Suicide?

 

I’ve already commented on Australia’s perception of having contained the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, with the amount of infections and deaths being very low, both in absolute terms as well as a percentage of the population.  This was achieved with a combination of closure of the economy, infetion tracing and, above all, closure of international borders, which for an island/country/continent like Australia was, and still is, quite harsh.

 

With the current wave of infections, especially with the Delta variant, this reputation has taken some of the lustre off.

 

The first problem appeared in the response of NSW to the appearance of Delta, in a driver connected to the quarantine system in June 2021, where Premier Berejiklian and her government took more than a week and a half to order the closure of several parts of Sydney, in the east and centre, but this was not enough.1

 

The NSW State Government kept hoping to use methods that before had been effective to control the spread, but this failed.  Gradually more and more parts of Sydney and eventually the whole state  were caught up in this closure, parts of which even tighter.

 

Even with this, infections have continued to rise, week after week, although now things seem to have plateaued.  It seems to me that the closure took too long to start, and when it did, took too long  to spread out and be enforced.

 

To be clear, I’m sure that even if the closure decisions were taken earlier, they wouldn’t have been enough to contain the spread of the Delta strain of COVID, but we’d have less than the around thousand cases a day we have now.  

 

The second problem is the low number of people who are immunised against COVID in Australia.  It is incomprehensible to me how an advanced country like Australia, when Delta struck, had only 4% of people being double dose immunised, when a developing country like Malta was already almost on 60%,2 with the latter having a high infection and death rate as a proportion of its population.

 

The Australian government had faith in vaccine trials that had been underway by the University of Queensland, but these unravelled as the trial revealed the vaccine was interfering with tests for another virus, HIV.3

 

The government then came to an agreement with two COVID vaccine companies, Pfizer and AstraZeneca (Malta had four), with the latter being manufactured locally and first in being cleared for use, before the whole brouhaha erupted, after it was associated with secondary effects some of which were fatal.

 

It seems to me that Australia did not have enough diversity of supply in its vaccines.  If Europe, the United States and Israel could sprint with their immunisation, why couldn’t Australia?

 

 

Now it’s known that only immunisation can get us out of this nightmare.  Nevertheless it is clear that many people are still not convinced that they need to get a jab, due to effects that can be fatal, and I’ve heard this from Maltese people as well.

 

This fear is exaggerated.  According to statistics, in case of AstraZeneca, the main secondary effect is Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS), a blood clot condition which carries a one in a million risk of being fatal.  The Pfizer vaccine also has a secondary effect, myocarditis, which is a heart inflammation, which is even rarer than that of AstraZeneca.

 

Compare this with the risk of being struck by lightning (2 per million), to die from taking daily Aspirin (100 per million) and of giving birth (67 per million).4

 

If you have ever flown from Australia to Malta, you’ve taken the risk of developing Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) up to 48 hours after the flight.  This condition, which can be fatal, appears in flights of 4 hours or longer, and affects 1-2 per thousand (i.e. 1000-2000 per million).5  If you flew back, you took the same risk, again.

 

It seems to me that the fear of these secondary vaccination effects is exaggerated, and is disregarding the positive effect of the jab.  Being vaccinated is not a guarantee of not being infected by COVID, although it does reduce the risk of getting it, but you have a much reduced chance of being hospitalised or succumbing to it.

 

The experience of countries which had high levels of COVID, like the United States and the United Kingdom, is that people who are unvaccinated have an almost 30 times higher chance of being hospitalised with COVID-19 than people who are fully vaccinated (double dose).

 

If you have a medical reason where it is not recommended for you to get a jab, I do understand and empathise.

 

If you are refusing the vaccine due to a fear of the rare secondary effects mentioned, or because you don’t like the idea of being vaccinated, be aware that you are effectively risking your own suicide.

 

 

1https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/from-limousine-to-lockdown-how-sydney-s-outbreak-got-out-of-control-20210625-p5848u.html, retrieved 7/9/2021

2https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL~AUS~MLT, retrieved 7/9/2021

3https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2020/12/update-uq-covid-19-vaccine, retrieved 7/9/2021

4https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/astrazeneca-vaccine-risk-death-1-million-what-does-mean, retrieved 8/9/2021

5https://www.mydr.com.au/dvt-and-flying/, retrieved 8/9/2021