Carlton Supporters Club

How do you craft it Mav?
We're dealing with a vast range of ideas, experiences and intellectual capacity.
But we may be selling the Australian population a bit short.
Realistically , the message is getting through, and vaccination rates are sky high.

The main message is get vaccinated for the protection of yourself and others.
Good message.

Do we not mention that you can still get covid, you can still pass it on and still maybe get very sick.
That's important to know, otherwise the other strategies like mask wearing, check ins, social distancing are compromised.

It ends up as in an unequal fight, though, when anti-vaxxers can take potshots on 1 narrow issue but pro-vaxxers are expected to repeat the totality of the information surrounding Covid-suppression policies every time they open their mouths.

Like it or not, rhetorical matters are a concern when trying to persuade people. Just ask advertisers: that's why radio ads which are required to provide the fine print in financial and other products include those details via someone speaking at a rate that makes it hard to understand what s/he's saying. Otherwise, focus is lost, as with the famous scene from The Life of Brian: "All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

It's a problem every student writing an essay has to confront: there's always a pet paragraph, quote or point that has to be ditched to make a better essay. And if you have 4 great points, it makes more of an impact if you can stay with a triplet.

Now, that doesn't mean that there's any lying by omission. In a thread like this, I could take you to a few hundred posts that have discussed just the point that allegedly has been hidden. And every government or health advisory online would have that information somewhere. Often the FAQ is the best place for it, e.g.

• If I'm double-dosed, does that mean I can forget about masks, washing my hands and social distancing?
• If I'm double-dosed, can I still contract Covid?
• If I contract Covid when I'm double-dosed, can I still spread Covid?

Or people could just Google reputable governmental or health websites to find the answers to those questions.

Reputable Governmental?........that would be excluding any  Government websites from Victoria via Dan Andrews Government I presume because Reputable Government doesnt apply in this case. Reputable and the Vic Government being an oxymoron...

On what basis?

Compare the information on the Victorian Government website with that of any other State or Territory, or the Commonwealth.  They're virtually identical ... and four of our nine governments are LNP.

I dont understand what all the fuss is about.

Most people are vaccinated.

The minority that are not are going to find out whether or not they should have been vaccinated in due course.

Either they are correct and those who vaccinated did so for nought.  Or getting vaccinated is correct and we are about to see natural selection at work.

To hit this home, I dont see why there is an argument against vaccination, because the majority of the counter arguments are juxtaposed.

Covid is fake.
The government want to control everyone, so they're forcing obedient tax paying citizens to take a vaccine that will kill them to protect against a man made virus that was designed to kill people, so I won't take a vaccine.

Short sighted thinking really.

I dont understand what the kerfuffle is about from those who are vaccinated.   Go live your lives in peace. 

On this basis...
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/not-sustainable-dozens-of-covid-19-patients-missing-from-icu-figures-20211102-p59567.html
The Age on Thursday viewed data from the federal Critical Health Resource Information System, which showed there were currently 181 coronavirus patients in Victorian ICU beds - 67 more patients and almost 63 per cent higher than the 114 publicly reported by the state’s Health Department.
One senior intensive care physician has expressed frustration that Victoria’s daily ICU numbers were continually being misrepresented by the government, describing the state’s intensive care system as “so close to a crisis, it’s not funny”.

The Age reporter should have looked more closely at the figures.  The 64 (not 67) ICU patients are not listed as COVID cases because they are no longer infectious.  That's how COVID cases have always been reported and there is no under-reporting of ICU cases or the fact that the 64 patients are in ICU because they had COVID.  The critical figure is that 98% of Victorian COVID ICU cases are unvaccinated.

But that's missing the point that all jurisdictions carry basically the same information about COVID, the same FAQs, etc.  Go to any State, Territory or Commonwealth COVID website and you'll get the same information.

I think the majority of the issues are people worrying about family members who can not get vaccinated for health reasons.....or even young kids who cannot get vaccinated.

The more unvaccinated adults there are, the more chance of the 'weaker' population getting it who can not get vaccinated.

Not specifically directed at you but there is a pretty clear division between anti-vaxers and everyone else. Anti-vaxers talk about the whole pandemic from their point of view. I, I, I, me, me, me. The other side of the fence usually bring friends and family into the discussion.

I'll disagree and go with what was reported in the Age and what the medical staff know to be the truth, how many are in the beds has nothing to do with the vaccination rates. The critical issue is the misrepresentation of figures by a corrupt government....

Dr Holley said while he did not believe there was any deliberate intention by the Victorian government to mislead the public, the administrative discrepancies between states highlighted the need for a nationally consistent standard on how coronavirus cases in ICUs were recorded.

“It would be very preferential at a national level that we are unified in our reporting, so there is no confusion,” he said.

A Victorian Health Department spokesman confirmed that the daily COVID-19 data released by state officials only reflected infectious patients.

“This is consistent with reporting COVID-19 in the community,” he said, adding the number of people in ICU – infectious with COVID-19 or otherwise – is monitored closely and factored into hospital planning.
...

Melbourne intensive care doctor David Pilcher said the system of only publicly reporting “active” coronavirus cases first emerged last year as it was the easiest way to record the daily numbers.

He said it initially didn’t make much of a difference to the official count because most patients last year were typically treated as infectious as it wasn’t obvious when they could be safely considered cleared of the virus.

Earlier this week, Professor Pilcher confirmed there were more than 60 patients who were in Victorian intensive care units due to COVID-19 who weren’t included in the “active” figures, including many of the most seriously ill, placed on a heart and lung machine.

The researcher was concerned the public would have a false impression about the workload being created by COVID-19 patients, especially when these dozens of beds might be needed due to demand created by Victorians needing beds after critical surgery or after accidents during the festive season.

However, Professor Pilcher said he didn’t believe there was “malicious intent” on behalf of the Victorian Health Department in its reporting of the COVID-related intensive care admissions - rather it had just become hard to change.

From the Age article:

So, the system of recording active cases that Victoria has used throughout the pandemic is now "misrepresentation by a corrupt government".  I'd rather go with the opinion of the ICU practitioners quoted in the Age article.

The number of folk in the ICU beds has everything to do with the vaccination rates. 98% of COVID ICU cases are unvaccinated.  If they were vaccinated, the probability of them getting COVID and requiring an ICU bed would be significantly lower.  Practically, it's the unvaccinated 5% (25% in some municipalities) that are putting our ICUs under pressure.