themerlin

Beoz

Those things were only lost through political decisions made by some state premiers. Feds have no control over state borders.

Amazulu

Yep. Australia handled the Wuhan flu overreaction fantastically but there's no question that our government has cocked up the vaccine rollout - which is the complete opposite to how the UK, US did it

Beoz

I have no problem on price negotiation either. Demanding the IP coincides with the governments decision to be self sufficient on vaccines, which makes perfect sense on many levels and that's what AZ offered. Hindsight is good, but there was no knowledge at the time that one would be more risky over the other, and to be fair, the risk is so small on AZ we should still be pumping it out. In Australia there have been 30,000 COVID cases with 910 deaths. There have been 205,000 AZ shots with 2 deaths. The death avoiding is far more conclusive than the death giving. We could be well on the if we had stuck to our guns on AZ.

Interesting conversation with some of the younger parents at my kids school. They are all struggling to get a vax booking. All around the early 40's mark. The consensus was that they have pumped their bodies with enough crap in their times, been on long haul flights, done the contraceptive pill, blood clots are a risk in so many places, if AZ becomes available to their age bracket then they are all over it, rather than wait for whenever we get enough Pfizer supply.

themerlin

It's the same speaking to relatives in the UK, the clots don't seem to bother people, mind you they have been in lockdown so long they would probably take anything to get out.

paulry

All booked for 10 days from now

paulry

It's another "lucky country" example.

abner

And now it gets more complicated/befuddled again...

I logged in this morning to the VIC gov vaccine booking website, in order to see if I could book something new. Turns out my booking wasn't cancelled after all, so I couldn't look at potential new bookings online through that site (because I was still locked in to the original one). Meanwhile, the site was abysmally slow to respond to anything, so I gave up, and went to work.

A mate of mine at work saw an apparent Pfizer-related appointment available *today* at a major Melbourne site (which had previously shown no appointment availability at all, for at least a month). I thought, hmm, maybe a late cancellation, well I can make that, but I can't do it online cuz I'm still locked into the other one.

So I called the hotline again. And now the story is:
- The major Melbourne site's "today" opportunity, that my mate found, doesn't actually exist. There might be second-dose Pfizer jab availability at that site, but the hotline CSR couldn't understand why the apparent first-shot booking opportunity was shown at all. (Note that my mate was still on the VIC vaccine-booking website while I was on the call, refreshing regularly, and telling me "nope, it's still there", even while the CSR was telling me otherwise.)
- Meanwhile, it is apparently lucky that last night's hotline CSR actually didn't cancel my own original booking after all. Because, apparently, "vaccine unallocated" status for an appointment is a 'good thing' at that location, which is also the only location anywhere in Metro Melbourne that actually currently has 1st-dose Pfizer shots available. So I'm still booked in for early July, for what *should* be a Pfizer shot.
- Unfortunately, last night's hotline CSR *did* manage to cancel my wife's appointment, though not my own. So she has now been bumped by 3 further weeks to receive a first Pfizer jab.

Or so I'm told now.

Please note, I don't blame the CSRs. (The last CSR did kinda flame the second-last CSR, but apparently treated it as a "training opportunity".) All came across in a professional manner, and appeared to make an effort, reflecting whatever training and/or current information they had about how to handle the change in policy.

But it's clear that the VIC booking system is not keeping up to rapid policy changes, in a context where it *has to expect to be able* to keep up with rapid policy changes.

Amazulu

Hard times create good leaders
Good leaders create good times
Good times creates soft leaders
Soft leaders create hard times

Or something along those lines

Repeat

scrubbedexpat098

pretty much nails it.

paulry

Unless we get a Labor leader and then we're playing a game of snakes and ladders, but where the snake gets the upper hand.

Which reminds me, how's things going on your end of this great continent?

abner

For all the armchair critics who second-guessed my preference to receive Pfizer (or Moderna) over Astra Zeneca:

Even the government is bailing out on AZ

Amazulu

Yes. If you really want to truly, f**k something up, get a socialist involved so a Labor government would be a disaster for Australia. I was more alluding to the fact that we live in good times but our world is full of soft leaders. Look at them - Johnson, Trudeau, Biden, Morrison, Ardern, Macron etc. Some of them may be competent and/or doing a good job but none of them are exactly inspirational or making tough choices. It will take a crisis to bring out the best leaders - cometh the hour, cometh the (wo)man

Things are good, work is busy. I work 3 days a week from home and 2 days in the the city - a balance I enjoy. In August, my wife and I are doing a road trip North to Exmouth, Coral Bay and Monkey Mia - our first time up there and really looking forward to it - our first holiday in 2 years

My son finished school last year and has just recently been selected for either the Defence Force Academy or the Royal Military College in Canberra to train as an officer in the army. He wants to do infantry (WTF!!) or army aviation. He's turned out to be a great bloke and we're very proud of him - we've got something right

It's been so cold here recently - probably the coldest I've known it - especially working at home here in this big draughty old place we call home!

paulry

True about the worlds "leaders". They're all a disaster. To be honest, I expected a bit better with Morrison. But he seems to be living up to the Liberal Party reputation that they don't do anything much - they just keep their seats warm.

Cool, so your son is coming over to my part of the country. He'll enjoy it here, and also be an easy distance from Sydney and Melbourne. Drop me a line if I can be any help. My sons are a bit older (23 and 25), and have also turned into fine strapping young men. My wife and I also feel like somehow we just got everything right with them. Must be this awesome Australian environment. I'm sure they would be more than happy to show him around the city, etc if he wants.

Usually this time of the year we're already into -5, -6 kinds of temperatures overnight and so far this year it's struggled to get below zero. But we've had heaps and heaps of rain - actually it's raining now. All of our dams are literally overflowing and everything looks amazingly lush and green. PM me your email addy and I'll share some drone footage with you.

Enjoy your holiday. Two years without a good break is a long time to wait.

scrubbedexpat098

I'm quite happy to have had the AZ, but if us that have had it end up on some second tier 'vaccinated but still scum' list I'm going to be pretty filthy about it.