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Read a super interesting article about Australia tonight. https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/24/australia/australia-lockdown-covid-lucky-country-intl-cmd/index.html  
 
 Highlights: "the latest series of lockdowns are testing Australians' patience, with protests against the new restrictions on Saturday drawing thousands across the nation's major cities.  
 
And frustration is growing over the country's woeful vaccine rollout. The government initially planned to fully vaccinate all adults by the end of October. On Thursday, an increasingly under pressure Morrison said he was "sorry" Australia hadn't been able to meet its targets.  
generational divide is now emerging in Australia, with lockdowns and closed borders disproportionately affecting younger people, according to Soutphommasane.  
 
Many young lives had been put "on hold," he said. Young people had been denied the "opportunities and freedoms previous generations have enjoyed, if not taken for granted."  
 
The government's lack of urgency in procuring vaccines - Morrison said Australia could enjoy a "front row seat" to watch immunization rollouts in other countries - has meant the country has so far had a limited supply to draw on.  
 
Scholes initially supported Australia's coronavirus elimination strategy. But she now casts doubt over whether such a policy is achievable anywhere in the world - particularly in Europe, she said, where "it's not as possible to just lock the borders and keep people out."  
 
Speaking to fellow Australians locked both in and out of the country, the question that comes up time and time again is: How long can this go on for?"

Restrictions and precautions can go on for as long as is necessary to protect public health, prevent virus spread and give time to procure and administer vaccines. Those people can suck it up, stop acting like spoiled brats and accept that the restrictions are in place for their own safety and that of others and are designed to save lives and prevent further prolonged damage to the economy.  
 
Edited by Farmergeorge, 2021-07-25 00:28:11

Read another article on Australia today:  
 
But its zero-Covid strategy is being challenged by the Delta variant, which is estimated to be as transmissible as chickenpox.  
 
In recent weeks, Australian officials have signaled that they are moving away from the attempt to completely eradicate the coronavirus.  
 
Berejiklian, the NSW premier, said at a news conference Thursday that people would have to learn to live with Delta. "In New South Wales, we are learning that earlier than in other states," she said.  
 
On Saturday, Berejiklian said she had noticed a "shift of attitude about what Delta means" in her conversations with other state leaders.  
 
"No matter how hard we work and no matter if 99% of people are doing the right thing, there is an element of Delta that nobody can control," she said.  
 
"We accept that Delta is here, we accept heading to zero across the nation - especially once you open up and live freely - will be an impossible task."  
 
Instead of reducing cases to zero, Berejiklian said the government's job is to keep people out of hospital until vaccination rates increase.  
 
"The best way we can look forward to freedom is by making sure that we get vaccinated," she said.  
 
Berejiklian expected 70% of the NSW population over the age of 16 to be fully vaccinated by the end of October, and 80% by mid-November, if current vaccination rates continue.  
 
In other parts of the country, however, the vaccine rollout is much lower. As of Saturday, just 22.6% of Australia's population of 25 million people have been fully vaccinated - well below the UK's 60.6%, or 50.7% in the US.  
 
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/21/asia/australia-covid-worst-day-intl-hnk/index.html  
 
Interesting stuff. Sounds like they feel like delta is something they're going to have to live with once they have vaccination rates as high as we do. Continues to be an interesting contrast to the west. ...

But I don’t think that you understand vaccination. Canada’s covid vaccination rate is higher than most countries but itself is really not high. A high vaccination rate is 98% fully vaccinated. I read that a third of Canada’s population is not fully vaccinated. That i:ncludes the minors 12 years old and under that are currently not eligible for vaccination.  
We are also placed at increased risk due to other countries rich and poor that have low vaccination rates creating further suffering and providing a reservoir of covid virus and a potential breeding ground for new variants of concern.  
Canada is still at huge risk regarding the delta and subsequent variants of concern that will likely develop.  
We may well have to ‘live’ with covid in the long term . Don’t forget that we also do not understand long covid and it’s consequences very well. Meanwhile we must strive towards higher vaccination rates and follow advised guidelines which i:nclude restricting our movement, social circles and wearing of masks .  
Every little bit helps right now as we continue to learn about and understand this virus which has already officially killed millions of people and unofficial figures suggest that global covid related deaths are probably much higher than official figures due to poor reporting in many countries.  
Yes I knew someone who died from covid 19 in April 2021 who was unable to protect herself.

It seems they went into major lockdown when this all began. It was swift, and it was strict and harsh! The people suffered for a few months with their government immediately closing of their borders. Everyone with a cough being tested and virtually seemed Covid 19 had vanished (yea, never existed!) in that country.  
 
The whole world marveled as other nations numbers sky rocketed in mid pandemic, while their cases were non existent. So they opened right up and started having sporting event, concerts again, etc.  
Perhaps complacency naturally sets in?  
 
Now this more transmissible variant "sneaks" in and a new story unfolds.  
 
I can imagine this culture and it's people are likely ready to riot at this point. I think you can mentally take so much. It's not always blaming leaders who make the call on restrictions but more so, our human nature that has an internal selfish governing majority that is  
proclaiming "WE DESERVE TO BE FREE!"  
 
My two sense, is all.

was made mandatory to get immunized and the spanish flu has disappeared is this what canada and other countries have to do to get rid of this corona virus make vaccinations manditory  
 
Edited by Brian, 2021-08-22 13:39:24

I will say that Delta is challenging them because they have a large migrant worker population that comes to Australia from the part of the world where Delta began and has flourished. This likely has meant that they need to take a more stringent approach to lockdowns and movement restrictions to try and keep the virus strain out. Most viruses get weaker as they mutate into new strains. This one is getting stronger.

While I agree with vaccination, for the sake of transparency your assertion that the 1918 influenza pandemic was ended by vaccination is incorrect.  
 
In brief, we didn't even know what caused influenza until the 1930s, but there were experimental vaccines during the epidemic which, in hindsight, targeted the secondary infections often associated with the flu (and which tend to subsequently kill) - namely pneumonia and HIb, both of which we now have effective vaccines for.  
 
Here's a good summary: https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/blog/vaccine-development-spanish-flu  
 
We don't really understand why the 1918 pandemic ended, other than all influenza pandemics eventually end when the virus changes enough. But they don't truely go away - the 1918 flu was an H1N1 strain (they have in recent years found frozen samples in bodies buried in permafrost from victims), and as we know it pops up from time to time (there's been at least 3 outbreaks of H1N1 since 1918). Why that one in particular was so devastating is somewhat of a mystery, and would require controversial gain-of-function research to tease that out.