Scott Morrison wants Australia to come out of its cave. Yesterday, the first of a new sitting fortnight, the prime minister repeatedly hammered a message of returning to freedom, of living with the virus once 70%-80% of adults are vaccinated.
“The national plan we have developed and agreed is our pathway to living with this virus. That is our goal, to live with this virus, not to live in fear of it,” he said.
He wants Australia to shift its thinking, cast aside the fixation with case numbers and doughnut days and start viewing hospitalisations and deaths as the key metrics for COVID success. In other words “COVID zero” is dead, at least as far as Canberra is concerned.
Morrison is right to start preparing us for the future. Australia has to open up at some point. Once it does wind back some restrictions, case numbers will inevitably rise. Vaccines will protect many from death and serious illness. Pushback from some premiers who have maintained that lockdowns will be used even when vaccine targets are met is a clear sign of how messy the shift in our thinking is already proving.
But like so much of what Morrison touches — from the vaccine rollout to the Afghanistan evacuation — his attempt to prepare Australia for a post-vaccinated world suffers from a case of too little, too late.
We’ve known for months that Australians would need to fundamentally readjust their expectations around case numbers and, one day, living with the virus. Articulating what that means, and guiding the country through such a shift, requires a kind of vision and leadership Morrison lacks. As a prime minister he tends to be reactive rather than proactive. His messaging on this has seemed lost ever since Sydney went into a lockdown he’d encouraged the NSW government to delay.
In early July, his first announcement of a plan to have a plan to return to normal — marked by a promise that lockdowns were now a matter of last resort — was overtaken by history before it even started. As the case numbers in NSW skyrocketed over the past few weeks, Morrison appeared to push for an extended lockdown as the state’s only way forward.
“The lockdown in Sydney has to work for it to be lifted. It has to work,” he said last week.
Now, he seems adamant that once we hit the targets in the Doherty Institute’s modelling, lockdowns must end, no matter the case numbers. Morrison’s hard embrace of reopening isn’t so much a disorienting tonal shift as another reflection of his prime ministership’s defining characteristic: the tendency to see everything as a political problem.
Suspecting, correctly, that Australians are at a collective breaking point with restrictions, and that by 2022 tough measures to eliminate the virus won’t be the vote winners they were even 12 months earlier, Morrison is trying to draw battlelines for a freedom election.
It’s the Coalition — the party committed to removing restrictions and saving Christmas — pitted against Labor, the party of lockdowns.
“Those opposite may seek to undermine the national plan, they may seek to run down the national plan, they may seek to steal the hope of Australians and hope for the worst,” Morrison said in question time yesterday.
Morrison suspects Labor is a little wedged here. The opposition has appeared to equivocate on just how open Australia should be at 70% or 80% vaccination. Labor’s caution, however, doesn’t mean it opposes reopening. Nor does it mean the next election will be a battle between lockdowns and freedom.
But Morrison, a politician who loves blunt, reductive messaging, is already trying to frame it that way. And it means his push to end COVID zero isn’t an act of bold policy vision, but another attempt to own Labor.
We keep talking about this 70% and 80% of ‘eligible’ people – ie people over 16. Unfortunately there are plenty of kids with covid, we need to get to 80% of everyone
I would say 90%.
And you would not be wrong. But 90% with which vaccine? Today’s vaccines will be useless once the variants of the delta variants come along. It’s likely that the next, more resistant, variant will come along before we’ve even reached the 70% – actually only 56% of the entire population – target. It used to be a ‘horizon’ rather than a target. I suspect that we’ll always be chasing our tail with this until a vaccine that stops every corona virus in its tracks is invented, and that’s probably wishful thinking.
I fully expect that by next year there’ll be several other vaccine options. Nasal spray, inhalers and tablet vaccines are all under development with some already being trialled. Powder form vaccines will change everything as they don’t need refrigeration and can be easily administered.
Where are they being trialed? Not here I suppose..?
No, of course not! That would be pro active and we do not do pro active…
We can’t even get enough of the current vaccines!! What chance we’ll get these vaccine options?? None and buckley’s…’Its not a race!?’
Well we could, if we had a proactive govt, manufacture them right here. Hey if Spain, South Africa or Cuba ( just to name a few) can do it why can’t we? But we have a govt that’s decided manufacture is not something we do. We export coal and iron ore, oh and wool and sheep, and cattle. What else do we need to do, really!
Can’t even have access to the 3 minute covid19 test, which is so wrong! Why cant we know immediately if we are positive instead of spreading/shedding covid for days until we are notified we tested positive.
Where is the logic with these clowns?
70% will be more than enough. I’ll follow the Doherty approach thanks.
Actual smart people, saying smart things.
So you’d prefer to follow a report that has been criticized roundly for its faulty methodology and its lack of including the whole population by numerous smart people who have no interest in telling the government what it wants to hear ?
Agree. Long covid is a massive problem that 2 shot Pfizer Morrison ignores.
And that piece of unutterable deadly ruthless excrement Berjiklian is desperate for the media and the population to ignore ‘case’ numbers. Those ‘cases’ are us you evil maniac Berjiklian.
Yep, and the media keep declining to call this out and remind us that omitting the word “eligible” means they are trying to mislead us. The media is drawn to simplicity – hence “carbon tax” rather than “price on carbon”.
Yes, ALL the old media,including 9 (which used to be even handed) has become part of the morrison cheer squad.
Thank goodness for Crikey. But circulation needs to be up about 20 fold to have enough effect. Keep at it Bernard.
He doesn’t care about kids because they don’t vote. He also doesn’t want to get the messaging too far away from the intellectual midgets who are drifting off to follow Kelly and Christenson.
So true.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/24/why-is-covid-surging-in-highly-vaccinated-israel-and-what-can-australia-learn-from-it
Hasn’t Israel got higher than 60% vaccinations now?
Quite right Franky and I am afraid that too many Australians have been taken in by this. After a while of closely observing the ‘fool in the baseball cap’ aka ‘daggy dad’ and better known as the inveterate liar, the teller of half truths and self serving moral bankrupt the buffoon we call our Prime Minister displays certain patterns of behaviour.
Note how the buffoon made the smooth transition of describing Australia’s COVID19 vaccination rate as one in four for those fully vaccinated and those partially vaccinated as one in two rather than in percentage terms. Obviously Morrison’s creative writing team figure this sounds better than 25% and 50% when nations such as Iceland have comparable figures of 75% & 81%; Portugal 67% & 79% and Denmark 69% & 76% just to name a very few.
Furthermore as Franky correctly points out Morrison quotes figures based on the Australian population aged over 16 years of age. The buffoon’s figures unlike those of most other far more reputable reporting agencies are not based on the whole population of the country. By cleverly omitting all those aged 16 and under he effectively discounts approximately five (5) million Australians from his count roughly 20% of our population.
Hence the buffoon is able to claim under a game weighted in his favour that Australia has reached a full vaccination rate of 30% and have reached 52% for those supposedly partially vaccinated, In actual fact based on our total population these fabricated values are in reality 24% (for fully vac) & 42% (for partially vac).
However, the real payoff will come when the moral bankrupt will falsely claim to have reached the 70% and 80% key cut-off figures in opening up Australia.. In actual fact both these figures will seriously be under counts. For example, Morrison’s 80% will be 4.2 million short of what it should be if we were counting Australia’s total population. Morrison expects great kudos for leading the charge to liberate Australians from the drudgery of the COVID19 restrictions even if this comes at bringing on the greater freedoms when the actual safety threshold has not in fact been reached.
This is the classic example of its all about Morrison and what it takes to retain power. The ends (pursuit of power) justify the means (Australian’s well being and lives). As countless research documents the losers in both natural and man- made disasters such as COVID19 are not the wealthy and powerful such as Morrison and his kind but rather the disadvantaged and those of low income and standing. Similarly Morrison and his science researchers openly admit that as the 70 & 80% thresholds are reached with resultant relaxation of COVID19 restrictions there will be an enormous jump in COVIT cases and to some deaths. Care to hazard a guess as to which social group/s will carry the bulk of this collateral damage so that the wealthy may regain lost freedoms of lifestyle?
Some Morrison acolytes may defend his omission of those 16 and under from his population count on the grounds that these age groups are not that relevant to the COVID19 issue. However, the increasing presence of COVIT19 in schools around the world soon negates such thinking. In Australia at one point in this month there were over 3000 COVID cases involving children 0 -9 yrs of age and over 4000 involving 10 – 19 yr olds. Given their propensity to be rapid spreaders of COVID it is obvious that any plan to handle COVIT must include children as a vital component of that process and hence justify their inclusion in any population count when dealing with COVID
.
Further to the above while Australia is still working out how to deal with COVID and children comparable nations have acted. In the age group 18 -24 yrs partial vaccination has already made significant gains with partial vaccination rates of 77% for Denmark; 80% for Norway; 85% for Iceland and 68% for Finland.
Have a read of this
NSW lung specialist explains the ‘awful’ effects of COVID she is seeing in Sydney hospitals
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-25/warning-from-nsw-lung-specialist-about-covid-effects/100405878
Why is Covid surging in highly vaccinated Israel and what can Australia learn from it?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/24/why-is-covid-surging-in-highly-vaccinated-israel-and-what-can-australia-learn-from-it
Morrisin will kill to keep in the top job
Talking about a percentage is very blunt. It would not necessarily be an even spread across the country and there could be communities, particular age groups or cultural groups, towns etc which would be left very vulnerable. We are so far behind because Morrison did not order the vaccine that the rollout has been so all over the place that a systematic plan has been impossible.
Morrison is talking up patriotism to wedge opponents. Laughable if it was not so pathetic, and with the usual backing of the Murdoch media, plus tame gallery reporters, the mendacious buffoon may get away with it.
I should imagine that the spoke in his wheel will be hospitalisations and deaths right up to the election date and that is why Berejiklian is already instructing New South Wales people to not focus on case numbers but on vaccination numbers it has already started the electioneering and peoples lives are the collateral damage caused by the Coalition to regain power and keep it
“Quick, look over there.” It’s not the best re-election strategy, but with the current media cheerleading I would imagine “A turd on every plate” might be enough for Murdoch to somehow spin as a revolutionary idea.
Still don’t think it will be enough though, although question mark over how much traction the States rights wrecker Palmer will get in the next election, with the member for somewhere, Kelly, promoting ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
I think it was in the SMH today, referring to an article in the US advising that they weren’t cows, and weren’t horses, and taking horse-sized doses of ivermectin were unlikely to be good for your health. We ain’t talking the sharpest tools in the shed here.
Murdoch.
The Murdoch war against the ABC is 85 years’ old, it has been a vicious bloody campaign by conservatives to throttle truth and govern illegitimately in the boardrooms, the sewers of the media, to pervert democracy and governments employing fear and bribery to corrupt nations, impoverish and indenture world citizens. Those who do his work are the global criminals as rancid and deformed as he.
But Murdoch has succeeded where dear SIR Keith, daddy dear did not.
Like Peta Crudlin daddy Keith is a mouthpiece for the Betty Windsor parasitic diseased organism; and like Crudlin he received an ‘honour’ for services rendered to corporate and colonial imperialism.
Time for some historical facts not rewritten by Murdoch’s mercenaries.
Keith Murdoch, father of Rupert, was a newspaper proprietor with interests in several commercial radio stations.
For three years, Keith Murdoch and other newspaper owners insisted that the ABC be restricted to no more than 200 words a day of overseas news, and limited its presentation of news bulletins to five minutes in the evening – but not before 7.50pm, by which time it was thought people would have finished reading their newspapers.
When, by 1936, the ABC had begun to develop an independent news service, Murdoch was greatly displeased.
His newspapers demanded a reduction in the ABC’s income from licence fees so that it would:”stop competing improperly with private enterprise”.
It is to be acknowledged that Labor’s Paul Keating enshrined this notion in legislation with his competitive neutrality competition insanity.
In an early show of defiance, the vice-chairman of the ABC, Herbert Brookes – a leading conservative and son-in-law of Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister – attacked Murdoch for his self-interest and his attempts to cripple the ABC’s news service, as well as his ”conspiracy of silence” about the success of the ABC.
Private commercial interests were not the only enemies.
At its inception and for many years later, the ABC was the responsibility of the Postmaster-General’s department.
The politician to hold the office of Postmaster-General in 1938 was a South Australian Country Party man with a military background, A.G.Cameron. When the chairman of the [ABC] commission and two of its members first met him, Cameron did not mince his words:
”I know nothing about broadcasting. I’m not interested in it. If I had my way I would stop all broadcasting. No time for these mechanical things. Don’t know anything about music. As for people who give talks and commentaries over the air, if I had my way I would poison the blank blanks – would bring them under the Vermin Act.”
[But the ADF military background Cameron did know upon which side of the desk his paper bags were served]
To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, the more he spoke of his patriotism, the faster we counted the spoons.
I can’t put into words the way my gut and mind churn at a mere glimpse of that smirking manipulator, such as the pic used with this article. It dismays and enrages me all at once that Australia has ended up with this creature and his party running us into the amoral ground.
Words fail me also, my hatred is visceral
He has the same effect in this household, Meg.
Am I right to interpret the pic for this article as Smirko checking his own reflection? Smirking at his own smirk? Worse than watching a cat lick its own bum.
ScoMo and his evil entourage will be reelected will the help of the loony right AND Clive
Palmer.. Where’s another Paul Keating- street fighter when you need him???
Don’t forget Murdoch, who is currently being sued for incouraging the insurection about Trump trying to turn the election results to him.
In fact the man rolling out the corrupted barils in NSW has dived deep into the Coalition sewer and come up with a mouthful of sh… blaming Canberra for south coast poo fragments But Barr has got baril by the balls and rubbished the poo out of him, so the election campaigning has begun. and the PM of NSW is most grateful for his poodles.
When asked about NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro’s claim that Canberrans were behind Covid 19 fragments found in sewage at Merimbula, Mr Barr said it was just as likely that the virus came from regional New South Wales.
“I don’t know where he is getting that from. If he has scientific evidence that can back it up that it is Canberra poo, then OK, alright. But I mean seriously, I’m just not interested in having ‘whose poo it was’ arguments with John Barilaro at the moment to be honest.
“I don’t think the sewage detection is quite that sophisticated to be able to tell whether it’s a Canberran’s poo, or someone else’s.”
We should stop talking 70% and 80%. Those numbers are deceptive and designed to deceive. They refer to that part of the population “eligible” to receive Covid vaccination, predominantly those aged 16 and over, 80% of the population. It’s not 80% of those “eligible” to be infected by Covid (everyone), it’s 80% of 80%, i.e. 64%. Whenever you hear 70/80%, know that it is actually 56/64%. Worse, it leaves the vast majority of children and adolescents fully exposed.
Any significant easing of restrictions in these circumstances is, in my view, unconscionable. It will have been guided by what was judged best for the ruling party’s re-election, in no way by what is best for the health and welfare of Australians.
Yes, but there is a problem doing what is best for Australians ie closing the coal mines total lockdown in the case of covid and lots other socially useful things would not please his backers ,no media support and loss of power.What else can he do but condemn possibly thousands of his fellow Australians to an agonising death to avert an election loss.
Absolutely right about that. But once again today with almost a thousand cases in one day, Killer I telling us not to focus on the tip of the iceberg but rather vaccination numbers. Case numbers are not how many are infected in NSW they’re 5 days old when it comes to how many are infected (Coronocast) and on top of that you can triple that easily for what the infection rate would be. As for the great vaccination look over there trick the ruthless rubbish is urging us to pay attention to rather than hospitalizations, deaths and ‘cases’ Israel is the go to country for an update on this.
Why is Covid surging in highly vaccinated Israel and what can Australia learn from it?Raina MacIntyre for the Conversation
Cases are rising in Israel despite 78% of over-12s being fully jabbed, but that doesn’t mean Australia should give up and ‘live with’ with the virus
In Israel, 60% of hospitalised cases are vaccinated. ..the rate of serious cases in Israel is double for unvaccinated under-60s and nine times higher for unvaccinated over-60s, so vaccines remain highly protective against severe outcomes.
What’s clear in Israel (and the United Kingdom and United States) is lifting all movement restrictions and mask mandates after Delta arrived resulted in surging cases…It provides a glimpse of what Sydney faces if we lift restrictions without the population being adequately vaccinated.
In Australia, the 70% vaccination rate at which the federal government proposes to begin easing restrictions corresponds to about 56% of the total population vaccinated.
It was modelled on 30 cases at the start of a new outbreak. With Sydney likely facing daily new cases in the thousands (with no change in strategy), the outcomes could be much worse than anticipated.
And that includes children.
In Texas, paediatric ICUs are full and children cannot get beds.
This is another warning that we must urgently vaccinate children, at least those 12 years and over, before lifting restrictions.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/24/why-is-covid-surging-in-highly-vaccinated-israel-and-what-can-australia-learn-from-it