I'm saying yes to "is there a spike in cases", which is true that there is, and I suspect it is because the data is showing the vaccine is not very effective against the delta variant.
While I don't know the specifics for Australia because I am not Australian, I can say that I've seen news articles that say "unnamed Biden officials have said the Axios report is a wake up call, because the Pfizer vaccine efficacy rate against the delta virus is 42%" in a population of 35,000 individuals, many of whom are over 60.
While the vaccine may prevent the severity of the illness, it is having a hard time preventing the spread of the illness.
We are battling a new wave of the Delta variant, as to why these measures are being brought in now it's because of two reasons:
1) NSW vaccination rates are very low. As of today only 19.6% of citizens are fully vaccinated and 37.4% are partially vaccinated. This is in part because our PM didn't secure a large enough supply of the Pfizer vaccine, and the government then sent very mixed messages about Astra Zeneca vaccine that led to a lot of people waiting for more pfizer doses.
2) The NSW government failed to take strong enough steps early in the delta outbreak to prevent this long protracted lockdown. Instead of going through a short sharp few weeks of lockdown, we are now in the 6th week of lockdown and cases have continued to rise. It seems likely at this point until we will remain in lockdown until the 80% vaccination rate is reached in late november.
TL:DR, both Federal and State governments made poor decisions, and now they're rushing to stem the outbreak as it continues to worsen in the face of their half measures.
yes cases are surging and vaccination rate in Australia is low but even with higher rates the country wouldn't be as laissez-faire, Australia has a markedly lower tolerance for the disease. Successfully one might add given that the country has only registered 900 deaths during the entire pandemic.
The Australian federal government didn't order enough vaccines or a wide variety. They were overly dependent on locally manufactured AZ then their health advisory group recommended most of the population not take AZ. And the only other vaccine they had approved was Pfizer and they didn't order enough.
Most of the states have kept covid cases hovering around zero so vaccination availability hasn't been a huge issue. Fortress Australia could hold out for years if needed. Until the NSW state government unilaterally decided not to take an outbreak seriously.
The Government acted reasonable well and was lucky (discounting Victoria) early in the pandemic which led to the government/public/business getting complacent.
Now that the circulating strain is more virulent and such a low percentage of the population is unvaccinated Australia is now in a more perilous position than it was than last year.
Yes there's a surge, the Delta strain at that. Not many are vaccinated because our federal govt. messed up securing enough vaccines, and so there isn't enough for everybody. You know how to pull some strings if you really want the vaccine and aren't within the groups they are curreny allowing to get the vaccine. The Pfizer vs Astrazenica debate is basically still ongoing in the general public as well.
I've noticed a rise of people unashamedly being anti-mask. I've also noticed an uptick of people pushing that vaccines aren't the solution/too risky/too early.
Well, this is actually more like the second world than the third, by the original meaning; Soviet-block countries were the ones which had rigid population-movement controls, checked their citizens for papers on the street, and arrested anyone who disagreed openly. Third-world countries were poor but didn't have enough government to be so authoritarian.
> Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that
> Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
>Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
> Australia has now violated each and every clause of this universal human right and seemingly without much debate or objection. It is deeply troubling to see people prevented from leaving or entering their own country and soldiers in the street making sure people do not travel beyond a perimeter surrounding their homes. The costs of lockdown are very high and thus so is any delay in ending these unprecedented infringements on liberty.
Alex Tabarrok should maybe consider that in contrast to some other countries which have seen deaths comparable to the second world war Australia has largely been covid free.
Australia has made a number of their citizens stateless recently, cancelling their citizenships without trial in violation of UN conventions on statelessness.
Among the developed western nations of the world, USA is a bottom-rung country when it comes to human rights, what with assassinating their own citizens in the middle east, torturing prisoners and keeping them locked up for decades without trial, not to mention all the abuses on the domestic front. Australia is one rung above USA.
Neil Prakash is one I'm familiar with, but there've been many others who've had their citizenships cancelled.
Prakash was born in Australia, radicalised in Australia, and became a terrorist in Australia. He went off to the Middle East and did bad shit.
Australia wanted to wash their hands of the hurt they'd unleashed on the world, so they claimed that he was a (dual) citizen of Fiji, and they cancelled his Australian citizenship.
Prakash's Aussie father was Fiji-born and may (this isn't clear) have still been a Fiji citizen at the time he fathered Prakash in Australia. However, Fiji does not automatically grant citizenship to children of Fijians born overseas. Their parents need to apply for their citizenship, and Prakash's father never did this because of course he had left Fiji and made Australia his home.
So Prakash was not born in Fiji, never gained Fiji citizenship, and has never stepped foot in Fiji.
> Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 29:
> In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
When there's a conflict between your rights and my rights, like "I want to travel freely, and you want to not die", we wind up having to navigate that.
Maybe the people who want absolute safety can stay in their homes, & whatever tiny perimeter of limited interactions can guarantee their safety, while those who accept some risks still have the human right of travel? Just a thought.
COVID isn't caused by travel itself – especially among populations where there's little or none – but by close shared-air contact with current cases. Maybe those who travel can wear a bright vest, so those who want to trade that freedom for safety can just stay at a safe distance from danger, not shorn of all movement rights?
This reminds me of the Bayesian thought experiment of "how many people do you have to mildly inconvenience to be equivalent to one murder?"
I don't understand the logic of putting fully vaccinated, mask-wearing people into house arrest. I suspect deaths of despair will offset the breakthrough covid deaths.
I think the counter argument to this is breakthrough cases and vaccine accessibility.
The lockdowns also allow for less movement which makes the contact tracing more effective. The reduction in movement also makes it possible to enforce laws on those who wouldn’t otherwise comply willingly.
Australia has had very, very few deaths from COVID -- or even cases -- compared to most of the "Western" world.
In Sydney, a city of over 5 million, the current lockdown laws were implemented when there were up to ~90 cases per day. The goal, for most Australian states, has been complete elimination of COVID. In Melbourne, we went back into lockdown because of 10 positive test results in a single day. The other states of Australia are largely all "fully open" with no restrictions (including any kind of mask mandate) because there are zero cases in the cities. Australia's method to date has been to lock down hard and re-open after elimination... until COVID sneaks back in on a plane or some such.
The restrictions look something like: A full indoor mask mandate, non-essential retail stores are closed: Grocery, fast food & convenience (to go only), alcohol, & hardware are open, restaurants and bars are closed, visits to homes other than your own are disallowed (with the exception of your "intimate partner", if they live within 5 kilometers), and you may meet with no more than 1 other person outdoors for the purpose of exercise only.
In some LGAs (Local Government Area, kinda like a county?) you must have a permit to leave your LGA for any reason including work.
Vaccination rates are low, not because of an unwilling populace but because the federal government failed to source enough vaccines.
Compliance with lockdown rules has been pretty decent, to date, but it's looking like it's going to continue along like this until probably December, at this stage.
I respect that, but you can't get rid of it without a complete and utter total shutdown of people coming in. Probably easier for Australia than most.
USA has a lot of really uneducated and/or ignorant people, but even without it, global travel would keep pounding us with it. I imagine Australia would have a similar issue.
New Zealand had a managed isolation quarantine (MIQ) program. From plane landing to hotel is carefully manages, as is time in hotel, with tests throughout the stay looking for Covid. 14 days later, assuming your tests are negative, you're released into a country without Covid.
It is possible to have a flow of people, but it's dependant upon a supply of MIQ facilities and trained staff (NZ Defense Force oversees MIQ here). We'll be trialling some "isolate at home if you're from a country with low Covid" lightweight alternatives in the coming months, but there will still be the retirement to isolate.
Australia doesn't have the same issue as other non-island countries, and in fact has some advantages over other island countries in that its population centres are few and far between -- even with the two largest cities currently in lockdown, every other city of over 500,000 residents is so geographically distant that they are not and have no need to be.
At the current vaccination rate, hovering around maybe ~25% of adults, is lockdown worth it? I would say so, and it appears that so does the majority of the Australian population.
Honest question, Whats happening with the owners of those bars and restaurants? are they expected to continue to pay their employees, rents and mortgagees? If so how are they remaining solvent and if not how are their counterparties expected to remain solvent?
There are various federal business assistance programs to help them with fixed costs. They're not expected to pay employees (who are largely 'casual', on an hourly basis only).
Those unpaid employees are able to receive government payment: In Melbourne, Victoria, this is $600/week if you have lost more than 20 hours of employment for that week. Unsure about Sydney, NSW, but I do know there are benefits available.
No. The current government roadmap is to remove lockdown restrictions at various vaccination levels.
The current vaccination rate is very low due to a bungled vaccine rollout. This is changing though. The government messaging now is “get vaccinated so we can lift these restrictions”.
There is a pause on evictions and financial support from government.
Banks are motivated to allow mortgage payments to be deferred (high property prices and more income via interest payments are good for business).
The pause on evictions force landlords to enter negotiate with tenants who need rent reductions in order to survive. If they don’t they risk losing months of rent and having no tenant in bad market.
Most of the workforce in these industries are casual employees who are also covered by goverment assistance if their hours are reduced. Full time workers also get support if they are furloughed.
I have friends who own these types of businesses. Spikes in case numbers result in booking cancellations/low patronage so the whole situation is perceived as an unfortunate catch-22 situation.
> Vaccination rates are low, not because of an unwilling populace but because the federal government failed to source enough vaccines.
Australia has been producing the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, but having deemed it unsafe for their own people, they donated large amounts to developing countries while they waited in a queue for the Pfizer vaccine. Then the Delta variant showed up and the risk-benefit ratio of the AZ vaccine changed, so now all Aussie adults can get it if they choose.
It's funny because Fiji will soon have over 80% of their eligible population vaccinated thanks to the Aussies, while Australia lags far, far behind.
> In Melbourne, we went back into lockdown because of 10 positive test results in a single day.
Is a problem is that with an R0 of 6, the progression is 10 > 60 > 360 > 2160 and then healthcare system breakdown at 12960 cases per day: the ICUs are overwhelmed, there are medical tents being set up in parking lots, and nowhere near enough nurses and machines and doctors to go around.
The perception of this in the hn comments is funny cos in nsw I feel most people are mad that the lockdown didn't happen earlier and wasn't tougher. Because of this lapse, cases keep rising. We're a highly not vacced population.
I strongly agree. Anyone interested in seeing the reactions of the (admittedly largely left-leaning) Sydney reddit population should check out this thread, which is the comments on the daily case numbers (466, which is a huge number for Australia):
Funny you should say that, because that's definitely not the perception among my friends. I wouldn't overly generalise from one's own circles (or the circlejerk that is Aussie Twitter/Reddit) - I think there's genuine and good faith disagreement on the cost-benefit trade-off of lockdowns in the community.
It is definitely the perspective that's being pushed very hard by all the local media though, who are absolutely revelling in the circus of daily Premier's briefings.
It's also worth noting WHY we're so unvaccinated - the media frenzy over the minuscule risks associated with AstraZeneca, which we make locally and have mountains of, and the consequent switch to Pfizer, which we don't make locally and are short on.
AstraZeneca is only 67% effective at preventing someone from contracting the delta variant, which isn't enough to prevent it from spreading without restrictions even at a 100% vaccination rate. I'm currently on the government website trying to book an AstraZeneca appointment in, but let's acknowledge that we're all going to need booster shots of Moderna or Pfizer after this.
Moderna and Pfizer aren’t even enough to attain herd immunity. They are enough to prevent the healthcare system from completely failing. Even AZ is better than nothing.
Singapore has >80% vaccination rate with almost exclusively Moderna/Pfizer and they’re just coming out of a couple months of restrictions. Currently about half of their new cases are fully vaccinated.
It's true that AZ isn't enough for herd immunity, but as I understand it neither is Pfizer or Moderna. It's also worth noting that AZ is extremely effective at preventing serious illness or death from the Delta variant (as are the other vaccines). Had we all gotten AZ months ago, we would be talking about the transmission of a virus that's been rendered much less menacing, which is a totally different risk-benefit calculus.
Yes. It's been incredibly frustrating watching NSW turn what might have been a two-week lockdown into a national threat by making the same mistake Victoria made during its long outbreak last year: not going hard enough early on.
April 19: Quarantine free travel opens between NZ and Australia, as both countries are "covid free". Everyone looks forward to holidays and some limited return to travel normality.
May-June-July: NZ pauses quarantine free travel to NZ from some Aus states, resarts for some, pauses again, restarts for others, etc, etc, rinse and repeat, I can't figure out the actual timelines here. Some people are trapped while away and unable to return home.
July 24: NZ says fuck this and stops free travel from all of Australia until they get their shit together.
August: Australia experiences full-on outbreak
Currently about half of NZ is vaccinated, and there is worry we might need to go into another full lockdown if the delta variant arrives, after having virtually no covid in the community for over a year now. For now, I'm happy for the Australians to stay home.
I do wonder about this though: That partner also has to be five kilometres away from where you live.
Did they forget to say "at most"? (or, hmmm, "at least")
17% of NZ is fully vaccinated, among the worst in the world. It should be a national shame, especially considering what is happening to our neighbours.
I have family in Vietnam who took a similar “zero covid” approach. They had ~2k cases prior to the current outbreak and are now at 250,000 and still haven’t peaked.
The govt is getting any vaccine they can and vaccinating everyone. They likely won’t get a majority vaccinated until the end of the year.
The “zero covid” approach is not a rationale approach. It only made sense as a bandaid until you can vaccinate.
“Zero covid” is like living in a house made of cardboard, and saying because you put out out all the sparks youre safe while wild fires rage around you.
Basically, if you live alone, you can designate one person who doesn't live with you but lives within 5km of you, who is then allowed to visit you in person (but not vice versa, unless your designee also lives alone). Your choice is permanent and can never be changed.
At the moment having house guests who you are not in a romantic relationship with is basically illegal except for wellness checks.
If you live alone and are single you can nominate another person who also lives alone and is single. If you do this you can be a house guest of each other lawfully.
This allows for better mental health outcomes for single people who live alone.
> Single people are allowed to establish a Covid-safe arrangement with one other person, essentially allowing those two people to be considered a single household without them having to live under the same roof. This isn’t an indiscriminate pass for single people to visit any household they want, but rather a way to safely allow social contact between two people while mitigating the risk of community transmission.
> People living alone may nominate one person and one person only to form a social bubble with them.
> This person must then be formally registered with authorities via the Service NSW website (this is yet to be launched, but should be online within the next few days).
You may only travel a maximum of 5km from your home to visit a singles bubble buddy.
> A single person cannot change the nominated person they form a social bubble with – so choose wisely.
Less than a month ago, my health unit area, covering about a million people, had 11 cases a day. Today we’re above 350. The hospitals have canceled surgeries, beds and nurses are all taken up by Delta victims. It is a crisis.
Delta spreads like wildfire. Oh, yah, we got that going on in our backyard, too. Hellsummer.
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 73.8 ms ] threadFunny how it’s not effective when you haven’t had it.
You're gonna have to be more specific than that chief.
Which countries? Which vaccine(s) did they use? What's the efficacy of those vaccines? How many doses have the patients been given?
You know.. some actual information about the topic.
While the vaccine may prevent the severity of the illness, it is having a hard time preventing the spread of the illness.
Australia is experiencing a surge of cases, yes.
1) NSW vaccination rates are very low. As of today only 19.6% of citizens are fully vaccinated and 37.4% are partially vaccinated. This is in part because our PM didn't secure a large enough supply of the Pfizer vaccine, and the government then sent very mixed messages about Astra Zeneca vaccine that led to a lot of people waiting for more pfizer doses.
2) The NSW government failed to take strong enough steps early in the delta outbreak to prevent this long protracted lockdown. Instead of going through a short sharp few weeks of lockdown, we are now in the 6th week of lockdown and cases have continued to rise. It seems likely at this point until we will remain in lockdown until the 80% vaccination rate is reached in late november.
TL:DR, both Federal and State governments made poor decisions, and now they're rushing to stem the outbreak as it continues to worsen in the face of their half measures.
Most of the states have kept covid cases hovering around zero so vaccination availability hasn't been a huge issue. Fortress Australia could hold out for years if needed. Until the NSW state government unilaterally decided not to take an outbreak seriously.
Now that the circulating strain is more virulent and such a low percentage of the population is unvaccinated Australia is now in a more perilous position than it was than last year.
I've noticed a rise of people unashamedly being anti-mask. I've also noticed an uptick of people pushing that vaccines aren't the solution/too risky/too early.
Meanwhile, ‘getting away’ from people is one of the best options available?
What timeline am I in? Can I press the reset button?
It was also mostly in reaction to some fuckwit going up the coast to view an open home.
His wife was in hospital with covid, and him and his two kids also had it while they travelled.
The excuse? "Don't believe in it".
Unless you're infected, asymptomatic, and just transported it out of the known infection zones to areas with less restrictions and testing.
They want everyone staying put while they contact trace and test.
> Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that
> Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
>Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
> Australia has now violated each and every clause of this universal human right and seemingly without much debate or objection. It is deeply troubling to see people prevented from leaving or entering their own country and soldiers in the street making sure people do not travel beyond a perimeter surrounding their homes. The costs of lockdown are very high and thus so is any delay in ending these unprecedented infringements on liberty.
Alex Tabarrok should maybe consider that in contrast to some other countries which have seen deaths comparable to the second world war Australia has largely been covid free.
Among the developed western nations of the world, USA is a bottom-rung country when it comes to human rights, what with assassinating their own citizens in the middle east, torturing prisoners and keeping them locked up for decades without trial, not to mention all the abuses on the domestic front. Australia is one rung above USA.
Who, specifically, did the Australian government revoke the citizenship of who wasn't also a citizen of another country?
Prakash was born in Australia, radicalised in Australia, and became a terrorist in Australia. He went off to the Middle East and did bad shit.
Australia wanted to wash their hands of the hurt they'd unleashed on the world, so they claimed that he was a (dual) citizen of Fiji, and they cancelled his Australian citizenship.
Prakash's Aussie father was Fiji-born and may (this isn't clear) have still been a Fiji citizen at the time he fathered Prakash in Australia. However, Fiji does not automatically grant citizenship to children of Fijians born overseas. Their parents need to apply for their citizenship, and Prakash's father never did this because of course he had left Fiji and made Australia his home.
So Prakash was not born in Fiji, never gained Fiji citizenship, and has never stepped foot in Fiji.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/23/peter...
He was an Australian citizen, and rather than deal with their problem, they made him stateless.
Article 3:
> Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 29:
> In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
When there's a conflict between your rights and my rights, like "I want to travel freely, and you want to not die", we wind up having to navigate that.
COVID isn't caused by travel itself – especially among populations where there's little or none – but by close shared-air contact with current cases. Maybe those who travel can wear a bright vest, so those who want to trade that freedom for safety can just stay at a safe distance from danger, not shorn of all movement rights?
I don't understand the logic of putting fully vaccinated, mask-wearing people into house arrest. I suspect deaths of despair will offset the breakthrough covid deaths.
In this case, where the goal is to end an outbreak, vaccinated have to be treated the same as unvaccinated.
The lockdowns also allow for less movement which makes the contact tracing more effective. The reduction in movement also makes it possible to enforce laws on those who wouldn’t otherwise comply willingly.
In Sydney, a city of over 5 million, the current lockdown laws were implemented when there were up to ~90 cases per day. The goal, for most Australian states, has been complete elimination of COVID. In Melbourne, we went back into lockdown because of 10 positive test results in a single day. The other states of Australia are largely all "fully open" with no restrictions (including any kind of mask mandate) because there are zero cases in the cities. Australia's method to date has been to lock down hard and re-open after elimination... until COVID sneaks back in on a plane or some such.
The restrictions look something like: A full indoor mask mandate, non-essential retail stores are closed: Grocery, fast food & convenience (to go only), alcohol, & hardware are open, restaurants and bars are closed, visits to homes other than your own are disallowed (with the exception of your "intimate partner", if they live within 5 kilometers), and you may meet with no more than 1 other person outdoors for the purpose of exercise only.
In some LGAs (Local Government Area, kinda like a county?) you must have a permit to leave your LGA for any reason including work.
Vaccination rates are low, not because of an unwilling populace but because the federal government failed to source enough vaccines.
Compliance with lockdown rules has been pretty decent, to date, but it's looking like it's going to continue along like this until probably December, at this stage.
USA has a lot of really uneducated and/or ignorant people, but even without it, global travel would keep pounding us with it. I imagine Australia would have a similar issue.
It is possible to have a flow of people, but it's dependant upon a supply of MIQ facilities and trained staff (NZ Defense Force oversees MIQ here). We'll be trialling some "isolate at home if you're from a country with low Covid" lightweight alternatives in the coming months, but there will still be the retirement to isolate.
Australia doesn't have the same issue as other non-island countries, and in fact has some advantages over other island countries in that its population centres are few and far between -- even with the two largest cities currently in lockdown, every other city of over 500,000 residents is so geographically distant that they are not and have no need to be.
At the current vaccination rate, hovering around maybe ~25% of adults, is lockdown worth it? I would say so, and it appears that so does the majority of the Australian population.
There isn't massive amounts on travel like the USA so locking down was pretty straight forward.
Those unpaid employees are able to receive government payment: In Melbourne, Victoria, this is $600/week if you have lost more than 20 hours of employment for that week. Unsure about Sydney, NSW, but I do know there are benefits available.
The current vaccination rate is very low due to a bungled vaccine rollout. This is changing though. The government messaging now is “get vaccinated so we can lift these restrictions”.
Banks are motivated to allow mortgage payments to be deferred (high property prices and more income via interest payments are good for business).
The pause on evictions force landlords to enter negotiate with tenants who need rent reductions in order to survive. If they don’t they risk losing months of rent and having no tenant in bad market.
Most of the workforce in these industries are casual employees who are also covered by goverment assistance if their hours are reduced. Full time workers also get support if they are furloughed.
I have friends who own these types of businesses. Spikes in case numbers result in booking cancellations/low patronage so the whole situation is perceived as an unfortunate catch-22 situation.
Australia has been producing the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, but having deemed it unsafe for their own people, they donated large amounts to developing countries while they waited in a queue for the Pfizer vaccine. Then the Delta variant showed up and the risk-benefit ratio of the AZ vaccine changed, so now all Aussie adults can get it if they choose.
It's funny because Fiji will soon have over 80% of their eligible population vaccinated thanks to the Aussies, while Australia lags far, far behind.
French Polynesia is on the rise as well but NZ is holding so far!
> In Melbourne, we went back into lockdown because of 10 positive test results in a single day.
Is a problem is that with an R0 of 6, the progression is 10 > 60 > 360 > 2160 and then healthcare system breakdown at 12960 cases per day: the ICUs are overwhelmed, there are medical tents being set up in parking lots, and nowhere near enough nurses and machines and doctors to go around.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sydney/comments/p3ycd9/nsw_recorded...
Largely it's complaints about the government not locking down harder & faster, and failing to take any further measures for lockdown.
That's a cute if daft way to describe a propaganda mill.
It is definitely the perspective that's being pushed very hard by all the local media though, who are absolutely revelling in the circus of daily Premier's briefings.
It's also worth noting WHY we're so unvaccinated - the media frenzy over the minuscule risks associated with AstraZeneca, which we make locally and have mountains of, and the consequent switch to Pfizer, which we don't make locally and are short on.
May-June-July: NZ pauses quarantine free travel to NZ from some Aus states, resarts for some, pauses again, restarts for others, etc, etc, rinse and repeat, I can't figure out the actual timelines here. Some people are trapped while away and unable to return home.
July 24: NZ says fuck this and stops free travel from all of Australia until they get their shit together.
August: Australia experiences full-on outbreak
Currently about half of NZ is vaccinated, and there is worry we might need to go into another full lockdown if the delta variant arrives, after having virtually no covid in the community for over a year now. For now, I'm happy for the Australians to stay home.
I do wonder about this though: That partner also has to be five kilometres away from where you live.
Did they forget to say "at most"? (or, hmmm, "at least")
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/...
At any rate, my point was not how many are, but how many remain to be vaccinated.
The govt is getting any vaccine they can and vaccinating everyone. They likely won’t get a majority vaccinated until the end of the year.
The “zero covid” approach is not a rationale approach. It only made sense as a bandaid until you can vaccinate.
“Zero covid” is like living in a house made of cardboard, and saying because you put out out all the sparks youre safe while wild fires rage around you.
If you live alone and are single you can nominate another person who also lives alone and is single. If you do this you can be a house guest of each other lawfully.
This allows for better mental health outcomes for single people who live alone.
So any romantic relationships fall outside of this? I guess this is more for single people? Do people who are dating also get a buddy?
> People living alone may nominate one person and one person only to form a social bubble with them.
> This person must then be formally registered with authorities via the Service NSW website (this is yet to be launched, but should be online within the next few days). You may only travel a maximum of 5km from your home to visit a singles bubble buddy.
> A single person cannot change the nominated person they form a social bubble with – so choose wisely.
Source: https://www.timeout.com/sydney/news/what-is-nsws-singles-bub...
Less than a month ago, my health unit area, covering about a million people, had 11 cases a day. Today we’re above 350. The hospitals have canceled surgeries, beds and nurses are all taken up by Delta victims. It is a crisis.
Delta spreads like wildfire. Oh, yah, we got that going on in our backyard, too. Hellsummer.