Covid-19 Welcome to Freedom

[SaintsSeptember]

That's seriously one of the worst cartoons i've ever seen, looks like something out of medieval times.

 

[Seeds]

I'm still waiting for the rationale for vaccine mandates to be explained. It can't be about infections.

Professor Blakely said the difference between unvaccinated and vaccinated people transmitting the virus was now negligible, given it has been about two or three months since a vast majority of the population were fully immunised, and the data around the world has shown immunity levels begin to wane at that mark.​

‘One word, Omicron’: Cases will spike but Christmas plans are safe

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton expects case numbers in Victoria to follow NSW predictions, but said there was no need to shut the border.

www.theage.com.au

Begin to wane. Not finish waning. which means the post prooves vaccines are beneficial for multiple months.

plus there is this concept called boosters.

 

[bourbons]

I'm still waiting for the rationale for vaccine mandates to be explained. It can't be about infections.

Professor Blakely said the difference between unvaccinated and vaccinated people transmitting the virus was now negligible, given it has been about two or three months since a vast majority of the population were fully immunised, and the data around the world has shown immunity levels begin to wane at that mark.​

‘One word, Omicron’: Cases will spike but Christmas plans are safe

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton expects case numbers in Victoria to follow NSW predictions, but said there was no need to shut the border.

www.theage.com.au

Its very simple. While vaccines haven't been as effective as hoped at stopping spread, they do seem to be somewhat effective at keeping people with covid out of hospital. Less people requiring hospitalization = less chance of the hospital system being overwhelmed even with society operating somewhat normally and the large case numbers that are guaranteed to result.

I'm guessing you just don't buy it, but that's the rationale.

 

[William Wonka]

At what point do we remove measures such as vaccine mandates?

Never.
Punish the campaigners forever

 

[bourbons]

As Professor Blakely said, the difference between unvaccinated and vaccinated people transmitting the virus is now negligible.

Like I said, the rationale is more around the vaccinated having a lower chance of ending up in hospital. I'm sure vaccination has at least some impact in reducing spread but yeah happy to accept its low/negligible/whatever.

Omicron seems to mostly incur a mild form of the disease. So it's unlikely that it will result in the hospital system being overloaded.

People with Omicron do still end up in hospital though yeah? If we wanna stay open we're probably looking at sustained periods of thousands of cases a day, so even 'unlikely' probably translates into a fair hospital load.

At what point do we remove measures such as vaccine mandates? How mild does this virus need to be before we stop testing everyone for it and stopping normal life if someone 'tests positive'?

Roughly in line with the flu I assume. Omicron is still more dangerous than that.

Not a fan of wide mandates fwiw, although I can see the point for select workers. My preference would have been to open up with no mandate as soon as the vax was widely available to everyone, you want it you get it and off we go. Although then you'd probably have to start looking at things like prioritising hospital beds for vaxxed and sending the unvaxxed home to deal with it on themselves, which isn't particularly palatable either.

No easy answers.

 

[Crankyhawk]

Omicron seems more like getting a cold.

Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first reported the Omicron variant said she has been astonished by the world’s reaction to the new strain, which is out of all proportion to its risks. “Patients typically present with muscle pain, body aches, a headache and a bit of fatigue. After about five days those symptoms clear up, and that’s it. The only patient with severe symptoms whom she has seen over the last month had HIV, pneumonia and other comorbidities.

And possibly 70% of the infected are asymptomatic. So when it is claimed that "someone tested positive for Covid-19" it is false. They tested positive for a virus that sometimes causes the disease known as Covid-19.

Omicron should be a game changer to get society back to normal. Previously, all this media fear pr0n and obsession with testing for something like the common cold would have been considered absurd. The vaccine mandates were already very extreme - people can't get a job, go to the cricket, take their dog to the vet. But omicron makes the vaccine mandates totally unjustifiable.

why the selective quote from the initial case series of omicron rather than any larger study?
Also exaggeration re "its a cold" - muscle pain/ body ache headache and fatigue going for 5 days is more like a real flu than a cold. Unless you are an unlucky sufferer of the "man-flu"?

difficult to know true asymptomatic rate, but would agree that there is a significant amount of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic, particularly in a vaccinated population. Data to seek would be covid positive prevalence in those getting tested purely for travel reasons or being admitted to hospital for non covid reasons to get an idea of asymptomatic patients.

omicron also not currently relevant to victoria either - vic is still mostly delta. But even with omicron being less symptomatic the issue is that current settings involve close contacts / household contacts still needing to isolate - that impacts your workforce. So the first step would be to remove isolation settings for asymptomatic contacts to preserve workforce - with the likely result of higher case numbers but banking that hospitalisation doesn't go up. Possibly a strategy for QLD/ NSW (I think SA/ TAS even with low hospital rate would crash their hospital system - it was woeful pre covid anyway)

you know I do not care about people who have chosen to exclude themselves due to vaccine mandate so I will not engage on that point

 

[Opine]

…

At what point do we remove measures …? …

That’s a valid question which should be considered free from bias against those who’ve chosen to remain unvaccinated. To answer, and by consequence to conclude for one’s self whether Vic Labour Gov has currently overreached, you’ll at very least need clarity on the following.

Given the current percentage vaccinated amongst the general community: has it been demonstrated why it remains reasonably and proportionally justifiable to limit freedom/s of the smaller percentage who remain unvaccinated?
If so, is there a less intrusive means of achieving same purpose?

 

[Crankyhawk]

The 'selective quote' was consistent with a study by South Africa’s National Institute For Communicable Diseases, that found suspected Omicron cases were 80 per cent less likely to go to hospital (but the analysis does not account for vaccination status).

So the virulence ranges from no symptoms, or symptoms of a cold, or a mild flu. A very small % are hospitalised but it's likely many of them were admitted for other health problems.



It's just a matter of time before omicron becomes predominant in Victoria. New South Wales health minister, Brad Hazzard, said "we’re all going to get Omicron". The same article in the Guardian highlights what you observed. 2,000 health staff are currently furloughed across the state. The measures being enforced are putting more pressure on the health system than the threat from the virus. The vaccine mandates make even less sense.

Furlough issue is separate to vaccination mandates issue.
I would only be furloughing positive workers (all settings) with ongoing support payments (given casual labor and absence of sick leave)

 

[Crankyhawk]

As usual, your non-acknowledgment of points I gave evidence for.

Suspected Omicron cases were 80 per cent less likely to go to hospital.

Virulence ranges from no symptoms, or symptoms of a cold, or a mild flu. A very small % are hospitalised but it's likely many of them were admitted for other health problems.

It's just a matter of time before omicron becomes predominant in Victoria.

The measures being enforced are putting more pressure on the health system than the threat from the virus. The vaccine mandates make even less sense.

When omicron is prevalent in vic (perhaps in a fortnight) then we should be revising settings re furlough. You also did not acknowledge how we get around this issue right now when we are still delta prevalent
You also are not acknowledging the possibility that cases could really increase beyond 5x the delta which means hospitalisation numbers stay the same, and if cases are higher that will still pressure hospitals. Who will have reduced staff due to furlough.
I write this as 7 of my doctors have been told they can’t work today due to being covid positive or close contacts (for comparison there are 12 junior docs in morning, 14 in afternoon and 9 at night)

 

[Crankyhawk]

I won't dispute the rest of your post but this part needs attention. There has been a huge conflation of terms used by health authorities and the media that has been wrongly adopted by almost everyone.

The tests for the virus detect the presence of genetic material that may be active or inert. It will find positive cases at tiny viral loads when pushed to higher cycle thresholds. So there's a large potential for false results.

But my main point is that testing positive for the Sars-Cov-2 virus is not the same as being 'Covid positive'. Covid-19 is a disease caused by the Sars-Cov-2 virus. If you 'test positive' but don't have any symptoms of the disease then you don't have Covid-19. With omicron this is an increasing scenario.

If you are a close contact of someone who has 'tested positive' but has no symptoms then it becomes far fetched why you should be made to take measures that restrict your life, or if you are a health professional be prevented from looking after your patients.

Your assertion that testing positive is not the same as being sick with covid is unfortunately not the interpretation being used by pretty much the entire health service. And the rules still talk about household contacts of these positives (many of our junior docs house share). The rules do not yet allow for us to vary - it may change in future but it has not.

 

[Chief]

Jimmy Dore? He makes up the claim “they’re administering the jabs incorrectly!”

Oh jeez - Shaun (lefty YouTuber) is a CIA operative because his videos are too well produced and he quoted official sources!

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Oh jeez - Shaun (lefty YouTuber) is a CIA operative because his videos are too well produced and he quoted official sources!

The CIA will take note of their observations, and make sure they are drunk or high on LSD prior to producing the next video.

 

[AFC AFeederClub]

40'000 cases in a day, those antivaxxers must be getting around a lot

 

[CM86]

40'000 cases in a day, those antivaxxers must be getting around a lot

Meaningless statement.

You're an anti-vaxxer, have you been getting around a lot?

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

If you are a close contact of someone who has 'tested positive' but has no symptoms then it becomes far fetched why you should be made to take measures that restrict your life, or if you are a health professional be prevented from looking after your patients.

Even 100% asymptomatic people may still pass on the virus to others who may not be so lucky, especially in the 'early run' of this virus and I presume its many variants like Delta and Omicron.

This, from the Lancet;

Do asymptomatic carriers of SARS-COV-2 transmit the virus?

Wilmes et al. recently reported in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe that asymptomatic index cases (AIC) play an important role in the transmission and spread of SARS-CoV2 infections [1]. Secondary attack rates of 283 AIC were significant (0.02) but lower than those of the 567 symptomatic...

www.thelancet.com

Published: March 20, 2021

... During later stages of the disease, symptomatic patients recover and clear the virus, but a very small number continue to produce virus for several months: In Wuhan 310 per 100.000 recovered patients did not clear the virus even after several months. As reviewed above, AIC ( Asymptomatic Index Cases ) clear the virus faster. In Wuhan only 3 AIC per 100.000 (i.e. 100 times less) continued to harbor virus and, as the study showed, at this later stage of the infection none of these long-term carriers were still infectious.

Thus we suggest that asymptomatic individuals are infectious during the early stage of infection, but some rare cases (3/100.000) become long-term virus carriers which are no longer infectious. This would reconcile the Wuhan post-lockdown study with the other studies including the one from Luxembourg. This conveys several important messages for science and public health: (i) During the acute phase of a COVID19 wave, asymptomatic individuals should definitively be included in the testing strategy and their contacts traced, because they can drive the inapparent spread the virus similar to symptomatic cases. (ii) Among AIC there is a category of rare long-term SARS-COV-2 carriers (3/100.000), with minimal risk for virus transmission, despite detectable viral RNA. (iii) Despite low absolute numbers, the proportion of this category of asymptomatic carriers will increase as the virus retreats. (iv) Finally, it cannot be excluded that rare long-term carriers may become virus reservoirs, with the potential to cause recurrent outbreaks. This has important implications for future SARS-COV-2 public health and surveillance, and our understanding of yet another pitfall of this cunning virus.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Health Professionals are the last people who should take extra risks and working with Covid.
Surely some of their patients have pre-existing conditions that mean they are in the most vulnerable category.

 

[AFC AFeederClub]

Just when Dan said we will lock out the virus instead of lockdowns he let's in omicron, oh the irony. Its almost as good as when he said, we go hard and we go early.

 

[Marcel Proust]

Work places bringing back anti vaxxers due to being short staffed

 

[AFC AFeederClub]

Work places bringing back anti vaxxers due to being short staffed

its concerning that a vaccinated ecomony now has the highest case numbers since it began

 

[bourbons]

its concerning that a vaccinated ecomony now has the highest case numbers since it began

Its exactly what you would expect with new variants and day to day life returning to pretty much business as usual.

 

[AFC AFeederClub]

Its exactly what you would expect with new variants and day to day life returning to pretty much business as usual.

so whose spreading this thing

 

[Marcel Proust]

so whose spreading this thing

English cricket team

 

[bourbons]

so whose spreading this thing

Everyone.

 

[AFC AFeederClub]

Everyone.

Oh, since when did that change, so the vaccine doesn't stop you getting the virus?

 

[liz]

Oh, since when did that change, so the vaccine doesn't stop you getting the virus?

Gradually and suddenly (about two-three weeks ago)

Gradually, in the sense that antibodies produced by vaccines (or past infection) wane over time, making the first line of defence weaker.

Suddenly, in the sense that Omicron emerged, rapidly spread and is now dominant in many parts of Australia. (Most?) As a variant, it seems to escape our antibody response better than other variants.