Race against time

Stroll-out to rollout

With 'those in the know' insisting that Sydney must remain in lockdown until...well, apparently until November (!), potentially - the previously leisurely vaccination stroll-out has now become a genuine race against time.

Perhaps this in itself will encourage more speed in terms of injections. 

The past 24 hours showed that the capability now exists to vaccinate the equivalent of about 1 per cent of Australian adults in a single day.

And this pace should hopefully increase considerably over the coming weeks and months.

Of the 11.6 million doses administered, around 8.1 million Aussies have now had their first dose.

Vaccinating the vulnerable

While this only equates to about 40 per cent of adults to date, there are at least some reasons not to be too gloomy. 

Most of the deaths from or with the coronavirus in Australia took place in aged care homes (758 of 921 deaths), which should now be better protected and fully vaccinated.

And, mercifully, the spread of deaths by age cohort shows very few occurrences of deaths in anyone under the age of 60, with effective treatments likely to be improving all the while.

Moreover, as more vaccine supply becomes available, and as pharmacies begin to administer doses, then the speed of the rollout should begin to increase rapidly. 

Things are at least moving in the right direction, with a fresh record of 1.12 million doses administered over the past week. 

Thus while Europe is running out of new arms to vaccinate, Australia is beginning to ramp up the pace.

With its very significant migrant community - about 30 per cent of Aussies were born overseas, and close to half have at least one parent born overseas - Australia may suffer some challenges with regarding to messaging and vaccine hesitancy.

But with Sydney now in a tough lockdown, the race is on. 

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Australia appears likely to record around 170,000 deaths in total in 2021.

The first three months of the year were all running above historical averages - about 5 per cent higher than the 5-year average - but not due to the coronavirus...instead, due to increased deaths from cancer, dementia, and diabetes.

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Property transactions rebounded in FY 2021 in New South Wales, raising almost $10 billion for Revenue NSW - alas, now to be spent elsewhere!