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Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of October 18
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
My lockdown (as previously mentioned here) is finally coming to an end this week, now that my state has reached 70% of the eligible population being fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Thursday will be our last day in lockdown. Friday will be the first day of a progressive, staged, re-opening that will take place over the coming weeks and months. The next stage of re-opening will come in a couple of weeks when we get 80% of the state's eligible population fully vaccinated.
By Thursday, I and my fellow residents of this glorious city will have spent a cumulative total of 262 days in lockdown since March 2020. That's about 8¾ months. They say this is a world record. I wholeheartedly hope that we hold this record forever, and noone ever beats it.
This weekend, I'm going to visit a friend I haven't seen since I don't even know when. Time's a blur. I just know it's been too long.
And I'm sick of my lockdown buddy, having visited him most weekends for the past 3 months. It was necessary and beneficial, but now I need a break from him. You can have too much of a good thing.
Statistics-wise, about 85% of Australians aged 12 and up have had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, and about 68% are fully vaccinated. They say we're on track to get more than 90% of the eligible population vaccinated.
Australia might have started the COVID vaccination race later than other countries, but we're catching up fast!
This week, Australia passed the USA for the proportion of fully vaccinated people. We have fully vaccinated 56.45% of Aussies, compared to 56.28% of Americans. And, with our single-dose percentage at 71.26%, compared to the USA's 65.10%, we're on track to be more vaccinated than them. (It's a fairly safe assumption that people who get the first dose of a COVID vaccine will follow up with a second dose.)
We've also passed Israel, which is often held up as an example of a highly vaccinated country, on first doses, with our 71.26% compared to their 70.63%.
Internally, we measure the percentage of the eligible population (people aged 16 and up) who are vaccinated, rather than the percentage of the total population. (If we can't vaccinate children yet, it's pointless to measure our progress in vaccinating them.) Our most populous state has single-dosed over 90% of its eligible population, while our second-most populous state will achieve that goal this week. The Australian Capital Territory (a tiny area with a small population, which contains our capital city of Canberra) has single-dosed over 95% of its eligible population! Overall, 85.1% of eligible Aussies have had their first dose of a COVID vaccine so far - and the vaccinations aren't stopping. Every day, a couple of hundred thousand more doses are administered across the country.
Authorities are starting to talk about getting as much as 95% of the eligible population vaccinated, which would align with our vaccination rate for general childhood vaccines.
Then, when a vaccine gets approved for children under 16 (recently approved for 12-15 year-olds, while approval for younger children is a work in progress), they'll also get vaccinated by the same >90% of parents who are themselves vaccinated against COVID.
Things are looking up!
Super super glad to hear AU isn’t plagued with as much antivax as other countries.
I'm not sure how accurate "Our World in Data" is. At least for my country, The Netherlands, it doesn't seem to be correct.
Our vaccination coverage is: 83.2% fully vaccinated, and 86.9% partly vaccinated, according to the official government website. That's based on 23.8 million doses having been administered.
OWiD says it's 67.58% fully, and 74.98% partly vaccinated. Their last data point is the 3rd of october, at which point we had about 23.7 million doses administered -- so that doesn't account for the big difference.
It's odd, because they do cite the same government website as the source for their information. Not sure what's going on over there.
Ah, I missed that. Good point, thanks!
It’s also worth noting that the 18+ range is becoming less and less meaningful as vaccines get approved for 15+, 12+, and even 5+.
That's 83.2% of people 18 or older. Our World in Data is showing proportions for people of all ages.
Just got news that an extended family member passed away from COVID after 3 weeks in the ICU. She was unvaccinated. Her daughter was a nurse. She told her daughter she “wasn’t going to let the government tell her what to do”.
I’d never met her, so we weren’t close at all. I asked my dad how he was feeling, since he was the one of us with the most connection to her. He just somberly and tersely said “this was preventable”.
Anyone else getting sick, but not from Covid?
I got strep throat followed by a bronchitis within the space of two weeks. Almost everyone around me is sick in some shape or form.
The reopening precipitated a bunch of illnesses propagating, is what this feels like.
I have a stupid ear infection so I'm there with you. Ugh. :(
United States' Food and Drug Administration OKs mixing COVID vaccines; backs Moderna, J&J boosters
Weird that it took so long for the FDA to approve this. Here in Canada, the NACI recommended vaccine mixing over 5 months ago and by all accounts doing that (alongside delaying the second dose) has been a huge success.
CDC backs the rollout of COVID vaccine boosters from Moderna and J&J
I got the J&J vaccine back in March. I’ll be messaging my doctor tomorrow to ask what he believes my best course of action for a booster shot is. I’m currently not sure whether sticking with J&J is the right call or if Moderna/Pfizer would be preferable.
There have been studies that show your protection is higher if you mix vaccines.
My province has a vaccination rate of over 80% of the eligible population, with over 90% percent of people having had at least one dose. This works out to about 70% of the total population being completely vaccinated.
Unfortunately things are the worst they've ever been. We smashed through our previous daily case record by a factor of five. Nearing a hundred cases a day almost every day due to a lifted lockdown and an ended mask mandate, largely driven by the delta variant. We got through the first, second and third waves with less than a dozen deaths, now there's over 100 dead. It's rough.
We are getting handfuls of breakthrough cases, even hospitalizations. I believe only 75-80% of hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated which is lower than I expected. Yes, I understand there are many more vaccinated people than unvaccinated which skews things, but it still does not feel great.
The mask mandates were re-implemented a couple weeks ago and proof of vaccination is now needed for many indoor spaces. This intervention was not done sooner because it was clearly inconvenient to do so while the city's largest economic event - a music festival - was occurring, and as a result when the restrictions came they came hard. I was even prevented from seeing my almost entirely fully vaccinated family for Thanksgiving... Sigh. It seems to have been long enough for us to start seeing cases go down again as a result of these measures at least but if they hadn't have waited I probably would not have spent the holiday alone, so I'm irritated.
My anti-vax aunt, my lazy brother, and my hesitant brother were spurred to get protected by the increasing restrictions on unvaccinated people. So that's a bit of a relief at least.
Not to rain on anyone's parade but from experience a high vaccination rate is not necessarily a free pass. Hopefully other places handle it better.
EDITED: I said "hundreds of cases a day" which was kind of misleading - I got mixed up with us having hundreds of simultaneous active cases. At its peak this current wave was closer to one hundred cases a day, which is still significantly more than anything we had in any previous wave.
Germany is likely "moving from a state of emergency to a state of special caution". Of course indoor hygiene requirements are still in place. There are 2G and 3G plans where 2G is vaccinated or recovered and 3G is 2G + tested. 2G generally allows for normal operation, without the need for masks, but still with capacity and distance measures in some cases. Free rapid testing ended a week or two ago.
Life is starting to flourish again with art and culture coming back, which is nice to see and experience. I really hope there is a strong rebound for artists.
Red America’s Compassion Fatigue: A Report From Mobile, Alabama - The New Republic
A long, in-depth article about the vaccinated minority in Alabama.