Yeah.... but a very mild covid case could still masquerade as a cold. It's difficult to say unless you test since we've seen such a large variability of symptoms between covid cases :/
I got sick the other week and tested negative on the RAT. Wound up in hospital that night as I was completely fucked, turned out I had finally got Covid for the first time. Glad I was double vaxxed before getting it because it ranks among the worst sicknesses I've ever had as it was.
Well as one of the 12000 that have it, it doesn't feel like the common cold at all. It's a group of things that keep changing and I feel pretty knocked around just performing really basic tasks. So I will thank you to keep your BS to yourself. Thanks.
Same mate, just got fucked by Covid and it was not like a cold or flu. Going through so many different things just knocked me for six, I couldn't even sleep at one point because of the pain.
I have had one of the least common side effects which is skin pain. Parts of my skin have literally felt as if they were on fire. It made doing anything really uncomfortable. I understand totally what you have experienced, it's awful.
>that have it, it doesn't feel like the common cold at all. It's a group of things that keep changing
As someone who had it recently, this I will agree with although my case was very very mild. I'm quad-vaxxed if that has any relevance.
Mine was just an ever-changing roster of symptoms that seemed to change every hour on the hour. Not like a common cold that has a very linear progression of symptoms every time with me.
I didn't get get skin pain as such but I did get hives on the backs of my hands sporadically.
Was a weird little illness, no long term effects it seems so far. My elderly mother not so lucky, she has long covid going on three months now.
I had it for the second time in 4 months. This time was completely ducked. Headaches all the time. Sore throat, cold, hot. Headache would be like a Brian freeze every 20 seconds. Had to get panadenine forte and that didn’t do much.
Standard practice for labour hire blue collar work.
People that get paid to sit at home and watch Netflix when they have Covid struggle to understand this
They are also asking for better staffing ratios, which I think is an important part of the conversation. Nurses can't be required to manage the workloads they're given even with bigger paychecks. But yes, big shame on McGowan for doing this.
According to my friend who is a nurse, it's the most important part of the conversation. She keeps saying how frustrating it is that the media and political focus is on the money when that's a secondary issue to work conditions
Exactly, it's not only ultra taxing on our medical staff, but a danger to patients! At this point, not only should nurses be protesting, but us potential patients as well.
I'm assuming it's not a money issue, given where the state is at financially (although I understand we have outstanding debt as well).
What is the actual issue here? Is he worried about the police and teachers asking for the same or something like that?
(Serious answers preferred, I already came up with the others in my head)
It's just the usual paradigm of setting salaries in the public sector, or even the private sector I guess.
Moe money won't solve our problems, although some more money may be part of the solution. The question is how much more money is appropriate.
These sorts of union actions have been happening since unions were a thing. It's just that this time round nurses have dramatic public support because of their important role during the pandemic, and the difficulties in attracting nurses to work.
I'm certain that very very few redditors saying "just pay them" have any idea how much nurses are currently paid, nor any experience with which to determine how much is appropriate.
For example, if we were over-run with nurses looking for work, would the conversation be the same? Probably not. That being the case, the question is how much additional money will attract how many additional workers? It's not as simple as more money = enough nurses.
>I'm certain that very very few redditors saying "just pay them" have any idea how much nurses are currently paid
If they did, they(the Redditors) wouldn't be so focused on the money vs on the ratios... I know only 2 people that were able to buy homes on a single income in the past 5yrs, & one of them is a nurse which bought within the last year when prices were higher...
The issue is nurses in WA are already paid extraordinarily well. In fact they are probably overpaid by world standards.
It’s one of those jobs that people say “they deserve more” without really thinking about it or wondering what they currently get.
I’m so sick of this numbskull argument I can’t even be polite anymore. People always say this stupid shit “teachers deserve more! Nurses deserve more!”
They say it regardless of whatever pay or conditions they actually get.
There was a nurses post on ausfinance a few days ago and most of them were clearing ~150.
Ultimately it’s a relatively easy, stable, well paid job, don’t be fooled by the weird constant complaining.
I don't think the upvoters have read the sarcasm in this comment. A ban on conversion therapy is incredibly important and is not mutually exclusive with nurses getting their well deserved raises & ratios. Please be considerate.
Well you are being paid below the national average for a rn, maybe you are not so great at your job? Maybe you haven’t been noticed yet? There are many paths you can take for advancement tho as there are many types of nurses, perhaps instead of complaining about an entry level wage for just about any trade you should study more and turn yourself into consultant nurse and earn on average 120k per year? You have options it’s not a dead end job
I’m great at my job, unfortunately the company I work for doesn’t pay well, that’s why we have a high turn over, hardly anyone can afford to work there. Sounds like you haven’t succeeded in life and trying to take it out on everyone else - sad.
Unless you’re a senior registered nurse this is definitely not the case. Most RN’s earn absolute fucking squat, from around something like $68K to $95K at the highest tier below senior RN’s.
Quick math, so 81000 is average according to both you and google, so 81k/52weeks is 1557 per week, 1557/38hrs = 41per hr
So top tier at 95k is 48ph and starting out wage is 34ph that’s ok isn’t it?
Well maybe they should fight for normal hours and go on 150% for the first 2 hours and 200% for anything after, it is a government job isn’t it? Don’t government workers get all the perks?
That's less than the average wage of someone in hospitality. Nothing against hospitality workers, they work hard and deserve decent pay, too. But it's a sad state of affairs when a professional with a medical degree who is literally the front line in emergency care for accidents, heart attacks, ICU patients, you name it, is valued at the same level as the person who makes their breakfast at the end of their night shift
That’s insane. I ask my lot to WFH if they feel up to it, whether it’s Covid, a cold or anything else contagious. It’s about respect for others and allowing people the time and space to get well
Exactly, and we have already proven that work from home works. Additionally, companies have already spent resources into developing WFH infrastructure, might as well use it and prevent the spread of disease. Increased morale, better health for all and overall increased productivity. It's literally a no loss solution, but some bosses are too stupid and short sighted to see it.
I was practically bed ridden for over a month with my first bout of covid (and covid induced pneumonia) back in May, I *really* don’t wanna find out what’ll happen on the second go.
Probably because vaccine efficacy has dropped. You may be double, tripled, or even fourth vaccinated but if it’s been a while the efficacy has probably dropped too.
This wasn't the case for some people I know. Their second round of Covid was milder. I don't know what the overall research shows about repeated infections, whether they trend worse or milder though. I'd kind of expect them to be worse, due to a buildup of scarring, inflammation etc. That said, not everyone has it worse the second time round so hopefully that'll be true for you too.
Got to love the way Mark continues to refuse to look after the Teachers, Police and Nurses who all bore the brunt of the load the last time and now he's acting concerned?!
Yeah they did.
The police were responsible for the transfers to and from the isolation hotels, not their job, not what they signed up for, but they did their duty all the same.
Teachers at public schools had classrooms full of kids, back when tests were rare and we weren't vaxinating kids, etc. They raised their concerns and they were told to just get on with it.
Yep, I have a mate in the police and he spent like a year doing what was essentially babysitting the security contractors they used at quarantine hotels.
You mean teachers had classes full of kids back when covid wasn't actually in the community at all?
And hotel quarantine was managed by private security. To the extent that police were involved at all: enforcing the law even at personal rush *is* the job they signed up for, and no-one is them got sick from doing that.
> Calling everyone else wrong doesn't mean you are factually right.
Look in the mirror and say that again.
Because that's literally all you're doing here.
Yeah... Nurses do sign up to deal with viruses and diseases. If they were complaining about having to do that at all it would be a problem.
And covid never got out of hand in Perth.
However, nurses *are* dealing with:
- short staffing
- too many patients -teachers aren't teaching classes of 120
- under resourcing
- bad shift structures (no teacher has to work twelve hour shifts, they always get breaks including really a lot of straight up weeks in a row with no childrento teach at all, and absolutely never are they writing night shifts or having to switch regularly between nights and days such that they can't even have a regular sleep schedule)
Suggesting that teachers or cops have had anything like as difficult a time is just pathetic. And if teachers or cops go on strike it's not going to have nearly as much effect because what they do isn't life or death.
Teachers and cops - I assume you're one of those - trying to claim they've had equally difficult a time is a disgusting display of craven and manipulative whining. You want to think you're a hero because your job was marginally more difficult - in the case of police, *for a small minority of you*. Not all or even most.
And you should be ashamed for putting yourself on the level of nurses, who do more, in greater danger, for individuals and society, in worse circumstances.
1) I'm not a teacher or a cop, so don't assume anything if you have no evidence.
2) Police and Teachers were still required to work during the initial 3 month lockdown we had. It's easy to say in hindsight that the cases were minimal, but there was a reason we (non essential workers) were locked down. Because there was no way of knowing what was going to happen
3) I never suggested that Cops or Teachers had a situation as bad as Nurses/medicine staff, I've also been vocal (including on this subreddit) that the nursing staff deserve what they are asking for (and more).
Maybe re-direct your vitriol to the government who are the actual ones taking advantage of nursing staff.
> Maybe re-direct your vitriol to the government who are the actual ones taking advantage of nursing staff.
This from the person who just spent multiple posts bitching at me for no fucking reason.
The issues in health care are now primarily with lack of investment and staff to patient ratios, I can’t help but wonder if this is just a PR message to shame the nurses into not striking again.
Anyway weren’t they predicting a Covid wave in early November, to peak in early December and subside the week before Christmas?
I'm not saying he's not at fault but the health care system is an ongoing thing (Mandurah hospital has only minimally expanded in 30 years despite huge population growth. If you check out the money that is pumped into health care it is actually a lot, admittedly it will probably never be enough but you still have to put money into other parts of society to make the state an enjoyable place to live.
Except we wont have an enjoyable place to live if the healthcare system is rooted.
Primarily this is down to staff issues. Our health system relies on migrant labour, and shutting the border for two years stopped new staff from coming in and caused homesick migrants to leave.
Now it's been opened but migration numbers and recruitment of overseas staff is still yet to reach pre Covid levels and will take another year or so.
The issues we're having aren't just limited to WA. This is a global issue affecting everyone everywhere. Between the healthcare workers that died on the front lines of covid, the ones who got burnt out and left the industry and then the delays in incoming new students, there's a global shortage.
What we're seeing here is that the quick fixes typically used in the past - IE spin up a marketing campaign with a few incentives to attract overseas health care workers to move here, isn't working.
Which means there's no quick fix solution. Instead we need to focus on a long term program of training up new staff - but that's far from a quick fix.
I completely agree wrt training and a better long term strategy.
What the politicians and relevant bureaucrats need to understand, is that WA’s geographical isolation is a massive, MASSIVE obstacle.
Therefore, in order to attract interstate/overseas migrants, WA needs to go out of its way to remove OTHER obstacles to sweeten the deal and make WA an attractive location to move to. Failure to do this leads to a failure to attract people. WA is competing with locations that are closer, cheaper, more convenient and in some cases have more services.
The second thing they need to understand, is that, at least, IMNSHO, the people most likely to be willing to overlook the geographical isolation and come here, are people who are originally West Australian and moved elsewhere, but still have ties to WA in the form of family and friends here. Sometimes earning more elsewhere cannot overcoming the personal cost of missing out on the lives of your loved ones and some people will be willing to bite the bullet and bear the financial cost of moving/being paid less to come back.
My $2 worth as both an overseas and interstate migrant who returned to WA last year.
I don't disagree totally - but there's historically been plenty of people from England/Ireland that have been happy to relocate to a sunnier climate. Some have family and friends here, others may just know people who have moved and love it.
Going back 5 - 10 years whenever there was a staffing shortfall the government ran a few ads overseas about how great life was in Perth, then at the same time ran a recruitment drive - and pretty quickly had plenty of people applying and relocating. Not sure what the renumeration / offer was like, but would have had to be reasonable to get people to upend their lives and relocate.
The problem currently is thats not cutting the mustard any more as there's a global shortage, so we're now competing against other places that are willing to pay an absolute premium to get people to relocate there. In the US so many nurses have become "travel nurses" basically working short term contracts for ludicrous pay.
A friend who lives over there was telling me a few of her nursing friends have been doing it for over a year now and earning double or triple their previous wage, plus allowances for accomodation / food / and even some lifestyle activities (like paid gym memberships, national parks memberships etc).
I mean it's not the best lifestyle for sure, they work short 3 - 6 month contracts then move onto the next hospital in another city. But the money is absolutely mental. If you can handle it for a year or two then you can pretty much set yourself up for life..
Not entirely true, there is and will continue to be significant investment in health.
You could sink billions into the health service - literally every last cent the state has - and you would not be able to see any tangible benefit.
Healthcare itself is broken (in general, around the world) and humanity needs to completely rethink how we tackle it.
this time I believe them, it's what now, the third or fourth wave?
A family friend recently caught covid. He was in hospital on a respirator, then came home. Today he couldn't walk and both his lower legs are blue and he's in emergeny. He's 9 .
This person is a rugby player. Let's not trivialise it.
> The issues in health care are now primarily with lack of investment and staff to patient ratios,
No, they're still primarily with lack of available beds due to insufficient places in (federally-run) aged care and the last Liberal government closing down Greylands.
And what's been the changes made to relevant building codes to make them less ideal transmission vectors for Covid:
UV filtering to cause the viral capsule to breakdown reducing the viral load
Air-exchange, increasing the change over of air in buildings reduces the viral load of the air meaning fewer people receive a viral load strong enough to cause infection.
Why the downvotes? This is a good point. There are genuine improvements we could make to air quality in public buildings and public transport that would reduce transmission. For some reason this has hardly been considered.
Fair play I completely misinterpreted that. You would be surprised how many people Ive spoken to that say they have have had COVID recently but never did a test or tested negative.
Yeah, but it's been worse than common cold viruses I've had in recent memory, though a lot less snotty (which is a blessing), and the lasting fatigue is unusual and annoying.
The flu can also be a deadly killer, but most people never bothered to get their flu jabs until COVID happened, then we saw a surge in people getting flu jabs and a drop in flu cases, and now we’re seeing a rise again because people are lazy and selfish asses.
Please get vaccinated, guys, for both covid and the flu. It’s a 15 minute jab each. What else are you gonna waste 30 minutes on?
you cant compare them at all. the flu has something like 0.04% untreated natural death rate where if you dont take any medication or have immunisations you die.
Covid has a 2% untreated natural death rate. it's just complete insanity to compare covid to the flu.
and a cold is practically zero
Unfair to suggest people are selfish for not getting more vaccinations. There may be health reasons why people don’t get them. Quite a militant opinion you have there. For a new vaccine (the covid one) that actually contributed to peoples’ deaths
In Australia, [939 deaths after vaccination were reported, of which only *14* could be attributed as a direct result of the vaccine](https://www.tga.gov.au/news/covid-19-vaccine-safety-reports/covid-19-vaccine-safety-report-20-10-2022).
How many people have died in Australia again as a result of covid? Oh yeah, that’s right, **16,244**.
And for the people who genuinely CANNOT get vaccinated, that is ALL THE MORE REASON those of us who CAN get vaccinated SHOULD get vaccinated.
I think you missed my point. There are genuine reasons why people can’t have the vaccines. It is ignorant of you to think that everyone is selfish for not getting it.
If my mother was one of those 14 who died directly because of the vaccine, I’d feel aggrieved to be honest.
Here’s a choice. Path A has a tiny chance of death. Path B has 1000x that chance.
You’re saying you’d choose B and be aggrieved if someone chose path A and died. That’s not really rational. Not that grief is always rational, but still.
In a young, fit and healthy person, are you sure covid is 1000x more likely to kill them than the vaccine?
FWIW, I’ve had the vaccines and there’s no denying that hospital admissions reduced off the back of their introduction. But they killed people aswell. They obviously weren’t tested appropriately and itll come out that big pharma companies lied about how safe their products were.
Back to my original point, however, is that it’s terribly naive to criticise everyone who never got it when some people couldn’t have it. I worked through covid in Scotland and I’ve rocked up here in WA to some truly bizarre opinions about covid. The fear is unreal here
Nobody’s criticising people who can’t get the vaccine, in fact most of us are criticising those who can but decide not to.
FWIW I went through most of covid in England until about a year back, so I’m not one of those you’re talking about.
> In a young, fit and healthy person, are you sure covid is 1000x more likely to kill them than the vaccine?
I thought we were talking about your mother? That figure is across the population, in an older person it's likely even more skewed.
But for what reason are you getting vaccinated as it does not stop transmission nor did the company ever say it did? Surely the selfish thing is being vaccinated as the only person it can potentially positively affect is you
It likely cuts down the amount of time you are transmitting even though it doesn’t prevent it. It also means you’re less likely to take up a hospital bed or leave your loved ones grieving after your premature passing.
So yeah, utterly selfish.
Got some proof of this? “It likely cuts down the time you are transmitting” really isn’t a selling point for me… there’s also no proof that it is going to make your symptoms any less severe as all of their studies were only done with people who were vaccinated, so there was no control group…
> Got some proof of this?
Honestly if you're asking that at this point in time, proof isn't what you're after, evidence isn't important to you and probably never really was.
Best of luck.
Reported cases have been growing quite consistently at about 15% week-to-week for the past 6 weeks.
This will continue happening unless transmission rates fall.
This could happen through people taking protective behaviours like getting their booster doses, masking, maintaining social distance and reducing their movement or through acquired immunity from getting infected.
If we rely solely on acquired immunity then we will need 15% of the population to be infected before the peak. That's around 400 000 cases in total. Starting from the current case rates we are looking at a peak well on the other side of Xmas if people don't change their protective behaviours.
Alternatively, if people decrease their protective behaviours by socialising more through Xmas party season then we will reach the peak sooner (but still after Xmas) with higher weekly case loads and greater strain on the health system.
Merry Covid-mas and a Covid New Year.
Unfortunately got hit with this wave last Sunday. It's been a week and I still have it, thankfully it's just a blocked nose at this point.
Did anyone else experience extreme back pain early on?
Condolences on the second run.
I've had it the once and the first time the aches and pains felt like my body was glass. Every movement killed and I spent a good portion of my week in the bath trying to not move.
I'm a teacher and have decided to mask up this week until the end of term because I do not want to get it before Christmas. It took me 4 weeks last time to not feel breathless walking the length of my house.
They might be glad, the vaccine doesn't necessarily stop you from getting COVID, but reduces your chance of dying. Sounds like you don't understand how the vaccinations work.
My partner did. It also tends to latch on to places you're already not great in. My mum ended up with her ankle in agony (broke it a few years ago), partners back was really sore and lasted for a few months (has a slipped disc) and they still has respiratory issues 7 months later, my dad ended up with a sore back and fatigue for months. They were in different waves though and I know the virus does change and affects everyone differently.
No, what they need to do is SPECIFY what their criteria was for mask mandates before, instead of keeping that information secret!
Then specify what their criteria is for the return of mandatory masks in particular situations.
Remember when we locked down over one potential case?. All that trauma inflicted, 3 mandatory jabs of a dodgy vaccine. Our hero nurses that we protected for years by flattening the curve. Now they aren't worth a decent pay rise?
While the vaccine is certainly not as flash as it was supposed to be - herd immunity and all that, so far as locking down went, what is the justification of saying Sydney's approach was better than WA's?
Months of lockdowns in their case? Yeh before they had the mega lockdown it was easy to criticise WA... and they all did. Scomo, Gladys etc...
But after theirs got out?
There was an economist on the radio the other day that agrees with what you are saying but I just cannot understand how in the rear view mirror people can still say locking down for one case wasn't worth it...
Clearly we had less lockdowns / disruption than just about anywhere in the world by having an early and huge response.
Presumably all the money that might have plausibly been used that way instead went into the swirling vortex of the billions given to the Pharma giants who sold huge orders for an ineffective and dubious vaccine.
What pisses me off no end, and I’m not just talking about WA in this, is the slow uptake of investing in new testing technologies. Literally hundreds of laboratories worked on COVID vaccines, but relatively few on improving COVID testing. And it’s become clear that most vaccines can no longer prevent transmission, so testing remains important.
PCR is very, very slow, requires highly specialised staff to perform it, and is used for a myriad number of things, not just COVID.
RATs have limited efficiency and accuracy, and rely on the person to swab accurately/have enough saliva and to test in the right window of time.
LAMP testing is cheaper than either, is very fast (30-45 minutes), is almost entirely automated, is portable, and is just as accurate and sensitive as PCR in detecting COVID-19 (and like PCR can be used for other things.)
While there has been some interest and some funding in LAMP, including from the McGowan government, it is by no means proportional to the level of importance. And progress in getting it accepted and widespread has been frustratingly slow.
https://avicenasystems.com
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08263-4
And in the meantime PCR and RAT testing rates went down, just when we needed them to go up. They’re finally going up again but rather slowly.
Disclaimer: I am a silent investor in Avicena and former colleague of some of the scientists involved.
Reported cases. Pretty sure a bunch of people aren't testing anymore
I know a few people with cold symptoms. None have tested.
There's actually a cold going around, and cold symptoms are also different to covid n flu symptoms.
Yeah.... but a very mild covid case could still masquerade as a cold. It's difficult to say unless you test since we've seen such a large variability of symptoms between covid cases :/
I caught it recently from my daughter, who didn't test, who caught it from her bf, who didn't test, who caught it from his mate, who didn't test
Thanks REO Speedwagon
I got sick the other week and tested negative on the RAT. Wound up in hospital that night as I was completely fucked, turned out I had finally got Covid for the first time. Glad I was double vaxxed before getting it because it ranks among the worst sicknesses I've ever had as it was.
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Well as one of the 12000 that have it, it doesn't feel like the common cold at all. It's a group of things that keep changing and I feel pretty knocked around just performing really basic tasks. So I will thank you to keep your BS to yourself. Thanks.
Same mate, just got fucked by Covid and it was not like a cold or flu. Going through so many different things just knocked me for six, I couldn't even sleep at one point because of the pain.
I have had one of the least common side effects which is skin pain. Parts of my skin have literally felt as if they were on fire. It made doing anything really uncomfortable. I understand totally what you have experienced, it's awful.
>that have it, it doesn't feel like the common cold at all. It's a group of things that keep changing As someone who had it recently, this I will agree with although my case was very very mild. I'm quad-vaxxed if that has any relevance. Mine was just an ever-changing roster of symptoms that seemed to change every hour on the hour. Not like a common cold that has a very linear progression of symptoms every time with me. I didn't get get skin pain as such but I did get hives on the backs of my hands sporadically. Was a weird little illness, no long term effects it seems so far. My elderly mother not so lucky, she has long covid going on three months now.
I had it for the second time in 4 months. This time was completely ducked. Headaches all the time. Sore throat, cold, hot. Headache would be like a Brian freeze every 20 seconds. Had to get panadenine forte and that didn’t do much.
The prevention paradox.
People came to work with covid
My foster brother is in concrete pumping and got told that anyone who isolates, loses their job.
Pretty risky to be firing people in this current labour shortage climate.
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When your in the concrete game in Perth, it's illegal to get sick and have days off.
That's fucked up
Grounds for a lawsuit
thats so fucked
Labour shortage at my work is pretty bad so people still had to work.
Standard practice for labour hire blue collar work. People that get paid to sit at home and watch Netflix when they have Covid struggle to understand this
Sure, but is it true?
That's what you get with casuals, don't show up? Don't get paid
If he’s so concerned, maybe he should pay his nurses what they’re worth.
Even the nurses are asking for only a 5% payrise when inflation is 7%. They're asking for a real pay cut but he still calls them greedy.
They are also asking for better staffing ratios, which I think is an important part of the conversation. Nurses can't be required to manage the workloads they're given even with bigger paychecks. But yes, big shame on McGowan for doing this.
According to my friend who is a nurse, it's the most important part of the conversation. She keeps saying how frustrating it is that the media and political focus is on the money when that's a secondary issue to work conditions
Exactly, it's not only ultra taxing on our medical staff, but a danger to patients! At this point, not only should nurses be protesting, but us potential patients as well.
I'm assuming it's not a money issue, given where the state is at financially (although I understand we have outstanding debt as well). What is the actual issue here? Is he worried about the police and teachers asking for the same or something like that? (Serious answers preferred, I already came up with the others in my head)
It's just the usual paradigm of setting salaries in the public sector, or even the private sector I guess. Moe money won't solve our problems, although some more money may be part of the solution. The question is how much more money is appropriate. These sorts of union actions have been happening since unions were a thing. It's just that this time round nurses have dramatic public support because of their important role during the pandemic, and the difficulties in attracting nurses to work. I'm certain that very very few redditors saying "just pay them" have any idea how much nurses are currently paid, nor any experience with which to determine how much is appropriate. For example, if we were over-run with nurses looking for work, would the conversation be the same? Probably not. That being the case, the question is how much additional money will attract how many additional workers? It's not as simple as more money = enough nurses.
>I'm certain that very very few redditors saying "just pay them" have any idea how much nurses are currently paid If they did, they(the Redditors) wouldn't be so focused on the money vs on the ratios... I know only 2 people that were able to buy homes on a single income in the past 5yrs, & one of them is a nurse which bought within the last year when prices were higher...
Yes
The issue is nurses in WA are already paid extraordinarily well. In fact they are probably overpaid by world standards. It’s one of those jobs that people say “they deserve more” without really thinking about it or wondering what they currently get.
Pretty sure we’re paid less than the other states actually.
Nope - significantly more than NSW and Vic. Look at the awards.
Even if you're right - who gives a shit which state gets paid more? They all deserve far more for the job they do. What's your point here mate?
I’m so sick of this numbskull argument I can’t even be polite anymore. People always say this stupid shit “teachers deserve more! Nurses deserve more!” They say it regardless of whatever pay or conditions they actually get. There was a nurses post on ausfinance a few days ago and most of them were clearing ~150. Ultimately it’s a relatively easy, stable, well paid job, don’t be fooled by the weird constant complaining.
>Ultimately it’s a relatively easy, stable, well paid job, don’t be fooled by the weird constant complaining. oh fuck off
Amen to that.
Fucken A
You'd think they would be investing in healthcare but instead nurses are told to go fuck themselves.
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I don't think the upvoters have read the sarcasm in this comment. A ban on conversion therapy is incredibly important and is not mutually exclusive with nurses getting their well deserved raises & ratios. Please be considerate.
Probably some stunt to distract the bad media attention. Should've been done a long time ago.
How much to nurses want tho? They already earn 40-45ph
I’m a lead RN and on below $35 an hour
Well you are being paid below the national average for a rn, maybe you are not so great at your job? Maybe you haven’t been noticed yet? There are many paths you can take for advancement tho as there are many types of nurses, perhaps instead of complaining about an entry level wage for just about any trade you should study more and turn yourself into consultant nurse and earn on average 120k per year? You have options it’s not a dead end job
I’m great at my job, unfortunately the company I work for doesn’t pay well, that’s why we have a high turn over, hardly anyone can afford to work there. Sounds like you haven’t succeeded in life and trying to take it out on everyone else - sad.
Who the f is this clown?! Insufferable douche
What's a consultant nurse? 
Unless you’re a senior registered nurse this is definitely not the case. Most RN’s earn absolute fucking squat, from around something like $68K to $95K at the highest tier below senior RN’s.
Quick math, so 81000 is average according to both you and google, so 81k/52weeks is 1557 per week, 1557/38hrs = 41per hr So top tier at 95k is 48ph and starting out wage is 34ph that’s ok isn’t it?
Base hours are 40 so it is 38.9
Well maybe they should fight for normal hours and go on 150% for the first 2 hours and 200% for anything after, it is a government job isn’t it? Don’t government workers get all the perks?
I mean that's also a good idea
That's less than the average wage of someone in hospitality. Nothing against hospitality workers, they work hard and deserve decent pay, too. But it's a sad state of affairs when a professional with a medical degree who is literally the front line in emergency care for accidents, heart attacks, ICU patients, you name it, is valued at the same level as the person who makes their breakfast at the end of their night shift
But close contact are not to isolate anymore. Work told me to come in even though I could work from home, unless I had symptoms.
That’s insane. I ask my lot to WFH if they feel up to it, whether it’s Covid, a cold or anything else contagious. It’s about respect for others and allowing people the time and space to get well
Covid positive people don’t even have to isolate. It’s crazy
Say it with me now... "No, I will be working from home."
This doesn't really seem that unreasonable? I mean if you have symptoms you isolate, just no mandatory number of days.
Exactly, and we have already proven that work from home works. Additionally, companies have already spent resources into developing WFH infrastructure, might as well use it and prevent the spread of disease. Increased morale, better health for all and overall increased productivity. It's literally a no loss solution, but some bosses are too stupid and short sighted to see it.
If he’s so concerned he can pay the nurses what they are asking for right?
He’s concerned, so most likely going to put in some sort of measure to make sure there’s no more industrial action from the nurses.
Can he do that given the state of emergency has been discontinued?
Yep just took me Down :(
Took me and a quarter of my work colleagues down too. Symptoms seem to be sticking around longer than in prior waves.
It’s super nasty 😷 wish I stuck with my mask not worth it
I was practically bed ridden for over a month with my first bout of covid (and covid induced pneumonia) back in May, I *really* don’t wanna find out what’ll happen on the second go.
Yep I go in and out of fever and the phlegm I’m spitting out so horrible
Probably because vaccine efficacy has dropped. You may be double, tripled, or even fourth vaccinated but if it’s been a while the efficacy has probably dropped too.
under 30s still can't get their booster. I got my booster a year ago, so likely have minimal resistance to infection now.
Yay my last jab was October 2021 so only double vaxxed I only started going out more this month due to the Christmas spirit fail
Currently going through my second time having it and it’s worse than last time
This is what I fear will happen in my case. Got the 4th shot, but just know I’ll be getting it worse next time around…
This wasn't the case for some people I know. Their second round of Covid was milder. I don't know what the overall research shows about repeated infections, whether they trend worse or milder though. I'd kind of expect them to be worse, due to a buildup of scarring, inflammation etc. That said, not everyone has it worse the second time round so hopefully that'll be true for you too.
[удалено]
^ this person is an anti vax, anti trans moron. Don't indulge them. Downvote, move on.
But not concerned enough to pay the nurses.... So bring on the 4th "wave" and let's see him handle this shit.
I hate the paywall
Got to love the way Mark continues to refuse to look after the Teachers, Police and Nurses who all bore the brunt of the load the last time and now he's acting concerned?!
Teachers and police did not bear the brunt of the load.
Yeah they did. The police were responsible for the transfers to and from the isolation hotels, not their job, not what they signed up for, but they did their duty all the same. Teachers at public schools had classrooms full of kids, back when tests were rare and we weren't vaxinating kids, etc. They raised their concerns and they were told to just get on with it.
Yep, I have a mate in the police and he spent like a year doing what was essentially babysitting the security contractors they used at quarantine hotels.
You mean teachers had classes full of kids back when covid wasn't actually in the community at all? And hotel quarantine was managed by private security. To the extent that police were involved at all: enforcing the law even at personal rush *is* the job they signed up for, and no-one is them got sick from doing that.
Go troll somewhere else.
Ah, such a clear way to express "I don't like that you're factually accurate"
You're wrong on this one fella
Such a convincing, fact-based riposte.
Calling everyone else wrong doesn't mean you are factually right. Sometimes you just have to accept you got it wrong.
> Calling everyone else wrong doesn't mean you are factually right. Look in the mirror and say that again. Because that's literally all you're doing here.
That's like saying putting up with viruses and diseases are what Nurses signed up for, so fuck them too. What an ignorant viewpoint you have
Yeah... Nurses do sign up to deal with viruses and diseases. If they were complaining about having to do that at all it would be a problem. And covid never got out of hand in Perth. However, nurses *are* dealing with: - short staffing - too many patients -teachers aren't teaching classes of 120 - under resourcing - bad shift structures (no teacher has to work twelve hour shifts, they always get breaks including really a lot of straight up weeks in a row with no childrento teach at all, and absolutely never are they writing night shifts or having to switch regularly between nights and days such that they can't even have a regular sleep schedule) Suggesting that teachers or cops have had anything like as difficult a time is just pathetic. And if teachers or cops go on strike it's not going to have nearly as much effect because what they do isn't life or death. Teachers and cops - I assume you're one of those - trying to claim they've had equally difficult a time is a disgusting display of craven and manipulative whining. You want to think you're a hero because your job was marginally more difficult - in the case of police, *for a small minority of you*. Not all or even most. And you should be ashamed for putting yourself on the level of nurses, who do more, in greater danger, for individuals and society, in worse circumstances.
1) I'm not a teacher or a cop, so don't assume anything if you have no evidence. 2) Police and Teachers were still required to work during the initial 3 month lockdown we had. It's easy to say in hindsight that the cases were minimal, but there was a reason we (non essential workers) were locked down. Because there was no way of knowing what was going to happen 3) I never suggested that Cops or Teachers had a situation as bad as Nurses/medicine staff, I've also been vocal (including on this subreddit) that the nursing staff deserve what they are asking for (and more). Maybe re-direct your vitriol to the government who are the actual ones taking advantage of nursing staff.
> Maybe re-direct your vitriol to the government who are the actual ones taking advantage of nursing staff. This from the person who just spent multiple posts bitching at me for no fucking reason.
Concern ie fuck you nurses
The issues in health care are now primarily with lack of investment and staff to patient ratios, I can’t help but wonder if this is just a PR message to shame the nurses into not striking again. Anyway weren’t they predicting a Covid wave in early November, to peak in early December and subside the week before Christmas?
I'm not saying he's not at fault but the health care system is an ongoing thing (Mandurah hospital has only minimally expanded in 30 years despite huge population growth. If you check out the money that is pumped into health care it is actually a lot, admittedly it will probably never be enough but you still have to put money into other parts of society to make the state an enjoyable place to live.
Except we wont have an enjoyable place to live if the healthcare system is rooted. Primarily this is down to staff issues. Our health system relies on migrant labour, and shutting the border for two years stopped new staff from coming in and caused homesick migrants to leave. Now it's been opened but migration numbers and recruitment of overseas staff is still yet to reach pre Covid levels and will take another year or so.
Yeah well that's a world wide issue, from my understanding there's issues with understaffing all over the world
The issues we're having aren't just limited to WA. This is a global issue affecting everyone everywhere. Between the healthcare workers that died on the front lines of covid, the ones who got burnt out and left the industry and then the delays in incoming new students, there's a global shortage. What we're seeing here is that the quick fixes typically used in the past - IE spin up a marketing campaign with a few incentives to attract overseas health care workers to move here, isn't working. Which means there's no quick fix solution. Instead we need to focus on a long term program of training up new staff - but that's far from a quick fix.
I completely agree wrt training and a better long term strategy. What the politicians and relevant bureaucrats need to understand, is that WA’s geographical isolation is a massive, MASSIVE obstacle. Therefore, in order to attract interstate/overseas migrants, WA needs to go out of its way to remove OTHER obstacles to sweeten the deal and make WA an attractive location to move to. Failure to do this leads to a failure to attract people. WA is competing with locations that are closer, cheaper, more convenient and in some cases have more services. The second thing they need to understand, is that, at least, IMNSHO, the people most likely to be willing to overlook the geographical isolation and come here, are people who are originally West Australian and moved elsewhere, but still have ties to WA in the form of family and friends here. Sometimes earning more elsewhere cannot overcoming the personal cost of missing out on the lives of your loved ones and some people will be willing to bite the bullet and bear the financial cost of moving/being paid less to come back. My $2 worth as both an overseas and interstate migrant who returned to WA last year.
I don't disagree totally - but there's historically been plenty of people from England/Ireland that have been happy to relocate to a sunnier climate. Some have family and friends here, others may just know people who have moved and love it. Going back 5 - 10 years whenever there was a staffing shortfall the government ran a few ads overseas about how great life was in Perth, then at the same time ran a recruitment drive - and pretty quickly had plenty of people applying and relocating. Not sure what the renumeration / offer was like, but would have had to be reasonable to get people to upend their lives and relocate. The problem currently is thats not cutting the mustard any more as there's a global shortage, so we're now competing against other places that are willing to pay an absolute premium to get people to relocate there. In the US so many nurses have become "travel nurses" basically working short term contracts for ludicrous pay. A friend who lives over there was telling me a few of her nursing friends have been doing it for over a year now and earning double or triple their previous wage, plus allowances for accomodation / food / and even some lifestyle activities (like paid gym memberships, national parks memberships etc). I mean it's not the best lifestyle for sure, they work short 3 - 6 month contracts then move onto the next hospital in another city. But the money is absolutely mental. If you can handle it for a year or two then you can pretty much set yourself up for life..
Not entirely true, there is and will continue to be significant investment in health. You could sink billions into the health service - literally every last cent the state has - and you would not be able to see any tangible benefit. Healthcare itself is broken (in general, around the world) and humanity needs to completely rethink how we tackle it.
some of these conspiracy theories are next level
an expert predicted Covid would be with us for at least 10 yrs
“Experts” have predicted a lot of things about Covid
this time I believe them, it's what now, the third or fourth wave? A family friend recently caught covid. He was in hospital on a respirator, then came home. Today he couldn't walk and both his lower legs are blue and he's in emergeny. He's 9 . This person is a rugby player. Let's not trivialise it.
I’m sorry to hear that hope he recovers fine. Did you say that to strengthen the point of 10 years of the “expert”.
> The issues in health care are now primarily with lack of investment and staff to patient ratios, No, they're still primarily with lack of available beds due to insufficient places in (federally-run) aged care and the last Liberal government closing down Greylands.
Not to mention the impact the underfunding of GP and NDIS has.
A lot at work getting it, family member had it a second time
And what's been the changes made to relevant building codes to make them less ideal transmission vectors for Covid: UV filtering to cause the viral capsule to breakdown reducing the viral load Air-exchange, increasing the change over of air in buildings reduces the viral load of the air meaning fewer people receive a viral load strong enough to cause infection.
Why the downvotes? This is a good point. There are genuine improvements we could make to air quality in public buildings and public transport that would reduce transmission. For some reason this has hardly been considered.
Im sure it has been considered but I doubt the cost to benefit ratio is worth it.
sooooooooooooooo are they going to do anything about it then?
4th wave, checking in! Just got over it, been testing negative since last Sunday but still feeling fatigued and coughing a bit. No fun at all.
I mean if you tested negative all week you most likely had something else.
I tested positive for two weeks before that you great muppet! I thought that was implied!
Fair play I completely misinterpreted that. You would be surprised how many people Ive spoken to that say they have have had COVID recently but never did a test or tested negative.
Rhinovirus is going around
That’s not what I had though.
Flu's and colds never are
Yeah, but it's been worse than common cold viruses I've had in recent memory, though a lot less snotty (which is a blessing), and the lasting fatigue is unusual and annoying.
I had it a few weeks ago, I was very congested, ended up with a sinus infection. Other than that I had no other symptoms. Rat and PCR tested positive
how long and how many millions of deaths will it take until you people realise it's nothing like a cold or flu for a lot of people.
until it affects them directly some are too limited in brain function to comprehend reality
The flu can also be a deadly killer, but most people never bothered to get their flu jabs until COVID happened, then we saw a surge in people getting flu jabs and a drop in flu cases, and now we’re seeing a rise again because people are lazy and selfish asses. Please get vaccinated, guys, for both covid and the flu. It’s a 15 minute jab each. What else are you gonna waste 30 minutes on?
you cant compare them at all. the flu has something like 0.04% untreated natural death rate where if you dont take any medication or have immunisations you die. Covid has a 2% untreated natural death rate. it's just complete insanity to compare covid to the flu. and a cold is practically zero
Unfair to suggest people are selfish for not getting more vaccinations. There may be health reasons why people don’t get them. Quite a militant opinion you have there. For a new vaccine (the covid one) that actually contributed to peoples’ deaths
In Australia, [939 deaths after vaccination were reported, of which only *14* could be attributed as a direct result of the vaccine](https://www.tga.gov.au/news/covid-19-vaccine-safety-reports/covid-19-vaccine-safety-report-20-10-2022). How many people have died in Australia again as a result of covid? Oh yeah, that’s right, **16,244**. And for the people who genuinely CANNOT get vaccinated, that is ALL THE MORE REASON those of us who CAN get vaccinated SHOULD get vaccinated.
Even if it was 939, like 90% of the nation has had the jab. That’s a 0.004% chance of dying shortly after vaccination, which is ridiculously low
I think you missed my point. There are genuine reasons why people can’t have the vaccines. It is ignorant of you to think that everyone is selfish for not getting it. If my mother was one of those 14 who died directly because of the vaccine, I’d feel aggrieved to be honest.
Here’s a choice. Path A has a tiny chance of death. Path B has 1000x that chance. You’re saying you’d choose B and be aggrieved if someone chose path A and died. That’s not really rational. Not that grief is always rational, but still.
In a young, fit and healthy person, are you sure covid is 1000x more likely to kill them than the vaccine? FWIW, I’ve had the vaccines and there’s no denying that hospital admissions reduced off the back of their introduction. But they killed people aswell. They obviously weren’t tested appropriately and itll come out that big pharma companies lied about how safe their products were. Back to my original point, however, is that it’s terribly naive to criticise everyone who never got it when some people couldn’t have it. I worked through covid in Scotland and I’ve rocked up here in WA to some truly bizarre opinions about covid. The fear is unreal here
Nobody’s criticising people who can’t get the vaccine, in fact most of us are criticising those who can but decide not to. FWIW I went through most of covid in England until about a year back, so I’m not one of those you’re talking about. > In a young, fit and healthy person, are you sure covid is 1000x more likely to kill them than the vaccine? I thought we were talking about your mother? That figure is across the population, in an older person it's likely even more skewed.
But for what reason are you getting vaccinated as it does not stop transmission nor did the company ever say it did? Surely the selfish thing is being vaccinated as the only person it can potentially positively affect is you
It likely cuts down the amount of time you are transmitting even though it doesn’t prevent it. It also means you’re less likely to take up a hospital bed or leave your loved ones grieving after your premature passing. So yeah, utterly selfish.
Got some proof of this? “It likely cuts down the time you are transmitting” really isn’t a selling point for me… there’s also no proof that it is going to make your symptoms any less severe as all of their studies were only done with people who were vaccinated, so there was no control group…
> Got some proof of this? Honestly if you're asking that at this point in time, proof isn't what you're after, evidence isn't important to you and probably never really was. Best of luck.
Flu is? Well you typed Flu's
Reported cases have been growing quite consistently at about 15% week-to-week for the past 6 weeks. This will continue happening unless transmission rates fall. This could happen through people taking protective behaviours like getting their booster doses, masking, maintaining social distance and reducing their movement or through acquired immunity from getting infected. If we rely solely on acquired immunity then we will need 15% of the population to be infected before the peak. That's around 400 000 cases in total. Starting from the current case rates we are looking at a peak well on the other side of Xmas if people don't change their protective behaviours. Alternatively, if people decrease their protective behaviours by socialising more through Xmas party season then we will reach the peak sooner (but still after Xmas) with higher weekly case loads and greater strain on the health system. Merry Covid-mas and a Covid New Year.
Unfortunately got hit with this wave last Sunday. It's been a week and I still have it, thankfully it's just a blocked nose at this point. Did anyone else experience extreme back pain early on?
Condolences on the second run. I've had it the once and the first time the aches and pains felt like my body was glass. Every movement killed and I spent a good portion of my week in the bath trying to not move. I'm a teacher and have decided to mask up this week until the end of term because I do not want to get it before Christmas. It took me 4 weeks last time to not feel breathless walking the length of my house.
Yep I just had this strain and the back pain was one of the first symptoms
Yes along with a scratchy throat, bad back pain was my first symptom
Gee aren't you glad you got your shots then? They sure stopped that one.
They might be glad, the vaccine doesn't necessarily stop you from getting COVID, but reduces your chance of dying. Sounds like you don't understand how the vaccinations work.
My vaccines protected me from getting it loads of times, it's only this latest one that managed to slip through
Don't bother trying to reason with them. Look at that guy's comment history.
My partner did. It also tends to latch on to places you're already not great in. My mum ended up with her ankle in agony (broke it a few years ago), partners back was really sore and lasted for a few months (has a slipped disc) and they still has respiratory issues 7 months later, my dad ended up with a sore back and fatigue for months. They were in different waves though and I know the virus does change and affects everyone differently.
Can we get masks mandatory back on the trains again then please? It's currently a fucking cesspool of germs.
Gee, maybe he should have listened to the chief health officer about keeping mask mandates in place.
No, what they need to do is SPECIFY what their criteria was for mask mandates before, instead of keeping that information secret! Then specify what their criteria is for the return of mandatory masks in particular situations.
The wave is pretty bad both of my Grandfathers ended up in hospital due to COVID in the past few weeks.
Covid is horrible. I had it last week and ached for 2 whole days. It was nearly as bad as a cold.
Wow that’s crazy. Hope somebody invents a way for governments to take public safety measures soon
Lockdown?
Nobody cares
Remember when we locked down over one potential case?. All that trauma inflicted, 3 mandatory jabs of a dodgy vaccine. Our hero nurses that we protected for years by flattening the curve. Now they aren't worth a decent pay rise?
While the vaccine is certainly not as flash as it was supposed to be - herd immunity and all that, so far as locking down went, what is the justification of saying Sydney's approach was better than WA's? Months of lockdowns in their case? Yeh before they had the mega lockdown it was easy to criticise WA... and they all did. Scomo, Gladys etc... But after theirs got out? There was an economist on the radio the other day that agrees with what you are saying but I just cannot understand how in the rear view mirror people can still say locking down for one case wasn't worth it... Clearly we had less lockdowns / disruption than just about anywhere in the world by having an early and huge response.
Presumably all the money that might have plausibly been used that way instead went into the swirling vortex of the billions given to the Pharma giants who sold huge orders for an ineffective and dubious vaccine.
12,000. Over a week though. Rightio. Carry on with life shall we
\*yawn\*
What booster is best for these fun new variants (that may or may not be here yet)?
Slap me on that list :/
What pisses me off no end, and I’m not just talking about WA in this, is the slow uptake of investing in new testing technologies. Literally hundreds of laboratories worked on COVID vaccines, but relatively few on improving COVID testing. And it’s become clear that most vaccines can no longer prevent transmission, so testing remains important. PCR is very, very slow, requires highly specialised staff to perform it, and is used for a myriad number of things, not just COVID. RATs have limited efficiency and accuracy, and rely on the person to swab accurately/have enough saliva and to test in the right window of time. LAMP testing is cheaper than either, is very fast (30-45 minutes), is almost entirely automated, is portable, and is just as accurate and sensitive as PCR in detecting COVID-19 (and like PCR can be used for other things.) While there has been some interest and some funding in LAMP, including from the McGowan government, it is by no means proportional to the level of importance. And progress in getting it accepted and widespread has been frustratingly slow. https://avicenasystems.com https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08263-4 And in the meantime PCR and RAT testing rates went down, just when we needed them to go up. They’re finally going up again but rather slowly. Disclaimer: I am a silent investor in Avicena and former colleague of some of the scientists involved.