Long Covid or vaccine side effect fears: the choice is clear for holdouts

Many who are reluctant to get inoculated may fear some unknown long-term side effects of the jab

But they must also consider the risks of being infected and suffering from symptoms for many months because, for the unvaccinated, the world will never truly be safe.

A coronavirus patient breathes through an oxygen mask in a temporary Covid-19 care centre in New Delhi. Photo: dpa

A common reason given by those unwilling to get vaccinated is that they worry about unknown long-term side effects from Covid-19 vaccination. Never mind that these vaccines were developed by some of the brightest scientific minds around, built on decades of research on how medicines can be developed more quickly and safely. Never mind that they have been thoroughly tested and found to be safe, and that we have been using vaccines for over 200 years to prevent the spread of diseases such as measles and chickenpox. 

If people are worried about the “long-term” unknown side effects of getting jabbed, they should consider the alternative set of long-term risks they are exposing themselves to. One must ask what risks they are willing to take: either this fear of some long-term unknown side effect of a vaccine, or the well-established risks that getting infected with Covid-19 brings.

The side effects of the vaccine are well known in the short term, and the risk of any long-term side-effects is minute, in the expert opinion of those who developed these vaccines. But what about the risks associated with getting infected?

In the short term, a significant number of people get very sick, and many die. And the long term? An increasing number of studies are reporting people suffering from symptoms for many months after they were infected with Covid-19.

 

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NSW and ACT Covid-19 exposure sites: map of Sydney hotspots and list of Canberra coronavirus case location alerts

 

A health worker in Bondi, NSW conducts a Covid test. Check the full list and map of Covid-19 public exposure sites around Sydney and Canberra ACT for coronavirus hotspots and case location alerts.New hot spots have been added at Bondi Junction, Drummoyne, Newtown, Hurstville, Parramatta, Tempe and more. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Here are the current coronavirus hotspots and Covid-19 public exposure sites in Sydney, regional New South Wales and Canberra – including Bondi Junction, Drummoyne and Shellharbour – and what to do if you’ve visited them

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Authorities have released a list of public exposure sites in Sydney, regional NSW, and Canberra ACT visited by a confirmed case of Covid-19.

Here are the current coronavirus hotspots, Covid exposure sites, venues and case location alerts and what to do if you’ve visited them. See the full list and map below.

List of NSW and Sydney Covid public exposure sites

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To help you find the exposure sites you’re looking for, the list can be sorted by suburb or site name by clicking or tapping on the column headings in the table.

To see the column headings and sort them, this page needs to be viewed on desktop or, if using a mobile web browser, by turning your phone sideways to view the page in landscape.

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State takes testing to ‘a new level’ in fight against Delta COVID-19 strain

Tens of thousands of people who visited one of Sydney’s biggest shopping centres have been asked to get a COVID-19 test regardless of symptoms as health authorities change their approach in an attempt to “flush out” undetected cases of the fast-spreading Delta variant.

It comes as the eastern suburbs cluster grew to nine cases on Sunday, with three new locally acquired cases reported. Masks are now required indoors across large parts of the city.

Masks are compulsory in seven local government areas - Randwick, Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West, City of Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra - including in retail, theatres, aged care facilities, for front-of-house hospitality staff and on public transport.Credit:Edwina Pickles

Numerous venues, including several shops at Birkenhead Point shopping centre in Drummoyne, were added to the list of possible exposure sites on Sunday.

NSW Health asked anyone who was at Westfield Bondi Junction, including the car park, at any time on the weekend of June 12 and 13 to get tested but only people with symptoms and those at specific exposure venues at certain times are asked to also isolate.

The most recent cases include a woman in her 30s, a household contact of a man also in his 30s who frequented Westfield Bondi Junction and spent time in Wollongong and a man and woman, both in their 50s from the Sutherland Shire, who were in isolation and are close contacts of existing cases.

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Australia's first locally made COVID-19 mRNA vaccine candidate is set for clinical trials

 

The first clinical trials are expected to involve around 150 people, the Victorian government says

He said his team believed this approach was likely to produce a better kind of booster shot for future variants, which could be given to those already vaccinated against the original strain.

The team is also in the early stages of testing an mRNA vaccine candidate modelled on the Kappa variant.

And there's a protein vaccine being trialed as well?

Yes, that's right.

While Monash University has developed an mRNA vaccine candidate, the Doherty Institute has developed a protein vaccine candidate.

Both of them are focused on the receptor-binding domain of the Beta strain, so Professor Pouton said it made sense to work together and run the Phase 1 trial side by side.

The hope is, we'll learn more about whether the approach of targeting the receptor-binding domain is going to be useful to prepare us against future variations.

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 The Only Safe way out is Vaccination - Do it Today.

Thousands of Brazilians protest against President Jair Bolsonaro as COVID deaths reach 500,000

 

A person holds a cross reading "500,000 deaths" as people participate in a protest against Brazil's President

Protesters have rallied in 44 cities across Brazil to accuse their government of "genocide" as the country became the second to record 500,000 COVID-19 deaths.

Thousands took to the streets on Saturday to criticise President Jair Bolsonaro's pandemic response, blasting the leader for not acquiring vaccines fast enough.

Brazil has the global pandemic's second-highest death toll, after the United States.

"I am working tirelessly to vaccinate all Brazilians in the shortest time possible and change this scenario that has plagued us for over a year," Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tweeted as the death toll passed 500,000.

The government faced fierce criticism for passing up earlier opportunities to buy vaccines.

Pharmaceutical maker Pfizer said it got no response to early offers to sell vaccines to the government between August and November last year.

"We are protesting against the genocidal Bolsonaro government that did not buy vaccines and has done nothing to take care of its people in the last year," Aline Rabelo, a 36-year-old told Reuters in the capital, Brasilia.

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Multiple Victorian businesses shut down for breaking COVID-safe rules

 

More than 150 businesses have been found not complying with QR code requirements. (9News)

Several businesses in Victoria have been shut down for COVID-safe breaches.

The state government today confirmed seven Melbourne businesses in retail, hospitality and health and beauty were forced to close for failing to follow correct COVIDSafe protocol.

 

A retail store in St Albans was shut down for unauthorised trading during lockdown.

 

A health and beauty business in South Melbourne was also closed for exceeding density limits and having no density quotient signage, no COVIDSafe plan and no QR code check-in system in place.

 

Fines of $1652 were also handed to a hospitality venue in Essendon and a retail venue in Campbellfield for not having the Victorian Government's QR code check-in system in place.

 

In the past week authorised officers saw 168 instances of QR code non-compliance.

 

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Flight attendant tests positive for COVID-19 in Queensland after DFO visit in Brisbane

A woman has tested positive to COVID-19 in Queensland overnight.

Queensland Health said in a statement that the woman, aged in her 30s, had completed 14 days of hotel quarantine at 9:00am on Saturday.

She had returned negative tests during hotel quarantine.

Shoppers who visited DFO in Brisbane on Saturday are being asked to quarantine and await advice from Queensland Health. ABC News: Jim Malo

A follow-up test on June 19 shortly after leaving hotel quarantine — which was as part of routine aircrew surveillance — came back positive on Saturday evening.

The woman has been out in the community, travelling in a private shuttle bus to accommodation in Hamilton, north of Brisbane yesterday morning, before going to the DFO shopping centre near Brisbane airport and the CBD in the afternoon and a restaurant in the early evening.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said while the risk is low she was taking a very cautious approach. 

"She came into Brisbane on June 5 on an Emirates flight and we know she had contact with a positive case on that flight who had the Delta variant," Dr Young said.

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