Thread: breaking covid rules

Originally Posted by doug3030

So, an aged care facility has a duty of care to their employees, customers and visitors but a Supermarket or other businesses don't?

Oh this is a muddy slippery slip... an aged care facility has a primary duty of care to it's patients and should enact any legal rules to ensure that can be met, this may include evidence of vaccination. all business (and private citizens having visitors) have a duty of care to employees, customers and visitors but that duty of care needs to balance discriminations practices as well as a bunch of other rules and regulations.

The slippery slope starts to include flu shots etc ...... if most business TRULY cared they would not have staff attending work sick... first level of duty of care to all.

Lance has put it far more eloquently than I can about the lingering question of who has a right to see what is by law personal private health information not even visible to all health workers by default, I have to approve it.

I'm doubly vaccinated and have a raft of health issues. When Covid hit my GP told me to stay at home and put up a large sign on the front door telling everyone to stay away. I usually go out of my way to encourage people to get vaccinated but on the issue of passports for general community use - i'm also not convinced

I look at the vaccine passport issue from the point of view of the small business owners and small community orgs . It's one thing for international travel operators, big businesses, event organisers, or those that that already employ door checkers and bouncers etc, to check vaccine passports etc, but this becomes a huge impost on small businesses and small community groups. The last thing small operations need/want to be doing is having arguments with customers about this.

The use of the "you must get vaccinated" argument because Covid patients are more likely to take up ICU beds thereby blocking access for say a vaccinated heart attack victim is also a slippery slope. While it makes sense on first glance, consider existing non-covid situations where the same argument could then be applied. What about if a 150kg patient with heart probs occupies the last ICU hospital bed do we turf that patient out when a 80kg heart attack patient shows up and then tell 150kg patient "You should have done something about your weight". Medical problems are rarely that simple. Maybe the 80kg patient had a very stressful job? "should changed jobs mate?", or lived near a toxic waste dump, "Should moved houses mate", etc. The 150kg bloke with a raft of medical issues at my diabetes classes had serious mental health issues. Interestingly his mate ,who was in some ways in worse shape diabetes wise, weighed about 50kg also had mental health issues. If conditions like this are not attended to nothing much else will work.

When COVID comes to WA I will do what I already do anyway. I intensely dislike crowds so rarely go to large events, and probably will just stop going to these altogether till the dust settles. I use online shopping, or go shopping at around 5 and 6am in the mornings. Might even move that hospital grade HEPA filter room air cleaner I have in the shed up to the house or maybe move into the shed?

Nicely argued, Lance. Quite a few issues that I think will take a long time to resolve. As ever, the devil is in the detail.

Originally Posted by LanceC

... We are seeing airlines and schools trying to mandate vaccines for staff, but this will need to be challenged in court as it goes against our privacy laws. Buy why is this being left to the business sector, whose motivations justifiably extend far beyond community health to define the path? ...

This seemingly simple scenario has quite a lot of implications.

Undoubtedly, it could be construed that compulsory vaccination infringes both personal freedom and privacy laws. But where does a business stand?

Under common law, bolstered in some areas by statute law, a business owes a duty of care to its employees, customers and the general public. But what precisely does that duty of care entail, the detail hiding the devil?

For example, suppose an unvaccinated employee contracts covid:

• Was the covid contracted in the course of his employment, or outside? Evidence and proof? Does it matter?
• Will the employer have to finance sick leave? Probably yes, but with credit limits?
• Or should it be Compo Leave? Different rules, insurance implications, cost implications?
• Was the employer negligent in allowing his employee to be exposed to the covid? Evidence and proof?
• Was the employee recklessly irresponsible in exposing himself? Evidence and proof? Does it matter?
• Can the employee sue the employer for pain, suffering, etc?
• If he dies, what can or will his estate do?
• And a host of other unanswered questions?

I certainly do not know the answers to them. Remember the devil and the detail.

But there are a host of ambulance chasing lawyers with cash register eyes lining up to play their role in creating and defining new law. I am wary of lawyers solving policy issues.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

For example, suppose an unvaccinated employee contracts covid:

• Was the covid contracted in the course of his employment, or outside? Evidence and proof? Does it matter?
• Will the employer have to finance sick leave? Probably yes, but with credit limits?
• Or should it be Compo Leave? Different rules, insurance implications, cost implications?
• Was the employer negligent in allowing his employee to be exposed to the covid? Evidence and proof?
• Was the employee recklessly irresponsible in exposing himself? Evidence and proof? Does it matter?
• Can the employee sue the employer for pain, suffering, etc?
• If he dies, what can or will his estate do?
• And a host of other unanswered questions?

I certainly do not know the answers to them. Remember the devil and the detail..

Up until 2019 somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand people across Australia died from the flu each year. - replace Covid with the "flu" in your questions and you may have some of the answers - or "non-answers" .

One way to think about all this is to invoke ways and means to keep total deaths of flu + Covid to 3-4000 per year, a figure we seem to have "tolerated" for some time.

So far there have been no more than about 100 deaths from flu in 2020-21. The total deaths from Covid over about 18 months are currently 1116 so we appear to be well in front.

Of course this doesn't take into account factors such as, a battered economy, mental health issues, long Covid, and fried health workers/systems, but it may be a start.

Instead of a all or nothing "freedom day" some sort of staged transition seems appropriate.

Originally Posted by doug3030

So, an aged care facility has a duty of care to their employees, customers and visitors but a Supermarket or other businesses don't?

speaking from a jurisdiction [Canada] where Covid-19 cases are approaching 1.6 million, with over 27,000 deaths, and where the number of cases in the 2nd wave peaked at over 10,000 per day back in January before there was any vaccine, employees in supermarkets, coffee shops and the like were protected from their customers by a combination of wearing a mask and 4'+ high plastic screens, and their customers all wore masks, the "duty of care" you refer to was quite adequately IMO covered. (I know, a bad pun)


Even now, with Alberta running at nearly 1600 new cases per day -- across a population around half that of NSW -- life is proceeding almost like normal.
Yes, indoors everyone is masked.
Yes, around 70% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated.
Yes, there are still capacity limits at many venues and weddings and funerals
Yes, many of the 4'+ high plastic screens are still in place in some workplaces - but not where I had my sit-down coffee today

Most importantly, we are not living our lives in fear.

Why did we stop smoking?

Why do we concern ourselves with fine dust?

Why bother with smog and air pollution?


Some of the comments here are troubling.

Originally Posted by BobL

Up until 2019 somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand people across Australia died from the flu each year. - replace Covid with the "flu" in your questions and you may have some of the answers - or "non-answers". ...

Bob, I essentially agree with what you are saying but I am not sure that it is relevant. Both of us come from very different but very pragmatic professional backgrounds, and neither of us think like lawyers ... The concept of an arguable case is a foreign world.

The "sting in the tail" was in my final paragraph:

... I certainly do not know the answers to them. Remember the devil and the detail.

But there are a host of ambulance chasing lawyers with cash register eyes lining up to play their role in creating and defining new law. I am wary of lawyers solving policy issues. ...

Originally Posted by BobL

... Of course this doesn't take into account factors such as, a battered economy ...

Innumerate journalists, particularly in the Murdoch press, are repeatedly hammering this point but it is fake news - the economy is not battered. Just quoting from the latest National Accounts release:

Key statistics

• The Australian economy rose 0.7% in seasonally adjusted chain volume measures
• GDP rose 1.4% in 2020-21
• The terms of trade rose 7.0%
• Household saving ratio decreased to 9.7% from 11.6%
  

(Source: Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, June 2021 | Australian Bureau of Statistics)

New Zealand GDP and employment was also up by around 1% in the last twelve months. UK and USA figures were down by roughly 4% for the same period. Dead people and sick people are a cost to the economy.

Originally Posted by LanceC

...
The Federal Government is essentially leaving the management of community health to the masses, with every shop, pub, concert and church choosing their own vaccination strategy and allowance. We are seeing airlines and schools trying to mandate vaccines for staff, but this will need to be challenged in court as it goes against our privacy laws. Buy why is this being left to the business sector, whose motivations justifiably extend far beyond community health to define the path?....

There is only one, simple reason: a Prime Minister who does everything to stay in power and that has no interest in Australia's- people at all. That's why Scott Morrison said in August: "We do not have a mandatory vaccination policy in this country. We are not proposing that. That is not changing"
but also "Ultimately, employers need to consider these matters and make their own decisions."

It is clear as day that a mandate to get vaccinated doesn't go down well with everyone. Instead of making the inconvenient decision himself and risking loosing valuable votes, he generously allows businesses to do that. If they cop backlash it's not his problem. I'm actually very surprised that so many employers fell right into that trap.

Somehow Australians seem to have completely lost the plot. This safety first approach (no matter the cost) stifles the country. You can't see your mum in an aged care home because of a missing flu shot? This is insane! Obviously an aged care home is a kind of prison. No one prevents one from entering a hospital unvaccinated though. How does that make sense?

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Innumerate journalists, particularly in the Murdoch press, are repeatedly hammering this point but it is fake news - the economy is not battered. Just quoting from the latest National Accounts release:

Key statistics

• The Australian economy rose 0.7% in seasonally adjusted chain volume measures
• GDP rose 1.4% in 2020-21
• The terms of trade rose 7.0%
• Household saving ratio decreased to 9.7% from 11.6%
  

.

Cant help think of how NA are just another form of smoke and mirrors to keep the pollies looking good.

Try telling the famers who cannot harvest their crops, people who work in the arts, , the 40,000 people who have lost university jobs, and the thousands of former workers of the tourism and hospitality industries.

Originally Posted by BobL

Cant help think of how NA are just another form of smoke and mirrors to keep the pollies looking good.

Try telling the famers who cannot harvest their crops, people who work in the arts, , the 40,000 people who have lost university jobs, and the thousands of former workers of the tourism and hospitality industries.

Never suggested that the pain and benefits were equally or equitably distributed, Bob.

The casualisation of the academic industry was well established long before covid which gave the VC's an opportunity to accelerate the process. Extremely short sighted, in my view.

The optomistic tone of Ian's last posting made me think about whether Australia's vaccination rates were really as dire as the media is reporting. Here are the latest figures from the Australian Immunisation Register:

COVID Australia 13-9-21.jpg
(Source: www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/covid-19-vaccination-doses-by-age-and-sex)

From the graph we can see:

• 70% of all over 70's are fully vaccinated and almost 20% more have received the first shot - on target for 90% coverage,
• 70% of the over 40's have received at least the first shot,
• the tapering in the younger cohorts reflects the phased roll out of vax's.

My analysis is that it could be better, but it is not dire.

Originally Posted by ian

So I don't really see your equivalence between a "Yellow Fever" passport (to enter countries where Yellow Fever is endemic) and a Covid "passport" that could apply to all people moving more than 10 km from their home.

My point/equivalence is they are both vaccine certificates and it appears that you may have to show your Covid passport if you wish to travel to another country. The main difference is that Covid is endemic to just about all countries while yellow fever is only endemic in some.
Where do all people have to show a Covid passport to move more than 10km from home? Certainly not in Australia. Maybe when moving from or into hotspots but isn't that the same as a yellow fever passport when moving to or from countries with yellow fever??
You have to show your children are vaccinated against the usual number of diseases to be able to enrol in childcare so I can’t see you having to show you are Covid vaccinated to enter certain places as any different.

I'm puzzled why vaccine uptake is such an issue other than as a race to reduce drastic negative outcomes from the virus for the maximum number of people. If, as we are told, the vaccines will not prevent someone who has been vaccinated from either contracting or spreading the disease but will only mitigate the outcome then, even if a population achieves 100% vaccination, the virus will continue to circulate. So, those who refuse a vaccination are simply putting themselves at risk of a more serious outcome and no-one else.
Presumably those who choose not to have the jab have evaluated this risk to themselves and are prepared to accept it. I avoid what I consider high-risk activities such as para-gliding, sky-diving and rock climbing (although I have been known to disagree with SWMBO - a perilous undertaking) but I am happy to go into my shed each day and use sharp or rapidly rotating tools. It's a risk I have evaluated and accept while taking precautions to try and avoid a bad outcome.
So, I believe a time is fast approaching when we will have vaccinated all those who want it and it will be time to open up. If different countries decide on mandating vaccination "passports" for overseas travelers, then those who choose not to have the jab and wish to travel will have a choice to make.
Pete