This https://epiforecasts.io/covid/posts/national/canada/ shows very little difference between provinces except for Prince Edward Island.

It is interesting to look at New Zealand https://epiforecasts.io/covid/posts/national/new-zealand/ They have similar vaccination rates to Australia, but have been much better at controlling their epidemic.

If you read the Burnet Institute modelling the target is in fact 92% which their models assume occurs at the end of December. This results in a decline in new daily cases and eventually the epidemic ends. Hopefully this is a worst case, as when the 80% target is reached, if people want the vaccine it will take less than 2 weeks to get to 90% and health workers will have a nice Christmas which they will deserve by then. Otherwise new daily case numbers will keep increasing. I suspect that the reasoning is that by the time 80% is reached that many unvaccinated people will need a nudge to get them to be vaccinated, and that won't occur under lockdown. So we will probably still have some activities limited to the vaccinated, we will have increasing cases and deaths, and localised lockdowns which hopefully will encourage people to be vaccinated. One problem that is likely to occur is that the modelling assumes just a single population and we have considerable variation as we've seen in Western Sydney. Any area that ends up with an R effective greater than one will have increasing number of cases. The modelling assumes that contact tracing will work reasonably, and it hasn't worked well in parts of Sydney, so it is quite likely that some suburbs/LGA will end up with restrictions.

On Canada, it currently has 69% of the population fully vaccinated and 6% half vaccinated, so as half vaccinated is about half as effective as full, that is 72% of the population effective vaccinated. Now if we were to obtain 90% fully vaccinated in over 16s which are roughly 80% of the population, we have about also 72% of our population effectively vaccinated plus we will have the 12-15 year olds. Canada currently has an effective R of about 1.0 so it looks right for Australia. 

We should have an idea on final vaccinations fairly soon in NSW because 90% first vaccinations is expected in 2 weeks time. Some suburbs ave already at that rate. I wouldn't plan on Christmas at Byron Bay. The locals don't like vaccinations so it is likely to end up in lockdown once people start visiting from Sydney.

Reply to Chris Lloyd

The COVID vaccines are great vaccines, but they are nowhere near that good, especially for the delta variant! The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has published age categorised relative incidences of hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths  for persons who are fully vaccinated compared to those persons that are not vaccinated, from a serious ongoing delta outbreak in Alberta, Canada (It is being reported that ICU triage and transferring ICU patients across Canada to other provinces will need to be implemented in a few days).

The link is https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-severe-outcomes-covid-vaccination-1.6178449.

The final results are:

 “How many times higher the rate of severe incomes from COVID-19 has been for unvaccinated Albertans vs. fully vaccinated Albertans by age, over past 120 days

Figures are calculated by dividing the rate per 100,000 unvaccinated people by the rate per 100,000 fully vaccinated people in each age range. Data current to Sept. 15, 2021.

^*There were zero fully vaccinated people in these age ranges who were admitted to ICU or died

Table:  Robson Fletcher/CBC ● Source: Alberta Health”

The link gives more detail about the actual rate of hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths for persons unvaccinated, vaccinated with one  dose and fully vaccinated, that are inputs to the above table.

The bottom line is that a person who is fully vaccinated in an environment with a high prevalence of delta COVID, still has reasonable risk of becoming very ill from COVID, especially if they have risk factors such as being older. In such environments, fully vaccinated persons still need to be careful.

By the way, the numbers of reported deaths in the current delta outbreak in the USA is more like 10,000 per week than 10,000 per month.

As a follow up, overnight a report has been tabled by the Ontario Science Table (which is the main consortium of academics advising the Ontario government on COVID response).

https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Update-on-COVID-19-Projections_2021.09.01_English-2.pdf

(It should be noted that Ontario is already at over 75% full vaccination for 12+ y.o.)

Key Findings

• Like other jurisdictions, Ontario is in the 4th wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our models, federal models, and models in other jurisdictions predict a substantial 4th wave.

 • Vaccination offers substantial protection against severe health outcomes. We do not expect to see the same proportion of severely ill cases in the vaccinated. Among the unvaccinated, we do expect to see a rapid increase in the number of seriously ill people needing hospital care as workplaces and education re-open in September.

• The fourth wave will affect all age groups with the potential to exceed ICU capacity.
• Because of the Delta variant and to avoid a lockdown in the Fall, vaccination needs to accelerate substantially above 85% of eligible population aged 12+ fully vaccinated and we need to reduce contacts to about 70% of pre-pandemic levels until vaccination is high enough to protect the population:

-   Reducing indoor density, maintaining physical distancing, limiting large gatherings;

-   Continuing indoor mask policies and working from home; and

-   Implementing policies that accelerate vaccination (e.g. certificates, mandates, outreach).

The Canadian province of Ontario has (i) fairly similar demographics to NSW and Victoria, (ii) has an almost exclusively delta outbreak, (iii) has already effectively reached the 80% target of full vaccination with Western vaccines (mainly Pfizer) and (iv) presently has fairly strong restrictions of the type that Australian states are likely to consider after full lockdowns are withdrawn.

In particular;

• Demographics

-  Ontario has about the same population as NSW and Victoria combined; i.e. is relatively similar size

-   Per capita wealth is relatively similar to Australia, and ethnic diversity and history (at least for the last century) is roughly comparable

-   Like Victoria and NSW, Ontario has a large metropolitan area (Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area) together with regional cities and rural area

• 75% of the eligible population is presently fully vaccinated with Western Vaccines (primarily Pfizer, but some Astrazeneca and Moderna). However, the Ontario eligible population includes those persons 12 and over. Thus their 75% achievement is likely to be quite similar to the 80% of those over 16 that is the Australian target

• 
  

• The Ontario COVID 19 Roundtable (https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/) estimates that 99.6% of the COVID cases in Ontario are the delta variant

• The present COVID restrictions in Ontario are similar in nature to those that might be used by Australian states and territories after the COVID targets are met, and lockdowns are removed. For instance, rules in Ontario include (https://covid-19.ontario.ca/public-health-measures);

-   Rules for businesses and schools in the way they operate

My question is why don’t we place more emphasis on information (data) from similar jurisdictions that are already at where the targets are, and not only on models whose inputs might, or might not, accurately reflect reality?