From Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, Australia here. Currently in lockdown again. Last year, when there where huge amounts of unknown unknowns, our state premier stood up and did a press conference every day for 120 days straight. Every day of the week. In every one he stayed for as long as journalists and Murdoch media employees kept asking questions.
He did quite a good job of explaining the reasoning behind decisions (IMO). The answers stayed consistent when asked eight different ways in a row, and from day to day. Decisions were following the science (like wearing masks is effective as reducing the amount of infections from an air-born pathogen, duh) and the counsel of the chief health officer (among many others, I'm sure).
There are still daily press conferences going on, although they've mixed it up a bit with who is available - usually between the premier, the health minister, the chief health officer and a few others.
We were successful in reducing community transmission to zero last year, and even beating back an initial outbreak of the Delta strain before it surged back and dug in roots. It required a huge effort of societal and political will and cooperation to achieve.
We are now relying on vaccination to open back up. (Unfortunately Australia has been a bit slow off the mark with vaccinations, in part because we managed to have such low infection rates. In part...)
The two main milestones in our staged open up are when 70% and then 80% of the population aged 16 and above have been fully vaccinated (two doses). At current vaccination rates we are looking to hit those milestones in Victoria on Oct 22 and Nov 1 respectively[1].
As of today[0], 73% of the total Victorian population have received at least one vaccination, and 50% fully vaccinated with two doses[2]. Of those who can avail themselves of a vaccine (those aged 12 or above) those numbers go up to 85% and almost 59%.
Currently we have vaccines approved for use for people aged 12 and above. (Provisional approval for Pfizer for ages five to eleven happened today, however that will take some time pass through the various bureaucracies before doses start going into arms).
He did quite a good job of explaining the reasoning behind decisions (IMO). The answers stayed consistent when asked eight different ways in a row, and from day to day. Decisions were following the science (like wearing masks is effective as reducing the amount of infections from an air-born pathogen, duh) and the counsel of the chief health officer (among many others, I'm sure).
There are still daily press conferences going on, although they've mixed it up a bit with who is available - usually between the premier, the health minister, the chief health officer and a few others.
We were successful in reducing community transmission to zero last year, and even beating back an initial outbreak of the Delta strain before it surged back and dug in roots. It required a huge effort of societal and political will and cooperation to achieve.
We are now relying on vaccination to open back up. (Unfortunately Australia has been a bit slow off the mark with vaccinations, in part because we managed to have such low infection rates. In part...)
The two main milestones in our staged open up are when 70% and then 80% of the population aged 16 and above have been fully vaccinated (two doses). At current vaccination rates we are looking to hit those milestones in Victoria on Oct 22 and Nov 1 respectively[1].
As of today[0], 73% of the total Victorian population have received at least one vaccination, and 50% fully vaccinated with two doses[2]. Of those who can avail themselves of a vaccine (those aged 12 or above) those numbers go up to 85% and almost 59%.
Currently we have vaccines approved for use for people aged 12 and above. (Provisional approval for Pfizer for ages five to eleven happened today, however that will take some time pass through the various bureaucracies before doses start going into arms).
[0] Wed 13 Oct 2021
[1] https://covidlive.com.au/vic
[2] https://covidbaseau.com/vaccinations/