the tiny stocks of Pfizer have been pissed up a wall - there's currently a hare brained plan to use it to vaccinate 17 and 18 year old so they can take their end of school exams in person.

Then when they realised that we didn't have enough Pfizer being made they tried to say that people under 50 can get it after consulting their doctor but by then they'd scared off lots of people. Pfizer is also harder to administer as it needs special refrigeration equipment.

A lot of people are also hesitant to getting the vaccine, perhaps because until recently most states apart from Victoria hadn't experienced large numbers of cases, deaths or lengthy lockdowns. That's started to change with the spread of the delta variant and more lockdowns etc.

We only minimally hedged our bets on other vaccines and now have to wait until pfizer/moderna can get around to producing our order.

Old people shouldnt be scared yes, but young people should approach it with caution. And isn't that what the government is saying anyways- confirm with doctor and then get it?

It actually happened to a few countries in the APAC region. Vietnam had 2,000 cases total earlier this year and now has a nationwide curfew, 8,000 cases per day and 110,000 cases total. 5% of the population has been vaccinated.

And clearly they’ve done a better job than the US and Europe in controlling cases but mostly through some pretty draconian measures. When they shut down all eating establishments the owners are left to find alternative income.

They thought they had it under control and could wait. Clearly Vietnam is a low income country, but the economic impact has already exceeded the cost of vaccinating everyone.

Canada 26,553 Deaths from COVID relative to Australia 920 deaths

I speculate those relative numbers played a large part in vaccine uptake difference

And Australia as a hot Canada! (Not that I've been to Canada, but on paper the similarities are there)

Presumably that 14.1% represents the vast majority of people who were at serious risk of severe illness or death from Covid. If the vaccines are effective against preventing serious hospitalizations and deaths, then this should have eliminated the possibility of the hospitals becoming overcrowded and stressed. The original justification for lockdowns was to prevent that from happening. What's the justification now?

Isn’t Iceland also extremely well vaccinated and they started another lockdown?

They are running too many cycles for these tests, making them something like 100 times more sensitive than tests for other viruses.

[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/experts-us-covid-19...

> For cases with a known RT-PCR cycle threshold (Ct) value, submit only specimens with Ct value ≤28 to CDC for sequencing. (Sequencing is not feasible with higher Ct values.)

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/bre...

The crux of the issue is not that vaccinated people are living their lives as normal (or rather, as "normal" used to be in 2019), but that SARS-CoV-2 is an endemic seasonal virus for which there are no forms of sterilizing immunity, so it's going to keep showing up over and over as long as we are testing for it. If we then use those positive test numbers (euphemistically termed "Covid-19 cases" even though they are often not associated with any actual disease or symptoms) to justify lockdowns, school closures, etc, we will be doing them forever.

Australia's seven day average death toll from Covid is at 1, and the UK's death toll from its recent Delta wave was a mere fraction of what was seen in earlier waves. I used to think it wouldn't be possible to maintain the public's level of panic once either the vaccines, natural immunity, or the virus's natural course of evolution drove it to become less lethal. Now I'm really not so sure.

In practical terms, those who think they are at risk should stay home and isolate themselves. Cuomo in New York shoved positive cases into nursing homes, so big government policies killed vulnerable people. Take care of yourself and your diet.

I'm surprised how many otherwise rational people aren't more inquisitive about the efficacy of lockdowns. Where's the proof that they have beneficial long-term impact and they're not just kicking the can down the road? It seems similar to "wonder diets", i.e. when you're not losing weight, then you're not following the diet strictly enough, and any weight you lose is magically attributed to the diet.

UK actually had coronavirus under control in summer 2020. Cases started rising again in September after the school holidays but the govt didn't close schools until January 4 months later, by which time the cases had ballooned to gargantuan levels, necessitating a gargantuan lockdown when the shit hit the fan.

I have a friend that works as a nurse in a nursing home. The staff is tested constantly and all staff have been required to have the Pfizer BioNTech mRNA vaccine. The problem? The 100% vaccinated staff members keep testing positive for the virus - a problem that began recently with the delta spread across the US - despite full vaccination and it's making it next to impossible to operate the nursing home safely. This is the kind of thing they're still keeping out of the news and refusing to talk about (break-through cases are rare, they say; that's entirely a lie).

Authorities are terrified that if they admit the truth at this juncture (that even the mRNA vaccines don't work well against preventing delta infections, and that they only work well at preventing severe outcomes), a lot of the remaining unvaccinated won't bother to get vaccinated. And plausibly they're right about that, it would plunk new vaccination rates lower. They also don't want to admit that common masks don't work against delta, they're close to being worthless. Mask theater is a bad joke and the population has largely figured it out, the authorities here have destroyed their credibility by flip-flopping and lying constantly.

1. isn't AZN available?

2. how many lockdowns have there been in Australia overall?

3. is there any criticism regarding closing the borders for so long considering you're now in a lockdown?

The government recently palmed off the decision for those under that age to GPs to approve to try to mask their incompetence..

A diversion tactic at best. Useful for those with comorbidities to get AZ I suppose. Those more likely to die of covid than any clot.

2. Depends on the state. I'm in Melbourne, so five.

3. Not widespread, no. I am sure some people feel very strongly about it though.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has been provisionally approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for people 18 years and older.

https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-statement-on-revised-re...

https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-...

> If you are aged 18-59 years of age, you can choose to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine:

> - following an appropriate assessment of suitability by a qualified health professional; and

> - if you provide verbal or written consent.

This extra hurdle and some mixed messaging about the risks has made many people hesitant

I bet in the US I can go and get any vaccine I choose. There's a lot of advantages to living in Australia, this isn't one of them.

What exactly are your problems?

(Asking for a friend.)

How do I know this? Because he infamously brought a lump of coal to parliament to show people how it's not dirty at all and nobody needs to be scared of it. (He had it lacquered to stop his hands getting dirty.)

The selfsame genius of a man was quoted earlier in the year saying that "vaccination was not a race".

He also cancelled out original Pfizer order, so then we got put at the back of the queue after dozens of other countries.

My suspicion is that as a general rule, the Federal Government seems truly terrible at Project Execution.

My hypothesis is that State Governments have to actually build things and operate schools/hospitals/police/transport etc. While the Federal Government is more of a financial institution... and consequently doesn't have the actual experience of getting things done. And so when it comes time to rise to the occasion, they simply don't have the skill set to get it done.