Australia is now locked into a new phase of the pandemic where NSW is in danger of allowing the virus to run free throughout the population due to the incompetence of the conservative state government. For the duration of the pandemic up until now, the NSW government has been lecturing the other states (mostly run by Labor governments) about how they had a superior health system (health is organised along state/territory lines in Australia) and how they valued freedom more than the dictatorial Labor states that go into lockdown very quickly if a case threatens. It turns out NSW has just been lucky to now and the latest outbreak has revealed their ‘freedom first’ approach is a false freedom. Sydney has been locked down for weeks now and cases are still rising and it seems the contact tracers have lost control. But the hubris from the NSW government has really exposed a much deeper malaise that has been evident for years now as a result of the way neoliberalism has reconfigured the public sector and the role of government. The pandemic is just exposes the erosion of government capacity to provide public services and infrastructure and deal with public emergencies. That is one of the important revelations to come out of the pandemic....Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The pandemic exposes the damage that neoliberalism has caused
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
24 comments:
What is Australia's vaccination rate?
[Googling]
I come up with 15.5%, give or take a percentage point. Is it any wonder?
They won't fare any worse than those countries whose fully vaccinated population are busy shedding/spreading the delta variant.
15.5 % appears to be their 65 and older demographic.
I don't think you know how vaccines work. Vaccines in general, are not meant to prevent infection but to prevent disease and death. Look at the damn stats!
Vaccinating everyone is a replay of trying to eradicate a pathogen, like smallpox. Do I need to explain why a coronavirus is not comparable to smallpox, or measles, or polio, or any pathogen that is suitable for a mass vaccination strategy?
If the Aussies had any sense, they gave the vaccine to those aged 65 and older. Their 'herd immunity' will be achieved the natural way.
Continuing to push vaccines on everyone will lead to selection pressure, which will lead to worse outcomes.
Sincerely, you don't understand how vaccines work. You also don't understand evolution :(
Anyone out there still undecided, ask yourself this:
How many DEATHS In the BILLIONS of vaccine doses administered have been linked to the vaccine? Half a dozen? A dozen? A few dozen?
Now, how many DEATHS have been linked to not getting vaccinated? A million? Couple of million? (Let alone the 10s of millions physically and mentally incapacitated by the disease)
Unless you have your head up your ass, it's really not hard to decide. And make no mistake, you will eventually get this virus: not a question of if, but when.
Don't be naive. Most of the population did catch the virus in 2020, and were unaware of it. And they will catch the variants.
As for the vaccines, their rate of adverse reactions are orders of magnitude greater than vaccines that have gone through the usual process. I don't oppose emergency use for people who are vulnerable, but to push this onto everyone without clinical trials is criminal.
"Unless you have your head up your ass, it's really not hard to decide."
It's hard in Australia because the chance of catching Covid and dying or being injured is negligible and less than the risk of the vaccines - which are first generation and not as good as vaccines for other diseases.
Unfortunately Aus is caught in a Catch 22.
In other news the shameful attacks on the AZ vaccine have been shown to be blown out of all proportion. It's no more dangerous than any of the others.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/08/03/europes-shameful-campaign-against-astrazeneca/
"but to push this onto everyone without clinical trials is criminal."
There have been millions of people taking all the vaccines. Those are the clinical trials, the data is in and they have been a roaring success.
Since this only ends when either you've caught Covid or you get vaccinated, then the risk assessment is clear. Covid is far more dangerous than the vaccine for most of us.
The vaccine reduces the impact of the symptoms to those 'enjoyed' by the average 30 year old. That's worth having for those of us for whom 30 is a distant memory.
Neil, I've had worse symptoms when I was 30 than I did in 2020. But maybe I got lucky and only caught a regular cold. Strange coincidence though.
If I were 70 I might agree to be a lab rat. My parents passed away at 72,73 respectively.
Bad PR from the start.
Peter Pan:Vaccinating everyone is a replay of trying to eradicate a pathogen, like smallpox.
And this is a bad idea why? Of course, it is not. Experience has shown that the mass covid vaccination strategy has worked fine. The more "mass" the better it works and will work. Have to agree with lastgreek on the need for remedial education on vaccines and evolution.
An important point to understand - and appropriate for an economics blog - is that the world is in a state now where anti-vaxxism makes gigabucks, maybe terabucks for Big Pharma. Big Pharma has no pecuniary interest in being the victim of its own success. So follow that chain of logic. :-)
If I were 70 I might agree to be a lab rat.
Too paraphrase Goethe - None are more hopelessly embroiled in a dangerous clinical trial than those who falsely believe they are not a lab rat. You're a lab rat, everyone's a lab rat. And always was.
The wisdom of the ages and modern science indicates that the path to the roomiest, nicest cage with the choicest chow - the least "lab rat life" of we lab rats - is to get vaccinated against a disease that is far worse than the proven trivial risks of vaccination. By the way, vaccine trials are very big for medical trials and the formal Covid vaccine trials were among the largest clinical trials of any kind ever. And of course as Neil says, the millions of people taking them were an even bigger trial - and show they are a roaring success. We are lucky.
Sure, remaining unvaccinated in today's world with Covid. If you walk around in a space-suit 24 / 7 to ensure you won't be infected and infect others. Or if you're Jeff Bezos- get in your rocket ship and stay up there.
PP
“If I were 70 I might agree to be a lab rat.”
You already are a lab rat like it or not, you are simply voluntarily putting yourself in the “control group”. All good experiments need a control group that doesn’t get the “treatment “ being tested to compare against those who do.
Thanks for your service!
The wisdom of the ages is in our immune system. Everyone has one, since everyone gets infected. Some call it the petri dish. Germaphobes are terrified by it.
I'm arguing with people who believe vaccination will defeat covid, as if covid were comparable with measles. And ironically, the story regarding the triumph over measles is more myth than fact.
Medical science has become a religion, fueled by orthodoxy and hubris.
And of course, money.
Big Pharma have paid billions in fines. They view it as the cost of doing business. When they are granted an exemption from liability, they're elated.
@Greg
I'm in the natural immunity control group. But no one is gathering the necessary data to make this worth anything.
“Medical science has become a religion, “
Fauci’s degree is a BA in Classics from Holy Cross… he’s Jesuit trained… so you’re going to see commonalities…
All the Ivy League schools are Protestant bible colleges…
Pete go get an antibody test… a Harris Teeter near me is advertising an antibody test in their pharmacy for $25 bucks…
If you have the antibodies then you’re good to go…
Seems like in the Asia-Pacific region they prefer to use lockdowns instead of vaccines…
We gotta decouple from all those nations pronto or we are going to go down the tubes with them…
PP
Near everyone likely gets exposed not infected. Infection requires a certain level of the virus to be present in a sample. Simple exposure does not count as infected nor does failure to contract ,in and of itself ,imply immunity. Your really bad at virology and epidemiology. You can pronounce and spell all the words but that doesn’t make you fluent
Greg
I had mild cold symptoms, which is the definition of infected. What was I infected with? A regular cold during a pandemic?
Normally I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but the narrative regarding asymptomatic carriers left me no choice.
Matt
I'll see if there's a test where I live.
Greg
If you're asking if people in general always get infected, try going without an immune system for a few months.
Pete also you can go to Red Cross and donate perhaps in Canada if you are able.,might be a better test…. I donated a pint at my local center and at least in November they were doing a serological test with my blood to see it it had antibodies and it came back positive that’s how I found out…
From what I read they test for destruction of 4 of the 28 proteins in the covid 19 including the spike protein… I think all 4 have to destroyed for a positive test result…
So I’m thinking they put that Pfizer mRNA in me that makes the spike protein and one of the 4 is I believe the covid 19 mRNA so I might have destroyed the vaccine for all I know…
Matt, can you clarify your timeline for me?
When did you have symptoms, and when were you able to confirm your antibody status?
To my recollection, I had symptoms in late February into March 2020.
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