Initial shipment of Pfizer only arrived in Australia yesterday. It needs to be checked that it has not degraded during shipping and then be shipped on a per-capita basis to each capital city. This is probably inefficient but politically unavoidable. Initial A-Z vaccinations have not yet arrived in country and real rollout of it won't commence until CSL ramps up local production next month.

We are fortunate to be one of the safest countries in the world when it comes to Covid-19. US, UK etc had to rush approval of vaccinations in advance of official sign-off by those countries drug agencies. We had the luxury of waiting and seeing if there were any issues with these drugs not detected in pre-release testing. Regardless, the vaccination program will run for 6-8 months so there is little likelihood of any borders opening in the meantime particularly as it will also depend on other countries rolling out a vaccination program throughout their populations. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut back to anything approaching normal.

I don’t think we will see normal for years.

The new and improved vaccines which will most likely arrive in around a year rendering the current obsolete, and will be next years final mission.

Vaccinate this year with the first concept.
Vaccinate next year the bullet proof version 2.

2023 onwards it starts to die off.

Xmas of 2023 we are in the green. Full steam ahead.

25/26 recruitment should start to pickup in this industry. Concerns around pilot numbers probably a few years before entering the next decade.

From the link - And that is the nub of the problem. Is ‘more highly contagious’ significantly different to ‘highly contagious’? By how much? (Could it be worse than a fate worse than death?)

Language like this doesn’t stop the virus. Hyper-infectious. Hyperbole perhaps.

And belies instances like this Perth Outbreak, where there was oddly no transmission beyond patient zero.

And is disputed routinely by epidemiologists.

I’m not sure the evidence-based case has ever been succinctly made by politicians for measures above and beyond what are already in place for COVID MK 1. Nor is the raw ‘health advice’ shared or explained when it differs significantly from other states’ CMOs.

As for Dan’s claim ‘we’re not going to shop around for advice’, it beggars belief that health officials wouldn’t share information and base their decisions on what works best rather deliberately choose to go their own way, which is how I take that comment.

The uptake of the vaccine will be interesting, particularly of the AZ vaccine, if further boosters are required. Its not like the population is as risk of catching COVID unlike most parts of the world.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5ab5c45be8.jpg

I agree entirely.

Even then it won't be the normal that we used to know

They were absolutely not rushed in the U.K. and USA. And the Aus authorities have approved it anyway?

More publicity of pandemics and health awareness spurred last year’s flu vaccine uptake to roughly 70% of the Australian population.

With Covid Vax it will surely be more, given Covid has greater consequences, there was no government publicity campaign for the flu vax, and most importantly a Covid vax will be free for all as opposed to fluvax which a lot of people had to pay for.

Approved through the normal process per other vaccines.

Not under emergency use provisions or under a temporary authorisation.

Due in large part to having the luxury of time to do so, due to the low rates of infection.

You’re not a Victorian by any chance? :-)

No, and neither are these professors of infectious diseases and virology from NSW and Queensland who give a science based not politically based answer to the question of why the new strain hasn’t wreaked havoc in Australia yet.

Well then you’re agreeing with my earlier premise that the premiers are sprouting fear and lies, and that we’re a dumb bunch for believing them.

The professors in that article quite clearly state that whilst the new strain is more contagious it really isn’t that great a concern to us as we have effective controls in place.

Dan the man from stalag-Victoria during the “grilling” said that this strain was WAY more dangerous to us and “not like the 2020 virus”.

Which was a load of ****e, and he should’ve been properly grilled - hence my original post.

Since when has BJ been interested in health advice....over 100K have died on his watch.

The problem in Australia is that unless Dan got Vic back to 0 cases, then it would be the outlier in the country, and would remain locked out from interstate travel. Rightly or wrongly, Short sharp lockdown has been adopted by AU / NZ (Bar NSW),

Guessing 3 cases in Victoria today, it is battle stations again Dan is switching to guns. Big JW (who I still don't know what he does) has a big announcement at 10:30 could be another snap lock down on its way!

No new exposure sites and the 3 cases have been connected to other cases home. They also been home since the outbreak.

I don’t think cost is really an issue considering Victoria quick brain snap lockdown cost 1 billion dollars.

What a stupid comment. The UK's 65,000,000 population in an area the size of VIC, the UK being geographically a crossroads for world travel unlike the Cul-de-Sac that is Australia and the far older population. Of course there will be a lot of deaths! The fact is the lethality is extremely low for people under 65 years old!

Maybe you should see the latest headlines in the UK about the expected extra 100,000 Cancer deaths in the next year (affecting all ages severely) because the illness has been undiagnosed or untreated due to the Covid flap. And that's just the Big C. Time to look past the BS now...

Problem is Australia has gone all in with the govt/media scare tactics, too hard to reverse course now without looking stupid.

I can't wait to go back flying with all you tinfoil hat wearers. Should make for a fun ride.