Growing evidence suggests Russia’s Sputnik V COVID vaccine is safe and very effective. But questions about the data remain

Antonio Calanni/AP/AAP

Megan Steain, University of Sydney and Jamie Triccas, University of SydneyRussia was the first country to register a COVID vaccine, with its health ministry giving emergency approval to the Sputnik V vaccine in August 2020.

This decision was met with scepticism from the international scientific community because it came a month before results of phase 1 and 2 trials were published.

Growing data from clinical trials and real world rollouts suggests the vaccine is safe and very effective. But there are several outstanding questions around the vaccine, such as whether it’s associated with the very rare blood clotting condition seen with AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and how well it performs against variants of the coronavirus.

So what kind of vaccine is Sputnik V, how does it work, and what data are we missing?

How does Sputnik V work?

Sputnik V was designed by The Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology. It has its very own Twitter account advertising its status as the “world’s first registered COVID-19 vaccine” and approval in 69 countries including Russia, South Korea, Argentina and the UAE.

Like the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the basis for the vaccine is a harmless form of adenovirus, one of several viruses that can cause the common cold.

The adenovirus acts as a packaging system for DNA to deliver instructions to our cells. This DNA instructs cells to make the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2. The immune system is then trained to generate an immune response to the spike protein, which provides protection against the real SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Unlike the other adenovirus-based vaccines, Sputnik V uses two different adenoviruses for the first and second dose. This is done as people can develop an immune response against the adenovirus vector used in the first shot of the vaccine, which could possibly reduce the overall effectiveness.

The two doses are separated by three weeks, rather than the 8-12 weeks usually recommended for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Sputnik V doesn’t require the ultra-cold temperatures like the mRNA-based vaccines, which makes it an attractive candidate for many countries desperate for vaccines. Gamaleya has been open to sharing its manufacturing platform, unlike some other vaccines.

How well does Sputnik V work against COVID-19?

Data from the phase 1 and 2 clinical trial was published in September in the highly reputed medical journal The Lancet. The data showed no major adverse reactions, and side effects that were common to the other COVID-19 vaccines. These were primarily fever, headaches and pain at the injection site.

Most impressively were the results of the larger phase 3 trial published in The Lancet in February this year, which reported 91.6% efficacy against symptomatic infection. This places Sputnik on par with the mRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna, for which the original efficacies were 95% and 94.1% respectively.

The results from the phase 3 trial also suggested a single dose was protective, with an efficacy of 79.4%. This led to the approval of “Sputnik Light” in some countries, a single dose regimen that overcomes some of the issues manufacturing the second dose of Sputnik V. The two different adenoviruses used in the first and second dose of Sputnik V need to be produced using separate cell cultures. Only having to produce a single type of adenovirus streamlines the production.

Outside of these trials, a press release from Gamaleya says real world analysis of the vaccine given to nearly 3.8 million Russians reported an efficacy of 97.6% against infection. This led Gamaleya to claim Sputnik V is “the world’s most effective vaccine”.

Despite the encouraging efficacy results, there are still some concerns. Both the phase 1 and 2 safety trials, and the phase 3 efficacy trials, have been criticised for not sharing their raw data or the full details of their study design, as well as inconsistencies in the published data.

Sputnik V isn’t yet approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the World Health Organization, meaning it cannot be used by COVAX, the COVID vaccine global access initiative. Gamaleya has yet to provide the EMA with all the necessary manufacturing and clinical data necessary to gain this approval.

What are the unanswered questions about Sputnik V?

There are a number of outstanding issues with the vaccine.

Of particular importance is the question of whether it’s associated with the very rare blood clotting condition that’s been linked to the AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson vaccines, which also use adenovirus vectors.

Gamaleya claims there have been no reports of this occurring in individuals given Sputnik V. Analysis following the administration of 2.8 million doses of Sputnik V in Argentina supports this. The results, announced via a press release by the Argentine health ministry, reported no deaths associated with vaccination and showed mostly mild adverse events.

And there was no indication of an association between Sputnik V and this condition in the clinical trials.

However, there hasn’t been enough published real world data to be completely confident researchers would be able to pick up on the condition if it did emerge.

It’s also unclear how well Sputnik performs against the rapidly spreading variants of concern, such as Delta. Some of these variants are partially able to escape from the immune response generated by COVID vaccines.

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Research published in July examined antibodies in the blood of people vaccinated with Sputnik V to see how it performed against the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants. It found there was a reduction in the ability of their antibodies to block infection. It’s unclear how this reduction would impact the vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalisation and death, as we’re still waiting to see published real world data on this.

We need further studies which directly compare blood samples from people vaccinated with the different vaccines before Sputnik’s claims of being highly effective against variants can be confirmed. We’ll also need to see real world analysis of its effectiveness against variants, such as that performed with Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

Megan Steain, Lecturer, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney and Jamie Triccas, Professor of Medical Microbiology, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Have Australian researchers developed an effective COVID-19 treatment? Potentially, but we need to wait for human trials

Nial Wheate, University of SydneyThe world is now 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic and we’ve yet to find a single drug that can stop the virus. At best, we can treat the effects of the virus through oxygen therapy for those who can’t breathe, and with drugs that reduce the inflammation associated with the infection.

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But an Australian-United States research team, led by Griffith University’s Menzies Health Institute, have shown promising results in their mouse trials of a new treatment for COVID-19.

The technology is based on “short interfering RNA”, which prevents the virus from replicating inside human cells. They found a 99.9% drop in the number of virus particles in the mice they studied.

The researchers hypothesise the drug could be injected into patients daily for up to five days, for example for sick patients in hospital, or as a once-off if someone has just been exposed to the coronavirus; however, there’s no data on this specifically, so it’s speculative for now.

While the results are very promising, the technology has only been tested in mice. Human clinical trials will take some time to complete before we know whether a drug will be approved by the government.

 

How viruses work

Viruses are tricky to treat because they are biological molecules made of the same types of materials as the human body. Virus particles are just packets of information on how to make more virus, encoded in a molecule called “ribonucleic acid” or RNA (although some contain DNA instead) within a protein coating.

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Explainer: what is RNA?

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Once a virus particle penetrates into a cell, it either hijacks the machinery of the cell to make copies of itself, or in some cases, has its RNA copied into the host cell’s DNA. Either way, the cell becomes a manufacturing facility making hundreds and thousands of copies of the virus.

So the best way to stop a virus is to stop its RNA information being copied and transcribed by the cell.

We already have drugs capable of doing this for specific viruses. A drug called PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is available as a prophylactic against infection with HIV and the development of AIDS. A prophylactic can prevent a disease before it takes hold in the body.

The PrEP medicine works because the two active ingredients it contains, tenofovir and emtricitabine, block a molecule called reverse transcriptase which the virus needs to be replicated. Unfortunately, neither drug works to block COVID-19.

Short interfering RNA

Unlike PrEP, the new technology is particularly clever because it uses a molecule called short/small interfering RNA or “siRNA” to prevent the reading and copying of the virus information. This siRNA was specifically designed to recognise a sequence of the coronavirus’ own RNA that is common across COVID-variants.

This means the siRNA can seek out and lock onto the viral RNA because it perfectly complements it, regardless of the COVID-19 strain. When it locks with the virus RNA, the viral information becomes trapped and can’t be copied, or it causes the RNA to be cut and degraded.

At this point there is no virus production, and our immune system can just mop up the small number of virus particles floating around the body.

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To prove their technology, the researchers enclosed their siRNA in lipid nanoparticles, which are essentially tiny fat-like particles. Without this protective coating, the siRNA would be destroyed in the blood stream before it could lock onto the virus. Lipid nanoparticles are also used in the formulation of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

With the protective nanoparticle shell, the siRNA could then be delivered via a water-based injection into veins.

When the researchers administered the siRNA to mice that had been infected with COVID-19, they found the mice didn’t lose as much weight when compared with untreated mice. Weight loss was an indicator of how sick the mice were.

The researchers also found a 99.9% drop in the number of virus particles in the mice.

On occasion, when biological molecules are injected into the blood stream, this can trigger a severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Importantly, the researchers found their siRNA didn’t trigger an immune response in the mice, and therefore will be unlikely to cause anaphylaxis.

So as well as being effective, the technology appears to be relatively safe.

Will this drug be available soon?

As promising as the results are, we shouldn’t get our hopes up that a drug will be available any time soon. Data derived from animal tests doesn’t always translate to success in humans. Often, the way an animal’s body processes a drug can be different from the human body, and it ends up being ineffective.

Also, animal tests are just the first step in a long regulatory process to prove a drug works and is safe. Even with accelerated clinical trials and fast-tracked assessment from governments, an approved drug is still a year or more away.

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Read more:
Of mice and men: why animal trial results don’t always translate to humans

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Correction: a previous version of this article stated that HIV needed reverse transcriptase to embed the RNA information into human DNA. We’ve amended it to say HIV needs reverse transcriptase to be replicated.

Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We don’t yet know how effective COVID vaccines are for people with immune deficiencies. But we know they’re safe — and worthwhile

Shutterstock

Vanessa Bryant, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and Charlotte Slade, Walter and Eliza Hall InstituteThe COVID vaccine rollout is underway in Australia, with people in phase 1b now eligible to be vaccinated.

So far, we have two vaccines available in Australia: the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, approved for people aged 16 and older, and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, approved for those over 18. Evidence has shown both vaccines are safe and offer near-complete protection against severe COVID-19, hospitalisation and, most importantly, COVID-related death.

Both vaccines are also safe and effective at generating immune responses in the elderly. But what about another vulnerable group — people with immunodeficiencies? Many people with immunodeficiencies are included in group 1b and will now be thinking about getting their vaccine.

Although we’re still gathering data to determine whether COVID vaccines will work as well in people with immunodeficiencies as they do in the general population, they’re likely to offer at least a reasonable degree of protection. And importantly, we know they’re safe.

What are immunodeficiencies?

Immunodeficiencies are conditions that weaken the body’s ability to fight infection. People’s immune system may be compromised for many reasons, and this can be transient or lifelong.

Primary immunodeficiencies occur when some or all of a person’s immune system is missing, defective or ineffective. These are rare and often genetic diseases that may be diagnosed early in life, but can occur at any age.

Examples of primary immunodeficiencies include severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) and common variable immunodeficiency (CVID).

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Secondary immunodeficiencies are acquired, and more common. They may occur as a result of other diseases (for example, via HIV infection), treatments and medications (such as chemotherapy or corticosteroids), or environmental exposure to toxins (for example, prolonged exposure to heavy metals or pesticides).

Sometimes the immune system in people with immunodeficiencies can react in exaggerated ways too, and cause autoimmune disease (such as rheumatoid arthritis or gut inflammation). So it sometimes makes more sense to describe the immune system as “dysregulated”, rather than “deficient”.

People with immunodeficiencies are more susceptible to being infected with viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2.
Shutterstock

Immunodeficiencies, COVID-19 and vaccines

People with secondary immunodeficiencies are generally at higher risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 and of developing severe disease. Surprisingly, although people with primary immunodeficiency may be at greater risk of getting infections, including COVID, most are no more susceptible to developing severe COVID compared with the overall population.

This may be because the most severe COVID-19 symptoms are usually not due to gaps in immunity, but to an overactive immune response to SARS-CoV-2.

In fact, immune-suppressing steroids may be an effective treatment for severe COVID. Clinical trials looking into this are underway.

However, as vaccines work by mobilising our immune systems, for people who have a weaker immune system to begin with, vaccines may not be as effective. They may generate an incomplete or short-lived response, so people with immunodeficiencies may need additional boosters to maintain protective immunity.

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Efficacy and safety

It’s difficult to assess COVID vaccine efficacy in people with immunodeficiencies, because people with primary immunodeficiencies or cancer weren’t included in clinical trials.

A very small number of people with HIV have been included in trials of a few of the vaccines, but limited data is publicly available. So it’s too early to draw any firm conclusions on whether the vaccines will be as effective in people with HIV as for the general population.

We also don’t yet know how long immunity to COVID-19 or COVID vaccines lasts. This will be particularly important for immunodeficient people. Research is underway to determine whether they’ll need booster jabs more frequently to maintain immunity.

Clinical trials of COVID vaccines haven’t generally included people with immunodeficiencies.
Shutterstock

We do know the vaccines are safe for this group.

Neither the AstraZeneca nor the Pfizer vaccines can cause an infection, so they won’t present a problem for people with immunodeficiencies (or for elderly people, who may also have weakened immune responses).

Usually, we avoid giving “live attenuated” vaccines (vaccines that contain weakened elements of the virus) to anyone with immunodeficiency. Because of their weakened immune systems and increased susceptibility to infection, there’s a chance they could develop a full-blown infection. An example of this is the chickenpox vaccine. But no live attenuated COVID vaccines have been approved anywhere in the world.

Preliminary evidence from vaccine rollouts around the world has shown COVID vaccines are safe for immunocompromised people with cancer. Although, if you’re going through cancer treatment, you should discuss the timing of your vaccination with your specialist.

There have been no unusual safety concerns to indicate any increased risk for HIV-positive people receiving any of the COVID vaccines either.

Get the jab

Vaccination is most definitely recommended for people with immunodeficiencies, and they’re included in priority groups for vaccine rollout in Australia. Group 1b includes people with underlying medical conditions which may place them at higher risk from COVID-19, including “immunocompromising conditions”.

If you have a diagnosed immunodeficiency or autoimmune disease, you can talk to your doctor or specialist for specific advice on the timing of your COVID vaccination and your condition. There’s generally no reason to change your normal medications or therapies before receiving the vaccine.

Organisations including the Australian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy and the Immune Deficiency Foundation of Australia have published resources which offer guidance for people with immunodeficiencies in relation to COVID vaccination.

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Vanessa Bryant, Laboratory Head, Immunology Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and Charlotte Slade, Laboratory Head, Immunology Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Blunders aside, most Australians believe state premiers have been effective leaders during pandemic

James Ross/AAP

Samuel Wilson, Swinburne University of Technology; Jason Pallant, Swinburne University of Technology; Sylvia T. Gray, Swinburne University of Technology; Timothy Colin Bednall, Swinburne University of Technology, and Vlad Demsar, Swinburne University of Technology

Since 2018, we have tracked public perceptions of the leadership of various Australian institutions — including government — as part of our Australian Leadership Index.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in Australia in March, public perceptions of the federal and state governments were consistently poor. Political leaders were seen to be serving themselves and other vested interests, rather than the public interest.

However, since the start of the pandemic and the establishment of the National Cabinet in March, this has begun to change.

We collected data at three points during the pandemic — March, June and September. And for the first time since our data collection began in 2018, a majority of people said they felt the federal and state governments were exhibiting leadership for the greater good.

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State government leadership has improved since March

We have also tracked how the public has viewed the leadership of individual state governments.

While all state governments improved in our surveys from March to September, there have been marked differences in their approval ratings.

The government of WA Premier Mark McGowan has consistently been viewed as displaying the most leadership for the public good — topping out at 65% of respondents in September.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government, meanwhile, has been at the bottom. Just 30% of our respondents said her government has shown a high degree of leadership for the greater good in September — up from 19% in March.

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These findings are consistent with other surveys — Newspoll and Vox Pop Labs/ABC — from the first wave of the pandemic.

However, perhaps no other leader in the country has been under greater scrutiny than Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.

Unlike other states, Victoria’s numbers were relatively static from June to September during the state’s harsh second lockdown. In June, 44% of respondents said they believed the Andrews’s government was displaying a high degree of leadership for the greater good, and this modestly improved to 46% in September.

This could be seen as an unexpectedly good result in the context of the hotel quarantine debacle and the prolonged lockdown.

Andrews’s government was not nearly as popular as McGowan’s in our surveys, but it has tracked quite closely to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s government from March through September, and ahead of the Queensland government.

Closed borders and a budget surplus have helped buoy McGowan’s popularity in WA.
Richard Wainwright/AAP

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A tale of two states

Given the markedly different experience of Victoria and NSW residents during the pandemic, it is instructive to compare public perceptions of both governments’ leadership.

According to the model that underpins the Australian Leadership Index, the public regards an institution as leading for the greater good when it creates social, environmental and economic value for the whole of society in a way that is transparent, accountable and ethical. At least, this is how people judge leadership in normal times.

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Among NSW residents, there were some changes in the factors that underpinned perceptions of state government leadership through the pandemic. Transparency became increasingly important, for instance, while balancing the interests of different stakeholders became less so.

There was also a shift in what people felt was needed most by society. In March and June, respondents said good leadership involved creating positive social outcomes for people, but in September, this shifted to creating positive economic outcomes.

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By contrast, among Victorians, there was a marked shift how people viewed good leadership from the first wave (March-June) to the second wave (June-September).

During the first wave, Victorians thought leadership for the common good was served by balancing the needs of different groups and focusing on the creation of positive social outcomes.

By September, however, far more people were concerned about the ethical standards of the government and its accountability.

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Will people continue to rate state governments highly?

Despite the furious debate taking place in the media about personal freedoms and the proportionality of government measures to control the pandemic, at the community level, there appears to have been a more settled attitude to the reality of living in a COVID-19 world.

However, there are signs the public mood is turning and politics-as-usual is returning. State premiers are faltering. Federal and state government solidarity is ebbing away. None of this bodes well for community perceptions of government leadership.

Although leadership for the greater good is a complex, evolving phenomenon, people know it when they see it. Let us hope that political leaders have the moral conviction and imagination to sustain it.

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Samuel Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Swinburne University of Technology; Jason Pallant, Lecturer of Marketing, Swinburne University of Technology; Sylvia T. Gray, Research Assistant and Casual Academic, Swinburne University of Technology; Timothy Colin Bednall, Senior Lecturer in Management, Fellow of the APS College of Organisational Psychologists, Swinburne University of Technology, and Vlad Demsar, Lecturer of Marketing, Swinburne University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Want to make social distancing even more effective? It’s about time (as well as space)

Mike Lee, Flinders University; Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University, and Craig Dalton, University of Newcastle

While the world waits for an effective vaccine against COVID-19, we are relying heavily on social distancing – perhaps better termed “physical distancing” – to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Physical distancing works because COVID-19 spreads most efficiently when groups of people come into close contact, although there is some evidence the virus can also spread by touching contaminated surfaces.

Modelling suggests Australia can effectively suppress transmission and control the outbreak only if at least 80% of people practise good physical distancing.

At least 80% compliance with physical distancing measures is required to beat Covid-19.
Mikhail Prokopenko/Univ. Sydney (extra labels added)

Government advice for implementing physical distancing has mainly urged people to isolate themselves in space: staying at least 1.5 metres apart, working from home, avoiding gatherings, and minimising travel.

However, effectively separating people in space is extremely challenging. Different people still need access to the same essential locations, such as shops, workplaces and health care facilities.

Temporal distancing

But physical distancing can be done in two ways: spatial distancing (separating people in space) and temporal distancing (separating people in time). Temporal distancing is an easy concept to grasp. Any time we take an early lunch to beat the crowds, or catch a later bus to avoid the commuter crush, we are using temporal distancing.

People are allowed entry into the same spaces – they just need to do so at different times. Of course, temporal distancing needs to be accompanied by fastidious hygiene to eliminate all possibility of COVID-19 transmission via surfaces.

Staggering strategy

Substantial and effective scheduling changes that can be made without too much inconvenience (or where the benefits clearly outweigh the costs) might include:

• staggered schedules for workers, including using a seven-day (instead of five-day) roster

• for schools, alternating lunchtimes, and slightly staggering start and finish times of the school day for different classes

• longer opening hours for supermarkets, pharmacies and government services.

Reduced supermarket opening hours, as happened in parts of Italy, might not help physical distancing because it compresses customers into the same space during a shorter time window.

The concept of regular work hours could be relaxed a bit more. Morning people might choose to start at 7 am, while night owls could opt for 10 am.

Staggering the end of the school day 15 minutes either side of 3pm would substantially improve physical distancing.
Michael Lee/Flinders Univ./SA Museum

Why it works

The diagram below shows how spatial and temporal distancing can work together to flatten the curve of infections. Imagine a randomly spread population of 1,000 people, one of whom is infected. With free movement, everyone becomes infected within a relatively short time. If we reduce movement by 80% (spatial distancing; dashed curve), the rate of infection is slowed. If we halve the time people spend exposed to one another (temporal distancing; dotted curve), the rate of infection also slows, but not as much. But if we combine both of these measures (red curve), the effect is strongest of all.

Different hypothetical COVID-19 infection scenarios compared to a do-nothing baseline. The first scenario considers a movement probability that’s only 20% of normal (spatial distancing). The second scenario halves the exposure time to represent temporal distancing. The final scenario includes both spatial and temporal distancing. R code to reproduce this graph can be obtained at: https://github.com/cjabradshaw/COVID19distancing.
Corey Bradshaw/Flinders Univ.

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Temporal distancing will come with economic and social costs. Working night shifts or irregular hours can cause health problems; organising childcare or work meetings outside ‘regular’ business hours could be challenging; and travel and outdoor activity at night have safety risks. These costs will have to be carefully weighed in any particular instance.

Even after the current pandemic is controlled, there will remain economic incentives for temporal distancing: boom-and-bust cycles are inefficient. Public transport, restaurants, telcos, electricity suppliers, and other service providers already offer off-peak discounts.

Cutting the numbers

Besides using both spatial and temporal distancing, we can further slow the virus by restricting the number of different people we encounter.

For example, while small-group personal fitness training is still allowed, having the same 10 people in each class is better than mixing and matching classes. This would help restrict any infections to a small group, and make contact tracing much easier.

Workplaces and schools could also consider keeping people in consistent teams rather than mixing them up, at least while distancing is required.

Reducing contacts between groups is even more important for older people. Age-stratified visiting or service times, such as the dedicated elderly shopping hours already in place in some supermarkets, might also help reduce transmission between younger people (who generally have higher mixing and infection rates) and older people (who are at greater risk of severe disease).

Social distancing will be a fact of life for months to come. So we need to do it as smartly and efficiently as possible.

Mike Lee, Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University; Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Fellow in Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University, and Craig Dalton, Conjoint Senior Lecturer School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Five steps Australia can take to build an effective space agency

What will it take to give Australia’s space agency wings? Image from the opening ceremony at IAC2017.
usembassycanberra/flickr , CC BY-ND

Anthony Wicht, University of Sydney

Senator Simon Birmingham’s September declaration that Australia would establish a space agency created a buzz across the space sector.

The announcement was unexpected. Few anticipated any government commitment until after Dr Megan Clark’s expert panel reported on Australia’s space industry capability in March 2018.

Establishing an agency is a sensible decision and rightly has bipartisan support. But the hard work in determining the shape of the agency has only just begun.

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Read more: Yes, Australia will have a space agency. What does this mean?

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In forming the new agency, much has already been said about what it might do. But how the agency is set up will be just as important to success.

My five steps to an effective agency are: include both “new” and “old” space, give the agency actual power, make the most of the space “brain drain” and work cooperatively with the Department of Defence.

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The new pathway to space

The most startling recent evolution in space is that there is more money on the table. Venture capital funding for space projects in each of 2015 and 2016 exceeded the total of all venture capital investments in space since 2000.

Australia has more than 43 small businesses focused on the space sector. This growth has been driven by a rapidly falling cost to participate in space activities. The cost and weight of satellites has plummeted as the technologies that deliver small, affordable smartphones found space applications.

Innovation, competition and ride-sharing on launch vehicles – think Elon Musk’s Space X and Auckland-based startup Rocket Lab – have reduced per-kilo prices to space, and costs will likely fall further.

In this rapidly changing environment, here are my five recommendations for space agency success.

1. Grow the ‘new space’ market

The “new space” market is characterised by projects focused on commercial return, particularly small satellites. This is a fast growing sector with existing companies that can deliver Australian technology jobs and export revenue.

To make the most of this existing pool of potential, the agency should fund widely with small amounts, just enough to prove concepts or encourage commercial participation. It should draw on venture capital in assembling this portfolio, as the CSIRO and the UK Space Agency are doing.

2. Do not neglect ‘old space’

Despite the hype around small satellites and commercial space, Australia should not neglect altogether the “old space” of large, reliable and expensive satellites. These are still the mainstay of the industry, and the training ground from which many startups spring.

Precisely because the work proceeds more slowly, old space offers steady cash flow to complement the precarious financing arrangements of many of the new space businesses. New space companies that can also sell hardware or services to old space companies are particularly valuable.

The path here is clear: the agency should work closely with existing trade programs to help the Australian space industry break into global supply chains, in particular helping business navigate restrictive foreign export and labour laws.

Images such as this one collected by NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite can be used to detect bushfires in remote Australia.
NASA

3. Give the space agency ‘teeth’

It is not enough for the agency to develop a paper vision for the Australian space sector; it needs the power to make it a reality.

Historically, Australia’s civilian space strategy has been fragmented by a bureaucratic turf war across agencies including CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia and the Department of Industry.

Now state and territory governments are joining the fray. South Australia recently launched a Space Industry Centre, and in October Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Barr visited SpaceX and other aerospace giants on the US West Coast “to discuss opportunities”.

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Australia’s agency needs the authority to impose national strategic discipline. The government could give the agency undisputed policy authority, for example, by making it a small group within Prime Minister and Cabinet. Or the agency could be given purse-string power by allocating the civilian federal space budget through it rather than the existing patchwork of agencies.

Anything less will make the agency a contested and ineffective leader for the Australian space sector.

4. Bring back home-grown talent

There is a wealth of Australians who have gone overseas to pursue space careers. Many were back home for September’s International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, and were keen to contribute to the success of the agency.

The federal government should be flexible enough to include these dynamic individuals and accelerate the first years of the agency. For example, somebody like Christopher Boshuizen, the Australian co-founder of space startup Planet – on the path to “unicorn” US$1 billion valuation – would be a great asset working on behalf of Australian space startups.

Such talent would kick-start the late-blooming agency with world-class credibility and instant connections to global activity.

5. Work with Defence

A civilian space agency needs to establish a relationship of mutual respect with the Department of Defence space sector, while each maintains primacy in its own sphere.

Defence has substantial space experience, both directly and through Australia’s US alliance. And investments in national security space dwarf civilian spend. For example, Defence recently announced a decade-long program worth A$500 million to develop domestic satellite imagery capabilities.

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With the right relationship, Defence would increase access to the agility and innovation of the commercial sector and the civilian agency would benefit from the experience of Defence personnel.

As Senator Birmingham announced Australia’s plans to the world’s largest civilian space conference (September 2017’s International Astronautical Congress), he was speaking to many who have lived through Australia’s big talk on space. We’ve experienced failed launch proposals on Christmas Island and Cape York, and the rise and fall of the Hawke government’s “Australian Space Office”.

Birmingham made an announcement on the biggest possible stage. The “how” will be as important as the “what” if we are to make good this time on high expectations.

Anthony Wicht, Alliance 21 Fellow (Space) at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Australian Politics: 28 July 2013

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made a surprise visit to Australian troops in Afghanistan.

For more visit:
http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=891398

The link below is to an article from a foreign news site that reports on Australia’s current asylum seeker policy and that of the opposition – it would appear to have some Coalition influence concerning some aspects of the report.

For more visit:
http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/australia-illegals-not-welcome/

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has stated that the Papua New Guinea asylum seeker policy may take months before becoming an effective deterrent for illegal arrivals.

For more visit:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/png-solution-could-take-many-months-to-work-kevin-rudd/story-fn9hm1gu-1226686998109

For more on the asylum seeker debate in Australia visit:
http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/richard-cooke/2013/07/25/1374721635/bogans-and-boat-people-pt1

The link below is to an interesting piece on Tony Abbott:
http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/july/1372600800/waleed-aly/inside-tony-abbotts-mind

Can the ALP win the upcoming election – the polls suggest it is a possibility.

For more visit the link below:
http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/roy-morgan-research/2013/07/23/1374538622/morgan-poll-alp-would-win-federal-election

Australia: Church Using ‘OMG’ in an Attempt to be Relevant

The following article reports on a church in Australia posting ‘OMG’ on two of its billboards to attract attention. ‘OMG,’ which stands for ‘Oh My God,’ is often used by people to state their surprise at something. The church says it is reclaiming the phrase for the church.

My own opinion on the matter is that the church is trying to be clever and to indeed attract attention by using the commonly used texting abbreviation of the commonly used expression ‘Oh my God.’ I think it is an attempt to try and stay relevant by becoming like the world in order to attract the world – the end justifying the means. In order to win the world for Christ it is not necessary to adopt the way of the world, but simply to proclaim the gospel which does not require worldly wisdom to become effective.

For more, visit:
http://global.christianpost.com/news/australian-church-omg-sign-grabs-public-attention-69113/

Multisite Church Strategy Defended by Mark Driscoll

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, has defended the church’s strategy of multisites as being Biblical and an effective means of bringing people to Christ. Driscoll defended the strategy, along with Chicago’s James MacDonald (of Harvest Bible Chapel), in an informal debate with Washington D.C. pastor Mark Dever.

See a report on the debate at:

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100930/driscoll-macdonald-defend-multisite-church-strategy/

 

Tehran begins crackdown in advance of bloody anniversary

Iran is taking steps to quell protests as the anniversary of the disputed presidential election nears, reports MNN.

Multiple sources report they’re aggressively deploying paramilitary members, re-arresting activists, and enforcing certain bans on mingling of the sexes and un-Islamic women’s clothing.

The crackdown speaks to the oppressive nature of the government. It also means that everyone is under scrutiny, especially Christians.

In the best of times, the open witness of the Gospel is banned, and government spies monitor Christian groups. Believers face discrimination in education, employment, and property ownership.

However, with the increased scrutiny, discipling becomes dangerous work. Church leaders will continue to cultivate growth in the body of Christ, knowing that those who commit apostasy (turning away from Islam to another faith) face prison, abuse or the death penalty. Evangelist Sammy Tippit explains, "These are people who are from Muslim backgrounds who have come to know Christ. So the only thing they can get is from an outside source."

Believers are often isolated because they can’t worship together in a traditional church. That’s where Tippit’s teaching programs are extremely effective via satellite television. He says, "We need to pray that God will encourage them, will strengthen them, and give them the stamina in the face of great challenge."

Tippit recently met with a group of church leaders outside of Iran in order to encourage them and to let them know they’re not forgotten. "God met with us in an incredible way. Of course, they were hungry, and they were thirsty–these believers. And these were leaders."

Tippit says, "The only thing that the church can do is encourage them, pray for them, and try to give them some kind of biblical foundation that would enable them to claim the promises of God in the midst of suffering."

Report from the Christian Telegraph