Experts reveal exactly what life will look like once NSW reaches 80 per cent vaccination rates – and there’s one freedom that won’t be eased
- Epidemiologist warns we’ll be be living with the Covid virus until early next year
- Details emerge of what life looks once 80 per cent of NSW is fully vaccinated
- Wearing of masks in indoor setting and on transport one of the last to be eased
- Large gatherings could be permitted sooner if vaccine passports are adopted
Masks are here to stay and large gatherings will be one of the last activities permitted once Covid-ravaged NSW reaches 80 per cent vaccination.
Deakin University epidemiologist Professor Catherine Bennett has given a glimpse of what life will look like in the coming months and warned that we’ll be living with the Delta strain of the virus until at least early next year.
Writing in Public Health Research & Practice, a peer-reviewed journal of the Sax Institute, Professor Bennett warned against any expectations of an immediate return to normal life once vaccination targets hit 70 per cent and 80 per cent.
Wearing of masks in indoor settings and on public transport will be the last precaution to go.
The wearing of masks will remain once 80 per cent of eligible NSW residents are full vaccinated (pictured Sydneysider exercising in Centennial Park)
Large gatherings will be one of last activities permitted but could be permitted sooner if vaccine passports are adopted.
Restrictions of some kind will therefore be required wherever community transmission persists until we break through these targets and discover what it then takes to contain outbreaks, and when we can safely ease back on aggressive suppression,’ Professor Bennett said.
‘Workplaces will progressively open as we ease out of current lockdowns, and trials underway in NSW will determine whether rapid testing or other measures will be used in higher-risk work settings to limit risk.’
Residents are two thirds less likely to die or be hospitalised if they’ve had both doses.
‘Your chances of being infected in England were a third less if you had one dose of vaccination compared to an unvaccinated person,’ Professor Bennett wrote.
We will continue to live with the virus until at least early 2021, an epidemiologist warned
She warned it will be months before life returns to some sort of normality.
‘There is some reassurance in that, both for those who are impatient for change and concerned we might be too slow to launch, and for those who are anxious at the idea of a sudden opening,’ Professor Bennett concluded.
‘The virus is in the community, the COVID-19 transition has begun, and we are on track to live with the virus, but control the disease, from the first quarter of 2022.’
Large gatherings (pictured in Sydney) will be one of the last activities to be permitted