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Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by nl on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:33AM (#28400437)
> NSW edging close to numbers in other countries

NSW (a state of 8.1 Million) had just over 1000 new cases today, and 12 deaths - and that is the worst day of the whole pandemic.

That's... not like other countries.

Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by SpicyLemonZest on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:55AM (#28400544)
Their historical record is much better than other countries, but the worst day being today raises some pretty serious questions about whether that record is likely to continue. In terms of a day to day comparison, France today reported 17,000 cases and 83 deaths among a population of 67 million - a bit better in terms of deaths, a solid chunk worse in terms of cases, but definitely not the wild orders-of-magnitude difference that Australian policymakers hoped to maintain.
Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by nl on Friday September 03, 2021 @01:18AM (#28400636)
Agreed.

France is 60% fully vaccinated, Australia less than 30%. There's the real problem. At that disastrously low vaccination rate it's only lockdown keeping the death rate that low.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by Andaith on Friday September 03, 2021 @01:34AM (#28400735)
I saw a news article that said modelling suggests cases will plateau in about a fortnight in NSW before trending down as the vaccinations start impacting the spread.

We are also vaccinating like mad right now. The vaccination numbers for the UK were about 160K, and for NSW about 140K, but that's for a pop of 67mil vs 8.1mil.

Our first doses for some age groups are also hitting 90%, so I'm taking that to mean there's less vaccine hesitancy here too.

NSW did have it's worst day, but I reckon overall we'll be fine.

Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by nl on Friday September 03, 2021 @02:00AM (#28400891)
There's no way the improving vaccination rate will have an impact in a fortnight unfortunately. And we'll never see COVID zero again.

Micheal Tam's modelling is probably the best widely available a frequently updated[1]. The new daily infections is still increasing, but the rate of increase of new daily infections is finally beginning to decrease. This is probably an effect of the lockdown, and shows how unlikely it is to be free of this before the end of the year.

The increased vaccination rate is fantastic. Once we are above 60% or 70% we should be more worried about hospitalisation rates and deaths than infections.

[1] https://vitualis.com/?page_id=8354