Core business

 

Image: clipground
Our core business ought to be public health so that businesses can continue to flourish and we can thrive. Suppressing the  spread of  illness ought to be  a priority. I have said before we do not help ourselves when we bang on about losing our freedom and things like the inconvenience of mask wearing . Health professionals have talked to us about good practice until they are blue in the face and our hospitals and staff have become stressed and distressed.  Some people, no matter their age, are very keen to get the fourth booster. Currently it is restricted to over 65s and those with health conditions which warrant it. Doesn't everyone need it? I know health care people are fed up talking to us and trying to help us when so many would rather abandon something as simple as a mask rather than keep themselves and everyone healthy. I know there have been some irrational and unreasonable protests about health measures to keep the public safe. Keep your distance! How hard is it? Wear a mask! What an imposition. Santitise! I have worked out we have been so unhygienic and grubby. We did need to lift our hygiene practices, especially when it came to cleaning public spaces. Right now the messages don't seem to be supporting the welfare and wellbeing of people. I am concerned how easily covid is spreading, how much gastric illness there is and then how worried people are because it seems we are doomed to live with constantly being sick. 

We need some sort of concerted effort and messaging to get ourselves past this bit. Remember the Life Be In It campaign? Something a bit cheerful and positive to get the core business of public health on a surer footing. When the public knows better than qualified health professionals then I am sure we need to suffer the consequences of ill informed decision making. Trouble is, there are innocents going to the wall as that approach is adopted, and that is wrong. When you have to rely on others for your own wellbeing because that is the nature of infectious diseases, we need some collaboration and co operation. Maybe a bit of lively,  cheerful messaging might work? As it stands we are dragging this public health mess around and it is weighing on us all. 

Step Up. Stay Safe.

 

SA Health has created an informative little video which you can find on the SA Health site under the Stop the Spread in SA link. It is 30 seconds long and so a good video for short attention spans. People are busy and preoccupied at the moment and concentration levels seem to be less than optimum. People are confused about what is going on. Some are in denial but everyone knows we keep losing people to Covid. Ten in the last two days. We have such a high infection rate for a small state. People worry about the spread, some could not care less and it sets up a lack of ease and tension. Even if you are pretending, getting Covid is no fun. Giving it to someone is disturbing and seeing people you care about die, because this disease can kill , is making people worry considerably. Even if they are putting on a “normal” front, the truth is still there and cannot be avoided. Too many people are getting it and hating it. Some can shrug it off. Others are feeling really depleted  and depressed by it. Like the rest of the country our hospital numbers and infections are up. The death rate this year from Covid is horrible. I feel for those who are losing parents,  grandparents and family members. It is tragic, the moreso because we are faking coping.

This little video is unassuming but makes the points clearly. There is something you can do. You can get tested and you can wear a mask. You can stay home if unwell. Our case numbers are up today because people have had the sense to get back out there and get tested. Hope they put their masks back on too. Double masks in public are so much more effective than if one person hasn’t worn one. It is easy. Testing takes far more effort , but thank goodness people have got back to that good practice! We will get there if we follow good practice and help each other. 

Keep calm and cope

Image : fineartamerica
 Living with covid is probably one of the most worrying experiences we have all had together. Add it to family issues, climate issues, acts of aggression and we are living in a high stress world. We are not the first to do this and we'd like to be the last but it won't happen. As far as coronavirus is concerned , we have to pool our knowledge and experience, deal with it in a calm and measured way and stop it from spreading. I heard today of people who had had their first vaccine but won't have a second. Why is that? The vaccine isn't perfect but it has been greatly helping. That information is everywhere and clear.  We need to establish why people don't get three vaccines and may not get the fourth. In South Australia we have been informed there are people who can access that fourth vaccine first once they are four months out from the third. Do people think vaccines don't help? We need to correct that view. Are they too lazy to get the next vaccine? Why? Did they suffer bad side effects which put them off? I had two Astra Zenica and one Moderna. With the Astra Zenica I spent the first month wondering if I would get blood clots because I come from a family with a history of blood clots. With the first dose I was really out of sorts for a week and then, after a month , I was fine. With the second one it was the same but milder. One of the bonuses for me was the Astra Zenica helped my osteo arthritis. It has been far less of a problem. With the Moderna I was off colour for a week , my arm really hurt but tea tree and honey manuka cream really helped that after the first day. I decided I preferred the Astra Zenica side effects. Moderna made me like a snail. Sooo slow. We need to sort out what puts people off vaccines by having decent conversations. One person I know who had had one vaccine dose got covid and then , as soon as he was recovered, he was in the line to get the rest of his vaccines. He had to get really sick to take action. 

We have voices of reason. SA Health is one of ours and today's presser was clear and helpful. We need to know what is being done and what we can do. Letting disease spread is stupid. Really stupid . It is not normal . We have to let the voices of reason hold the spotllight. Another one of our sane and comforting voices is Professor Esterman from the University of South Australia. His calm, measured voice has been with us throughout the pandemic. He neither gives us too much information nor panics. He gives us things to look at and do. His recent article about statisitics in the pandemic made sense and clarified the picture . He encourages us to look for the patterns. 

Professor Pagel in the UK looks at the myths we persist with during the pandemic so we do not help ourselves and get the case numbers down. If we keep letting people get sick it is not going to help at all. If we keep being sick and another variant comes along , we are in no position to defend and protect ourselves. She looks at it calmly. There are things we can do. Today's presser for South Australia was another example of giving us information but letting us know there are things being done and things we can do. 

Adapting schools to covid world

 We all got up and played Covid bingo again this morning and some found their children had covid and some had been notified their year levels, schools or daycare centres had covid. Some adults discovered they had covid. For families this is really tricky and hard. For schools it has become complicated. Our teacher's union had called for the last week of school term to be pupil free time to help ease the burden on teachers. Mr. Malinauskas, our Premier, has ruled this out. 

Image : clipartion

School principals , kindy managers and daycare centres would currently have a lot to say about our coronavirus situation. We have well over 30, 000 cases and for a state of 1.7 million that is too many thousand. We have to think this out and approach it in a very level headed way.  Yes, schools are there as baby sitting services for those who work, but so are many grandparents. If a child has covid the parents have to take time off. The grandparents can't be used as care providers because of the risk. The children and parents have to isolate. 

We know what works: masks, sanitizing, ventilation , social distancing, vaccination and hand washing. As we approach winter, ventilation is going to be a challenge. Getting people out into the cold and wet to get vaccinated is going to be hard. RAH has broken some thinking barriers and is directly dealing with people who have needle phobia. What a positive thing to do! We have to problem solve our way out of this and find what works so we can all keep going. 

Deciding to shut schools early or not is irrelevant. Covid doesn't care what we decide but if we move it will move with us. We have to stop the spread. 

Schools provide education. It is convenient that  allows parents to work but the prime purpose of a school is to educate children. We have an education act. Teachers have qualifications in subject areas and education. They are trained in mandatory notification, first aid and social justice.  We had a world standard distance education unit. Home schooling has to meet certain criteria and currently parents in Australia are choosing to home school their children. since covid more schools and departments have developed online lessons for students. Home schooling means the parents deliver the official curriculum but teachers are marking it. Online learning means the teachers are delivering lessons to students in their classes while the students are at home. The parents are supervisors. 

By now, all schools ought to be able to deliver online curricula. By now , students ought to be able to learn at home or at school. Some schools do easily change from face to face to screen to screen learning. Some parents have just gone to home schooling. We need hubs where children of parents who have to work and there is no one who can supervise can go...school buildings with teachers, presumably. With our numbers we should be encouraging options to get the case numbers and people numbers down. 

We haven't even considered other things which would help and maybe we shall now. We have technology. We have social media. We have connectivity. We are used to it. Some teachers  would be comfortable as online teachers only, I am sure. Some teachers  and others would be great online content producers whose content could be shared. We have our home schooling curriculum to be a framework. We have to add online content creators and teachers and then have face to face versions . We could be flexible. I wonder if we dare? 

Stop the spread

 Image : Harvard Health 
It is not encouraging news to hear modelling suggests we shall have 8000 cases a day in South Australia by April. That is a lot for our state. We are not built up and big. We have space. We can distance. What is the matter with us? Do we think pretending there is no virus we can be "normal"? Do we think it is so mild it is no big deal? Have we got corona fatigue and have decided it is over? Life may not be as we wish but we have to deal with it in a common sense way. We have known forever how to mitigate coronavirus and stop the spread. Why wouldn't we? Not everyone can be vaccinated . Putting little children and the vulnerable at risk is a horrible thing to do so we can be "normal". Ignoring we can be reinfected and suffer long covid is not a good option for a healthy, functioning society. Sick and dead people can't keep us going and making all this profit some are keen on. We need happy, healthy people and we need to work together. Masking up, washing hands, keeping air fresh, sanitising and social distancing are all easy and help. Getting triple vaccinated really helps. We need people to be vaccinated. We are the country that virtually stamped out smoking by using social control. Why don' t we do it with coronavirus? 

Harvard Health Edu has some good, solid information as to how we can stop the spread. We now have a Premier who is prepared to sort the garbled messaging out and get us on a better footing with clarity surrounding our health measures.  We have a responsibility too to take this seriously , whether we want to or not, to ensure we can all stay healthy. I don't want coronavirus cases to escalate. I don't want it and I don't want others to get it. I am doing what works and have stocked up on RATs so I don't unknowingly pass it on. We are going to have to adult this because we don't know who will suffer badly from coronavirus. It is a rotten virus like that. 

I don't blame them for trying out how far vaccines could free us up , so to speak. I don't blame them for trying things and trying to get information as to what works and what can be improved. We have to be included in those conversations and decisions. We have to have clear and direct information. Baffling us, confusing us and leaving us to our own devices is increasing case numbers. We are not epidemiologists or public health personnel. We need direction. Those who ignore it will be fewer if the bulk of people are clear.