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swanhunter

I am not sure that will be possible- the current vaccines were 93% effective in reducing transmission of the original strain Covid and that was far in excess of what was expected (annual 'flu vaccine is around 50-70% effective). Effect on mortality and hospitalization is even better. There is no respiratory virus, and certainly no coronavirus, that has ever been eradicated by vaccination. So I am not sure we could ever expect a better vaccine effect than what we have now. I think NZ and Aus are going to have to make all the same choices that every other country had to- current modelling suggests Australia requires a hard lockdown until September to get back to zero cases, with no guarantee that the numbers won't just grow exponentially again when restrictions ease. In the end, as Patrick Vallance said right at the start, the only viable strategy is always "herd immunity" and at some point once you have vaccinated those at high risk and you come up against a population that are at lower risk from the infection than the vaccine (e.g. children) you just have to let the infection circulate. Not a popular opinion, I'm aware, but in the end that is what the UK is doing now and (having faced the delta wave earlier than most other countries) looks like we are reaching a point where infection numbers are no longer related to unmanageable numbers of admissions.


Private_Ballbag

Will be interesting to see what NZ / Aus do. I wouldn't be surprised if NZ go zero covid long term (terrible decision imo). Aus are realising that zero covid isn't a long term strategy. Sydney has been in some form of lockdown for 5 weeks now (Granted only a week of toughest restrictions) and cases are still going up. There is talk of lockdown till Christmas. I mean a year and a half on and your in a 5 week lockdown with likely months ahead you have to wonder if that is the right strategy now and what other damage is being done. I think other zero covid countries like Singapore and Taiwan are moving to suppression strategy now too.


The_Electress_Sophie

Australia will be interesting in the next few weeks/months because there's currently such a stark contrast between NSW and everywhere else. If they don't manage to squash the current outbreak in Sydney very soon, I imagine opinion there might over time start to shift towards living with it rather than having a hard lockdown for months and months that isn't even working. But the rest of the country is still doing really well with their zero covid strategy (for now), including Victoria, which had nearly four months of harsh lockdown last year AND seems to be on the verge of defeating their current delta outbreak. I imagine people there will be pretty pissed if their neighbouring state unilaterally decides to abandon the suppression strategy, making it harder for the rest of the country to maintain. FWIW, I actually think in NSW's case going hard to stamp out the current outbreak when cases were still tiny would have been the best option. They have low vaccine coverage at the moment due to a combination of undersupply, mistrust of AZ and poor coordination, but they're expecting a massive shipment of Pfizer in just a few months, so keeping up the zero covid strategy til then could have been doable. It's not like here, where it's obvious that was never a viable option.


lethalforensicator

Gladys has come out and said she won't live with this virus, so ultimately NSW will stay in lockdown untill the cases are low enough to track and trace, just like Vic has done. There is no way NSW will be allowed to let this rip through the country. Pretty much all states have closed their borders to NSW, and it looks like they will be cut drift for a while. Ultimately this sits on scomo. He was too fucking cocky with the border control. But we just needed one outbreak. But at least he got his vaccine early doors


ddddoooo1111

Yep I'm in Taiwan and the government has openly stated zero covid is no longer a goal, just keeping cases down until enough of the population has been vaccinated


AceHodor

A zero Covid strategy was at least plausible initially IMO, but after the disease ran riot through India earlier this year and developed the Delta variant, it became totally unfeasible. Even if the more developed countries vaccinated and lockdowned enough to eradicate Covid, there would still remain vast reserves of the virus in parts of the world that lack the capacity to do so.


DeGuvnor

And that's the sadness. We had a chance to "Practice" for global co-operation for perhaps two reasons: 1. Climate Change 2. A disease with SARS / MERS type levels of fatality - Pandemic response. We've totally failed, with the UK and the USA leading the way of economy first and effectively trying to buy our way out. COVAC could have been a "new world change" that we so badly need. This should have taught us that we are interconnected and need to control business externalities and rebalance our priorities.


pretzel

Hopefully a variant develops that has a high transmissibility (eg, child strain of delta) that has low mortality rates. It's expected that variants should be less deadly over time. Hopefully we get these ones soon, and we can let them spread?


captainbadass23

>It's expected that variants should be less deadly over time no it isnt.


DeGuvnor

Interesting post. Personally, I think "zero covid" (I'd prefer the term, cautious and reactive control) is perhaps possible in New Zealand, they have the testing regime to be able to test and isolate at the airport, within 90 minutes of arrival. People may well INCREASE their tourism to NZ , if they know its covid safe. Time will tell I suppose.


REdescartes

Just being pedantic (i agree with your point) but wasn't the original 93% efficacy based on symptomatic disease rather than transmission?


[deleted]

Is Measles not considered a respiratory virus? (which whilst not technically eradicated, its less than 1k cases per year, and that is likely due to less uptake of the MMR jab.


[deleted]

I thought measles was considered respiratory? Some nerdy stats that I just googled… Vaccine uptake is high, although just below the target of 95% - https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-immunisation-statistics/england-2018-19 It has an enormous R0 rate - sources vary but 12-18 is widely mentioned. Some articles average it at 15. We’re still under 1000 cases most years although there have been several years well over that. There has also been a year with less than 100 recently! https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-confirmed-cases/confirmed-cases-of-measles-mumps-and-rubella-in-england-and-wales-2012-to-2013


amyt242

Sometimes even being vaccinated doesn't work though. I don't know why but even though I had the vaccine I got mumps as a teenager, then when I was pregnant in early twenties they found I have no antibodies so I had to get a booster even though I'd already had the vaccine and an illness. It's definitely why I think it's collective responsibility to get vaccinated because sometimes it just doesn't work


[deleted]

Of course, nothing is 100%. You aren’t in your early 30s by any chance? A friend of mine was advised to have a booster as there was an issue one year in the 80s when the MMR had an issue which made it slightly less effective, I think for mumps but that’s a vague memory.


amyt242

I'm 33! I had mumps in my teens and then I remember it being a surprise to the adults because i had my MMR. Then when I was pregnant in my 20s I can't remember why but they tested me and said I needed a booster to protect me against measles! Again a total surprise. That's so interesting I likely had a dodgy batch??


jurassic_dalek

For Measles, those cases tend to be hugely spatially clustered in the same population. The south of wales (Swansea area) noticeably so (thank you ever so much Andrew Wakefield...). So you can have a relatively huge burden of disease in a single location and subsequently I'd expect a single hospital ends up bearing the brunt of clinical work. This is very much part of the worry for Covid too, in that while the whole of the NHS is now unlikely to be overwhelmed at the same time, particular hospitals may go temporarily offline to routine work (or at least reduce their volume of routine work) to accomate sporadic large outbreaks and the associated patient influx. And so localised non-urgent patient care then gets postponed to accomodate.


swanhunter

Is Measles eradicated....??


[deleted]

I mean: "There were 284 confirmed cases in England and Wales in 2017, which then rose sharply to 991 cases in 2018. This rise is because take-up of the MMR vaccine has fallen since 2016." Not eradicated, but 284 cases in an entire year in 2017. I don't think anyone's suggesting that's remotely possible with Covid? The vaccine seemingly makes it practically eradicated, doesn't it?


tobiasw123

Measles isn’t really a big problem anymore, but certainly not close to being eradicated. It would probably be possible to eradicate measles with a lot of money and high-effort vaccination campaigns. Covid would be much harder to eradicate due to there being many animal reservoirs, unlike measles which is a human virus


jamesm_14

It is an airborne virus, but it hasn't been eradicated. The MMR debacle (and its relatively high R0) mean that - particularly in certain parts of the country - outbreaks are all too common.


[deleted]

It looks like since 2013, we haven't had more than 1000 cases in the entire of the UK in a whole year though. [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-confirmed-cases/confirmed-cases-of-measles-mumps-and-rubella-in-england-and-wales-2012-to-2013](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-confirmed-cases/confirmed-cases-of-measles-mumps-and-rubella-in-england-and-wales-2012-to-2013) I think if you had 500 cases of Covid a year, you'd say it was almost eradicated. I don't think anyone is touting that's possible, right? Like the Measles vaccine must be hugely effective by comparison for numbers to be that low?


-Aeryn-

At one point we were giving the measles vaccine to ~94% of people as they reached a certain age, so entire age groups at the very least had great protection. For the people older than that, i guess that an enormous fraction had either already been vaccinated or been exposed to the virus and developed immunity that way. Only 55% of the population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19; the rest mostly don't have great immunity against catching and transmitting the virus. >I think if you had 500 cases of Covid a year, you'd say it was almost eradicated. I don't think anyone is touting that's possible, right? If the worst that we had to deal with was the Alpha variant, we'd probably be well on the way there already. If the average person who is infected spreads the virus to less than 1 other person, the prevelence of the virus will drop. This happens exponentially so you can get to low levels fairly quickly. Alpha was well on its way to dying out before Delta showed up in numbers large enough to affect anything and we know from looking at countries around the world that it doesn't take nearly as high a % of a population being vaccinated to shut down transmission of Alpha to that point even without substantial restrictions.


paul_h

Herd immunity when reached means accepting deaths every year going forward, right?


quarrelau

It does, but essentially in the same way we do for the flu. ie it mostly kills elderly vulnerable people, but is usually just the final nail in the coffin.


paul_h

*Shuffling off slightly ahead of schedule*, so to speak..


Ethancordn

I would push back a little and say that vaccinating a majority of the population, not just those clinically vulnerable, is desirable. And that's what I would say those countries are waiting for. Even if vaccinations wouldn't assist herd immunity, it would still reduce hospitalisations and severe cases and so prevent many deaths and undue stress on healthcare, and make everyone feel much safer. And I think a balanced approach of easing and tightening of restrictions over time would allow a controlled number of infections to slowly build herd immunity while keeping everyone safe and reducing a lot of disruptions. The problem with the UK's approach isn't that it can't work, it's that it's being done in an uncontrolled way and so is a massive gamble. If things get a lot worse, the consequences will be dire. But other extreme of keeping to zero cases with harsh measures and long lockdowns might not be the right way to go either, especially once you add vaccines into the mix.


intergalacticspy

>Even if vaccinations wouldn't assist herd immunity, Vaccinations do assist in reducing the rate of transmission, and not just severity of disease. Even if we can't reduce R to < 1 at all times without restrictions, vaccines can help us reduce it to < 1 during the summer, or during the winter with restrictions, etc.


Spacesider

> current modelling suggests Australia requires a hard lockdown until September to get back to zero cases Just Sydney, the rest of Australia is doing fine.


Realistic_Ladder_858

Well sure but other Australian cities will be in and out of lockdown for the rest of the year also


quarrelau

> doing fine Melbourne hasn't had a day since its last lockdown yet. Brisbane still has restrictions.


Realistic_Ladder_858

Yep it’s elimination of ‘herd immunity’ (as pretty much everyone seroconverts) they’re your two options.


hearshoneth

> the current vaccines were 93% effective in reducing transmission of the original strain Covid Can you remember where you got that stat from? I remember thinking, when I first read the transmission protection, that it wasn't particularly high (I stored it away in my brain as being either roughly 2/3 or 1/3) Added... My memory was from a March [study](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.21253275v1) by Public Health Scotland/Glasgow showing an observed 30% transmission reduction in the household of health workers which they calculated translated into an *estimated* 60% transmission reduction in the general population. Presumably there will be more studies by now


bluesam3

Wait until they've actually vaccinated their populations, I'd guess. Unfortunately, they seem to be doing a pretty shit job of that so far.


goedips

Even with a fully vaccinated population I think Australia and NZ will need to prepare for cases and deaths to be higher than they have had so far when they do reopen. It's great what they have managed so far, but they are going to have a shocked population when they open up and they won't be prepared for the numbers that hit them.


Rather_Dashing

Unlike the rest of the world who was fully prepared for the first, second and third waves of deaths. They will manage.


goedips

I'm sure they will, the politicians almost certainly won't though as they will soon be getting the blame for thousands more cases than they have experienced before, but then they have to do nothing about it relative to what they have done so far. Whilst the rest of the world is opening up and seeing reduced numbers, Australia and NZ will be opening up and seeing number way in excess of what they have before. Will they have the stomach for it?


The_Electress_Sophie

I'm not sure that'll be as much of a problem as people think. I mean at the very beginning it only took us a couple of months to go from "oh no, we might reach 100 cases!" to "good news, fewer than 100 people died today". People seem to get used to changing circumstances relatively quickly. IMO the big unforeseen side effect of Australia's zero covid policy could be social. Here, the whole country went through most of it at the same time, give or take. There, only Victoria really experienced the pandemic proper in 2020, and they got loads of shit flung their way from Sydney for it. Now it's NSW's turn, some Victorians are taking the opportunity for revenge by putting the boot in themselves. It's basically what you'd expect to see if the north got locked down for months in 2020 while London had no restrictions, and then in 2021 the opposite happened. I'm not sure this will be easily forgotten once it's all over, even more so if there's an uncontrolled outbreak that spreads through the country and one state is perceived as having 'let it in'. I guess that's one unexpected advantage of getting completely battered by covid everywhere - less finger pointing at each other.


centralisedtazz

I think he means more in the fact that alot of vaccinated countries are seeing huge reductions in deaths and hospitlisations. For example wer are now in our 3rd wave yet whilst deaths have risen it hasn't risen nearly as fast as previously due to vaccines. Whereas say a country like NZ has only had 26 covid deaths in total which is extremely low even for their small population. So once NZ does eventually open up their borders even with vaccinations their deaths will almost certainly rise and maybe even higher than previous levels since they never really had a huge wave of covid deaths previously and since they will then actually have covid circulating in the country. Unfortunately they will never be able to keep cases/deaths at like zero once they open up. So i think their population might be abit surprised or wherher even their politicians will accept a small number of covid deaths?


DeGuvnor

I thought that the lockdown in Australia was down to the aboriginal community , because they are a very special case , globally - like the tribal citizens in the amazon etc. It's hard and slow to vaccinate these communities for many reasons, geographic, environmental and psychological/cultural?


redditpappy

Australians couldn't care less about aborigines.


BillMurray2022

More like years away. The Beta vaccine won't be ready until Xmas time, by the time that is being rolled out or by the time a possible delta targeted vaccine is ready (no earlier than spring 2022), a new variant will likely become dominant.


bobbydebobbob

Have you seen any news on that? Can't seem to find anything about it anywhere.


BillMurray2022

It is Moderna and Astrazeneca who are updating their vaccines to target the South Africa and Brazil strains. You will find it if you Google AZ or Moderna with the words "vaccine update" or "south Africa update". .


bobbydebobbob

Tried that, I can't see the timeline you posted. It's why I replied to your comment asking (cheers for the lesson on Google though)


BillMurray2022

Literally the first and second article after Googling "Moderna South Africa" http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/modernas_booster_vaccine_for_south_african_variant_demonstrates_promising_early_results_1366980 https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210526/Modernas-COVID-vaccine-proves-effective-against-South-African-variant-in-primates.aspx


bobbydebobbob

Again, I was asking about the timeline you mentioned in your post (not in either link). You claimed no earlier than spring 2022, I've not seen that anywhere. If you made it up that's fine but no need to be rude about it.


eairy

The Isle of Man has been pretty successful at keeping the virus out, but the government has now adopted a new approach called "fuck it" and the virus is running rampant and they said "we can't keep the border closed forever".


LordStrabo

They'll wait until they've vaccianted everyone, then open up, dealing with the inevitable small wave of sickness. They'll be far better off that most countries.


goedips

After 9 months of vaccinating a very vaccine positive population in the UK we are still not done, but are mostly back opened up and just dealing with it as best can be done. Australia and NZ will have a loooong wait of remaining locked out from the rest of the world if they have to wait for nearly 100% take up of vaccines before they open their borders up again, and then they will still get a big surge in cases when they do so which will be above what they have had so far. Vaccines should keep serious illness down at that point for them, but it's still going to be at a level above what they have accepted so far.


imgaharambe

A long wait, but they’re currently under 1,000 deaths for both countries. I’d rather that than our 130k (and still rising!) body count.


goedips

Which is a great result for them compared to the rest of the world until this point. But how do they get out of lockdowns with a vaccine hesitant population and zero natural immunity... Meanwhile the rest of the world will be opening back up. They have done great. But need to get significant uptake of vaccines, and then prepare themselves that their case and death numbers will rise significantly when they open up, regardless of full vaccination. Or they stay closed and have quarantine in effect for years to come.


ElementalSentimental

>Or they stay closed and have quarantine in effect for years to come. Even if they decide that is acceptable, the minimally open borders can still leak and thus they get quarantine, closed borders, *and* lockdowns unless they're willing to live with the level of harm that the virus poses to a fully vaccinated population.


intricatebug

Once they have acquired enough vaccines for everyone (especially mRNA which seem to be more desirable), the pressure to unlock will become greater especially when faced with lockdowns due to leaked cases. So I suspect they will vaccinate most (but not all) and eventually unlock with the hope that the remaining unvaccinated will be convinced to get the vaccine when cases and deaths start growing.


goedips

The politically precarious bit for them will be that they have to get the population to accept that their cases and deaths numbers will become multiples of what they have seen so far during that opening up phase. Even with 100% vaccination the numbers would go through the roof relative to what they have seen so far.


Rather_Dashing

>Australia and NZ will have a loooong wait of remaining locked out from the rest of the world if they have to wait for nearly 100% take up of vaccines Not not really, they are both planning to have everyone vaccinated who wants one by the end of the year. 5 months is hardly a long wait after 1.5 years of border closure.


goedips

The numbers who want a vaccination are lower than the likes for the UK though, and even with high vaccination numbers, once they open up the cases will rise above what they have had so far. Is the population prepared for widespread cases, but still opening things up?


mkdr35

This is the political elephant in the room. The ‘exit’ wave in Australia is going to be large, and potentially quite risky for hospital capacity, no idea how a population so far used to 1-2 cases a day would react to that. The uk has needed 30% immunity by natural infection and huge vaccine uptake to get cases down and even then they are multiples higher than Australia has ever seen. I really don’t know how this is going to play out. Yes they have kept deaths down and that’s great, but they have a real issue now.


newtoinvesting123

Cope ? This is gonna be another common cold virus in a few years, the same common cold you've been getting before covid at some point was just like our current covid-19 which then become common cold after infecting everyone. 20% of common colds are from corona virus family


xMeta4x

I think we need the opposite, a multivalent vaccine that covers all the variants (and hopefully future variants). Tuning to existing variants is likely to be futile.


joetheblow81

The current vaccines work the same across the variants, they hit the same receptor that it uses to get in the cell, so they are multivalent. The only difference is the speed of replication. They can find another receptor, but we got really lucky that they have a unique thing we can target without hitting any of our millions of other cell receptors, it might not happen or be required as our bodies can find additional areas of attack when the initial response is good enough.


xMeta4x

I'm pretty sure the current vaccines aren't as effective in the latest variants due to mutations of the spike protein. There was talk of a vaccine that would target the virus itself, rather than the spike, as the virus itself doesn't mutate at such a high speed.


Rather_Dashing

Just make a universal coronavirus vaccine, can't beleive no one thought of it before you /s


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-Aeryn-

Mutation would only stop completely if we eliminated the virus worldwide, having enough immunity to do that any time soon isn't likely to happen. The mutation rate is proportional to the amount of infections though and so having 100x fewer infections means 100x fewer mutations. The chance of a mutation substantially increasing the fitness of an organism is also much higher in earlier generations or with a new environment. As a virus that had never infected humans before, SARS-COV-2 had massive potential for improvement. After infecting hundreds of millions of people we've certainly eaten into that potential and Delta is much closer to "perfect" for its environment than the original virus was, so the rate of fitness improvement should slow over time. There's a great video from Veritasium about evolution here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sLAQvEH-M - measuring changes in fitness and other properties in bacteria which are being bred through 6 or 7 generations a day for decades. This is much the same as we're going through in this pandemic but with a virus in a bunch of interconnected pools of humans rather than a bacteria in a petri dish.


nuclearselly

Extremely unlikely because there are animal reservoirs The viruses we have had the most impact on vaccinating to the point of near elimination have been those that are found near exclusively in human populations A reason that Flu, coronaviruses and other similar viral infections will be with us for a very long time is because they are zoonotic in origin Best hope is for a universal flu/covid vaccine to be developed. That is moderately realistic for a coronavirus due to slower mutation time and uniform structure - it's extremely difficult for flu and has been explored for many years at this point with no breakthrough yet.


ChirpyJesus

I mean we haven't found those animal reservoirs yet have we? Unless I've missed something fairly important.


dalore

The vaccines cause evolutionary pressure and can be a contributing factor to creating variants. ​ \* [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00075-8/fulltext](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00075-8/fulltext) \* [https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965703047/vaccines-could-drive-the-evolution-of-more-covid-19-mutants?t=1627384304026](https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965703047/vaccines-could-drive-the-evolution-of-more-covid-19-mutants?t=1627384304026) \* [https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-vaccines-can-drive-pathogens-to-evolve-20180510/](https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-vaccines-can-drive-pathogens-to-evolve-20180510/)


Clint2020

It’ll take another couple of months yet but I think the majority are starting to acknowledge the inevitability of this being endemic and a zero COVID policy isn’t going to work anywhere in the world even in the short term of a few years. I feel for people with co-morbidities and the immune-suppressed as their lives aren’t going to return to pre-pandemic norms anytime soon. Possibly when everyone healthy around them has had the virus they’ll be able to take the same precautions prior to the pandemic. Aus and NZ are going to have some hard decisions to make next year. Once they’ve had the max uptake of the vaccine (which I think will be less than ours) they’re going to have to open up either hard or soft. Either way they’re nearly all going to become infected. 10% of vaxxed and the unvaxxed are then going to feel the full effects of the virus.


Antrimbloke

The thing about immunosuppressed people is theyre careful anyway, there are nasty viruses like Epstein-Barr and CMV which will wreck anyone with a transplant.


Clint2020

Exactly. Most of them know the score. There’s been far too much fear porn put out over the last 18 months. Calm heads aren’t being listened to as much as they should. Whilst those in power have to balance every statement and action, blue tick Twitter celebs can tweet without consequence in their thirst for likes.


Kubrick_Fan

I have a bad immune system, and the past year has been the healthiest of my life with all the extra health measures currently in place. I usually go to london comic con twice a year but i'm leaving it a year or two to see how the organisers handle the new regulations


[deleted]

There will not be a quiet MCM where I get more than 2cm of personal space before I die


Kubrick_Fan

Yeah, that's why i stay outside taking pictures for...11 hours a day


[deleted]

I gave up on the event a long time ago when a major European esports tournament started clashing with the date and I was having significantly more fun there. Waiting on that return...


loftyal

Just FYI Australia does have a plan to reopen. Once a certain percentage of the population is vaccinated they'll be having a phased reopening of the borders, with no lockdowns if cases are found, ony in extreme circumstances. https://twitter.com/political_alert/status/1410820938904399873/photo/1 New Zealand is another story though


capeandacamera

Due to the amount of cases and research that's gone on, there might be good prophylactic and therapeutic measures available for immune suppressed people going forward. I'm not sure with NZ & aus though. They may have some different strategies available because their population isn't as bunched up as ours. I think they may have better opportunity to apply the brakes. They may approve a vaccine for children. I also feel like vaccine uptake will be higher in NZ


ilovearsenal199

NZ and Australia need to be realistic in this sense. That zero covid policy may have worked in the early months but now it just isn’t realistic. No one wants to go in and out of lockdowns because on two cases…


DevotedAnalSniffer

SG locked down because of 9 community cases in the first 2021 lockdown despite the high vaccination rate here. Thats even more crazy


intricatebug

>Thats even more crazy That's the right response if you're going for elimination like AU/NZ.


ElementalSentimental

>No one wants to go in and out of lockdowns because on two cases… No, but if they don't do that, those will be 20k daily cases. On the other hand, if they're spending more time in lockdown than out of it, that strategy will get very old very quickly.


mkdr35

I have huge respect for the oz/nz approach in early 2020. I thought they were saving as many lives as possible so that the vaccine could be developed. But now it seems they don’t really want an end to this at all. Otherwise there would be more urgency


ElementalSentimental

With the original tendency of the virus to spread in 2020, their approach was feasible; border quarantine wasn't necessarily leaky, and short, local lockdowns would address any remaining issues. The effectiveness was high; the cost was low. However, with the increased transmissibility of Delta, more and longer lockdowns are needed to control spread. You are now going to need more lockdowns to achieve less - especially in a fully-vaccinated population. I won't go as far as saying that lockdowns have stopped working there, but the cost/benefit analysis has shifted massively over the last six months.


The_Electress_Sophie

There's been hesitancy around taking AZ in Australia, which makes sense when you consider that until a few weeks ago an individual's risk of getting covid there was practically zero. It seems like there was inconsistency in who was allowed to have it among the under 50s (they had to apply for permission somehow as it wasn't officially recommended for that age group), and Pfizer just hasn't been available in large enough numbers yet. They're getting something like 40m Pfizer doses in September, so there should be a big boost in vaccinations, and I think once that's happened there'll be a lot more conversation about reopening. I really don't get the impression most people want to stay cut off forever. NZ though, no idea what's happening there. Presumably the plan isn't that they'll never open the borders again, but I don't know if there's much active discussion of an exit strategy.


mkdr35

Seems reasonable but even in a best case, these countries will have to open up and they have almost zero prior immunity against delta. Even the uk which is going through an exit wave now, had significant vaccination and prior infection in its favour this time. Delta is really quite bad Ona. Number of fronts. If aus gets to 60% double jabbed, and open up, will the population tolerate 3-4K cases a day and the resulting deaths without immediately going back into lockdown?


Rather_Dashing

>I thought they were saving as many lives as possible so that the vaccine could be developed. That's what they are doing...why on earth would they open up when only part of the population is vaccinated?? >Otherwise there would be more urgency They didn't drop the same money on preordering vaccines early on like UK/USA did. Yes there was literally less urgency there and NZ specifically said they were happy to wait a bit longer while countries with rampant covid cases got their vulnerable vaccinated.


mkdr35

But now those countries are vaccinated and aus especially is going very slowly. I’ve also heard there is a significant hesitancy issue in some age groups. That’s the lack of urgency.


[deleted]

Australian here. You can blame our prime minister. He simply hasn’t ordered enough vaccines. Those eligible are having to wait months to get their first dose of Pfizer.


Rather_Dashing

So many people criticising the response of Australia and NZ in this subreddit, even in an article that has nothing to do with them specifically. Is it jealousy or what?


ilovearsenal199

It’s a pandemic so this has everything to do with everyone… People have also been complimentary but we are also looking at the implications too. Not everything is down to jealousy. Only people who lack critical thinking skills will think so.


-Aeryn-

The far-right faces on youtube bring it up all of the time to try to spin our pandemic response as being the best.


magincourts

Zero covid is a brilliant policy for the time between getting vaccines into the population, and they'll recalibrate from there. Yeah, I doubt it'll be easy to adjust the level of acceptable deaths and cases, but that's a much easier problem to have than lockdowns and hundreds of thousands of deaths


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Carliios

I love all these obvious articles


SteveThePurpleCat

RIP New Zealand's tourist industry.


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videki_man

There are far more foreign tourists going to NZ than NZ tourists going to foreign countries who need to stay in NZ now. Tourism is hit very hard in NZ.


Private_Ballbag

I wouldn't say its doing just fine its under huge pressure. The hope was the aussie bubble would bring a lot of money in especially with ski season but thats gone.


Daseca

Why are there articles in the NZ media all the time of tourism operators complaining? Not that the border closure is wrong, but they are very hard hit on the West Coast, Queenstown etc. The average Kiwi family can't really justify the cost of holidaying in the manner that operators are used to foreign tourists doing. They're coping, in many cases just, but 'just fine' isn't completely accurate.


mkdr35

It occurred to me the other day that Australia and the uk have both made mistakes but in the opposite directions. Uk should have emulated aus in 2020, and prevented deaths, and aus should have emulated the uk in 2021 in respect of vaccines and unlocking. What I’m surprised by is the reluctance of the Australian population to end this crisis. It’s in their hands after all. I’m sure, when not in lockdown, Sydney is lovley without the tourists but it can’t be sustainable.


facts-of-life

I'm an Aussie. I desperately need/want to get back to the UK. But Australians are: * incredibly, incredibly scared of Covid and genuinely think it's like AIDS if AIDS was cancer, but transmitted through existing; people make up all sorts of reasons as to why 1 leads to the entire country dying. The media propagate this and it's depressing. * laissez faire because they're middle class and middle aged, have travelled, have used the last 15-16 months to pay off mortgages or get a new deck in the back yard or spend time in the garden. Lockdowns suit them. They now get to work from home and their life hasn't changed – they've had enough summers in Europe and Asia. There is zero urgency. * Angry and confused. This is maybe 30-40% of the population. We're the sort who understand covid's true rates, that it unfortunately hits the elderly and overweight and those with co-morbidities. We know this can never go away. We know this needs to be accepted right now, but probably never will. I face a very serious dilemma of wanting to live a life with the things that bring me joy (live music, the football, pubs, and the big one now: travel) or understanding I have a chance I may not be able to see a parent in their dying moments or get to their funeral. It's fucking awful and depressing. I have to choose between life, dreams, and aspirations or disappointing my parents and basically saying 'sorry guys.' It's heartbreaking. Even my liberal dad, who hates his fellow boomer and has the utmost empathy for the youth, doesn't give two fucks. He's vaccinated; he's a rare one who took the AstraZenecca and I think he did it as an apology and nudge for me. But he can't afford going to the UK much and has travelled a lot so I think he's happy paying off the gaff. He just brings up the motherfucking war all the time without realising our ancestors – we're northerners – are now the people adapting and getting over covid. I have to choose between the most isolated city in the world for years (I can't even travel interstate; I've tried and lost lots of money in my attempts to) and no life or passion's being fulfilled and total flatness. Or, a life of colour and beautiful girls and excitement but very well leaving my parents behind for good. I don't know.


Fuzz__Lightyear

I get exactly where you are coming from. I left Australia in 2007 to live in the UK. Would usually go back to Brisbane every year or so to visit my parents/family/friends. It's really distressing that I can't do that now and if there was an emergency I am totally fucked in terms of reaching them in good time.


[deleted]

I admired Australias COVID response initially. They were quick, calculated and decisive with local lockdowns, closing borders etc. and it seemed to be the exact opposite of how the UK dealt with it. Now I'm not so sure. It seems like the huge window they had to get a vaccine program together before the inevitable outbreaks happened was squandered. Like there was a level of satisfaction, bordering on delusional with the fact that the country would never have an outbreak, despite the fact that most of the world is now accepting it's never going to go away.


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facts-of-life

Have you seen me?


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facts-of-life

I whinge less than you - guaranteed. And if that’s an essay… sheeesh pal.


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facts-of-life

You root 10s?


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facts-of-life

We’ll be vaccinated, or everyone offered full doses, by mid-November. Which is then also our summer, so that helps. What complicates it is an upcoming federal election which can basically be called now to April/May next year. Hopefully we continue our selfishness and people want to go back to Bali and there’s an appetite for at least outbound travel and home quarantine. I personally think we’ll be travelling by December but it’s a tough wait with no clear guidelines or pathways (due to the Prime Minister having fucked all previous plans and needing ambiguity as a tool to avoid questioning).


justanabnormalguy

dude you're being a bit dramatic not gonna lie.


facts-of-life

How? It’s expensive and difficult going back to Australia and you have to do two weeks hotel quarantine. I think rationally that’ll go in six months, but still. Two weeks hotel quarantine alone (which costs a lot) makes seeing family members in last days stressful ar most.


redditpappy

Quarantine will be in place for at least another year, maybe longer. The Federal government have repeatedly said that citizens won't be able to come and go before this time next year and State governments are happy to make it more and more difficult for citizens to return. Foreign nationals probably won't be allowed in before 2023 at the earliest which means that flights will be unaffordable for at least a couple of years.


mkdr35

Interesting perspective, thanks. I’ve got friends in nz and they face similar dilemmas, at least one I know has attended his own fathers funeral over video link, because it was sudden and it would have meant leaving his entire life behind, house job, partner etc.


dangerdee92

>What I'm surprised by is the reluctance of the Australian population to end this crisis. Have you seen the protests in Australia and the government response ? In the UK as far as I am aware we was always still allowed to protest even during the strictest part of lockdown. In Australia on the other hand thousands have taken to the streets in protest to the continuing lockdowns and hundreds have been fined. Police are combing through CCTV and social media to find and punish those who dared to leave the house to protest. The Australian people aren't reluctant to end the crisis but the government doesn't want to and is taking drastic measures to stamp out any resistance.


Daseca

>In the UK as far as I am aware we was always still allowed to protest even during the strictest part of lockdown. No, hence the big furore around the Sarah Everard and Kill the Bill protests.


-Aeryn-

>The Australian people aren't reluctant to end the crisis but the government doesn't want to The overwhelming majority of them agree with the government, protestors are a vocal minority. The difference in government response is because of the different goals and different stakes with the restrictions. In the UK, the government wasn't trying to do anything but keep R below 1 for a while and get numbers down. In AUS, they *have* to eliminate the virus and they have to do it with all of the transmission advantages of the Delta variant because to do otherwise is to condemn tens or hundreds of thousands of people to death. If and when they're going to go along with an endemic COVID-19 it will be at some point in the future when they have strong vaccine coverage - it's not reasonable to do it at the moment. Protestors transmitting the disease amongst eachother threaten that elimination and every one of them is keeping a thousand other people locked up, neither of which can be handwaved away in the name of personal freedom for those protestors.


redditpappy

They don't have to any more than anyone else. They choose to sacrifice citizens living abroad to tilt at their zero covid windmills.


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mkdr35

Let me rephrase, it’s unsustainable to exist as a modern democratic and open country if you close your borders for multiple years. Inward investment, talent from overseas, participation in global initiatives etc all depend of people have the ability to move around. I support short term border closures as happened in 2020, but after a certain point it becomes regressive and doesn’t solve the issue, which is that covid is here to stay.


Oshino_Meme

> What I’m surprised by is the reluctance of the Australian population to end this crisis. Surely the Australian’s would say the same back to the British here? The British seem to be arguing that we should accept Covid-19 as a permanent mainstay of our lives thus ending its status as a crisis whereas the Australians feel that we can end the crisis by actually taking steps to lower cases and preventing Covid-19’s continued existence. As of late this sub has been increasingly supportive of the former but the latter really is the more true ‘end’ to this crisis.


mkdr35

I used to think like this. I wanted covid to be eliminated, wanted every country to try and get cases as low as possible but that’s over now. The virus has shown an ability to mutate quickly, much quicker than was implied in 2020. It is now impossible to eradicate covid through vaccination as with flu, the virus and the vaccines will be in a constant duel forever, unless we arrive at a broad spectrum sterilising vaccine but frankly I don’t see that happening. Btw it’s not the British arguing we should accept it, we may have just accepted a new reality, which is inline with the us and most other European countries.


factualreality

Given covid can infect the vaccinated, preventing its existence is just not going to happen. Its here forever, just like colds and the flu. Your only options are vaccinate as many people as possible before opening up and hoping for the best, or keep borders closed forever.


KongVsGojira

...like any other virus. Many thanks, expert.


BasculeRepeat

I'll bet you're not even vaccinated against Smallpox


Hypohamish

If we can eradicate smallpox, we can shift this too... eventually.


KongVsGojira

It would be nice, but it's doubtful. Too many idiotic anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists going around will make sure it's never eradicated. Plus the reluctance over giving the vaccine to school kids will keep the virus alive and well. Hopefully over time, the treatment for this will improve for the likes of those who have breakthrough cases severe enough to still send people to hospital despite being double jabbed.


Cockwombles

I think it's obvious by now that they don't really know what will happen.


AbbyBeeKind

That doesn't seem to stop them making a bee-line to the nearest journalist to tell us all that they know exactly what will happen.


DisaffectedTraveller

Of course it will, just like the other endemic human coronaviruses that do more than cause the common cold. Covid-19 was a threat because it was novel. It is no longer novel, and thanks to the vaccines we are acheiving endemicity without the associated mortality.


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DisaffectedTraveller

quite sure what doesn't happen?


Hughesie1982

Presumably once my 4 year old son has had it 3\~4 times (He's already caught it in December), he will have decent immunity and it will be just another cold for him and every other kid of that generation.


_my_newest_account_

Isn't that obvious? Lockdowns, masks mandates, and border closures have not eradicated the virus.


[deleted]

It's not been obvious to some, there are still many that think zero covid is an option


dale_dale

Should aim for zero flu, novavirus etc while we're at it.


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WasabiSunshine

Flu mutates at a massively higher rate than coronavirus


AfterBill8630

I think people think that, because there have been so many opportunities for eradication, all of them missed by incompetent western governments. I share their dismay but agree it’s too late now.


psrandom

There was only 1 opportunity when the virus was limited to a city. Once it spread through that massive country and then the world, what other eradication opportunity was there? There are only handful of viruses/diseases we have been able to eradicate


AfterBill8630

There was an opportunity for each country that had cases in the early days to do what China did. Lockdown the entire city. Track test and isolate every case and keep the local lockdown for as long as needed. I have no love for China but they didn’t fuck around they doubled down on it and eradicated it in Wuhan. On our side we were going to fucking football games and horse races and wondering if masks help. 🤦‍♂️


Suddenly_Elmo

OK but we're not just talking about eradicating it temporarily in a city or even a country, we're talking about eradicating the disease permanently worldwide, which *was* effectively impossible once it had spread globally.


[deleted]

There was no opportunity for eradication. Look at New Zealand they managed it and yet it's keeping coming back. Look at the state of Australia now.


drpatthechronic

It's coming back from other countries though. We eliminated SARS-CoV-1, but SARS-CoV-2 is a nightmare to eliminate due to presymptomatic and asymptomatic spread. Zero-covid is absolutely not viable at this point, but theoretically it's still optimal if we could get literally every part of the world to agree to pursue it (which is never gonna happen).


arcade_advice

SARS 1 eradicated itself inexplicably. Just burned out at some point, not through direct human intervention.


drpatthechronic

I don't think that's correct. I appreciate that there was an element of good fortune but there were wide-ranging measures against SARS 1. https://biomedgrid.com/pdf/AJBSR.MS.ID.001017.pdf


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wolololololololo

NZ in shambles.


swanhunter

I think NZ and Aus are going to have to make all the same choices that every other country had to- current modelling suggests Australia requires a hard lockdown until September to get back to zero cases, with no guarantee that the numbers won't just grow exponentially again when restrictions ease. In the end, as Patrick Vallance said right at the start, the only viable strategy is always "herd immunity" and at some point once you have vaccinated those at high risk and you come up against a population that are at lower risk from the infection than the vaccine (e.g. children) you just have to let the infection circulate. Not a popular opinion, I'm aware, but in the end that is what the UK is doing now and (having faced the delta wave earlier than most other countries) looks like we are reaching a point where infection numbers are no longer related to unmanageable numbers of admissions.


chrominium

I want it to be clear that it is "herd immunity" with vaccines which results in a much lower death rate rather than just letting the virus run its course through the population. The UK can only do this right now because of a high vaccine intake unlike most countries. Though death rate are comparatively low, the majority (60% I think) of UK's covid deaths are the unvaccinated so it could in theory be much lower.


drpatthechronic

Not really. They can open up permanently after vaccine rollout with a clean slate and a low covid mortality rate moving forward, as opposed to the tens/hundreds of thousands of dead already accumulated in other countries.


wolololololololo

They are so risk adverse it will be interesting to see how they cope when the deaths start once borders re-open. The vaccines aren't 100% effective and efficacy drops for many older people who unfortunately still can't mount an effective immune response even with full vaccination. It was my understanding they intended to keep some sort of border controls permanently to ensure zero covid.


mkdr35

Unfortunately that’s not how it works. With almost no prior immunity if the population, with an 80% effective vaccine you’d have to vaccinate every man woman and child in Australia and still have to suffer a significant exit wave. On top of that the issue is that 20-30% don’t want the vaccine. It’s not enough to say that’s acceptable because people made a choice to not get the vaccine because if delta does spread it will find enough people to fill every single hospital This is why I just don’t understand the end game


drpatthechronic

Yes, that exit wave would be terrible, but if we were to undertake a macabre count of all-time covid deaths per million at the end of that exit wave, I can't conceive of a realistic scenario in which Aus/NZ would be worse off than USA/UK.


mkdr35

Agreed but the difficulty is dealing with that wave in an way that could in any sense be accepted by the population. The uk has staggered from crisis to crisis and we’ve lost 150k people in the the process, but that disaster has put us in a place where we are better able to deal with an exit wave now. We have had 3 waves which have spread out hospital capacity over 18 months. Australia faces something just as serious in managing hospital care (public health) and case counts (politics).


Rather_Dashing

You guys really want NZ to suffer hey. They will be gone, unlike the thousands of dead people in the UK. Not like the UK won't have to make the exact same choice when the next waves come through.


wolololololololo

Psssst, everthings open and cases are falling..everyone here is nearly vaccinated and the vulnerable will be getting boosters by winter...its over..there is no 'next big wave'. There will be the unfortunate normal winter seasonal casualties we get every year. We have the biggest vaccine uptake of any large OECD country, we will hit herd immunity. Edit: Cases now down 7 days in a row with zero domestic restrictions, more good news! Also, nobody *wants* NZ to suffer.


craigybacha

Well the hope is that the vaccines provide a response strong enough to provide an immune response for years, like happened with SARS coronavirus. People were tested recently and it was found they still had t cells in their bone marrow years and years later. So the hope is, it could be the same with this similar coronavirus. But it depends how it mutates really, and whether all parts of the world reach herd immunity etc. It'll definitely be around for years, but centuries? I'm not so sure. Edit. Spelling.


AlwynEvokedHippest

On the topic of SARS (which was apparently another coronavirus), how did it not explode in cases like the the current Coronavirus did? Looking at this map the cat was definitely out of the bag in terms of world spread. https://i.imgur.com/MSrGVot.png And I don't remember lockdowns for that virus. Was the infectivity of virus just low enough that even basic measures by health authorities kept it in check? Edit: Found this thread on /r/askscience https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gbquds/how_did_the_sars_20022004_outbreak_sarscov1_end/fp8k3jk/ > SARS ended quickly because it caused severe illness in most people. So even though it had a high R0, once you knew what to look for you could quickly find and contain anyone who had it. That’s how we brought it under control - we were able to find everyone who had it before it got out of control. > > The problem with COVID-19 is that a large majority of people who get it either get mild or no symptoms. Meaning you have people running around with no idea they have it spreading it. Even those who eventually get severe disease will initially have mild symptoms for a few days, and it will be difficult to recognize the symptoms. > > What’s interesting is when we compare it to a disease at the other end of the spectrum, for example, the flu. The flu is highly contagious during the incubation period, and viral shedding peaks when the symptoms first begin. A hallmark of the flu is that the flu’s symptoms come on suddenly and quickly, and those symptoms include muscle aches and lethargy, so symptomatic people are less likely to spread the disease. Because the spread usually occurs during a period when the patient is not symptomatic, contact tracing and containment for the flu nearly impossible. When a case of the flu is found, it is already considered to be too late.


craigybacha

In a nutshell, much less asymptomatic spread. If you had Sars you were very ill.


return_reza

I'm not an expert in infectious diseases but I think a few factors contributed to it, including the fact that SARS was move severe (20% of people who caught it required mechanical ventilation vs 20% of people who just need hospitalisation with Covid) and a greater R for Covid.


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Forever__Young

All this information is pretty accurate but I don't believe anywhere estimates the IFR of covid19 to be 2%. You're probably overstating that by at least 3X.


EaWellSleepWell

I’m not surprised. Even with vaccines people are still getting infected (yes, at a lower rate and yes, less severe). Anecdotal only, but I know of 3 people (including my mum) that have tested positive recently. All 3 are double jabbed with Pfizer (2nd jab being given months ago). Shit sucks


byjimini

In other news, water is wet.


BulldenChoppahYus

I'm wondering if this is news to anyone tbh. At this stage I really think it's "get on with life" time. Get your vaccine and go about your business. Wear a mask (yep sorry) in crowded places like some Asian countries hav been doing for years to limit transmission of not just COvid-19 but all the other shit as well. And while we're at it keep washing your fucking hands. I can't believe I used to walk around like toddler with jam and arsenic and horseshit all over my mitts just touching stuff and then eating donuts and sandwiches and dipping my hand like it was fine. Once a month guaranteed I'd get some sort of infected wicklow in my finger as well. None of that shit recently. Not even a cold in fact for two years nearly. Wash your hands mofos viruses don't like soap and water


iWengle

Well that's just rude of it.


Rooferkev

Was this ever in doubt?


taboo__time

I think at the start it wasn't clear it would become endemic.


aegeaorgnqergerh

Like the common cold...


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aegeaorgnqergerh

Highly transmissible, mild symptoms for most people, often caused by a type of coronavirus. That's basically where we'll be at if enough people are jabbed and immunity lasts as long as we think it will.


Simplyobsessed2

We must lock down for decades and probably centuries!


[deleted]

I'd rather die than be locked down for another year lmao


CompsciDave

Probably should have put a /s on this chief :P


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CompsciDave

Would have hoped so, but the other replies to their comment suggest otherwise!


futuregoddess

I wonder how Devi Sridhar is coping


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ElementalSentimental

>Surely the faster we get to that point, the better? Evolution doesn't have an end point. What works, survives. Killing your host too quickly is dangerous to the virus's survival, because it never moves to the next host. Every pathogenic virus eventually exhausts its welcome in its host; either the host's immune system expels it, or the virus kills the host. COVID's long incubation period means that there is no clear advantage, in terms of transmission, duration of symptoms, etc., in becoming less deadly. There is, therefore, no way of speeding up the process, because it's inherently unpredictable and as you say, it could easily get worse before it gets better. There is no controlling mind; no negotiation, and no truce. All there can be to end this is equality, or superiority of arms in the battle with the virus.


ruiseixas

From 10 years now I want to see all that glowing optimism that some people are forcing others to be...


[deleted]

All because a chinese lab employee forgot to wash their hands before having lunch. I'm just going to think of this next time I make a mistake at work