The race is now on well and truly in earnest.
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Even though we had our Prime Minister once foolishly claim the vaccination program wasn't a race, that is exactly what it has become for New South Wales, currently in the grip of an out-of-control outbreak of the Delta-variant of COVID-19.
The NSW Health update delivered by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant on Friday was indeed a concession.
It was a concession that there is simply no stopping the outbreak using the current measures. The horse has bolted.
Yet it was also a concession that there is no forcing this genie back in the bottle.
The NSW government has conceded there will be community spread and, short of locking the community completely down until closer to Christmas than not, there has to be another way.
The Premier made it clear the way out of the current mess the state is in will be through increased and targeted vaccination and through lockdowns more aimed at specific LGAs rather than sweeping broad regions.
There is an acceptance of sorts that continuing down the path we were on was not helping.
The NSW government was faced at either end of the spectrum with either a hard lockdown of a large portion of the state or releasing the shackles and accepting that we will have a high volume of cases and possibly casualties as well as a great deal of stress on our health system.
The path the NSW government has chosen is in the middle of those two extremes and hopefully for all our sakes it works.
And now the government is actively encouraging people to go and get the vaccine, no matter what it is.
"We need to correct the mythology about AstraZeneca," Dr Chant said.
"And in the context of the Delta threat, I just cannot understand why people would not be taking the opportunity to go out and get AstraZeneca in droves. Anyone under 40, consider it (AstraZeneca)."
We are now in the race of our lives.
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