Graham wrote:
I’m not talking about how many each country grants asylum to, I’m talking about where these folks are trying to get to.
Those numbers, by the way, were not for granted asylum claims, but for seekers in 2020. In any case given that 90% of asylum seekers actually stop in mainland Europe makes:
Significantly more try to get to the UK, or are looking to get to the UK, than actually make it.
seem a bit like the No True Scotsman fallacy.
alioth wrote:
Those numbers, by the way, were not for granted asylum claims, but for seekers in 2020. In any case given that 90% of asylum seekers actually stop in mainland Europe makes:
Ok – the number who officially lodge a claim (i.e. are technically a seeker) is still a long way from being the full picture. And if they’ve not lodged a claim, how are they counted?
You’d deny that significantly more are trying to get here than actually make it? The camps in Calais over the last couple of decades and the attempts to cross the channel tell a different story.
What is your source for 90% stopping in mainland Europe? How can there be any reliable numbers really, since we’re talking about people who largely exist outside the system. In any case, given the criteria for the claiming of asylum (first safe country), theoretically 100% ought to stop in mainland Europe or quite possibly before that. I’m not saying I advocate a harsher policy, I’m just saying we need to admit to ourselves that people crossing the channel in small boats are economic migrants rather than legitimate asylum seekers fleeing France in fear for their lives.
Graham wrote:
The question is how do they eventually ‘escape’ from their self-imposed isolation. They cannot close their borders forever, because their economies depend on tourism to some extent and international business travel to a greater extent. But if they expect to wait until there is zero risk of importing Covid, they will be waiting forever.
The only way out they have is to vaccinate their population.
Graham wrote:
This morning I spoke to my team member who lives in Sydney, and he says they envisage it remaining in place until everyone has been offered a vaccination – which is likely to be several months.
Yep.
Graham wrote:
Even if they are able to fully vaccinate their population, any subsequent opening up will mean they have to deal with infection numbers far in excess of these.
As many try to tell us now, it is the hospitalisation numbers and deaths we should be worried about in a scenario where the country is mostly vaccined. So I suppose they have realized that this is the only way forward.
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
to me this is like saying we should all stop driving cars. Seatbelts, safety improvements, improved roads, improved cars, speed limits, alcohol testing all protect against dying (to an extend) but they don’t stop accidents completely.
Not at all. But it is important to understand what the vaccines actually do and what can be expected. In my impression way too many people think they are a full final solution to the problem. And in more than one way they are, it depends on the goal.
- If your goal is to keep serious illness, hospitalisation and death down, then vaccination is the solution with a 90-95% rate where it does exactly that.
- If you follow a zero Covid goal, vaccination will not provide that. It will still reduce the number of infections by between 50 and 60% though, which is significant, but it will not get the infection figures to zero, or in the case of Australia and NZ keep them there.
I think it is important to understand these things. Took me a while to get the gist of it too.
If vaccination will not provide a zero Covid goal, how did other vaccines, eg smallpox, polio and to some extent measles ( until a blithering idiot thought he knew better than real scientists) bring those diseases to zero in many countries?
From a laymans point of view this is the hope which keeps many from deep pessimism.
gallois wrote:
bring those diseases to zero in many countries?
Well that is not a strict zero so we should not be vaccinated (if you see the joke in my argument 
)
gallois wrote:
If vaccination will not provide a zero Covid goal, how did other vaccines, eg smallpox, polio and to some extent measles ( until a blithering idiot thought he knew better than real scientists) bring those diseases to zero in many countries?
You cannot compare them. They are completely different in the way they spread and the way they affect humans.
Polio is not airborne. It spreads primarily via the fecal-oral route and to a much lesser extent the oral-oral route. In essence, it is much harder to contract if you observe basic hygiene practices and soon dies out in any modern and reasonably ‘clean’ society. Vaccination in the western world is more of a belt-and-braces approach than a primary defence. In parts of the developing world it is endemic, largely due to poor hygiene, and thus vaccination is much more important.
Smallpox is airborne and highly infectious, but you need to get very close to an infected person to become infected and crucially, a person is only infectious once they have developed the characteristic rash, and only for a short time. Asymptomatic infection is very rare.
Measles is airborne and incredibly infections. However, asymptomatic cases are quite rare and are not infectious. Because you can only really get it once, it runs out of hosts quickly in populations where vaccination is widespread. It is still a big problem worldwide, but death rates are low if treated with modern medicine.
The ‘rona is totally different. Airborne, highly infectious, people can get it more than once and asymptomatic infections are common (probably the majority) and still highly infectious. It spreads like wildfire because most people who’ve got it don’t know they’ve got it until they’ve passed it on, and many never know they have it at all.
The three you mention lend themselves to being wiped out with a concerted effort. Measles less so, but still easier to contain than the ’rona.
Well, thanks for depressing me. So no one knows anything and whatever method a Government chooses to fight this virus remains hit and miss, and we’ll get wave after wave and lockdown after lockdown. What a horrible thought so maybe @Silvaire has got it right. Get vaccinated and then ignore it and carry on life as normal.
gallois wrote:
Get vaccinated and then ignore it and carry on life as normal.
See, now that wasn’t so hard ;-). More important, go flying ;-)
Agreed
Further to what graham said, regardless of the fact that everyone is such much smarter than those from the past 
In the case of small pox that had a 100+ years of experience before they seriously attempted iradication, they had things like needleless delivery through some kind of jet. Adequate supply etc etc.
Small pox is the only thing that has been eliminated AFAIK
It’s amazing how people just seem to ignore the lessons of history.
