Thread by @Voice4Victoria

We're back on the cases.

Struggling to follow some of King's lines of questioning, it's not very clear what he's going for here..

Have to say it.
King is giving off big Foley vibes.

Interested what he chooses to pull out of the Public Health England report. UK have generally great open data reporting. Very frustrating that Australia seems to love ignoring that this exists.

Prof Macartney "viruses by their very nature continuously change".

Clarke doing better. Much easier to listen to. Using some good bits of the PHE report.
Decent line of questioning around degree of scientific certainty in efficacy preventing transmissability especially in relation to Delta.
Prof somewhat tripping over arguing level of certainty.

Prof stating "vx is moderate to highly effective against transmission" in response to questions.
This is interesting. Clarke not arguing efficacy in relation to illness, but transmission. Prof keeps, seemingly unconsciously, switching between the two concepts in responses.

Interesting. Prof just confirmed off the basis of her statement on 2nd Sept there's currently no proper published study (that has transmission outcomes in the study design) relating to efficacy in the vax preventing transmission from delta, only ones for alpha.

Hard to argue this wasn't a win for Clark in his argument.

I love when they use the "it's not peer reviewed" argument. Neither were any of the models that keep shutting down society and that never seems to matter.

We're back to flipping between efficacy relating to illness or transmission, which obviously aren't the same thing.

Clark going hard down the path of questioning the effectiveness of the V in preventing transmission - specifically for delta.
He isn't questioning overall effectiveness in reducing symptoms etc.
You can see how he would use this to question the data used to support the mandate.

Reverse arguments from Kirk happening. Asks Prof, relating to Israel questions from King earlier, "high levels of cases can't infer that the vx isn't protective".

Again. Flipping between effectiveness of transmission & illness. Not the same thing.

Kirk going back through & just offering her the opportunity to speak back to any docs that were used in presenting questions to her. Plenty of "that's not peer reviewed". As expected.

While in some cases, this is fair (some of the docs mentioned are a tad loose), in reality she has already admitted she has no peer reviewed data she herself is relying on related to the effectiveness in reducing transmission from delta. Mild irony.

We're on to Witness 2, Marianne Gale. She is a Deputy CHO of NSW Health. This was meant to wrap up for the day, they've gone a bit over time, but she isn't available to appear tomorrow so she has been squeezed in so Clark can ask questions of her.

He's gone straight into questions about her public statements on the vx "directly reduces transmissions" in relation to aged care workers.
You can really see the line he's going for.

Clarke "is your opinion based on any research papers?". (Lol'd)

Gale responds it's based on the "body of evidence" that vaccines are effective.

He's questioning that she has no specific relevant qualifications like vaccinology or immunology only public health so what gives her the expertise to determine the level of effectiveness in vxs in aged care in offering a level of protection that there would need to be a mandate.

She is often using the term "body of evidence" as to what she relied on in making her decisions. While no doubt at least partially true, still kind of a copout response.

Clarke going into this & enquiring why there aren't studies cited. Now querying why models were used.

Gale seems like a nice person but isn't doing very well when pressed on underlying evidence for decisions made.

Judge question to witness "did you effectively take it as an assumption in giving your evidence that the cv vx reduced transmission of delta rather than evaluate that proposition yourself?". Oh wow.

Gale keeps referring to Doherty modelling. Probably not the best idea on her part in terms of what she's relied on.

We're finished for today, what a note to end on. Back again tomorrow morning from 9.30am.