Covid 19 -

[russellw]

Some other countries we don't watch closely who have been in trouble the last couple of weeks.

Botswana - they only report intermittently but they have had a 53% increase in total cases during July from just under 70k to over 106k.

Burundi - also only report intermittently but they have had a 30% increase in total cases during July from 5.5k to over 7k.

The Channel Islands - they have had a 108% increase in total cases during July from 4.3k to over 9k.

Eswatini - also only report intermittently but they have had a 33% increase in total cases during July from 19k to over 25k.

Fiji - they have had a 550% increase in total cases during July from 4.4k to 28.6k.

Indonesia - they have had a 54.8% increase in total cases during July from 2.17M to 3.37M.

The Isle of Man - they have had a 189% increase in total cases during July from 3k to over 4.5k.

Kazakhstan - they have had a 33.5% increase in total cases during July from 423k to over 565k.

Laos - they have had a 179% increase in total cases during July from just over 2k to just under 6k.

Malawi - they have had a 43.4% increase in total cases during July from just over 36k to just under 52k.

Malaysia - they have had a 45.7% increase in total cases during July from just under 752k to just under 1.1M.

Mauritius - also only report intermittently but they have had a 106.8% increase in total cases during July from 1.9k to over 3.9k.

Mongolia - they have had a 41.04% increase in total cases during July from just over 115k to just under 163k.

Mozambique - they have had a 56.99% increase in total cases during July from just over 76k to just under 120k.

Myanmar - they have had a 87.22% increase in total cases during July from just over 157k to just over 294k.

Rwanda - they have had a 78.86% increase in total cases during July from just over 39k to just over 69k.

Senegal - they have had a 41.99% increase in total cases during July from just over 43k to just over 61k.

Tanzania - they have had a 99.98% increase in total cases during July from just over 500 to just over 1k - most of that in the last week.

Thailand - they have had a 123% increase in total cases during July from just over 259k to just over 578k.

Vietnam - they have had a 712% increase in total cases during July from just under 17k to just over 137k.

Zimbabwe - they have had a 115.5% increase in total cases during July from just under 50k to just over 107k.

[Bossxr8]

Are there people out there who seriously think a high level of vaccination is our way out of this?

We are stuck with it forever. Vaxxed or not. It's never going to go away if even vaxxed people can still easily spread it.

[Yellow_Festiva]

G'day Rus, Mongolia twice in your stat's there??

Thanks for the updates.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

[Metdevil]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Are there people out there who seriously think a high level of vaccination is our way out of this?

We are stuck with it forever. Vaxxed or not. It's never going to go away if even vaxxed people can still easily spread it.

Realistically, we don't know what our way out of this is. We haven't seen anything like this for 100 years.

Ideally, we'd like our way out of this to be the one which results in the least loss of life and least impact on day-to-day life, but since nobody wanted to break transmission of the virus in a timely fashion, this is the next best thing.
Failing this - which it looks like we will considering the new breed of anti-vaxxers - our next option is likely to just live with a highly infectious respiratory disease-causing virus.

Really is a shame that people had resigned to that from day one making it too late to try our other 'ways out of this'.

I guess there's always on-and-off-again lockdowns for the rest of our lives... That sounds like fun...

[T3rminator]

Has there been any reports on people catching multiple variants? If you caught Alpha, and recovered, can you still catch Delta? And if you can, are any of these people getting severe symptoms?

Originally Posted by Metdevil

......
I guess there's always on-and-off-again lockdowns for the rest of our lives... That sounds like fun...

Given the disease has infiltrated the "1st worlds", and the rich are just as likely to catch it as the poor, I have faith that a solution will be found. Vaccines will improve over time, and it'll be treated just like the flu.

[Trendseeker]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Are there people out there who seriously think a high level of vaccination is our way out of this?

We are stuck with it forever. Vaxxed or not. It's never going to go away if even vaxxed people can still easily spread it.

Here is an article from the UK about the end of their lockdown and the outlook ahead based on the experiences from a previous pandemic.

Vaccines accelerating the UK's route to herd immunity.

"Doctors and nurses were among the first to be struck down by the virus. The prime minister was incapacitated for weeks, parliament was closed, education was disrupted. In the darkest days of the crisis, Norwood Cemetery in south London held 200 funerals a day.

This was Britain during a pandemic. The year was not 2020, though, but 1890, and the disease was not Covid-19 but Russian flu. It tore around the world, killing 125,000 people in the UK and one million globally.

The similarities between that pandemic and today’s are uncanny. Symptoms reported by doctors 130 years ago included dry coughing, a sudden fever and, for many, a lost sense of smell. Some survivors were struck by a lingering depression and lack of energy that left them debilitated for months. The saving grace of the virus was that children were affected much less than adults.

Many virologists now believe that the 1890 outbreak was caused not by flu at all, but rather by a coronavirus that jumped from cows to humans, in much the same way that Sars-Cov-2 is believed to have leapt from bats to humans.

So what can we learn from that crisis? When was the so-called Russian “flu” eradicated? And above all, what does it tell us about when the current pandemic will end?

Nearly a week after the July 19 “freedom day” marked the end of the UK lockdown, the Covid crisis feels far from over. Nearly 50,000 coronavirus cases are being recorded each day and daily hospital admissions are up to 800. The threat of the NHS becoming overwhelmed and restrictions being reimposed hangs over us like a cloud. The “pingdemic” continues to wreak havoc, with many families keeping their children at home for the last week of term, afraid not of infection but of having to spend the first days of the school holidays in isolation. The UK is deep into the third wave of the crisis.

The virus that first struck Britain in 1890 also hit the country in waves. Four big surges swept across the nation until 1894, with further sporadic outbreaks until 1900, when the pandemic fizzled out.

But the virus never disappeared. In fact, there is some evidence it may still be among us, passed from person to person as a key cause of winter sniffles. A Belgian study published in 2005 suggested the Russian outbreak may have been caused by what is now known as OC43, one of four coronaviruses that between them cause 20 per cent of common colds in the UK.

Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia, believes Sars-Cov-2 will follow a similar trajectory and eventually become endemic, a seasonal virus that circulates every winter but does not cause serious problems. “The virus is here for the long term,” he said. “Our grandchildren’s grandchildren are going to get Covid. But for them it won’t be a big deal.”

The question, of course, is how long will that process take? That our distant descendants will no longer be affected by the pandemic is faintly reassuring, but how much more of this upheaval will we have to endure ourselves?

Few experts are willing to gaze into the crystal ball and give a definitive answer — Covid-19 has surprised us too many times — but Hunter believes the process is already under way, driven by the vaccines. “The symptom profile of cases is now changing, resembling less the Covid disease of last year and looking more like a common cold,” he said.

Dr Julian Tang, clinical virologist at the University of Leicester, guesses that it will take three to five years for Covid-19 to become fully endemic in the UK, but stresses we will not be truly safe for the five to ten years it takes to complete global vaccination. David Matthews, professor of virology at Bristol, is slightly more optimistic. “It will take several years to reach an endemic state, but I would say that once this wave is done, that’s probably the worst of it.”

Francois Balloux, director of the University College London Genetics Institute, has an even more hopeful outlook. “If you were extremely optimistic, and not afraid of hurting people’s feelings, you could say the pandemic is already borderline over. If we use a criteria that says if it is not causing more morbidity and mortality than any other virus in circulation, then I will be surprised if it were still the most deadly virus in circulation by next spring.”

That, as Balloux admits, is a controversial view. Many doctors have raised the alarm about the danger of Britain’s “great gamble”. But the key to virologists’ optimism is the idea of immunity. The coronavirus that sprang out of Wuhan last year was so dangerous because it was new. The human immune system had no way to fight it off.

For the majority of the British population, however, that is no longer the case. In the 1890s it took four years for enough people in the UK to become infected for immunity to reach significant levels, and then another five years of sporadic outbreaks until the virus settled into an endemic pattern. This time that process has been artificially accelerated by vaccines. About 88 per cent of adults in the UK have now received a vaccine and 69 per cent have had two doses. Add to that the many young people who have been exposed via natural infection and there is a very high level of immunity in the UK.

Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, describes this as a “wall” of protection. In reality it is more like a net. Immunity wanes and the virus mutates. The jabs are better than anyone ever dared to hope, but they do not stop all infections.

Nearly 29,000 people in England have tested positive after receiving two vaccines but the vast majority suffered only mild symptoms: just 1,656 of those who have been double-jabbed required a hospital visit, of whom only 843 required an overnight stay.

The vaccine net is doing its job — some cases are slipping through but most severe cases are prevented. The number who have died after receiving both vaccines is extremely low: 224 in England, of whom only four have been aged under 50.

So if the vaccines are working and deaths are down, is the UK approaching herd immunity? In a sense, yes. But this is not the herd immunity that became so toxic last year when the UK government considered letting the virus rip through the population, putting millions at risk of death. The herd immunity we are approaching has been achieved in a much safer way, using vaccination rather than mass exposure.

The consequence of herd immunity is also different to that envisaged last year. “It’s not a case of, ‘We reach herd immunity and the virus will just go away’,” Matthews said. “There is no avoiding this virus now.” The aim, he said, is “a kind of truce. We will all catch it, several times. But because you’ve been vaccinated or you’ve had it before, you won’t die.”

Even if that is the long-term prospect, the coming winter poses a major hurdle. A group of British virologists last week wrote to the Financial Times warning that the relaxation of lockdown measures was “potentially a recipe for disaster”, placing pressure on the NHS and providing the “ideal setting” for the evolution of new Covid variants.

Tang, who signed the letter, said two or three more months of restrictions, to keep case rates suppressed and push vaccination levels higher, would help the NHS survive the winter. As schools reopen in the autumn, cold weather sets in and people start socialising indoors without masks or restrictions, the cases that break through the vaccination net are likely to rise. “What the UK needs is an Indian summer that lasts until October,” Tang said. “That might stop everyone socialising indoors.”

Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, believes the risk is overstated. He thinks many of the hospitalisations being reported as Covid-related are incidental. Patients are brought in for other reasons but happen to have asymptomatic coronavirus. “There are two types of hospital admission,” he said. “There’s one with Covid and one because of Covid. As you see community cases rise, both types are going to inflate.”

Ball believes the UK government was right to lift restrictions. “The vaccines are doing what we asked them to do, the vulnerable have all been given two doses.” But vaccine uptake has now slowed to a trickle, with three million young adults yet to take up their offer. “There’s some messaging to be done there, but are we going to hold off while we try to persuade them?” Ball said.

In many ways, the country has reached the limits of what it can do to control the virus. Unless the government decides to inoculate under-18s — which its scientific advisers last week cautioned against — vaccination levels are very close to reaching their maximum.

Hunter also backs the lifting of restrictions and believes continuing to lock down could do more harm than good. He also believes the time has come to end the “pingdemic”, by bringing forward the date at which vaccinated Covid contacts are spared from self-isolating (currently August 16). “The requirement to quarantine after being pinged because you are a casual contact has little if any value in controlling the epidemic,” he said.

Ball puts it differently. “Perhaps August 16 is when the pandemic ends in the UK,” he said. Now vaccination has ended the risk of severe disease for most, the biggest fear for many is having to spend ten days in isolation.

Once again, the parallels with 1890 are apt. According to a 1995 history of Britain’s Russian flu outbreak, published in the Social History of Medicine journal, the crisis “touched most sufferers lightly, but it nonetheless cast thousands into an indeterminate, threatening situation”.

The Covid pandemic has undoubtedly been tragic. Yet for those who have not been struck down or bereaved, the biggest impact has been the chaos, the uncertainty, the indeterminate threat.

Perhaps August 16 will end up being true freedom day in the UK.

[lumen8]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Are there people out there who seriously think a high level of vaccination is our way out of this?

We are stuck with it forever. Vaxxed or not. It's never going to go away if even vaxxed people can still easily spread it.

Now we are told borders might open at 70 percent of adult pop vaxd. One think tank says 80.

Not many places have hit above 70, but yet a number of countries that are around 50 percent have opened their borders, albeit with caveats such as a negative test to enter countries and move about.

I guess we dont get to vote on this one, govco here has decided thats whats best for us. Opinions remain very divided when I chat to folks in the real world... a referendum on the issue would be interesting.

It is one thing when a politician says "Australian people want X" .. and then the media runs with that.. its another thing actually asking everyone.

The politician saying "Australian people want X" might just be saying what he/she wants, in order to convince everyone else that is what people want.

[DoubleTrouble]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Are there people out there who seriously think a high level of vaccination is our way out of this?

We are stuck with it forever. Vaxxed or not. It's never going to go away if even vaxxed people can still easily spread it.

In my humble opinion to your question is "Yes", I do agree Covid is not going to go away but mass vaccination will see us returning to most normality of life as we know of.
Vaccination is only enhancing your immune system to fight the virus. Maybe one day they will find a better cure for this.

[tweeked]

Originally Posted by Metdevil

Realistically, we don't know what our way out of this is. We haven't seen anything like this for 100 years.

Ideally, we'd like our way out of this to be the one which results in the least loss of life and least impact on day-to-day life, but since nobody wanted to break transmission of the virus in a timely fashion, this is the next best thing.
Failing this - which it looks like we will considering the new breed of anti-vaxxers - our next option is likely to just live with a highly infectious respiratory disease-causing virus.

Really is a shame that people had resigned to that from day one making it too late to try our other 'ways out of this'.

I guess there's always on-and-off-again lockdowns for the rest of our lives... That sounds like fun...

Are you saying that washing hands and staying 1.5 apart ever had a chance of curtailing this? Remembering that the medical fraternity told us masks were of no use for the first period.

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Are there people out there who seriously think a high level of vaccination is our way out of this?

We are stuck with it forever. Vaxxed or not. It's never going to go away if even vaxxed people can still easily spread it.

Fully vaxxed is the only way (those who medically can have it of course - but I am including those few individuals who think they become super human if they only eat organic food)

Turning the effect of this into the same as the common cold or flu will allow us to live a nearly normal life. Once people lose someone they know they will change their mind about vaccination. We have been so sheltered here in comparison to the rest of the world we have the luxury of thinking we have a choice.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by lumen8

Now we are told borders might open at 70 percent of adult pop vaxd. One think tank says 80.

Not many places have hit above 70, but yet a number of countries that are around 50 percent have opened their borders, albeit with caveats such as a negative test to enter countries and move about.

I guess we dont get to vote on this one, govco here has decided thats whats best for us. Opinions remain very divided when I chat to folks in the real world... a referendum on the issue would be interesting.

It is one thing when a politician says "Australian people want X" .. and then the media runs with that.. its another thing actually asking everyone.

The politician saying "Australian people want X" might just be saying what he/she wants, in order to convince everyone else that is what people want.

I like the idea of a referendum, but how would you do it? Everyone put in a number?

You can bet your bottom dollar it will get tweaked.....because that is what pollies do. Unless some sort of miracle happens and we get 70% before end of the year, there is no way the people would stand for harsh restrictions, like what we are seeing now, continuing if say we hit 50%.

There might be a Phase A 1.5 where vaxed people can have extra privileges. We can restore the hotel quarantine caps to previous levels once those purpose built facilities are up and running, which will probably be before 70% vax.

[lumen8]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

I like the idea of a referendum, but how would you do it? Everyone put in a number?

You can bet your bottom dollar it will get tweaked.....because that is what pollies do.

Agree on the rhetorical question first bit.. something to ponder.. and tweaked 2nd bit.

Originally Posted by T3rminator

Unless some sort of miracle happens and we get 70% before end of the year, there is no way the people would stand for harsh restrictions, like what we are seeing now, continuing if say we hit 50%.

There might be a Phase A 1.5 where vaxed people can have extra privileges. We can restore the hotel quarantine caps to previous levels once those purpose built facilities are up and running, which will probably be before 70% vax.

70 percent might take a long time, if it happens.. and by the time the rate does get higher (lets say 60 percent or more) I am thinking the booster shots will be required to meet current compliance and the cycle starts all over again with only few people boosted and having to get the booster numbers up, which is like starting over.

Perhaps im being cynical... I guess time will tell. Less of a problem for those without the want/need to go abroad, so again opinion will be quite divided on this.

[CoupeKing]

[slowsnake]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Are there people out there who seriously think a high level of vaccination is our way out of this?

We are stuck with it forever. Vaxxed or not. It's never going to go away if even vaxxed people can still easily spread it.

Have to agree 100%...its just a continuation of the SARS virus, we dident listen then and now we pay, we listened to the wrong people then who said "oh it's nothing" don't worry it will go away..la de da de da, well it dident go away per se, it changed its cloak, blended in to the background.

It will and can do it again and again, it just mutates into another strain


Cheers Billy

[T3rminator]

They set a trap that no one fell for? How does the entrapment rule apply in this instance?


Sydney anti-lockdown protest fears ease after no-one turns up
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-...test/100339936

By 1:00pm, the ABC had been unable to identify a single demonstrator at several central locations.

Sydney lockdown protesters warn Saturday rallies are ‘a police trap’
https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw...2dcb6c12db2ed6

One group of anti-lockdown organisers, who NCA NewsWire has chosen not to name, said no known organiser groups were operating any protest events on Saturday.

“We strongly advise against attending any protest events that claim to be operating,” the group said.

“Any planned event lacks an established ground team, and has been given insufficient promotional time and effort.

“Events claimed to be operated were fabricated from crudely edited versions of the poster used for the World Wide Rally for Freedom in Sydney, without the permission of the event’s organisers.

[lumen8]

Looks like next real one is in August.

I guess NSW police have had a training run now, lets see how it works when a few thousand people are actually there.

[slowsnake]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

They set a trap that no one fell for? How does the entrapment rule apply in this instance?


Sydney anti-lockdown protest fears ease after no-one turns up
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-...test/100339936



Sydney lockdown protesters warn Saturday rallies are ‘a police trap’
https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw...2dcb6c12db2ed6

It's most definitely the dreaded " Clayton's " trap, a dastardly act that fools people into thinking something that they dident want to think, a sly clever ruse to mask the real agenda!


Cheers BBBBB

[Metdevil]

Originally Posted by tweeked

Are you saying that washing hands and staying 1.5 apart ever had a chance of curtailing this? Remembering that the medical fraternity told us masks were of no use for the first period.

Yes.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...article/208354

[CyberWasp]

Out of curiosity, is there a blood test you can have to see if you have Covid Antibodies?
ie to see if you have had Covid and not even known about it?

[lumen8]

Originally Posted by CyberWasp

Out of curiosity, is there a blood test you can have to see if you have Covid Antibodies?
ie to see if you have had Covid and not even known about it?

There must be a way, as it is one of the three things that will get you a pass with the EU 'vaccine' passport....

Negative test, vaccinated, or proof of recovery from covid.

So I would go down that road of research and see what they are doing in the EU.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by CyberWasp

Out of curiosity, is there a blood test you can have to see if you have Covid Antibodies?
ie to see if you have had Covid and not even known about it?

Yes. Some countries are digging into previous unexplained deaths that now look like covid, and analysing their blood samples.

Old but still relevant...
https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news...covid-19-cases

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

They set a trap that no one fell for? How does the entrapment rule apply in this instance?

There are no entrapment laws in Oz.

[DoubleTrouble]

Originally Posted by CyberWasp

Out of curiosity, is there a blood test you can have to see if you have Covid Antibodies?
ie to see if you have had Covid and not even known about it?

There is but they won't do it; my daughter asked for one when here family came down with Covid. She was the only member who constantly tested negative and apparently they too busy doing normal Covid tests to do other types of tests.

[Citroënbender]

Been wondering after my evening shop, whether some grocery items are opportunistically priced up due to Covid.

Walked out $84 poorer; some items that seemed to have crept higher were beans/ground coffee - nothing under $20/kg, packing tape at $7 for 150m total, Lebanese cucumbers at $11.90/kg…

[russellw]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

G'day Rus, Mongolia twice in your stat's there??

Thanks for the updates.

Fixed.

Originally Posted by DoubleTrouble

There is but they won't do it; my daughter asked for one when here family came down with Covid. She was the only member who constantly tested negative and apparently they too busy doing normal Covid tests to do other types of tests.

A number of private clinics are offering them as I mentioned a few pages back - especially for those who need them in order to travel.

[Fordman1]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Been wondering after my evening shop, whether some grocery items are opportunistically priced up due to Covid.

Walked out $84 poorer; some items that seemed to have crept higher were beans/ground coffee - nothing under $20/kg, packing tape at $7 for 150m total, Lebanese cucumbers at $11.90/kg…

First world problems ?

[Citroënbender]

In a way, probably.

[FPV8U]

Originally Posted by russellw

A number of private clinics are offering them as I mentioned a few pages back - especially for those who need them in order to travel.

I had a look and couldn’t find anything relating to Antibody testing, only a breakdown of PCR testing costs back on the 20/07.

Can you point me in the right direction Russ?

As a regular blood donor I’d happily pay a service fee to have my donation screened for Covid Antibodies and a general report on health markers, would help provide excellent community data from all pockets of the country aswell.

[Charliewool]

Originally Posted by russellw

Fixed.



A number of private clinics are offering them as I mentioned a few pages back - especially for those who need them in order to travel.

I went down this track late last year…
Right on xmas December 2019 (before Covid officially became a thing) I spent a day and night in Cortez hospital with severe breathing difficulties, terrible aches & pains and nausea…
Coincidentally, we also had 6 Italian renters staying here at the time (they’d flown in from Italy a week before Xmas)
Numerous tests, chest Xray etc…
Doctors suggested severe chest infection… Was on oxygen and antibiotic drip for 24hrs.
So, late last year during an unrelated visit to GP I asked could they test to determine if I’d had covid…
His response was antibodies only detectable for 3-6 month’s after infection, so waste of time testing a year later…
How reliable this information is, I have no idea?

[PhilT2]

So if the antibodies are gone after six months then has immunity gone too.

[Citroënbender]

The rather flexible Sydney restrictions saw people working at the house build next to me, yesterday, and down the street on Friday. It’s interesting the government hasn’t offered a quick LGA query on vehicle registrations so you can see where people’s cars are perhaps coming from - or even just a flag/no flag result.

I absolutely believe this dictat on movement with respect to extra-restricted LGAs will be the most frequently tested by people; sheer weight of numbers would suggest that most could get away with it.