COVID-19 updates comments and concerns

[Autocon]

Now that i know the flu shot only lasts 3 months not sure if i should bother.

Im wondering if cases are down because people are not getting tested as regularly as before

[griffin]

If businesses or employers are to be allowed to send home anyone with flu-like symptoms, it certainly would be a good idea to prevent the regular flu, so you don't freak out others unnecessarily. Unfortunately for people like me who gets hayfever allergies over just about everything, I am constantly sniffling, sneezing and coughing, and it gets worse in winter as the cold air makes my sinuses and lungs more irritated. I get a lot of bad looks these days, at work, and when I'm out (like at the shops).

Now that i know the flu shot only lasts 3 months not sure if i should bother.

Im wondering if cases are down because people are not getting tested as regularly as before

Even if it does only last for 3 months, that covers most of the high-risk months, and if enough people have the vaccine, it means less people who aren't vaccinated will catch it, as they will come in contact with less people who are infected.
It's important for the young and old to get it, as they are the ones most affected by the symptoms, but just like with the Covid virus, people who are less likely to be sick from it could still be carriers and pass it on to someone who is more vulnerable.

As for testing, if you are referring to covid testing - testing numbers are supposed to be at record numbers every day (according to the graphs on the ABC), but it does come down to who they are testing... particularly if they are only testing people with symptoms, as that would miss the majority of infected people who show no symptoms.
The QLD government website even says that if you don't have any of the listed symptoms (like dry cough, runny nose or fever), they won't test you. The only exception is if you know that you have been in contact with someone who is infected, or have just returned from overseas.

In New York city they did anti-body testing of 3000 people three weeks ago, and found that 20% had anti-bodies (which means that they already had the virus, and it was already dead in their system). That meant that about 2.7 million people in NYC could have already had the virus, even though official stats (from official testing) is only at 185,000 cases (as of today). This is because they have limited testing materials and potential. Every country is like that. Unless you are testing EVERYONE weekly, you won't have an accurate number of cases. Our state governments are boasting about 10-30 thousand tests each day, but that's still less than 0.1% of the population being tested each day. At that rate, it would take 3 years to just test everyone once, so how can we know for sure how many people are currently infected, or know when people get infected later after they have had just one test.