<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/23/covid-is-not-going-to-go-away-australia-will-require-public-health-measures-for-foreseeable-future-say-experts>
"In May 2021, Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, described how
Covid vaccines were our “ticket out of the pandemic”. Vaccination, he said,
would give Australians “a life with more certainty”.
More than one year later, Australia’s Covid-19 vaccination rate is among the
highest in the world.
Yet daily deaths from the virus remain in the double-digits. Hospitals are
overwhelmed, aged care homes and the most vulnerable are struggling with
outbreaks, and there is again debate about whether more social restrictions,
including mask mandates, are needed to curb virus spread.
Infectious diseases expert and director of the Doherty Institute, Prof Sharon
Lewin, said: “Last year, I definitely did not think we would be in this
position.”
“I definitely thought that with very high vaccination rates and what we knew
about Covid vaccination and protection against disease from other variants, it
would put us in very good stead.
“But I think what we’ve learned, especially over the last four-to-six weeks
here in Australia, is the virus really does have a lot of new tricks that were
unanticipated.”
Its latest trick is Omicron, a variant that has produced the subvariants BA.4
and BA.5, which are now dominating new infections in most parts of the world."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
