Thread: breaking covid rules

All good questions, WP. Probably the best sources of information are the NSW and Victorian Health covid websites - simply because they have had the most cases recently. Advantage of large numbers, timeliness, current state of knowledge, etc.

I did some quick calculations about 3 weeks ago; from memory, the stats then were:

• Just over 3% of hospitalisations were double vaccinated,
• About 2% in intensive care were double vaccinated, and
• Less than 1% on ventilators were double vaccinated.

In virtually all cases of double vaccinated hospitalisations involve people aged over 60 with pre-existing major medical issues, frequently multiple issues - diabetes, cancers, lung, heart, kidneys, etc. They could just cope with pre-existing ailments, but covid was a straw too much.

It will be really interesting to see how you run the numbers, independently cross-checking me.

EDIT: I couldn't get any numbers but allegedly a small percentage of hospitalisations involve cases with moderate rather than severe infections. They are hospitalised because:

• No care available at home (eg live alone), or
• Only way to quarantine siblings, rest of family, etc.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

This is a really serious issue challenging employers, large and small, at the moment. Two similar but different issues; consider:

• employer allows unvaccinated employees to work alongside fully vaccinated people,
• employer allows unvaccinated customers normal accccess to premises.

Employee develops covid, which turns to long covid, which becomes life changing, claims she was infected by an unvaccinated fellow worker. Can the employee sue the boss for negligence for unecessarily exposing them to covid? [It could involve long term support, plus massive legal fees]

I do not know the answer to this question. But I do know that there is an army of lawyers looking for the opportunity to find out.

Greame,
please remember that Covid is not an irradicable disease like Smallpox. Smallpox is the only disease I know of where the legality of universal compulsory vaccination has been legally tested and upheld.

I'm not sure what the Australian public believe or have been told -- public statements by politicians and public health professionals fall under the heading of "how do I speak the minimum of truth while still scaring the bejesus out of everyone so that they will voluntarily go and get the jab".

A double or even triple Covid jab does not prevent a person catching the disease.
The jabs do not prevent an asymptomatic vaccinated person passing the condition onto another vaccinated person. The jabs only reduce the probability of the second person becoming seriously ill -- developing long Covid if you will. Unlike the smallpox jab, Covid jabs are at best only about 95% effective.

So in addition to your two scenarios
employer allows unvaccinated employees to work alongside fully vaccinated people,
employer allows unvaccinated customers normal access to premises.

There are additional issues

• although an employer requires all employees to be vaccinated, an asymptomatic vaccinated employee passes the disease onto a fellow vaccinated employee, who goes on to develop long Covid -- who is liable?
  Does the employer have a responsibility to pay the employee till they are fully recovered from long Covid.
• although an employer requires all employees to be vaccinated, a vaccinated employee with "mild cold like" symptoms attends the workplace and passes the disease onto another vaccinated person -- worker, visitor or customer -- who goes on to develop long Covid. What is the employer's responsibility? Is the employer responsible (i.e. pays the cost of administering a rapid Covid test) for every worker, visitor or customer entering the workplace?

as you suggest the lawyers will make a killing.




BTW
for the record, I'm fully vaccinated against Covid.

Originally Posted by LanceC

I think we need to be a little kinder and aim for understanding of the anti-vax community. Because I don't have the data on anti-vaxers specifically, I'll go a little broader and consider those with vaccine hesitancy. I'm not advocating agreement, but a respectful attempt at understanding. Much like vegetarians, electric car owners, hermits and those with a religious faith, it would be both inaccurate and unfair to assume they all have the same motivation for the decisions they make. When we make no attempt to understand their position, there is every chance that our repeated dogma is meaningless to them, so we just shout louder and call them names. I'll come back to this later.

Firstly, vaccine hesitancy as of today is sitting at 12% (Vaccine Hesitancy Report Card (2021), Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research.). So to start off, that's a small proportion of the population.

actually 12% is close enough to 1 in 8 -- not at all a small proportion of the population.
To my mind 1% (1 in 100) is the starting point for "small proportion".
Note that as a society flood risk is typically assessed at the 1% (1in 100) level. Extreme flood events are assessed at 0.01% (1 in 10,000) or even less. Overtopping of dams and potentially mass (>1000 people) drownings are typically assessed at the 15,000 (0.007%) level.

Originally Posted by LanceC

Let's consider the state of functional literacy in Australia and its potential impact on vaccine hesitancy. In a paper published in January this year, (an eye-opening read) the author presents the following:
- Approximately 40% of Australians aged between 16 and 65 have literacy skills below the standard required for broad participation in work, education and training, and society.
- 22 Australian Government websites (Federal and WA state) which Google returned for searches of "coronavirus" and "COVID-19" were analysed.
- All analysed websites required a university reading level to understand.

Let that sink in.

What percentage of our population were actually able to understand official Government communication. This is a complex topic, and it's hard to convey nuanced information simply. So if those who struggle to read are left behind by authoritative sources, where are they left to find their information. No doubt they will continue to sift through results until they find something they understand. But now they're not getting information from trusted sources any more. The online search and content algorithms noted that they went down an anti-vaccination rabbit hole for twenty minutes, and now selects similar results for them in subsequent searches. Newspapers and their nightly TV news and current affairs shows are happy to splash inflammatory headlines which by their very nature are attention grabbing and easy to understand. Couple this with the illusionary Truth effect, and what do we expect the outcome to be? The fact that we only have 12% hesitancy is, I think, remarkable.

Now back to my first paragraph where we're shouting loudly and calling people names. Every person I know personally who hesitated before getting a vaccination was worried about the health of their kids and/or themselves. They aren't raving nutters or conspiracy theorists, just normal people who felt conflicted by the information they were exposed to. Compassion, understanding and reasoned, patient dialogue are the things that brought them around. When we start yelling at them and calling them names, I imagine it would be far easier and emotionally safer for them to disengage from public discourse, rather than risk a conversation with someone who may be able to broaden their understanding.

The next time you find yourself talking to someone with vaccine hesitancy, switch yourself to input mode only. Don't express your views, just listen, ask questions, and try to understand theirs.

well put

Originally Posted by BobL

Originally Posted by Bohdan

As the restrictions get lifted more people will get Covid and need to be hospitalised. In the majority they will be the unvaxed.

It doesn't matter as to why they did not get vaccinated they just need to understand that if they get sick and start to die they should not expect to move up the hospital admittance list ahead of other equally sick people who did the right thing and got vaxed.

There are lots of other reasons to finish up in hospital but just because you couldn't be bothered to get a shot should not be one of them.

If they have a genuine medical reason to not be vaxed then they should be exempt.

As soon as the gov start to enforce this the problem will go away, just like when Covid started to spread, vaxing took off.

Sorry if this attitude upsets a few but I get really p's'd off by the few b's that think only of themselves and ignore the risk and stress that they expose people like me who are in a medically vulnerable position.

That's a VERY slippery slope to start on.

snip

It's too bloody hard to untangle most of these things as we never can know the full backstory in sufficient detail and it will take a room full of medicos and lawyers to reach any sort of half sensible decision. When the time comes doctors may need to make hard choices but my understanding is they choose based on likelihood of recovery and not the patients medical background.

well put BobL.

It's a very slippery slope.

IMO the "right way" to deal with Covid is to increase the quantum of resources available to the Health care system. Covid is here to stay long term and we need to adjust to the new situation.
Of course this will require that everyone one of us pay more in tax -- note that the Medicare levy funds less than a sixth (perhaps as low as 5% when state expenditures are included) of Australia's total health care costs.


For those that remember the late 1980s, the initial response to Aids of "only gays catch the disease, let bastards die" was rapidly replaced by a realization that anyone (women married to gay people, blood transfusion recipients, etc) could catch Aids so those with Aids should have access to medical treatment regardless of other factors.


Personally, while I fully support the "you are not welcome in my herd" response, I also recognise that that response is not reasonable, especially when even fully vaccinated people are in ICU

Whilst I agree with the sentiments of Bohdan it is a difficult and complex path to navigate as BobL noted. You could also apply the same rules or attitude to the outcome of people’s poor lifestyle choices resulting from obesity, alcohol or smoking or their dangerous sport or pastime activities that result in requiring higher than usual medical attention, even riding a motorbike V a car could come into this category.

Antivaxxers do frustrate the hell out of me in that that largely their well-being is as a result of everyone else doing the right thing for them

I may have said this in an earlier post. One current medical concern is the possibility of new variants emerging from those who are (for whatever reason) not vaccinated and which variants might nullify or reduce the efficacy of the vaccines to protect those who are. As I understand it, variants are less likely to develop in a host with a vaccine.
Unless and until we reach a stage (as with influenza) where annual jabs are formulated based on the variant of the disease currently circulating, we need to restrict the possibility of these variants emerging.
This can only be done by achieving maximum vaccination rates.
Pete

Originally Posted by woodhutt

As I understand it, variants are less likely to develop in a host with a vaccine.

I can't find any reference to this, nor can I see why it might be the case other than simply as a numbers game. Virus mutations, like any other form of evolution, are a random process - a mistake, if you will. The chances of such an error occurring are not impacted by a vaccine per se (AFAIK). However from the "numbers game" viewpoint, the lower the number of viruses in a body, and the shorter the time they are there, then the smaller the number of mutations that will occur. Additionally, the shorter the time during which the patient is contagious, the lower the risk of those mutations being transferred to another body. And, of course, overall the fewer people with the disease the fewer opportunities for mutation.

So like every other aspect of covid (and most other contagious diseases) the key is simply to reduce the numbers......

Originally Posted by LanceC

The next time you find yourself talking to someone with vaccine hesitancy, switch yourself to input mode only. Don't express your views, just listen, ask questions, and try to understand theirs.

I did this, and I rather wish I hadn't. It didn't make me feel much sympathy.....

Apparently, in the mind of the person I "listened to", I am a sheep. And asleep. Actually it wasn't really clear if I'm a sleeping sheep, or if I'm a sheep when awake and a human when asleep. But anyway.. The guy I listened to is awake, and/or a lion - again it was somewhat confusing and might have been related to whether I was asleep or a sheep (or even a sleeping sheep) at any given point. But he very strongly believes that doing what a government says makes me a sheep, whilst deliberately flouting rules and regulations makes him a lion with a caffeine buzz. Additionally, so he says, he is not required to wake me up, which I'm quite grateful for because I suspect that I get up way earlier than him! He then suggested I Google "New World Order" if I wanted to "see the truth". [My ancient brain at this point wondered what a band formed from the ashes of Joy Division when I was a teenager had to do with covid, but I kept shtoom and later remembered they were called "New Order". Lucky I didn't say anything!]

There did not seem to be much information about why he wouldn't have a covid vaccine, other than the lion thing. I refrained from asking whether the vaccine was approved for use in ANY farm or zoo animals, because I was "listening". I also decided to accept, without question, that his lack of shoes was simply the result of being a lion......

Subsequent to this I considered the whole lion/sheep thing, and it's quite interesting from a societal viewpoint. Lions sit around all day, do very little, abandon their own family members if they become old or sick, drive out their own children if they become a threat, or their parents if they are able, and when sufficiently driven by hunger they prey on the weak of other species. What aspirations my shoeless acquaintance has!! And to think I was starting to doubt the future of our society.......

Warb

An amusing tale, which highlights that the reasons for not becoming vaccinated are many and varied. Unfortunately your barefooted lion is at the more irrational and deluded end of the spectrum. I expect we have all seen the slogans that decry the fact that such people are eligible to vote as well. Ahem! There I go...exhibiting my prejudice.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by LanceC

... Let's consider the state of functional literacy in Australia and its potential impact on vaccine hesitancy. In a paper published in January this year, (an eye-opening read) the author presents the following:
- Approximately 40% of Australians aged between 16 and 65 have literacy skills below the standard required for broad participation in work, education and training, and society.
- 22 Australian Government websites (Federal and WA state) which Google returned for searches of "coronavirus" and "COVID-19" were analysed.
- All analysed websites required a university reading level to understand. ...

What evidence is there that a significant proportion of anti-vaxxers are illiterate? A quick scan of anti-social media suggests that many are very verbose.

What evidence is there that a significant proportion of illiterate people are anti-vaxxers?

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

What evidence is there that a significant proportion of anti-vaxxers are illiterate? A quick scan of anti-social media suggests that many are very verbose.

What evidence is there that a significant proportion of illiterate people are anti-vaxxers?

Graeme

I can't answer for the illiteracy issue, but in a similar vein the foreign language Covid sites belonging to the health dept of our government, at one point at least, were not updated and this must have been at least partly responsible for a poor understanding and consequent uptake among some of the ethnic communities. I believe this was quite a problem in the Western suburbs of Sydney. Hopefully it has been addressed now, but I have no more information one way or another.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Graeme

I can't answer for the illiteracy issue, ...

No argument with foreign language households, Paul, but just wondering how Lance is going to justify his viewpoint. My estimate is that he was just guessing. And repeating myth being propogated by the "education mafia" that 40 to 45% of the population is "functionally illiterate".

The OECD, with significant input from the ABS, did a major study in 2012 comparing literacy rates in developed countries. They found that Australia had the fifth highest levels of literacy in the world, virtually line ball with fourth placed Sweden. Top were Japan, Finalnd and the Netherlands. Australia was ahead of the UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, France, Norway, Denmark and Korea. OECD and ABS are both very credible organisations.

OECD -Literacy by Country.jpg

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I can't answer for the illiteracy issue, but in a similar vein the foreign language Covid sites belonging to the health dept of our government, at one point at least, were not updated and this must have been at least partly responsible for a poor understanding and consequent uptake among some of the ethnic communities. I believe this was quite a problem in the Western suburbs of Sydney. Hopefully it has been addressed now, but I have no more information one way or another.

It's sometimes hard to distinguish reality from convenient excuse, and it also requires us to believe that every individual in a particular group (whatever that grouping be based on) will individually look up the data and either understand it or not. I very much doubt that this is actually the case, it seems far more likely that word of mouth, gossip and rumour are still the main distributors of "information", and that such "information" is more likely to represent the view of the spreader than be an accurate representation of the truth.

For example, in my (rural) area we've had various rule changes over the years regarding everything from burning stubble and controlling feral animals through to building permits and refuse disposal. The "information" that the majority of people base their actions on is the version that best suits their needs. They've never heard of the changes, unless of course those changes are beneficial to them! So a change that was well advertised - in the local papers, social media, council website and even a flyer sent out with rates bills - is entirely unknown to them, because that information was "so hard to find". However when it was quietly announced that there were to be drought relief payments made but that you had to register your claim in person THE FOLLOWING DAY (due to an administration error, the embarrassment of which explains why the announcement was indeed very "quiet"), the queue went up the street and around the corner.......

Originally Posted by LanceC

Let's consider the state of functional literacy in Australia and its potential impact on vaccine hesitancy. In a paper published in January this year, (an eye-opening read) the author presents the following:
- Approximately 40% of Australians aged between 16 and 65 have literacy skills below the standard required for broad participation in work, education and training, and society.
- 22 Australian Government websites (Federal and WA state) which Google returned for searches of "coronavirus" and "COVID-19" were analysed.
- All analysed websites required a university reading level to understand.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

No argument with foreign language households, Paul, but just wondering how Lance is going to justify his viewpoint. My estimate is that he was just guessing. And repeating myth being propogated by the "education mafia" that 40 to 45% of the population is "functionally illiterate".

The OECD, with significant input from the ABS, did a major study in 2012 comparing literacy rates in developed countries. They found that Australia had the fifth highest levels of literacy in the world, virtually line ball with fourth placed Sweden. Top were Japan, Finalnd and the Netherlands. Australia was ahead of the UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, France, Norway, Denmark and Korea. OECD and ABS are both very credible organisations.

OECD -Literacy by Country.jpg

Graeme,
I think you have just found the ABS statistics that proves Lance's point -- 42% of Australian's over 16 are functionally illiterate. Look at the right hand scale, the "missing" space is 42%.


There is a reason that the data you have presented uses Level 3 literacy as its zero point.
Quoting from the Statistics Canada web resource Table 1.1 Literacy — Description of proficiency levels
Description of Literacy proficiency level 3 requires an
Understanding text and rhetorical structures become more central to successfully completing tasks, especially navigating of complex digital texts. Tasks require the respondent to identify, interpret, or evaluate one or more pieces of information, and often require varying levels of inference. Many tasks require the respondent to construct meaning across larger chunks of text or perform multi-step operations in order to identify and formulate responses. Often tasks also demand that the respondent disregard irrelevant or inappropriate content to answer accurately. Competing information is often present, but it is not more prominent than the correct information.
my emphasis


So a person with Level 2 literacy proficiency is not able to readily identify what is irrelevant or inappropriate content in what they are reading.
To my mind that meets the definition of "functional illiteracy"
A person with a Literacy proficiency of Level 3 can identify and disregard "irrelevant" or "inappropriate" content, a person with Level 2 proficiency will struggle or fail at that task.


Perhaps that is the reason that papers like the "Terrograph" are written for a person with a reading age equivalent to about Year 5, while the Financial Review is written for an average high school graduate.