As I face another month of covid lockdowns in Sydney, there are some anxieties floating around in my head that I’d like to get off my chest. This is a rambling blog post and reflection piece of the state of society as I see it.
Table of Contents
Vaccine Risks
So Astrazena has gotten a pretty bad rep. I was initially pretty nervous to get the jab. But I have a higher risk of blood clots from my birth control (and yes I know they are different types of clots). I thought reducing the risk of Covid was worth it.
As a software tester I’m surrounded by risk and trying to identify how things can go wrong. Mitigating this risk was an easy choice.
The 38 year old women who died last week may have tried to get a vaccine. Her death could have been completely avoidable.
It also turns out that pfizer may have a similar risk of blood clots of astrazeneca. Covid itself has an even higher chance of causing these types of blood clots.
If we are heading towards a high risk outbreak like what Europe saw in January 2021, by being vaccinated for my age group it may cause 1.6 blood clots but prevent 3 deaths for every 100,000 people. Source PDF.
Nobody is enjoying the lock down
Now I know tensions are running high. People are stressed and we can’t do what would normally do to unwind. I really miss rock climbing and socializing with others. But it is no excuse to take your frustration out on someone else. The protests from the weekend are really concerning.
I’m tired of the politics and the infighting
All of the “Victoria did it better”, “Sydney should have locked down harder” sentiments. Look I agree, we should have locked down harder and faster but we didn’t. So complaining about it now isn’t helping anyone.
Lock down compliance rates
An article released today indicated that compliance with lockdowns have increased from 40% to 60% over the last two weeks. That still isn’t good enough.
Apparently it’ll take 1 month for this to start to die down when compliance gets to 80%. If we had a harder lock down sooner, it wouldn’t have helped with the blasé attitude people have. It also doesn’t help that the lock down rules have been pretty complex and hard to understand.
Areas of concern
Many of the areas of concerns are big shopping centers. Small cafe’s aren’t generally the culprits, and even if they are the windows of concern are tiny. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything too extraneously wrong by getting a daily takeaway coffee from a near by cafe. I’m helping support a struggling local business.
At least it’s not exponential growth?
Look, the numbers are still concerning, but it isn’t spreading as quickly as it was when it first came to NSW. It’s slightly worse than linear growth but at least it isn’t as rapid spread as before.
We saw cases go from 20 new cases per day to 100 in 9 days back in March 2020. Which this time around it took as 17 days to get from 20 to 100 new cases. With a more aggressive strain.
On a lighter note
What have you done to help stay sane during a pandemic? I for one have vastly improved my cookie game. And admired many of the terrace style town houses in my area on my morning walks.
