The crucial fact is that all the vaccines being administered around the world provide near 100% protection from death and the need for those infected to receive intensive hospital care.
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Category: Health
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Vaccination controversy shouldn’t compromise efforts to protect Australians
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Australia could take a leaf from Indonesia’s personalised approach to aged care
Our street in Indonesia has 70 households. Many are mixed-generation families. With few nursing homes or retirement villages, and those being far away, families have two options: The kids do the caring or employ a carer. Either way, Grandpa or Grandma stays home. (more…)
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Vaccine nationalism: Australia votes to deny Covid vaccines to poorer countries
Australia, the US, the UK and the European Union are refusing to waive intellectual property rights to Covid-19 vaccines so developing countries can produce the vaccine locally. This refusal, in the face of vaccine hoarding by rich countries, is likely to cause millions more deaths. It is also short sighted because long delays in global vaccination will enable more powerful variants to emerge.
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Why dental care was excluded from Medicare and why it should now be included (an edited repost)
In 1974, the Whitlam Government decided to exclude dental care from Medicare for two reasons. The first was cost. The second was political. Whitlam felt that combatting the doctors would be hard enough without having to combat dentists as well. Forty-six years later, with Australia much richer and the proven success of Medicare, it is now time for dental care to be progressively included in Medicare.
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Political stunt silences the Aged Care Royal Commission’s final report
Attempts to politicise the Aged Care Royal Commission report by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt underline the government’s failure to tackle the problems in aged care. The press conference, called at short notice with journalists given no time to prepare was a stunt to divert attention from the rape allegations against the Attorney General.
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How a nurse saved the day. And nurses do it every day.
Sadly, the critical role that nurses and midwives play in keeping people (and the health system) safe is all too often unseen and unrecognised. Maybe it is that we are so familiar and numerous that our role is somewhat taken for granted.
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Opportunity Lost: spark of a healthier nation was quickly snuffed out
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Vaccine rollout: the value or otherwise of a ‘vaccination certificate’. Part 3
Those who are vaccinated can still become infectious. Therefore proof of vaccination might not be sufficient for international travel as it does not guarantee a person is infection free. A ‘vaccination certificate’ can be wrongly used as a proxy for ‘not infectious’.
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Our C18th health workforce structure is riddled with demarcations, inefficiencies and antique work practices. (An edited repost)
Casual workers are fair game but the government is not prepared to tackle the very serious workforce inefficiencies in our large and growing health sector.
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Herd immunity? Not with AstraZeneca in the frame. Part 2
Because the failed immunity rate for the AstraZeneca vaccine is more than seven times that of the Pfizer vaccine, if the Australian rollout takes place as planned, about 5.5 million people (22% of the population) could still be at risk of getting ill, while some of the remaining 20 million could still become infectious but be asymptomatic.
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China, Russia steal a vaccine diplomacy march
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented mobilisation of advanced biotechnology globally. Progress in developing, testing and deploying vaccines has proceeded with breathtaking speed. China-Russia collaboration is helping to get cheap and effective Covid-19 vaccines to the developing world. (more…)
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We are Socioecological: health carers and advocates
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Expert denialism: federal Covid advisory committee slow to accept airborne evidence
Why the official reluctance in Australia to recognise aerosol transmission?
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The race is on … vaccines vs variants. The global response will determine the winner
Boris Johnson’s call for wealthy nations to share Covid vaccines more equitably with poorer countries was vital. The warning from the WHO that “no-one is safe from Covid till all are safe” is a truism with major implications.
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Penny wise, pound foolish: the federal government must step up on hotel quarantine
Our biggest weakness in protecting the community from Covid-19 remains a hotel quarantine system that demonstrably is not fit for purpose. Here’s how to fix our quarantine system once and for all.
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Serving the underserved: nurse practitioners’ invaluable roles during Covid
A Nurse Practitioner (NP) is a Registered Nurse with the experience and expertise to diagnose and treat people of all ages with a variety of acute or chronic health conditions. NPs have completed additional university study at Master’s degree level and are the most senior clinical nurses in our health care system. (more…)
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Going for CALD on Covid
Two outbreaks of Covid in Victoria occurred among Greek and Urdu communities – entirely predictable given that diverse communities had long been identified as potentially vulnerable. Despite repeated warnings no one in authority seemed to want to know. That is now being rectified to ensure the message on vaccines is heard loud and clear, with Health Minister Greg Hunt’s announcement that the federal government is to fund a significant communication campaign guided by specialist and community input. (more…)
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Upturn: A better normal needs a focus on health, not just healthcare
Professor Paul Torzillo discusses the lessons for healthcare in Upturn: A Better Normal After Covid-19. The volume of essays would have benefitted from a more comprehensive analysis of what a “better normal” in health, rather than just healthcare, would look like. But the plea for ensuring the “humanity of medicine” will resound.
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Deaths in aged care on Morrison’s watch
Some 685 aged care residents died from Covid-19, making Australia one of the worst countries in the world for aged care deaths as a proportion of all Covid deaths. (more…)
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Australian aged care is a crisis waiting to happen
Providers know they are in the box seat and that they can, and do, operate sub-standard homes. Bad homes cannot be closed – imagine the furore if older people were suddenly evicted from a home that does not measure up. (more…)
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Aged care, quarantine: open and shut cases of federal responsibility but Morrison won’t step up to the plate
Experts have spent years warning the federal government that pandemics would increase in frequency and severity. Yet the government was asleep at the wheel when Covid hit. Older people paid a heavy price, with Australia having one of the highest rates in the world of deaths in residential aged care as a proportion of total Covid-19 deaths.
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Indonesia’s pandemic policy: Pray and pay
Indonesia’s former health minister, a medical doctor, predicted the satanic infection would fly over the country because the people below were so pious. The world’s fourth most populous nation has a huge vaccination task ahead.
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Vocational Education Trainers need vaccination priority – economic recovery may depend on it
Face-to-face teaching is vital for VET students, who are often from a lower socio-economic background and are most affected by the digital divide. As getting them back into the classrooms is a priority, their trainers should also be considered a priority group for the Covid-19 vaccine.
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We have the tools to help control the pandemic; we have to use them
The arrival of more infectious Covid variants means more of us need to be vaccinated than previously thought, with an uptake of at least 80%. The federal government must now drive that promotion campaign with a focus on vaccine safety. (more…)
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Putting all our eggs in the vaccination basket is delusional
Governments worldwide have placed their hopes for fighting the pandemic in the roll-out of vaccines. But the jab will not be a panacea for society. Behavioural modifications will still be required.
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Pandemic deaths have numbed our humanity and perception of risk
On one terrible day in December, Covid-19 deaths in the US for the first time exceeded the death toll from the World Trade Centre terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. To make people care we need to personalise the issue.
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Australia’s Covid-19 quarantining – an abrogation of federal responsibilities! There is no national plan
Perhaps the most contentious issue of our Covid year is who is in charge of quarantining? With continuing outbreaks of Covid-19 linked to incoming travellers, Australians have reacted with astonishment that quarantining issues were not foreseen and planned for years ago. How did we end up where we are and what should be done about it? (more…)
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State of emergency: London, Washington DC fail basic duty to protect citizens
Donald Trump and Boris Johnson stand condemned as incompetent, bloody-minded buffoons, but they didn’t get there all by themselves. They were aided and abetted by craven ministers and dangerously partisan media companies.
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Diplomacy’s pointy end. Chinese vaccines in Indonesia.
The choreography was about reassurance. A well-masked Indonesian President Joko Widodo sitting before a large red sign saying AMAN dan HALAL – meaning safe and approved for Muslims. Alongside stood Palace doctor Professor Abdul Muthalib ready to show 270 million citizens that the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine Sinovac was OK.
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The Matthew Fisher Sarcoma Research Fund
My granddaughter Naomi’s husband, Matt Fisher, died of an aggressive sarcoma cancer earlier this month. He was aged 39. The sarcoma was diagnosed in February last year.
A research fund has been established to promote research at the Garvan Institute.
Would you consider making a donation? Click here.