no turkey for you kiddo

 Comrades,

Here's a joyous thought - there will be no children at Xmas this year. Why? Because they will all be unvaccinated.

"Freedom!" (whatever that might mean in the Brave New World) is limited to the vaccinated only, right? 'Vaccine passports' and all that. That can only mean "you haven't got the papers, so no turkey for you kiddo, stay right there in the laundry", or is that wrong? With all the mixed messaging you'd be hard pressed to have even the faintest idea. 'Generation Alpha', the 0-14 year olds, number very close to five million in Australia. Imagine the nightmare scenario of a city the size of Sydney jammed full of kids, and you start to get the picture. And they're all a big fat doughnut zero % inoculated.

Never mind the entirely forgotten 40-59 year olds who desperately want, and are advised by their doctors, to get a Pfizer vaccine but are unable to obtain one for love nor money. The lengths they go to are legion, many even taking the Govt's lead and resorting to downright deception - but let's put them to one side for the moment because as far as the Govt. is concerned, they don't matter, even if the last time anyone looked they've still got the vote. Let's cut to the chase - going by the disgraceful debacle that's happening in Dubbo and Wilcannia, if you're black, then you better stand way back. If you're white, then join the queue here, please. If you're poor, ethnic, old, mad, unemployed, crippled, halt or lame then you're on your own. So if these mythical 70% and 80% targets are to be achieved across the board, including all the most vulnerable and marginalised segments of society - you'll be waiting way way beyond Christmas just for a start off.

And if you think the anti-vaxxers aren't a problem for you because you are a fine upstanding member of the community, think again. Studies suggest that somewhere between 6% and 8% of the adult population will never get a vaccine of any kind, ever. Add in those who just couldn't be arsed, and you've got a good ten per cent, right there. And some folks have a pathological fear of needles. It's a given you will never get beyond 90% full vaccination rates, 80% is a huge ask, and even 70% will be very difficult to achieve. Just as more people are jabbed and supply ramps up in Dec/Jan, demand will inevitably plateau - as it has in the rest of the developed world - and like Singapore, we'll end up giving away our "use-by-date due to expire next week" Pfizer vaccines to some poor suffering souls worse off than us.
In the UK, where supply now vastly outstrips demand, the 'at least one-shot vaccination rate' has all but stalled, taking almost two months to get from 69% to 72%.
They are really struggling to even get the 70-80 numbers among staff in nursing homes for Chrissake, when 100% is mandated by September 17 deadline. WA and QLD - predictably - are dragging the chain, with both achieving just 50% one-shot coverage only yesterday (51.0% and 51.1% respectively, SA no better at 53.2%); they're taking ScoMo's words very much to heart: "This is not a race". So amid all the sacrosanct "modelling", why isn't anyone asking the question - forget the Federated States Border Wars - what happens if 70% can't be reached, let alone 80%? Is that just forget it, we've arrived in Doomsville? Let 'er rip? Or what, precisely?

If those numbers are to include every last man, woman and child, regardless of race, creed, class or custom in every last corner of the vast Wide Brown Land - as they bloody well should, never mind must - before we get to ScoMo's famous "snap back", we will be waiting a very, very long time indeed: read forever. Since the Delta mutant arrived, the term "herd immunity" seems to have mysteriously vanished from the lexicon. And if you are thinking things will rosily "get back to normal" or even a "new normal" if and when the arbitrary round number targets are met, you're dreaming. Scotty from Marketing is waving an appeasement roadmap around 'I have a piece of paper', so he's obviously oblivious to the fact that street directories went out of fashion years ago. And double dip recession be buggered, ever heard of The Great Depression? The free money tree in the economic forest will fall eventually. The fear is no one will be there to hear it.

Whatever happens, Our Great and Glorious Leader's famous words "we will be living life different at Christmas than we are now" will, without a shadow of a doubt, come back to haunt the Bogan-in-Chief. Now there, that's a nice lovely downer for the 10th week of a two week lockdown, eh? Brighten up. Be happy. It could be worse. A lot worse.

 Homeless person sleeps outside a closed Coronavirus testing station, 26 August 2021, Vienna, Austria.