These are the kind of things that need to happen to try and change public opinion... either in terms of increasing vaccination coverage or just reopening the border in general. If Joe and Jane Public's life starts to be affected in more of a way than missing out on their annual Bali holiday, we might start to see some good momentum.

In my local medical clinic it's the Dr. who gives the injection. Most other vaccinations are administered by nursing staff who are qualified.
The turn over of patients is quite quick so someone must be making quite a few dollars doing this simple task.
Maybe I'm a bit cynical but why only the Dr. and not the usual nurses? As a previous poster put it " maybe a money spinner " here!!
Anyway the quicker it's done the sooner we can get everyone vaccinated and try to return to some sort of normalcy.

It is more efficient for a Dr to have a suitably qualified Nurse that can do it and not have a Dr supervise every injection, that being one that has completed an immunization course about 18hrs of study. A Nurse that has not completed it needs a Dr to supervise each injection therefore not efficient they may as well do it themself. Remember the Dr still has their regular patients that are seeing them for other more serious illness.
The vaccination program with a qualified Nurse is far more profitable for the Dr. A surgery that can do as little as 150 per week can be excess of $15,000 over 6months just for doing them.

I also understand the legal requirements around these new vaccines is different to normal flu and travel type vaccines. Simply because these are new and therefore the reactions of patients hasn’t been as well documented as other vaccines which have been around for years. So a doctor has to be around in case of adverse reactions. This is why your local chemist wharehouse isn’t doing them.

And money spinner. The AstraZeneca vaccine is being sold by them at cost. The Pfizer and others are not. I saw a table of the costs per vaccine and it was something like $10 for Astra and $30 for Pfizer. Multiply that by billions and … I might go get some Pfizer shares.

In initial deals with the U.S. government, Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine costs $19.50 per dose, compared with $15 for Moderna's shot, $16 for Novavax's program, $10 for Johnson & Johnson's vaccine and $4 for AstraZeneca's.

The publication reports that Pfizer and BioNTech approached European officials seeking €54 per dose, or €27 billion for 500 million doses, last summer.While officials negotiated the price down to €15.50 per dose,


Cost is another inhibiting factor with Moderna's vaccine coming in at $37 per jab while Pfizer & BioNTech state theirs will cost around $20 per dose.. University of Oxford and AstraZeneca ..also significantly cheaper than its counterparts at just $4 per dose.

In covid clinics in Qld (at my local one anyway), run by Qld Health, the nurses administer it and there’s no doctor in the building.

interesting.

because I definitely remember hearing that doctors have to be there. That is also why there is the mandatory 15 minute observation period after the vaccine. Oh, maybe ignore my post. Also see now they have taken expressions of interest from community pharmacies…

maybe due to the large numbers worldwide they have relaxed the requirements.

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/pro...-needed-to-cla

QLD health may be different, in NSW there has to be a Dr in the building or in the room depending on the Nurses qualifications.

There’s always at least one nurse immuniser present who is qualified in advanced life support. Having a doctor sitting around for the very rare occasion that they’d be required is a waste of money and their time.

well I have just heard that the total number of deaths she will accept is ZERO. This was in response to the CEO of Virgins comments saying we have to open up and accept that some people will die. You know like the flu every year… She, the CEO that is has been crucified all day for her insensitive comments.

so we can see where this is going or more accurately not going. International borders are going to remain firmly shut and any decision is going to err well and truely on the side of EXTREME caution. The state premiers and the PM have well and truly painted themselves into a very small corner.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...alia-boss.html

The desire to make a buck is what made those words pop out of her mouth (JH), no surprise there, as long as the cashier is busy she couldn’t care less. The template for a successful election is simple, you lot can carry on and bitch all you like but it is too late, the die has been cast.

And the cashier is ready to pay out Ms Jayne and the rest of the Exec. Team to the tune of $42.4m to get things moving for the Business!

If its all about the money for JH then its all about the politics for the state premiers and the PM. The Tassie election has shown that anyone coming down hard on Covid border protections will win an election. If you want to know why the international borders are shut until October 22 then just look up when the next Federal election is due. JH and AJ want the borders open for their own self interest and the PM wants them closed for his, very simple logic

Strange as a close friend (RN working for Qld Health testing quarantine staff) had to source and get her jab in her own time. Non was offered by Qld Health.

All QLD Health staff have received various emails telling them how they can get the jab.

Seems a rather nebulous sort of strategy?
Why not actively pursuing and facilitating them at their place of work???
I realize not all want it but isn’t the goal to try to get the vast majority done?
From my experience, sending staff numerous emails full of platitudes begging them to do something is doomed to fail.

Because you can’t just rock up to anywhere and give them a jab (by Australian standards anyway). You need the facilities to keep the vaccines plus also if something goes wrong, you need the ability to treat a patient.

Hear, Hear!!

I know deep down it won’t be enough, but I think public opinion is starting to swing more and more against the “Prime Minister of Announcements”. Even been some critical articles against the PM in News Ltd papers.

He’s had his chance to lead and has clearly shown he doesn’t have what it takes. The PM of our country should have the ability to guide the country and take the people with him. Not make regular empty announcements and govern by what the latest Newspoll tells him...

“A manager does what’s right”

“A leader does the right thing”.

By what standard do you make that call.
Against Trump, Boris, Biden, or the much touted European countries.
Last 7 Days Europe

601, I see what you're trying to do there but allow me to show the numbers that actually matter.

This is the false equivalency that the Australian Government and to a certain extent the media, are constantly bashing into people's skulls: Cases = deaths, one for one. Cases are going up, but the deaths are way down now that the vaccines are seemingly living up to their promise - and that's with certain variants floating around. The EU is opening up to vaccinated tourists even to US citizens. The vaccine was never meant to eradicate virus but just to lessen the severity of the disease to something more manageable like the flu. Australia is on the wrong side of the drag curve with this one.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....228e21a85a.png
.

First closed last open does have its advantages. The advantages just aren’t for the very small group involved in international operations.

Which advantages do you allude to? Australia's Covid free status is tenuous at best. Just look at Taiwan and Singapore the so called 'gold standard' of handling the pandemic are now experiencing spikes in infection with so-so vaccination programs. Do you really want to go into lockdown every time ONE single case breaks through? That's not sustainable and the economic recovery seems to be heavily reliant on a hotel quarantine system that can be best described as 'leaky'.

Fuel-Off :ok:

Ok I’ll counter that with:

Show me a tough decision he’s made that went against public opinion at the time??

Closing the border doesn’t count. Public opinion clearly supported that back in March.

He constantly ducks and weaves any blame, makes regular announcements that have no real bearing, the decisions he does make are popular or follow public opinion (not lead it!).

Like I and others have said, a good leader should be able to make a decision and then bring the public with him. Scotty from marketing has never done that.

- how many travel bubbles has he announced?
- how many times has he announced something new to do with the vaccine?
- a large number of the new defence spending announcements were “already included in the $250B announced last year”

I could go on....

And don’t try and throw in the standard “look at the UK/USA” counter argument. The ONLY countries we should be comparing ourselves to is countries with similar geographic advantages (islands). The UK isn’t included in this list because they are so reliant and connected to the EU.
- Singapore
- Taiwan
- South Korea
- New Zealand
- Japan

How do we stack up against them?

i agree, that’s one of the advantages of delaying opening of borders, a near zero Covid infection rate in Australia. The vaccination rollout has been slow and poorly managed, but we shouldn’t be rushing to open until the rollout is completed.

Why? Aside from the obvious benefits of not having loads of sick and dead Australians, there is the massive comparative economic benefit:

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal...0210309-p57909

I would be interested in your definition of “completed”.

OK then, I have nothing better to do - 7 day average new cases 19 May 21
Singapore - 39
Taiwan - 186
South Korea - 641
New Zealand - 2
Japan - 5,578

Australia - 6 ( no current local acquired cases)

I'm sure the age newspaper is missing you in the comments section. I'm not a Scomo fan, but he is the PM of a country that if it hasn't had the best response, it is in the top 5 so you are just going to have to sux it up.

I could go on.

The Age?! Hahaha yeah sure. Just because I don’t think Scomo has great job makes me left wing huh??

Its not just about cases either. What about the way the treat returning citizens? I’ll bet we are near the bottom of that list then.

Not one of those countries threatened jail time for citizens trying to get home.... If you can’t understand why that’s a really bad policy, I’m not going to argue with you here.

Vaccine rollout: (doses per 100)
- Singapore: 60 per 100
- South Korea: 9.7 per 100
- Australia: 13 per 100
- New Zealand: 9.6 per 100
- Japan: 6.0

Singapore is the clear standout there. But we are so far down the list, we are only surrounded by relatively poor countries. Pretty much every single other “Western” country is so far ahead it’s not funny. We are supposed to be producing 1M AZ doses a week plus the 100K+ Pfizer doses, yet we can only manage 400K actual vaccinations?!

We had “one of the best responses” because we are an island. NOT because of our illustrious leadership.

For reference Australia had one of the lowest rates of mortality back in 1919 as well. But I guess that was also down to amazing leadership right? Couldn’t be anything to do with geography....

Meanwhile in Queensland.

Setting a wonderful example. Utterly unbelievable. Staggering…

https://www.9news.com.au/videos/heal...230irwa6lb8skw

ok we get it, you hate the Liberals and particularly Morrison.

since WuHu flu started, over 500,000 people have returned. I think they have been treated pretty well, and not one jailed. The legislation to do so has been there for a while.. bad policy, well in extreme circumstances if you deliberately put other people’s lives in danger and cause a lockdown coatings billions then I think jail is the appropriate response. Again in extreme circumstances and again no one has been charged with this despite 500,000 people having returned . So perhaps stop your hyperventilating.

the vaccine rollout has not been successful to date but is ramping up. The issues surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots has certainly not helped, just ask the Qld premier and chief health officer (see link above) There were also supply issues. But even given that, things should have gone better. I guess all those poor little federal health public servants couldn’t cope having to actually do something for once in their lives.

but overall, I think the federal govt has done a reasonable job, compare it to other countries our case rates and death rates are substantially lower than comparable countries. Our economy is bouncing back.

let’s ask Albo what he would do…. Well um, I can’t really say. I mean you would have to look at each case individually. But whatever the government is doing is wrong.

I went to one of the covid vax centres yesterday. It had taken hours on hold and eventually two days for someone to call me back to book a vaccination. When I got there there were about 500 empty plastic chairs and about 30 staff twiddling their thumbs. People getting vaccinated? Including me, about 5. A couple had walked in without appointments and were able to get vaccinated straight away, so I could have got it two weeks ago if I'd known that was an option.
If I'd waited for my GP I would have had to find a day when she is there, take half a day off work, been stuck in a waiting room for an hour or more. At the vaccination centre I was done and out the door including 15 minute wait after vax in less than 20 minutes.
If people won't get vaccinated for whatever reason they can't blame the government.

Why does any criticism of the PM automatically mean someone hates the Liberals? For the record I could not bring myself to vote for Bill Shorten, so the Liberals were the only other option. I was even happy to give Morrison a chance after Hawaii (I didn’t really think bushfire management was his job anyway). But since then he’s just got more disappointing. Like I said, too many announcements and not enough results.


Just because the legislation exists, doesn’t make it right or morally acceptable to use it. Any country on the planet has an obligation to its citizens. Allowing access is one obligation. By all means apply quarantine requirements, but jail time for trying to come home is morally wrong. When a whole bunch of conservative commentators also think it’s wrong (Bolt, Sky News, The Australian, etc) don’t you question what we’ve become as a country? What are we sacrificing in the name of “safety”? Even Bob Katter disagreed FFS!!

Probably similar things with the border (any shade of government should have done that), but I would hope Labor would have been better at the vaccine rollout. I would have thought they wouldn’t find jail to be a “good” health outcome either....

I'm fully vaccinated.
My Partner in the UK is fully vaccinated.
I hold a valid UK Passport and I can't fly to the UK to see her...!

She's UK and as it's a de-facto relationship, she is at the bottom of a very big pile to be exempted to fly here (been refused 5 times by Immi). Money for Quarantine never a problem – as all tests to be fulfilled – Nope!

This is a political game now. Next year elections will be Scotty saying "See how I saved you all, travel is now open, vote for me..."

I know a fair few people (me included), who have not seen family for over a year. We're not voting for him because we believe it's political now – yes a grudge vote!
These are real people with family and relationships being prevented by the Gov.

The Health Minster's power given under the Act which allows him to recommend to the government to stop Australians entering Australia was only given under the premise of 'An emergency inside Australia'.

Fail enough if there were a billion poisonous snakes roaming around. "Hey, we won't let you in until we sort out the snakes..."

There is no emergency in Australia. Therefore his (Health Minister's), power in this case is invalid...

It's actually illegal to say no to any Australian passport holder who wishes to enter his home land, under this Act.

Absolutely in agreement on the Feds abrogating their responsibilities.
Morrison is giving me the ****s now.
Look at the frigging mess we have now with the vaccine rollout and the lack of direction provided to the public. All this has played into the hands of the anti-vax mob who are gaining more and more seemingly sensible people into the conspiracy ranks.
What seems glaringly absent is any form of Govt advertising campaign to dispel all these myths and explain properly wtf is going on.
During the early days of HIV AIDS , there were concerted campaigns run on FTA TV to educate everybody on the truths and fiction of how it was contracted.
I know we’re in the IT age now where people obtain their ‘advice’ from multiple sources but surely the Govt should be running something on TV to counter the absolute morons like the hairdresser on the Gold Coast and her whacky followers.

It doesn’t help that the major news organisations in this country announce with great hoopla and flashing red ‘Breaking News’ headlines every time someone has an adverse reaction to the vaccines.

Fear porn = clicks = more revenue.

More naval gazing from Morrison today. “But, but, but, U.K.!!”

I was in London for the last two days for the first time since 2019. The place is definitely showing signs of getting back to some sort of normality. Whereas before the transport hubs were at like 200% of capacity, right now it’s around 50% but a lot of people now fully vaccinated and a lot of young people wanting to get on with their lives. The pubs are full with restrictions but museums and tourist attractions reopened this week and it felt like a really big reopening. In 1 months time, in theory stadiums can reopen at 100% capacity.

For how much longer can the Au government look down on “countries like the U.K.” and say we’re better than you?

Let’s wait and see how you go when all the people come back from those Amber destinations that the “need” to holiday in. And how is that outbreak of the Indian variant going?

Well at some point international travel needs to reopen. An amber country means that you have to home quarantine for 10 days upon return. As for case numbers, it has been flat for quite a few weeks now. 0.003% of tests done right now are positive.

Worldometer

Dropping pretty sharply.

There was NO ban on people coming from India. There was a ban on flights from India. If you left India and quarantined in a third country for 14 days you could then enter Australia, as the cricketers did.
The ban also had a cutoff date.
The penalty for breaching a direction under the bio-security act has been there since 2011.

How about we pick a comparable democratic and cultural alike country like Canada.
Canada Total Cases 1,352,121 Total Deaths 25,162 Active cases 57,970 Total/Mil 35,549 Death/Mil 662 Population 38,035,132
Australia Total Cases 30,003 Total Deaths 910 Active Cases 106 Total/Mil 1,165 Death/Mil 35 Population 25,761,598

Well I and all my friends have been able to go about our daily business and getting on with their lives since August last year.

Did you actually check the daily new cases?
Still bouncing around above 250,000. There is no sharp drop, only a "flattening of the curve"

No ban?? How do you explain the PM clearly threatening jail time for arriving citizens that been in India in the last 14 days?

That my friend is a ban. Jail time for citizens was also a threat NO OTHER country made against its own citizens.

Not everyone has the cash to stay in a tropical resort for 14 days. On top of this, would you believe a large majority of countries have restrictions on non-citizens entering their country? This means there’s only a handful of choices to spend your 14 days waiting to avoid jail. Plus on top of this you’d probably need an extra flight to get there. AND be at the mercy of short notice restrictions being applied while you are in transit. Risking you being stranded. Again.

I don’t care if it had a cutoff date, it should have never been applied in the first place.

Well lucky you and your friends and your insular little lives.

I worked overseas but regularly (read weekly!) came back and forth to Australia to see my immediate family and parents until March last year.
My career got thrown in the bin without the ability to do that. I would have been ok to reduce that to maybe once every 3 months. Idid manage to go back for one 6 month stint but after very nearly being refused to leave the country by an overzealous BF goon, even tho I had a copy of my work contract with me and owned my own flat overseas and resided there for over 20 years, it became evident I wasn’t even going to be permitted to see them once a year.

Carry on sipping your lattes with your friends.