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I feel like everyone is talking about Melbourne's lockdown as if it was their first lockdown. This is their second lockdown. They virtually eliminated it durin

by koyote 6y ago

I feel like everyone is talking about Melbourne's lockdown as if it was their first lockdown. This is their second lockdown. They virtually eliminated it during the first lockdown and brought the virus back in via hotel quarantine leaks (as proven by genomic testing). There is nothing indicating that the same thing won't happen again. NSW's contact tracing team has been excellent but I have not heard anyone detail how Victoria's team is up to scratch now (a part from throwing some money at Salesforce). There is no long-term strategy in this whatsoever, the hope is that the vaccine is available and effective before the inevitable 3rd wave hits a still highly susceptible population.

gregoryl 6y ago
VIC contact tracing has now adopted the same process as NSW
- koyote 6y ago
  Do you have a source on that? I know that they sent some people up to see what NSW was doing but haven't actually heard them say what, if anything, they were going to adopt. There is this 'funny' article from a couple of days ago though; seems like a lot of lies and smoke: https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/nsw-denies-it-is-copying-victoria-s-contact-tracing-system-20200928-p56022 https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/nsw-denies-i... Gladys also indicated that a large part of NSW's tracing success was the tight integration and information sharing between government agencies. Something that, if you read between the lines, is apparently not the case in Victoria.
spfzero 6y ago
I wonder about this hope for a vaccine, and if it is a reasonable thing to base policy on. There is still no vaccine for HIV, after several decades of trying and many billions spent. None for SARS1, Mers, the commom cold. There are influenza vaccines, but still no effective ones in terms of preventing a significant number of deaths every year.
- lbeltrame 6y ago
  Common cold: not worth it, and is caused by a lot of different viruses, making vaccination even harder. SARS1: the virus was eradicated before trials could complete. MERS: There are several vaccines in testing, however MERS comes and goes randomly, so it takes a lot of time to gather events. HIV: Apparently there's a trial in Uganda going on since quite a while, which looks better than the past ones (which were failures), but with HIV, it takes years to see if it works or not That said, betting all your options on a vaccine is not what I'd call sound policy. In fact, there are several drugs in the pipeline, but few if any report that.
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    For HIV there’s medication which practically guarantees you cannot become infected and there’s medication which will practically guarantee you will not get ill and cannot infect others.

by koyote 6y ago

gregoryl 6y ago

VIC contact tracing has now adopted the same process as NSW

koyote 6y ago
Do you have a source on that? I know that they sent some people up to see what NSW was doing but haven't actually heard them say what, if anything, they were going to adopt. There is this 'funny' article from a couple of days ago though; seems like a lot of lies and smoke: https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/nsw-denies-it-is-copying-victoria-s-contact-tracing-system-20200928-p56022 https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/nsw-denies-i... Gladys also indicated that a large part of NSW's tracing success was the tight integration and information sharing between government agencies. Something that, if you read between the lines, is apparently not the case in Victoria.

spfzero 6y ago

I wonder about this hope for a vaccine, and if it is a reasonable thing to base policy on. There is still no vaccine for HIV, after several decades of trying and many billions spent. None for SARS1, Mers, the commom cold. There are influenza vaccines, but still no effective ones in terms of preventing a significant number of deaths every year.

lbeltrame 6y ago
Common cold: not worth it, and is caused by a lot of different viruses, making vaccination even harder. SARS1: the virus was eradicated before trials could complete. MERS: There are several vaccines in testing, however MERS comes and goes randomly, so it takes a lot of time to gather events. HIV: Apparently there's a trial in Uganda going on since quite a while, which looks better than the past ones (which were failures), but with HIV, it takes years to see if it works or not That said, betting all your options on a vaccine is not what I'd call sound policy. In fact, there are several drugs in the pipeline, but few if any report that.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  For HIV there’s medication which practically guarantees you cannot become infected and there’s medication which will practically guarantee you will not get ill and cannot infect others.