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What is the Covid-19 Exit Strategy of 'Zero Covid' countries such as Hong Kong?

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Pakenhamtrain

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Meanwhile in South Australia. Adelaide is playing Collingwood. The South Australian Chief Health Officer has this advice for fans attending the game......


The ball which she recommends not to touch ends up in the stands after most goals and most points. So we are talking 20-30 times a game. There is more danger of being falconed by the ball than getting covid off it.

She is dead serious too
 
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Bantamzen

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Meanwhile in South Australia. Adelaide is playing Collingwood. The South Australian Chief Health Officer has this advice for fans attending the game......


The ball which she recommends not to touch ends up in the stands after most goals and most points. So we are talking 20-30 times a game. There is more danger of being falconed by the ball than getting covid off it.

She is dead serious too
I couldn't bring myself to watch that, I'm on a works lappy and don't want to get into trouble by drop kicking it out of the window. But I can see where the problem lies here.

"Mate, that balls coming at your face!"
"But the Chief Nanny says not to handle it......"
<Ball hits nose, breaking it>
"Medic!"

Hmmm, what planet do these people come from, and what colour is the sky?
 

Pakenhamtrain

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I couldn't bring myself to watch that, I'm on a works lappy and don't want to get into trouble by drop kicking it out of the window. But I can see where the problem lies here.

"Mate, that balls coming at your face!"
"But the Chief Nanny says not to handle it......"
<Ball hits nose, breaking it>
"Medic!"

Hmmm, what planet do these people come from, and what colour is the sky?
She is being universally panned about it.

I've made the suggestion they put QR codes on the ball so that they can track who caught it.
 

Bikeman78

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That is something that Britain is about to run up against. Sadly the level of vaccination needed to achieve herd immunity is near impossible.
Why? Previous viruses have faded into the background without a vaccine. The vaccine will simply speed up the process this time.
 

Jonny

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Why? Previous viruses have faded into the background without a vaccine. The vaccine will simply speed up the process this time.

Zero covid requires a higher threshold of herd immunity than just (proverbially) kicking it into touch. It is going to be lurking in the background for a long time.
 

Freightmaster

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Zero covid requires a higher threshold of herd immunity than just (proverbially) kicking it into touch. It is going to be lurking in the background for a long time.
While that's certainly an issue for Australia and New Zealand, the UK (or any other European country
for that matter) is not aiming for Zero Covid (publicly, at least!), so as long as we reach the sort of
vaccination figures achieved by Israel, we should be able to open up fully:




MARK
 

Pakenhamtrain

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You couldn't write TV with twists like this. Some how the delta variant has entered the community. So we are dealing with two separate outbreaks from two non Victorian sources!
 

Freightmaster

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updated BBC article touching on many of the points made in this topic:



The vaccination statistics for both Australia and New Zealand make grim reading,
with only 21% and 12% respectively having received at least one dose compared
with 63% for the UK and an impressive 66% for Canada.

With that in mind, I can't see either country opening their borders fully (i.e. no
testing or quarantine requirement for arriving tourists) until at least 2024! o_O



MARK
 
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island

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NSW has brought face covering rules back in on public transport after one (1) case was traced back to a driver of a crew van taking airline staff between the airport and their sequestered accommodation.
 

Pakenhamtrain

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NSW has brought face covering rules back in on public transport after one (1) case was traced back to a driver of a crew van taking airline staff between the airport and their sequestered accommodation.
And have expanded it to indoors for some Sydney council areas.

updated BBC article touching on many of the points made in this topic:



The vaccination statistics for both Australia and New Zealand make grim reading,
with only 21% and 12% respectively having received at least one dose compared
with 63% for the UK and an impressive 66% for Canada.

With that in mind, I can't see either country opening their borders fully (i.e. no
testing or quarantine requirement for arriving tourists) until at least 2024! o_O



MARK
The Victorian outbreak has given the numbers a shot in the arm but now we have vaccine shortages because the idiots in charge have decided the AZ vaccine should be only used for 60 and above.
 

Yew

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The Victorian outbreak has given the numbers a shot in the arm but now we have vaccine shortages because the idiots in charge have decided the AZ vaccine should be only used for 60 and above.
Just wait until they learn about the side-effects of lockdowns!
 

brad465

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Next up in the sequence of locking down an area due to a local outbreak, Sydney city centre and Bondi Beach:


More than one million people in Sydney's central and eastern suburbs, including Bondi Beach, will be locked down after a jump in Covid cases.

The Australian city is battling to contain an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant.

Officials reported 17 new cases on Friday, taking the cluster to 65 cases.

It is the first lockdown in Australia's largest city since December. The country has consistently maintained very low rates of Covid transmission.

The stay-at-home order will affect the city centre and inner-city suburbs, as well as beachside suburbs in the east.

"We don't want to see this situation linger for weeks. We would like to see this situation end sooner rather than later," New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

But she added that medical experts believed only a targeted lockdown was necessary for now, sparing the wider city from shutting down.

From Saturday, residents as well as people who work in the affected areas will have to stay at home except for essential reasons. The lockdown will be enforced until 2 July.
 

Pakenhamtrain

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Freightmaster

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In stark contrast to Victoria who just shut the joint down. NSW have decided to play with fire.
Meanwhile, England currently has 13,000 cases a day without having to 'shut the joint down'
or impose random snap lockdowns for a dozen cases... o_O

Time will tell which is the best approach, but as it stands I'd rather be up here than down under...





MARK
 

kristiang85

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Meanwhile, England currently has 13,000 cases a day without having to 'shut the joint down'
or impose random snap lockdowns for a dozen cases... o_O

Time will tell which is the best approach, but as it stands I'd rather be up here than down under...





MARK

Indeed. Imagine trying to plan an event far in advance not knowing if the COVID Sword of Damacles will chop you down.. it's probably killing their events industry as much as it is here (but I'm happy to be proven wrong anecdotally, however I certainly know I wouldn't want to be committing to anything in the current climate there).
 

liam456

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Meanwhile, England currently has 13,000 cases a day without having to 'shut the joint down'
or impose random snap lockdowns for a dozen cases... o_O

Time will tell which is the best approach, but as it stands I'd rather be up here than down under...





MARK
Not something to brag about, really.....

More like such snap lockdowns make sense for them but definitely not for us.
 

Bantamzen

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Not something to brag about, really.....

More like such snap lockdowns make sense for them but definitely not for us.
You are missing the point. It's not about bragging rights, its about coming to terms with the fact that the virus is here to stay. Those politicians down under have convinced themselves that they can "beat" the virus, and they are now in a potentially never ending cycle of lockdowns to try to prove that they are right. But it doesn't matter how many people have the virus any more than it matters how many people have the flu or a cold. What matters is the effect on the health services as a result. Worse still, those politicians are actually causing people down under to not have vaccinations because they believe because of lockdowns that the vaccine is riskier than the virus.

This is the whole point of this thread, that is do these countries have an exit strategy. And the answer is a resounding no.
 

liam456

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What I mean is that snap lockdowns, as disruptive as they are to many businesses and people in general, would be much more effective in somewhere like Australia and NZ than our useless endeavours last autumn.

I'm guessing such an approach is still popular down there as it keeps happening.

I will agree that the only way out is vaccination, not a permanent hermit state, but in the interim these quick measures seem to work for them given the extremely low prevalence.

I add that I agree this wouldn't work here, and that I hate the masters of hindsight and nothing else who say "if only the lockdown was earlier, it could have been ........."
 

Bantamzen

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What I mean is that snap lockdowns, as disruptive as they are to many businesses and people in general, would be much more effective in somewhere like Australia and NZ than our useless endeavours last autumn.

I'm guessing such an approach is still popular down there as it keeps happening.

I will agree that the only way out is vaccination, not a permanent hermit state, but in the interim these quick measures seem to work for them given the extremely low prevalence.

I add that I agree this wouldn't work here, and that I hate the masters of hindsight and nothing else who say "if only the lockdown was earlier, it could have been ........."
And my point is that snap lockdowns become a norm, not a way out. There are lots of reports that because of the constant snap lockdowns are making some Australians more concerned about the tiny risk associated with the vaccines than the virus itself. This is not a good position to be in.

As for lockdowns being "popular", well just remember they are not voted for, they are imposed by politicians trying to prove they can "beat" the virus. Sadly history is not in their favour.
 

liam456

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Do most Australians know that without vaccination these lockdowns will continue to repeat themselves? Or that they're not going anywhere other than NZ to travel until vaccination occurs?

While we argue back and forth about the popularity of lockdowns, the problem is that we can't vote for or against them thanks to the use of the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 rather than the Civil Contingencies Act 2003(?) Like you say, the best we can hope for is that history will show that they were wrong.
 

Bantamzen

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Do most Australians know that without vaccination these lockdowns will continue to repeat themselves? Or that they're not going anywhere other than NZ to travel until vaccination occurs?
They probably do, but for whatever reason are still more frightened by the small possibility of blood clots than getting the virus. They have their respective governments to thank for for this.

While we argue back and forth about the popularity of lockdowns, the problem is that we can't vote for or against them thanks to the use of the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 rather than the Civil Contingencies Act 2003(?) Like you say, the best we can hope for is that history will show that they were wrong.
We can't vote for lockdowns, but we can say no by our actions.
 

brad465

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In stark contrast to Victoria who just shut the joint down. NSW have decided to play with fire.
NSW have now decided to both extend the lockdown to the whole city and some surrounding areas, and doubled its length to 2 weeks:


The Australian city of Sydney has gone into a two-week lockdown after a rise in the number of coronavirus cases.

More than one million people in central and eastern suburbs were already under restrictions imposed on Friday following a jump in cases.

The lockdown now covers the whole city and some surrounding areas, and is extended from one week to two.

More than 80 cases of the highly infectious Delta variant were confirmed in the city in recent days.

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said stay-at-home orders would be in place until 9 July for all of Greater Sydney - with a population of about five million - and the surrounding regions of Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Wollongong.
"When you have a contagious variant, like the Delta virus, a three-day lockdown doesn't work - if we're going to do this we need to do it properly," she said.

"We do need to brace ourselves for a potentially large number of cases in the following days."
 

VauxhallandI

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They probably do, but for whatever reason are still more frightened by the small possibility of blood clots than getting the virus. They have their respective governments to thank for for this.


We can't vote for lockdowns, but we can say no by our actions.
Maybe they’ve witnessed that when you do have the jab then the goal posts are just moved again
 

Pakenhamtrain

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They probably do, but for whatever reason are still more frightened by the small possibility of blood clots than getting the virus. They have their respective governments to thank for for this.
The awful messaging from the government along with being the victims of our own success are to blame for that.

And now tonight Perth are joining the lock down party with thier own 4 day lock down.
 
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nedchester

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The awful messaging from the government along with being the victims of our own success are to blame for that.

And now tonight Perth are joining the lock down party with thier own 4 day lock down.
Suspect people in Australia and New Zealand are thinking it's like the 'Zombie Apocalypse' with bodies piling up in the streets with 22000 infections?!
 
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Bantamzen

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The awful messaging from the government along with being the victims of our own success are to blame for that.

And now tonight Perth are joining the lock down party with thier own 4 day lock down.

I recently replied to a well known professor of anthropology in this country who had been re-Tweeted by a SAGE member, saying that Australia had got it right because they were back to normal. I obviously pointed out that the were in a constant state of on/off lockdowns, which is anything but normal. They didn't respond, can't think why.
 

brad465

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Turns out now almost half the Australian population is back under some form of lockdown:


Seven Australian cities are now in lockdown as authorities scramble to prevent the spread of the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant.

Officials reported a slight case rise on Wednesday, to more than 200 cases.

Nearly half the population - more than 12 million people - are under stay-at-home orders in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Darwin, Townsville and the Gold Coast.

On Wednesday, the outback town of Alice Springs also entered a snap lockdown after cases emerged in South Australia.

Authorities fear the virus could now spread to nearby Aboriginal communities which are already vulnerable.

Across the country on Wednesday, state leaders said they were facing a "pressure cooker situation" as new cases emerged.

Many leaders have urged faster vaccinations as just 5% of the population is fully vaccinated.

But messaging around the country's main vaccine, the AstraZeneca jab, has been contradictory.

This certainly doesn't scream "back to normal" down under, even if just before this latest round of snap lockdowns was somehow normal life.
 

LAX54

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Turns out now almost half the Australian population is back under some form of lockdown:




This certainly doesn't scream "back to normal" down under, even if just before this latest round of snap lockdowns was somehow normal life.
Yet they had the strictest, and still do, of all the border controls in the world 'to keep the virus out', numbers maybe be lower, but I feel it will drag on and on over there.
 

Simon11

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Yet they had the strictest, and still do, of all the border controls in the world 'to keep the virus out', numbers maybe be lower, but I feel it will drag on and on over there.
With 200 cases over there (I would assume that actual cases are far higher), hardly any full vaccination of the adult population and hardly any immunity in the population from previous infections, I can't see the government being able to prevent the spread of infections now and have lost control.

I can see the country locking down for several months to bring it back under control and give a big push on vaccination. Australia looks like the position that the UK was in around winter 2020.
 
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