Ik vond dit wel een aardig achtergrond artikel over het verhaal van de 4 fases enz.
Full vaccination of vulnerable people needed to safely ease restrictions, but even then the fight against the virus could last 10 years
www.theguardian.com
Wat snippets:
Australia is currently in the first stage of the plan, which is focused on suppressing community transmission, and may not reach the next stage, which will allow for reopening and the easing of restrictions, until next year.
Guardian Australia spoke with four leading epidemiologists and immunisation experts on Friday afternoon in an attempt to understand the type of vaccination strategy that would be needed to trigger a broader opening up.
All spoke of the difficulty of using a single vaccination figure to predict Australia’s arrival at herd immunity. Change would be gradual and the risk assessments complicated and evolving, the experts said.
“So the initial steps, in particular, will be focused on the most key groups of the community,
not just the total percentage. So you might, for example, say that to go to phase 2 you need to vaccinate x% Australia-wide, but within these groups you have to have 85% or 90% or 95%, or if it’s mandatory, 100%.”
“Hope of return to ‘old life’ is truly being dashed in these past few weeks in Australia,” she said. “Many people who had finally planned a long-awaited holiday or trip interstate or to New Zealand to visit family have had their plans changed again.
While those with overseas relatives have seen their opportunities to visit loved ones moved seemingly even further into the future.”
Both Leask and Martiniuk said leaders in infectious diseases were talking in terms of the next 10 years being continued “hard yards” for tackling Covid, and that a balance between living with Covid and normality might take as long as two decades.
While Australia will have to maintain a zero tolerance approach for large outbreaks given its low vaccine uptake, Dore says this approach will need to change.
“Australia cannot continue on a strategy of eliminating Covid every time it emerges into 2022,” Dore said.
“In six months or so after high coverage levels have been achieved, this tolerance needs to shift. Setting targets and providing an understanding that opening up requires a phased approach is essential.”