 2023 if nothing else goes wrong)? No, of course not.
But there needs to be a balance to keep the population safe and healthy, as is the responsibility of our governments, and still be able to continue with international commerce.
Getting the population as vaccinated as we can before we even think about opening the borders is the minimum.
I think back to Ellis Island, and no it's definitely not a great example, but if you had any indication of illness, you were held at the border, so to speak, until the illness went away. Sometimes you were even held in the country of origin. This was usually for things like ringworm and other visible skin issues.
Managed Isolation is likely going to be a thing for the foreseeable future. Or something similar. And that's ok! It's how it should be.
Looking around the world, with Delta and the current vaccines, you appear to need something like 75% of the population vaccinated to be 'R less than 1' if you have a very cautious populace, and probably 85% of the population vaccinated if you have a not cautious populace but strict border controls (IE, testing and vaccination, not closed borders and quarantine)
This is not 'the adult population'. This is not people with 1 dose. This is the entire population, ideally with young people heavily vaccinated. Some counties in the US with numbers in the 75% vaccinated region seem to be dragging it back under control, and that's with an endless flow of idiots going on vacation to Texas and Florida. Some locations aren't, but most of those are places with heavy tourist dependance who can't afford to just tell everyone to piss off if they don't want to get vaccinated and mask inside.
Though, honestly I wouldn't blame New Zealand one bit if they vaccinated 85% of people and then just kept the border closed forever unless people agreed to hotel quarantine. International travel should be rare and occasional, climate crisis will kill us much more dead than covid will.
One good thing is that you will have enough vaccines to do this in less than 6 months. This whole "We don't have doses" thing is a nonsense. World is dosing 38 million people a day, probably producing 45 million a day, and just unable to give them fast enough. Thats enough doses being given for every person on earth to get a dose every 6 months, and 30% of those people will refuse the vaccine unless you forces them.
Yes, it seems like vaccine passports are of very little use with delta still infecting and being transmissible from vaccinated people at notable rates.
Yes, of course the vaccine is still important, but it really changes the hassle and cost versus the reward of any system of vaccine passports enabling access to whatever.
I have my yellow fever card with my passport for whenever I go to the airport, and adding my covid vax paper to that isn't a big deal. But if you wanted to implement a system of requiring me to show a vax card every time I entered, for example, a shopping mall, that's a much harder sell. That is, since it looks like the difference it makes to transmission might not be very large. I already have the experience of living in a place where I'd get a pat down or metal detector every time I visited a supermarket. I've been pretty relieved to get away from that tbh.
I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.
Yes, it seems like vaccine passports are of very little use with delta still infecting and being transmissible from vaccinated people at notable rates.
Yes, of course the vaccine is still important, but it really changes the hassle and cost versus the reward of any system of vaccine passports enabling access to whatever.
I have my yellow fever card with my passport for whenever I go to the airport, and adding my covid vax paper to that isn't a big deal. But if you wanted to implement a system of requiring me to show a vax card every time I entered, for example, a shopping mall, that's a much harder sell. That is, since it looks like the difference it makes to transmission might not be very large. I already have the experience of living in a place where I'd get a pat down or metal detector every time I visited a supermarket. I've been pretty relieved to get away from that tbh.
There seems to be a big misunderstanding of the data being released which says, "Vaccinated people can be infectious". Vaccinated people are many times less risk than the unvaccinated, and vaccinated people interacting with other vaccinated people is even lower risk. Vaccinated people can have low CT numbers, but they also boost antibodies to neutralizing levels within days rather than weeks, which means they are shedding inactivated virus which cannot replicate.
The vaccine does not ELIMINATE transmission, it never did, its just that Alpha wasn't infectious enough to make that matter. The vaccine reducing transmission is why the R number in Israel is perhaps, 1.25, rather than 6.
I don't disagree with you, but in my view the point still stands. The data is not yet firm and I expect it to change. Still, while vaccinations hugely reduce the severity of an infection, it seems they reduce the transmissibility by some amount, but maybe not a huge amount. In fact, if it means that people feel mostly fine despite having a mild yet still transmissible case, that could make them more likely to circulate in the community. Yes, vaccinations seem to make viral load drop faster, which is great! But I'm saying that this definitely changes the calculus of implementing some kind of mandatory proof of vax scheme. It reduces the benefits of this kind of thing.
That doesn't mean it won't be implemented, of course. Policies are introduced without a full consideration of the evidence pretty much all the time.
I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.
I think it’s fairly cavalier to claim that we can open up with a vaccine that doesn’t reduce spread.
Unfortunately every liberal government in this country will. 100%. They're already talking about it gleefully, with occasional backpedals when they get too excited.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
I think it’s fairly cavalier to claim that we can open up with a vaccine that doesn’t reduce spread.
Unfortunately every liberal government in this country will. 100%. They're already talking about it gleefully, with occasional backpedals when they get too excited.
The bad part is our hospitals won’t be able to cope. While hospitalisations are significantly reduced, they’re not eliminated, and our hospitals basically run on a skeleton staff on the best of days.
As soon as cases spike again, we will see how the liberal governments deal with that.
I think it’s fairly cavalier to claim that we can open up with a vaccine that doesn’t reduce spread.
Unfortunately every liberal government in this country will. 100%. They're already talking about it gleefully, with occasional backpedals when they get too excited.
The bad part is our hospitals won’t be able to cope. While hospitalisations are significantly reduced, they’re not eliminated, and our hospitals basically run on a skeleton staff on the best of days.
As soon as cases spike again, we will see how the liberal governments deal with that.
It's the "when you owe the bank a million dollars" problem. Antivaxxer's have become far too numerous.
I don't disagree with you, but in my view the point still stands. The data is not yet firm and I expect it to change. Still, while vaccinations hugely reduce the severity of an infection, it seems they reduce the transmissibility by some amount, but maybe not a huge amount. In fact, if it means that people feel mostly fine despite having a mild yet still transmissible case, that could make them more likely to circulate in the community. Yes, vaccinations seem to make viral load drop faster, which is great! But I'm saying that this definitely changes the calculus of implementing some kind of mandatory proof of vax scheme. It reduces the benefits of this kind of thing.
That doesn't mean it won't be implemented, of course. Policies are introduced without a full consideration of the evidence pretty much all the time.
It increases the absolute benefits. With alpha, the unvaccinated infected people at a rate of X and the vaccinated infected people at a rate of 0.02 X. An absolute benefit of 0.98 X to interacting only with them. With Delta, unvaccinated people infect people at a rate of 2X and vaccinated people at a rate of 0.4 X (60% infection protection, 50% reduced transmission is the most real numbers we see from UK data). An absolute benefit per interaction of 1.6 X to interacting only with them.
And fortunately, vaccine use has close to zero costs, and massive non spread benefits as well which already justify them being mandated.
We're talking past each other though. I'm talking about vaccine passports/checks. You're talking about the benefits of being vaccinated.
No, I'm saying that with Delta the benefits of interacting exclusively with vaccinated people has increased, meaning that vaccine passports and checks are even more critical. Before Delta a vaccinated person could protect an unvaccinated person they lived with, such as a child, by simply handling all interactions for them. They served as a single layer protective shield. With Delta, you need double shielding, which means vaccine mandates and passports.
I guess those four people yesterday and three today just fucking died of nothing for no reason then.
It'll either be dismissed as a changed cause of death (died of something else), that the government murdered them, or that the government is lying.
I always felt that the whole "crisis actor/false flag" shit was too stupid even for the dumbest Australian. I no longer think that.
My favourite conspiracy is that these people think that Dan Andrews (Vic PM), is orchestrating this so he can have another term. And I'm like, he's fucked at the next election, because too many people are too dumb to see how many lives weren't lost, and instead focus on not liking the lockdowns.
He's just got two choices. Keep as many people alive, or have mass casualties. If the outcome (him getting punted) is the same, only a psychopath would choose the latter.
I'm no Dan stan. I think his ceiling as a PM is mediocrity. But I can't see a LNP PM doing a significantly better job under these circumstances.
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I'm asking this question from the position of someone who thinks that COVID is genuinely endemic in the world outside of Aus and NZ. And I don't really see a way of keeping it out of ANZ forever. But do you? And if so, what measures are you happy to keep for that to be the case? Forever have 15 day quarantines for travellers? Always lock down when an air freight crew brings it in?
Or, if you're more of the mindset of starting to reopen once vaccination rates are higher, then what restrictions do you still want to keep? If a kid in a school gets it, do you send every kid in that class into isolation and test them? Do you keep quarantine for travellers? At 15 days, or less? Home isolation? What about vaccinated travellers?
What if it proves difficult to get to 80% or higher vacc rates? Are you ok with on-and-off lockdowns, state border closures going into late 2022?
I'm not looking to incite arguments here, just really trying to build up a picture of what people think is reasonable. And realising of course that this forum is not a representative sample. And because from what I can read online, it seems like there's a whole lot of criticism flying around about the COVID response but also a lack of really well-described visions for what the future over the next 12-36 months should look like.
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That's the only option now. All others have been taken off the table by repeated stupidity and conspiracy theories. Once vaccination rates are high enough that you won't get hospitals overwhelmed with sick patients from COVID, then it's more or less time to open up and just live with the virus as it becomes one of the circulating viruses we'll need to deal with every year. Unfortunately, whatever percentage of the population that doesn't think vaccination works, is required or whatever is just going to have to deal with being the targets of this virus. There is a different responsibility to people who won't take justified precautions when they are readily available vs. people who have no option for protection whatsoever. Possibly that's the most frustrating part, because there are many who even if they want the vaccine cannot get it, but the horse has bolted and we just need to provide the best possible care for them in future.
Until this point, the only option are strong border controls and lockdowns exactly the way Ardern is doing it. Additionally, preparing to deal with these lockdowns repeatedly, because no system can be perfect against a virus this infectious and our immediate neighbour was a complete idiot about it.
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
The awkward part in there is that somewhere there is a line where we as a nation (just thinking about NZ here) say "good enough" for vaccinations, open up and accept that community outbreaks will happen and we will just allow it to spread without any significant reaction. Watching the way delta spreads, there just seems to be zero point in taking a luke-warm "let's isolate this one class-room" approach because by then it's already spread into multiple other clusters. We just need to get to a point where that spreading doesn't lead to lots of deaths.
As everyone who wants a vaccine gets one, we can start shifting our playbook from zero-tolerance towards managed risk.
This is particularly true as treatments come online as effective drugs become more available as the 'pandemic' part of the global catastophy comes under control worldwide.
We will continue to manage the borders, but isolation and restriction will depend on risk profile of the traveller. As the pandemic is controlled worldwide, hopefully travellers will face fewer and fewer barriers over time.
Domestically, the responses will look somewhere between measles and the Flu.
Measles is endemic, and even more virulent, but with a more effective vaccine.
The Flu is endemic, less virulent, and with a less effective vaccine.
With the Flu, we encourage people to get their shots, and stay home if unwell. Measles, we isolate and lockdown clusters and outbreaks in the community.
We will be keep our alert levels, and put restrictions in place to isolate communities when outbreaks are detected, but with lesser frequency. With a highly-vaccinated population and effective treatments, the risk of overloading the health system capacity will be managable, and the chance of severe outcomes reduced.
Some things will probably stay with us indefinitely. Masks when you're unwell, hopefully. Increased use of sick leave should be another.
If we're really lucky, we might find a way of improving vaccine efficacy over time, either by administering additional boosters, mixing and matching delivery methods and timings, or just iterating new and improved versions of the vaccines.
There are trials for vaccinating kids over 18 months, or thereabouts. I'd say once a vaccine is approved for children, and 100% of the population has access to the vaccine, everything can open up. If people refuse the vaccine that's their problem, not society's.
The biggest problem is people who can't get vaccinated, and I don't have any solution for that.
On that note, until the vaccine is available to kids, I don’t think unrestricted travel is an option. And even if we DO get kids vaccinated, that still doesn’t even cover adults with medical conditions that preclude vaccination.
So I actually think NZ’s proposed plan is best - once you hit a certain vax rate, you can do a staged opening, based on the risk of country of origin and vaccination status of the traveler. No quarantine if low risk country + vaccinated + negative test result. At-home quarantine if high-risk country + vaccinated or low-risk country + unvaccinated, maybe varying lengths of stay between those two. Centralized 14-day quarantine if high-risk country + unvaccinated.
I’d be down with that, to be honest. I’m seeing photos of my American and European friends getting to see their families again and it’s making my heart hurt. I really hope we get there soon, but I’ll be damned if I expose my parents or my toddler to any more risk than is absolutely necessary. It’s just shitty that the feasibility of this is based on the actions of a bunch of the silliest fucking geese.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
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If you're meaning the immuno-compromised, and other very limited reasons not to take the vaccine, fully on board.
If you're talking the wilfully ignorant, I'm much less sympathetic. People who choose to not participate in their own safety and the safety of those around them, have always been an issue, and I've lost friends and loved ones to people who have been way too cavalier about that shit (one killed by a drunk driver, at least one killed by second hand smoke).
I'm not for forced vaccination (as in hold them down and poke them), but I am for making their lives way more restrictive without it. No flights (foreign or domestic), increased health insurance/medicare fees, no sporting memberships (harder to enforce on day tickets), allowing employers certain options on termination, leave allowances, required testings, etc.
Again, exemptions from all this for people who have very specific, doctor approved reasons for not getting the jab. But the anti-vaxxer numpties? Nah, fuck 'em. Society requires a certain covenant with your fellow citizens. You don't want to take a fairly simple measure, to ensure the health of your fellows? Then you don't get to participate on an equal footing with them, either. The sovereign citizen shit that's pervading certain aspects of our nations needs to go fuck itself.
Vaccination is not the solution. The disease mutates too much and we're already looking at the potential of Covid mutating enough to avoid current vaccines in the near future. Yearly booster shots? Accepting a certain number of deaths like we did the flu? I don't believe booster shots will be as popular . Some would get them but most won't (eg in NZ in 2020 half a million people were fluvaxed, twice as much as usual. That's not good enough.). And if most won't then we circle back around to accepting deaths. So I think either we accept the deaths or we keep the border locked. My guess is we will choose or be forced into accepting the deaths. But I'd like the border locked and to avoid that.
Edit-a solution that's out of our control: covid mutates into a less deadly variant that pushes out the rest.
Yes specifically I meant immuno-compromised and others who can’t get it for legit reasons.
I do have more sympathy for the wilfully ignorant than you, however. These dumb bastards have fallen victim to demagogues and charlatans, and if the USA’s versions are anything to go by, they have made sure they’re fully vaccinated.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
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It might work as a "solution", but locked borders mean a lot of bad things for a lot of people. Beside a lot of business interests, as well as the fluidity of the rich, and the obvious tourism stuff, there's also issues with agriculture.
I wasn't aware of it until I saw it in a lengthy news report, that apparently a lot of agricultural farmers/harvesters are FIFO. That they work a 3-4 months in the northern hemisphere, take a month off, fly to southern hemisphere, do the same, repeat. So much so, that despite having fairly significant bumper crops this year, the lack of trained and qualified machine operators mean that a good portion of crops may rot. Go local, you say? The only problem with that, is that there's simply not enough work to sustain them year round, they're not needed for basic crop maintenance, just harvest/planting.
There's also issues of a more personal nature. I've got family in the US and some other places around the world. A locked border, or even just a two week quarantine each way, and they're essentially gone from my life in anything but a virtual sense, forever.
If you want to take an absolutist position, then yes. I'm in no way calling for grinding the citizenry under the wheels of capitalism, or arguing against the measures that have been taken so far (I'm Victorian, in my sixth lockdown). But sometimes there needs to be a tradeoff, or are you also in favor of banning cars, boats, planes, swimming, etc.
Do the most we can do to make things safe, attempt to restrict those who flaunt that safety, and try to keep things from spiralling out of control should things take a turn.
Vaccines seem to be doing a significant job of restricting the hospitalizations and deaths in places where vaccination rates have been decent (not enough here in AU). Keeping up masking where possible, especially if numbers increase, and DEFINITELY if you're sick (for whatever reason). Lockdowns when necessary.
But "lock down everything that has the potential to cause harm" zero tolerance is just not a viable option, and definitely not a political one. While the number of "anti vax/mask" numbnuts is small, the number of people that would accept it as a permanent solution would be a blowout against any government that tried to enforce it. People seem to be okay because while it's an extended duration, it's also billed as temporary, and herd vaccination is the end result for a lot of people.
Now, is it feasible to keep out borders completely closed until that happens (maybe 2023 if nothing else goes wrong)? No, of course not.
But there needs to be a balance to keep the population safe and healthy, as is the responsibility of our governments, and still be able to continue with international commerce.
Getting the population as vaccinated as we can before we even think about opening the borders is the minimum.
I think back to Ellis Island, and no it's definitely not a great example, but if you had any indication of illness, you were held at the border, so to speak, until the illness went away. Sometimes you were even held in the country of origin. This was usually for things like ringworm and other visible skin issues.
Managed Isolation is likely going to be a thing for the foreseeable future. Or something similar. And that's ok! It's how it should be.
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MoH have confirmed 3 cases in Wellington, that visited Auckland and went to a location of interest.
I think eventually we're probably going to end up with some kind of "vaccine passport" like in the UK or France, whether at a Federal or State level. But people are going to be super mad if its introduced too soon since they'd basically be saying that the 40+ year-olds who were allowed to get vaccinated months ago can go out in public but the 18-39 year-olds who were just following what was until recently the official advice to wait for Pfizer can't.
Locations of Interest ( please check them!)
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/contact-tracing-covid-19/covid-19-contact-tracing-locations-interest
Also, I'm somewhat happy that after the end of this conference, there is at least something remembering Michael Cullen - he was a massive influence on NZ in the time he was in government.
Yes, and indications that there will be locations of interest added along SH1 between Wellington and Auckland that one might stop at, as well as a domestic flight.
Looking around the world, with Delta and the current vaccines, you appear to need something like 75% of the population vaccinated to be 'R less than 1' if you have a very cautious populace, and probably 85% of the population vaccinated if you have a not cautious populace but strict border controls (IE, testing and vaccination, not closed borders and quarantine)
This is not 'the adult population'. This is not people with 1 dose. This is the entire population, ideally with young people heavily vaccinated. Some counties in the US with numbers in the 75% vaccinated region seem to be dragging it back under control, and that's with an endless flow of idiots going on vacation to Texas and Florida. Some locations aren't, but most of those are places with heavy tourist dependance who can't afford to just tell everyone to piss off if they don't want to get vaccinated and mask inside.
Though, honestly I wouldn't blame New Zealand one bit if they vaccinated 85% of people and then just kept the border closed forever unless people agreed to hotel quarantine. International travel should be rare and occasional, climate crisis will kill us much more dead than covid will.
One good thing is that you will have enough vaccines to do this in less than 6 months. This whole "We don't have doses" thing is a nonsense. World is dosing 38 million people a day, probably producing 45 million a day, and just unable to give them fast enough. Thats enough doses being given for every person on earth to get a dose every 6 months, and 30% of those people will refuse the vaccine unless you forces them.
Yes, of course the vaccine is still important, but it really changes the hassle and cost versus the reward of any system of vaccine passports enabling access to whatever.
I have my yellow fever card with my passport for whenever I go to the airport, and adding my covid vax paper to that isn't a big deal. But if you wanted to implement a system of requiring me to show a vax card every time I entered, for example, a shopping mall, that's a much harder sell. That is, since it looks like the difference it makes to transmission might not be very large. I already have the experience of living in a place where I'd get a pat down or metal detector every time I visited a supermarket. I've been pretty relieved to get away from that tbh.
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There seems to be a big misunderstanding of the data being released which says, "Vaccinated people can be infectious". Vaccinated people are many times less risk than the unvaccinated, and vaccinated people interacting with other vaccinated people is even lower risk. Vaccinated people can have low CT numbers, but they also boost antibodies to neutralizing levels within days rather than weeks, which means they are shedding inactivated virus which cannot replicate.
The vaccine does not ELIMINATE transmission, it never did, its just that Alpha wasn't infectious enough to make that matter. The vaccine reducing transmission is why the R number in Israel is perhaps, 1.25, rather than 6.
That doesn't mean it won't be implemented, of course. Policies are introduced without a full consideration of the evidence pretty much all the time.
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Unfortunately every liberal government in this country will. 100%. They're already talking about it gleefully, with occasional backpedals when they get too excited.
The bad part is our hospitals won’t be able to cope. While hospitalisations are significantly reduced, they’re not eliminated, and our hospitals basically run on a skeleton staff on the best of days.
As soon as cases spike again, we will see how the liberal governments deal with that.
It's the "when you owe the bank a million dollars" problem. Antivaxxer's have become far too numerous.
It increases the absolute benefits. With alpha, the unvaccinated infected people at a rate of X and the vaccinated infected people at a rate of 0.02 X. An absolute benefit of 0.98 X to interacting only with them. With Delta, unvaccinated people infect people at a rate of 2X and vaccinated people at a rate of 0.4 X (60% infection protection, 50% reduced transmission is the most real numbers we see from UK data). An absolute benefit per interaction of 1.6 X to interacting only with them.
And fortunately, vaccine use has close to zero costs, and massive non spread benefits as well which already justify them being mandated.
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No, I'm saying that with Delta the benefits of interacting exclusively with vaccinated people has increased, meaning that vaccine passports and checks are even more critical. Before Delta a vaccinated person could protect an unvaccinated person they lived with, such as a child, by simply handling all interactions for them. They served as a single layer protective shield. With Delta, you need double shielding, which means vaccine mandates and passports.
"There is no virus!"
Fucking hell. We are so screwed.
It'll either be dismissed as a changed cause of death (died of something else), that the government murdered them, or that the government is lying.
I always felt that the whole "crisis actor/false flag" shit was too stupid even for the dumbest Australian. I no longer think that.
My favourite conspiracy is that these people think that Dan Andrews (Vic PM), is orchestrating this so he can have another term. And I'm like, he's fucked at the next election, because too many people are too dumb to see how many lives weren't lost, and instead focus on not liking the lockdowns.
He's just got two choices. Keep as many people alive, or have mass casualties. If the outcome (him getting punted) is the same, only a psychopath would choose the latter.
I'm no Dan stan. I think his ceiling as a PM is mediocrity. But I can't see a LNP PM doing a significantly better job under these circumstances.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778