While the ethics and socio-economic impacts of Lockdowns are too complex to cover here, the fact is that they do work to minimise viral transmission. After two weeks of our latest Lockdown in Melbourne, restrictions were loosened on Friday 11th June;
just in time for Fun Friday! With zero recorded cases it was time to party and people did! A stroll around the city showed that ~85% of businesses were back in action. That Crown Casino was largely closed tells us that we are still not fully open.
As expected, the lockdown worked once again; we have managed to escape the wrath of the SARS-CoV-2 thanks to the rapid response by officials. Again, lockdowns are controversial and it is understandable that many people would be upset but … again … they do work. Anyway, fun Friday was fun and we reported one, zero, and one cases in the last three days so we are looking good for now.
The best way to avoid future lockdowns is vaccination. People must get vaccinated so we can reach herd immunity. To date we only have ~2.7% of the population fully vaccinated so we have a long way to go. What’s the issue with the low vaccination numbers. In my opinion it is mostly due to vaccine hesitancy. We committed mostly to not the best vaccine in terms of efficacy and safety. We can try to convince people that it is OK or good enough but people are generally not dumb – they know… Most people are thinking why would a take a less “better” vaccine when most of the world (US) has had more better vaccines! We will have doses of the better vaccines coming with a promise that there will be enough doses for the entire population by the end of the year. Currently, the mRNA-based Pfizer vaccine is available to 30-49 year-olds in most states.
In the US, it appears that San Francisco will be the first major city to reach herd immunity with ~80% of the population having received their first COVID-19 dose! We need to get to those numbers everywhere, sooner rather than later! In Melbourne, we are still far off we do have the highly transmissive delta variant lurking so we have to be diligent for a while longer.
Fun Friday was fun and hopefully, we keep “open” for a while until vaccination rates reach appropriate levels. With “delta” hanging around, I am predicting one more lockdown before this is over.
Until next time …