A updated thread on Australia’s special chance to keep most people from ever getting COVID 1/
This encouraging news about a new pill from Pfizer is another step toward a vastly more powerful COVID toolbox that is rapidly coming our way. These promise to be game-changers 2/ nytimes.com/2021/11/05/hea…
The news reinforces what Prof Baxter @enenbee I wrote about recently, in the coming year keeping COVID cases low, and eliminating COVID, will become vastly easier than it is now 3/ theconversation.com/covid-doesnt-n…
More drugs like this are likely to emerge and will augment vaccines and especially the apparent extraordinary power of 3-shot vaccination in combating waning immunity 4/ nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
In more terrific news, vaccination of 5-11yo children seems imminent 5/ theage.com.au/national/vacci…
Rates of COVID in NSW, ACT and Victoria are still relatively low & falling on the back first of strong public health measures & now of extraordinary vaccination levels in eligible people. In other states and territories there is effectively no COVID at all. 6/
We have a big chance to prevent most Australians from ever getting infected with COVID-19. Vaccines-Plus (improved masks, ventilation/filtration, TTIQ) can do the job now, especially if we are careful to keep numbers low in kids. 7/
While it is understandable that there is debate about the speed of vaccine rollout for kids, it is not ok to allow them to get infected while we wait for that to happen. Strong mitigation is planned in places but is it happening everywhere and fast enough? 8/
In summary, it is a problem that our national strategy is ambiguous about low infection rates. COVID is a changing, unpredictable, epidemic infection full of pathological & epidemiological uncertainties. It should be our stated, clear ambition to be rid of it. 9/end
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