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Speaker 1: Jum mission with Joins and Amanda.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's National Science Week and over the past eighteen months,

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Speaker 2: more than at any other time in recent history, the

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Speaker 2: world has looked to science to help us find our

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Speaker 2: way through this pandemic. Mary Louise mcclaus is a professor

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Speaker 2: of epidemiology. She's become one of Australia's most recognized experts

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Speaker 2: at the forefront of the battle and she joins us now. Hello,

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Speaker 2: Mary Louise, how are you.

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Speaker 1: Mary Louise? Good morning, Jensy and Amanda. Lovely to talk

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Speaker 1: to both of.

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Speaker 2: You, and to you too while we've got you here.

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Speaker 2: I know we want to celebrate National Science Week, but

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Speaker 2: let's drill down on where we are at the moment.

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Speaker 2: We interviewed the Prime Minister yesterday and I came away

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Speaker 2: wondering our Premier. Gladysbury Juclian says vaccination's the way out.

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Speaker 2: Scott Morrison says the lockdown is the way out. Overseas,

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Speaker 2: they have a lot of vaccination and their numbers arising,

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Speaker 2: but their society is open. We're kind of caught between

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Speaker 2: the two. We're hoping to get a lot of vaccination,

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Speaker 2: but we still may not be out of lockdown. At

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Speaker 2: what point do we decide we're going to have to

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Speaker 2: treat it like the flu and live with it.

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Speaker 1: Gosh, well, this flu kills or flu does kill. We

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Speaker 1: have children and older adults die every year, but we

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Speaker 1: are seeing with this particular delta, on average a death

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Speaker 1: of day, and this is horrendous. So we really can't

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Speaker 1: start opening up until we have our vulnerable vaccinated. And

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Speaker 1: if we have a look at the vaccination rates in

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Speaker 1: the elderly, they're doing very well, but they're not doing

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Speaker 1: fabulously well. So if you have a look at those

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Speaker 1: who are aged between say I don't mean to call

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Speaker 1: forty year old elderly, they're not really very sprightly. But

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Speaker 1: between forty and seventy four, the second dose uptake is

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Speaker 1: not nearly high enough, and it's in the thirties and

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Speaker 1: forty percent of that group. That age group, that's not

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Speaker 1: at all high enough. Now, the first they're doing pretty well.

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Speaker 1: That age group, the older group are in the eighty

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Speaker 1: percent of taking first dose and then their second doses.

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Speaker 1: About half of them have had their second dose. The

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Speaker 1: first dose certainly to stop you from dying, having a

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Speaker 1: severe illness and being hospitalized, which is great, but it's

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Speaker 1: the second dose that also provides that extra protection against infection,

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Speaker 1: so it stops transmission and that nasty cycle of infection transmission.

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Speaker 1: So we're not going to be able to open up

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Speaker 1: until a large proportion of this, and really that proportion changes.

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Speaker 1: It's a moving feast. Herd immunity is quite complex. It's

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Speaker 1: not just related to the transmissibility of a disease. So

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Speaker 1: DELTA has a transmissibility rate of five, where the previous one,

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Speaker 1: the original one was down at you know, one point

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Speaker 1: five to nearly two. This is five. It's hugely transmissible.

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Speaker 1: Then you have a look at the vaccination efficacy and

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Speaker 1: the proportion that receives each of the two vaccines we're

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Speaker 1: rolling out. So we really do need to have the

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Speaker 1: total population at least eighty percent of the total population vaccinated,

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Speaker 1: and we need adolescents to be vaccinated and then eventually children,

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Speaker 1: because we're seeing children and adolescents get DELTA, and particularly

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Speaker 1: in the US, you know, they're now increasingly the victim,

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Speaker 1: and so is the UK is experiencing that as well.

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Speaker 1: So both the Prime Minister and the Premier are slightly

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Speaker 1: right and slightly wrong. Certainly vaccination will help, but it

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Speaker 1: won't help slow down the transmission rate. We get everybody

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Speaker 1: with a second dose and then lockdown is the way

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Speaker 1: to try to suppress it so that we can get

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Speaker 1: that proportion of people vaccinated. So please ask audial listeners,

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Speaker 1: please go get that first vaccine and don't delay at

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Speaker 1: getting your second vaccine at the appropriate time.

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Speaker 3: And the virus eventually cycles out, doesn't it. That's what's

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Speaker 3: happened in the past.

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Speaker 1: Well, in the past. What you're looking at, Jonesy, is seasonality.

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Speaker 1: We say, the flu, you know, it cycles around and

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Speaker 1: then the temperature and the humidity is just wrong and

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Speaker 1: it just goes away. That hasn't happened with this COVID

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Speaker 1: nineteen yet, But if there's enough of that's vaccinated, you

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Speaker 1: may well see its cycle out and become more controllable.

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Speaker 2: Is it true that the whole world has to get

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Speaker 2: vaccinated because, for example, say we all get vaccinated eighty

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Speaker 2: percent in Australia, rampant in Indonesia. Isn't that where in

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Speaker 2: unvaccinated populations, those variants will take hold and inevitably that

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Speaker 2: whips around the world.

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Speaker 1: True? And then yes, so a virus can be moving

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Speaker 1: around a partially populated community, and then it learns how

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Speaker 1: to be even more transmissible or hopefully not more deadly.

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Speaker 1: Certainly we haven't quite learned yet if delta is more

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Speaker 1: deadly or whether it's just finding the most vulnerable first

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Speaker 1: and sadly they're dying with it very rapidly. So yes,

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Speaker 1: we need the whole of the global community. We're so

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Speaker 1: into connected and in Australia we are very multicultural and

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Speaker 1: people go and see their families, they go back to

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Speaker 1: their original country for family friends, you know, holidays, and

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Speaker 1: if they aren't really fully vaccinated and don't have a

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Speaker 1: really good immunity, they'd be protected by that country's herd immunity.

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Speaker 1: So we need to have full global her immunity. And

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Speaker 1: that's why the World Health Organization isn't overly excited at

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Speaker 1: the idea of booster shots yet, because we're not seeing

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Speaker 1: the world uptake high enough yet for the justification of

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Speaker 1: booster shots.

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Speaker 3: And is it possible to have too much information? Do

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Speaker 3: you feel that we have too much information now? I look,

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Speaker 3: when swine flu came through in two thousand and nine,

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Speaker 3: I know that swine flu is nothing compared to this,

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Speaker 3: but at the same time that was a pandemic and

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Speaker 3: it did take a lot of Australian lives. I think

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Speaker 3: it was two hundred and twenty people that killed in

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Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. And I was going through my

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Speaker 3: diaries and I couldn't find any mention of us talking

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Speaker 3: about swineflu. Curiously, Instagram didn't exist back in two thousand

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Speaker 3: and nine, and Facebook messager didn't exist back in two

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Speaker 3: thousand and nine. Do you think we have too much information?

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Speaker 1: I love a lot of information. I mean now what

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Speaker 1: we have is everyone's a data scientist. I mean everyone's

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Speaker 1: a junior epidemiologist. And I think that's fantastic. I really do.

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Speaker 1: I think the more people embrace knowledge to protect themselves,

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Speaker 1: it's great. The problem happens when it's disinformation and people

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Speaker 1: get overloaded, they get tired with it, and then they

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Speaker 1: start to look at maybe this, you know, being fearful

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Speaker 1: is not the right way around it, and then they

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Speaker 1: start pushing back. But I think one of the problems

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Speaker 1: with the swine flu was that it had the term

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Speaker 1: flu and people thought, we deal with the flu every year,

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Speaker 1: it can't be that bad. And if people don't see

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Speaker 1: and know somebody who's got sick and died, then they

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Speaker 1: think it doesn't apply to them. So I think it's

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Speaker 1: great that people have knowledge and they're going to start

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Speaker 1: to learn to deal with uncertainties like some of the

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Speaker 1: adverse events that we have with either of the vaccines.

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Speaker 1: All vaccines have adverse events, and now we're teaching them

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Speaker 1: exactly how to position that risk. You know, we live

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Speaker 1: with the risk of crossing the road every day and

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Speaker 1: that's enormously risky, or going into the ocean, and we

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Speaker 1: learned to live with that, we learned to think about

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Speaker 1: how to make it safer. And it's the same with

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Speaker 1: new vaccines and a new knowledge.

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Speaker 2: Well there you see, this is what a life of science.

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Speaker 3: Break out the beakers and the Bunsen burdens and the

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Speaker 3: lab coat and inspirational.

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Speaker 2: To hear, to hear science at the floor. And we

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Speaker 2: really are so grateful for you.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, very Luis, thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 1: It's a pleasure. And please enjoy science. We can enjoy

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Speaker 1: all the science around you, even that mask of putting

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Speaker 1: on your face babula. Science went into that and stay safe.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, and if you'd like to know more, head

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Speaker 2: to scienceweek dot net dot Aumanda's