Norman Swan

speaker

10,274 appearances 109 recordings 1 series first heard Mar 2020 last heard 11 Aug

Norman Swan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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What's That Rash? · Suddenly, the Brisbane outbreak looks a lot more worrying · 29 Mar 2021 podcast

So let's just look at the evidence around vaccination and transmission.

The Astra trial did show reduction in transmission at a lower level, maybe at about 50% of the level of effectiveness or efficacy at reducing symptoms.

So that could be at its most generous 40 or 50% for Astra and Pfizer, given that we're giving Astra 12 weeks apart.

So that's still not 100% reduction in transmission.

People can still transmit when they've been immunized, but it is at a lower level.

And as you say, the question is, when can we reach the point where these lockdowns don't apply?

Well, I'll just remind you that fewer than 1% of Australians, far fewer than 1% of Australians have been infected with the virus and certainly a tiny proportion have had COVID-19.

That, first of all, leaves a lot of vulnerable Australians, but it means that if you have 20% of the population, so let's say we achieve 80% immunisation, that's 20% of the population who are still able to,

to catch the SARS-CoV-2 virus and develop COVID-19 and could develop it to quite a severe extent.

That's a lot of Australians and it swamps the number of Australians who've been vaccinated so far.

So to be covered in terms of, let's just say covered in terms of turning COVID-19 into the common cold, so you're not too worried if COVID-19 gets into the population,

we've probably got to be at 90%.

It's not at all clear what the modelling might show because we're using different vaccines with different levels of effectiveness and different levels perhaps of transmission prevention.

I think what you can assume is that when we've got the vast majority of Australians immunised, the likelihood is that even if COVID-19 gets in, it's not going to be transmitted at a high level.

The problem with that is, and the unknown, is the variants.

So we know that B.1.1.7 is covered by the vaccine.

Yeah, they're calling it the UK variant.

In the UK, they're calling it the Kent variant because they're almost certain it comes from the south of England.

So we know that that's more contagious.

So that could spread more.

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