IN an article today by Newcastle Herald journalist Damon Cronshaw, the existence of a new COVID variant first detected in South Africa is described as an example of "evolution in action".
The infectious diseases expert quoted says theory suggests that COVID variants better able to evade vaccines would have an "evolutionary advantage". Vaccine makers were in "an arms race" as they try to catch up with nature.
The changing DNA of COVID-19 is just one of the ways society is challenged by humanity's latest viral foe.
Successful vaccines have two effects.
COVID HERE:
- Concern as regional testing rates slide
- Frydenberg rules out JobKeeper clawback from profitable firms
- Misplaced COVID scepticism behind low SA rates
- Three of 4000 under-12s infected in Australia needed ICU
- Regional breakdown of NSW 1288 cases
First, they aim to protect vaccinated individuals.
Second, if sufficient people are inoculated, the resultant "herd immunity" should diminish, if not eradicate, the virus as a threat.
Until the necessary levels of vaccination are achieved, however, it's been social measures - lockdowns, curfews, travel bans and the like - that have been used more or less universally to keep COVID-19 at bay.
All such systems are porous to some degree.
The latest leak in the dyke wall of restrictions separating the Hunter from the main outbreak south of the Hawkesbury has come in the form of sales teams for Sydney tree-cutting and hedge-trimming outfits, with at least some of the door-to-door touts working while coronavirus positive.
Although NSW recorded a near-record number of 1288 new cases yesterday, just four of these were from the Hunter.
For this region, then, the lockdown is as much about exclusion as it is about control.
The latest figures show 36.4 per cent of the Australian population fully vaccinated, with 60.5 per cent having had one dose.
At the present dosing rate of about 850,000 doses a week it will take until late October - the best part of two months, in other words - to have 70 per cent of adults double jabbed.
Having such high-profile employers as BHP offering vaccinations to workers - including contractors - at its Mount Arthur coalmine can only help encourage other miners to do likewise.
COVID GLOBALLY:
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Cathay Pacific to sack unvaccinated workers
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NZ back on 'elimination' track
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UK bar owners opposed to COVID passports
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Brazilian viper venom might hold COVID combat hope
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Malaysia: 21,000 cases and 278 deaths in a day
The longer the lockdowns endure, the greater their adverse impacts. Estimates of our economic reopening are only that.
The virus, as governments around the world have been forced to accept, still has the upper hand more than 20 months after Wuhan.
With vaccines only now gaining a foothold, this evolutionary tussle between man and microbe is nowhere near over.
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