Coronavirus/COVID-19

No. Against considerable evidence to the contrary I still believe in altruism. The sight of others behaving selfishly doesn't really alter that feeling.

I think it's in our DNA whether we feel it or not.

Though less frequent, the most uplifting chapters of humanity have come about through altruism. If we're ever going to be anything but automatons in a game theory view of life it's through altruism and putting one's immediate interests second. (By contrast there is no end of examples of what pure self-interest can lead to.)

TBH I don't think it will make much difference in your case anyway. Your hesitancy is only about AZ not about whether to get vaccinated at all.

So have you calculated when the likely date of your second injection will be under each scenario? I expect it will depend to a fair extent on whether the government can adhere to the promised dates for abundant Pfizer, but if they can then I suspect there wouldn't be much difference in the two completion dates. Perhaps only a few weeks - not really enough to matter much to the grand timetable for Phases A, B, C and D of the National Cabinet roadmap.

That of course is only looking at it in terms of when you complete your vaccinations. Getting your first jab earlier (ie with AZ) does bring forward for you and the community a modest level of protection / reduced risk. You don't get as sick as you might otherwise be, you're less likely to take up a hospital bed and the likelihood of you passing it on is reduced. That of course will only be relevant if we have recurrent outbreaks, but that's looking more and more likely.
You can have the second AZ jab before 12 weeks I heard this morning, as early as 8 weeks.
 

synchrodogcal

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i propose that the government offer $100 cash money payments for jabs & then set up pop up jab centres outside pubs and bars, we'd be fully vaccinated by the end of the day
 
You can have the second AZ jab before 12 weeks I heard this morning, as early as 8 weeks.
That's correct but the benefit is somewhat attenuated if you do. I don't know if the extent of attenuation has been quantified. That would be a useful thing to know.

Ideally you wait the full 12 weeks but if there's Covid swirling around then going for jab#2 earlier may be a sensible course. I think I read somewhere that it may be OK to go as early as 6 weeks.
 
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That's correct but the benefit is somewhat attenuated if you do. I don't know if the extent of attenuation has been quantified. That would be a useful thing to know.

Ideally you wait the full 12 weeks but if there's Covid swirling around then going for jab#2 earlier may be a sensible course. I think I read somewhere that it may be OK to go as early as 6 weeks.

Its something like:

12 weeks = 80% effectiveness

8 weeks = 60% effectiveness

 
i propose that the government offer $100 cash money payments for jabs & then set up pop up jab centres outside pubs and bars, we'd be fully vaccinated by the end of the day
I was listening to a law professor from UNSW just now and he was saying that the Commonwealth government has the power to force people to have specific vaccinations. He wasn't advocating that - just saying the power is there. It is at the Minister's discretion (Greg Hunt) and it can't even be overridden by a vote in parliament. So I guess it's a constitutional provision.

Some overseas countries are already mandating vaccinations for certain areas of the workforce. That is quite apossibility here, e.g. for employees working with vulnerable people. In fact I thought it was already a requirement for aged care workers. He also said it is legally acceptable for governments and/or event organisers to prohibit unvaccinated people from certain events if they are considered a risk to others,eg concerts, festivals, sports events.

It's a matter of finding the right balance between carrot and stick. As a liberal democracy we're more likely to head down the carrot approach.

A vaccination lottery has already been proposed by some public health advocates, where you would get a free ticket if you got vaccinated. But hey, free beer works for me. Can it be backdated?
 
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I was listening to a law professor from UNSW just now and he was saying that the Commonwealth government has the power to force people to have specific vaccinations. He wasn't advocating that - just saying the power is there. It is at the Minister's discretion (Greg Hunt) and it can't even be overridden by a vote in parliament. So I guess it's a constitutional provision.

Some overseas countries are already mandating vaccinations for certain areas of the workforce. That is quite apossibility here, e.g. for employees working with vulnerable people. In fact I thought it was already a requirement for aged care workers. He also said it is legally acceptable for governments and/or event organisers to prohibit unvaccinated people from certain events if they are considered a risk to others,eg concerts, festivals, sports events.

It's a matter of finding the right balance between carrot and stick. As a liberal democracy we're more likely to head down the carrot approach.

A vaccination lottery has already been proposed by some public health advocates, where you would get a free ticket if you got vaccinated. But hey, free beer works for me. Can it be backdated?

I doubt this. Did vaccines even exist when the constitution was written? I'll have a skim through the constitution later to see if there's anything that could be interpreted this way.
 
Its something like:

12 weeks = 80% effectiveness

8 weeks = 60% effectiveness
Do you know what "effectiveness" means in this case? Not getting infected? Potentially getting infected but symptom reduction? Lower transmissibility? All three?

And are they talking about effectiveness for the individual or for the population? (eg reducing the R0 value)
 
I doubt this. Did vaccines even exist when the constitution was written? I'll have a skim through the constitution later to see if there's anything that could be interpreted this way.
Seemed unlikely to me too but I thought that's what he was saying. Admittedly I was negotiating traffic at the time so it didn't have my full attention.

Let me know what you find.
 
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Seemed unlikely to me too but I thought that's what he was saying. Admittedly I was negotiating traffic at the time so it didn't have my full attention.

Let me know what you find.

I guess it also matters what he meant by "force." Can the Government send the army or police force to hold you down while you receive a vaccine against your will? Probably not. Can they coerce you by making your life incredibly difficult if you decline? Absolutely.
 
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Do you know what "effectiveness" means in this case? Not getting infected? Potentially getting infected but symptom reduction? Lower transmissibility? All three?

And are they talking about effectiveness for the individual or for the population? (eg reducing the R0 value)

Effectiveness at preventing symptomatic disease in the individual:

 
I guess it also matters what he meant by "force." Can the Government send the army or police force to hold you down while you receive a vaccine against your will? Probably not. Can they coerce you by making your life incredibly difficult if you decline? Absolutely.
I doubt they'd hold someone down.
I think he said there's a penalty of up to five years in gaol. Just as there was with the restrictions on people returning from India 2-3 months ago (also a Ministerial decree).
 
Effectiveness at preventing symptomatic disease in the individual:

I thought this bit was pretty compelling:

The Lancet paper didn’t include data on the Delta variant as it wasn’t widely circulating at the time, but this is fast becoming the dominant variant globally.

Yet we do know two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine protects against serious COVID-19 after infection with the Delta variant, whereas one dose doesn’t.

I'm still intending to wait the full 12 weeks (I'm booked in for that already) but will certainly consider bringing it forward if there's a local outbreak.
 
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I doubt they'd hold someone down.
I think he said there's a penalty of up to five years in gaol. Just as there was with the restrictions on people returning from India 2-3 months ago (also a Ministerial decree).

Here's a good article on this topic:


The TLDR is that its unclear whether the Commonwealth could pass mandatory vaccination laws. No such provisions exist in any current legislation. Emergency powers legislation in some states allows for the CHO to force individuals to be vaccinated but the limitations of that power wouldn't make it practical to enforce at the population level. Whether or not the States or the Commonwealth could enforce mandatory vaccination would need to be tested in the Courts. Obviously it sounds like the Law Professor on the radio had a different opinion than the experts that the ABC consulted for this article. It seems like an area where reasonable minds could disagree.
 
I can see why they are so concerned about the latest Brisbane outbreak.

It's genomically linked to two unrelated travellers who returned to Australia on 29 June, one from Indonesia, one from UK. Both came via Singapore and sat a few rows apart on the plane. One tested positive on the first day in HQ and the other on the 5th day. They were admitted to separate hospitals.

Since then it has been passed on to a medical student (presumably the link back to the two travellers via one of those hospitals) and this medical student tutored a schoolgirl who has passed it on to family and friends.

The worrying implication is that the medical student may have been active in the community for 2-3 weeks
, probably without knowing he/she is infected. If that's the case Queensland has a difficult few weeks ahead. Also the entire school population of 2500 is now in isolation but who knows if it has already gone beyond there?

Thankfully they've learned from Sydney and have determined to "go hard and go early" with the SEQ lockdown.

Meanwhile with only 2 cases reported today (both were already in isolation) Victoria has done a great job containing the outbreak after seeing case numbers up around 20-30 for a few days. It's a stark contrast to what happened in Sydney from similar beginnings.

For all that I can't help feeling we are only just hanging on across Australia with these containment efforts. The Delta variant seems too volatile to keep down forever. Good management alone is not enough. We'll need a fair bit of luck as well.

Talk of 70% or 80% vaccination targets before opening up may be irrelevant if the genie of the NSW outbreak can't be put back into the bottle.
Correction to this.

Queensland's CHO said today that the infection happened the other way around. The Indooripilly schoolgirl (or someone in her family) infected the medical student, not vice versa.

So the link between the schoolgirl and the returning travellers is still unexplained, which is even more of a worry. It is genomically linked so there must be some chain of infection.

Ten of today's 13 cases were in kids under 10, so that's a new dimension for our health experts to grapple with.
More cases definitely coming in Queensland. And lockdown extended to 4pm Sunday.
 
Here's a good article on this topic:
<snip>

The TLDR is that its unclear whether the Commonwealth could pass mandatory vaccination laws. No such provisions exist in any current legislation. Emergency powers legislation in some states allows for the CHO to force individuals to be vaccinated but the limitations of that power wouldn't make it practical to enforce at the population level. Whether or not the States or the Commonwealth could enforce mandatory vaccination would need to be tested in the Courts. Obviously it sounds like the Law Professor on the radio had a different opinion than the experts that the ABC consulted for this article. It seems like an area where reasonable minds could disagree.
Found it.


I'll have another listen...
 
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Found it.


I'll have another listen...

The Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth) is the piece of legislation he cites when saying mandatory vaccination could carry five years gaol time for those who refuse. Section 92 covers vaccination. Its a pretty dense bit of legislation so I only read the relevant section. I think I'd agree with the first ABC article I linked. I think the section is worded in a way that indicates the intent of this clause was not to be used at the population level. It sounds more like it was designed for the CHO to order a specific person to receive a specific vaccine in a specific circumstance. Its a bit vague though and I think reasonable minds could disagree on that. Hopefully it never needs to be tested in the Courts and remains a hypothetical for us to speculate on.
 
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The Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth) is the piece of legislation he cites when saying mandatory vaccination could carry five years gaol time for those who refuse. Section 92 covers vaccination. Its a pretty dense bit of legislation so I only read the relevant section. I think I'd agree with the first ABC article I linked. I think the section is worded in a way that indicates the intent of this clause was not to be used at the population level. It sounds more like it was designed for the CHO to order a specific person to receive a specific vaccine in a specific circumstance. Its a bit vague though and I think reasonable minds could disagree on that. Hopefully it never needs to be tested in the Courts and remains a hypothetical for us to speculate on.
Definitely. I think that's what the good professor was saying - or implying - as well.

The slightly unnerving thing is that there are heaps of laws like this that are already in place. They could sustain a near totalitarian state should whoever is in power choose to go that way. It's become worse since the backwash of the 9-11 attack reached us and opened the floodgates to a whole lot of increased surveillance and coercion legislation, while simultaneously reducing freedom of information and transparency of government.
 
A breakthrough infection is where you test positive despite being vaccinated.

Haven’t heard any examples of anybody who is vaccinated dying. Do you have a source?

Would imagine could happen with a dysfunctional immune system-from what I-have read getting vaccinated is almost 99 per cent effective at keeping you out of ICU.
According to new numbers from the Massachusetts Department of Health, there are 4,450 breakthrough COVID cases and 79 deaths among the fully vaccinated population in the state. Katie Johnston reports.
 
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According to new numbers from the Massachusetts Department of Health, there are 4,450 breakthrough COVID cases and 79 deaths among the fully vaccinated population in the state. Katie Johnston reports.
Sounds plausible. Any idea how many in ICU?

Your post and Vogon's aren't necessarily at odds with one another. If there were only about 45 in ICU then that's "99% effective".

Latest report I've seen it's now over 5,000 breakthrough cases and over 80 deaths. 272 of those hospitalised - but no ICU numbers. If consistent with averages I've elsewhere that would bring the numbers in ICU pretty close to 1%.

 

LittleG

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Sounds plausible. Any idea how many in ICU?

Your post and Vogon's aren't necessarily at odds with one another. If there were only about 45 in ICU then that's "99% effective".

Latest report I've seen it's now over 5,000 breakthrough cases and over 80 deaths. 272 of those hospitalised - but no ICU numbers. If consistent with averages I've elsewhere that would bring the numbers in ICU pretty close to 1%.


Basically the vaccine is reducing hospitalisation (severe covid) by 97% (US statistic*) and death by 99%* (widely used numbers on a US forum I talk with regularly).

So, instead of just killing 1%* of people, once vaccinated it becomes 0.01% death rate.
 
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