Huge floods smash East Coast as unvaccinated volunteers are turned away from helping
'That’s not right this is Australia - we need all the help we can get': desperate resident's plea for everyone to be allowed to join the disaster relief effort
Australia’s east coast has been smashed by once-in-a-generation floods, but people rushing to aid devastated communities are being turned away for being unvaccinated.
Residents have called for help, especially in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales where some areas had no power or clean water as of Monday.
Australians traditionally help each other in a crisis, and the State Emergency Services (SES) organise unpaid volunteers in each state with equipment and training.
Despite the urgent need, the NSW SES is turning away volunteers not vaccinated for covid - even though the vaccine does not protect against transmission.
Guy, from Grafton, near Lismore, called talkback radio to say the SES was questioning helpers to see if they’d had the shot.
“We heard from people in Lismore that they were actually - if you went to the SES that were there, they were asking if you were jabbed or not, and if you weren’t jabbed they were told to go away,” he told the Dave Cochrane show on Radio 2HD/2SM on Monday.
“Mate, this is just not on you know, this is Australia, we’re Australians. It’s terrible.”
Guy said the volunteer bushfire brigades and the SES had lost a large number of volunteers because if they weren’t double-jabbed they weren’t allowed to work.
“So – is that the problem? Is that what we’re not being told?
They haven’t got the staff that they used to have because their volunteers are not being allowed to work if they’re not double jabbed?”
The deadly flooding which began last month had claimed 19 lives by Monday: six from the Northern Rivers region of NSW, 750km north of Sydney, and 13 in Queensland.
The devastation was so bad the military had to helicopter people from rooves in Queensland and help restore Lismore, 750km north of Sydney in New South Wales.
The once-in-1000-year deluge moved south along the coast, hitting Sydney with a wall of water on Tuesday.
Thousands of people were evacuated after roads turned to rivers. The Harbour Tunnel was flooded and the Roseville Bridge became a waterfall. The Northern Beaches were cut off and two bodies were found in a Western Sydney canal, and the death toll may rise.
Letters From Australia asked NSW SES if it was true that they were turning away helpers during the flood disaster for being unvaccinated.
An SES spokeswoman replied via email that the service had a “duty of care” to prioritise the safety of members and communities.
“As per recommendations from NSW Health, to protect against the impacts of COVID-19, NSW SES members must be double vaccinated,” she wrote.
It is now well-known that the covid vaccine does not stop or even significantly slow the spread of the virus.
The only benefit of the vaccine is short-lived protection from severe disease for the person who takes it. The vaccine does not provide a safety benefit to other people - Omicron blew this out of the water months ago.
Australia’s vaccine-advisory group ATAGI admitted as much in February.
“Early estimates of vaccine effectiveness against infection have similarly indicated lower initial vaccine effectiveness from two doses of Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine (36-88%) against the Omicron variant which then wanes rapidly to 0-34% from about 4 months after the 2nd dose,” ATAGI said.
“It is known that protection against onward transmission also wanes over several months after completing the primary series for the Delta variant. This may be similar with the Omicron variant.”
There is no “may be” about it. The complete failure of the covid vaccine to prevent Omicron transmission is obvious.
Three million Australians have now had Omicron in a population that is 95 per cent double-jabbed, according to the government’s own figures. Everyone knows a fully vaccinated person who has had Omicron.
The rapid vaccine failure is confirmed by the UK Government’s Health Security Agency (HSA) covid surveillance report for January 27, which reveals in detail how long it takes for the vaccines to wane against symptomatic Omicron.
AstraZeneca starts at 45-50 per cent effectiveness, dropping to “almost no effect” from 20 weeks after the second dose, the report said.
Pfizer and Moderna start at 65-70 per cent but collapse to 10 per cent by 25 weeks from the second injection.
That is why Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration approved a third booster shot in October - because the vaccines don’t last, and make little difference to the spread.
The third booster wanes even faster than the first two shots.
Another UK HSA briefing paper reported Pfizer’s booster protection for Omicron dropped to 45 per cent after 10 weeks in those originally jabbed with Pfizer and 35 per cent within 10 weeks for those who first took AstraZeneca.
There is no public health benefit to excluding the unvaccinated who pose no threat to public safety.
The only way to stop a person spreading covid is to test them to see if they’ve got it, then isolate - regardless of vaccine status.
There is no longer any “safety” excuse for what can only be described as harmful ignorance and bigotry.
Letters From Australia last night asked both NSW Health and the NSW Premier’s office why their outdated advice is now preventing people helping the flood relief effort and will update this story with any response.
Corrections: The 2HD/2SM afternoon show was hosted by Dave Cochrane as Brent Bultitude is off sick. We wish him a speedy recovery. An earlier version of this story located Guy in Coraki, however he was calling in from Grafton.
Update: 11 March - updated to include more quotes plus the original audio from Guy on the Dave Cochrane show, with thanks to Radio 2HD Newcastle 1143AM.