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  1. #421
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    Quote Originally Posted by LanceC
    ... 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. ...
    The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research is a highly respected and long established Institute within the Faculty of Economics at Melbourne University. Their latest assessment of the vaccine hesitancy rate is:
    " ... * Vaccine hesitancy across Australia has been steadily falling from a peak of 33% in May and is now at its lowest of 11.8% on the 21st of October. ... "
    https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/publications/research-insights/ttpn/vaccination-report

    But if you look at the actual vaccination rates Australia-wide then you get a different picture.

    Vax - First Dose Rates.jpg www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-update-4-november-2021

    One would assume that most people who have the first dose will go on and have the second shot. Also note that the Health Dept's Vax figures are 2 weeks more recent than the Melbourne Institutes sentiment figures.

    An interesting dicotomy.

    But it strongly suggests that the vaccine hesitancy rate is now significantly below 12% and probably below 5%.

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  3. #422
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ian
    ... 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. ...
    No, I think that we will agree to disagree on this, Ian. The academic side of me says yes, but the pagmatic side says that there is another answer.

    And I think that the OECD was on the pragmatic side when they concluded in the executive summary of the above report:

    " ... * Adults (aged 16-65) in Australiashow above-average proficiency in literacy ...
    * Australia shows a good match between theliteracy proficiency of workers and the demands of
    their jobs. ..."


    The Table that I copied centred the data between levels 2 and 3; it did not say that level 2 were functionally illiterate - merely lower levels of literacy.

    The OECD uses those five levels of literacy in many studies, and has also defined them in more accessible language:

    OECD - Definitions - Literacy.jpgOECD: Literacy in the Information Age, 2000.

    You will note that it says that "... Level 3 ... denotes roughly the skill level required for successful secondary school completion and college entry ... ". I do not accept that people who cannot get into university are functionally illiterate.

    With reference to Level 2 it includes " ... people who can read, but test poorly. They may have developed coping skills to manage everyday literacy demands ... ".

    My interpretation of this is that they are functionally literate to the level of functionality that they require. Not the level that you and I operate on, but at a level that satisfices their needs. Naturally, a higher level of education is almost always better.

    It really boils down to where you put the bar in defining functionally literacy.

  4. #423
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    Quote Originally Posted by Warb View Post
    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!]

    ..
    Joy Division...'love will tear us apart'...what a time to be alive back then
    New Order's 'Blue Monday' was a fav too
    Back in the day when i had hair
    And a straight healthy back
    Aaaahhh the memories
    Log Dog

  5. #424
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  6. #425
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    To quote Vyvyan Basterd, "it was bound to happen, sooner or later"......

  7. #426
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    I read the following quote by Alan Kohler writing for "The New Daily"

    " And if the nation is 90 per cent vaccinated, does it matter anyway – can we just let the unvaccinated off?
    That’s certainly what some of the experts are saying: Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett told the Financial Review that the remaining differences for unvaccinated people in Australia will fall away over the next few months.
    “That’s going to fill the immunity gap, just because unvaccinated people are much more likely to get infected and the virus is out there.”
    Which seems a bit heartless, but there it is: If you’re not vaccinated, you’ll probably gain immunity by getting COVID … if you live."

    Interesting? The thrust of the comment is that you will become immunized, whether you like it or not, by the "natural" process, but the success of this is heavily dependent on you surviving the natural vaccination.

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  8. #427
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bushmiller View Post
    I read the following quote by Alan Kohler writing for "The New Daily"

    " And if the nation is 90 per cent vaccinated, does it matter anyway – can we just let the unvaccinated off?
    That’s certainly what some of the experts are saying: Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett told the Financial Review that the remaining differences for unvaccinated people in Australia will fall away over the next few months.
    “That’s going to fill the immunity gap, just because unvaccinated people are much more likely to get infected and the virus is out there.”
    Which seems a bit heartless, but there it is: If you’re not vaccinated, you’ll probably gain immunity by getting COVID … if you live."

    Interesting? The thrust of the comment is that you will become immunized, whether you like it or not, by the "natural" process, but the success of this is heavily dependent on you surviving the natural vaccination.
    Dying might even be preferable to "Long Covid"?

  9. #428
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bushmiller View Post
    I read the following quote by Alan Kohler writing for "The New Daily"

    " And if the nation is 90 per cent vaccinated, does it matter anyway – can we just let the unvaccinated off?
    That’s certainly what some of the experts are saying: Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett told the Financial Review that the remaining differences for unvaccinated people in Australia will fall away over the next few months.
    “That’s going to fill the immunity gap, just because unvaccinated people are much more likely to get infected and the virus is out there.”
    Which seems a bit heartless, but there it is: If you’re not vaccinated, you’ll probably gain immunity by getting COVID … if you live."

    Interesting? The thrust of the comment is that you will become immunized, whether you like it or not, by the "natural" process, but the success of this is heavily dependent on you surviving the natural vaccination.
    another twist on the Covid topic
    even fully vaccinated Canadians are dying from Covid Sen. Josee Forest-Niesing, 56, dies following struggle with COVID-19 | CBC News.
    as a community, do we chalk this woman's death up to
    1. Bad luck ?
    2. complications from her auto immune disease ?
    3. a reasonable expectation given that no Covid vaccine is more than about 94% effective?


    Note that as far as I know, the only vaccine that was 100% effective was that against smallpox. Smallpox is now fully eradicated and all remaining samples of the virus have all been destroyed.


    Although I voluntarily got myself double vaccinated, and don't want the unvaccinated to be members of my herd, I have sympathy with those who chose to remain unvaccinated. Much as I hate to say it, they have an equal right to participate within our society.
    The alternative is to authorise the police to either herd the unvaccinated into camps or to shoot all those who refuse to be vaccinated -- and as a country we fought WW2 on the basis that that approach to individual human rights was completely and utterly wrong.
    regards from Alberta, Canada

    ian

  10. #429
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    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    another twist on the Covid topic
    even fully vaccinated Canadians are dying from Covid Sen. Josee Forest-Niesing, 56, dies following struggle with COVID-19 | CBC News.
    as a community, do we chalk this woman's death up to
    1. Bad luck ?
    2. complications from her auto immune disease ?
    3. a reasonable expectation given that no Covid vaccine is more than about 94% effective?
    I'd say a combo of all 3.
    PLUS
    Every vaccine's dwindling resistance in time to the infection/hospitalization and death. Apparently this is not the same for everyone - some people like immunocompromised should probably get their boosters earlier than 6 months while others may be able to go a bit longer.

    Even if the earth's 7+ billion people were fully recently vaccinated so 94% efficacy (with many vaccines its less than this), 6% of those is still 420+ million people or only about half of all reported infections so far. Even if more variants don't emerge, this thing has still got a long way to run so I don't know why people are saying we're finally getting back to normal. Just look at what's happening n Europe.

  11. #430
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    Quote Originally Posted by GraemeCook View Post
    The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research is a highly respected and long established Institute within the Faculty of Economics at Melbourne University. Their latest assessment of the vaccine hesitancy rate is:
    " ... * Vaccine hesitancy across Australia has been steadily falling from a peak of 33% in May and is now at its lowest of 11.8% on the 21st of October. ... "
    One would assume that most people who have the first dose will go on and have the second shot. Also note that the Health Dept's Vax figures are 2 weeks more recent than the Melbourne Institutes sentiment figures.
    An interesting dicotomy.
    But it strongly suggests that the vaccine hesitancy rate is now significantly below 12% and probably below 5%.
    Vaccine hesitancy can't really be judged by vaccination rates.

    Hesitancy is not a black and white thing, some people are slightly hesitant , all the way through to others who might be strongly hesitant, and others who flip flop in between. It also does not mean "refuses to get get vaccinated", but "hesitates or waits for an unspecified period" for a whole bunch of reasons". And just because people have one dose doesn't necessarily means they will have a second, let alone a third dose. The significant thing about hesitancy is that is almost certainly "breeds" hesitancy, so even if "hesitants" eventually get vaxed they spawn more hestitants and this creates headaches for medical authorities trying to manage pandemic timelines.

    Hesitancy can be thought of as passive or active or a combo of both or in-between.
    Someone who doesn't get vaxed because they are too lazy are more likely in the passive camp.
    When push comes to shove eg limitations in what that sporting event they can attend, or their job's on the line, then they often the get the jab.

    Recently we heard of a nurse who has from day dot been actively telling people NOT to get vaccinated. However, she waited until the last possible moment to get vaccinated so's to keep her job, but still also goes around telling people not to get vaxed.
    So even though she's vaxed I'd call her an active hesitant.

    There is a small benefit in people delaying getting vaxed for a short time and that is it spreads the vaccination load so the vaccinators can cope. If 25 million people were to turn up at the same time the system would not cope and would create more hesitancy especially for subsequent doses.

  12. #431
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    ... Although I voluntarily got myself double vaccinated, and don't want the unvaccinated to be members of my herd, I have sympathy with those who chose to remain unvaccinated. Much as I hate to say it, they have an equal right to participate within our society. ...

    I absolutely and totally disagree with that statement, Ian, in the strongest possible terms.

    My wife has been battling serious non-curable illnesses for over ten years and her auto-immune system is seriously compromised. Her haemo-oncologist recommended that she be vaccinated as soon as possible with the following conditions:
    • vaccination be at least 14 days before or after other scheduled treatments, and
    • vaccination be administered in a hospital in case there was severe reaction (low possibility).

    She has had to cancel a couple of appointments because of other treatments, but has turned up three times for her first vaccination:
    1. Clinic had run out of vaccine,
    2. Nurse took medical history, said "too risky" for me, and declined to administer vaccination,
    3. Repeat of previous appointment, except several doctors called in when my wife protested - all agreed "too risky".

    My wife remains in an extremely high risk category but is still not vaccinated.

    All we can do is minimise the risk of her being exposed to the virus. It is unlikely she would survive. Your "friends" do not have any "right" to associate with my wife, or with me, as I would then be a conduit to my wife.

    I have a right to chose not to associate with arrogant and irresponsible recalcitrants.

    They do not have any "right" to kill my darling.

  13. #432
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    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    another twist on the Covid topic
    even fully vaccinated Canadians are dying from Covid Sen. Josee Forest-Niesing, 56, dies following struggle with COVID-19 | CBC News.
    as a community, do we chalk this woman's death up to
    1. Bad luck ?
    2. complications from her auto immune disease ?
    3. a reasonable expectation given that no Covid vaccine is more than about 94% effective?
    Once again playing Devils Apricot.......


    2

    I have said before that our society has fooled itself into thinking that people live forever and that any death is somehow both awful and avoidable. Of course it is sad when people die, but the reality is that death is inevitable. We have medicines and treatments that prolong the life of people who would otherwise already have died, and that's great. But death is still inevitable. The whole process of evolution - which is how the human race ended up at the top of the food chain - is based on the "more suitable candidates" being the ones that survive, prosper and breed. Others fall by the wayside (AKA die). Now in modern times we have attempted to avoid this reality, and to a large extent have been quite successful. The problem is that we have also fooled ourselves into thinking that this is right/proper/natural and that we will inevitably overcome anything that tries to challenge us. Worse still, we have adopted the belief that this massive life expectancy is somehow a "right". Unfortunately nobody has told mother nature that this is the case, so diseases still have a worse impact on those who are inherently unwell, or old, or malnourished, or who for any other reason are less able to fight infections and heal themselves. This is why influenza is a minor annoyance for most young and healthy people, but (was) a major killer of older folk. Most diseases are similar. Covid completely follows this pattern, whilst we read that "a 33 year old" has died of covid, if you look at the details you'll almost certainly find it was a "33 year old" who without medical intervention and bucket loads of pharmaceuticals, would already have succumbed to something else. I was following the covid situation quite carefully and every case where the headline said "young person dies" the reality was that the young person had serious underlying health issues.

    In the case of Josée Forest-Niesing, you'll note that her pre-existing condition was said to be an "autoimmune disease affecting her lungs". What does covid target? According to US National Institutes of Health "the virus that causes COVID-19, spreads in the lungs, manipulates the immune system, causes widespread thrombosis that does not resolve, and targets signaling pathways that promote lung failure, fibrosis and impair tissue repair". Sounds like a match!


    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    Although I voluntarily got myself double vaccinated, and don't want the unvaccinated to be members of my herd, I have sympathy with those who chose to remain unvaccinated. Much as I hate to say it, they have an equal right to participate within our society.
    This is the big question, isn't it? In the past all societies have protected themselves by removing the infectious individuals that threatened society as a whole. Whether we are talking about leper colonies, or "hospitals" (typhoid Mary was quarantined in hospital twice, the second time for 23 years until her death at the age of 69), people who are a risk to society have always been removed to protect the majority. You can view prison as the same thing - those who would have a negative impact on society as a whole have been removed. We justify prison as "punishment" and "re-education", but it can also be viewed as a way to protect the rest of us from people who would harm us.....

    I guess the question comes down to where we draw the line? In your example of WWII, the human rights issues were things that did not actually threaten other members of society (at least from a modern viewpoint). Skin colour, sexual orientation, religion, gender, these are things that do not impact other people and an individual should indeed have a right to do or be whatever they choose - if it doesn't affect anyone else.

    But what about things that DO affect other people? We have laws that define limits on behaviour, and they mostly come down to behaviours that impact other people. Whether that be speeding, drunk driving, theft or murder, the basic underlying concept is that it is wrong to do things that negatively impact others. You'll notice here that the basic right to religious freedom, for which we fought WWII, is overruled when that religion does things that "we" as a society, don't like. The Taliban have the right to hold whatever religious views they please, as long as those views follow our own principles of right and wrong.

    Equally, from a health viewpoint, if someone's state of mental health makes then a danger to themselves or others, they can be committed to a hospital for treatment, and such treatment can be administered on an involuntary basis. Now of course we are very good at justifying this as being in the best interests of the patient, but it is also removing them from a position where they can negatively impact others and then using pharmaceuticals to modify their behaviour to be more in line with what society believes is correct. They have rights of course, the right to confidentiality, the right to privacy and various other "human rights", but they don't have the right to refuse treatment or to leave hospital until they are no longer classed as a threat to themselves OR OTHERS.

    We are very good at declaring things to be a "rights issue", but when does one persons right outweigh someone else's? It has been declared that the right to drink and drive is less important than the right to not be hit by a car, because the actions of an individual are outweighed by the impact of those actions on others. It has been declared that the right to not have working brakes on a car (in this case the "inaction" of failing to maintain your car) is outweighed by the rights of others not to be hit by a car, because the inaction of an individual is outweighed by the impact of that inaction on other people. So why does the right to not be vaccinated outweigh the rights of others to not be exposed to a dangerous virus?

    Just asking..!

  14. #433
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    Warb, perfectly stated.

    I'm saving this.

  15. #434
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    Default Clivemania

    Clive whipping up a storm:

    Factcheck: Clive Palmer uses 12-minute radio interview to make false Covid claims (msn.com)

    A disgraceful outburst. Some people will believe: Some just want to believe.

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  16. #435
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    The latest mutation "of interest" is omicron. This variant has been promoted to being a "variant of interest" much more quickly than previous strains. This is largely because not only does it carry a large number of the more "interesting" mutations, but also it seems to have taken off in Africa in a big way. The spread has been described as a "vertical spike" in the number of new covid cases reported in South Africa.

    A number of people have flown in to Australia from Africa and tested positive over the last few days, and these positive cases are undergoing genomic sequencing to establish whether the virus in question is omicron or some other variant. Unfortunately, as always, the comments made by the Health Minister (or possibly the version reported by the media!) are less than totally accurate. There is a degree of spin in use to state that none of the cases are confirmed as omicron, when the truth is that none have been confirmed as omicron because the testing results aren't yet available. Equally, to state "the advice is that omicron is no more of a risk than other variants" is not quite the same as admitting that as yet we really don't know because the testing and analysis haven't been finished, but the data has been described as "troubling but incomplete".

    So two weeks before NSW opens up and does away with the requirement for check-ins, masks and so forth, we are now banning non-residents flying in from from 9 countries and requiring 14 days quarantine for residents returning from them. The virus has also been detected in the UK and Belgium, and I have seen reports that it is suspected of being in the US. So quite possibly everywhere!

    It's approaching Christmas, and my mother's favourite Christmas drink was a "snowball", so today I'll be playing Devil's Advocaat........

    How long do we keep opening up and shutting down in the face of a virus that is constantly evolving? When, if at all, do we decide that we just have to live (or die) with it?

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