26
votes
What's the coronavirus like where you are?
Previous threads:
February 2020
March 2020
September 2020
May 2021
What are things like in your corner of the world?
Previous threads:
February 2020
March 2020
September 2020
May 2021
What are things like in your corner of the world?
As of yesterday, my state government has officially given up on chasing "COVID zero".
As background: most of Australia has had zero or near-zero coronavirus cases for much of the past year and a half . We had an initial all-states lockdown in March/April 2020 which eliminated the coronavirus from Australia and, any time the coronavirus reared its ugly head after that, the affected state took strong measures (usually but not always a lockdown) to eliminate the coronavirus again. These lockdowns were usually "short and sharp", or "hard and fast", to borrow some common phrases. So, Australia has mostly had a COVID-free life for the past 18 months.
There was only one exception to this: Victoria (our second-most populous state), which endured a 112-day lockdown last winter (i.e. Jul to Oct 2020), to eliminate a stubborn outbreak - but did eventually get it down to zero. Other than that, all lockdowns across the country were for only a week or two.
However, the Delta variant got into New South Wales (our most populous state) in late June. The NSW Premier is the only premier who has been stubbornly anti-lockdown throughout the pandemic, and has continually criticised all the other states for their many short sharp lockdowns, arrogantly declaring that "we can manage the coronavirus without locking down". Until recently, she was right. However, Delta has proven her wrong. As the Delta variant got hold and continued to spread across her state, the premier was dragged, kicking and screaming, to being forced to lock down her state bit by painful bit. Because she didn't go hard and fast, the coronavirus spread too far to be eliminated by a lockdown, and Delta spreads too fast to contain, so the state is now in a lockdown with no fixed end date, with cases numbers creeping higher and higher, and the hospitals getting fuller and fuller.
In this, she was aided by a Prime Minister who is also staunchly anti-lockdown (all the lockdowns have been at state level, not federal level). He has continually described the New South Wales anti-lockdown approach as "gold standard" - until they went into lockdown, at which point he flipped and said lockdowns were good and necessary.
When it came to vaccination, the Prime Minister bought only two different COVID vaccines last year, with a heavy emphasis on the vaccine we could manufacture locally. Earlier this year, he literally said of vaccination that "it's not a race". Then, he and his government messed up the messaging about the safety of the locally manufactured vaccine to the point where many Australians just went "yeah, nah, I'll hold out for the other vaccine, mate" - because, you know, it's not a race.
So, even though we've been manufacturing a COVID vaccine locally since February, we only started our vaccination program in earnest about a month ago, when the other vaccine began arriving on our shores.
The Delta variant crossed the border from New South Wales to Victoria about a month ago. Victoria started a short, sharp, hard, fast lockdown almost instantly, as it has done to eliminate every other outbreak. However, Delta is different. The daily infection numbers are creeping up, instead of down. Infections are only about one hundred per day so far, but that's extremely high in the Australian context. (Our record daily count for new infections in any state in Australia is only 1,288.)
Yesterday, the Victorian premier stood up and said we are no longer aiming for COVID zero. The Delta variant can't be eliminated by lockdown (that's saying something, considering that our lockdown rules are among the harshest in the world). In his phrase, we're now "chasing two peaks": the peak of infection and the peak of vaccination. We need to reach the peak of vaccination before we reach the peak of infection. Without saying it's a race, he's made it clear that it's a race. Victoria is now in lockdown until we achieve the nationally agreed target of 70% of eligible people (i.e. everyone over 16) being fully vaccinated, at which point we'll ease some restrictions (we don't open up properly until we reach 80% vaccination). At current rates of vaccination, that 70% goal won't be achieved until at least mid-October.
I'm fully vaccinated. I took care of that months ago, with the allegedly unsafe locally manufactured vaccine. But, as of today, only about 37% of the eligible Australian population is fully vaccinated, and about a further 23% of the eligible population has had their first dose.
Earlier this year, our Prime Minister declared it was not a race to get people vaccinated against COVID. Now it is. And I'm in lockdown until we cross the finishing line.
For anybody wondering what a harsh lockdown looks like:
All hospitality venues (cafes, pubs, restaurants, etc) are closed. They can only do take-away and deliveries.
All non-essential retail is closed. Essential is only places like supermarkets and pharmacies. The rest are restricted to "click and collect" and delivery.
All entertainment venues (theatres, cinemas, sports stadiums, etc) are closed.
All exercise venues (gyms, etc) are closed.
All schools, colleges, and universities are closed. Students are learning remotely, and parents are expected to help with home-schooling where necessary.
If you can work from home, you must work from home. This is not optional.
We are only allowed to leave our homes for four specified reasons: work/education that can't be done from home; shopping for essential goods (only once per day); outdoor exercise (only 2 hours per day); providing care to people (e.g. elderly or disabled people).
We can travel only 5 kilometres from our homes, except to go to work (if we can't work from home).
There are some minor exceptions and exemptions (which I'm taking full advantage of!), but those are the rules I'm living under at the moment. I endured this for 16 weeks last winter, I've been doing this again for the past 4 weeks, and I've got another 6 weeks of it ahead of me.
Admittedly, I'm coping a lot better with this year's long lockdown than I did with last year's long lockdown. I might be bending the rules a bit here and there... but it's necessary for my mental health, and for the mental health of a couple of other people that I'm helping to get through. I'm not breaking the letter of the relevant laws, but I am going against the spirit of those laws. But I'll do what's necessary to stop me having more panic attacks.
Wow, that turned out longer than I intended!
Man i truly feel bad for Australia. It's severely at risk of a really wild burn with the delta variant...
Take care out there.
Yep.
All other states have closed their borders to people from New South Wales and Victoria (this has been another common feature of this pandemic: closed state borders to stop outbreaks spreading interstate). So, there's very little chance of the coronavirus spreading across the country. But, between them, NSW and Vic have more than half the population of the whole country, so we're still in for a wild ride.
I really wish the US had closed state borders. Some states required quarantines for interstate travelers, but without any mechanism to enforce that it’s useless.
I don’t see it as being particularly practical for the US. Australia has six states and two major territories, so it is relatively easy to coordinate between the states. The US has 50 states, at least two major territories, only four (Alaska, Hawaii, California, and Puerto Rico) of which had any chance of enforcing a border. We have far more multi-state metro areas (really only two or three come to mind for Australia), and they are far larger (by an order of magnitude). There would’ve been a lot more grumbling, and constitutionality would be an issue (public health is certainly a compelling rationale, but an interstate travel ban seems like a hard sell in post-WWII jurisprudence).
Meanwhile in WA, everything is normal, but I can't shake this feeling of foreboding. There's like four major roads into the state, but still...
McGowan has all but seceded from the Commonweath. I'm surprised he hasn't built a covid-proof fence!
You're fine - as demonstrated by the low vaccination rate in WA. Noone's worried about the coronavirus there, because there's no coronavirus to worry about.
I live in Melbourne, and while I have buried my head in the sand (for my own sanity) and therefore might be wrong here...but didn't we think this a few months ago?
Most of Australia has thought this at various times over the past year. Like I said in my main comment, "Australia has mostly had a COVID-free life for the past 18 months".
Oh yeah of course - I should have been clearer! I really meant "I wish people would vaccinate regardless of 'no coronavirus to worry about'" :-)
How has Australia been from the standpoint of providing a social safety net for people who are unable to work during the lockdowns? Were additional benefits implemented for the pandemic?
Excellent, then not so good, then dragged back to very good.
The problem is that the responsibility for lockdowns and social safety nets are split: the state governments are responsible for health matters and policing, so they determine when lockdowns happen, but the federal government is responsible for taxes and social security payments, so they determine when welfare payments happen.
However, the federal government has usually been dragged into cooperating.
The states started our national lockdown in April 2020, and looked to the federal government for financial support. After some pressure, the federal government decided to help.
From April 2020 to March 2021, unemployment benefits were practically doubled. At the same time, the federal government created a JobKeeper payment which they paid to companies for the companies to pass on to employees, to encourage companies to keep their employees on the books even if the companies had no work for them. So, for most of that time, companies, employees, and unemployed people were swimming in free money (with some exceptions: non-citizens, for example).
By March 2021, it looked like the pandemic was behind us, so the federal government wound back the unemployment payments (albeit to a higher level than before the pandemic), and cancelled the JobKeeper payments.
Then the states started locking down again, for longer and longer periods, culminating with the endless lockdown in New South Wales, and the federal government was expected to pay up again. At first, they refused, saying it was the states' choice to lock down, so the states should make the payments. (They were trying to discourage states from locking down.) Unfortunately, the state governments have handed over a lot of their incoming-raising powers to the federal government over the years, due to a couple of major constitutional and taxation reforms in our history, so they don't have the same buckets of money that the federal government has. And the states that locked down strongly believed that lockdowns were essential to protect people's health and the states' health systems, so they weren't going to stop locking down.
The federal government finally gave in to public pressure from the state Premiers, and has started making disaster welfare payments to people whose ability to earn income has been affected by the pandemic, while the states are making payments or providing tax reductions to companies affected by the pandemic. It's not as good as last year, but it's much better than nothing.
Meanwhile as 1B "priority" that was advised against AZ due to the reason I'm 1B have only recently been able to get fully vaxxed by traveling 50km (despite being walking distance from one of our major vax hubs) due to the lack of supply for Pfizer.
At this point I'm kinda expecting Slowmo to announce a snap election off the back promise of opening up and all the borrowed doses to get there so it's over before we end up with a shortage from paying back those doses and that a bunch of immunocompromised folk are gonna end up getting fucked by that decision.
Here in Belgium, we are starting to talk about an expected fourth wave in autumn, and the expectation is that it will primarily hit the unvaccinated. Both politicians and experts seem to overall agree that we are ready for it thanks to high vaccination rate.
The Flanders region has one of the (if not the?) highest vaccination rate in the world.
Most restrictions are gone. Masks are required in some public indoor spaces and public transit.
Festivals are reopening. The COVID Safe Ticket has launched and is in use starting yesterday. I'm attending Fiesta Latina this weekend, which requires the ticket (proof of vaccination).
On a more personal level: My ex refuses to get vaccinated. She also refuses to acknowledge she / her family is antivax, despite none of them being vaccinated. She has a variety of cardiovascular issues including arrhythmia and anemia and would be at high risk of being severely hit if she catches it. I can't empathize with them anymore; her and her family were so outright paranoid during the pandemic and now they're the ones who don't want to get a fucking shot after I got four.
One of my friends in South Korea has severe health issues and for her, taking a vaccine is legitimately dangerous. She's doing it anyway because the virus would be a likely death sentence. My nurse friends are telling me about people dying in the ICU, all of them unvaccinated.
If you refuse to take the shot, catch the virus, and die, i am out of empathy. Even if I know you. ESPECIALLY if I know you.
(Failed) Curevac clinical trial - I talked about it on Tildes before -- sorry, I sometimes forget I'm not talking to a single-mind audience here. :P
Lots of people out here wear masks outdoors. I don't, but more power to the people that do. I still find it bizarre though people will wear a mask outside when walking to a restaurant, then when the door shuts behind them, they take it off.
I have only seen one person parading around Safeway without a mask, shopping in the organic section. This was when the mask mandate was returned in my area of CA.
Work delayed return to office until January 2022, we are slowly closing in on two years of remote work. They still refuse to committing anyone to work 100% remote when they re-open. They asked us if we were vaccinated or not. Apparently there is some VP-level and above that are trying to push for remote work, so not all upper management is useless. Some of them didn't have dinner with their families for over 10 years until COVID.
Movie theaters are a bit packed and understaffed. Many people don't wear masks when they watch, but I still do.
Even though I'm vaccinated, I do still worry about catching COVID. Not worried I will die or anything, just that I will have some sort of side effect that will linger for a long time. I'm trying to do what I can within reason to protect myself. I wish I could get a booster right now.
You can get a booster right now if you want it. But it’s probably not the right decision. The vaccines have an effectiveness window with a decline in effectiveness measured in months. We need to think in terms of years here and not months. I think covid will be around for the rest of our lives.
A booster right now would still help @Merry - especially if they get a different vaccine for their booster than the one they've already been vaccinated with. Studies have shown that a mix of vaccines provides higher protection than just a single vaccine. It would also extend the window of effectiveness.
And it's not like getting a booster now would prevent someone getting another booster next year. We'll probably all be getting a new anti-COVID shot every year for the foreseeable future.
Is there enough data to support the idea that a booster now doesn’t affect a booster later? I’m afraid about the possibility we’ll see diminishing returns. Granted I have no reason to believe that’s the case.
No. As far as I know, this has not been studied.
However, even since before a COVID vaccine existed, epidemiologists and doctors have been telling us that we'll probably need to get regular vaccinations against COVID - like we already do for influenza.
Good! So stop worrying about something that isn't happening. There's plenty of real stuff to worry about. Focus on that. :)
I stopped looking at the numbers for my county/state when I got vaccinated because I just stopped caring (after over a year of caring a lot, I was exhausted). But as far as day-to-day life goes in rural Pennsylvania, US...
If it weren't for employees at stores and a few random (younger) folks here and there wearing masks you'd never know there was a pandemic. Life is back to normal. Stores are crowded, social distancing is dead, masks are rare. My wife and I started wearing masks again because we have kids who can't get vaccinated, but I think most people around here are fed up with masks.
My county is super conservative, so none of that is surprising at all. Just frustrating. I really wish I could live in a rural area that wasn't full of batshit insane people. I don't think those kinds of places exist anymore though, sadly.
Hospitalizations for my county are at an all-time high, and the local school system just announced yesterday that they would use 2 inclement weather days next Tuesday and Wednesday in response to rising case numbers. This is Southeastern US. The governor took away funding for virtual/hybrid learning and banned mask mandates, so using inclement weather days is the only real tool they have to stop the spread.
Also I confirmed that my son's teaching assistant was in quarantine all last week. He came home one day telling us that Ms. H went on vacation, and we all know teachers take their vacation the 3rd week of school. I texted his primary teacher to just say I hope Ms. H is feeling well, then she told me Ms. H had been in contact with a positive case but had not tested positive herself. This is why it wasn't reported to the students of the class. If she had tested positive, they would have told us (theoretically but not sure I believe that).
Even I've read about that, way across the world! That's bordering on inflicting harm on his citizens, when the primary duty of a government is supposed to be to protect its citizens.
Although there are slight differences in the numbers being reported depending on the source, it would appear that Portugal has reached around 85% of the population with the first dose and 75% of the population fully vaccinated (the official health ministry website displays a considerably lower number for the "second dose" statistic but I am assuming Jansen vaccine takers, which only has one dose, aren't counted here). Most of the remaining population without the first dose are too young and can't be vaccinated at all, with a tiny slice being refusals (antivaxers or just lazy/scared I guess). We're the most vaccinated in Europe right now (AFAIK) and one of the most vaccinated in the world.
Despite the high virulence of the delta variant and the influx of summer tourists both from abroad and flowing between different parts of the country, our weekly amount of new cases has been sloooowly decreasing since July. It's a struggle but I'm happy we're doing well for now. Not sure how the situation will ultimately evolve during the colder months, since there will be a bigger strain on people's immune systems but also waaay less tourism.
Concerning vaccination, 96.6% of my state's adult population have taken their first dose and a bit over half of them have taken the second one. I don't know if this is because the state has some amount of penalties for avoiding or has relaxed the lockdowns for people taking the vaccines or if only one out of 30 people in my state are antivax. The statistics for the whole population would be 76% with the first dose and 40% fully 'vaxxed'. (I honestly dislike that term partly for sloganeering vaccination.)
Current they're vaccinating people from 17 to 15 years old and tomorrow they will begin doing so for 14 to 12 year olds, which if the state vaccination website isn't poorly coded is the youngest people group to be vaccinated. I got my first dose a day or 2 before this because they vaccinated people with various conditions including mine (autism) separately. Fortunately for me, this meant I got to avoid the long lines my classmates have waiting in to get the vaccine. I asked in my group if the lines were long after seeing a relatively long one in my trip to the psychologist and one of my classmates said he waited for an hour and a half to get their dose. Some of my classmates (including me lol) have posted in their whatsapp statuses that they got their first dose.
As for cases and deaths, it seems that they peaked at April this year and are now around 5 times lower than they were at that time, which should probably be credited entirely to vaccination. Hopefully we are Almost There by the end of the year.
Several city and state governments have posted some pretty amusing things related to the vaccination effort. The City of Aracaju posted this, for example.