Haha nice one DD. Seriously mate if you don't have a problem with this clown you need to have a good look at yourself in the mirror -
Mark McGowan’s border backflip: The seven claims the Premier made that don’t stack up
Peter Law
The West Australian
Fri, 21 January 2022 8:59PM
Claims made by Mark McGowan to justify his decision to delay the reopening of the WA border indefinitely do not stand up to proper scrutiny.The West Australian fact checked claims the Premier made in his prime-time television address on Thursday night and which he repeated at Friday’s press conference.They showed inconsistencies with evidence about what is really happening in Australia’s hospitals amid an explosion in Omicron cases in the Eastern States over the past month.
Some basic facts were incorrect and repeated numerous times despite being wrong, as Mr McGowan attempted to mount an argument that delaying the February 5 reopening would help WA avoid a “catastrophe”.
Claim #1: “South Australia had 11 people die today, back when they opened they were COVID-free like us, so that’s the sort of thing we’re doing our best to avoid.”South Australia’s Premier Steven Marshall earlier on Thursday announced 11 deaths over the previous 24 hours, but cautioned he had been advised by Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier that the “unusually high number” was possibly a backlog.“She said, ‘Look, it’s quite possible that it’s an accumulation for a number of days’,” Mr Marshall said.“There is no urgent reporting requirement from residential aged-care facilities into SA Health related to COVID, and so sometimes there’s a bit of a catch up.”
Claim #2: “There’s been a surge in hospitalisations around Australia, with an average of almost 5000 Australians hospitalised a day since the start of the year with COVID.”There were 5147 patients with COVID-19 hospitalised in Australia on Thursday. The peak was two days earlier, when there were 5307 people hospitalised with the virus.The West Australian calculated that since January 1 there had been a daily average of 3800 people hospitalised with COVID-19 in Australia, well below the 5000 cited by the Premier.
Claim #3 “Hospitals are overflowing with patients, hospitals in meltdown. That’s what’s happening and it would be grossly irresponsible of me not to watch and act on the basis of that.”The Federal Health Department on Thursday published its weekly report on how hospitals were coping with the number of COVID patients.It showed 8 per cent of hospital ward beds and 22 per cent of ICU beds across Australia were occupied by COVID patients.In NSW, those figures were 12 per cent (ward beds) and 24 per cent (ICU).Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly on Wednesday said the nation’s hospitals were “coping” at the moment.“These are levels of coping that have been agreed with the States and Territories in our common operating picture through the National Cabinet, and so in terms of hospitalisations right across the country, that’s still green, in a green-orange-red traffic light system,” Professor Kelly said.“In terms of intensive care, there is pressure, so several States are showing amber and are taking action appropriately for that, and Victoria has been in that higher level of red for the last couple of weeks.“But even there, that means that they’re at 33 per cent of their capacity. So there is plenty of capacity.”
Claim #4: “I can’t predict what the future will hold and we couldn’t predict Omicron. Omicron came along on December 8 in Australia.”NSW Health announced Australia’s first case of Omicron on November 28 — 10 days earlier than the Premier’s claim — after genomic sequencing showed two overseas arrivals had the strain.The first suspected case of community transmission of Omicron was on December 3, a Sydney school student with no history of overseas travel.Mr McGowan again wrongly stated on Friday that Australia’s first Omicron case was on December 8 while defending the timing of his Government’s rapid antigen tests order.The Premier’s office later said he had been provided incorrect information.
Claim #5: “If there’s an argument somehow we should have gone and spent half a billion dollars on rapid antigen tests with some sort of foresight for a virus that didn’t exist at that point in time, I think it’s a very unfair argument.”The Premier has been unable to reveal the exact date WA Health ordered millions of rapid antigen tests, only saying it was in the first half of December.The Commonwealth and State governments agreed on November 5 to share the cost of RATs required to comply with public health orders.The Therapeutic Goods Administration approved the sale of RATs for at-home use from November 1, but the ban on their sale was not lifted in WA until January 10.WA Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said she expected there would be 10 million RATs in the State stockpile at the start of February, with 1.5 million already in stock and more than 80 million by April.Ten weeks ago, the Victorian Government announced it was giving kindergartens, daycare centres and schools free RATs to help manage outbreaks.
Claim #6: “The science shows that people with only two doses of a COVID vaccine have only a 4 per cent protection against being infected by the Omicron variant, but a third dose can provide a 64 per cent protection against infection.”The Premier on Friday said these figures had been provided by WA Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson and were based on academic papers.Dr Robertson’s written advice attributes it to a research paper published in Denmark on December 27.The study found Omicron was up to 3.7 times more infectious than Delta among the vaccinated and the booster reduced transmission.The Premier’s office referred questions to WA Health.Dr Robertson told The West his advice referred to a table contained in the report on the effect of vaccination.The West was unable to find anywhere in the report that explicitly states double dose protection fell to 4 per cent and received no explanation about how Dr Robertson extrapolated the data.Last week, the UK Health Security Agency said vaccine effectiveness against Omicron 20 weeks after a second dose of Pfizer or Moderna dropped to 10 per cent.Two to four weeks after a booster, effectiveness ranged from about 65 to 75 per cent, dropping to 55 to 65 per cent at five to nine weeks and 45 to 50 per cent from 10 weeks.
Claim #7: “The local AMA (Australian Medical Association) endorsed our move (to delay reopening) and called for it.”AWA WA president Mark Duncan-Smith did not call for a delayed reopening. He instead advocated the Government immediately impose harsher restrictions to slow the transmission of Omicron already spreading in WA.
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