Covid causing travel hesitancy

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Overseas travellers 2012 to 2022 Source ABS

Some of my friends and family have decided to head off overseas (Covid be damned), and I’m just a tad jealous. Despite making plans to visit family in New Zealand in February next year, our last international adventures are now more than a decade ago. Anecdotes and photos have faded, alas.

It’s probably normal’ for avid travellers to do less of it as they age, for financial and health reasons. In addition, as illustrated in this graph from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) website, the advent of Covid-19 and its aftermath certainly put paid to our collective travel ambitions.

A late 2021 study found that Australians were lukewarm about travelling, ahead of international borders opening in February 2022.

The University of Queensland study found that only 51% of those surveyed were planning international travel, with New Zealand and Europe as key destinations. The research showed that 33% of respondents preferred to holiday in Australia, and 16% were going to stay home. Nevertheless, it has been five years since our last trip to New Zealand to visit whanua. There are new grandchildren – great-grandchildren, even. And my siblings are ageing, as am I.

As you will note from today’s chart, there has been a surge in overseas traveller numbers (inbound and outbound), but it’s a long way off the 2019 highs.

One outcome of the Covid pandemic and the lifting of travel bans is a dramatic shift in the way people plan overseas travel. A recent ABC segment found that hesitancy has changed the way Australians travel, with shorter lead times between bookings and departures. Pre-Covid, a large proportion of travellers made their own travel and accommodation bookings. But COVID-19 restrictions have led to a renewed interest in travel agencies.

Many people are nervous about what could happen should they catch Covid while travelling abroad. There are a couple of key flaws in Covid-tracking, and one is that sometimes people have Covid but don’t know it (asymptomatic). Then there are people (there would have to be some), that suspect they have Covid but keep on travelling regardless.

They might give it to a thousand other people, but as they might say in their own defence, our own chief health officer has said, it is “inevitable” most of us will catch Covid.

A friend who once swore she’d never visit Europe for all those reasons and more has just left for a six-week tour of the UK. In part, it is an organised tour and the rest independent travel. Our local friend, who we shall refer to as Zee, related a typical 2022 travel anecdote from the transit lounge in Vancouver.

“I never saw the person involved, but I gather he was a young man who had travelled via Alaska Airlines to Portland and then Air Canada to Vancouver. He had checked two bags with all his worldly possessions through to Korea.  However, apparently, they never made it on to the Air Canada flight and nobody has any idea where they are.  I know all this because he explained it in exhaustive detail several times to different people on a very long phone call. He was obviously distressed, and I felt very sorry for him. And I will never know if he ever got them back.”

 Zee has since landed at Heathrow and boarded a tour bus bound for Oxford (Ed: The Perfect Comma Tour?). After seeing stories in the media about airline passengers losing luggage, Zee opted for carry-on only. I suspect UK charity shops will be the beneficiaries of that decision.

We have all heard about or seen media coverage of people trying in vain to find lost luggage, waiting for hours in queues or being repeatedly bumped off flights. During its 18-month hiatus, the airline industry, despite attempts to revisit glory days running decades-old commercials, appears to have serious organisational issues. It comes down to a shortage of staff and trying to make old bookings systems work in a post-Covid world. Not that we are anywhere near a post-Covid world.

It may surprise you to know there are 28 countries which are not open to international visitors. They include a few countries most of us would never have on our destination bucket list. A few have onerous travel restrictions which would probably deter most visitors. Hong Kong, for example, requires you to return a negative Covid test and then go into quarantine.

A useful website (Kayak) tells us there are 163 countries that are open to visitors, and which do not require Covid-testing or quarantining. Another 33 countries require Covid testing before they will let you in and three that also require you to go into quarantine. The 28 countries that are open only to returning citizens or those under ‘special circumstances’ include China, Taiwan and Russia.

Kayak, an on-line travel agency, maintains a web page which keeps track of where you can go and what restrictions there are (if any). Despite Australia requiring all people travelling to and from the country to be double vaccinated, some countries (like Ireland) have an open-door policy. I would caution anyone with travel plans to check and double-check the entry (and exit) requirements as they change all the time.

The Kayak web page is also a one-stop place to check out how other countries are going with their vaccination rates. They range from Samoa (100%), Singapore (92%) and Germany (75%) to scarily low numbers in countries like Somalia (16%) and PNG (3.4%).

Our research into travel to New Zealand in six months’ time has thus far revealed it will be costly for comprehensive insurance. This is more to do with being 70+ than any other factor. Even though it is six months’ away, hire car companies seem to be short of vehicles. Of more pressing concern is planning ahead to avoid catching Covid and giving it to other people, namely elderly family members. We are fortunate to have an extended family in NZ who would find ways of accommodating us should we need to go into isolation (a bach at the beach, Cuz?). But it is best to make sure you factor another $1000 or so into your travel budget to cover contingencies.

As readers may have gathered over the eight years we have been communing on Fridays, I’ve done a fair bit of travelling in my youth. We also had some adventures later in life – in 2004 exchanging houses for six months with an English couple who lived in Godalming (Surrey). That was a great way to see Greece, France, Belgium, Italy, Scotland, Wales and other places, three weeks at a time then back to base to live the suburban life for a while. We visited relatives in Canada on the way over and re-visited Canada in 2010 for a family reunion. This seems to be the year for the Canadians to visit us. Brother Jon was here in May, making the most of the wet winter. Cousin Glen and his wife will be here in our Spring. They intended to travel in 2020 but we all know how that went down. There’s talk of a cousins’ reunion (probably in Seattle) in 2023. .

As readers may recall from recent essays about our trip to Tasmania, we found there’s a fair difference between taking on a 10km bush walk at 64 and 10 years on. .

Let’s see how we pull up after a month in New Zealand.

FOMM flashback

 

 

Spreading the word about U3A

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(Photo by Bob Wilson): U3A Warwick birdwatchers checking out the shallow end of Storm King Dam while on a recent excursion.

One of the positives in retirement is that it allows one to volunteer with valuable community organisations like U3A. It’s not that uncommon to meet people who have never heard of the University of the Third Age (U3A), an international organisation with broad aims of helping educate and entertain its 450,000 members, who are now in their ‘Third Age’ of life.

U3A originated in France in 1973 as an extramural university activity. This was significantly modified in the UK where it was recognized that most people of retirement age have something to contribute. The UK model, which Australia has adopted, emphasises sharing without formal educational links, that is, ‘study’ without the pressure of homework or exams. Membership is open to people who are winding down to retirement or are already retired.

Australia’s first U3A began in Melbourne in 1984 and has grown to 250 U3As with about 100,000 members. These metropolitan, regional and rural chapters develop programmes of teaching and learning over a wide range of subject areas, dependant upon the membership’s own expertise, knowledge and skills.

For example, in our local Warwick U3A, the retired principal of Scots PGC College, Neil Bonnell, tutors two courses – China Today and the Bible as History. Mr Bonnell, a much-travelled senior educator, taught at well-regarded schools in England, Uganda and Australia, finishing his career with a year in China. Last year he started writing his memoirs, which have been published in the Warwick U3A Emag and quarterly newsletters. The final chapters can be found here.

In 2003 Neil began tutoring and giving bridge lessons for U3A Warwick. He is a founding member of Warwick Bridge Club and past-president and a long-serving committee member of U3A.

I started attending Neil’s up to the minute and insightful class “China Today” this year. The advantage of being a member of a U3A course or class is that you can sit back and soak up someone else’s great knowledge and experience for a very modest annual subscription. All tutor and committee roles are voluntary. Local U3A chapters are supported by State and Territory Networks; organisations which help local committees with more complex issues (like developing a Covid policy).

Queensland U3A Network president Gail Bonser reflected on the struggle to keep U3As going through the pandemic and restrictions which saw some classes postponed or cancelled.

“Managing a U3A during the COVID epidemic has been taxing for many. Quite a few U3As have experienced a reduction in numbers and with it a reduction in their income.  All were closed for several months during 2020 and because of their special circumstances, some did not reopen during the remainder of that year.

“During the shutdown, the Network formed a communication group which enabled U3A Presidents or their representatives to keep in touch and to share ideas, experiences and management techniques.  Once Level 3 restrictions were introduced, it became possible for U3As to recommence classes and activities and members of the group exchanged documents such as COVID Safe Plans.”

Ms Bonser said associations were hoping for a COVID free start to 2022 but the Omicron spike intervened.  Most U3As cancelled their January Enrolment Days, made alternative arrangements and/or delayed the resumption of classes to early February.
“Thankfully it seems that U3A members have largely avoided the worst effects of the disease. That may have been one of the few positives.”

I joined the Warwick committee at the time we were looking for someone to edit the quarterly newsletter. The former editor had been producing a monthly Emag as well as quarterly newsletters. I took the job on the proviso I’d phase out the monthly magazine. Since then, my role has been extended to include updating our website and posting new content as appropriate.

Our chapter hosts outdoor activities including Tai Chi, bush walking and birdwatching. There are language classes, card groups, art and craft classes, meditation, music appreciation and this year, two new dance classes – Line Dancing and Scottish Country Dance. A new gardening group was formed in 2022 and retired teacher Stephen Jackson is next term resuming his popular opera class. Some courses are so popular there is a waiting list (wood crafting, for example).

Two of the four groups I joined require getting out of bed early – bush walking and birdwatching. Both activities depend on what the weather is doing at the time. Last year, our bush walking group’s expeditions included a day at Girraween National Park and a visit to Cunningham’s Gap nature reserve. The birdwatching group also travel afield and in February visited a private property at Storm King dam near Stanthorpe.

I was recently talking to a younger friend in Brisbane (late 40s) and mentioned U3A. He had not heard of the organisation but after I gave him an overview, he said it sounded like something his Mum would enjoy.

U3A members are from all different backgrounds, but it is not uncommon to meet people who have had a university education and a professional career. Perhaps that is why we have not one but two book clubs. One is a formal book club (everyone reads the same book and then the group critiques it). A new course started this year involves re-reading old Australian classics, starting with Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang.

Our U3A has about 125 members and is currently running 27 courses, so there is a lot of choice. There is also provision for members to take part in other activities through U3A Online.

As for volunteering in general, I recommend it for older people (70+) as a way of keeping your brain sharp and sharing your life experience with others. I started volunteering in 2021 as an occasional tour guide at Glengallan Homestead, a grand country home from the 1870s that was rescued from ruin. Then I joined a local refugee support group and along the way stepped up my involvement with U3A. In a way, volunteering is like one of the main aims of the organisation – to encourage people to try something new.

As someone remarked after I accepted the position of chair of the Southern Downs Refugee and Migrant Network – “You’ll grow into the role, Bob.”

The only problem with U3A (if like me you have a 40-year-old brain), is that you only ever meet people your own age (early 70s) or older. While that firmly cements me in the demographic to which I belong, it can also be a gratifying experience. Those of us who lost our parents relatively early in life can always benefit from the wise counsel of an older friend.

The message today (for readers under 50) is to subtly suggest to your parents (or grandparents) that they check out U3A. A year of absorbing activities and new friends for the price of a pub lunch. As for my peers, you don’t have to just sit there and watch daytime TV or play Solitaire on your computer. Go for a regular walk, join a seniors’ gym class, interact with grandchildren and look into U3A. Do as I say, not as I do (says he, flexing his ab). As they say, physical and intellectual activity can enrich and prolong life in one’s later years – just ask me!

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Sport as opium of the masses

YouTube video – Ash comes back from 5-1 down

On Sunday night, as Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev drew level at two games each in the first set, we decided that tennis as a spectator sport was intrinsically boring to watch.

We adjourned to the dining room table to resume the great summer scrabble tournament. Earlier that day while vacuuming, I had found an F lurking beside a leg of the dining room chair. Now it was back inside the green cloth bag, I felt my luck was about to turn.

As the game progressed, faced with a dismal collection of letters and a cramped board, I tentatively offered RAFA. She Who Usually Wins at Scrabble snorted: “Good try, Bob”. I ended up winning that game (which took 1 hour and 11 minutes with no tie-break). ZOO and OM on a triple word score did the trick. In between moves one of us would slip into the lounge to see how the men’s final match was progressing – whack (grunt), whack, whack, whack (grunt) whack.

Scrabble over, we went back into the lounge and switched to Muster Dog, an ABC reality series fast overtaking all but the tennis in the ratings. Yes, we could have watched it later and persisted with the tennis. But really, how many hours can you spend watching two blokes, neither of them Australian, whack a ball back and forth across a net?

I realise this is cognitive dissonance and counter to the prevailing Australian obsession with sports of all persuasion. But as February looms – the brief hiatus between summer and winter sports begins.

The end of the Australian Open is a sign we are all about to be dragged back to an albeit-postponed new school year and all that entails. The ever-spiralling Omicron case numbers might finally penetrate our sports-soaked brains. The total number of cases in Australia since February 2020 is 2.29 million. As of February 2 there were 345,027 active cases. In those two years 3,987 people died, most recently musician and promoter Glenn Wheatley.

But gee, Rafa’s got a great forehand slice, eh!

Across the decades, various academics and writers have  twisted the famous Marxism that sport is the ‘opium of the people’. Marx actually said that of religion, back in 1843. Marx, being opposed to all things important to the ‘system’, said religion was like a drug, causing people to experience an illusory form of happiness.

Politicaldictionary.com says the original intent of Marx’s thinking has been paraphrased and twisted over the years. The term ‘opiate of the masses’ has been hijacked by people trying to make a case about professional sport (in cahoots with television), replacing religion in an increasingly secular society.

What Marx actually said 179 years ago was this:

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Marx’s opinion was that religion dulled people’s minds and preventing them from improving their lives. Many pundits have since argued that spectator sports, politics or even television itself also distract us from confronting the real issues in life.

For example, Western Kentucky University political scientist Eric Bain-Selbo argued that sport (in this instance college football), was the opium of the people.

“Sport functions to preserve the status quo, to maintain the position of the “haves” vis-à-vis the “have nots”. To do this, sport must act as a kind of “opiate” for the “have nots”, so that they will accept the inequities and injustices of the social system.” 

I did the basic research for this while half watching Nadal sweat his way through the fourth and fifth game of the third set. As the game seemed about to go to five sets, I cleaned up the kitchen, turned on the dish washer and went to bed to read three more chapters in a devilishly well-written book by William Boyd. Armadillo is about an idiosyncratic chap who has found his niche in life practising the dark arts of a loss adjuster. Then I checked my emails, scrolled through Facebook to find that few of my friends were watching the final (as opposed to Saturday night when 4.25 million people saw Ash Barty win the Australian Women’s championship). Ah, but that was different, eh? She’s one of ours.

The above demonstrates how much one can get done in five hours and 24 minutes, which is how long it took Rafa to wear down the Russian and win his 21st grand slam.

You have to give it to the old pro, who, like Ash Barty, came from well behind to take an impressive victory. The match was watched by 1.58 million television viewers, although there are no statistics available on how many of them gave up and went to bed.

On Saturday night, a record 4.25 million people tuned in to Channel Nine to watch Ash Barty defeat Danielle Collins in two sets.

Later, after the official presentation and a victory lap, Barty made her way to the Channel Nine studios where an excited James Bracey waited. In the interim, Bracey waxed enthusiastic about the win, sharing the euphoria with co-commentators and former tennis stars, Casey Dellacqua and Alicia Molik.

“You dream of this as a broadcaster. Our whole Wide World of Sports team has been willing this on,” Bracey said, having earlier acknowledged how badly the country needed a (psychological) lift.

Near the end of the interview (YouTube video above), a crew member pushed a mixed basket of boutique beers on to the presenters’ table. This shameless product placement left Ash with nowhere to go but choose one (by name). It is commercial TV after all.

I note there is now an edited version of this video reducing it to a beer ad, which has produced a stream of comments castigating Nine for taking advantage.

If you saw the original interview, you could not fail to be impressed with Ash’s genuine, modest nature. When Bracey asked her about her trove of tennis trophies, she revealed she does not keep them at home but instead shares them around to family members. Nice.

I happened to text my sister in New Zealand at some point in the Barty/Collins match to ask if she was watching. I’d forgotten about the three-hour time difference. Next morning it transpired she’d been otherwise occupied, celebrating the first birthday of her tamahine mootua (great-grand daughter). My sister and her family are mad about cricket though, so I sent her an abridged version of Ash Barty’s achievements in cricket, golf and tennis.  Meanwhile, we now have to sweat our way through February, 28 days of humidity, storms, possible cyclones, probable heat waves (Feb 1 was a stinker), floods (see SA), and continuing supply chain issues. As for sport, there’s always the six nations rugby tournament or the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Shame about the Matildas (women’s soccer team). Then there’s the first rugby league game of the year, to be played (Covid-willing), on Saturday February 12.  The Indigenous All Stars meet the New Zealand Maoris in a televised event which promises to be a spectacle, if only for the pre-match entertainment. The Maori team will demonstrate a haka, while the Indigenous team will hopefully reprise the ‘war cry’ that Bangarra Dance Company founder Stephen Page and indigenous leaders produced for last year’s contest.

No scrabble game that night.

FOMM back pages

The original FOMM travel articles

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Image: FOMM logo – author in the Greek islands, reflecting on life , 2004

Just thinking about how much we love to travel (re: last week’s mention of Japan), got me thinking about how much we are missing being able to scratch our itchy feet. We are not the only ones. When it comes to having family or close friends living overseas, not being able to visit is particularly hard. We all know someone who has not yet met their new grandchild (in London or New York). We appeased the travel bug in 2020 and 2021 by taking month-long caravan treks in the outback, but it is not the same as travelling overseas.

An old family friend in New Zealand is having a few health problems and at 89, this much-travelled woman’s days of dropping in on friends around the world unannounced is probably over. It would have been good to just hop on a plane and turn up at the hospital. In her travelling days she was wont to describe her spontaneous arrivals as, ‘It’s just me, turning up like a bad penny.’ But we did send flowers.

Our friend went ‘backpacking’ in the 1950s with an intrepid Kiwi friend. They were both teachers and had a hunger to work their way around the world. Very few young women travelled alone in 1954, let me tell you. At the time my parents met them in Scotland (autumn 1954), they were out every day in the back blocks of Montrose, picking potatoes, saving up for their next travel adventure. Dad read a story about them in the local newspaper, tracked them down and invited them to stay for the weekend. He’d been thinking about emigrating for some time and had noted they came from the district where he had been offered a job. They became firm friends and of course that was the genesis of our emigrating to New Zealand in 1955.

Our old friend used to send me stamps she’d collected in her travels (the US, Vietnam, the former Yugoslavia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden Switzerland, Sarawak, the Solomon Islands, to name a few). The album is still in the bookcase here. It’s not worth much money but it brings back treasured memories. Once I reached my 20s, I felt compelled to leave NZ on what was then known as the “OE” (overseas experience). But you were supposed to go to London, go drinking with other Kiwi and Aussies in Earl’s Court and head home once your money was spent.

It didn’t always turn out like that. Young Kiwis or Aussies travelled, met their true love and settled in foreign climes. Serious travellers worked out the only way to keep travelling was to learn a bit of the local lingo and wangle a job. In France I picked grapes (the Vendange). After 10 days of dawn to dusk picking, I could barely get out of bed.

Later I landed two part-time jobs in Edinburgh, where I lived for six months in a bed-sit. The three-hour shift cleaning a department store before it opened was easy work and we got a free cooked breakfast. The evening shift cleaning offices went from 5pm to 8pm. Those two gigs helped pay my rent and grocery bills and at weekends we’d go adventuring in the highlands or south to the Lakes District.

I recently discovered a folder of travel articles from 2004, when we swapped houses with an English couple and spent six months living in a village in Surrey. Work wasn’t going so well, so I took all the long service leave and holidays that were owing and absented myself for six months.

It’s intriguing now to look back on these rambling emails to folks back home as the forerunner to Friday on My Mind. My then-colleague Jeffrey Sommerfeld had developed a weekly email to hundreds of our contacts (he was so pre-Twitter). He tells me now that so many of my contacts asked after me (in a kindly way), that he forwarded our unedited and sometimes rambling accounts to family and friends. They loved being kept in the loop about the adventures of Bob and ‘Mrs W’.

Here’s a nostalgic taste of how travel was before Covid and 9/11. I’ll follow up next week with our experiences of Hydra, a Greek Island best-known for once being home to poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen.

March 2004: TRAVEL can test the strongest relationship – just ask me. On second thoughts, don’t ask me because I don’t know my left from my right and can’t read a map.

My last bout of travelling in the 1970s was a solo effort, one last fling with tepid youth, if you will. I was practising to be a writer so did not really care where my feckless, directionless kind of travel took me.

In 2004 Mrs W and I made a base in Surrey for six months and made periodic forays to “the continent” as the Poms say.

I persuaded Mrs W to start with three weeks in Greece, nurturing warm memories of that stark country and its beautiful islands as a friendly and laid-back travel experience.

We flew via Singapore, arriving in Athens at 6am in that slightly stunned and disoriented state that flying in a pressurised container for 12 hours can induce.

The first stage of our adventure went without a hitch, lugging our (considerable) baggage on to the airport bus, arriving in central Athens about 8.30am.

I identified the Metro sign across the road and off we went. Much of Athens was a building site at the time, as the city prepared for the Olympics.

The escalators were out of order that day so we lugged four bags and a guitar down four flights of steep stairs to the (new) Athens metro station at Constitution Square.

On arriving at the right stop (Monistraki), I discovered there were five exits and I had no idea which one would take us to our hotel!

So there we were, us and our baggage, on a busy, dusty street, trying to decipher the tiny print on my (photocopied) local map. Mrs W was by now unimpressed with my forward planning. She was also discovering that my claims of knowing the language (after seven days on a Greek cruise ship in 1973), as complete bollocks.

Did I say we were in this situation largely because we had pledged to use local public transport and eschew taxis unless absolutely necessary? I used my mobile to call Hotel Tempi which I had pre-booked for three nights. Friendly host Yannes said we were just two streets away from the hotel “is easy – Parakalo.” but we turned right instead of left and took a very circuitous route via the fish market, across a road jammed with trucks, cars and two or three hundred motorcycles, carrying and dragging the baggage we needed en route to six months in the UK (which we did not get to until April).

Fortunately, our host encounters grumpy, jet-lagged tourists each and every day so was able to calm us down and send us to our room with the promise “I bring bags later”.

The hotel stored our bags (no charge, is easy) while we toured around southern Greece, starting with three days on Hydra.

In three weeks of exploring Greece on public transport and on foot we got lost many times: the big question for couples travelling on a budget to ask themselves is – does it really matter? As the Greeks would say chalárose kai apólafse” (relax and enjoy).

Next week: A donkey ride on Hydra

 

Angst in the time of Covid

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Image: A young girl is given oral polio vaccine – Wikimedia CC

Amid reports of doubters who (still) believe Covid is fake news, this week we examine the history of public protest and vaccine hesitancy in times of contagion.

Those 3,000 or so people who mingled on Sydney’s streets a while back, protesting against the Covid lockdown, protesting about vaccines – it’s nothing new.

In the early 19th century, Joe Public was getting riled up by the spread of cholera and the seemingly poor response by doctors and authorities. There was similar dissent shown when the UK government sought to make the smallpox vaccine compulsory in 1854. There was an ‘anti-mask’ movement during the Spanish Flu and much stigmatisation of polio victims in the first half of the 20th century.

While the threat of cholera has been eradicated in countries with good drinking water and sanitation, there’s still a lot of it about in parts of Africa and Asia.

Cholera is a severe diarrhoeal disease which, if left untreated, can kill within hours. It is commonly transmitted via food or untreated water, particularly in countries with poor sanitation. Even now if you are travelling to Asia or Africa, your GP will advise getting vaccinated.

And here, dear reader, is where the great divide starts; the inevitable chasm between the majority who accept the science and medical advice and those who don’t. There are those who think the Covid vaccine is a plot to de-populate the planet or a conspiracy to control our minds by implanting microchips. Mine has already succumbed, as you can tell.

The first cholera epidemic (1831) emerged in Russia then somehow moved to Scotland, causing considerable angst and consternation. Just absorb this snippet from Wikipedia and put it in the context of Sydney’s Covid lockdown (and protests).

A major riot took place in Aberdeen on 26 December 1831, when a dog dug up a dead body in the city. Some 20,000 Aberdonians (two-thirds of the city’s population, although this number has been criticised as an exaggeration), protested against the medical establishment, who they believed were using the epidemic as a body-snatching scheme similar to the Burke and Hare murders of 1828”.

In the summer of 1832, a series of cholera riots occurred in various towns and cities throughout Britain, frequently directed against the authorities, doctors, or both. Of the 72 cholera riots in the British Isles that year, 14 made reference to body-snatchers (“Burkers”).

Burkers were people who believed that medical authorities were acting in co-ordination with the State to purposefully kill and reduce the population (weeding out the poor and weak). Sounds outlandish now, eh?

Despite oral vaccinations being in widespread use, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recorded 499,447 cases of cholera and 2.990 deaths in 2018, spread across 34 countries. About 75% of cholera cases were attributed to Yemen. As the WHO observes, cholera is most likely to re-emerge and spread in countries affected by war and civil unrest and/or where infrastructure has been damaged by natural disasters.

If you roll back 102 years to the Spanish Flu pandemic, it is not hard to uncover instances of public unrest. They ranged from people stigmatising those who had the virus to complaining about having to wear a mask in public.

Historian Humphrey McQueen says mask wearing was strenuously enforced in New South Wales.

The demand for masks was so extensive that to prevent profiteering, the Commonwealth Government declared butter muslin and gauze to be `necessary commodities’ within proclaimed areas.

Opponents of mask wearing saw them as breeding grounds for infection or as sapping the community’s ‘vital force’. A ‘Bovril’ advertisement alleged that anti-influenza masks were ‘like using barbed wire fences to shut out flies’.

McQueen said there was widespread support for inoculation throughout the country. By the end of 1919, 25% of people in in New South Wales had received two inoculations against Spanish Flu.

“Melbourne’s socialites reputedly arranged `inoculation parties’ where the guests got the needle in turn to slow music and a prize was awarded to the shapeliest arm.

Vaccine hesitancy is no surprise to David Isaacs, Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Sydney.

Writing in The Conversation, he explored the topic from smallpox through to the Covid vaccine.

In 1853, concerned by pockets of poor uptake of smallpox vaccine, the British parliament introduced the Vaccination Act, making infant smallpox vaccination compulsory.

Mandatory vaccination fomented opposition, something we should remember if considering making a modern vaccine mandatory.”
Protests quickly emerged, with more than 80,000 vaccine dissenters marching through Leicester carrying banners, a child’s coffin and an effigy of Jenner.

Eventually, the success of Jenner’s smallpox vaccine silenced the anti-smallpox vaccination movement.

I sometimes look at the smallpox scar on my arm (1955) and wonder why people were so scared of something that could spare you from a disease more contagious than Covid-19, with a 30% mortality rate.

In the first half of the 20th century, the ‘silent killer’, polio (infantile paralysis) swept quickly through the US and other countries.
The US was desperate for a polio vaccine and it got one, but not without an early setback. Virologists Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk, competed to develop the first polio vaccine.
Salk’s vaccine, made from killed polio viruses, was ready for a large clinical trial in 1954.

Five companies applied to mass produce the Salk vaccine, four major pharmaceutical firms and one Californian family firm called Cutter Laboratories. The trial results proved the vaccine worked, so vaccination began in 1955.

But within two weeks, children who received the Cutter vaccine (but not the vaccines made by the four other companies), started to develop paralysis. Of the 200,000 children given the Cutter vaccine, 40,000 developed polio, 200 were paralysed and 10 died.

The polio vaccination program stalled due to the ‘Cutter Incident’, but the fear of catching polio was so great the public was soon reassured the other vaccines had not caused polio, Prof Isaacs wrote.

I don’t remember being told this story as a child in the 1950s, lining up in a New Zealand schoolyard for the polio needle. New Zealand was as badly affected as Australia, with five polio epidemics from 1914 to 1954, resulting in many deaths and people my age being left with a lingering legacy.

Polio Australia says there are 400,000 Australian survivors of the childhood polio epidemic. At its peak between 1944 and 1954, the virus killed 1000. The highly contagious virus, spread via faeces and nasal mucous, resulted in poor people and those living in overcrowded situations being stigmatised. Then as now, outbreaks were dealt with by closing schools, borders and public facilities like swimming pools. Victims were quarantined and newspapers published a daily tally of polio cases and deaths.

Prof Isaacs compares these stories with the public concern which arose in 2020 about the Covid vaccines, primarily because of the risk of blood clots. He concludes with the ‘greater good’ argument.

In Australia, a concentration on individual risk at a single point in time ignores the benefits to the community of widespread vaccine uptake.

“History tells us the public can tolerate risk of harm from vaccines when the severity of the disease warrants the risk.

I don’t know about you, but my second AZ shot is due tomorrow. I’ll run the risk.

More reading:

The Cutter incident

 

Lockdown vs Covid easing

Lockdown-covid-easing
How soon we forget. Musician Silas Palmer checking off the first of 112 days of lockdown in Victoria (see music video link further down

So let me see if I can understand this – almost 50,000 people crammed, yes, crammed) into Suncorp Stadium/Lang Park amid a global pandemic. It was the largest sports crowd in the world since Covid restrictions were applied in March. Biosecurity protocols involved in buying tickets and entering the venue, was proof enough for the Queensland Government, given that anyone attending could be contacted after the event.

Yes, amazing what governments, big business, broadcasters and multinational betting agencies can achieve.

Last time I went to Brisbane’s footie stadium with that many people, it was everything that social distancing is not. Ladies, as few of you will have ever seen a urinal, we stand shoulder to shoulder at the trough. If it is busy, there will be a row of blokes behind us, waiting for a gap to appear. Many, faced with a tedious wait for the wash basins, often dispense with the formality.

Just one example.

As of 4pm on Tuesday, rules were relaxed for pubs and restaurants in Queensland and ‘normal’ crowds welcomed back for entertainment venues, including theatres.

As of the 17th, we can now have 50 people in our homes (though why would you, I thought).

The State government allows itself an ‘out’ by being able to declare a restricted Local Government Area, should the need arise.

In this case, only 10 people are allowed in your home, and that includes people who already live there.

Queenslanders can travel anywhere within the State for any reason, with no limit on distance. You can stay overnight within the State for as many nights as you like.

It’s not a level playing field, though. Queensland Health says that special visitor rules apply for aged care facilities, hospitals and disability accommodation providers.

At the same time these changes were pending, an outbreak of Coronavirus cases in South Australia demonstrated once again that Covid-19 is the gift that no-one wants, yet it nevertheless keeps on giving. Queensland too was finding new cases, most associated with quarantine from people returning from overseas.

But regardless of mixed messages, Queensland Health advice is still that you must practise physical distancing as much as possible and wash your hands regularly with soap and water. Use (60%+) alcohol-based sanitiser, avoid hugs, kisses and handshakes and keep 1.5 metres away from other people. Or as we say here – a kangaroo apart.

While Queenslanders are getting all enthusiastic about the ‘return to normal’, the Covid cluster that emerged in South Australia is a timely warning that this virus is not going away. SA is dealing with its untimely cluster by re-introducing some restrictions, the oddest of which is that you are not allowed to stand and drink in a pub.

“Mate, don’t stand at the bar coughing over everyone. Come over here to my table and cough on us instead.”

SA was to go into a six-day severe lockdown to hopefully stamp out the growing cluster of cases (34 and counting). However, today the ABC news advised that the lockdown would end on Saturday night, three days early.

I realise that my somewhat cautious approach to full slather mingling may upset people who think Covid restrictions are too much-too long. I chatted to a few people who have either been through the quarantine ritual or are Aussie ex-pats looking on from a distance.

Morocco-based Suzanna Clarke, who operates an accommodation business in Morocco and France, can’t believe what she is seeing on social media. A Brisbane friend posted photos of musicians mingling at a ‘session’ (where folkies gather at an ale house to play diddly tunes and sing songs).

No social distancing, no masks needed! Consider yourselves extremely lucky,” Suzanna wrote. There is no way I would be attending a similar event on this side of the planet.”

Morocco (pop 36 million), has recorded 307,000 cases and 5,031 deaths. Suzanna says it is hard to know what’s currently going on.

“It’s also very hard to get a PCR test – even if you can afford it. So the numbers are likely to be much higher. The government doesn’t want to go into lockdown again because people will starve. Literally. Unemployment benefits are only available for a few. My business here has been shut since March. My business in France was starting to pick up, and they went back into lockdown.

So every booking I had was cancelled. We still have wages to pay, so we’re trying to get by on what we have, and raiding our savings. We are, of course, are among the lucky ones.”

Musician friends Silas Palmer and Sarah Busuttil recently posted a series of videos on Facebook depicting 14 days of life at the Howard Springs quarantine facility in Darwin. They flew from Melbourne to the Northern Territory, en route to Queensland and northern NSW to visit a gravely ill family member.

Since this week’s missive is somewhat dire, I thought I’d share this cheerful video the duo made during Victoria’s 112-day lockdown.

(Collins’ Dictionary word of the year, by the way!).

 Meanwhile, the world’s share markets have, as usual, over-reacted to news that Big Pharma has a vaccine ready to go. Global share markets rose 10% in a week.

FOMM reader Mr Shiraz, a strict follower of Covid prevention protocols, had this to say on Facebook:

I have been thinking about the excitement elicited by Covid vaccine announcements (Ed: described in share market reports as ‘vaccine optimism’).

It has taken us more than three decades to get polio 99% eradicated. To imagine a Covid planetary vaccination program being anywhere near good enough for “normal” life to resume in five years is silly.”

A recent article in the UK’s pre-eminent medical journal, The Lancet, advised that we get used to social distancing, hand sanitisation and wearing masks because it will be with us for “several years”.

Science magazine Nature concurred, citing a team of researchers  in virus hotspots at Anhembi Morumbi University, São Paulo, Brazil. They ran more than 250,000 mathematical models of social-distancing strategies.

The team concluded that if 50–65% of people are cautious in public, then stepping down social-distancing measures every 80 days could help to prevent further infection peaks over the next two years. Bear in mind that this research was published in August, which in the context of a fast-moving pandemic is probably a bit old.

Current international statistics are extremely worrying:

  • US 11.6m cases, 250,000 deaths;
  • India: 8.91m cases, 131,000 deaths;
  • Brazil: 5.91m cases 171,000 deaths;
  • France: 2.71m cases, 46,698 deaths;
  • Russia: 1.99m cases, 34,387 deaths’

Australia looks comparatively healthy when you consider there have been 27,777 cases and 901 deaths since January.

However, there have been 93 recent cases, including 21 reported in the last 24 hours. Drilling down into Queensland’s stats, we have had 1,190 cases, 6 deaths and 12 active cases, including 3 in the last 24 hours.

Well excuse me. Much as I loved watching Queensland snatch the Origin series away from New South Wales, I won’t be going to any major sporting events, this year or next.

As Mr Shiraz says: “Let’s adopt a new normal expectation.

Conspiracies, Daffodils and Tulips

conspiracies-daffodils
(Area 51, Nevada, US. Image by mdherren, Pixabay.com)

In spring, as the poet said, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of conspiracy. Wait! I just misquoted Alfred Tennyson and there’s a one in eight chance that someone under 34 will believe the quote is authentic.

While the new season takes tentative steps towards summer (tulips and daffodils flowering), imported conspiracy theories have taken root in Australia. The media noticed; with The Australian, the New Daily, The Guardian and 60 Minutes among those to investigate. Satirists weighed in, mocking the worrisome ideas fomented by the mendacious QAnon. While satire has its place, conspiracy theories can cause a lot of damage if people act on them.

During the lockdown of public housing towers in Melbourne, some 10,000 people refused to take a covid test. Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said some had declined believing that Coronavirus was a conspiracy, its effects overstated, or simply with a misguided faith that it would not affect them.

More recently, News Corp reported that people are being “actively investigated” by police for encouraging Melbourne residents to protest against Stage Four lockdown. Anti-lockdown protesters clashed with police in the Victorian capital on Sunday night. The anti-lockdown lobby has been very active on Twitter and other social media outlets before and after those events.

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ attempts to hose down the second phase of COVID-19 are being defied by those including followers of the social media conspiracy spreader, QAnon. If you hear someone utter the words ‘sovereign citizen’, its a sure sign they follow one of the far-right conspiracy groups in the US (and now, it seems, in Australia).

QAnon believes the world is being controlled by a ‘deep state’ of Satan-worshipping paedophiles and people traffickers. The plot (there always is one) is that the deep state wants to overthrow the incumbent president, Donald Trump. Even though QAnon has previously turned on Trump, at this stage in the election cycle it appears they think he’s the right man to fix what ails the US.

There’s more available, if you want to go looking for it, on Facebook and bulletin boards like 4Chan and 8kun (known as 8Chan before the Christchurch mosque massacre). The latter was in the news again this week as the perpetrator was jailed for life without parole.

The shooter posted simultaneous footage of the massacre on social media forums and investigations since showed him to be active on right-wing bulletin boards like 8Chan.

The London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks extremism around the world, detailed the rise of QAnon across social media platforms. Its report, The Genesis of a Conspiracy Theory, shows that interactions with content in social media groups more than tripled, from 2.35 million in February to 7.26 million in June.

The ISD report shows a marked increase in discussions on social media platforms between March and June. Unique users discussing QAnon jumped by 12.02 million, or 63.7% on Twitter, 188,855 or 174.9% on Facebook and 96,894 or 71% on Instagram. One should hope that some of those discussions were rebuttals posted by people who know that it is just so much hokum.

Little wonder that the FBI and ASIO warned that extreme-right radical groups are a domestic terrorism threat.

The definition of a conspiracy theory is that which is promulgated as fact yet cannot be supported by evidence. Or as Daniel Pipes (a US historian and writer) was quoted in a Senate report:

“Like alchemy and astrology, conspiracism offers an
intellectual inquiry that has many facts right but goes wrong
by locating causal relationships where none exist.”

Australia has always had an element of conspiracists; holocaust deniers, anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers, mask-deniers, Islamaphobes and those who subscribe to (US) theories that the world is controlled by a cabal of (Jewish) financiers (and that aliens are being kept in a secret underground facility in the desert somewhere, for breeding purpose, perhaps). The adherents may be small in number but they wield a disproportionate amount of influence.

People aged 18-34 appear to be susceptible to being swayed by conspiracy theories. About 20% of this cohort told pollsters they believed the 5G mobile network was being used to spread coronavirus (a widely debunked and baseless theory).
The better news is that 5G theory beliefs decreased in older age groupings. About 13% of 35 to 54-year olds responded positively to the theories, and between 4% and 8% of the 55+ cohort.

The rapid growth of QAnon appears to have started with the emergence of the Coronavirus in March. Those who believe that vaccinations cause more health problems than the specific ones they are forestalling, were the obvious target.

ASIO’s annual threat assessment released in February outlined the threat of right-wing extremism as real and growing, according to a Lowy Institute report. A June update revealed that right-wing extremist investigations now make up a third of ASIO’s domestic caseload. ASIO warns that far-right groups are using Covid-19 as a cover to push ideologies and gain recruits.

In Australia, this manifested itself in a series of rallies in May, with protesters calling Covid-19 a scam and protesting against vaccines, pharmaceutical companies, fluoride and 5G.

As if this was no disturbing enough, a meme being circulated (again), purports to claim that Australia does not exist. I thought it was satire, and so did the person who brought it to my attention. No, it is a conspiracy theory/hoax that’s been around long enough to have its own hashtag, #australiadoesntexist.

So, enough of this nonsense; let’s just enjoy the daffodils and tulips, the pardalote chit-chitting away, the smell of jasmine…

If you see Junior thumbing away at his phone or tablet when it’s supposed to be family time, share the real quote from Tennyson: “In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

Or if you prefer a poem with an Australian flavour:

And jolly Spring, with love and laughter gay
Full fountaining, lets loose her tide of bees
Upon the waking ember-flame of bloom
New kindled in the honey-scented trees.

Hugh McCrae