The Fat Yak print was a big topic of conversation in the segment with the Nine network this morning. Peter Dutton forgot to take into account the time difference after a week in Canberra, and threw together his broadcast space “in a few minutes”.
The print apparently costs $380, but is on sale for $364.
Jamie Travers
(@JamieTravers)Happy Friday. ? pic.twitter.com/M5k2J1YhnC
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Greg Hunt is off to the greatest nation on earth today (Queensland, obviously) to talk about the progress with the University of Queensland vaccine.
He spoke on Brisbane radio 4BC this morning about the four vaccines Australia has deals with:
There’s the University of Queensland and CSL – that’s 51m units; good progress on that.
The Pfizer vaccine, which is what’s known as an mRNA vaccine – there’s 10m units of that.
You then have 40m for Novavax, which is a protein vaccine like the University of Queensland’s.
And 33.8m units for AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which is a viral vector vaccine.
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In Canberra the health department and Therapeutic Goods Administration are appearing at a Senate inquiry into vaping.
The federal government is weighing a plan to go to a prescription-only model for e-cigarettes, with a decision expected by December for the new regime to apply from mid 2021.
Coalition senators Hollie Hughes and Matt Canavan have been pushing back about what the evidence for this model is – putting them at odds with the health minister, Greg Hunt, and setting the scene for a major stoush within the government.
Canavan accused the department of putting together a submission full of “weasel words” because it claimed there was no surge in e-cigarette use. He notes a correlation between smoking declining and e-cigarette uptake – although officials warned correlation is not causation.
Canavan accused the public servants of failing to consult smokers: “You’ve got a lot of book smarts, studies, science – but there’s not a lot of street smarts.”
Officials rejected this, citing extensive consultation.
Bernie Towler, a medical adviser in the department, warned that international studies show the gateway effect is “a real thing”. Studies show those who use e-cigs are three times more likely to take up combustibles – cigarettes, pipes, bowls etc – than non-smokers, she said.
Sharon Appleyard, the first assistant secretary of health protection, said: ”Basically there is no evidence that e-cigarettes at population level will lead to smoking cessation. At a population level it’s different to the individual level. It may be useful to some smokers individually, but not at a population level.”
John Skerritt, the deputy secretary of the health products regulation group, said there was clear evidence that intervention of a health professional was best at determining what route a patient should take to stop smoking.
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The Actuaries Institute has released a report looking at Australia’s mortality rates – and the lockdowns and physical distancing means more lives were saved as the normal “winter hump” didn’t eventuate.
Key findings from the report (based on ABS data):
- Australia continued to have very low death rates from all respiratory causes. We hypothesise that respiratory diseases are not circulating through the community as they have done in previous winters because of the continuation of social distancing measures throughout Australia and perhaps also because of the closed international borders;
- Deaths jumped in the final week of July. While this was due in part to Covid, most of the extra deaths were identified as due to other causes, including dementia, diabetes and “other”. This coincided with a high number of diagnosed Covid cases as the second wave approached its peak in Victoria;
- From the state-based data, we can see that Victoria accounts for more than half of this spike, with a material increase also in Queensland;
- From the age-based data, we can see that males over 75 and females over 85 accounted for almost 90% of the spike.
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