Queensland borders open 1am Saturday

Hi Duncan, What more can they do, 90% plus double vaccinated, two years lost.. We are a long way from the beginning where some countries were digging mass graves and people were dropping like flies. Even the Pzifer boss said yesterday that the Pzifer vaccine and third booster is ineffective to the latest mild Omicron strain. That probably goes for all the other Vaccines too. When I say normal, I mean we can move freely again. I haven't caught the virus in two years and we will all have to continue be careful and stay vigilant and get back to living i think. Michael

Michael, agree with your follow-up comments. Biggest issue going forward is the effect it is having on supply chains. If the virus doesn't kill us maybe starvation and the lack of dunny paper (LOL).

@ Michael - "Pzifer boss said yesterday that the Pzifer vaccine and third booster is ineffective to the latest mild Omicron strain" - Really? The "research" :) I did says this

"Pfizer and BioNTech released results from an initial lab study Wednesday morning that showed a third shot is effective at fighting the omicron variant, while the initial two-dose vaccination series dropped significantly in its ability to protect against the new strain. However, the two-dose series likely still offers protection against getting severely sick from omicron, the companies said." Source I have no idea of the validity of this information - just saying. What is your source as it seems to contradict this one?

Cheers
Greg

Greg, it was on most news yesterday afternoon, Ok its still on News .com... Quote from the Pfizer Chief Executive , " Two doses of its current Covid19 Vaccine offer very limited protection, if any against the Omicron variant". The three doses offers reasonable protection against hospitalization and death. Apparently they are working on a new Omicron variation. So you have a point there... I should read left to right like everyone else ..... Michael

Either way - best you can do is get what is available and hang on :)

All the best

Greg

Duc

Keep the pressure on your Premier.

The moment your borders are open, your stated will be f…..d

Keep safe

Michael

There was a report this morning on the radio, and since borders have open business in NSW have gone down the tube, even more so than when they had the lockdowns.

Borders should never have been opened up.

Duncan WA your Premier only one with any idea of what is needed..
you don't need to be Einstein to work out what is working and what is not ..it's just these dumbass politicians can't seem to fathom that ..

Does anyone believe Pfizer executives? They make billions each week so have a vested interested in what and how they present. Pollies react to what they say but nearly all virus spread is the so called Vaccinated, spreading it to all. So much for injections. If it really was a VACCINE it would offer significant protection and not require booster upon booster, then another + more to come. In SA, 2019, 45 people died of the plain flu in one day and no one batted an eyelid. Covid hasn't achieved that! Way less people dying with the latest 14th variety, the Xi flu. Called Omicron not to offend the dictator of where it came from. There are a lot of people who don't want to call it what it really is. The new QLD CHO is the first one who is actually qualified in the field in any state/territory so far. Vic CHO isn't even qualified to be a GP in any clinic in Australia. WA is simply postponing the inevitable. Unless WA can leave this world the McGowan tricks won't work. Why does he think he knows better than the rest of the world?

This disease has never really been about people dying, it's been about the high infection rate that crashes the hospital system. Right now, hospital workers are at their wits end, in NSW particularly, because it feels like every second person has covid at the moment and the workers can't get a break from constantly having to dress up in full PPE. Fair dinkum, just wearing a mask is a pain in the arse when you've had it on for any length of time so working 12 hour shifts in full gear would be intolerable. You may as well be in lockdown if a high percentage of workers are home with bad flu like symptoms. The only reason they are still at home and not in hospital is that the vaccine lessens the impact of the virus by providing some level of existing immune response. Having no vaccine would be a disaster and they only reason NSW opened up is the vaccine. The reason the vaccine isn't 100% effective is linked to how you can get covid after you've already had covid before. Recovering from having covid temporarily gives you a resistance that wanes over time and the vaccine artificially gives you that resistance.

Michael H9, you summed it up perfectly, it was never about saving lives. Michael

Since covid started, South Australia has had 30 deaths - in 2019 South Australia had 92 normal flu related deaths.

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sas-flu-death-toll-rises-again-with-92-confirmed-flurelated-deaths-so-far-in-2019/news-story/10f8e6b2fff3ba148f12111609d110b7

Hi RMD,

I feel the need to take you to task with regard to your comment about the Victorian Chief Medical Officer not being qualified to be a GP in any Australian State or Territory. You have stated this on more than one occasion.

I might point out to you that there are a number of people in senior medical positions that are also not qualified as a GP. That does not mean that they are not qualified to hold the position they are in.

If you look at the Job Descriptions of the various Hospital Chief Medical Officers, they do not require the person to be qualified as a GP. These days, “General Practice” is a “specialised” field, and many medical students do not go on to become GP’s, choosing to go into other specialised fields instead. My Caridologyst is not registered as a GP, likewise my Heart Surgeon is not registered as a GP.

Is the CHO in WA registered as a GP? From his bio, he has never been in General Practice in his career.

Macca.

Well said Macca.

Your cynicism is only matched by your appalling lack of understanding of viruses (esp corona viruses) and vaccines RMD. The mortality numbers pre and post vax are there for all to read and absorb. The effects of long covid numbers won't be understood for years. Just fyi the UK study which suggested 2 jabs were only marginally effective against omicron didn't involve just Pfizer's vaccine.

Your flu comparison is puerile. The reasons SA, WA and Qld in particular haven't seen significant death and hospitalisation from covid is as plain as the nose on your face. Not that it's required for anyone who understands what has transpired over the last 2 years but a clue can be found in the number of national flu deaths in 2021. I'll leave you to look them up and join the dots. Alternatively it could simply be that the residents of those states have a naturally immunity not found in Victoria and NSW or pretty much anywhere else in the world (/s).

The efficacy of boosters against omicron has been tested. Google will answer your questions in regard tio that IF you're actually interested. While you're there you could investigate the years of research and findings wrt previous corona virus outbreaks (SARS, MERS).

Cuppa, I agree with you on international travel, but Australia is one country, Everyone is vaccinated now and this Omicron is much less severe than previous strains and moving fast and should burn itself out fairly quickly. Hopefully this is the last strain on the virus. I believe it's time to move on and get back to some sort of normally. Michael

Regarding omicrom being milder than Delta strain....

.Quote..."As Covid-19 cases in the United States soar to record highs, many are pinning their hopes on the omicron variant, however contagious, being less severe than the delta variant that came before it. Perhaps, some health care experts hope, surviving omicron could even provide some immunity against other variants. It’s a glimmer of hope in a dark time.

The problem is, it’s too soon to know how severe omicron is—and individual symptoms aren’t always the best way to talk about severity. By taking preventative measures off the table and prioritizing the economy even if it means sending people back to work and school with active Covid cases, policymakers betting on the mildness of this virus could risk toppling the health care system as we know it—and allow more death and disability to rise throughout the country.

We have more questions than answers at this point about the omicron variant, which was only identified six weeks ago: How mild is it really, does it mean we’re close to emerging from this phase of the pandemic, and what does it signal for future variants?"

Bigfish’s reply is spot on, in particular his last paragraph,

The desire for Covid to be over is universal, but desire isn’t anything more than desire, but yet it seems to be the only basis for the beliefs that the ‘letting it rip’ approach will see us ok. In addition to that contained in Bigfish’s response, not only is it far too early to know how mild or otherwise Omicron is, no-one has any idea about what further strains of the virus are yet to develop.

One could describe the current ‘let it rip’ approach as ‘optimistic’, but I suggest that not only is it based on ‘wishful thinking’ with virtually no real basis, but worse it is a strategy where the community’s tiredness of the battle is being exploited & manipulated by the business & corporate pressures, supported by government, to put short term profit before the health of the community. The current supply chain problems should be the wake up call to both government & business that without healthy people the businesses will suffer far more than they ever would from restrictions. I believe the removal of restrictions & the baseless but understandable hope that this will somehow return us to normalcy, that the virus will magically wither away may be a case of stepping from the frypan into the fire. Our ‘heatproof shoes’ (restrictions & precautions) may have been uncomfortable in the frypan, but they are all we have. As I said previously I don’t think this will end well. I hope I will be proven wrong about that for all our sakes, but am angry (& worried) that those who govern us have made decisions which are so potentially dangerous on the basis of nothing more than political ideology & populism.

Agree nickb. The problem with politicians is that they are ... politicians. They are being pressured from both the community health side as well as the business/economy aspect.

The problem comes when they let the business lobby argument overcome their common sense and health experts' advice. In that regard McGowan has been fortunate that the economy here in Fortress WA has been largely unaffected (hospitality aside). As a result he has been able to stick to our tight (sometimes paranoid) border control, and life has been relatively normal here compared to the rest of Oz. The popular view here is that opening would be a disaster, and the most recent state election outcome underscored that - right now the combined opposition parties could meet in a phone box.

One thing I learnt from this covid debacle is that we truly live in the age of entitlement. The mob screaming about loss of freedoms are really should get their money back from their labotomy surgery..it obviously failed. We have and never will be free to do as we choose!!. We still have idiots raving that the covid is not real and just a made up propaganda story from the worlds governments....why do these twats still take our oxygen? The anti vaxxers are no better. Delusional. self centred , misinformation spreading idiots as well. These groups don't give two figs about our health workers, our aged people in care, our weak and vulnerable, etc.etc....They keep calling the vaccinated the "sheep" of the world for following what the worlds health experts have advocated (get the bloody vaccine!!!). I label these groups as "grubs".

As the old adage goes....if your not part of the solution then you must be part of the problem.

There is a growing body of evidence that the Omicron variant causes less severe disease than other strains, however the benefit is outweighed by the increased number of cases.Here's a link to early studies of the Omicron variant.

lyndon,

'The long term health issues could be HUGE, for decades or even generations.'

That info from the health officials wouldn't be more scaremongering would it.

Fear of 'possible' consequences has allowed politicians to erase the freedoms that shouldn't be taken away.

Lyndon...really! Half of the NT is made up of Mexicans...I used to be one myself before becoming a Queerlander...