depa supports mandatory vaccination

Details: Published: Monday, 30 August 2021 14:28

PussyfootingCovid

depa supports vaccination before a return to work.

depa supports disclosure of vaccination status.

Today the Premier announced a new record of Covid Delta cases across New South Wales of 1290 - making the projections of epidemiologists that failure to contain the Delta variant could mean 1500 or more a day as people fail to comply with the rules. It’s out there, and we didn’t contain it.

There have been 20,061 locally acquired cases reported since 16 June 2021, when the first case in this outbreak was reported and today there are 840 COVID-19 cases in hospital, with 137 in intensive care and 48 being ventilated.

Too many people are dying, hospitals are at capacity, there are not enough nurses in to manage the ventilators available for those who can’t breathe without assistance, and everywhere we look, those making the decisions are just too bloody slow.

It seems a long time ago now, but first it was the Ruby Princess, where at-risk travellers were set loose by NSW Health and the Federal agencies (who are still squabbling about who was most at fault) infecting as they went. Then it was the failure to have Public Health Orders to require a limo driver driving international flight crews to the eastern suburbs from the airport to be vaccinated, or even to be wearing a mask - an irresponsible action by both the employer and the driver that has now had thousands more people subsequesntly affected.

And the NSW Government, boasting of its “gold standard” tracing regimes was overwhelmed by their own smugness and mismanaged the need to shut down Sydney earlier when it became obvious that the Delta variant was out of control. They can hardly claim they weren’t aware, the Federal Government had months earlier banned flights from India due to the risk of the Delta variant arriving on our secure little island.

Everything gets done too late. The Federal Government started it, setting a gold standard of their own for bumbling, misunderstanding, misperceiving the risk and general ignorance - a disgraceful mismanagement of vaccines, not available when promised, still not enough, and confusing and inappropriate advice by a flustered PM in a late-night news conference that put the frighteners on people over AstraZeneca. Bloody hell, there’s much higher chance of dying from sex than AstraZeneca. Or even driving to get vaccinated.

The NSW Premier has done polite, preachy, imploring and begging, but only now is coming to grips with the urgency of appropriate mandatory vaccination. First, health and aged care workers, then teachers and school staff, Qantas called it early with lead-time sufficient to allow their staff to be vaccinated and providing bonuses to passengers who are vaccinated as well. Bunnings advertises staff holding up vaccination cards.