Farmer Wants a Healthy Life
Farmer Wants a Healthy Life
Special Edition – The need to know of COVID (Oct 2021)
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In this special edition episode of Farmer Wants a Healthy Life we hear from Dr Rob Grenfell. The ex- Natimuk GP and CSIRO Director, and current public health expert talks all things COVID. He shares his knowledge on COVID vs the flu, long COVID, the different variants, vaccines and much, much more. Hear how masks can make you like your favourite superhero and how your town could win the COVID Cup!
If you think you may have COVID you can call 1800 675 398 24 hours, 7 days a week.
Any other Victorian COVID information you may need can be found here.
Interested in the topic and looking for more?
Check out this for more information on various topics Dr Rob spoke about:
Do you want to know more about the COVID Cup? Check out a recent Weekly Advertiser article here.
Where can you get a COVID vaccine:
- Many pharmacies in the Wimmera Mallee have COVID vaccines pop into yours and see if you can get one there.
- Or pop you information in this Vaccine Clinic Finder to find an easy location near you.
What is it like having COVID? Check out these videos from people that have had it:
Kim’s experience of Victorian ICU
Will’s experience of long COVID
Facebook: @FarmerWantsaHealthyLife Twitter: @_FWAHL
Brigitte
This is a West Wimmera Health Service Special Edition podcast.
Presented by me, Brigitte Muir.
Whether we like it or not, COVID-19 is here to stay. Freedom of movement, and relative safety are within our reach, only if… if what exactly? Dr. Robert Grenfell stepped down from his leadership role at CSIRO’s Health and Biosecurity Business Unit, and he's now assisting with the Wimmera Mallee public health response to the COVID outbreak. I talked to the Natimuk based expert, about the choices that will determine our future.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
The beginning of this pandemic, we were in a very fortunate position because we're an island nation, we're able to close our borders and really restrict any infected people from entering the country. So, we were able to pursue a policy of elimination, that is when any outbreaks occurred, we could isolate them, and eliminate the virus, which has allowed us to have the last 12 months or so, in basic freedom to a large degree compared to the rest of the world. And we have certainly substantially reduced… as many deaths as we have seen in so many other countries around the world so far. What's happened now is the virus has entered Australia and is establishing itself. Now, this was always going to happen and what we need to do, is we need to be vaccinated to actually decrease the amount of deaths that it's going to cause.
Brigitte
What is the percentage of death overseas compared to Australia is it much higher?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
The virus itself has an overall mortality rate of around 2%. That is two people per 100, who catch this virus will die from it, that's on global figures. Now, that of course varies across age spectrums, before the vaccinations actually took effect in the US, we've got probably the most accurate data on how dangerous this virus really is. If you're over the age of 70, and you catch the virus, you have a one in nine chance of dying from it. That's not just getting sick, that's dying from it. If you're over 50, you have a 1 in 90 chance of dying from the virus, when you catch it. And if you're over 30, it's a 1 in 900 chance of dying from the virus when you catch it. Now thankfully we have vaccines. And by having vaccines, that actually reduces almost completely, your chance of actually dying from this virus. So that's changed the way this pandemic has actually been affecting the global population.
Brigitte
Before we get into the different vaccines and what they can and can't do. People always say yeah, 2 in a 100, yeah, you know, well, what about the flu? What about… heart disease? What about blah, blah, blah. There's also percentages to deal with there. So, what's the difference?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
The flu’s something like about 0.5%, in a 100, so it's, it's a it's a substantial difference to 2 in 100. And the flu of course, we've many of us have had the flu at some stage of our life. So, we have some baseline immunity from it, and I, I guess in one sense, what that means is that when you do catch the flu, your body may have seen that sort of variant before and you're not necessarily going to die from it. The people who die from flu every flu season, are those who've got pre-existing health conditions, their health in bad condition, they say have something's affecting their immune system and whilst we can have anywhere up to around about 3000 Flu deaths every season, that's certainly not inconsequential, which is why we have a vaccination program for the flu, which is why we also ask people if they're sick during flu season to stay at home.
Brigitte
This latest variant what's the best way to stay safe from it?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
The first variant that came through the Alpha variant, or what was called the Wuhan variant had a chance… that if one person in a household caught it, that they could spread it to two and a half other people. The Delta variant… is so infectious, that it can actually infect up to eight or even more people.
Brigitte
Okay
Dr. Robert Grenfell
So it is much more infectious. And we've been coming to terms with how… more dangerous it may be. So, at the, at the early stages, it felt it was just more infectious and not necessarily more lethal. That's been proven to be incorrect. It is actually more lethal than the previous version. And that, is evidenced by the fact that whilst many elderly in this country have been vaccinated and are not getting seriously ill. Many young adults… are actually contracting this, and getting seriously ill and being hospitalised into the intensive care level. So, that's evidence that this is actually more serious… than the previous version.
Brigitte
What's the long COVID? You hear that expression long COVID?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah one of the other things that started to appear…over the time of this pandemic, is understanding what happens when people recover. A couple of the interesting facts. One is that if you actually recover from this virus, you're not necessarily immune to the other strains. But you could also develop, what's called a can syndrome, called Long COVID. And what is alarming is 1 in 3 people who've caught COVID, actually have the symptoms of long COVID, they can be quite variable so we could have from the very severe, down to the quite mild. But again, another study done in Australia has shown that people that who caught COVID in the first wave, around about a third of those have not gone back to work. They're actually unwell enough… in the sense that, they are unfit to actually go back to full time employment. So that's, that's an absolute solid reason why you don't want to catch this, 1 in 3 after nine months are not back at full time work.
Brigitte
That’s huge
Dr. Robert Grenfell
So, think about the last time you ever had an illness, that actually stopped you from working for most of the year. And I think you'd probably find none, it's never happened to you before. So, this is in fact another reason why you don't want to catch COVID. Now let's think about some of the serious ramifications for this. Now these sounds serious, but there's much worse than what I'm about to say. There are the lung damage. Now the lung damage itself means that, many people are finding they do not have the exercise potential that they had before COVID, and their lung function is not returning. This looks like it may well be long standing lung damage. Now we see this with other viruses. Okay, so whooping cough can do this, and you can have chronic long term lung damage from catching whooping cough. So it's not unusual. Then there is the neurological symptoms, so people who've had COVID have extremely high risk of having clots. People can have strokes, so you've got permanent damage after that. But there are also some neurological syndromes, that actually where people are having say persistent fatigue, brain fog… now brain fog or they're calling it COVID fog, they actually don't think as sharply as they did before. Now, one would hope that that's not going to last forever, but that's an issue. The other people are actually having trouble with… the electrics of their heart. So, the heart rhythm goes out and they actually do need support with a heart rhythm, and the other organ that's been damaged in the number of people is to kidney, so entering into the stage of impaired kidney function. So, I don't know, I don't know what I really got to say, that you don't want to catch this virus, this virus is, is serious, and if you do survive the initial infection, you have a high chance of actually having longer term effects from this.
Brigitte
I hear that even if you're vaccinated, you can still get the virus, so what is the point in getting vaccinated?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
The vaccine… is to increase your immunity… to a …noxious agent. It's not actually to stop you getting infected, it's to stop you getting seriously ill, and the COVID vaccines that we have available in Australia today, are very effective in stopping you getting serious illness, so they're actually effective, in doing what they're supposed to do. As we've got more and more to understand about the other strengths of these vaccines. We've ah…we've, we've coming to terms with what does it mean about how sick do you get, and can you actually spread the virus. So, the answer is yes, even though you're vaccinated, you can and probably will catch the disease. However, you will be very unlikely if you were to get severely ill or hospitalised because of it. You could have mild disease, which means you could still spread it. If you've had the vaccine, and you've caught the disease, you're also unlikely to get long COVID. That's also becoming evident in the work has been done. These are very effective vaccines, and very safe, and they're doing what they're supposed to do. Stop you getting seriously ill.
Brigitte
There are different vaccines around… what is the difference between them? Between the different brands of vaccine that we have here in Australia?... AstraZeneca and Pfizer
Dr. Robert Grenfell
In Australia, we chose to in fact actually look at potentials …because at the start of this pandemic, we had no vaccines to a Coronavirus, and no vaccine had ever been developed against Coronavirus. However, work had been going on because of SARS and MERS which are coronaviruses. So, there were rough ideas about where we could move, with various types. There are about five effective vaccine platforms globally and we've got two available in Australia. One of those is a viral vector vaccine, that's the AstraZeneca… and the other one is an mRNA vaccine and that's the Pfizer and the Moderna, that's just arrived as a mRNA vaccine as well, so we have two of those. And the one we're all hearing a bit about Novavax is a recombinant vaccine, which should be available in the new year.
Brigitte
All right, that's all Greek to me. So, what's the difference between those vaccines?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Okay, so…
Brigitte
How do they work?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
So with a, with a vaccine, what you, what you want …is to have a representation… of a particular protein on the virus ,and in this case, we focused on the spike protein around the Coronavirus, which identifies that virus. Your not actually getting the virus inside your body, what you're getting is a protein from that, so your immune system can say “hey, that doesn't belong here”, and develop an immune system against it. Now for us to get that protein into your body we have to use what we call a vaccine platform. So, in the case of AstraZeneca, what we're using is a harmless virus, which in fact allows it to enter your body and survive long enough for immune system to find it and then for you to develop immunity to it.
Brigitte
Okay
Dr. Robert Grenfell
And the same principles goes with the mRNA. So, with the mRNA… they've got a strand of the protein and around it is a capsule …and the capsule around the… Pfizer and Moderna are different, but the capsule allows the, again the protein fragment, to survive long enough after being injected to be recognised again, by your immune system so that you can develop immunity against the virus when you're eventually exposed to it.
Brigitte
Does it matter which one we get, regardless of our age?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Certainly, all of the vaccines… are very effective across all ages and they have been approved globally from the ages of 12 and up. However, there certainly appears to be… you know, this very, very rare clotting disorder seems to be more common in in the younger than the elderly. And so for that reason, we've been looking more at the idea of using, say the, the mRNA vaccines in the younger people. In the elderly, it's less of a problem, and we're talking about an extremely rare side effect here. We're talking in Australia, it's less than one in a million. Low let’s put…
Brigitte
Risk of clotting if you get vaccinated.. with either of those
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, this is, this is, this is not, not very high at all
Brigitte
That’s bugger all
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Oh, yeah. And when, when you think about it, everything else that's actually going on, so your chance of getting a clot when you get Coronavirus is around 1 in 200.
You are going to catch this virus over the next year or so. And you will have a 1 in 200 chance of clotting. But if you've had the vaccine, something like one in a million, so it's, it's in one sense ahh…
Brigitte
and you might still catch Coronavirus
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah.
Brigitte
But…
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Your clotting risk, is drop…
Brigitte
Your chance of clotting will be less, because of the vaccine.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Exactly.
Brigitte
Okay. Right. So..
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah
Brigitte
To me it's a no brainer and get, get vaccinated. Really?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah.
Brigitte
How long does the vaccination protect us?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah, again, because these are new vaccines and we don't know how long the immunity lasts for it. At the beginning of this, if you'd actually heard conversations, we were having, we were certainly saying that the viral vector old style technology, tried and trusted technology. This one we know lasts, and that's actually been proven correct. So, it appears at the moment, that people who have had two doses of AstraZeneca don't need a booster.
Brigitte
Okay.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
They will however need a what's called a variant booster, just like with the flu, you need another one next year because it's a different stra… strain of the virus. So yes, you will need a booster, but probably next year. But AstraZeneca looks like it's got lasting immunity, and what's been appearing particularly in countries that were certainly first out of the blocks, with regards to vaccinating like Israel or the UK, is what we are seeing that in particularly vulnerable elderly people or people whose immune systems are challenged, that Pfizer vaccination appears to wane in its strength after about six months. So, countries like the UK …and Israel have elected to do, do boosters of Pfizer in the very frail, aged and people with appeared immune systems. What is great… is that young fit, strong adults, and children seem to mount a very strong immune response, and don't appear at this stage to need boosters.
Brigitte
That's great. So young people getting vaccinated should be right for a while?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
They should be right for a while, and I guess I'll, I’ll put a caveat on that. We are expecting a variant to come, and to, to appear at some stage, probably through the European winter. The reason for that is because the rest of the world is not vaccinated. Only 2% of the people in the developing world have actually had a vaccine dose. Until we actually immunise the whole world, we are, we’re threatened by emerging variants of this virus.
Brigitte
Okay. Is it a good idea to go… for holiday trekking in Nepal next year?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
I'm so sorry to say, that until Nepal actually picks its immunisation rates up it, it may be a challenge for you. And so the interesting question is about travel full stop. In the job that I previously had. I had an international trip every month and I certainly probably had two to three domestic trips a week and… I know that on the plane, you're actually very safe. Because at the start of this pandemic, we started working with Boeing to look at some of those science challenges, and I can certainly categorically put hand on heart, and say so actually on the plane is ok, the most dangerous person on the plane is the one sitting next to you. Because, you know, what they're doing and coughing, and spluttering in their behaviours, but essentially, it's that safe. But getting to the airport, getting through the airport, getting off the plane, getting into taxis, getting into hotels, all the exposures you have in those areas, that's where your risk is with travel and moving around. As for the emergent variants, when you've got wild type virus that's going through populations and it's not being managed, isolated, or there's no vaccine circulating. You do get emergent strains. And… unfortunately, that is going to happen until we can actually get the wild expression of this virus under control.
Brigitte
There any other choices on the horizon to fight this virus? I heard about virus immunotherapy.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah, there's a number of things that have been going on here. There's …there’s four things you can do for a viral infection. Number one is the public health responses. That is, I find the cases isolate them, and have the public health measures, such as mask and cleaning surfaces, and your hands and everything else. And we've seen that work extremely well… in this country. And that's what's protected us, and saved us. Vaccines are another way. The other one is tests. So there are a lot of tests coming through and people will have heard about home monitoring and home testing and things like this. It'll be available soon. And that's actually a very effective way, that if you'd wake up in the morning and have symptoms, you could do a test and go, “Hey, that's positive, I better stay home”. We could use that in workplaces to screen people. So, saying, where we got people working in an office space or something. Sorry, we need to you to actually do a test before you come in, and if you're positive you can’t come into the office, cause these tests can give you results in 15 minutes. So, that's really exciting. So, immunoglobulins come through in the sense of finding… the very proteins that actually will protect you and treat you when you actually get an infection. In Australia at the moment, we have a number available they're quite expensive, but they are reserved for people who are going to have very severe ramifications from COVID disease. So, the clinicians have to make a decision, this person with pre-existing lung disease is not going to do very well. They'll give you them the immunoglobulins and that actually decreases the severity of their disease. There are other drugs on the horizon. And there are many other vaccines, that are actually going through studies at the moment. So this has been a phenomenal period for biomedical science with the developments. I guess the investment… in science and development is paying off. Humanity is getting its payback.
Brigitte
Seems to me that until we get everybody vaccinated, not just in Western countries, which we could still land in the doodoo couldn’t we?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah, and again, that's the most important part. So people thinking that they should have a third booster or not, should be thinking about what about our fellow human beings in so many other countries, that actually don't have health systems like ours, and aren't as fortunate as ours? So you're quite right. We absolutely need to manage this under the fellowship of humanity. And we need to
Brigitte
On a global scale
Dr. Robert Grenfell
On a global scale.
Brigitte
Yes, we talked about being vaccinated, which is obviously a good idea for all the reasons we've gone through. What about mask wearing. I went shopping in Horsham yesterday, and I went to a shop… none of the staff were wearing a mask and …there was a client in there young bloke also not wearing a mask and here I come in with my mask on, feeling like an absolute dork. But also feeling like I’m absolutely in my right, to one; be protected from whatever… else is going around, and also not wanting to give it to someone else.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
It is a very selfish type of attitude… because let's talk about what you really need. Why you don't need to catch this virus. Okay, if you don't care… that you're actually going to get seriously ill and potentially die from it, that's your choice. But on the other side of it is, think of the other people, who might get sick and severely ill. So, you might be working in a shop and thinking I don't need to wear a mask, because I'm young, and fit, and strong, and it's not going to bother me, but you don't know that the other person is coming in might be recovering from cancer treatment, and their immune systems not that good. And even though they're vaccinated, they come into contact with you and you've got a virus and because you've got a mask on, you've just sprayed them all over the face with the virus.
Brigitte
How easy is it to do that?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Very easy, very easy. I mean when, when, when you're talking to somebody within that distance of 1.5 metres, you're actually spitting on someone… that's normal, especially if you say the letter P.
Brigitte
Watch your P’s 18:43
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Well more than that wear a mask. I think wearing a mask is going to be something, that should become a regular fashion statement in crowded areas. So, you might call me a little bit over the top but certainly in any of those crowded uncontrolled areas like shopping centres and, and I guess in the future when I go back to movie cinemas, and other things like that, I'll be wearing a mask. It doesn't stop your breathing. You can breathe through them. You don't choke, most of that nonsense is actually in your head, masks actually work and protect you and I think in one sense, we wear masks and have worn masks for many, many things. And I'm reminded of …from a funny skit I just recently saw that a lot of our superheroes wear masks.
Brigitte
Very true
Dr. Robert Grenfell
That's an important thing to understand, that you're not a superhero unless you're wearing a mask.
Brigitte
I think in the case of young people, having been the young person, once upon a time, there is a lot of peer pressure. So, if the majority of your friends don't wear a mask, you're going to feel like you shouldn't be wearing a mask, otherwise you're going to look like an idiot.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Peer pressure is always a problem, and then community pressure as well. So, I can certainly see that, even in so called adult work sites, where people have done that
Brigitte
So wear a mask, get vaccinated, once again, no brainer if you listen to the science, not to conspiracy theories based on nothing, I guess.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
The sad thing is to get to where I've got to with my expertise. I did a medical degree six years. I then did the requisite… years of university. I then went on and did a public health master's degree, and then I did a specialty fellowship in public health and then also added on to that I actually did pandemic preparedness and planning for the State of Victoria, particularly rural Victoria and I went on and worked in the Department of Health, managing swine flu. I managed the second case that came to Australia so case tracking and case following. And then we were looking at the planning and the distribution of the flu saving drugs and also the new vaccines when they came through. I worked on the national… that developed the National Vaccine Program in the Wimmera, where we achieved 100% immunisation for children and other things like that. And then I've spent the last five or six years planning for this pandemic so that we could develop vaccines really fast, to actually protect us. I do take a great degree of offense when I see celebrity chefs, or I see ex furniture salesman who are now MPs, or I see ex rugby coaches who are now shock jocks spouting off all this information and evidence, about something they actually know nothing about. I certainly don't tell celebrity chefs how to cook
Brigitte
Yes it's pretty distressing, isn't it? You mentioned that you went back in the Wimmera to increase the rate of vaccination. How come the rate of vaccination needs increasing …in this part of the world?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
The one thing is there's been a lot of hesitancy to get vaccinated. We need to have as much of the population vaccinated, as soon as possible, for us to in fact have the best outcome from when the virus comes through. So, the virus is definitely starting to have incursions into rural Victoria as it establishes its way through. And over the rest of this year it will be here and people will be getting sick, and depending on whether they've been vaccinated not, depends on how sick they'll get. And when I first had a look at the figures… here, I saw that in some of the areas particularly in, in our Far West areas here in the region, were levels as low as 30% first dose vaccine. That is absolutely disastrous. And so I took it to the point that if I don't actually help in getting the vaccination rates up to acceptable levels… I'll be back working as a doctor at the hospital because our health system will be crushed. And in one sense, I feel ethically obliged that I'll actually have to go back to help the community survive on just basic health issues.
One of the things that I actually have set up, after having looked through the data… is the COVID Cup. Now… there's a lot of coincidences here. The Premier has said that he's going to relax some of our measures, around the Cup Carnival weekend. Having grown up in the area, I know the ferocity of competition between our towns. So, I grew up in Longerenong, and if we were having a competition against Dooen, we had to win. Now, of course neither of those towns have *chuckles* schools anymore… but you should have seen the, the absolute intensity of trying to do that. Now, when I went to Horsham High, we had to beat Horsham tech. But, when Horsham went to play Stawell or Ararat, we had to beat them, or Hamilton. You know, this was just the way it is. In the sense of the COVID Cup the idea of actually pointing out to the various towns… where in fact you sit on first dose because, for instance, there's a couple of towns like Serviceton and Tempy, which are… Tempy sitting about 37%, but there's only about 57 people there. So, if 30 people from Tempy got into a bus and went straight down to the Nhill medical clinica, or Warracknabeal clinic, and actually got a COVID vaccine, they'd go from zero to hero. Because there's a couple of towns in our district that are 100%. We have Birchip and we have Kaniva, 100% first dose vaccine in the…
Brigitte
That’s fantastic
Dr. Robert Grenfell
… in the populations and that's absolutely fantastic. What we're going to do, in the next couple of weeks is switch over to start promoting the second dose levels, because that's really where we need to go. You've heard a lot about 70% 80%. Frankly, I think we need to be at 95% to really get eno… enough protection and that's where I'm in certainly in agreement with other global experts that we really need to be pushing a lot harder, to protect our community.
Brigitte
Okay, think it should be compulsory?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Look, compulsory vaccination is a, is a, is something that actually polarizes people, and by making something compulsory, generally means that people will try to resist it. However, let's think of things that we've done, which are compulsory one, you're not allowed to drink drive, okay, and now okay, when we started the drink driving business back in the 1970s, everyone's going ah, it's just a few beers, you know? I can drive “Look at that old Maurie, you can't even stand up”. “Oh, it doesn't matter. I can drive because I'm sitting down, aren’t I”. Well, you know, we would never tolerate that type of attitude today.
Brigitte
Absolutely.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Not wearing a seatbelt. Okay, seatbelts came in in the 1960s, and I remember dad put him in the car, because we didn't have them in the back of the old EV Holden, or whatever it was in those days. And nowadays, you wouldn't get in the car, you’d feel naked if you didn't have your seatbelt on, and it's accepted that you'd wear it, and we'd accept fines… there compulsory. Now to do that to a vaccine, at this stage I think is, is probably going to defeat the purpose. I think voluntary wise, do it for yourself, do it for your loved ones, and do it for your community. And if you don't want to do it for yourself, do it for your loved ones and your community, because they're more probably more important… that if you don't want to do for yourselves *laughter* so in my opinion. So, So the *laughter* vaccine is it's *laughter* it's *laughter* it's voluntary, but do it with the right evidence.
Brigitte
and we're very community oriented here in the Wimmera and Mallee, so that should really be a very good argument for people to go out and get vaccinated. But that brings me to perhaps my last question, which is what about access to vaccination? Is there a way to make vaccination more accessible to people who are isolated… on the land or in places where they are no vaccination centres?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Sounds like a simple question, but it's not it’s complex. And if we think about it, we started this pandemic without a… population vaccination service, so we had to develop it. We had a vaccination service that worked for us for flu every season, through your GP or your pharmacist, or we had one that worked for children through maternal and child health nurse or your GP. But we didn't have something that could do the mass population. The last time we had that was polio… back in the 60s. So, to do a vaccination service, you need three things. One, you need supply. Next, you need actually the people to give it and three, you need the demand to have it. Now, the supply issue has been a problem. There's a global pandemic, and the supply of vaccine globally is… absolutely thin on the ground. That's been one problem. The second, is actually having the workforce to do this. So, we've had to find health workers from a health ser…service that's already stretched… to actually redeploy them into areas to in fact, actually provide… safe and efficient ways of giving the vaccine and we've got multiple ways of doing that. One, of those is the mass… mass vaccination centres, so, we've got a number of those. The other is through general practice, and the others now through pharmacy, and then there's what's called the in reach or I like to call it *chuckles* outreach because it's that's more like, and that is actually finding those vulnerable populations or people and taking the vaccine to them. The first three are the ones that have started on the mass population, and that last one is now starting and ramping up, ‘cause we're now going through the task of finding out who has not been vaccinated, where are they, and what is the best way of trying to vaccinate them, because they're the 20% out of that 80%, that won't be vaccinated when we start opening the society up.
Brigitte
And they will be at very high risk.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
They'll be at very high risk, and at no fault of their own, because it's very easy to blame an individual for not being able to do something, but you know, my many years as the GP told me, that I could tell you, until I'm red in the face that you should be losing weight, you should be doing exercise, you should be eating a low fat diet, you should be eating vegetables and you should stop smoking. How many people actually did it? Not many, and the other thing is if you've got high blood pressure, you should be taking your pills and how many people took their pills regularly. You know, this is the whole point as humans, we can choose to do that. But this is certainly a subset of our population that needs assistance …to actually get things done. And they're the people that will be left behind if we do not find them, and do not get them vaccinated.
Brigitte
Farmers live very isolated lives most of the time…could that perhaps lure them into a sense of false security?
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yeah, well, when you're not seeing people you're… not actually being exposed to the virus. But you've got to buy things, and you will see people, even if you spend your whole time on your farm and you actually have the odd visitor, that visitor could bring the virus in.
Brigitte
You have people who come and work…
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Yep
Brigitte
… at certain times of the year during harvest etc.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Absolutely. Where have they been before? We have no idea where they've been prior to this, you know, and no idea at all. Frankly, you're …not… isolated enough.
Brigitte
Perhaps last word of advice to everyone who's listening in our part of the world, the beautiful West Wimmera
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Get vaccinated as soon as possible! There is ample supply around, keep trying, keep persisting, and it's very important to get it as soon as possible. The virus will be here before the year is out. You'll certainly be exposed to it. You need to continue on all of the public health measures you've got to know, wear a mask, wash your hands and keep your distance from people, and the other one is, if you've got any symptoms whatsoever, get tested! Because I've now been doing case tracking, and one of the common things is “oh, I thought it was just a cold”. What part of the message didn't you get? If you've got any symptoms get tested. If it's COVID we need to isolate you.
Brigitte
Thank you very much for your time. Rob. This has been very enlightening, and I hope it will get people out there to do the right thing, for themselves, their loved ones and their communities.
Dr. Robert Grenfell
Thanks so much.
Brigitte
That was Dr. Robert Grenfell, special health advisor for CSIRO.
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai edited by WWHS Health Promotion
