Following 77 days of strict lockdown, we have finally started to enjoy some freedoms in Melbourne, Australia,…
starting last week. At first glance the situation looks “funny” – we were locked down on August 5 when there a single COVID-19 recorded – 1 case – and we open on October 21 when 2189 COVID019 cases were recorded in the state! What does this mean. It means 1) the delta variant is no joke, even with the strictest form of lockdown which included a 5km travel restriction and 9 pm curfew, it was not possible to adequately contain the virus, and 2) the initial aim (hope) of COVID-0 is finished.
Similar things in New South Wales (Sydney) which “opened” (after 106 days of lockdown), a couple of weeks before us; so we can safely say, our ambition of COVID-0 is over; our neighbours in New Zealand have come to the same conclusion. The general scientific consensus is that COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is here to stay – it will become endemic. The good news is that the vaccines still kind of work – they definitely protect from severe COVID-19 and hospitalization in most cases, and also “antivirals” are starting to appear. So it looks like we’ll have some good tools to minimize the most severe consequences of the virus in the future. Despite the future trajectory, the “data” shows that we lost the initial battel – close 250 million people infected and 5 million total deaths globally; so, not good!
The “openings” have been triggered by our vaccination rates with 70% double-vaxxed being the cut-off for the first round of freedoms. Initially, 70% vaccination was seen as the magic number for “herd immunity”; while that was pretty close for the early iterations of the virus, if we assume an R0 of ~6 for the delta variant that number is closer to 85% but anyway. Coerced vaccination got us to a good level of 70% fully vaccinated. While vaccination is critical and important – the forced vaccinations were not a good thing to watch; people were getting vaccinated and it was clear that ~80% would get vaccinated without much “forcing”. Vaccine mandates that have been imposed are ugly – such a bad thing to do – it’s a shortcut and a lazy way to encourage the population. Giving vaccine passports to people that were vaccinated a few months ago, who will have questionable levels of immunity (serology passports are much better), is not the cleverest. Anyway….
Of course, people being people, our new “Freedoms” were met with some exuberant celebrations including midnight haircuts, drinks and parties in many parts of the city; it’s weird seeing what is really important to people. In Sydney, midnight trips to K-mart were also a feature – let’s be honest Kmart has many good stuffs … and cheap!
In Melbourne, we’ll have to week for another for Kmart – new freedoms are on the horizon with vaccination rates quickly reaching 80% double vaxxed. Let’s see what happens with cases as we open up! Theoretically we should be seeing some spikes in COVID-19 and the flu and other viruses haven’t had a good chance to infect us in the past couple of years – we could be looking at “Twindemic situations”.
Until next time …
For the record: Melbourne (262 days in lockdown since the start of the pandemic) – wild scenes Chapel street – celebrations. Lockdown 1 – March 30-May 12 2020 (43 days); Lockdown 2 – July 8 – October 27 (111 days); Lockdown 3 – February 12 – February 17 (5 days); Lockdown 4 – May 27 – June 10 (14 days); Lockdown 5 – July 15 – July 27 (12 days); Lockdown 6 – August 5 – October 21 (77 days)