I hate to point this out, but Delta has already been in WA. A women came back from Sydney in June and later tested positive for Delta. On the one case alone, Perth and Mandurah went into a hard and fast lockdown for 4 days.. and the outbreak was controlled.

The warning has been in the winds for several days now.
There are no surprises here.

It'll be pretty hard for someone to claim that they "got caught"

Meanwhile back in Vic, Dan was more angry ( like not happy Jan add) saying "the government done our bit if numbers rise it is entirely your fault. We will lockdown harder." I didn't think we could lockdown any harder. I heard on 3aw take off one more hour off exercise, extend curfew 8pm-6am, kill the gardeners and take away. "On a knife edge".

Yes champ. That's the attitude to have.

It's straightforward evolution, survival of the fittest, where fitness is measured in infectiousness.

The coronavirus has the potential to throw up a mutation every time it infects a cell and produces more of itself (ie. each 'generation'). Some of the mutations yield nothing in particular but every once in a while a mutation that changes the spike protein will make that variant more infectious. If that new variant is significantly more infectious and occurs in a relatively uninfected population, it's off to the races. Typically the more infectious variant outperforms its forebear and becomes the new dominant strain, initially in that population. The wonder of international air travel tends to be what connects a new variant to broader populations.

Thus when the 'original' Wuhan reached the UK that relatively uninfected population become the feedstock for the alpha-variant, about 50 percent more contagious than the original. In South Africa the original variant threw up the beta-variant, again about 50 percent more contagious than the original. Gamma probably first developed in South America but manifested itself in Japan. Delta appears to be one of the first variants on a variant, in that it almost certainly mutated from a non-original strain, likely alpha-variant, in the Indian population. It is estimated to be 60 percent more infectious than alpha and thus quickly dominated the previous dominant variant.

There's also been a raft of other variants - epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, etc - recorded that have bobbed in a specific sub-populations but that have either been not significantly more infectious than their forbear or emerged too late such that they couldn't achieve dominance.

Melbourne is about to explode and it appears a Kiwi like lockdown is being announced in the morning, for the whole state.

Thanks for that MickG0105. Makes you wonder, the longer you lockdown the more time their is to generate a new variant.

What happens when we get to the end of the Greek alphabet for variants? Is that when this ends or do we move onto Roman numerals?

You're welcome.

And yes and no on the latter. Each infected person is an incubator for a potential new variant. If you keep the number of infected down, you reduce the likelihood of a new, significantly more infectious variant emerging. Further, if you have measures in place to limit spread you can prevent a new variant from gaining a foothold. That's why the way out of this is likely to be multifaceted - at the very least a combination of vaccination and some infection control measures.

That's why the Omega strain is going to be 'interesting'. We need to hope against hope that the 'light at the end of the tunnel' isn't the glow of the Omega or some other strain that's mutated to luminescence.

I’m still curious as to one thing - if ‘technically’ they don’t know/can’t prove how or what caused the virus, or what causes it to mutate, then how can the Government actually know what the real solution for eradicating it is? Are lockdowns, masks and the current vaccines really going to work long term? Where does root cause come into this - it’s pretty difficult to resolve this pandemic if you don’t even know what the root cause is in the first place? For Melbourne to go into lockdown 6 times it shows that the current measures are not effective because the virus does keep coming back and spreading.

TBH, I don’t need a lecture in the theories of mask wearing and lockdowns to minimise the spread, I get it. I’m looking at the prospect of this - if you don’t know what causes the problem how can you truly fix it? Because with these variants it looks like we could be doing this tango for years, and that is not only unsustainable, it is not addressing the root cause, and without a root cause how can they create a workable ‘fix’?

I know the rest of the year is going to be tough down south but sweet Jesus.

We have no “fix” or cure for the flu, but we have learned to live with it. CV and whatever else comes next will eventually be the same.

The mechanism by which coronaviruses replicate and mutate is very well understood - the RNA replication process that occurs after a coronavirus infects a cell is markedly less accurate than DNA replication. Each time a replication occurs the RNA creates a protein sequence and that protein sequence is then used to create a new strand of RNA - the protein sequence is a bit like a negative in photography or a mould in casting. Because of the inherent weakness in RNA replication there is a very small chance that the protein sequence could change slightly so you end up with a very, very slightly flawed negative or mould. Those changes result in the next generation of RNA that is printed/cast being changed every so slightly. When you have many, many replications occurring many, many times as you would get in a large infected population, basic probability favors that the virus will adjust. It is straightforward evolution but on a very, very condensed timeline because of a) the relatively very short inter-generarional cycle time and b) the relatively poor accuracy of the replication process. Most of the time the small 'misprints' or 'miscasts' (mutations) that arise have no effect whatsoever on how the coronavirus interacts with its target hosts but every once in a while they do.

And you don't need to know how or what "caused" the original coronavirus to emerge, once you have mapped it genetically then you're on your way to dealing with it.

How responsible, from a former politician. How many likes is he after?

So stopping the spread is also the key to stopping mutations which spread faster, so stopping the spread is also key to stopping mutations which spread faster, so..................?

Government members denying this tonight. It doesn’t seem logical considering cases this time last year were in the hundreds and the lockdown ended in October, and no one has ever extended a lockdown by 4 months.

I think it’s just Kennett suffering relevancy deprivation syndrome, trying to attract clicks for his “Dictator Dan must go!” column in the Herald Sun today, or a distraction from his stuff ups at the Hawks.

Yes, yes and, in anticipation, yes. It's worth noting that after 18 months and some what? 200 million cases globally (likely many more than that) there have thus far really only been three or four variants of significant concern. That said, best not to tempt fate if you can avoid it.

We did it last year, but we were dealing with a less infectious variant. .
The measures most likely would be effective against this latest variant if EVERYONE took personal responsibility to stop the spread.

Lockdowns are like Chemo. Yes, you may kill the virus and you kill everything else with it. The longer the lockdown the longer it suppress your brain never mined the virus. Now calling it covid fatigue. Net result, all this crap lowers your immune system emotionally mentally and physically. Great, just what you want in a pandemic.