The Reality of Living in Australia and Covid

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by fxykty

Well, we bought Alan Lucas’ Cruising the Coral Coast to keep us entertained while in quarantine. Five full pages of dangers - we’re not worried at all about Covid anymore:
- spiders
- snakes (land and swimming too!)
- poisonous fish, including stonefish which you don’t even have to eat to get poisoned by
- box jellyfish
- Irukandji
- sharks
- crocodiles
- dingoes
- wild pigs
- sandflies

Better add the blue ringed octopus and the cuttlefish to the list.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Group9

I’ve never been to Australia. But, I am starting to realize that watching “Crocodile Dundee” gave me a completely erroneous view of what most Australians are really like.

Now you know how we feel down under after seeing a lifetime of countless Hollywood films and then reading an anchor thread

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Better add the blue ringed octopus and the cuttlefish to the list.

And drop bears.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I am not disputing this at all. Supplies are also exceeding demand in Australia so it is certainly readily available.

AZ hesitancy is, however, occurring in Australia and 18% of the 60-69 age group is still unvaccinated. Blame can probably be put on several sources. All the initial fuss in the EU regarding the rare blood clots (and withdrawal of use in some EU countries), ATAGI not recommending AZ for the under 60’s, Aussie media focussing on the clots, even the Queensland health advisor several months ago saying something along the lines of not wanting to be responsible for deaths from AZ.

This hesitancy is occurring in a vulnerable group. Why not stop additional deaths by offering this group Pfizer rather than literally pushing Pfizer vaccination on healthy school kids who have next to no risk of severe illness (as far as I can gather all the youngsters in intensive care have had other health issues reported) while withholding it from the 60+ year olds?

SWL

PS Wottie, the above also answers what I think is wrong with withholding Pfizer from the oldies.

Then withholding Pfizer from the 60+ age group was purely for political purposes and to the detriment of public health measures - I guess(?).

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yes, I've actually done that a few times -- that is, looked at the Nordics as if it were one country -- and it actually did occur to me that the Nordic region is similar in population to Oz. There is actually a fair amount of sense in combining the Nordics since all except Sweden are very small -- 5 or 6 million, and even Sweden is only 10 million.



Of course there's nothing unreasonable about your proposal, but it's also a somewhat endless task since there is no end of how you can divide up and separate different regions, cities, even neighborhoods.



By country is somewhat random -- as you correctly point out -- but not really any more random than any other way.

Off topic but...
If considering the Nordic region as a single entity, then Iceland and Tasmania share a lot of similarities leaving aside the ice, volcanoes and wonderfull films e.g. Woman at War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_at_War

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Then withholding Pfizer from the 60+ age group was purely for political purposes and to the detriment of public health measures - I guess(?).

I don’t know what the strategy is behind this, but some bad decisions have certainly been made worldwide for political reasons.

In an attempt to vaccinate as many as possible with available vaccines, Australia has promised for some time that the 60+ age group would be at the back of the queue once more Pfizer was available. Government officials probably don’t want to back down from this. Otherwise, I have no idea why they won’t currently allow the age group at highest risk of severe illness and death to have access to Pfizer.

I don’t blame some of the hesitant 60+ group who are not savvy enough to make sense of all the negative publicity about AZ. There has been a barrage of this for the last 6 months. After the use of AZ was suspended by around a dozen EU countries, some countries such as Denmark even stopped its use entirely. The US never approved it at all.

It hasn’t helped that in June the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) recommended that the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine was preferred for those aged under 60.

Australians have been told lots of doses of Pfizer will be available by the end of the year so some of them are probably waiting to receive what they perceive is the safer alternative, particularly in states where there is currently next to no community transmission.

SWL

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I don’t know what the strategy is behind this, but some bad decisions have certainly been made worldwide for political reasons.

In an attempt to vaccinate as many as possible with available vaccines, Australia has promised for some time that the 60+ age group would be at the back of the queue once more Pfizer was available. Government officials probably don’t want to back down from this. Otherwise, I have no idea why they won’t currently allow the age group at highest risk of severe illness and death to have access to Pfizer.

I don’t blame some of the hesitant 60+ group who are not savvy enough to make sense of all the negative publicity about AZ. There has been a barrage of this for the last 6 months. After the use of AZ was suspended by around a dozen EU countries, some countries such as Denmark even stopped its use entirely. The US never approved it at all.

It hasn’t helped that in June the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) recommended that the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine was preferred for those aged under 60.

Australians have been told lots of doses of Pfizer will be available by the end of the year so some of them are probably waiting to receive what they perceive is the safer alternative, particularly in states where there is currently next to no community transmission.

SWL

I think the idea was to push the AZ vax to over 60's for whom there is no evidence of any special risks (as opposed to females under 30 or 40 or whatever where there is a microscopic risk of blood clotting), after having alarmed the public with innumerate alarmist warnings about AZ risks and making it so no one wanted this perfectly fine vaccine.

Oz was by no means alone in this cluster fumble around the AZ vax, which did immense harm to vaccination programs in Europe.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I think the idea was to push the AZ vax to over 60's for whom there is no evidence of any special risks (as opposed to females under 30 or 40 or whatever where there is a microscopic risk of blood clotting), after having alarmed the public with innumerate alarmist warnings about AZ risks and making it so no one wanted this perfectly fine vaccine.

Oz was by no means alone in this cluster fumble around the AZ vax, which did immense harm to vaccination programs in Europe.

Yes, Australia was not alone. My reaction of is the same over this.

The risks of blood clots with low platelets is present for all age groups though. It has just been estimated at 39-55% less for 60+ year olds compared to those under 50 according to a table from this Australian Government Department of Health website:

https://www.health.gov.au/initiative...se-blood-clots

The website states “For people aged 60 years or above, the benefits of vaccination, with any vaccine including AstraZeneca, clearly outweigh the risks of TTS.” The implication is that under the age of 60 the benefits do not clearly outweigh the risks for AZ .

SWL

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Well to start with, Oxford University seems to think it is promising.

This is from their website:



“For COVID-19, ivermectin has shown promising results as a potential treatment in small studies in humans.”



They have started trialling ivermectin:

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-06-23...rinciple-trial



SWL

Who’d a thunk it?

Strange that they didn’t trial injecting bleach tho.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

And drop bears.

And hoop snakes.

[Ambler]

I have emailed a discrimination complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission. My claim is against the Australian Federal Government's treatment of 60 year olds and over.

I have stated that following their direction to be fully vaccinated, it will take two jabs of Az 12 weeks apart for the best effectiveness. Whereas I can be fully vaccinated with 2 jabs 3 weeks apart by being offered the Pfizer vaccine which also has significantly fewer side effects.

Most 60+ year olds contribute to the tax revenue of Australia than the under 60's. In fact we are looked upon as a burden especially since the Federal Government reclassified Old Age Pensioners some years ago as welfare recipients! (I am an over 60 self funded retiree)

I suggest more people aged over 60 email a complaint to the Human Rights Commission express how they feel about having to accept the health risk of the longer Az vaccine timeline and riskier side effects. On receipt of a reply from the HRC, insist that it must go to a hearing.

[El Pinguino]

Back in the dawn of time there was not much Phizer to be had in Australia and it was given only to old people with pre-conditions and front line workers ie the 1A group.
Then in mid/late March they started on group 1B - the over 70s - using AZ and only AZ . 90% of that group ( except the over 95s who are lagging just a touch probably due to conditions that mean they can't have either vax) have now had at least had one shot despite the fuss that started in April about the very very remote chance of blood clots and the number continues to rise.
In the 65/69 group only 16% now remain unvaccinated despite AZ having only become available to them **after** the big bunfight over clots started.

We have rather a lot of people still needing to get vaccinated in the younger age groups - we still do not have enough vaccine.

The risk of a young person getting seriously ill and possibly dying upon contracting Covid if unvaccinated is far greater than the risk of an old person getting a blood clot or any other complications from AZ.

[JPA Cate]

We have an acquaintance, over 70, who developed severe (according to him) blood clots about 4 days after the A-Z injection, here in Tassie. He has not bee allowed a 2nd injection (due to the clots), but not allowed Pfizer, either. We know Pfizer is available, but it has been denied, due to his age. It is pure bureaucratic mess-up at its finest. He's been working on getting his 2nd jab for 2 months now, since he was turned away. Pretty frustrating.

Talk about frustrating, when you have a Prime Minister who thinks it's okay to travel to Sydney for Fathers Day, while other citizens are not, you have a leadership problem at the highest level. Whatever happened to setting a good example???

Ann

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by GILow

And hoop snakes.

And Toad aka Toe Fish which will bite your whole foot off when you hop out of your dinghy in the shallows.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Ambler

I have emailed a discrimination complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission. My claim is against the Australian Federal Government's treatment of 60 year olds and over.

I have stated that following their direction to be fully vaccinated, it will take two jabs of Az 12 weeks apart for the best effectiveness. Whereas I can be fully vaccinated with 2 jabs 3 weeks apart by being offered the Pfizer vaccine which also has significantly fewer side effects.

Most 60+ year olds contribute to the tax revenue of Australia than the under 60's. In fact we are looked upon as a burden especially since the Federal Government reclassified Old Age Pensioners some years ago as welfare recipients! (I am an over 60 self funded retiree)

I suggest more people aged over 60 email a complaint to the Human Rights Commission express how they feel about having to accept the health risk of the longer Az vaccine timeline and riskier side effects. On receipt of a reply from the HRC, insist that it must go to a hearing.

In NSW and Victoria the dose interval for both AstraZeneca and Pfizer have both just been altered to 6 weeks:

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/cli...-vaccine-doses