Originally Posted by
Ninthace
Sorry to interrupt as a non dweller in your part of the world but as someone with strong family links with aviation in the region. The death and hospitalisation rates in countries with high levels of vaccination are much lower for a given level of infection. For a like with like comparison, compare the UK stats for the start of second wave, where there was virtually no vaccination, with the equivalent daily case numbers for the third wave, with high levels of vaccination. They are released every day at 1600 UK time. The vaccinations are not 100% effective but they definitely shift the odds in your favour. No question vaccination works.
Would you rather sit there wondering if you should have been vaccinated or be lying in hospital wishing you had been? Your call.
The problem is that no-one in Australia gives a s&*t about death or hospitalisation rates. After 18 months of success, closed borders, zero cases and being the absolute envy of the world - just ask Scomo and Greg Hunt - Australians have been conditioned to believe that no-one in this country ever dies from a communicable disease and that the only acceptable outcome is zero deaths from anything for ever.
Current daily US death rates of 280 per day (7 day average, less than 10% of the high in January) when corrected for population would be roughly 22 per day or 8200 deaths a year in Australia. In the US such figures are seen as a triumph of science and policy (finally). Here, they'd be a disaster of epic proportions and no politician would ever be willing to sanction such numbers. I think we're fk'd.