“Flatten the Curve” seems like so long ago.

Preach! The sooner people understand this the better. There is never going to be a Covid zero, ever. Unless we want to become a hermit nation disconnected from the global economy (which the anti-vaxxers won’t mind).

It's not the anti-vaxers, it's the Politicians that need convincing. And to convince them you need to convince the general public. Unless the politicians know there won't be a complete wipe-out of their party come election time nothing will be changing in this country.

Exactly.

Every decision that the government makes will be with the next election in mind, and there are a lot of voters who live in the same state as all their relatives. We are a victim of our own success - any relaxing of the borders will be seen as killing Aunty Gladys.

I posted the wrong link re the Qantas announcement.

correct one.
Highlights
QANTAS GROUP RECOVERY GATHERS SPEED
• Group Domestic capacity increasing beyond previous estimates to reach 90 per cent of pre-COVID levels in Q4 FY21; Jetstar to exceed 100 per cent due to strong leisure demand.
• All Qantas and Jetstar domestic crew now back at work.
• Recovery strategy puts short term focus on cash positive flying over profit margins – meaning more low
fares to help drive demand.
• Continuing to target resumption of rest of international network from late October; continued flexibility
for customers.
• Premium international lounges in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to reopen.
• New deal signed with Accor


https://investor.qantas.com/Download...5/02363725.pdf

" Preliminary data indicates the vaccines do prevent transmission as well as negating the effects of the disease. How long it’s effective for is yet to be determined, however the vaccines seem to be doing better than expected."

evidence from the UK (now 32.3 million first jabs and 8.1 million second jabs) shows that the even a single shot reduces transmission (as well as infection) and lasts at least 3 months, a second jab improves things and after 6 months show s no sign of diminution in effect. They also seem to be effective against the new variants. There are indications that the Pfizer and the Astra Zeneca trigger different parts of the immune system and they are running trails to see if, in the long run, getting a mixture of vaccination types may up the protection even further.

The dramatic fall in cases and hospitalisations was initially due to the severe lockdown but now you can see the vaccine affect - old people are no longer the majority of either hospital cases or new cases

But holidays are still a part of it. I know several Aussies with dual nationality who live in Europe and chose to come "home" and 2 weeks quarantine in December. They then spent 6-8 weeks in Australia during summer before going back to Europe.

Looks like the PM is going full McGowan for the election:

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/...15-p57jmo.html

...and surprise, surprise. A goal of ‘zero community transmission’ means the vaccine rollout timeline is unimportant. :hmm:

I don't think he has any choice as he will be screwed either way if he doesn't have a hard border. Even if he went to a open border then lost the election, Labor would probably shut it all down anyway, if their State government policies are any indication.

I actually don't interpret this narrative negatively. I think the past two weeks or so he has been trying to slowly and stealthily steer the long term narrative towards slowly opening up. I heard mentioned about him wanting the states to stop giving daily case number updates etc, and to agree to keep the internal borders open. For the last year, we have associated Covid with death and disaster. I think they are trying to get to the stage where the vulnerable are vaccinated and protected, so when the young get sick in general they aren't dying in overwhelming numbers... life to go on.

The challenge is the state governments (no elections to win this year..) and the media have led an absolute hysteria over every aspect of this crisis - ie the government is slammed by the media for picking a suboptimal vaccine which we could make onshore (a reasonable choice at the time), which now many don't want, and in the next breath is slammed for not having said vaccines to roll out immediately!

A challenge now will be for the government to overcome vaccine hesitancy in the population, regardless of supply bottlenecks.

It’s good to see - this year will be a better year for sure.

Covid, its just a flu. There are worse diseases out there. Life goes on. F U McClown !

There is a significant difference between closed borders as we have now and ‘sensible precautions’.

I’m vaccinated. Half my household is likewise. Why are we prohibited from travelling overseas? Some others have addressed other points.

It’s also interesting how those critical of the ‘open up’ crowd presume that it’s open slather. There are a number of steps between fully closed and ‘let it rip’. Nuance is possible in life. Just not possible in PPRUNE discussions it seems.

It was caused by foreign crew ignoring their quarantine directives and lunching on the northern beaches in two different locations. Again, if the vaccine significantly decreases the chances of catching Covid (by 90%), and then when you do get it you have a milder case if not asymptomatic, and thus have a significantly lower chance of passing it on, and most of the rest of the nation is vaccinated, why are we closing the borders?

yeah - a flu that can fill up every hospital bed in a nation in 4 weeks - I've heard from people in Spain and Italy and you really don't want to have that. All other operations cancelled, 20-30% of the patients dead, hospital staff worn to a shadow

this year, next year it'll be like the 'flu - as long as you've had your shots

Remember when a vocal group wanted us to react like Sweden?

This is on top of other restrictions they had/have. (update from 15 March 21).



Until September 2021, a temporary pandemic law ("Pandemilagen") shall apply. As a result, certain activities that are not covered by other infection control legislation can be closed or restricted.

The government has introduced a number of restrictions in connection with the pandemic law.

Until further notice, no more than eight people may be present at a public gathering or public event. The police has the right to cancel or dissolve an event that has more than eight attendees.

If a private gathering is held at an event venue, in a meeting room and at other rented premises, a maximum of eight people are allowed to attend.

An exception is made for funerals, where up to 20 participants are allowed.
If you organise an event in violation of the ban, you may face a fine or prison sentence of up to six months.

Shops, gyms, indoor sports facilities, and swimming facilities must calculate the number of visitors so that each person is given ten square meters of space. The companies must display clear signage that clarifies for visitors how many people may visit the premises at the same time. There is a further limit of 500 visitors for shops, sports facilities etc. This rule does not apply to shopping centres and malls.

Have you looked at the data in Sweden? Plenty of new cases every day, and almost no deaths arising from them.

Unfortunately we’re still hung up on numbers infected - even when that’s not translating into serious disease and death.

Some countries don’t have that luxury yet, but a lot do as they have vaccinations and most likely some level of natural immunity from not locking up so quickly.

Dear Mr Morrison
My family are all Australian citizens.

I havent seen them for 2 years and dont know if I will ever see them again

I am fully vaccinated ( 2x doses/pfizer )

I will pay for a Covid test before departure

I will pay for a test upon arrival

I will pay for 2 weeks in a quarantine facility

I will pay for another test before being released from quarantine

Im from the UK where everyone will have one vaccine dose by July and Two by October

The number of deaths and hospital admissions have all fallen dramatically in the UK and are expected to fall further in future

Please can I come over in November.

No
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/austra...morrison-warns

But he said the nation had become used to dealing with no cases and opening the borders would end the national cabinet’s stated goal of zero community transmission of Covid-19.

There you have it folks. 1000 cases a week equating to ~10 deaths a week from Covid before vaccination, probably 1pw after the vulnerable groups are vaccinated. Believe me this is completely unsustainable.

Also is Morrison seriously suggesting that Aus is outperforming the likes of Germany with their vaccine rollout? Saying that they were further ahead at the equivalent stage... what a load of rubbish! These qualify for being politicians?

The argument was Sweden had a blip early with aged care (and admitted it) but after that relatively no deaths.

Figures 2/10/2020____ 93,615 cases & 5,893 deaths.

Today 16/4/2021 (about 6 months) 892,480 cases & 13,761 deaths.

So almost no deaths = 7,868.

All the evidence is that when politicians get optimistic and lift the restrictions cases then hospital admissions and then deaths soar - Sweden, Chile & the UK all show this

We have to wait until about 65% of the population have had the jab to think about opening up fully - at that point the much maligned "herd immunity" actually exists

Where in the UK have hospital admissions or deaths soared?

Chile are also using Chinese vaccines that don’t work.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0d37653cbd.png

UK are sitting in the World # 6 in cases, and # 4 in deaths - has it been just consistent?

If you look at that graph you may notice that since January when the vaccine rollout started the number of patients admitted has fallen dramatically. So has deaths.
Still some way to go before vaccination is complete which will reduce numbers further.

Yes the number of cases /deaths etc may be very high in TOTAL since the start of all this. Things are looking much much better NOW mainly because of the successful vaccination program. ( any deaths are regrettable of course)

We need to stop looking backwards and start to move forwards with caution.

Surely International borders cant stay closed forever. That cant be good for anyone.

Ancient history now. We’re in April 2021 not 12 months ago. The vaccine rollout using an efficacious one is succeeding and the UK is bucking the trend.

your definition of “soar” is different to pretty much everyone else there chief

Thanks Chump, ? = question.

I love the alternate reality when, when presented with concrete facts (government issued graphs) , people justchange the narrative as if it never happened.

smooth.

Hardly. The claim was made the deaths and hospitalisations were soaring. This is not the case in the UK.

Hiding behind construed tenses. Clever.

The claim was that
When politicians opened up, deaths etc soared. That happened in lots of places in 2020. The claim was NOT that deaths etc are soarING in the UK NOW.

And it’s even more indefensible as you”ve only just started opening up some non essential shops (so no time yet to soar like last time) AND you’ve got an enviable vaccine policy. It’s unlikely to go batsh!t again in the UK.

Also in the UK, the stats are, people who die “within 28 days of a positive COVID result”.
So if you’re hit by a bus within 28 days of a positive result, you’re in the numbers.

We’ll never know the true numbers but with those metrics, they won’t be zero for a very long time, and there are many deaths that have gone down as COVID with family maintaining they died of something else.

That’s not to say the UK hasn’t had an awful time of it...

If you’re going for a zero COVID strategy, there are going to be large parts of the globe that will be inaccessible for many years to come. Not to mention the number of jobs lost in the travel and tourism industry. This is afterall, a pilots forum.

It’s amazing how many people on these forums that either (a) are happy to destroy their own industry and (b) happy to keep taking the money despite no one sitting in the back forgetting the consequences.

Stop telling lies, virtually every western country with the exception of belgium is using the WHO standard/classification. No where in that document does it say what you claim

https://www.who.int/classifications/...h_COVID-19.pdf

Its a bit more than that. The AZ vaccine has an efficacy of 79% and COVID has an R number of 3. The formula for herd immunity is H=(1-(1/R))/E. So you need 84% of the population vaccinated to reach herd immunity. Pfizer efficacy is 91% and that brings the H number down to 73%. We have a mix of vaccines, so which number do you use?

Opening up international borders is going to be a very slow process that will take years before any kind of free travel is allowed, even if vaccinated. First we have countries like NZ which are COVID free with strong restrictions to transits etc. We will then probably look at countries with strong border restrictions with very little COVID and allow vaccinated travel with testing and maybe a short quarantine period.

I think we will be lucky by the end of this year to have more than NZ and maybe a couple of Pacific Islands. Very lucky to have somewhere like Singapore as well.

The latest from the CDC in the USA. And before you go on about the Americans mismanaging the pandemic, which they did thanks to Donald, just remember where the two mRNA vaccines have come from.
Travel overseas and upon return NO NEED TO QUARANTINE.
Why?
Because you’re vaccinated and that can only be a good thing and yet here we are once again dragging the chain. Re inventing the wheel. Thinking we know better. When was the last time that Australia designed and built an airliner? Austronauts. What are we now Vaccinauts. This is a pilot forum. We fly technical equipment invented by scientists and engineers. It’s about time we applied some science and logic to the discussion. Not some abstract crap you heard on social media. We’ve become a bunch of risk averse pussies.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....eb78eb967.jpeg

Yep, science and logic would say that's what we have to look forward to when 40% of the population have had at least one dose (effectively eliminating hospital risk) and 25% are fully vaccinated. They are the stats from the USA from yesterday. :ok:

We should be in that position by .... Christmas? :mad:

We may be moving too slowly for my liking, but the upside is we will have longer to see what the US and UK do - I’m pretty positive things will get better quicker than the doomsdayers predict!

I think you’ll find we are listening to the experts - Australian experts who didn’t completely mess up the management of this virus. The CDC is all well and good but 1000 people are still dying every day in the US and the total is in excess of 566,000 deaths. They have the highest number of confirmed cases and the highest overall death toll of any country. They are 15th in the world for total deaths per capita, behind a list of developing countries or countries without decent medical infrastructure. Their economy is stuffed and their population has suffered.

Why on earth would we follow their policy?