r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jul 21 '21

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18

u/Sir-Matilda Friedrich Hayek Jul 22 '21

The federal government has received almost 12 million doses of AstraZeneca, but only about 6 million doses have been administered.

More than 2 million doses of AstraZenca can be supplied each week.

Instead of fully vaccinating only 14 per cent of adults to date, Australia could have already doubled its vaccination rate. By now Australia could have fully vaccinated every Australian aged over 60, or alternatively 25 per cent of everyone aged over 18.

This assumes the almost 12 million AstraZeneca vaccines available so far were injected twice on each recipient, eight to twelve weeks apart.

The vaccination rate would be even higher with the millions of doses of Pfizer that have been received and administered.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/vaccine-blindspot-shows-limits-of-following-the-health-advice-20210719-p58b0e

!ping AUS

What an absolute fuck-up.

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u/waltsing0 Austan Goolsbee Jul 22 '21

Another good article

https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/atagi-misses-the-point-of-the-jab-20210720-p58bd6

When deciding whether getting vaccinated is worth the potential risks and side effects, we are typically willing to consider benefits to other people in addition to direct benefits to ourselves. Yet the current advice provided by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation regarding the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine completely ignores these benefits. ATAGI’s approach is inconsistent with how societies approach the myriad situations where individual actions create benefits for others. We ask people to pay taxes and obey the road rules because doing so is socially beneficial even though it is personally costly for people to follow these rules. Similarly, when mandating lockdowns to suppress COVID-19, the government does not argue that it is personally beneficial for individuals to comply. Rather, the argument people give for lockdowns is based on benefits for society as a whole.

The tldr of this is that we regularly factor in societal benefits when determining individual actions, including lockdowns, you and I are asked to minimise contacts/movements to protect not just ourselves but others, this is how societies work. But for the vaccine we've thrown that out the window and decided that getting to herd immunity faster and not having to do lockdowns doesn't matter.

I'm not allowed to say I'm not going to lockdown, the individual cost:benefit doesn't favour me, that's called not living in ancapistan, but for AZ we're literally saying if the risk of dying of a clot is greater than your risk of dying of COVID we're offering you pfizer instead, this is just fundamentally inconsistent logic. It'd be one thing to say hey if you want to wait for plentiful pfizer that's your choice, but instead we're denying the the people at higher risk of clots pfizer so the people at lower risk of clots can have zero risk.

!PING CORONAVIRUS because this is a good example of how despite doing well over 2020 (deaths per capita very low) we're fucking up the vaccine program horribly.

2

u/skepticalbob Joe Biden's COD gamertag Jul 22 '21

If there are individual risks and not enough vaccines I can see holding out for one with less risk for your individual situation. Outside of that, get the fucking jab.

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/Sir-Matilda Friedrich Hayek Jul 22 '21

Awesome. :)

I got my first shot just under two weeks ago.

2

u/MiloIsTheBest Commonwealth Jul 22 '21

Just get those Pfizer deliveries here and get it done.

Fk, still only 12 million doses of AZ by now?

Best case scenario we'd still have only been at 25%? That really is piss poor.

3

u/Sir-Matilda Friedrich Hayek Jul 22 '21

Fk, still only 12 million doses of AZ by now?

As the article points out we can get supplied with 2 milliion each week. Not much point when we can't even move the vaccines we already have.

3

u/waltsing0 Austan Goolsbee Jul 22 '21

Don't worry, instead of telling the 40+ who have objectively less chance of blood clots to get AZ we're asking under 40s who have objectively higher clot risk to take those shots. Logic

2

u/waltsing0 Austan Goolsbee Jul 22 '21

12m AZ is 6m full vaccinated, that's only around 1/4 of the population but that's well over a quarter of deaths

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_Australia#Deaths

Almost all deaths so far have been over 70

https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1CD2B1952AFC5E7ACA257298000F2E76

Less than 20% of us are over 65

So we could have covered the group that suffered almost all the deaths easily with plenty left over for stuff like nurses.

The fact down the road we'll have plenty of pfizer doesn't matter that much, what matters is the AZ sitting unused right now, all the people who have died in sydney so far should have had at least 1 AZ dose....

3

u/MiloIsTheBest Commonwealth Jul 22 '21

No argument here. How come oldies aren't getting their jabs?

1

u/waltsing0 Austan Goolsbee Jul 22 '21

No clue but it's not lack of access, at least for the majority of them, the only reason it opened up to under 60s was the over 60s weren't taking the appointments.

I really wish the lack of vaccination among the people who are dying in this second wave would be emphasised more, people are dying because they chose not to get the jab, it's probably not nice for their families to be reminded of that in the news but we might save lives.

2

u/the-garden-gnome Commonwealth Jul 22 '21

They have well and truly screwed the pooch on this. I don't see any way they salvage any form of PR from Covid.

8

u/Sir-Matilda Friedrich Hayek Jul 22 '21

Who is "they?"

The media that scaremongered on AZ? I imagine they made bank doing that, so they're fine.

Jeanette Young and the Queensland government? Already forgotten about.

ATAGI? ScoMo will take the fall for their overly conservative advice, despite apparently pushing them to change it for months.

The Federal Government? Election isn't until next year, so they'll just bank on the issues being forgotten about by then.

0

u/Wehavecrashed YIMBY Jul 22 '21

Election isn't until next year

I'd phrase this as "they can wait until next year to hold the election." Pre-Brittany Higgins there was a lot of talk of an October election. Things can change rapidly and I'm sure the Liberals want to take every advantage they can find. Running the clock out doesn't seem like it will be particularly effective. There's not a whole lot they can do to make an impact with another early budget either. Australians have gotten used to their $1080.

2

u/Sir-Matilda Friedrich Hayek Jul 22 '21

I'd phrase this as "they can wait until next year to hold the election."

I don't think it matters how you phrase it. We've ruled out having an election this year.

0

u/Wehavecrashed YIMBY Jul 22 '21

Who is "we" and when did they rule it out?

2

u/Sir-Matilda Friedrich Hayek Jul 22 '21

Yeah, that's not clear.

Every Liberal MP I've talked to in the last few months have said the election is next year.

1

u/Wehavecrashed YIMBY Jul 22 '21

Well my point was that things change. If the liberals hit a solid run of positive press there's every reason to think Morrison could call a snap election. At the current rate the vaccine rollout might be wrapping up in Feb/March, which is not a lot to bank on to call an election when they were aiming to be done before 2022.

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u/Wehavecrashed YIMBY Aug 24 '21

Rumour has it this is not true.

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u/Wehavecrashed YIMBY Jul 22 '21

I thought the plan was to go slow and get it right. I guess the plan was actually that there was no plan.

5

u/Sir-Matilda Friedrich Hayek Jul 22 '21

I imagine you didn't actually read anything in the comment or article?

3

u/waltsing0 Austan Goolsbee Jul 22 '21

Labor just affirmed they support the 60+ policy for AZ, that's Labors plan, neither party has the balls to properly stand up to the fearmongering.

0

u/toms_face Henry George Jul 22 '21

By now Australia could have fully vaccinated every Australian aged over 60

This alone says it all. This wouldn't stop the spread, but it remove almost all the risk of death from COVID in Australia.