Vaccine efficacy
It's become clear that the countries leading the virus vaccination charge (Israel, Wales, Gibraltar etc.) have experienced tremendous results in crushing the spread of the coronavirus we're all so sick of hearing about.
Israel has seen its positivity rate plummet to just 0.02 per cent, and Wales is only recording a smattering of positive cases (while consistently reporting zero deaths).
With more than 65 million doses administered, the UK in its entirety is the next cab off the rank.
¾ of adults in the UK have had at least one vaccine dose, and about half have had both of their doses.
It's been a strange 2021 calendar year to date for Britain, with an eye-popping 1½ million arrivals reportedly roaming into the country across the third lockdown period from January to April, while at the same time onerous restrictions have been maintained on the populace.
But the good news is that the vaccines are working.
Yesterday only one death was reported within 28 days of a positive COVID test.
And today was the first 'zero' day since the pandemic began, way back in March 2020 (when you think about how 'deaths' are recorded, this a remarkable feat).
Hospital and ventilator cases are no longer reportedly daily, but have collapsed from very high levels in January.
A bit like happened previously with Brexit, the media has become stuck reporting endlessly on this one issue, interviewing by the hour everyone from nutritionists to University mathematics professors, yet routinely all but ignoring economic, mental health, or other health issues, such as delayed diagnoses and a terrible cancer crisis.
The public, in the main, however, seem to be moving on and getting with their lives, which is fair enough given that the virus now poses a serious risk to a tiny proportion of the population.
The median age of death with COVID has been 83, and total deaths have run so far below their 5-year average over the past couple of months that mortality rates are now at all-time lows.
Australian delays
Australia was a very late starter on the vaccine rollout, and has now experienced a good deal of vaccine hesitancy too.
As Victoria went into yet another lockdown this has been the highest week so far for vaccine doses, with weekly doses administered climbing to above 670,000 for the first time.
Of the 4.36 million doses administered to date, nearly 3.9 million have been first doses, and just under ½ million have been second doses.
With manufacture ramping up, there are now about 2.2 million further doses available, so theoretically doses administered should soon accelerate towards 1 million per week quite quickly from here.
Source: Department of Health
Election policies
The bookies have the Coalition well in front as the likely winner of the next Federal Election, and according to surveys it seems likely that "tough on the virus" will be a very popular angle to be pursued.
When might attitudes towards the virus change?
Logically, probably not until most of the electorate - more than half of Australia's 20 million adults - has had a vaccine and perceives the risk to themselves to be considerably lower.
Only 4 million adults have been vaccinated to date, so even when we do hit 1 million doses per week, we're still six weeks away from 10 million!
Hopefully more international movements become possible as soon as vaccines have been made available to all Aussies who want to take one.
