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At the end of the day, everyone who is hesitant should speak to a trusted GP about vaccination. With that aside, here's my thoughts. They've been the most closely scrutinised vaccines in human history. Doctor Norman Swan (who's great on CoronaCast) has a great article about it. Billions of doses have been administered now - if there was an issue, we definitely would've seen it by now. We were able to rapidly develop vaccines for a multitude of reasons. Our own TGA (which is one of the strictest in the world) has a knowledge-base about this. We're so lucky to live on an island country. Other countries have not fared as well and countries like Germany with as much resources as us are still struggling. We're really lucky that we feel like COVID-19 won't impact us in Australia because our states, by in large, have done the right thing in using a system of resources to minimise spread and impact until vaccines arrived. Without it, we'd have a lot more deaths (see above) and worse, a lot more people with long-covid, which sounds awful. Every side-effect, every death post vaccination, every reported sniffle is logged and checked. That data is also widely available - nothing is being hidden. This data has been misreported by politicians and fringe circles en masse, circumnavigating our spam and privacy acts in the process. More often than not, opposing, conservative opinions cherry-pick data or publish data in journals that aren't well known and aren't subject to peer review. Our federal government wasn't bothered to build quarantine facilities that it was supposed to by law, it refused to roll-out a national strategy for COVID-19 until it was forced to and absolutely bungled/lied about getting vaccines when we needed it. During that time, they spent millions on an app that didn't use global standards and was essentially a massive failure. And when our states stepped in and did all the leg work, not only did Scott Morrison take credit for it, but when conservative voices rioted and suggested violence against our states, he side-stepped condemning what is absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, abhorrent behaviour. Our federal government couldn't pour water out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel, let alone coerce and force people into getting vaccinated.

I take exception to this one. In any country, a certain number of deaths is expected from all causes (accident, illness, old age, homicide, suicide) and this remains reasonably stable from year to year (same as the birth rate remains reasonably stable from year to year) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm But in places where the pandemic was bad, way more people were dying than usual, so clearly a new dangerous illness was the new kid on the block picking people off. A handful of deaths possibly being misatribued is really irrevant if hundreds of thousands of people of extra people are dying overall.

Why?

BD finally full circuit testing (courtesy of coasterlifeau instagram) bd test.mp4

Are both backwards seats still out of action on Rivals? Regardless, I'd say a $20 spinning seat is much more worth it compared to a $20 backwards seat.

$15 I'd happily pay. $20 is a bit of a stretch. if dreamworld was smart they'd do discounts for quiet periods or pass holders.

its definitely going to have an upcharge like DC rivals backwards seats. I was expecting about $15

Given any medical professional is suspended or sacked and lose their creditations if they suggest anything other than “get jabbed” you’re unlikely to hear anything but a one sided conversation. I’d consider the significant number of heart related reactions, especially in young men, to be an issue. 870 in the first week of November alone. I agree That’s not the experience I have heard or seen first hand. Any reaction is at first attempt palmed off as “coincidental”. Data has been misreported and used since day 1. It’s a documented fact that initially there was an overstatement of deaths attributed to covid. If you die with covid, you are ascertained to have died because of covid. Without doubt, our federal govt royally f**ked up, as did states. We had CHO’s say that getting AZ jab if you were young was more dangerous than getting covid. Then a week later they backtracked. If you don’t think that doesn’t play on people’s minds about the honesty and transparency we are receiving then I don’t know what will. Mandating that people have to get a jab to keep their job, career, livelihood is the definition of force. Providing “rewards” for people to get vaccinated is the definition of coercion. I’m not sure - i am not an anti-vaxxer. The average testing and data collection phase for vaccines prior to a full scale approval and rollout is near to 16 years. there is decades of data on the potential short/medium/long term reactions to childhood vaxs. Parents can make the decision for their children knowing what those are, they can’t in this instance as we have no medium/long term data whatsoever and even the short term data is murky in how it’s being reported

Isn't this just pretty much identical logic that anti vax use to justify why they don't take other vaccines?

For sure - if science, evidence and critical thinking trumped belief, the Church of Scientology would be f*cked. Tim Minchin said that, and I reckon that holds up just as well as when he first coined it over a decade ago. COVID-19 isn't an exercise in beliefs, it's an exercise in science and evidence. All pandemics are, and we didn't beat any of them by believing they weren't real, so why should this one be any different? I'll leave with you another one of his quotes that I think is pertinent given the context of the debate.

Can't just dob yourself in like this mate

The first interview of the batch is up! Many thanks to Maximilian Roeser, Mack Rides Head of Marketing, for sharing his insight on desiging Ride to Happiness, Hurricane and Steel Taipan! And also kudos to @themagician for his permission to use his Steel Taipan photos. Was Ride to Happiness specifically designed to provide a more intense experience? In that regard, did the Tomorrowland IP affect the ride design process? Maximilian Roeser: Ride to Happiness was designed to implement everything we learned from our previous tests and installations. So we could work on optimizing and tweaking the layout to the maximum and deliver a very thrilling experience. The Tomorrowland IP was added to a later date so that this did not affect the design at all. How did you design Ride to Happiness's layout with spinning motion in mind? Roeser: That’s actually a quite complex method of engineering. We have to keep in mind that the gondolas can rotate and therefore need to work with the most extreme outcome that we can predict. Generally speaking we still believe Ride to Happiness would be a great coaster even with normal trains – with the Xtreme Spinning Coaster it adds the ultimate experience. Ride to Happiness features very distinctive elements such as a "Curved Jojo Roll", an Outside Banked Top Hat and a "Banana Roll". Can you explain the thought process implementing those elements into the coaster layout? Roeser: Our layout engineers are free when initially working on a layout and presenting it the first time. Of course we have the guidelines of the customer and also budget and space are given. Therefore, we try to maximize the ride experience. We got very good responses on the "Jojo Roll" on Copperhead Strike and to the initial highlight of Time Traveller plunging down the station. We wanted to create something similar but with the given terrain an drop would not have been feasable. So in order to still keep this inital effect we installed the curved Jojo Roll and the drop effect was added behind the first launch section. The reason why the Jojo Roll is curved is pretty simple. The alignment of the launches and the station building was set due to the terrain and location of the ride. So, we had to get a curve to the launch section. The "Banana Roll" for instance is placed at the location where we needed to head back to the station direction, so we had multiple options and chose the banana roll for this. Hurricane at Suzhou Amusement Land Forest World will be Mack Rides' tallest coaster to date. Was breaking this record a requested feature from the client? Roeser: The client wanted to create a certain height but not breaking the record of our company. (Photo: Roller Coaster Dream China) Hurricane has a low-to-the-ground barrel roll just after the 62m Top Hat. What inspired you to create such a contrasting sequence of elements? Roeser: This ride is certainly the most extreme launch coaster we built. The inversion after the Top Hat will crack the speed record for world’s fastest inversion to date. So we look forward to the opening of the ride and how many people will dare to ride this spectacular attraction. (Photo: Roller Coaster Dream China) This coaster will also feature interlocking Cobra Roll and Looping. Can you describe the forces running through those inversions? Roeser: It’s a nice combination of hangtime and forces that push you into the seat. The elements are quick one after another so that you really have to look out where you will go next. The whole coaster is equipped with a high average speed so we look forward to riding it hopefully soon. What led to the introduction of a spinning car on Steel Taipan in Dreamworld in Australia? Roeser: It first started with the tests on Blue Fire for the Xtreme Spinning Coaster. We built 4 seats on top of the last coach of Blue Fire and tested at night to realize a working prototype. After this was done and we already got Time Traveller we knew we could provide an add-on for our launch, mega and hypercoasters and so we tested again with only a two seater configuration. Steel Taipan's final coach offers extra spinning motion (Photo: Gold Coast Theme Parks) As many coasters were designed as a standard seating coaster we can’t just put new trains on. But we have some of our launch coasters that would be capable of the new hybrid trains and we already see some parks thinking about this addition to their rides. We think it’s a great way to promote the ride with a totally new experience. Why did you add a backwards spike to the launch? The client requested this change in order to add an additional feature of three launches. There were also another ideas in place to create another launch sequence at the straight portion of the launch but we stuck to the launch as we got it on Blue Fire. (Photo: Gold Coast Theme Parks)