Beoz

Phase 2. 70% of the adult population vaxxed before we can impose restrictions on the non vaxxed? Surely the stick needs to come out before then given anyone can get a vaccine.

Phase 3. 80% before borders open. Please.

And McGowen says he will.still lockdown anyway.

And do we really need to rely on the advice from that mob out of Melbourne?

Pollyana

Its bonkers. No, worse than bonkers, its depressing.
Had a message from the family asking if I ever intend to go home or can they throw out the suitcase of stuff I have stashed with them

physiogirl76

80% is an extremely tough goal to achieve - I am not even sure, if it can be done... Even Israel, the US or the UK - all countries who have had extremely successful vaccination campaigns - have not achieved this target to date.
Australia will experience exactly the same - the first 50-60% will be relatively easy and fast to achieve (once enough vaccine is available). But to get to 80% will be a slow drag. It's not even those anti-vaxxers (forget about them...), but lots of people can't be bothered. It's human nature.
The only way, Australia can achieve this is by making Covid jabs mandatory....

But really, most of the western world has vaccinated about 50-60% of the population and they are open - not locked down. Those who are not vaccinated by now, chose not to get vaccinated in a hurry. There is only so much patience a country can have with those people. Most European countries are therefore moving towards giving vaccinated people more incentives and make life a bit more inconvenient for those who choose not be be vaccinated. The only way forward I think. The Australian road map lacks ambition - they are waiting for the slowest/most hesitant of the pack before they consider moving on.... Disappointing really.

abner

And yet, that is what is required, to have an acceptable public health outcome in Australia, i.e. to graduate from near-suppression of even the Delta variant in Australia, to nearly normal life again.

Get the jabs in 80% of arms.

Right now it's a question of supply, but soon it will be progressively a question of education, of cajoling, of incentives, of continued-employment based coercion, etc., etc.

Saying that the 80% vaccination rate can't be achieved in Australia, because it hasn't yet been achieved in other countries, is a counsel of unnecessary despair.

This is a different counsel of despair, e.g. the idea that because we've found it difficult to create herd-immunity conditions through high levels of vaccination, like many countries haven't, we should just give up and let the Delta variant rip through the population, until it burns itself out.

Nonsense. Australia has done OK out of lockdowns, and it looks like there is an eventual suitable endgame available in terms of escalating vaccination levels, however late the Feds have been to 'that' party.

Hold the course. Continue escalating towards 'herd immunity' through vaccination. Progressively turn up the screws on those who remain unvaccinated. Keep personal border crossings under control until it's done. (And note, it's not exactly a closed border from an import/export perspective in the meantime.)

tum

This is the one isn’t it….

dfjordan

Chile has reached the 80% and only a 2% positivity rate on PCR tests. I think as far as the UK is concerned, there must be political reasons for Chile to be on the red list, or perhaps those in charge think South America is a country, and Chile is only a region within it!

ozzieeagle

I'm very optimistic about opening up. I anticipate buying flights either to Bali or somewhere else in SE Asia for 10 weeks or so over the Melbourne winter 2022. I'm hoping I'll be able to book that with confidence around November this year. Especially for those of us double vaccinated....or triple if necessary.

If that fails, then we'll go on the road around Aus, making sure we are up the North end of the Country at this time of year. However, I'm personally confident that we will open more or less fully during the middle of 2022... given the whinging and screaming coming out of Sydney and the curtailing to their wishes that Sco Mo is affording them.

Looks like Sydney finally and begrudgingly "had" to follow aspects of Melbournes model to get themselves out of the total shiteestorm they caused.. Although they were forced to use the Army to enforce it rather than the self-discipline of their locals. Strangely the same ethnic diversity of Melbournes North seems far more willing to follow the rules than the exact same demographic in Sydney's West.

Go Sydney.... Keep whinging like stuck pigs, and we'll get out of this sooner than later.

Beoz

Ha ha. Melbourne is a total failure when it comes to Covid. More lockdowns than anyone else. More days in lockdown than anyone else in the world. The worst death rate by a mile in Australia.

Sydney definately should not follow Melbourne's disasterous lead and thankfully has ignored the rhetoric to date. Lets get real here, When did anyone ever catch covid from playing golf or going to the beach in Australia. Never. Not a single piece of evidence.

What you need to realise Ozzie is the Sydney outbreak is very much a tale of 2 cities. For the most part, many suburbs are totally covid free. Even Bondi Beach is Covid free, despite to being called the Bondi outbreak. But like we see in many parts of the world, new immigrants don't know how to behave around covid, whether this is a language issue, cultural issue, lack of government trust issue, whatever, once it gets in the new immigrant, and lower socio economic areas, it's game over for them.

For the rest of us here our restrictions are pretty mild compared to Melbourne standards. Still doing the beach, golf, bush walks, whatever, but for those areas who don't know how to behave it's extremely strict. Yet numbers keep rising in those areas yet are falling everywhere else. Go figure, strict lockdowns actually don't work. Melbourne is a prime example of that failure.

Beoz

It's important to point out it's 70% of the adult population.

I believe the UK is at about 70% of the adult population now. And about 55% of the total population.

Still it's way too high before we can start implementing restrictions for the unvaxxed and I agree, the charge will start to die out way before then.

ozzieeagle

Doesn't get any stricter than having to use the army on 2 million plus people... Now that's a lockdown on steroids... Last time I looked that took place in Sydney... No matter how you want to paint and dismiss it. Not many jurisdictions around the world had to resort to the armed forces to gain control of its population

ozzieeagle

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Beoz

Correct. As I said, there is an area of Sydney that is having special treatment. Special restrictions on movement and work and the army are coming to that area. This is the new immigrant, refugee zone. They are not compliant. This is where covid is going no where right now. Everywhere else has none or a few cases. Their community leaders are claiming racism and whatever else. I'd expect that type of rhetoric from these morons.

Oh and FWIW, Sydney won't ever chase zeros again. It won't happen from here on in. It's a case of getting the vax numbers to a point where we let it rip. If Comrade McGowen don't like that, tough titties.

If you want to check out the areas here is a map.

https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/find...ng-by-postcode

Pollyana

Remember that your broad title of "new immigrants" applies to people of all nations.......

Tom Sawyer

I wouldn't bank on it. A lot of us who maintain the aircraft are currently unemployed or left the industry. An aircraft cannot fly unless a Licensed Engineer has certified the aircraft fit to fly and at this rate there will be none of us left. Qantas in Sydney currently have around 270 engineers from International Ops stood down or offered redundancy so who knows what their current situation is and if they will want to return. I and about 20 others were made redundant by another company in March. Most of us are scaping by on contract/casual positions. I've got a casual position with a domestic operator, but of course at present we are essentially grounded so in the next 4 weeks I'm working 4 days currently - and that could change. I'm getting the emergency Government payment, but if this drags on much longer I'll have to look at getting out and finding something else to do so I don't use up all of our savings.

It would take at least 6 months to get some of us back into the industry and requalified so on that basis the targets set for reopening are of no use at all as it is an unknown completion date. We need a hard date so that airlines can plan recruitment, training and getting the aircraft out of storage and reactivating them, which is quite involved. The same issues also apply to Pilots, Cabin Crew, Check in staff, baggage handlers, office support staff etc, etc, etc. The Government have done a really good job of crippling the employees of the airline industry. Yes, they have given QF and VA financial support, but a lot of us don't work for them but we did work for foreign operators so didn't get any support. Still - "she'll be right mate!".

Beoz

Yes. I am not sure how best to describe the demographic as it does include many nations but certainly not all nations. New British migration is one of the omitted nations. In fact new migrant may not be applicable either as there are many communities of older migrants, like Italian and Vietnamese. I think the health minister described these areas as "vibrant communities".