Australia doesn’t have it. Wasn’t impossible, just had to stop air travel and lockdown for a period. Now the only people with COVID are returned Australian travellers from overseas who have to go on hotel quarantine
Yeah but for how long? Unless Australia is willing to keep screening all arrivals and containing outbreaks indefinitely, Covid is gonna start circulating there at some point.
Require proof of vaccine to come to Austraila. Native population mostly vaccinated. Even if someone did manage to get in with covid, it might not spread particularly easily.
Sure covid will probably continue to exist, just like H1N1 exists
> Sure covid will probably continue to exist, just like H1N1 exists
Flu immunity only lasts 6 months.
COVID immunity seems to already be longer than Flu / H1N1 immunity.
Now if COVID immunity is only 1-year or 2-years, then yes, it will flare up over time. But if COVID immunity is like 5 years or 10 years, then we can pretty much forget-about-it after the vaccine.
No one knows how long the immunity is, aside from lasting longer than any test so far.
We still haven't eradicated measles despite a vaccine giving lifelong immunity so I suspect covid won't be eradicated any time soon. It won't be a problem for the vast majority of people either though
What do you mean flu immunity only lasts 6mo? As I understand it, flu vaccines are done yearly due to mutations rendering the vaccine impotent for the next strain. However, it seems like you're implying that the vaccine "wears off" or something.
> However, getting vaccinated early (for example, in July or August) is likely to be associated with reduced protection against flu infection later in the flu season, particularly among older adults
August / July is too early, people's flu immunity wears off before the end of the season. This is well known.
> Why do I need a flu vaccine every year?
A flu vaccine is needed every season for two reasons. First, a person’s immune protection from vaccination declines over time, so an annual vaccine is needed for optimal protection. Second, because flu viruses are constantly changing, flu vaccines may be updated from one season to the next to protect against the viruses that research suggests may be most common during the upcoming flu season. For the best protection, everyone 6 months and older should get vaccinated annually.
Australia is also not even letting citizens leave the country without special permission. I don't see them loosening up until there's actual herd immunity via vaccination in the country.
They could make proof of vaccination an entry requirement. Combine that with widespread domestic vaccination and you've got a very good chance of containing any infections that make it into the country.
vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around. it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus.
Those vaccinated, because they have less symptoms, less coughing basically, might not spread it around as much, but we don't know that yet. Remember asymptomatic spreading is a big concern for this virus.
You're right that the recent efficacy studies of the COVID vaccines only demonstrated protection from the disease. That doesn't mean that they do not prevent spreading the disease, only that we don't know whether they do. Presumably the reason for this choice of endpoint is that we can detect sickness, but we can't reliably detect transmission.
If I may pick another nit, it's not asymptomatic but presymptomatic that seem to be the major concern, from what I've heard: that is, people who spread the disease will eventually show symptoms (usually within a day or two). The balance of evidence seems to suggest that people with viral loads that never get high enough to cause illness are probably not enough to cause a significant number of transmissions, but we will have to wait for widespread vaccination to confirm it.
This is getting downvotes, but it is at least somewhat correct.
> it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus.
There isn't really evidence either way for this. To quote Nature[1]:
"Tests on more than 43,000 people have shown that the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing disease"
> vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around.
This might be true:
"But none has demonstrated that it prevents infection altogether, or reduces the spread of the virus in a population. This leaves open the chance that those who are vaccinated could remain susceptible to asymptomatic infection — and could transmit that infection to others who remain vulnerable. “In the worst-case scenario, you have people walking around feeling fine, but shedding virus everywhere"
How can the vaccine prevent entry of the virus in cells, yet the virus can still replicate? I can’t understand why they state we don’t know, because of how I image viruses and vaccination works. Can someone help me understand this paradox?
Here's a nice video on the immune system that might help you out. Their other videos on the immune system, the complement system, and viruses might also be helpful. Not the most technical deep dives, but good, abstracted explanations.
In short, I don't think the vaccine prevents entry of the virus into the cells. That still happens, as it's a mechanical protein interaction (as far as I know). However, the vaccine (mRNA ones at least) work by producing the protein on the outside of the virus and putting that in your system, so your immune system learns how to respond. At least that's my mile-high interpretation.
And are you going to keep your borders closed forever?
And i guarantee some people still have it. There's no way it's been eradicated completely. All it takes is for one infected person to visit 2 people, and those 2 people to visit 2 others.
And presumably that's been happening for months, yet there are limited outbreaks and they are swiftly contained through contact tracing and quarantine.
Victoria was swamped yet has not had a case for 30 days now. Cross-border travel varies depending on the status of each state, but is tracked and quarantine enforced at various levels if it's available.
Testing is freely available and fairly fast.
Nationwide, there is currently one locally acquired case over the last 7 days, and 74 from overseas in the same period.
Presumably we'll bubble with NZ at some point and carefully go from there, plus see how the availability of vaccines starts to change the equation beyond that. In my circles, people are keen to travel again, but everyone is pretty matter of fact about the situation and curious about timings rather than desperate to open up.
Thailand has done an even better job, with just under 4,200 infections total since January. It has land borders with four other countries, the most porous of which is Myanmar. Very recently there have been some cases of infected people crossing over illegally from the latter; health authorities have been doing very thorough contact tracing so it remains to be seen if this will escalate. But last week was the first time in months there was more than a handful of cases nationwide, excluding foreign travelers in quarantine.
Why has it worked so well here? I don't know the full answer, but by and large people have been very responsible. The last time I was at an airport, back in early February, every single person was wearing a mask, and in lots of public places the majority of people continue to do so. Mask wearing has not been politicised here. Also every shopping mall and most restaurants/public places scan you for temperature on entry and have a book where you can (optionally) write down your name or register with an app to be notified if it is later discovered an infected person has been there the same day you were.
Does it really? Has it been found that a significant source of infections was illegal immigration? Or that without it there would not have already been internal spreading?
Doesn't matter. If you don't have covid, and nobody comes in, you won't get covid.
But that's not feasible in most countries.
Austrailia and NZ don't rely on a just-in-time cross border economy like the US and Europe. Goods arrive after being on boats which have been off shore for days or weeks.
Compare with the US-Canada "border closure", where thousands of trucks, and their drivers, have crossed each way every day all year.
That's what is happening at this moment in Thailand. There were no local transmissions for many months. Borders are closed and anyone coming into the country has to go directly to 14 day quarantine and test clean before they get out. But then some Thais went to Myanmar and snuck back into Chiang Mai in northern Thailand illegally. They were infected and have now spread the infection locally in Thailand to at least a few people. Some cases took flights to Bangkok. There is a frantic effort to track and trace everyone who might have been exposed.
It's likely this will change next year when Australia lifts quarantining. It will be considered an acceptable risk given that most people will not be vulnerable to it.
> Countries may gain time in the short-term as they limit travel to fight the new coronavirus pandemic, but the World Health Organization thinks overall that “it doesn't help to restrict movement," a top adviser to the U.N. health agency's chief said Thursday.
That was in March. The messaging from Jan was pretty much the same, if not even more lax. The WHO is to be blamed significantly for not communicating properly.