Coronavirus/Covid-19 Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Trebla]

It will be interesting to see where Australia’s “critical mass” is in terms of vaccination rates - where everyone is vaccinated to the point where you’re just left with people who will outright refuse to get it.

 

[Life'sHard]

New High Score!

 

[BLIT2014]

It will be interesting to see where Australia’s “critical mass” is in terms of vaccination rates - where everyone is vaccinated to the point where you’re just left with people who will outright refuse to get it.

New High Score!
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Look at those testing numbers though

 

[Life'sHard]

Herd immunity is what's gonna save the retarded anti vaxxers. Natural selection should work faster on them.

 

[cosmo 2]

wot natural selection

survival rates of unvaccinated vs. vaccinated will be mostly the same, probably favouring unvaccinated bc so many of the vaccinated are so frail even when they get rona they still die anyway

 

[SylviaB]

Herd immunity is what's gonna save the retarded anti vaxxers. Natural selection should work faster on them.

Unless people get revaccinated then herd immunity probably won't occur, especially if there's new variants which there will be

And you just know when there's enough vaccination then restrictions will be eased and overseas travel and immigration will be back and new outbreaks will keep occurring

Just look at Israel

The country with the quickest vaccination rate with a majority of the population vaccinated and they're currently experiencing over 8,000 daily cases (in a population of 9 million) as they remove restrictions and vaccine wears off and is less effective against the Indian variant

Imagine what aus state governments would do if they had that infection rate. Would be going mental.

People were dumb for thinking covid was going to be over by the end of 2020 through elimination and they're dumb for thinking it's going to be over through vaccination by the end of 2021

If your job depends on tourism or is a small business with public consumers (retail, hospitality) based in Melbourne or Sydney then you're pretty much fucked

 

[Paradoxica]

Herd immunity is what's gonna save the retarded anti vaxxers. Natural selection should work faster on them.

Models suggest Herd Immunity is impossible for the UK, as the theoretical number is higher than the eligible population.

I think the same applies to Australia.

 

[enoilgam]

If your job depends on tourism or is a small business with public consumers (retail, hospitality) based in Melbourne or Sydney then you're pretty much fucked

It's not just tourism and small business, the impacts are far reaching from construction, to food production and even government services. Like, I agree it wont be over by the end of this year, but personally I think lockdowns need to end once we reach 80% vaccination rates and we need to shift our priorities elsewhere. Stick with social distancing and masks but beyond that we need to move on. I understand the virus is dangerous, but it isnt worth these extreme measures and impositions on civil liberties. Maybe it can be justified short term, but not for years on end. There are more important things in life than COVID.

 

[Drdusk]

Apparently Sydney’s most famous Chinese/Cantonese restaurant went out of business because of the whole lockdown situation. Even a former US President has eaten at that restaurant.

 

[enoilgam]

I also think whilst we wont reach herd immunity, as people get infected and vaccinated, COVID will progressively become less deadly and severe. Also, viruses tend to eventually mutate towards more contagious but less virulent forms over time, which could also help this crisis die out.

 

[Trebla]

We have to be comfortable with the reality that there is just too much uncertainty. We cannot demand guarantees for something that is unpredictable. No one knows how the virus will behave over time, the best you can do is speculate what might happen. There is always the possibility that lockdowns could return if hospitals get overwhelmed.

On a side note, an interesting observation is that the beta variant is apparently the most vaccine resistant variant of concern, yet it got overtaken by the delta variant due to its higher infectiousness.

 

[cosmo 2]

phuck masks

 

[enoilgam]

We have to be comfortable with the reality that there is just too much uncertainty. We cannot demand guarantees for something that is unpredictable. No one knows how the virus will behave over time, the best you can do is speculate what might happen. There is always the possibility that lockdowns could return if hospitals get overwhelmed.

My point is, I don't think lockdowns are worth the cost even if hospitals are overrun. Whilst both are terrible, terrible situations I think overrun hospitals aren't as bad as ongoing lockdowns. I think the primary reason that the worlds economy hasn't faced the economic Armageddon that was predicted is because business have assumed this will be temporary and have gone into hibernation. If it is ongoing and the uncertainty continues, business confidence will take a permanent and lasting hit and then we will be in serious trouble.

Ive said this since the beginning of the pandemic, but people who say health is more important then the economy have rocks in their head. Health and wealth go hand in hand. Those "non-essential" small businesses are the backbone of Australia, their taxes generate the money that fuels hospitals. Contrary to popular belief, hospitals don't run on good will and fairy dust, they run on cold hard cash and represent one of the biggest economic costs in a country. As hard as it is, the healthcare system needs to develop its capacity so it can handle any surge whilst the country keeps running - otherwise, there wont be much of a healthcare system left when COVID finally does end.

 

[Hiheyhello]

My point is, I don't think lockdowns are worth the cost even if hospitals are overrun. Whilst both are terrible, terrible situations I think overrun hospitals aren't as bad as ongoing lockdowns. I think the primary reason that the worlds economy hasn't faced the economic Armageddon that was predicted is because business have assumed this will be temporary and have gone into hibernation. If it is ongoing and the uncertainty continues, business confidence will take a permanent and lasting hit and then we will be in serious trouble.

Ive said this since the beginning of the pandemic, but people who say health is more important then the economy have rocks in their head. Health and wealth go hand in hand. Those "non-essential" small businesses are the backbone of Australia, their taxes generate the money that fuels hospitals. Contrary to popular belief, hospitals don't run on good will and fairy dust, they run on cold hard cash and represent one of the biggest economic costs in a country. As hard as it is, the healthcare system needs to develop its capacity so it can handle any surge whilst the country keeps running - otherwise, there wont be much of a healthcare system left when COVID finally does end.

true
i reckon that once we’ve reached the 80% target we have to open up because lockdowns simply aren’t sustainable to support consumer livelihoods unless the economy and workforce entirely transferred online. but the issue with transferring everything online is there’d be a time lag which would create lotsa structural unemployment, and i don’t think anyone wants to live in isolation as a long term solution. we just have to hope that the vaccines reduce symptoms to some extent (less strain on hospitals), and may need to get used to vaccines as a regular part of our lives.

 

[Trebla]

My point is, I don't think lockdowns are worth the cost even if hospitals are overrun. Whilst both are terrible, terrible situations I think overrun hospitals aren't as bad as ongoing lockdowns. I think the primary reason that the worlds economy hasn't faced the economic Armageddon that was predicted is because business have assumed this will be temporary and have gone into hibernation. If it is ongoing and the uncertainty continues, business confidence will take a permanent and lasting hit and then we will be in serious trouble.

Ive said this since the beginning of the pandemic, but people who say health is more important then the economy have rocks in their head. Health and wealth go hand in hand. Those "non-essential" small businesses are the backbone of Australia, their taxes generate the money that fuels hospitals. Contrary to popular belief, hospitals don't run on good will and fairy dust, they run on cold hard cash and represent one of the biggest economic costs in a country. As hard as it is, the healthcare system needs to develop its capacity so it can handle any surge whilst the country keeps running - otherwise, there wont be much of a healthcare system left when COVID finally does end.

Whilst I agree that we cannot have lockdowns as a long term solution, I actually think that we are not yet at that boundary point between temporary measures vs sustained measures. We are still in the midst of grappling with short term issues and will be for a while yet, especially given under 12s are still not yet in scope for vaccination anytime soon.

The whole relationship between health and wealth goes both ways. If we get to the point where ordinary people are not even able to access normal health care due to an overwhelmed system then you are inevitably going to have a collapse in economic activity. That would come from aspects such as lost productivity/output with too many people getting sick and reduced consumer activity - where people are afraid to go out and spend if they think they might not get proper treatment should they become sick. At least in lockdown there is a goal of suppression, but without it people will be uncertain about how bad it could get. That uncertainty has flow on effects to consumer sentiment.

The reality is that we can create as much surge capacity in the system as we can but it can never handle large exponential growth (even worse if health care workers themselves end up hospitalised). I don’t think society would accept government inaction on an overwhelmed hospital system, especially if it is also hurting the economy.

If the vaccines hopefully hold up and we don’t have that scenario, then great. But I would not be surprised if lockdowns make a return should the hospital system be overwhelmed. As I said before, we need to manage our expectations for any potential scenario, not just the ones idealistically promised to us by the government or what we wish would happen.

 

[cosmo 2]

the vaccines aren't effective enough to provide herd immunity

covid will keep mutating and outpacing global vaccine supply chains

booster shots will continuously be needed bu tthere will be an attrition rate as many people will fail to get them year on year

lockdowns are finished and people have had enough, it wont be long before something serious happens that will force the hand of all state govts to lift restrictions and open borders, like a truckers strike (which has been threatened already)

end result of all of this in the long term: a slightly higher death rate

it will take at least one or two generations before we will start seeing objective analyses into the efficacy and value of these lockdowns

 

[cosmo 2]

meanwhile we're a global laughing stock

afghanistan is objectively freer than us rn

imagine australians believing we're the envy of anything

 

[SylviaB]

A year and a half after Sweden decided not to lock down, its COVID-19 death rate is up to 10 times higher than its neighbors

Sweden may have seen fewer people die of COVID-19 had it implemented tighter lockdown rules or mask mandates.

news.yahoo.com

 

[Hiheyhello]

meanwhile we're a global laughing stock

afghanistan is objectively freer than us rn

imagine australians believing we're the envy of anything

aww poor thing, why don’t you move to afghanistan then?

you’d be crying to come back

 

[SylviaB]

im so annoyed by politicians talking about "reopening our borders to foreign visitors" or whatever as if its the grand goal of defeating covid (as opposed to letting Australians live normal lives and not having businesses be destroyed etc)

they really aren't that fucking necessary for our economy, and any benefit is offset at least in part by the fact that asutralians will spend huge amounts of money overseas themselves. and the benefit will be clearly negative when you account for the fact that foreigners WILL bring in covid and cause outbreaks that result in lockdowns that do a hell of a lot more economic damage than not bringing in foreigners