Originally Posted by
aviation_enthus
ANY recovery will be hamstrung by the political messaging in Australia.
Back in 2017 Australia had a “worse than average” influenza season. Cases peaked at 9000 a week and hundred and hundreds of people died. Yet no one batted an eyelid. Sure the hospital staff probably noticed, but no one else was affected.
It's too late to still be using the "it's no worse than the flu" argument. For comparison USA standard flu deaths per year is 12,000 to 50,000, COVID has taken 365,000 in 9 months. We have vaccines for the flu and vast experience with it.
Fast forward to October 2021. Vaccination has reached 80-90% of the Australian population. Most of the rich, mainly western countries around the world have vaccinated a majority of their citizens.
What now?
Well a herd immunity has been reached, the pandemic is subsiding and life can start to return to normal.
Australian politicians have shown ZERO appetite for any cases whatsoever.
Without a vaccine. One case can quickly turn into millions. At one point the UK, USA, Brazil, Italy, Spain all had one case too......
So given this, I imagine it will take months to change the “fear factor” and for the various premiers to stop the daily press briefings. Only then will the media and public attention move on and be able to ignore an ongoing low level of COVID cases.
Yeah, the fear factor of exponential spread with an un-immunised populace. Which is why UK hospitals are overflowing and US hospitals are running out of oxygen. It's a horrific situation. Once a vaccine stops the pandemic (not necessarily the virus) then Covid can become like a seasonal flu illness.