#auspol #nswpol #covid19aus NSW 2021 is probably best compared with England 2020-21, when it comes to Covid…
#auspol #nswpol #covid19aus NSW 2021 is probably best compared with England 2020-21, when it comes to Covid strategy. Bugger the models, they're nearly all hopeless, let's go back to some basic empiricism. Real-world outcomes there for our education. /1
NSW and any other States who follow the 70-80% re-opening plan in Australia will likely follow the England path from here. As with modelling, this is one possible future, but it rhymes internationally. It's empirical. /2
The re-opening will cause an explosion of infections. Not even denied by the National Plan, it's actually built into it. Mostly it will be kids being infected, their infection-immunity is mostly what bends the Doherty curves. /3
(Just a heads up to the Doherty folk, well done you, modelling the infection of an entire younger generation with barely a murmur of caution about doing it. As Oppenheimer quoted when observing his work, I Am Become Death.) /4
The infections will quickly overwhelm any sort of meaningful TTIQ, which in NSW is overwhelmed already, so tracers can have some time off at last. Never mind functioning TTIQ is essential to the Doherty modelling and National Plan, pffft, details. /5
Some hare-brained semi-automated mobile phone-based replacement to tracing will be developed, to 'ping' people who have been close to a known infected person. They can then isolate. Little will be traced though, to prevent further infections. See it as a holiday. /6
This will trigger a 'pingdemic' (what the Brits actually called it), as infection numbers continue their orgasmic exponential growth. Government will be forced to enable users to turn the ping system off, because of its inconvenience to their lives. /7
Kids will be infected in the hundreds of thousands in schools with only minimal mitigations in place. In the beginning (remember, this is all what actually happened in England, it's empirical), this will lead to many classes and schools being closed. /8
Kids and staff will isolate, schools will be cleaned by Hazmat aliens, etc. But then this will begin to happen so often, that the 'Covid is mild in children' sociopaths will demand that infections no longer be notified to others in the school community. /9
So schools will be forced to remain open, with unknown infections rampant. Infections nationally will be re-normalised in the tens of thousands per day, and deaths in the high hundreds per week. /10
Just to remind folks again, this isn't a new dystopian novel draft, this is what actually happened in England, and is continuing right now. Staff in schools were even threatened if they attempted to introduce any Covid mitigations. Face masks gone. No ventilation investment. /11
It's like long distance running. Remnants of decency will fight for a while, trying to do the basic public health work. But the country can run through that pain barrier! Just let the infection go, infect the whole nation, vaccinated and unvaccinated. /12
Call me old-fashioned, but if you have epidemic levels of infection, you're in an epidemic. You might have vaccinated lots of people. You may have washed a lot of windows too. The epidemic is still there. Maybe, to end a pandemic, you have to stop people becoming infected. /13
Let's end on that revolutionary thought. To end an epidemic, you have to stop people catching the virus. Just like giving people umbrellas won't stop a flood, vaccinating people won't end a pandemic, if you don't control infections. /end