By Chris Kenny 5th February 2022, The Australian Newspaper
When British Health Secretary Sajid Javid stood in the House of Commons this week he announced a major backflip for the trouble-plagued Johnson government and struck a blow for pandemic realism globally. “While vaccination remains our very best line of defence,” Javid said, “I believe it is no longer proportionate to require vaccination as a condition of deployment by statute.”
This was the end of vaccine mandates in Britain, as Javid announced consultations about “ending vaccination as a condition of deployment” across the National Health Service.
Reports suggest the health and aged-care sector already had lost more than 40,000 workers because of the mandatory jab policy and that if the deadline of last Thursday had been enforced up to 140,000 more health care workers would have been dismissed.
Rather than add to pandemic and health system challenges by creating a shortage of doctors, nurses, cleaners and orderlies, the Health Secretary chose to scrap the rule. Also, the medical grounds for imposing such mandates have evaporated, especially with the onset of the Omicron variant.
The argument that vaccinations are crucial in blocking transmission of the virus has fallen over. The proposition that you are vaccinating yourself to protect others no longer stands up.
This is clear to anyone looking at what is happening in Australia, with tens of thousands of new Omicron cases daily despite a vaccination rate of more than 90 per cent. That the unvaccinated are denied entry into some venues – let alone barred from work – because they might spread the disease is farcical; the virus is spreading well enough among the doubled jabbed, thank you very much.
In prestigious medical journal The Lancet this week, University of Colorado associate professor of infectious diseases Carlos Franco-Paredes shared the latest research on this topic from Britain, Israel, Texas and California.
He noted these studies showed “the impact of vaccination on community transmission of circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2 appeared to be not significantly different from the impact among unvaccinated people”.
Franco-Paredes drew two key conclusions: current “mandatory vaccination polices might need to be reconsidered” and, on the other hand, “mitigation practices” such as physical distancing and mask-wearing still would need to be followed, even in highly vaccinated populations. This is the contemporary reality.
Experts have long suspected that this is the case – Covid-19 vaccines have been very effective in reducing the incidence of serious illness and death but not so in preventing infection and transmission.
The only burden imposed on society by the unvaccinated is a disproportionate load on our hospitals because of their higher risk of serious illness. But we could say the same for the overweight, smokers, drinkers and motorcyclists.
Not that the risks of serious illness for healthy adults or children are high, especially now with Omicron. The weekly epidemiology reports published by NSW Health show a dramatic drop in virus danger. Delta sent 10 per cent of cases to hospital, with 2 per cent ending up in intensive care units and one in every 100 dying.
Since late November the hospitalisation rate has dropped by a factor of 90 per cent to just 1 per cent, and only 0.1 per cent of cases require ICU, while the mortality rate is now running at 0.04 per cent.
Omicron is far more contagious but dramatically less dangerous than Delta. The numbers are far lower for healthy adults and children, of course, with most serious illnesses and deaths in the over-70s.
It is worth comparing all this with the national influenza report for 2019, which cited 30,000 hospital admissions from 313,000 notified cases – a hospitalisation rate of 10 per cent, similar to Delta. There were more than 950 influenza deaths, a mortality rate of 0.03 per cent, which is significantly less deadly than Delta but on a par with Omicron.
These comforting statistics reflect the benefits of widespread vaccination and improved treatments, as well as the milder variant. Little wonder Denmark has scrapped all restrictions and is no longer treating Covid-19 as a “socially critical disease”.
I write this week from home isolation because my 10-year-old son tested positive last weekend. He was ill with a fever for 24 hours – which is worse than most kids suffer – but has been robust all week and should be back out on the cricket field by the time you read this.
Yet his 24-hour illness has cost him and his brother their first week at school and kept his mum and me working from home all week even though we have not been able to conjure a positive test between us. This is not only unnecessary but, replicated everywhere, it is crippling the country.
With tens of thousands of often asymptomatic cases knocking out close contacts from work or school, the country is dislocated for no good reason.
We should not be far from a Denmark-style realisation where the symptomatic or sick stay home and the rest go about their business with due regard for social distancing and hygiene.
Yet most media and politicians are stuck in a theatre of paranoia that dramatises infections and heightens fears. Seldom is there perspective about how more than 400 people die in this country every day, most of them elderly, many in aged-care homes and often from respiratory infections.
In its pre-vaccine, Alpha phase, Covid-19 was a horrible threat cutting a swath through aged communities. But for years into the future it is likely to be one of the viruses we are alert to, keeping our vaccinations up to date, knowing it will be at least partly responsible, along with the flu and the common cold, for the deaths of some of our elderly. We need to concentrate on protecting these vulnerable cohorts.
Australian National University infectious diseases expert Peter Collignon has been a pragmatic and prescient voice for the past two years. He told me on air last week that we are seeing “much, much less deaths per person infected” and “the people who are mainly coming to grief, unfortunately, are those who are elderly, often with underlying conditions”.
Collignon also noted the unvaccinated figure “disproportionately” in ICU admissions and deaths. He says Covid-19 deaths will be with us for years to come and, to some extent, the virus will replace other ailments as a cause of death.
Former deputy national chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth told me vaccine mandates have a “time-limited role in a pandemic”. However, he believes Australia will need to put the Omicron wave behind it – probably within the first quarter of this year – before we consider ending existing mandates, with health and aged-care workers the last to be relieved of these requirements. Discussion of this practical reality is at odds not just with current media hysteria but with the way governments and the private sector are treating vaccines and the unvaccinated – politicians have demonised the unvaccinated.
In the latest high-profile case, former Port Adelaide AFL premiership captain Warren Tredrea has lost his job as a Nine News sports broadcaster in Adelaide because he refuses to be vaccinated. Yet if vaccination does not prevent infection and transmission, what is the argument for denying someone employment over their refusal to get the jab? The unvaccinated are putting no one at risk but themselves.
It has been obvious for almost two years that we will all be exposed to this virus, which is why we needed to learn to live with it. In Australia we gave ourselves a year of quarantine to keep the virus at bay until we got vaccines.
Yet look at the madness gripping Western Australia, where Mark McGowan’s Covid-zero delusion creates bizarre disruptions. Some schools, with single infections, are sending dozens of teachers and hundreds of students into 14 days of home isolation.
Perth’s Corpus Christi College had one student test positive, so 17 teachers and 212 students are now in isolation. WA Education Minister Sue Ellery helpfully said only the students needed to isolate, not their entire families.
Yes, Minister, I can imagine families choosing to banish their child to the pool room for a fortnight, excluding them not only from school but from the comfort of family. What callous, brainless tosh. On Thursday night a policeman entered a Catholic church in Perth during mass, checking on mask-wearing.
Instead of questioning this sort of futile and damaging pandemic management, or sharing the reassuring facts about coronavirus infections, our national political media obsesses over nasty text messages from two years ago and price checks in aisle five. Our media epidemic of superficiality directly affects our ability to deal with the pandemic.
The Twitterfication of our national debate is part of the reason that just a day after asserting the need to “get back to normal” the Prime Minister refused to criticise McGowan’s hard border. Does that mean Scott Morrison is the Prime Minister of just five states and two territories for now? Has Canberra no interest in uniting the nation? Was WA’s long-discussed secession as easy as that?
Consider for a moment how often premiers, including Victoria’s Daniel Andrews, have hidden behind their hallowed but never disclosed medical advice. Lately Andrews has been advocating a redefinition of full vaccination to include a third, booster shot.
But this week when Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton was quizzed on this proposition, he revealed he had not been asked to provide any advice on that prescription. Ah, that infallible medical advice – hide behind it one minute, make it up the next.
Original article here
READERS COMMENTS
MFH
Frankly, even if a third dose was mandated in order to remain "fully vaccinated", I think a large chunk of the population would simply refuse. Governments cannot just keep moving the goalposts. And we read stuff. Like how Israel is now on to its fourth dose. And how many countries are dropping mandates.
Many of us have also now had the virus and found that it was no big deal. Why get vaccinated (again) for something that you have been vaccinated for, contracted and then made a full recovery from? Does that make any sense?Liked 90
Splash"The argument that vaccinations are crucial in blocking transmission of the virus has fallen over. The proposition that you are vaccinating yourself to protect others no longer stands up." ... yes, finally. The fallacy of 'stopping transmission' was evident a long time ago and yet the authorities persisted with the story. The mandate must be dropped. Excellent article and well overdue.
Liked 8
AnthonyThanks for this Chris - you are right. I’m vaccinated but am very happy to work and socialise with people who are not. From all my reading of peer reviewed scientific papers it poses no greater risk as both a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person carry and transmit the virus.
Liked 73
LeschatieresDenmark has just declared SARS-CoV-19 finished! They have (unlike us in Australia) understood the Omicron variant. Covid in Denmark now has Endemic status. In the UK on either Monday or Tuesday next week all mandatory measures and restrictions will no longer be enforced as will be the same in Denmark. Denmark understands the value of letting Omicron spread widely throughout the country. For those vaccinated and unvaccinated Omicron will give an outstanding level of natural immunity. So what is it that our governments – state and federal don’t understand about the present Omicron variant era? They have had enough time and enough evidence from other countries – especially South Africa who in November last year told the world how Omicron would develop into a variant that is more akin to a common cold and help bring Covid to endemic status. From the very beginning of this pandemic those more considered virologists and epidemiologists around the world have told us that this is how it would pan out. What we have heard from Australia is « oh but we don’t know yet – more research has to be done » Meanwhile we are still practicing «ZERO » Covid policies which are inflicting on the citizens of Australia more damage to our lives - especially our children’s , to our small businesses (who are the life blood of our social communities) than this seemingly benign «pandemic » could ever do.
Coming back to the «unvaccinated » and their déplorable protests – because of the way Omicron has developed we don’t need them to vaccinate – we don’t need to see the heavy handed treatment by « authorities » - Omicron will do the job for us through natural immunity. So Australia get your head out of your uneducated sandpit and return our Democracy to a normal state of affairs – and I don’t mean « Covid normal »
So that you know the writer has been vaccinated x 3.
Tony"The weekly epidemiology reports published by NSW Health show a dramatic drop in virus danger."
The NSW Health report numbers were compelling. Out of 450,000 infections, 87% were vaccinated. Given only 80% of the total population are fully vaccinated, that means it is even more transmissible among the vaccinated. The only other argument, of more unvaccinated hospitalisations, also falls flat. Turns out that only 147 unvaccinated ended up in ICU and/or death, at a case rate of just 0.24%. While twice the equivalent vaccinated rate of 0.12%, two times a small number is still a small number. Absolutely nothing is being overwhelmed here.
This report alone should sound the death knell for vaccine mandates and passports. There is simply no medical or statistical justification anymore.Liked 56
Tony"Since late November ... only 0.1 per cent of cases require ICU, while the mortality rate is now running at 0.04 per cent."
Imagine for a moment that two years ago, the pandemic began with, and remained with omicron. We wouldn't have bat an eyelid with these infliction rates. We wouldn't have had any of this nonsense, no-one would be scared, there'd be no draconian rules and regulations, no vaccine mandates and passports, maybe not even any vaccines. Now that we have omicron, we persist with all this rubbish because we have had two years of conditioning against what is rational. We need to understand that omicron has been a godsend.Liked 51
Carlo
Chris, thank you. Perhaps at some stage someone might be able to explain to the Australian tax payer why a grant was not provided by the Department of Health in 2020 to the South Australian Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, head of Vaxine Pry Ltd, whom you referenced in last week’s article.
A situation that beggars belief - a vaccine is being developed right here - and sadly very little support from government.
Instead we’ve arrived here - pointless mandates, job losses, financial ruin.
Had someone provided that tax payer support in the early stages to Vaxine, a very small business in comparison to big pharma, I dare say we’d be in a much better position.
Fast forward to 2022 and Senator Rex Patrick used senate hearings this week to ask questions of the TGA and the Department of Health. Look it up. I’m surprised how little Australians know of this situation.
We have an Australian developed vaccine - without coercion, I’m sure many would have rolled up their sleeves to be inoculated with it.
In the meantime people who are simply waiting for that vaccine to finally be approved have lost their jobs due to mandates, been called anti-vaxxers, been ridiculed for daring to say “my body, my choice”.
What a sad society we have become.
Masks don’t work.
Social distancing is arbitrary and doesn’t work. Better ventilation does work. Plexiglass dividers makes it worse.
Most of those unvaccinated who died were too sick or frail to get the vaccine.
The vast majority of those who died were elderly and had multiple co-morbidities.
The experimental COVID shots will kill thousands of more children and young adults than they can ever save.
The COVID shots are not safe.
No mandates. No shots. Let doctors be free to treat each patient individually and make ivermectin and hydroxychloriquine available over the counter. Everyone should have been using the FLCCC MATH+ protocol.
Meanwhile in the USA:
the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) showed a sharp increase in the number of illnesses in the U.S. military presumably due to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.
DMED is similar to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), except that it pertains only to Department of Defense (DOD) personnel, with medical providers putting information into the system.
Attorney Thomas Renz referenced the database during a panel discussion recently hosted by Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. According to Renz, three whistleblowers said that post-vaccination miscarriages and cancers were up 300 percent over the past year, and neurological disorders increased ten-fold among DOD personnel.
And In a little-known Reuters story that garnered almost no attention in the corporate media, Dutch insurer Aegon revealed its third quarter, 2021 life insurance payouts skyrocketed 258% compared to third quarter, 2020 payouts. The difference, of course, is found in covid vaccines. In 2020, vaccines weren’t yet available, so payouts for Aegon only reached $31 million. But after three quarters of aggressive vaccinations throughout 2021, the death benefit payouts hit $111 million, an increase of 258%.
There is a whole lot more but I am not going to post here as I don't like overkill!