Lockdowns Start Again...US Next?

You do know Australia and New Zealand have a completely different strategy: containment then vaccination. The one that works.

[quote]For now, it's just parts of Australia.

Um ... it's just MOST of Australia.

It’s impressive how Australia and NZ managed to contain it. But I’m surprised to learn how slowly they’ve rolled out vaccines. I wonder if they’ve been able to trace where the latest outbreak originated. They’ve been super strict about travel restrictions, so I wonder how many people brought it into the country (and who they were).

To be more clear, 54%+ of Australians are in lockdown right now (Including all Victorians, South Australians, and Sydneysiders, amongst some NSW regional communities).

Great Sydney--the epicentre of the current breakout--just posted its worst figure for cases that were in the community whilst infectious, as well as one of the worst days for total cases.

Impressed by how they’ve contained it? Yeah, at the expense of making their people feel like prisoners.

Republican Governors are never going allow us to go back into lockdown no matter how bad the cases get. All the GOP LOONS are going full on crazy train. Just look at "doctor" Rand Paul claiming FAUCI (personally) paid to have the CoronaVirus expose millions of people...NO LIE too INSANE....This is Germany 1939 all over again and DISINFORMATION is the same weapon Hitler and the Nazis used....The GOP have already rigged the 2024 Election.

Regular masks that most people wear are pointless and don’t work.

Yes, thank you for yet again posting that Repug talking point nonsense, r7

Now why don’t you go kill a few more children with your lies?

R7 is spreading misinformation, F&F.

R8 children don’t die from covid

[quote] children don’t die from covid

You have blood on your hands, r7

R7 - bitch I was exposed to COVID before being vaxxed 2 times to my knowledge and came in direct contact with 3 infected people. Each one of us was wearing a "regular" mask. Once with a pizza place employee when she drove the pizza to us and I picked it up in the lobby of our building and tipped and talked to her a bit. Also, at a coffeshop. These people had COVID. They told me later that is why their businesses closed and they were quarantined. We got tested, no COVID or COVID antibodies. What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to get some people killed spreading this bullshit info? Asshole.

I don't see the problem with the deplorables not wanting vaccinations....Let them cough all over themselves. Who cares?..If they want Covid to prove their loyalty to Trump---nobody can stop that....Just let the MAGA idiots have their Covid. Once their numbers thin out the rest of us can just point and laugh.

Here’s my worry, R14. My mom is 81 and very vulnerable. She is of course vaccinated, but I fear even a mild case of COVID will kill her. So as much as I’d like these morons to just cancel each other out, there are still people who have done the right thing and are again at risk.

[quote]I don't see the problem with the deplorables not wanting vaccinations....Let them cough all over themselves. Who cares?

but they cough on others too

I live in a blue state (with a high vaccination rate) whose governor is up for re-election this November. There will not be a lock down here.

R6 calm down MARY!!! Take a breath.

R15 - I am in the same boat. My mom is going back to the law firm. Her and my dad (paralytic after a hemorrhagic stroke and very vulnerable) both isolated and got the vaccine. At 64, my mom would love to not drive and take the metro but can't take the risk of exposing herself and him so it's car and office and home 3× a week and that's it. Now, with the Delta variant, she will again go totally remote. The frau who came back with no vax and the anti-vaxxers are putting my parents at risk. This isn't about them dying among themselves, it's about them infecting people who did the right thing and become innocent carriers who infect vulnerable people. The anti-vaxxers pretty much have blood on their hands and are ruining the lives of people who did the right thing.

R14 - these assholes aren't just putting each other at risk. Two of my exes are over 60 and worked in beauty and fashion. Both lost income and stayed very much alone at home, as many older gay men. Both are vulnerable due to age and one has a compromised immune system. They got the jab, masked, suffered loneliness (besides his mom in the Midwest and an occasional call with a few friends, I was the only one checking in on him...from 6.5 thousand miles away). How can people like this feel any hope with Deplorable assholes out and about exposing them? Really, it's time for someone to make these assholes stay home and let the vaxxed and sane get back to their lives.

It will be interesting to see if we lockdown again in the US. I have a feeling we will if deaths skyrocket. Unlike under Trump when it was a state hy state choice, I’m wondering if there will be a federal mandate this time

my ex moved to Sydney from the US and became a citizen...........this morning was the 7th week anniversary of his complete lockdown........he has to make an appointment online and print out a pass to leave his apartment (go to the food store, doctor, dentist, drug store, etc.) The police and national guard stop and question anyone outside....they had better have a pass dated for that day...........heavy fines if they don't............... ...He can indeed exercise but had better be running or power walking in exercise clothes if he is outside.....If he simply wants to walk, he must have a doctor's note that walking is part of his necessary exercise regime. Pretty authoritarian if you ask me.............they have not offered him a vaccination yet.......he is 57.

I hope what I'm doing will be enough. I'm in my early 60's with some serious health issues. Diabetes and lung disease.

I'm Pfizer vaccinated. I have been to two or three gatherings indoors with 100% vaccinated people. I'll admit it seemed scary to suddenly be indoors with 20 other people, but I'm being honest. Now when I go out, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. I wear a mask, and I social distance. I wash my hands frequently and now, with Delta, I've decided to go back to my 2020 routine. I will do no more social gatherings indoors. I will mask and social distance in public places, and I will avoid all crowds for the foreseeable future. I am hoping to get a booster shot some time in September or October. And if this damned thing peaks again I'll self quarantine. In anticipation of the next wave I am starting to buy "extra" of some of the basics. I think supply chains will be affected. Not saying we will have high death ates...unless we'e talking about the unvaccinated, but I can't afford to get sick, and the long term side effects are not good.

There won’t be anymore lockdowns in the US it would be political suicide.

Sydney has only been in full lockdown since 24 June, R22. 4 weeks tomorrow. He or you are exaggerating.

r25.......the additional 3 weeks were taken up by him getting covid and thus sheltering........then 1.5 weeks into his recovery his partner go it...so they both had to shelter at home.........so by the time they recovered, seven weeks in total had passed with the anniversary of their entombment in their apartment occurring this morning..........of course they are 15 hours ahead (or something bizarre like that).........so in closing.......3 weeks of active covid in their apartment (1.5 weeks each/overlapping)......followed by 4 weeks of lockdown.......equals 7 weeks of staying in their apartment...........

clear???

The Biden administration thought 70% of Americans would get at least one shot by July 4th. They’ve tried everything from musicians to TikTok influencers to get young people vaccinated. Nothing has worked so now they have to resort to coercion and lockdowns. I hope and pray that there won’t be a lockdown because it will make people turn away from the Democrats.

I agree that if the carrot doesn't work, then the stick must

They are trying to scare people into getting vaccinated. If not enough people do, we will shut down again.

R27 why would it make them turn away from the Dems? Mitch McConnell is saying go get vaccinated. It seems to me like it would be disingenuous for the elected Repugs to act like they opposed lockdowns.

Newsome will never shut down CA not with the recall coming in just 2 months.

R31 - and exactly why my poor mom, after 1.5 years of staying locked up in the home with my dad, will again miss the 3x a week half days at the office. The state will be full of COVID due to the anti-mask and anti-vaxx cunts who will fill up ICU's and put everyone at risk and people will die. I sincerely hope that there will be a price to pay for the anti-vaxxers who don't get COVID for the suffering they cause.

Governor DeSantis (our next president after he steals the election in 2024)--stated today "We need our Kids to BREATH".....He isn't shutting anything down. And the other GOP Governors are going to follow suit. They don't care.

I assume the BILLIONAIRES will be asking Biden for another Stimulus soon?....They have been suffering with their Yachts and Space Rockets...

[quote] But I’m surprised to learn how slowly they’ve rolled out vaccines.

Australia does not produce vaccines.

Vaccines do not grow on trees.

Australia donated some of their purchased vaccines to plague-ridden New Guinea.

(Would the USA do the same for its impoverished neighbours?)

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Australia is fucked

R37 We don't have as much petty vindictiveness and race riots as you.

R38, your country sucks!

R39 = petty vindictiveness.

As R22 points out, US never did full lockdowns. Americans would shit a house if they were fined for being out of the house unauthorized.

R22 is full of shit.

You have to have a doctors certificate to walk or you get fined? Bullshit. You have to make an appointment to go food shopping? Bullshit. The police and national guard stop everyone? Bullshit. He hasn’t been ‘offered’ a vaccination yet? Bullshit. Anyone over 50 had the chance to get AZ if they wanted for a period. He can also book in for a Pfizer which has been available to his age group for weeks. Your ex is a lazy shit who is telling you lies.

I don’t know about lockdowns but you can bet wearing masks again will happen in the fall/winter.

R43 = MASKS? Not if the GOP Lawmakers get their way. They want their little angels and brats to breath in as much CoronaVirus as they want after the GOP outlaw masks (see link). BREAKING = Columbus just mandated ALL schools require ALL students and staff to wear masks ALL the time on school premises...And the Republican Parents are threatening lawsuits. Welcome to the future.

RNs have been on wait lists for months, R22, to get Pfizer. They were originally in groups 1a and 1b, before the government three the group idea out the window. Non-essential workers have been able to get Pfizer jabs before essential workers. It has been awfully organised and carried out.

People are getting fined for unauthorised activities.

R22 was exaggerating, but you also don’t know what you’re talking about..

R22 Is making that shit up. At 57 your ex would have no problem getting an AstraZeneca vaccine today.

People are NOT being stopped on the streets and there is no such thing as a 'National Guard' in Australia. It has only just been announced that the NSW State Government (of which Sydney is the capital) has rejected assistance from the Armed Services as the NSW Police feel that everything is under control and no further inventions are necessary - at this stage.

I'm personally not pissed at the decisions made by the Feds in relation to vaccine acquisitions last year given that Australia was 1) developing its on vaccine which has failed due to the use of participants testing positive for HIV (not acquiring HIV it should be noted but that alone is enough for the vaccine which was very effective to be rejected and 2) more eggs in the AstraZeneca basket because it can produced in the country.

However, the Feds haven't done ANYTHING to lift their game this year to acquire the doses of Pfizer or Moderna that Australia needs and AstraZeneca has gotten really bad publicity by the media and some politicians that was not warranted. Basically you have more chance of having a blood clot from taking a pill than a dose of AZ but that is barely mentioned and AZ is being treated by some people with power as a death sentence and worse than COVID itself (which it is not).

Also, the rollout of the vaccines has been a joke. I know lots of people in the 40s who have had Pfizer (they have no known health problems) whilst many highly vulnerable people remain unvaccinated. It is so fucked up.

And the outbreaks now are all thanks to the giant ego of Gladys B. She won't be happy until she tops Dan Andrews Victorian death toll.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but considering that diversification is always a smart move, I don't get why ScoMo put all of his eggs in the AZ basket. It seems like an unforced error to me. But, what do I know. I guess they assumed, what could possibly go wrong with one particular vaccine. Maybe it was bad luck.

But, I do feel like there was a gradual, mild buildup of cocksureness over 2020, because--barring the Victoria lockdowns--we had done so well and dodged so many bullets. But our initial low numbers didn't exactly feel entirely earned.

I just thought that though we had made some bold, and quick choices, we were the beneficiaries of a great deal of luck (and being an island nation). Oh well. Who knows what's next.

The numbers keep climbing. I think we're stuffed for the rest of the year. We just have to ramp up supply and needles in arms. It'll be interesting to see where we plateau in comparison to other nations. I actually think we could potentially outdo most developed nations. But, we have to wait and see.

[quote] I don't get why ScoMo put all of his eggs in the AZ basket.

Because that was all that could be purchased at that time.

Australia does not produce vaccines. Vaccines do not grow on trees.

Australia donated some of their purchased vaccines to plague-ridden New Guinea.

[quote]Because that was all that could be purchased at that time.

And please stop being condescending. I quite well realise that vaccines don't grow on trees. I'm talking about the initial plan of attack. You seem to be saying that are only option was to purchase AZ and nothing else. Pfizer was not an option? Moderna was not an option? With X-amount of money, our only choice was to purchase AZ? I find this hard to believe.

I'm suggesting a more effective plan of attack would have been to split the purchases across 2 - 3 vaccines.

But, you seem to know everything, SO I GUESS NOT!

The other more disturbing likelihood - a consequence of not getting vaxxed: yet another mutation. With all of these complete idiot republicans refusing to get vaxxed, the virus will have free reign to evolve into a stronger, deadlier iteration. One that renders the vaccines effectively useless. Even if you’ve had Covid and been jabbed, you can get deathly sick all over again. This was what my doctor was telling me the other day. He’s not afraid of delta. Or lambda. He’s afraid of the perfect super strain that will put all of us right back to where we were in 2020.

R22 - me and my roommate lived like that here in Romania for a year. We had to have a "declaration upon penalty of perjury" when we went out yet she and once in awhile I (I kept my asthmatic ass inside a lot) went grocery shopping with double masks, went for walks as exercise and, after 2 months, went daily to the farmer's market (her mostly), and saw saw outdoor exhibits. It was awful but there was no vaccine yet. People went jogging, exercised outdoors, etc. Once things opened up, we enjoyed some freedom but we had to wear masks, gloves, visors and submit to temperature checks and sign papers swearing we didn't present or feel symptoms or hadn't come into contact with anyone. Took awhile to get the jab for us (2 months after it came here and because we wanted the Pfizer not Astra). Why is it authoritarian? At one point infection was so bad that we had 2 pneumologists for a city with over 300K available for those of us with lung problems as the rest were in the hospitals with COVID patients. Seems reasonable to contain infection.

R50 - you are right and so is your doctor. Sadly, that will happen due to anti-vaxxers unless we mandate it for participation in society. Period. Also, R49, when I started this thread I really didn't think people would argue about it that much but just opine because I am really wondering what the hell I have to look forward to when I go home in late fall. Oh well, we may or may not be in lockdown.

[quote]I wonder if they’ve been able to trace where the latest outbreak originated.

Yes, R3, we have. It was a single airport limo driver who was unvaccinated and not wearing a mask. He gave it to his household and the rest is history. The NSW Government was too slow to shut down, certainly, (and clearly neither it nor the Feds were policing the behaviour of quarantine staff as they should have been) but the Delta strain is not to be messed around with. You literally can catch it walking past someone indoors, or chatting briefly out of doors. It spreads to an entire household in no time, whereas with the early strains often other household members avoided the virus.

R48 and R49, it is well known in Australia that Pfizer was offering Australia sufficient quantities to vaccinate everyone, around about this time last year, and for some reason the Federal Government failed to make the deal with them. As all vaccines were in their Phase 2 or 3 Trials at the time, it was gross negligence not to have a foot in both technologies and I'd be very interested to know why they didn't. AZ is cheaper, but the cost of ongoing unanticipated lockdowns must be far greater than whatever Pfizer could have asked.

[quote] unanticipated

Yes, we must anticipate diseases.

We must anticipate all the variants of Delta, Gamma, and all those other variations before they mutate wherever and whenever.

[quote]it is well known in Australia that Pfizer was offering Australia sufficient quantities to vaccinate everyone, around about this time last year, and for some reason the Federal Government failed to make the deal with them. As all vaccines were in their Phase 2 or 3 Trials at the time, it was gross negligence not to have a foot in both technologies

Thank you. So R48 is just talking out of his ass.

R48 They could have purchased more. As I said in my post at R46 they chose AZ because it could be made in Australia (and was cheaper than the mRNA vaccines) and had very high hope for the Australian vaccine being developed by the University of Brisbane that could not be used because of the HIV issues. For 25 years we have had Federal Governments that cut, cut, cut and that we must have budget surplus - one of the many dreadful legacies of the Howard that has been followed by all the subsequent Governments at a Federal and State level.

R47 Just so you know I'm not R48. I agree with much that you have said. I'm really pissed at Scumo for not investing in mRNA vaccines as soon as it was known that they were the future, not just for treating COVID but have huge potential for a wide range of medical issues.

R53 Most Australian Governments (Federal & State) can't see past the next election.

My partners second cousin was a member of Federal Parliament back in the 1970s (he passed away a few years ago). He said to my partner back in the late 90's that it 'was now hard to get anyone of quality in politics in Australia'. And to think that was back in the late 1990's and how much worse things have gotten.

Lockdowns won't start in the US because everyone who wanted to be vaccinated has been vaccinated and two doses of Pfizer protects those from against the worst symptoms of the delta variant. Enough people have been vaccinated to let the anti-vaxxer cunts have enough bed space in hospitals to die with tubes down their throats.

R50, how likely does your doctor think it will happen?

R54, it was precisely the Federal Government's job, when it was out buying vaccines, to anticipate that the disease would mutate. What I said was that they should have weighed the cost of buying enough of several types of vaccine, against the cost of having to close down a major city (or at the moment, most of the cities in the country) every time there would be a leak from the quarantine system.

It is predictable both that the disease will mutate and that there will be leaks from quarantine, but not where or when. This means that each new lockdown is quite sudden and undermines the confidence of the entire non-food retail sector, not to mention the benighted hospitality and entertainment sectors. Even the construction sector is locked down in NSW this time. So you can see, the damage this does to the economy is substantial, and is what they should have weighed against the cost of buying every vaccine they could see.

We all know they would prefer not to close the economy down and just let Covid rage, but they know the public won't have a bar of that at this point.

[quote] it was precisely the Federal Government's job.. to anticipate that the disease would mutate.

No, it's this person's job to anticipate diseases and their mutations.

Tedros Adhanom should be put on trial for mass murder and negligence.

R62 = Speaking of people who should be on trial-------->>Donald Trump (January 22, 2020) = "No, we're not worried at all" ....When asked about the possible Pandemic.....Has any person ever killed MORE Americans without using troops or delaring war--than Donald J. Trump? I sure don't think so...

[quote] Tedros Adhanom should be put on trial for mass murder and negligence

The Wuhan marketers should be put on trial for mass murder and negligence

[quote]Has any person ever killed MORE Americans without using troops or delaring war--than Donald J. Trump?

I don't think you need the qualifier, R63. US deaths from Covid were more than WWII and Vietnam combined when Trump left office, and the same guy didn't send troops to both those wars.

One day...those like him R65 will be be held responsible.

By way of update from the EU...I went to a small plant show close to the local film festival in the old city center. They were asking for proof of vaccination or, alternatively, you could mask up. It didn't make much sense because at the film festival there are no masks and hundreds of people in crowds. Someone said they are "testing the waters" like this all over Europe for now.

R67 Where exactly in Europe is this festival?

If I can't make it myself I'll send a new variant I'm working on around to mingle with the crowds.