The recent four-phase national cabinet plan to get a vaccinated Australia back to normal is just a skeleton. We all want the details — flesh on the bones. How might the plan be more useful? Will a particular uptake figure for vaccination really be the ticket to freedom from lockdowns, to attend work and schools, the liberty to travel?
Today, national cabinet will for the first time look at the Doherty Institute’s modelling on the vaccination rates required to move the country out of lockdowns and tough restrictions. But are four phases enough?
Getting to herd immunity
We need a range of targets starting at about 60% to minimise lockdowns. But much more is needed to get herd immunity and the freedom we ache for — at least 80% of the adult population vaccinated. Intensive mathematical modelling is anxiously awaited.
We already have targets for herd immunity against other infections. Herd immunity for measles is set at 95% in Australia. Vaccination rates in Australia for children is very high, with 95% routinely achieved.
Getting 80% of the population vaccinated for COVID-19 is possible. The general public and health workers pulled together in 2020 to get huge numbers vaccinated for influenza — 18 million people in a few months, a record high.
Critical issues
There are ongoing critical issues that have to be addressed before herd immunity can be achieved, including vaccine supply, logistics of ramping up vaccination delivery, and addressing public hesitancy.
Other organisations have addressed what needs to be done prior to the government announcing its four-phase plan. A seven-point plan for better vaccination of adults generally was launched in July by Dr Rod Pearce, chairman of Immunisation Coalition, while the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI) outlined a six-point plan last Christmas to promote COVID-19 vaccination rates.
The Immunisation Coalitions plan goes to priorities, calling especially to strengthen the monitoring of vaccination and accountability for rollouts, to improving access to vaccination, and enhance public understanding through clear and accurate messaging. These were all based on an extensive review of both local and international evidence.
To its credit, the government has just introduced mandatory reporting of adult vaccination, and targets for COVID vaccine uptake are being mathematically modelled. But the public health communication campaigns in place have yet to achieve traction.
What can we do?
We advocate that at-risk groups need focused communications: those of different ages and ethnicity, Indigenous Australians, the medically unwell.
Communication with healthcare providers (GPs, nurses, and pharmacists) needs a major overhaul. It must be much more timely. GPs need to be able to give their patients digestible advice that is coherent and consistent. Policy changes by the government will be far better supported if explanations arrive to GPs before the public.
Vaccination really is a gift that goes on giving. And we can all maximise the protection of people, especially the vulnerable elderly and their carers, in Australia and abroad.
Our neighbours, near and far, need our help — everyone has a role to play in getting vaccinated, observing public health measures and, crucially, in giving back. The very large outbreaks in PNG and Indonesia are fanning the fires of viral mutation and enhancing the emergence of a new variant that is even more transmissible and difficult to control.
UNICEF is accepting pay-it-forward donations to support the COVAX facility delivering vaccination to low-income countries.
Professor Robert Booy is chair and director of the Immunisation Coalition Scientific Advisory Committee and developed the pay-it-forward COVID-19 jab initiative.
Seriously? Herd immunity for a bug that you can be re-infected by? That continuously mutates?
There is no herd immunity to colds (a significant fraction of which are caused by coronaviruses) or the ever mutating flu. Why expect it for Covid. The fact that vaccinated people can still transmit this virus to others if they encounter it subsequent to vaccination makes the whole analogy with measles and the like fall over.
That is a massive oversimplification of Covid-19 and transmission. Transmission rates between a vaccinated and non-vaccinated person are at least half ot that between two non-vaccinated people…..and transmission rates between two vaccinated people are at least half of that again. If enough people are vaccinated, and as long as we properly quarantine overseas visitors, then eventually the virus will run out of hosts to jump between-especially if, in the medium term, we continue to retain some of the good habits we have picked up from the start of this pandemic.
If enough people are vaccinated, and as long as we properly quarantine overseas visitors, then eventually the virus will run out of hosts to jump between
Nope
Israel was once the success story that proved we could vaccinate our way through the pandemic. Mass vaccination began last December. By April, the country had all but declared victory over Covid-19. More than half the population was double-dosed and it recorded its first day without a death in nearly a year. Restrictions were eased, international travel roared back and compliance fell away. Even the Green Pass, a vaccine passport scheme, was abandoned.
“During April to July there was a false perception that Covid was over,” says Nadav Davidovitch, a member of Israel’s national Covid advisory committee and director of the public health school at Ben-Gurion University. After several months in which the approach to vaccination was very active, “a sense of urgency was lost”.
By July, the Delta variant was loose in the community. By August, thousands of cases were being recorded every day. Relatively high vaccination rates had concealed the reality that pockets remained undervaccinated, including people aged between 12 and 20, the ultra-Orthodox community, the Bedouin and other Arabs. Even in Israel’s vaccinated population, immunity began to wane.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2021/09/04/what-can-the-world-teach-us-about-opening-with-covid-19/163067760012403
Australia’s pandemic experience has more closely matched Singapore than Israel and Britain. The city-state has largely enjoyed a Covid-zero life, but its leadership has warned the public that stance is impossible to maintain, explicitly working to a goal of endemicity. Singapore is now recording about 100 cases a day.
Professor Teo Yik Ying, dean of the National University of Singapore’s public health school, says Singapore is now a natural experiment in whether high vaccination rates can reduce the burden on the healthcare system to tolerable levels. About 78 per cent of Singapore’s population – including children – are fully vaccinated, making it one of the most vaccinated countries in the world. Strict border measures and aggressive testing and tracing have helped keep a lid on cases, as well as two very different sets of rules for the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Life in Singapore is not exactly what you’d call normal, or free. People have only recently returned to the office, with 50 per cent of the workforce allowed to return at a time. Dining is allowed for groups of five if all are fully vaccinated; otherwise, it’s capped at two in open-air settings. There’s a gradated quarantine system for international travel, with free travel only allowed to and from Germany and Brunei.
Teo describes the approach as cautious and prudent. The government takes one step at a time, closely monitoring the consequences. The country would never use vaccine coverage thresholds the way Australia has, he adds.
BTW, almost no vaccine currently in existence provides sterilizing levels of immunity-so we instead rely on high enough vaccination rates to deny those viruses a reservoir from which they can re-infect the population. Covid-19 vaccination is no different in this regard.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/health/cdc-vaccinated-delta.html
INEXCUSABLE
MORRISON Government still doesn’t know how many Australians with disability contracted Covid
Officials fail to act on disability royal commission recommendation to collect the data
The [MORRISON] government still doesn’t know how many people with disabilities have contracted Covid-19, despite a royal commission saying eight months ago that its failure to collect national data on cases was inconsistent with UN obligations.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/31/government-still-doesnt-know-how-many-australians-with-disability-contracted-covid
I don’t really think herd immunity will kick in until the tablet vaccine hits the market, probably next year. Not having the need for refrigeration or a medical person to administer the jab will change everything. Same with flu tablets, also destined to hit the market next year.
The bigger question is that if we even hit “herd immunity” will it matter?
Governments are developing a liking for the social control allowed by lockdowns. Will they ever give them up?
With a such a compliant populace, stoked by reporting of the latest doom scenario, it seems unlikely.
The bigger question is how many will die and have long covid due to Berjiklian’s negligence and her abrogation of her duty of care to Australians….again.
The NSW Public Accountability Committee has reconvened its inquiry into the Berejiklian’s government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic response.
And it should be noted that this committee has teeth, as it’s the same body that recently blew the lid on multiple pork barrelling scandals involving the NSW Liberal Nationals government.
Committee chair NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge has outlined the inquiry will be probing into the chauffeur arrangements for international pilots that led to the outbreak, quarantine management, hesitation to lockdown and disparities in approaches between east and west Sydney.
Committee chair NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge said:
”This inquiry is necessary to have accountability of government during a crisis. We still don’t know the various factors the government took into account, when Greater Sydney moved very slowly into a lockdown in mid-June.
By the time the citywide lockdown was announced, there were already COVID fragments being discovered in some dozen sewage treatment plants right across the Greater Sydney region.
It’s essential that we understand what factors other than public health advice were relied upon to decide when and how hard to go with the lockdown.
In that context, it’s important to remember the state budget was in the middle of that first seven day period.
It seems incredible that one of the most critical risks in a pandemic – in this case, the transportation of international flight crew – was handed out to a privatised firm with literally no public health oversight.
We need to understand how that happened and ensure that measures are being put in place so that kind of mistake is not repeated.
When you privatise and contract out critical public health functions in a pandemic, of course, that’s going to invite scrutiny and that’s what we are going to give it.
You can’t look at the public health response without understanding how unevenly and how unfairly pandemic and lockdown measures impact the community.
We have already seen how the same circumstances can cause significantly more disruption in southwest Sydney than they do in more affluent parts of the city, such as the east and the Northern Suburbs.
We all want people to comply with public health orders – to stay home and to stay safe – but, for that to happen, people need to have the economic security and the supports in place for them to safely do that.
At the moment, those arrangements are so patchy that they push against the public health messaging.
There are clearly competing lines of thought within the Berejiklian cabinet about how to respond to the lockdown.
There are voices in her team who are calling for the near complete removal of the lockdown and to let the pandemic explode.
There are other influencing voices who are clearly representing specific industries that have traditionally been very powerful, such as the construction sector.
We need to ensure that the decision-making is primarily guided by public health advice and public health measures that keep all of us safe.
We don’t want to just respond to one or two well-funded or well-connected industries or, worse still, to some of the anti-science conspirators who are within the Coalition government ranks.”
We need the blooooooooody vaccine for starters, at least a 2 and a half week wait at Mannum in SA, I suppose that’s better, it was well over two months not so long ago.
And if you are not a patient at any of the practices in the Murraylands and Riverlands you are not getting the vaccine or an appointment. Way to go Scumbo. SA residents are having to travel to Adelaide for the vaccination STILL. That’s what happens Scum Morri$sinner when you privatise the vaccinations for mates, instead of leaving it to the state governments to run who are experts at this and not in thrall to ex hack Liberal lobbyists from AZ
And if you are in Mt Gambier the earliest appointment is Dec 24 for pfizer, well you know, it all has to go to the NSW Coalition’s Queen of Delta Gladys Killerjiklian!
SA
More than 500,000 South Australians live outside the Adelaide metropolitan area, and will be eligible to get a vaccine at 33 health clinics.
Eligibility will be determined on a residential basis, so people who work but do not live in regional areas will not necessarily be eligible.