Back in lockdown again.

[4liters]

The extra doses going to NSW were allegedly separate from the supply from Poland and the doses taken from the national reserve supply.

[Truedogz]

The extra doses going to NSW were allegedly separate from the supply from Poland and the doses taken from the national reserve supply.

Every state has the capacity to request that part of their allocation be fast tracked in given circumstances such as an outbreak. They don't get extra but get it faster where they ramp up delivery. Supplies from Poland, Singapore and the UK have allowed this. As long as it doesn't affect real time deliveries to other states - delivery capacity is met - I think that is acceptable. If WA's capacity to deliver is being met there isn't a problem to move real time supplies as long as you continue to meet their supply and projected increases. Victoria has used this in the past (as well as NSW) and I believe is bringing forward its allocation now by 50,000 pw and I think the premier is moving to to try to get more with some justification. The ACT also I think has benefitted from this too.

Next month Victoria will appear to be getting more than its fare share in the figures. The issue now is other states are ramping up their delivery making it harder for Victoria to bring forward allocations. We might be the last.

If there is a big outbreak in the near future say in Qld there could be real vaccine bun fight. The best motivation to get vaccinated is an epidemic.

We could really do with some extra doses. Most experts seem to firming on 2,500 cpd here with some saying 4,000.

[cobby]

So what you're saying in a round about way, is Andrews in his blast today is full of ****

[Truedogz]

So what you're saying in a round about way, is Andrews in his blast today is full of ****

Paul Keating used to call it 'argy bargy' - maybe call it aggressive lobbying. It was pretty well coordinated.

My sources are not Federal but in this state and not part of a political party. I was told yesterday that because of the dire circumstances we face we are getting an allocation brought forward or it is about to happen.

It works when deliveries arrive early so that at that point you have more than what you planned for. Take note that more arrived from the UK this weekend than expected. I don't know it as a fact but I'd guess the extra will be for 'bringing forward' supplies for the two states with an urgent need for extra doses.

I don't always approve of the Premier's methods or indeed those of other politicians. But I do get it. With what we face he needs to pull out all stops. Our peak will probably be in six weeks. With Pfizer it takes a couple of weeks to get reasonable protection after a first dose and two weeks for the second dose to get best protection (rough figures). So you can see the window to have a big impact on the future is closing.

Who knows maybe the feds can find an extra million doses overseas, give half to us and spread the rest around oz. If I was in his boots that's what I would be trying to do (both politically and morally).

[4liters]

The extra doses going to NSW were allegedly separate from the supply from Poland and the doses taken from the national reserve supply.

Every state has the capacity to request that part of their allocation be fast tracked in given circumstances such as an outbreak. They don't get extra but get it faster where they ramp up delivery. Supplies from Poland, Singapore and the UK have allowed this. As long as it doesn't affect real time deliveries to other states - delivery capacity is met - I think that is acceptable. If WA's capacity to deliver is being met there isn't a problem to move real time supplies as long as you continue to meet their supply and projected increases. Victoria has used this in the past (as well as NSW) and I believe is bringing forward its allocation now by 50,000 pw and I think the premier is moving to to try to get more with some justification. The ACT also I think has benefitted from this too.

Next month Victoria will appear to be getting more than its fare share in the figures. The issue now is other states are ramping up their delivery making it harder for Victoria to bring forward allocations. We might be the last.

If there is a big outbreak in the near future say in Qld there could be real vaccine bun fight. The best motivation to get vaccinated is an epidemic.

We could really do with some extra doses. Most experts seem to firming on 2,500 cpd here with some saying 4,000.

Yeah, I get that. The article on the extra NSW doses seems to be implying that there were additional doses sent there on top of those though, doses that national cabinet did not know about until the story broke.

The response from the PM, the federal health minister and the vaccine rollout commander addresses the doses bought forward, the extra doses from overseas and those released from the reserve, but they don’t specifically address the concerns raised in the media. In my experience what is not discussed in politics is often as important as what is and I suspect if the government had a good response to the allegations in the article they would have provided it.

[Truedogz]

if the government had a good response to the allegations in the article they would have provided it.

They have.

General Frewin monitors and controls the vaccine rollout not the Prime Minister. He was appointed so as to improve the rollout and place someone independent in control. I think we can give him a lot of the credit in the improvement of our vaccine rollout.

He has stated emphatically that all of the protocols have been followed. I would believe what he says ahead of anything that our politicians say. Because of his position he is not going to be embroiled in a political slanging match.

Frewin has also stated that transparency and communication to stake holders has been a major issue in the rollout which he has acted to change. He has said very shortly a new interface will be released that will make available in detail all vaccine allocations, etc. I think then we might gain a greater insight into what has gone on.

I think transparency is very important and sadly there has been a general lack of it in this outbreak. As I have indicated elsewhere I think Hawke would have handled things differently compared to either the Prime Minister or our State Premier.

No doubt that down the track, perhaps years, we will learn more of what has gone on. From colleagues in New Zealand I have been told of some things that occurred early on that have severely impacted on both country's vaccine rollouts. They won't publicly talk about it for fear of reprisals but take note of the low supply of vaccine to the Kiwis. Some of the issues both countries have faced in obtaining vaccines stem from them jointly taking a principalled stand on some issues in international bodies. Jacinta Adern is quite astute and knows how to keep her mouth shut, our pm less so. A couple of nations have been trying to take action to block Australia getting vaccine stock out of the UK and prior to that Singapore. I'd go so far as to say look who is helping us out now and who is not.

[cobby]

if the government had a good response to the allegations in the article they would have provided it.

A couple of nations have been trying to take action to block Australia getting vaccine stock out of the UK and prior to that Singapore. I'd go so far as to say look who is helping us out now and who is not.

A 28 member bloc and a red flagged nation being some of them?

[Truedogz]

28 member bloc and a red flagged nation being some of them?

One is red flagged one a military ally. Been attempting to block us getting additional supplies through the WHO and the world bank.

We got supplies from Singapore because no one will take them on being geo-econonomicaly strategic.

We got supplies from the UK because they can manufacture their own vaccine and have vax high rates.

We got supplies from Poland because there is vaccine resistance and they need money.

[Truedogz]

I've just got back from work (risking more iso!) and have seen news headlines about leaked documents about Pfizer.

With the original proposed vaccine rollout I saw some weaknesses in terms of the suite of vaccines. And there is no doubt the initial delivery of the rollout was plagued by bureaucratic delays both at Federal and State levels. No one could foresee the clotting issues with AZ but everyone was aware that with new vaccines there were such risks and it was unwise to put all the eggs in one basket. Maybe down the track I might offer some opinions but this is not the time or place.

We have all heard the Federal mantra of 'slow and steady' and as an outsider I tried to find out more through contacts - not political- about what went on last year. They wouldn't tell me a bloody thing!

Take note that NZ didn't sign up for vaccines until after Australia (December), never ordered AZ (no clotting issues back then) is using exclusively Pfizer (J&J and AZ have prov approval but not signed off for delivery) and has an even slower rollout than us. The NZ prime minister has come in for far less criticism than ours even though she is using a similar mantra.

A while back I was in communication with former colleagues over in New Zealand and asked them why they took so long to get vaccines and why they didn't order AZ. They gave me a pretty detailed outline of what took place in the second half of last year. I put that information to my Australian contacts who now aware I knew some of the details confirmed the overall story, with some differences. Obviously I am not in a position to give you people details and some might takes years to come out. Once the rollout is over if some of the stuff leaks out I might be able to say more.

Old saying:

There are three types of people: those that make things happen, those that watch things happen, those that wonder what happened. I'll add one: Some people think they know what happened.

Some of you might be able to draw inferences from reading these two news stories.

The first is about a proposal to the WTO about pharmaceuticals sponsored by India and South Africa. This bill was supported by Australia and New Zealand (initially):

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -covid-wto

The second is a later article critical of the NZ government over vaccine patents and how they supported the United States but did a backflip when the US agreed (to a much watered down proposal):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/comme ... reputation

These two articles provide insight into what was going on last year. Some of the offers going around came with strings attached. And both NZ and Australia having at times taken principiled positions on some issues have been punished. NZ is exclusively using one vaccine on a drip feed. They were quite vulnerable and perhaps took a path of lower risk. As I have said Jacinta Ardern is an astute politician that knows how to keep her mouth shut. Another saying is 'don't tug on superman's cape.'

As I said the Federal Government has made mistakes but the original suite of vaccines proposed was quite reasonable save for one. One failure and I will criticise them for this was withdrawing funding for the Queensland vaccine which was extremely shortsighted as we would have had capacity to produce two types of vaccines one being cutting edge - potentially the best technology on the world. The AZ vaccine is being produced at various locations around the world at what is effectively cost price. There are proposals to develop facilities here to produce mRNA vaccines. It will be interesting to see who does it.

The US has stocks of soon to expire vaccine and won't give us a drop. You might figure out why.

Right around the world 'vaccine diplomacy' is occurring both by governments and companies. The planet is a pretty nasty place at the moment.

[Truedogz]

Getting away from all the garbage about vaccines I know people want to know about what is really important - where we are heading.

I've heard figures bandied around of 18,000 cases per day.

I don't think its anywhere that bad. Could be but I think unlikely.

I've held off commenting too much until some trends became more apparent. I've previously provided a link to the modelling created by Chris Billington at the University of Melbourne which provides a wealth of information. I must caution it provides predictions of outcomes based on real time data with some projections of changes in variables. It doesn't or can't include some rapid changes that are occurring. I'll provide the link again at the end but I will post his latest graph and discuss it:

I've selected his log chart rather than the linear one as it is easier to read the figures from it. The pink dashed line in the graph indicates the most likely number of daily cases. You can see it peaks at about 7000 cpd in late October. The pink band represents the 68% confidence limits. In simple terms in this situation 68% of the time the final result will end up in this range. The range appears to be 2000 cpd up to ? (maybe 14000). This a huge range and at one point NSW was showing this sort of potential. As time goes on this range will decrease and the expected outcome more reliably predicted.

I think there is a reasonable chance we will end up towards the lower end of the predictions:

1. The vaccine rollout is accelerating. Delivery is improving and if the rumours are true that we getting extra allocations from next week as long as we can deliver them it will have a big impact. The result will be a lower and possibly earlier peak;

2. These sorts of models assume a type of homogenous population and the whole of the state is not. Some areas have no or few cases, better behaviour and higher vax rates. This lengthens the timeline which allows vaccination to overtake the rate of spread of the virus. While this is very relevant to regional Victoria it also applies to Metropolitan Melbourne;

3. Contact tracing will eventually focus on areas with low cases limiting the spread from hotspots. It won't stop it but will buy time again for vaccination to overtake the virus;

This is how the NSW outbreak has played out. What we have working against us is a tired, jaded population.

I think the lower confidence limit in this linear graph - the light blue hump - is where in the best case we will end up. Time will tell. I've looked another model which I can't share and it predicts 3500 cpd:

I have some hope that we might repeat what has happened interstate and keep the outbreak to about 2000 cpd. The one thing that will defeat us is stupidity.

What everyone here can do is always wear a mask (and properly) when away from home. Its the next best protection after vax and about as effective in restricting transmission. Do whatever you can to protect yourself, your family, your friends and the general population. You can't change the behaviour of other people being stupid but you can keep your distance.

Unlike the Premier of WA our Premier has made preparations for this eventuality. There might have been some backpedling but he hasn't been asleep at the wheel. My sources tell me that even at 3000 cpd they reckon our system will cope but it will be ugly and two is much better. A fair number of the infections will be in people that have had a single dose of vax but they will be mild.

Get extra masks.
If you show symptoms isolate and get tested.
When the system gets stretched don't go to hospital at the first symptoms. For most people it will be like a moderate flu. But if you get serious symptoms don't delay. During the peak most people will be at home. Have your network set up to get basic supplies to you if isolating at home. Include a range of people outside of your workplace to reduce the risk of all of you isolating.

As I said people are sick of this but the finish line is in sight. If we play our cards right then we are in some sort of covid normal in December. The world will have changed but a lot of things will shift to the new norm. Singapore right now is about where I think we will be in early December.

So simply get vaxed, wear masks and stay safe.

You can follow the projections here:

https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_VIC_2021.html

Best Wishes

Will