Suddenly, the Brisbane outbreak looks a lot more worrying
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Why did Brisbane go into a snap three‑day lockdown despite low case numbers?
This is an ABC podcast. Hello, this is Coronacast, a daily podcast all about the coronavirus. I'm health reporter Tegan Taylor.
And I'm physician and journalist Dr Norman Swan. It's Tuesday the 30th of March 2021. Yep,
and here in Brisbane at least, Norman, I'm in a snap three-day lockdown which actively contradicts the headline that we had on yesterday's podcast episode.
It does. So how does it feel?
It's really weird to be back where we were coming into Easter last year. Like they've even closed schools. My kids are going to be at home over the next few days coming into lockdown. And honestly, very selfishly considering what the rest of the world is dealing with, I really kind of thought we would have had this licked by now. Like it's been more than a year. We've got vaccines. Like when are we actually going to see them? Getting to the stage where we don't need to have a lockdown because we're well covered by vaccination.
Yes, and some people are saying, well, should there be a lockdown or should they have done it earlier?
How effective are the current vaccines at preventing transmission and severe disease?
And the public opinion swings around a lot on this. And let's just take the arguments for and against. So let's just take yesterday's discussion just to justify ourselves and our existence. There's a good contact tracing system. They seem to be on top of it, although there was this long gap between the medical registrar getting it at Princess Alexandra and these new cases emerging. So that's a lot of potential there for this situation. to spread, yet they did seem to be getting onto it. There didn't seem to be many cases. And then what happened yesterday, and it's unclear what will have happened by the time you're listening to this podcast, Coronacast, war has emerged. But it was just looking a little bit wild yesterday, where you've got people who moved into New South Wales, who'd gone up to Gladstone, not being quite sure, not having tied down what has happened in terms of contacts.
close contacts moving forward. And therefore the logical thing to do was, in fact, just to lock down for two or three days till the contact tracers catch up, hard though that is.
I really feel like part of a big question mark around this Brisbane lockdown, though, is that we shouldn't have found ourselves in this position if the vaccines had been rolling out at the rate that they were originally designed to be. We know that the nurse who worked on a COVID ward, who's one of the positive cases that came to light yesterday, hadn't been vaccinated. And then we also have the general population that hasn't been vaccinated yet, even though there's supposedly millions of vaccines onshore in Australia.
Yeah.
Yes.
What role do variants like the UK (B.1.1.7) and South African strains play in the lockdown decision?
Can you just put that question on pause for a moment? Because I think there's a question a little bit before that, which is what we've mentioned from time to time, is whether or not healthcare workers in Queensland have stopped using the national guidelines and started to use the guidelines that might more apply in Victoria, which is that you wear N95 masks when you look after people physically. with COVID-19 and it's still not you know nobody said what that medical registrar was wearing but what was said by the health minister in Queensland was they were following national guidelines so they were following national guidelines the assumption is that she wasn't because the national guidelines say that you don't wear an N95 mask when looking after somebody with COVID-19
So it does expose healthcare workers and it is a weak link in the chain. So one hopes that in Queensland Health they've moved towards fit testing of N95s. 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.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Why did Brisbane go into a snap three‑day lockdown despite low case numbers?
0:00–0:53
2
How effective are the current vaccines at preventing transmission and severe disease?
0:53–2:22
3
What role do variants like the UK (B.1.1.7) and South African strains play in the lockdown decision?
2:22–4:49
4
When will Australia achieve enough vaccination coverage to lift lockdowns permanently?
4:49–6:27
5
Why is the vaccine rollout slower than expected and how can general practice help?
6:27–7:40
6
Will COVID‑19 vaccines protect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and stop transmission?
7:40–8:58
7
Can recent vaccine doses cause a positive COVID test for travellers?
8:58–10:10