So much for 99.99% effective.

"University of Melbourne researchers say there has been one hotel quarantine leak per 204 Covid-19 infected travellers"

https://www.news.com.au/national/uni...f681c0a2651be6

So.... 99.5% effective?

We wouldn't be flying if engines had a 0.5% failure rate.

Add in the non-Covid infected passengers and 99.9% effective is looking pretty reasonable….

Jesus... are you really looking at it like this?

What a ridiculous analogy. Do you even get out of bed in the morning??

Yeh, I saw that statement in Parliament and thought to myself he better have the exact figures to back that up or he's just misled parliament and should resign.

I never watch the whackos on Sky normally but they had an interesting guy on the other day, he's an expert in demographics and he pointed out one of the potential reasons that NSW, who also has hotel quarantine, hasn't had the number or size of outbreaks that Victoria has - having lived in both cities I think he's got a point, saying that Sydney with the bulk of New South Wales' population is basically like a set of regions separated by sunken rivers, the harbour, etc. so it is not as common or as 'easy' to move around between suburbs or rather, there's not a tendency to do so with places like the northern beaches and Sutherland, etc. being almost peninsula's surrounded by rivers. In contrast, Melbourne/Vic is (to use his analogy) is like a 'fried egg', it has a centre and splays out flat in every direction with parallel roads and very few rivers or any natural barriers as such being more contiguous so the tendency is for one community to spill over into another, etc. in their daily activities, facilitating greater spreading opportunities for things like COVID.

He compared NSW and Victoria because they have similar size populations. It would be interesting to go back and see if the spread of Spanish Flu was more severe in Melbourne in the 20s than Sydney. I believe he excludes places like Perth from his analysis because WA has a vast natural barrier from other States and Adelaide/SA for similar reasons and because it's small.

sounds like a load of bollocks. If he doesn’t think people move around in Sydney the man is an imbecile or an academic completely out of touch with reality.

We have also only had about 6 days of lockdown in Sydney versus over 100 in Melbourne. Lot more moving around in Sydney.

AZ costs €1.8 per jab, Pfizer is between €16 and €20. That’s the reason the media tell you AZ cause blood clots but Pfizer doesn’t.

2 shots per person in Australia €95m for AZ

2 shots per person in Australia €800m for Pfizer

And why is each new strain in Sicktoria more deadly and more infectious? Last lockdown was because of the deadly and highly infectious UK strain which seems to be fairy benign now, compared to why the deadly and highly infectious Indian strain...
and not the weak as sh1t kappa strain, they’ve escalated to the killer mutant deadly Delta strain now

It will be the the lethal Antarctic strain next week

thats Pfizer’s special pandemic pricing. Their ongoing pricing is significantly more than that. And already and as well all knew or suspected, the UK are mentioning the need for booster Pfizer shots to combat the variants. These will no doubt be priced at their post pandemic pricing. Worldwide, if Pfizer only give 1 billion booster shots per year, …. Ongoing for who knows how long, forever like the flu shots probably..

Amid the high-stakes fight against COVID-19, a company at the forefront of the vaccine effort is laying plans to hike prices after the crisis. A top Pfizer exec said the drugmaker aims to charge more after the "pandemic pricing environment," and an influential analyst says the company could be eying prices 3 to 4 times higher.

On an earnings call earlier this month, Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio said that “obviously,” the company is “going to get more on price” after the “pandemic pricing environment." He was speaking in response to Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Jason Zemansky, who asked the management team about how profit margins for the program could change over time.

In short, D’Amelio explained that Pfizer expects its COVID vaccine margins to improve. Under one pandemic supply deal, Pfizer is charging the U.S. $19.50 per dose, D'Amelio said, which is “not a normal price like we typically get for a vaccine—$150, $175 per dose. So, pandemic pricing.”

He wasn’t saying that no one moves around in Sydney - he was saying as I stated that Melbourne is more contiguous than Sydney, it doesn’t have the natural barriers that provide some degree of isolation for groups of suburbs.

If you think he’s an ‘imbecile’ then perhaps post your qualifications in demographics.

That pretty much supports the theory.

The other factor in the downstream relative cost of the vaccines is the Pf needs certain storage conditions, then mixing and strictly documented time controls during the jab day.
AZ you just get from the fridge and poke.

Precisely what I was trying to indicate. Having lived in both cities for more than a decade each time, when I lived in Sydney and looked to go out with friends, we didn't go to the Northern Beaches, we might once in a while, whereas if a friend asked me out to lunch (absent a lockdown of course) on the other side of Melbourne from where I live, I wouldn't think twice as it's easy to get to with lots of interconnecting roads that are easy to remember and navigate because virtually everything's on a grid. That means that suburb A, has direct contact with suburb B and like a domino, people from B have exposure to suburb C and then D and so on. In Sydney/NSW, you get to D and there's a river or a harbor so there's a natural barrier which is why I think the theory has merit as it makes sense.

The other factor cited, not as strong as the other element but would have an effect is that Sydney's migrant/ethnic communities tend to be cohesive and centred on one area. In Melbourne this has never been the case, yeh, there are small pockets of concentration, but mostly, the communities are very diverse with no tendency toward 'enclaves' such as Sydney. Another reason interaction between communities is different to Melbourne.

You all fell for the classic “look over there!!” ploy from the Victorian government…

All this arguing about movement in Sydney vs Melbourne ignores the massive differences in contact tracing capabilities (no organised QR system) or the fact that Victoria has had 3 seperate inquiries into HQ.

However both states have had to deal with incompetence on the Federal level. It’s just that NSW appear to have a better state government at an operational level anyway.

The last “snap lockdown” was also due to a “highly virulent strain”. The lockdown last year was blamed on everything including the fact it spread easier in Victoria vs the rest of the world… There’s a trend here in the political spin. Don’t fall for it!!

Victoria is looking for an excuse, firstly blaming S.A not sure why it’s their fault and now they’re saying the recent guy picked the virus’s up in NSW. Victoria has been 10 steps behind ever since this pandemic started DA and his Gov are incompetent. But I’m sure Vic will vote them back in.

Seriously????

if NSW (albeit thrown under the bus by Dutton) hadn’t allowed hundreds of passengers off a ship through absolute incompetence who then spread the virus nationwide we likely would never had been in this situation.

It’s nothing more than arrogance on the part of NSW to say “Nothing to see here, somebody else’s problem/fault”.

Ruby princess is irrelevant now to the virus spread, Australia has gone many weeks covid free not one can be linked to it. also this happened very early and governments state and federal didn't know what they were doing. a ruby princess could of happened anywhere in the country at that time.

Rubbish.

nothing in the current situation is in anyway related to the ruby princess (yes, a fail…)

you might even say that the ruby princess debacle is what allowed NSW to work out how to handle this. There can be no argument that NSW has balanced COVID health with the economy and other health better than any state so far. They actually took the view that we are Australia, a country, not a series of countries run by dictators.

be parochial if you like. I prefer the ‘we are one country’ approach to that of the power hungry dictators.

Everyone, including those states that you seem to think are dictators, is advocating for a centralized federally run quarantine system.
The inconsistencies in approach aren’t the states’ fault. You’re directing your anger at the wrong level of government.

i agree the federal govt has failed in the quarantine area. That’s one area. When there are community cases, there is nothing the feds can do. McGowan has made it clear he will ‘always reserve the right to shut ‘his’ border at a moments notice’. When the international border does open, I can already see that idiot still causing chaos domestically.

so yes, while the feds have failed on the quarantine front, the dictators will continue to fail on the border control front.

not so sure the ruby princess can be seen as anything positive though!!

Ruby Princess is irrelevant now. That could of happened anywhere in an Australian port. But it did happen in NSW and look at how NSW has handled Covid, wether you like it or not agree or not NSW is the best in Australia at managing covid. NSW still takes the lions share of international arrivals with minimal HQ outbreaks, VIC is doing 2/5s of F&@k all with international and still can’t handle HQ. What makes everyone think they will be able to manage off site quarantine facilities any better.

Is Melbourne still the worlds most liveable city?

Not from where I’m sitting…..

"51. Legislative Powers of the Parliament.

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:
...
(ix) quarantine;

..."

s51 defines anything that is NOT a State responsibility.

End of argument.

A question regarding those flight crews who have taken the AstraZeneca shots: are there any consequence or penalty from FAA regarding their activities, since FDA has not allowed or recognized the AZ vaccine in the US yet (there are thousands who live outside the US, who have already taken the AZ shots) ?

I got a question: Will FAA accept pilots taking AZ or other vaccines’ brand other than those only accepted by FDA ? Thousands of FAA License pilots live abroad.

I'm not sure that it ever was.
Most of those surveys are very suss at any time ....
Sort of like the GT poll for world's best airline.

But if you still want to compare it with it's normal rivals it is probably still well up there.

Vancouver 183 new cases yesterday, Osaka 226, Calgary 244 coming off a recent peak of 2211, etc, etc

Recent peak in those cities of over 2000 a day you mention, what has changed there to drop below 300 a day? I see they’re not locked up like caged animals.

Moving back into summer, amongst other things.

I don't think so, U.S.A debunked that that theory that C-19 does not thrive in the heat as they had regular 6 figure deaths and cases daily during their summer.

Do these countries have high vaccine uptake?

Better than Australia, but that's not hard.
With a personal link to Calgary (a most livable contender) I can assure you that they have not been restriction free - see following graph.
And that included inter-provincial travel restrictions (to Vancouver, another contender).

The following are both interesting - or, they are to me.

• 3,013,555 vaccine doses have been administered in Alberta, including Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-Oxford.
• 66 per cent of Alberta's population of those ages 12 and up have now received at least one dose of vaccine.
• 502,833 Albertans are fully immunized (two doses).
• Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, said the vaccines have proven even more effective than expected.
• The province says 96 per cent of cases since Jan. 1, 2021 were contracted by people who were unvaccinated or who were diagnosed within two weeks from having a first dose of vaccine.
• Just 0.2 per cent of Albertans who have received their first dose of vaccine have been diagnosed with COVID-19 two weeks or more after receiving the shot. Over that same period, 93 per cent of the people who needed hospital care were either not vaccinated or were diagnosed with infection within two weeks of receiving their first dose.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fe453558a2.jpg

Good to see the feds finally funding quarantine facilities albeit kicking and screaming.

Case numbers mean bugger all when they are vaccinated. How many of those cases had symptoms? How many needed treatment?
If they’re vaccinated, it will be close to zero - THAT’S the important bit!

Why is Melbourne in lockdown with 2 cases?

Not sure about the others, but in Calgary, eight died yesterday.
That's quite important to a lot of people too.

Of course - no death should be taken lightly. Every life is precious.

I do wonder how many people died in Calgary total that day - from all the other diseases. I’ll wager it was more than 8.

How many in Canada are vaccinated?

That nuance is important to a lot of us too.

The Feds are responsible for quarantine, no argument.
But the States are responsible for health directions within States. The Feds have no say over the States CMOs.
The States and NT did freely sign up to manage the quarantine facilities.
Why do the Vic, SA and WA keep COVID positive people in medi-hotels instead of a COVID ward in a hospital as I believe happens in Qld?
If positives detected in HQ are not then heled in HQ, then the HQ cannot leak.

Because it’s twinned with Pyongyang.

Be careful suspect that might be a creeping assumption your making! := ;)