Far from being imposed from above, lockdowns in the face of a pandemic are just democracy in action. Faced with a deadly new disease people just want to be safe, and they want their loved ones to be safe too. Even if they might lose their job.
Has there ever been such a radical plan that was this radically popular?
Coronavirus: UK lockdown supported by 93 per cent of public, poll finds
Jon Stone, Independent, UK, March 24
YouGov says 93 per cent of people support the plan unveiled the by the prime minister, with just four per cent opposed and the rest saying they do not know.
The poll said 75 per cent strongly supported the measures, with 17 per cent saying they “somewhat” supported them.
It’s still popular:
THE BRITISH public are steadfastly ready to continue with lockdown restrictions for as long as it takes to defeat coronavirus, a new poll has revealed.
David Maddox, The Express, UK April 12
It found that voters in Britain are strongly behind the government’s science led strategy to tackle coronavirus and back the police in taking a tough stance against those who are not respecting social distancing with 60 percent believing “the terms or rules of the current lockdown are about right”.
Only 6 percent say they are “excessive” while 31 percent say they are “not enough” and should go further than the current lockdown.
Actually working from home might be better than working at work:
…in a suggestion that lockdown measures have changed how people want to live their lives in the long term 53 percent of those who are now being forced to work from home would like to work from home more after the crisis ends and 31 percent of those unable to work from home say they are now “more likely” to seek a job that could allow them to work from home.
In the US a few weeks ago:
Poll: Americans want a national lockdown
Trump’s call to end coronavirus restrictions by Easter is wildly out of step with what the public wants.
Coronavirus crisis: Exclusive poll reveals West Australians want nation placed in ‘full lockdown’ to slow spread of COVID-19
The West Australian (paywalled).
West Australians want the nation placed into “full lockdown” to slow the coronavirus spread, despite two-thirds being worried about losing their jobs in the next six months.
The latest People’s Voice Poll from Painted Dog Research found 71 per cent of the more than 500 West Australians surveyed believed the Morrison Government should enforce a lockdown.
Unexpectedly, it was younger West Australians aged between 18 and 39 who were the most supportive of a lockdown (80 per cent), compared with 68 per cent aged 40-59 years.
When was the Australian exclusive poll dated? I can’t claim to know more than a few Australians but they were certainly not interested in a full lockdown. Mind you they weren’t from west Australia so I don’t know whether they have more cases there.
Personally I am not surprised that. Greater numbers of young people say they want a total lockdown as we have a generation that generally has not known adversity and to whom this blow to their world view must be considerable
303
Tony you should be a bit generous to the younger folk, and I wish we would stop the “OK Boomer” stereotypical language. They more than any other age cohort are indeed suffering and stand to lose the most from this in an economic sense. Most of them are locked out of the housing market and a large proportion of them cannot find permanent employment. They also represented a large proportion of the unemployed before this and it is just getting worse for them.
Most of them are willing to put up with this disproportionate amount of economic pain on them so that we are safe. Of that we should be grateful. One way we can show our gratitude is to lay off the generation bashing at the very least until this plague has run it’s course. I would also posit that to continue doing this in the future will not work out well for us.
Also be mindful that very soon they will be running the country and it will be us who depend on them to ensure we have some semblance of a good quality of life.
I like young people in general, I believe most of them have energy and drive and are capable of coming up with new ideas to old problems that older people cannot see. Call me crazy if you want ( I really don’t care ) but a lot of what I see about the under 30s fills me with hope.
82
I like young people in general, I believe most of them have energy and drive and are capable of coming up with new ideas to old problems
Clearly you need to spend more time with graduates. That will quickly remove this delusion.
To be honest if there is any silver lining to this it will be that Millennials will be forced to stop worrying that their iPhone is 20 days out of date and start dealing with the real world.
There is no safe. There is only minimal risk and risk is only minimalised As Far As Is Reasonably Practical.
Hence Safe Spaces only exist inside woke heads and Snowflakes need to stop listening to Greta’s Dad and harden up.
210
Jan…
Failure to think ahead is not a virtue.
Thinking more about the present than the future is a classic sign of emotional immaturity.
No-one owes you a job.
If there is anyone who should be respected, it is those who have mortgaged the house, worked 60-70 hours per week for decades, trying to build the kind of business that will provide those jobs.
160
While the fear is high and the full facts not known people will easily give up their freedoms and ask the government to save them.
When the fear has receded and the social cohesion costs included I am afraid the death toll will be significantly greater than that caused solely by Covid_19
Shutting our borders was the first and best move our government made.
Not instituting enforced quarantine/contact tracking, at the same time as restricting access to aged care facilities was their biggest mistake. Not to mention hospitals are the worst places in the world for infectious diseases to be transmitted.
Personal experience of travellers I met well before Christmas who had a mild flu with loss of taste and smell, suggests to me this virus was spreading in Australia well before the concern became apparent, and it will be interesting to see when the antibody tests are available just how many people have been infected in Australia
321
wow… so all through December and January there were people spreading the virus all over the place and yet no one was admitted to hospital or died and all the epidemiology suggesting somehow suggests otherwise.
313
If there was a 3 week incubation period, that would likely make sense of it not showing up sufficiently.
As to closing borders, whole different discussion.
50
Not sure that your logic holds.
If ‘the system’ is not aware of the presence of a ‘new’ contagion,and most of the illness
is on the milder scale of things, the GP response would be to simply send people home
as having ‘the flu’, and return if warranted. The same thing could happen with more severe cases, especially in the older groups. Initially, there would only be a few cases, so the penny may
not drop for while.
If we have a generalised testing – or testing on demand – we may come up
with some surprises in the future. I had the worst ‘flu’ that I have ever had in those
months, and I had had the ‘real’ flu years before. I was home for the duration. I would be interested to actually have the antibody test to see if this was relevant.
130
you are either underrating or not understanding the system. It would have been detected and notified.
111
“It would have been detected and notified.”
Ahh…. there’s that inbuilt naivety that GA loves to lead with !
90
But healthy people are not normally admitted to hospital for a cold.
Nevertheless it’s true that colds are less prevalent in Australasia in summer -like conditions.
10
Plenty of people were admitted to hospital in December. I happen to know someone who was regularly in and out of the thorasic ward at a major Sydney hospital around that time and it was terrible, coughing people all over the place. No one was tested for the Rona of course because no tests existed and it never occurred to anyone to take a look.
You have to remember that several thousand people in Australia die every year of Pneumonia caused by “No bloody idea mate” or category J18 on the statistics charts. It is completely and utterly normal for a moderately large number of Aussies to stop breathing and drop dead … generally old people. It is also completely normal for no one to even get sufficiently excited over this that they bother to figure out what caused the problem.
There’s many more people who get Pneumonia every year and do not drop dead, but recover and go on with their lives.
Given the tiny, tiny number of Aussies even seriously ill from COVID-19 it is an order of magnitude smaller that what would even show up at all, unless someone specifically looks for that which is the key point here.
That said, COVID-19 is highly nonlinear and strikes some cities much worse than others which is quite strange. There is more at work here than a simple mindless virus.
30
Great comment Tel.
As to the last paragraph, the similarities between Italy and New York regarding visitor churn are, I believe, very important. The EEU and US have both documented and undocumented visitors and immigrants and therefore large numbers with absent health screening.
I was shocked to learn today that 200,000 Chinese students study in Australia and now am curious to know what health documentation they require to stay for each year.
KK
10
WE doged the bullet
Or we stopped it getting here
Aboard large numbers of bodies.
Except maybe in Sydney..
PS This is NOT pneumonia at all
The diagnosis that it is, was a major Furphy !
It is HYPOXIA
That’s what folk die from.
Look back in earlier posts by Jo.
10
Perhaps they were all Chinese infectious people who had some form of herd immunity, you know all those millions who left Wuhan before the CCP locked those poor people in their high rise apartments before welding the door shut!
01
Ah the old personal anecdote trope. unfortunately anecdote is not data.
I prefer data and fortunately so does the Government in this case
28
I don’t recall using an anecdote as anything more than a point of interest. But
you read into what you will. It might make you day.
GA, Initially, there is no reason for a mild illness to be reported unless it becomes
frequent in the office of an individual practitioner. You surely don’t believe that
every ‘cold’ gets tested do you? That’s called ‘overservicing’ by government.
70
That’s the point ; that for 80% of the population this was meant to be no more than a mild illness. There is still not enough data to disprove that contention.
11
“intent’ implies intention.
That is an assertion at this point.
There is no evidence that the CCP Biology Lab in Wuhan
Intended to release this virus.
And certainly no evidence that they wanted to kill their own people with it.
Just evidence of a monumental stuff up and evidence of concealment.
Red thumb.
01
You replied to the wrong post Bill .
There’s no mention of intent here , other than yours.
But thanks for sharing the red thumbs with which you are so richly endowed.
You’re a Lucky Man.
01
You said “MEANT TO BE ”
+ intent & intention.
But sling away with your red thumbs.
i’m immune.
I got vaccinated in the Great Global Warming ‘discussions’
00
Here’s data for you: approximately 400 extra people died in in Australia December 2019 as compared with a normal year, attributed by the author to bushfire smoke.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.5694/mja2.50545
Since bushfire smoke was around the place, that’s what the deaths got attributed to. None were tested for anything else, so we know a bunch of people died and it was something to do with breathing difficulties. That’s what we know and nothing more.
40
Antibody testing has been carried out across the population of a Colorado ski resort. This is one of the first locations in the USA to report CV19. The testing was a free trial offered to the entire county. The lab involved took 6000 samples but managed to only get results on the first 986 samples before the lab in NY was closed due to CV19 infection among the staff.
Off the 986 results, 8 were positive for CV19 antibodies, 23 were indeterminate and 955 had no antibodies.
Travellers returning to Australia from Colorado ski resorts were the source of two CV19 hot spots in Melbourne resulting in deaths from CV19.
People hoping for population immunity rather than just crushing the virus will be disappointed.
Even the Swedish government has cleared a path toward tighter controls by getting authority to lockdown restaurants and other gathering places; albeit not yet exercised. Meanwhile the other Scandinavian countries have all but crushed the virus and are already easing controls on movement and association.
40
The initial objective of the lockdown was to “flatten the curve.” But that morphed into, no one should die from corona. Sweden did not shut down their country like most of the Western world and their infection and death rates are right in line with most of the world and certainly lower than NY city or Italy where lockdowns were extreme. The state of Florida went into a partial quarantine one month after NY city went into a full quarantine and even though Florida has the oldest population in the U.S. it had one of the lowest infection and death rates. These are 2 examples of jurisdictions that did not implement a full quarantine and their numbers are better than those who did.
We don’t know all the data yet, but there is a significant body of evidence that completely shutting down an economy with a full quarantine does not keep people healthier or save lives. In fact it may be just the opposite.
21
“Significant body of evidence” is what exactly? I agree it’s possible, but where are the numbers?
and Flatten the curve was always a stupid slow bleed. I predicted it would become crush the curve, which it has. The reason is that no nation can live with this virus. There is no manageable slow spread, only ongoing rapid clusters which get out of control and overwhelm hospitals.
Better to hammer it down as close to nothing as possible.
The lockdowns all reduced the new daily cases starting 12 days later. http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/ancient-technology-wins-quarantine-and-isolation-still-work/
21
CC There are [Snip “people”] by the score denying the actual evidence.
Or manipulating it to try and demonstrate false conclusions.
[SNIP]
And yes that is an ‘Ad Hom’ which is usually frowned on here. [And Snipped too even though it was a mild one.]
But clearly you are denying the Swedish death & infection rates.
Go look at the case and death statistics for every nation here :
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
00
In moderation for calling someone a N#tter.
Ohhh well..
CC Look at what happens when nothing is done by the national government.
Infected cases : 34221
Deaths : 2171
Deaths per million : 10
And President Bolsanaro has just sacked his Minister for Health for daring to say that this is a pandemic out of control.
Really I think it is very politically stupid for any right wing or conservative parties to dismiss this pandemic on economic grounds. The people will willing give them the boot ASAP.
Just like they will boot out any politically ‘progressive’ parties in government for failing to take quicj & appropriate action. Trudeau in Canada comes to mind.
00
It’s normal behaviour to a certain extent. Most of us are still uncertain of the risks and the actions that should be taken. It’s indicative of a few things.
One is a low level of societal trust. I trust myself and the people that I know…. but not so much “those” people. The less cohesive a society is, the more regulation it requires. Diversity is not the free lunch we were promised.
Another is the degree to which current generations have lacked the need to deal with any real, major threats. As a society, we not only lack experience in dealing with serious dangers, but we lack confidence in our own ability to deal with them. We have outsourced our risk-management for so long that we automatically assume that that is how all threats are dealt with.
Call it “learned helplessness”.
201
Cannot speak for “the people”, but those who I have spoken to wanted firstly border security to keep it out, followed by a national effort to ensure the supply of masks. Lockdown is only ever an attempt at resetting the start point and is not a solution. Instead of squandering billions on slabs of beer put the effort into reestablishing our ability to produce (not assemble from Chinese provided parts) the masks and other ppe we need. The virus is unfortunately worldwide and not about to go extinct, so lockdown forever is not going to work.
301
resetting the starting point was an excellent strategy in Australia as shown by the results. Do you really think that a population of 24 million could be supplied with PPE and that this would prevent transmission and allow normality to proceed?
44
The availability of masks would help on three fronts at least:
1. Personal protection;
2. Protecting others; and,
3. Improving the morale of the population by demonstrating that governments (Commonwealth, States and Territories) are capable of rolling out essential protective equipment.
61
and yet we didn’t need them so money saved.
02
Especially when two Chinese owned and operated companies scoured the countryside for PPE equipment to send to China!
20
It makes for an interesting contrast to consider the different approaches being taken to obtaining information from the general public during this pandemic.
When it comes to virus testing, until a few days ago the sampling was based on whether you complete a qualifying questionnaire at your health care facility i.e. The sample of those tested was probably almost entirely symptomatically positive.
If you’re the Liberal Party you’re polling like crazy behind the scenes using a professional pollster to find out whether your policies are turning the voters against you.
Lastly, if you’re a newspaper, you’re using your own poll methodology entirely based upon the opinion you’re trying to create.
We saw at the last election polls suggesting Bill Shorten was going to win the election by a country mile.
Should we be very wary about what the alleged majority are actually in favour of at these times?
302
> “Should we be very wary about what the alleged majority are actually in favour of …”
As usual, we are wary of breathless reporting (right here, folks) of golly gosh consensus with no supporting evidence. It’s a cynical marketing ploy nicknamed “the bandwagon”.
Green propaganda uses it a lot.
222
All propaganda use it a lot
There fixed that for you.
01
Duplicate
00
Is the majority ever right?
40
A question often asked. In most cases no.Go with the flow in ignorance.
20
Polling seems a very powerful tool to disseminate and ingrain the views one wants
to achieve. So many questions are put that simply reinforce ones obvious desires
for living a normal life; the answer is obvious before the question is put. The
obvious outcomes are then used as ‘proof’ the people ‘want’ or are ‘for’ or ‘against’
an official policy. Polls, from unbiased sources are a rarity and can be social poison.
60
Sunni,
If I were a Liberal MP I wouldn’t be polling to figure out what to do. The best and only good policy starts with data about the virus. But if polling didn’t match the best policy it would be useful to know how to explain the best policy better.
DOC, yes, fair point. The News media can push those numbers up and down to some extent and the pollsters can load the questions. The thing that’s remarkable about these polls is how strong they are. The media is putting forward views of both sides. People who doubt the reason for doing quarantine are getting heard. (Not as much as they’d like I’m sure).
The difference in the climate debate is the polls keep showing 90% believe in the meaningless “climate change” but we know that 90% don’t buy carbon credits when they fly, 80% don’t donate to environmental causes and more than 50% don’t vote for “climate action”.
Here if there was widespread dissent, there wouldn’t be so much compliance with social distancing.
110
> “The media is putting forward views of both sides.”
No, they’re not. That’s my point about the bandwagon, which you carefully avoided.
The anti-Boomer mentality is very widespread, including on this website. It’s a form of blaming the victim, scapegoating – and there is a quite large segment of the MSM quietly and snidely promoting it.
You’ve done some value in promulgating the hard data here but the curve is now so flat, crushed, that one can barely distinguish it from the x-axis. So now what, exactly ?
What you are clearly avoiding is any comment on an “Exit” strategy. I suspect this because of the gotcha question: how many deaths are acceptable ? The US media already tried that on Donald Trump.
40
Yes, here on this site there seems to be close to zero empathy for those who depend on the economy for their very lives.
43
I have no explanation for it. Just that it seems there is such polarisation, that the middle road is not even in the discussion. For example, the discussion that includes the subject of not isolating the entire world, just those who are vulnerable.
30
Those aged care homes are sitting ducks when the virus gets into them so what other means of general population protection would you advocate.
00
That’s something I have been troubled by too.
Don’t understand it.
00
America (and the rest of the world I presume) is being bombarded by radio, television, and internet PSAs (Public Service Announcements) admonshing us to “believe the consensus”; “obey the guidelines”; “follow the rules”. I’ve also read that all contrary opinion is “False News”, “Conspiracy Ideation”, and “Anti-Science”.
I see a return to normalcy is beginning to be discussed. However, I doubt that the new normalcy will be a reasonable facsimile of the old normalcy. Bureaucrats seldom yeild power willingly.
I expect that soon the spinning will start. We will be told that the early hype and exagerated projections were not irresponsible fear mongering, but rather, highly accurate predictions based on business as usual assumptions. Only the swift (knee-jerk actually) actions to impose mitigation restrictions averted a human extinction event. Later, scaled down projection were made as the benefits of additional restrictions were considered.
Well, in a year or two, people who care will be able to determine the truth. The developed world collects a lot of data about infectious illnesses/diseases, and many of them are transmitted in exactly the same way as the “extinction virus”. We could know with fair accuracy what effect the measures had by how much those other conditions were reduced during the shut-down, and how they rebounded as the rules were relaxed. Will the benefit justify the cost, and if not, will the information be allowed to be published?
“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
–dadgervais
ps:Perhaps we should keep resteraunts closed until someone invents an effective mask that can be worn while eating.
01
Jo, perhaps ask who decided the limited testing resources in Australia should be allocated to doctors as a diagnostic tool? Would it have been smarter to use these tests for randomised sampling of the population as The Austrians did? Could doctors have diagnosed Covid-19 without the test? Had the random sampling been done in place of what exists now, the political narrative might have been entirely different.
01
If you ask someone Do you want to be in lockdown or do you want either to die yourself or be responsible for causing someone else ( or many people )to die I would be surprised if the answer was not 95 %.
If however it was phrased that if there is a 1 in a million chance you are going to die or be locked down then people will take their chance.
This reflects the success of the necessary marketing of this pandemic to scare people into compliance. Images of body bags, overrun hospitals, 24 hour news cycles have actually made it quite easy to get that result.. Having been so successful the next task is to wind it back so people can venture out of their houses
The fact that young people in WA have been the most supportive is not surprising as it is this generation has so unquestionably accepted the climate change alarmism. Whilst the Covid 19 pandemic is a real crisis compared to the fake climate change crisis, the years of believing unquestionably what you are told has helped to soften up that generation of people to be very accepting when they are being told what is in their best interest.
442
Right on target.
122
“Right on target”. Thanks Keith if i may borrow those words.
I have worked in social engineering/market research.
10
The issue with young people is that the education system has taught them what to think, not how to think. So when the “education” is continued by the MSM, they are still being “taught” what to think, not how to think. It goes against the grain of everything that they have been taught that thinking and decision-making are actually things that they, themselves, are supposed to do. Also, if you have nothing to lose, a lockdown loses nothing for you.
I will always agree with the wisdom of people like Thomas Jefferson – “I would rather live in a dangerous republic than be a slave,” and Ben Franklin – “people who are willing to give up freedom for security deserve neither.”
211
Those are paraphrases, not exact quotes.
31
Agree…I get myself in trouble regularly by ( rightly ) questioning the official “narrative” on a lot of stuff, mainly because often its got a lot of nonsense threaded through it.
However , its a form of public service – unless people can see some people will question the official daily serving of official BS, how do they have a reference scale of right and wrong or truth and lies?
80
Doctors in NZ were told at the outset that this was not a crisis for the healthy.
It was said, at the same time, that it could become a crisis if this virus got into rest homes ,and amongst the unwell, and the hospital system subsequently was overloaded .
That seems to be an acceptance of the fact that winter flu virus takes out the weak and infirm. That idea has been around forever , and finds its modern expression in the Halloween tradition – the coming of the darkness, and the risk of not coming out on the other side of Winter.
131
Halloween events take place in the Southern Hemisphere in the first week of summer, which makes it totally inappropriate , and decidedly unscary. A bit silly really.
72
They are climate activists because they ‘don’t want their future stolen’. The tragic irony is that this lockdown will do exactly that.
144
Even more ironic is that the restrictions the climate activists want to impose will do far more to steal from their future and that of all future generations, then doing nothing at all. Unless of course they’re happy living in a grass hut somewhere between the tropics, burning dung to cook food, wiping their ass with leaves and hoping a predator doesn’t eat them while they sleep.
111
I don’t blame the later generations. Unfortunately one has to blame the
parents, perhaps gently because they themselves come from the generations
where maths and the sciences were no longer emphasised in education. One
well remembers the ‘it isn’t fair’ official propaganda of the times. ‘Some
children aren’t gifted with an interest in science etc and others have poor
English and disinterest in it. WE should all be able to go to uni!’ That
was the political disease that started our dumbing down to the extent it is today.
The kids of those parents, and their kids, have been propagandised into believing
all the AGW trash, have had it reinforced by terror campaigns from those
attempting to trash our society. They are never taught to argue a case or against what
they are spoon fed.
Remember ‘The science is IN!’ That’s become ‘Believe it or else!’ Just ask Peter Ridd,
or even go back to that CSIRO scientist that was sacked for simple writing a negative
report on AGW just to balance the argument. That must be close to 20years or more ago.
That damnation of our society being taught to accept without question is what is killing
us.
That’s the etiology of the difficulty of arguing against AGW. Our politicians now are
young enough to be included in the age groups affected by these campaigns. The last
thing people can think of now is logic. It’s all become about ‘acceptance’. They no
longer have the weapons to question. The ‘experts’ they employ to tell them what to
believe ie the science is in, seem to all be from the ‘correct thinking’ brigade.
And that’s what it’s all been about!
70
As with many societal issues, Yes Minister dealt with surveys eloquently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k6CoJ97IOA
Surveys are generally BS, especially if they are politically motivated.
50
Zigmaster
Why 1 in a million ? why not make it 1 in a trillion. That makes a much sense.
An argument based on numbers pulled from ones rectal sphincter does not cut the mustard with me. It is akin to creating government policy solely on models that are based on flawed premise and erroneous data inputs. Pretty sure from my reading of this blog over the years that sort of behaviour is frowned upon here.
10
Zigmaster
Why 1 in a million ? why not make it 1 in a trillion. That makes as much sense.
An argument based on numbers pulled from ones rectal sphincter does not cut the mustard with me. It is akin to creating government policy solely on models that are based on flawed premise and erroneous data inputs. Pretty sure from my reading of this blog over the years that sort of behaviour is frowned upon here.
00
Thanks for your comment 1 in a million is an guesstimate to make a point but if one does back of the envelope calculations. There are 25 million people in Australia and around 60 have died. Of that 60 none have been under 50 so based on data in Australia it could be argued there is zero chance of dying if you are under 60. However, because people under 50 have died overseas we know 0 is not correct. If one takes our past numbers as an average there is approximately 1 in 500,000 chance of dying from Covid in Australia but for young people the probability is much lower and for older people returning from a cruise with existing ailments the chance of dying is much higher. I can assure in many instances back of the envelope calculations provide more accurate predictions than detailed models where ones underlying prejudices will often cause experts to make assumptions that are either too optimistic or pessimistic. I would feel somewhat concerned to have modeled for 150,000 deaths and come up with 60 , although I fully understand that a scientist would be more fearful about predicting 60 and it turning out to be 150000 deaths.
I did literally pull a number out of thin air but on reflection taking into account the demographics of the community I’m actually quite satisfied that 1 in a million is probably a reasonably accurate reflection of the probability of dying from Covid in Australia at this stage. There would certainly be many more ways of dying that would represent far greater risks.
21
It’s about one in a million because most of the deaths were from disease acquired overseas. If that’s more than 60% of the total then the odds are one in a million.
10
Yes, it’s a great shame. Policy is being in effect decided by the media, who are doing a very poor job of reporting the science (where have we seen that before) and at least until recently they have been placing zero weight on life-years lost to the lockdowns, so no cost-benefit analysis (where have we seen that before). Even without considering the economic effects of the lockdowns, the effect of the medical lockdowns and the empty hospitals and doctors’ surgeries is proving devastating, to the point where here in the UK even NHS England is worried.
You’re right, here in the UK the media have done such a thorough job of getting people into a panic that they signed petitions demanding lockdowns and demanding that schools should close. I don’t think many people realise just what they’ve signed up to. Most lockdowns stand no chance of eliminating the virus or of materially reducing the number of people who become infected, and they have never officially had those goals; the aim has been to avoid a specific set of excess deaths resulting from an overloaded healthcare system. As the Ferguson paper that was used to justify the current UK lockdown notes, when the lockdown is lifted, because the population has not had a chance to build sufficient immunity, there will be a further hospital-busting outbreak, for which Prof Ferguson prescribes a further lockdown, and so on until there’s a vaccine in perhaps 18 months. Let’s hope there’s a move away from full lockdowns towards targeted protection for at-risk groups, and mask-wearing.
325
So much common sense.
121
Right from the start there have been aspects of these “lockdowns” that have made for unease and uncertainty.
Many factors in diseases affecting us have been identified and acted upon so that the lessons learned from the great plagues of earlier times have been taken on board.
In the last hundred years we have managed to isolate ourselves from the ever present problems with sewage which I believe is probably one of the greatest contributors to added life expectancy.
Moving on we now have our first online Plague and like most things online it is a bit hard to sort the real science from media science and political science.
The vaccination programs of my early youth and later course of anti malarial medication for a brief visit to New Guinea we’re very welcome parts of my life.
My uncertainty about what’s going on relates to aspects of immunology, data gathering and comparison country to country to guide the best course of action.
To take the situation in Europe as a templet for action here is being a bit careless. Italy, for example has had two serious issues overlaid that confuse things. The open borders policy of the EEU has undoubtedly been open borders also for diseases which previously would have been screened: Tuberculosis?
Then there has been a massive human influx from China many of whom have been documented, many who are “unregistered”.
In Australia we had had little of those problems until the government decided we needed a bit of excitement with the cruise ships. When 1100 ships crew are placed on a ship to work around 2700 passengers we should be reassured that they all have current health status certification from the Australian government, shouldn’t we?
There are many concerns about our Shutdown and unfortunately I have little trust in the system at the moment.
Many lives have been damaged by the Shutdown and politicians remain deliberately unaware or disinterested about collateral damage.
Perhaps there could be a less damaging form of isolation than the present one.
KK
220
“collateral damage”?
ouch!
Unfortunately , you’re right.
The greatest good for the greatest number. Yeah right.
Tough biccy kid.
R.I.P.
62
Collateral damage.
People lined up for elective surgery; put off indefinitely to make room for the CV19 influx?.
One patient due to have metal support plates removed from his jaw had the op cancelled and his teeth are now falling out.
Delayed treatment will have consequences for many.
People in nursing homes in their last week’s and moments miss seeing family and friends: tragedy.
There was a time in the past when to cross borders internationally it was mandatory to have government certification of appropriate vaccination.
Why did governments do away with this? Were all diseases “crushed” or were commercial interests raised?
Governments have failed medical staff, have failed the population in not being prepared in terms of knowledge and strategy to deal with this pandemic. There are precedents.
KK
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Kalm Keith’s point is one that has interested me for some time: what is the significance of the ban on elective surgery? Unfortunately I don’t know any medicos socially remotely locally whom I could ask but I have had no doubt that it was serious.
Keith also says that “Governments have failed medical staff”. The point is a little opaque—except in terms of “knowledge”. In SA government has boasted of its competence. Yesterday it discovered that masks do not provide 100 per cent. protection. The Advertiser made the same point (but I don’t have links—paywall).
Has anyone ever suggested otherwise? Is the question any longer one of knowledge and, thereby, competence. Rather, when does incompetence morph into negligence, which is very serious matter indeed?
31
Actions are driven by agenda…whatever that agenda is.
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We know what the agenda is. The actions expose it.
60
I believe elective surgery was banned primarily because of the lack of PPE etc , the
shortage of ICU beds in the system, the fact that hospitals can be the means of
spreading infections if large numbers of infected patients, hard to isolate, were to occupy beds close to others. Originally, the politicians and epidemiologists were probably expecting, or getting ready in case we followed Italy and Spain and risked being overwhelmed.
There is also the problem that head and neck surgeons and eye surgeons operate close to the upper airways where they and the anaesthetists would be in peril from material aerosilised by high speed drills, suction apparatus or simply from an unknown to be infected but asymptomatic patient coughing. There is talk of reopening soon, but the risks to the
operators and staff would still remain. ANECTDOTALLY, it will be interesting to see
what happens if theatre staff or anyone else picks up the infection by doing so.
40
Similar reports coming from NZ hospital staff ; people dying , while on waiting lists for treatment, while staff in hospitals stand around “getting ready”, everything else having been cancelled, for an “emergency” which staff were told was unlikely for any but the weak and infirm , and then only if ICU overload occurred.
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More years ago than I like to remember, we had a yellow booklet that recorded all of the vaccinations we received and was required to be shown to authorities to prove your vaccination status.
After emigrating from the UK as a youngster (1961) and 20 years in the Australian Navy travelling around the World (60’s to 80’s), primarily SE Asia, my booklet showed I could probably outlast plagues and survive a nuclear attack.
I cannot remember when this booklet was no longer required and it was not replaced with an alternative record.
If you look at the much-vaunted Government MyHealth site you will not find much related to your personal health visits/tests/inoculations/medicines/etc so this is of no use.
To prepare for the next pandemic, perhaps we all need that yellow (or possibly a rainbow) coloured book again.
121
Yes, indeed. The British Army was very organised about being up to date with all immunisations. That was necessary for troops who could be deployed anywhere in the world at short notice.
Wonder where my little records are? Buried somewhere in the heaps of paper we’ve carted about everywhere we’ve ever lived!
80
The Autralian Army the same.
20
KK — yes, a lot of people are struggling to figure out what the situation is. The usual calm analysis we all want can’t be done — in the expanding stage of an unknown novel virus pandemic all numbers are suspect, all data collection likely to be failing, many cases are undiagnosed, and even if we had accurate numbers, we still don’t know how many asymptomatic cases there are, and we don’t know if we will develop a vaccine or when we will get a realistic treatment.
Faced with all this uncertainty — like the fog of war — we have to assess things differently.
We look at the official numbers, and read the medical papers, but — hold your nose — we also need to check the twitter feeds. In that river of junk there is a lot of information that supports the claims this is a mass new pandemic, but only weak fallacious arguments that suggest this is hyped. The picture is consistent. The ICU’s are overwhelmed, as expected. The mortality figures are supported by images of freezer trucks and ice rinks full of bodies, there are no ICU doctors, none, saying “don’t worry” or “this is exaggerated”. Doctors and nurses are dying from doing their job. Young people who do get a severe reaction are reporting the disease is like none they’ve ever experienced. Hospital staff are saying the same thing. Graphs of mortality in NY show this scale is deadlier than 911. That isn’t happening everywhere, but it’s realistic to suggest it might if we didn’t lock down.
The medical reports show this virus attacks lungs and blood and heart in a new way, leaves long term damage, and would be a productivity hit even if it didn’t kill anyone. It takes out 20% of the population for weeks. The fear factor is real. Who wants a 1 in 50 chance of ending up in the ICU in an induced coma?
The polls above show that the economy won’t be fine even if we callously say lets let 1% die (or as we see in Italy, may be a lot more). Humans don’t work that way and possibly we wouldn’t want to live in a society where they did.
Back in Jan everything fit — the viral growth and spread fit with textbook epidemiology. The images on twitter showed something far worse than the numbers being reported indicated. Then the data on the Chinese economy confirmed it.
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Yes.
And, to add to that, it is wrong to think that doing nothing, keeping the economy running, will not of itself also bring the economy to its knees.
It would not take much time with an Italian type infection rate to see the economy tank. Sick people don’t work. Productivity falls. Spending slows. Investment slows. Output drops. Down she goes.
Lock-down or no lock-down, either way the economy will take a hit.
In the end it’s not saving the economy that should drive the action. It’s the saving of lives.
52
Give that some more thought Sam.
23
I given it a lot of thought KK. I stand by what I’ve said.
How about you do the econometrics and demonstrate how not taking lock-down action would give a better outcome.
12
Thanks Sam,
I had an econometricks for breakfast and it tasted careful.
No more.
12
Aweful
12
. What percentage of Taiwan’s population has been taken out? They have about 23 million people in a small confined urban island next to China. They have 395 cases (half recovered)and 6 deaths and the bars, cafes, restaurants etc are all open. That looks good compared to Australia. But what would they know? Even the WHO and China don’t recognise they exist. I’m going to continue going to the beach every day, even though the beach-Nazis try to chase me away. F–k them! Am I being irresponsible? Maybe not. I think I’ll outlive and be more healthy than the COVID hermits hiding in their houses. What do you think?
52
Taiwan did what SloMo refused to do
They closed their bloody borders to anyone from an infected country
And fever tested anyone coming into Taiwan !
Great strategy when applied early
Just what Jo asked be done here in Oz
But SloMo was SLOW
30
there are no ICU doctors, none, saying “don’t worry” or “this is exaggerated”
Not that but still positive: “There are many vacancies in intensive care units in all Stockholm hospitals. We are approaching the flattening of the illness curve” explained a senior physician at the Karolinska Klinik who was treating 127 Covid-19 ICU patients, quoted in the Luxembourg Tageblatt (PDF).
40
My daughter is a radiologist at a Pittsburg PA hospital. For the last several years she has been working mandatory overtime 60 or more hours a week. Seven weeks ago she x-rayed a patient, then later was ordered to be tested and go home to quarantine until the results came back. Four days later, a negative result and ordered back to work. When I spoke with her last week she was home again. This time it was a VLO (voluntary lay-off) due to lack of work. The wards and ICU a mostly empty.
30
KK
If we had of been properly prepared for this then a lock down would not have been necessary. Where was our network of crack pandemic teams ? Where was our central command and control centre?? Where were all the staff trained up and ready to go when this hit??? Where was all the PPE???? Where was our contact tracing network?????
Because we were so ill prepared for this we had little choice other than to do what we did. Those Asian countries that had experience of dangerous plagues crossing their borders were prepared… really well prepared. They did not have to initiate hard lock downs.
Unless we learn this lesson we are doomed to repeat this. These epidemics are coming at around 5 to 6 years apart now. We are probably going to get another one around 2026. Perhaps our focus should be pointed to preparing for the future rather than complaining about was has been.
30
NZ is always in a state of preparedness because there are so many pests and diseases that we do not have .
So our bio-security is always on guard.
It was no surprise that the first arrivals from a known infected area were placed in compulsory supervised quarantine.
Then a political decision was made to let the virus pour in unimpeded. That went on for eight weeks , including cruise ship visits.
So the current state of play in NZ is definitely not due to lack of preparedness; indeed our hospitals sit idle right now.
But I’m not sure how one would explain the government’s actions.
If you look at the comments at the end of the Daily Covid report that I linked to , you will see that a sector of the public is not impressed.
31
You write this and expect a response?
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/another-possible-cure-from-coronavirus-found-in-sheep-dip-invermectin/#comment-2305196
Here’s the response Jane.
,,,,,,,,,,
KK
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Kalm Keith,
I am of the opinion polls can be manipulated even by the very wording of the questions posed – or not posed.
May I suggest a look at psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist’s youtube videos on the difference between the left and right hemispheres of the brain? They are most enlightening and the message they portray leave me quite disturbed. You can be sure the so-called ‘experts’ know how to manipulate us.
There is all the difference in the world between the HERD MENTALITY and the HERD IMMUNITY.
History, ancient and modern, is replete with so-called ‘great leaders’ manipulating the herd mentality to gain their political objectives. Have a look at one of the youtube films of Adolf Hitler ‘working’ the crowd, the herd.
The story of the Gadarene Swine brings out the point that we need to think carefully before being involved or engaged in a headlong or potentially disastrous rush to do something because the herd is doing it.
It is not enough to concentrate only on the corona-virus issue and our health but also the need to think carefully about the politics behind the moves taken by governments world-wide. I don’t see any saints among them! And they know how to play on our fears!
Jo’s columns have often had comments from people concerned about the continual centralisation of political and economic power. Time will tell which is the worst killer, the virus or the new world order.
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Some interesting thoughts Betty.
10
There is a better way, with small case numbers up to 200 per day you can evacuate positive people to a designated quarantine zone reducing infection risks everywhere else. This process is much better than the shelter in place strategy which almost guarantees collateral damage, primarily infection of family members which could be elderly. Then you can use a regional quarantine strategy only locking down regions with a case history to catch downstream contacts of the evacuees
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Bob, that’s too sensible.
Obviously no politician could support anything so rational.
Voters might get confused.
KK
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Yes, it’s as least as good as the current mess and probably far better, and it doesn’t necessitate the economic damage because you are not relying on isolation in place or social distancing but rather geographic quarantine of anyone testing positive.
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Kale Keith, I would suggest we were receiving our injection from China of infected Chinese
citizens at the time Morrison shut down the borders but we were still getting flights in from
Wuhan even.
What intrigues me is, the CCP objected to those flights being blocked even after it knew
most things about this virus, would have known it was exporting it to this country, and after it
had already stopped internal Chinese flights. That to me has all the looks of China deliberately
attempting to seed our nation with the virus. I have not seen this point argued at any time since
we were forced into virtually shutting down our economy and our society. Saving face for China
Is one thing, but deliberately exporting this virus abroad is a lot more than that. Frankly, I hope
it rots in the fires of its own making by other paralysed Westrrn nations withdrawing everything
possibly from dependency on China.
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Of course.
How did I overlook the student flux every year.
Presume that the main laces involved are Melbourne and Sydney. Any others, and do they show changes in infection rates?
10
I wonder how many at-risk people the media scaremongers actually know. I’m caring for one at-risk person and I know others, and it’s far from clear that the UK lockdown is serving them. Our NHS (National Health Service) effectively shut down in February, well before there were significant numbers of Covid-19 patients, condemning these people to poor healthcare, and if the lockdowns persist for 18 months as the current logic dictates, that’s going to be devastating. Public transport has shut down so unless they know somebody, some of them struggle to shop for food. They can’t have visits from younger relatives, because natural immunity has not been allowed to build up, and that will need to continue until there’s a vaccine, by which time many of these at-risk people will be dead.
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Correct…a form of eugenics has played out in all this, people can try and sugar coat it, but under the infamous “T4” program in the 1930s Germany, those who were seen as a “burden” on society were killed, or allowed to die.
In the US, I heard audio of prominent politicians basically advocating to let “the oldies” die to save the economy….a form of eugenics.
From my perspective as a Christian, there appears to be a form of evil rising amongst the population, that seems to be prevalent within a lot of govts globally, that doesn’t value the wisdom of old age nor of vulnerable people. I have observed what I think may be a covert reboot of the old Tower Of Babel/Nimrod rebellious mentality that thinks it can control the world under a global govt, hostile to God. The values of eugenics, euthanasia and offing babies are all anti-God. The extreme control-frek govts that are exceedingly Left wing, are also heavily anti-God.
As it was in the days of Noah….
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It’s nothing new…
Take heart though. Think about the 99 year old veteran who walked a huge distance over days in his garden, using a walking frame; he’s raised over £12m for the NHS.
40
That’s the ‘herd Immunity ‘ Strategy !
32
Rubbish, the herd immunity strategy doesn’t throw the vulnerable to the wolves – instead it recognises that the vulnerable can only be defended for a limited time. Done properly vulnerable people are completely removed from the herd to shelter while the infection moves through the herd. It results in less death than sheltering the vulnerable within the herd for an unsustainably long time.
41
How does being immune to a disease become
being ‘immune’ from animal predators ?
Utterly bizarre l non logic !
00
Philip — exactly why I don’t think we can live with this virus. The loss of hospitals and in the case of the at-risk population — being exiled from society — is not just an inconvenience, it’s a killer and dreadful price to pay.
There is no evidence that “herd immunity” is achieveable without mass death and the continued loss of hospitals for month after month anyway. The arithmetic is devastating at the moment. There is too much we don’t know and the only things we are sure of is that hospitals won’t cope. Nor will unprotected medical staff.
If you want your hospitals back, your freedom to move, and the economy back, we have to exterminate this virus.
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Jo
I think the virus will dictate what happens… I seriously doubt we have the power to eliminate it… maybe in a few hundred years time if we are still here.
For me your statement is very similar to those that declare that we should do something about “Climate change” once again I don’t think we can do this.
Every so often nature comes around to slapping us across the face and reminding us how weak we really are… this is one of those times. We don’t like it much but that is reality.
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Disagree. What make humans different is adaptation, and its expression as this ability to readily manage things, that once were unmanageable, like managing aging processes to increase longevity, disrupting and preventing diseases, contraception for a better life for more (less) people, planting crops fro abundance, refrigeration, managing pests, developing transport technologies and cheap energy sources.
There is no reason to ever accept the assumed ‘inevitability’ of things, we can and do manage to adapt to almost everything, and we can certainly manage and adapt to this virus better than it can adapt to and mange us. This virus will not be calling the shots. it is entirely within our adaptive capacity to defeat all known and emerging virus. But you don;t get there via giving up.
Did the people dreaming of developing effective cheap universal contraception give up? If they had we’d be in real trouble.
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If you want your hospitals back, your freedom to move, and the economy back, we have to exterminate this virus.
Maybe that could work locally in Australia, but in Europe and the US at least, elimination has never been a stated goal of the lockdowns, and I’ve not heard any medical people suggest that elimination could work. A number of European countries are lifting their lockdowns while they still have plenty of new cases. This is a highly infectious disease that appears to be spread by people with no symptoms.
The main reason people tolerate these lockdowns is sensational media coverage, for example not mentioning that Lombardy and Spain have a long history of overflowing ICUs and disrupted healthcare systems in flu season, and seeking out extremely rare deaths in young people in a way they would not do for far more common deaths from flu.
80
Exactly.
30
Jo
I think you are wrong, the 80/20 (Pareto rule) applies to this virus. 80% of victims are over 60 and of those under 60 30% have Comorbidities I make that 13% of victims are healthy under 60s.
If the vulnerable groups were completely isolated, then you could achieve herd immunity at a fatality rate less than that of a seasonal flu.
Don’t get me wrong though I advocate geographic quarantine rather than a herd immunity but my aim would be at this point to achieve a controlled exposure to corona even if that was a live virus immunisation (to a mild strain of COVID-19). It’s even possible that common cold corona virus exposure might Confer sufficient immunity ( in a live virus vaccine)
No-one has even mentioned live virus vaccines… how quickly we forget our past.
10
Jo
I think its a case of how were the questions phrased and that many younger people have not experienced a recession. If people were told about the huge long term issues & costs related to the current policies, many of which actually do very little to prevent the disease spread, then I think the answers may be far different.
We are nearly always only being fed the ideas from certain “experts” and “experts” who disagree with the current policies are silenced or rubbished. This is climate change all over.
Those who I talk to in the business world, and generally over 50, are very concerned that we need to relax policies, sensibly, right now to avoid a depression. A depression which have very serious negative effects on many of the population….
300
One could allow people to try to reinvigorate their working lives by region. We do not need a policy of one size fits all. The basic rules of hygiene and proximity are pretty sound. So why not permit people to rebuild economic life in regions in which, on the face of it, the virus no longer exists. I do not doubt that the virus is not present in the lower south east of South Australia. Yet walking the commercial part of Mount Gambier in recent weeks is see the great bulk of the place shut down. To what effect?
I’ve no doubt that the virus is likewise not present in other regions. Even if it was present in a small way, why keep people from rebuilding their working lives. One factor is meaningful boundaries and borders. Tourism is off, for instance. To enter such a region one must have a very good reason and, at the least, be tested for temperature and answer a number of pertinent questions. One can without difficulty construct a set of protocols for these matters. Much worse is to deny people the right to act in their own interests when no other contrary interest exists. Has nobody read the works of the moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790)?
90
As I go for a walk every morning the number of cars is gradually increasing on the main roads, so it is no wonder we are not cutting it off at the pass. We should be getting to zero cases for at least 3 to 4 weeks to be rid of this curse. We can all go back to work without worrying about some person coughing. So I am with the young Sand Gropers – a full lock-down now.
612
You seem to be suggesting that your country has not had a “full lock-down”.
That is certainly the case in NZ. And now we are relaxing the non-existent “lockdown”
And yet there are those who are claiming success and support for their “lock-down” policy when there never was such a thing. It was farcical , in fact.
Logically then , any improvement must be due to some other factor ; it cannot be due to something which did not happen.
111
NZ will return to stage 3 very soon and be on par with Oz which has an exit strategy in place.
Morrison thinks he can eliminate the scourge by doing widespread massive testing and this should give everyone more confidence in relaxing restrictions.
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el gordo
I do not think the various stages are the same for each country –ie. what you call stage 3 is not the same as what we call stage 3. In fact the NZ Govt. is making changes by the minute to decide what Stage 3 will look like when we get there. At this stage it looks like Stage 4 lite ( which is probably stage 5 in Australia, if you had one.)
80
el gordo said:
It will be short lived, so don’t hold your breath. Singapore came out of lockdown last week and it was reporting fresh cases by the middle of this week. We (and that includes Australia too) have our CC&F (Coughs Colds and Flu) season yet to come — it’s due about late July and over August. Guess what? The crafty cunning virus will be back with a vengeance.
It’s time for governments to deliver big doses of Vit-D3 to their people— it will be less expensive and may well be safer.
10
Farmer braun
Your attempt at mounting a semantic argument is duly noted.
Your failure to use logic correctly however discredits your conclusion. Employing a logical fallacy is not using logic. Its sorta the opposite in fact.
I have an intellectual exercise for you. Here is a list of logical fallacies. read it and then pick out the one you used. Oh course as a Kiwi farmer the fact that you may too busy to actually have the time is not lost on me.
If you do get the time have a read…it will hone your skills when the global warming shills warm up after the Zombi apocalypse has ended 😉
Cheers Bro
21
Full lock down now and for how long? Until there are no cases? That could take months if not years. By then we would have many more deaths due to other causes. Stop being silly.
71
Blackguard is not being silly. The harder the lockdown the shorter it needs to be. The dumbest solution is the partial long lockdown — extending the uncertainty, the odd case. The inhuman solution is no lockdown at all, with fear, recession, and no hospitals. Our choices are small rock, big rock, hard rock.
Think of the stupidity of trying to eke out a few extra weeks of freedom to travel and school attendance in March? We gained a few million and lost a few trillion.
With a novel deadly disease that has a high Ro, the only solution is harder and sooner.
Just do it, and we all get what we want. Freedom, health and wealth.
If there is one case left wandering in a country it is still the most important threat and the highest priority the nation faces. Make that zero and we get 95% of our lives back.
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Thanks Jo. It’s best to finish it off rather than keep on bouncing in and out of lock down. But I understand folk feeling otherwise. And all points taken.
20
It is hard to argue with your logic. It is just possible that Australia can exert enough enough control over its borders to get the result.
Most of the world cannot. The US has accepted at least 800,000 undocumented entries per year for the last few years, via land and sea.
We have a population of between 5,000,000 (official) and 22,000,000 (Yale/MIT population consumption estimate) population living mostly outside the
legal systems, with various motivations to avoid some or all contact with authorities. We see the odd case of everything from Cholera to the
Bubonic plague from time to time ( an average of 7 plague cases per year for the last 30 years….Ring around the Rosie). I fear that one way or another we’ll have to find a way to deal with this, perhaps as we did AIDS before the reliable treatment was developed.
10
Peter S
The virus will let us know when we can relax.
One point to make … we are not in full lock down. It’s more like medium rare lock down. Full lock down to my way of thinking is what they did in China. There you could not go out into the street without being monitored and being given a pass. Then you were checked multiple times on the way to your destination. when you got to your destination you were checked again. The whole process is the repeated on the way back home again.
We got it easy in Oz.
In regards to deaths, road deaths are less than half the historical average. 6 as opposed to an average of 15. I have a feeling that Murders are also down by a similar margin as are home burglaries.
Its all swings and roundabouts.
20
True words – I thought it was more rare.
00
Millennial want what?
Government to maintain their income and guarantee their jobs?
Yeah, they will say yes to that.
Honestly without showing us the exact wording of the question this is fake news. You can prove anything with a poll question if you have low ethics and a way with words.
“Would you support allowing a stranger controlling when you can go on holidays?”
“Do you agree to never having a passport?”
“Would you be will to not travel more than 2000m from your home for 6 months or more?”
Or is you really want to mess with the politically correct, “Do you believe same sex couples should be force to maintain a 2m distance when in public?”
You can do anything with poll questions.
220
Mudcrab. Yes, it’s possible that this is fake news. So where is the evidence that the polls are wrong or inconsistent? There is confirmation bias on both sides and fallacies, but one side has data and photos, text book science, and anecdotes that match the polls.
The only doctors who say this is not a problem are those who aren’t at the front line, aren’t risking their own lives.
44
Hi Jo,
The counter is that there is no evidence that the polls are correct because we cannot view the questions. Without examining what was physically asked we only have the published conclusions.
Polling companies are very good at what they do. Free Market. They have to be or someone else will take their market. As consumers of the results you have to be on your game to work out what the poll is trying to achieve. You can poll for opinion and you can also poll in order to support your own dogma.
It is all in the wording and in the omission. Back in the day Adelaide City Council were trying one of their regular attempts to build monuments to themselves and permanently block Victoria Square to east/west traffic. To support they commissioned consultation and had public polls in the local shopping centres. So, bright eyed and bushy tailed, I set off with supplied pencil to express my disagreement with the plan. About 3 pages in I slowly realised there was no actually answer in the multiple choice to say ‘NO, I DO NOT WANT THIS’. This was after carefully worded questions to trick you into spending up to an extra 5 minutes transitioning the square after it became a giant roundabout.
(the wording from memory was “During your daily commute would you be willing to accept an extra 5 minutes travel time”. You think to yourself that since you take 35 minutes to get to work each morning, then 40 was no big deal, when what they were really admitting is that their own study had suggested it would now take you five minutes MORE to travel what used to be about 200m and two sets of traffic lights )
That is how you construct arguments that support your objectives. You reword. You remove the full negative response and replace with ‘Love, Like, No Opinion, Dislike’. The median is now Like-No Opinion because you have fully removed ‘Hate With A Vengeance’ from the choices.
Now I admit maybe if I dug deeper I may have found copies of the questions asked, but I didn’t and that is on me. But the information provided is the executive summary and I completely reserve my right to question it.
40
MudCrab, that’s very interesting about the ACC. Can you say, even roughly, what year that was?
10
This is beyond tragic. It is this same group that will have absolutely no future in a world of self-imposed global depression. And the huge irony is that it was from this same group that the climate activist movement gained most support with Greta’s cry “our future is being stolen from us”
It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
231
‘ … no future in a world of self-imposed global depression.’
That won’t happen, this has been a novel economic blip, the fundamentals are sound.
The millennials have been brainwashed by AGW propaganda and are more susceptible to end of world theories, its like they are in a disaster movie. When we gradually emerge from this fog the people will be rejuvenated, with a greater respect for our new found freedom.
74
This crisis is hopefully not the one that will lead us directly to a depression but make no mistake about it; the next one or two will. Only those who keep their heads in the sand can’t see it coming.
40
Well there was a TV program designed especially for their age group. I think it was called The Hunger Games. it was some kind of apocalyptic thing.
20
El gordo
OK Boomer 🙂
00
Urgghhh where is a delete function in this blog…darn
My I tried to cancel a reply the software only responded by putting in a snippet. Now its going to come across as a stupid meme.
C’est la vie
00
Interesting to see a poll being conducted. Assume it was a phone poll.
I cannot recall a single call on our landline in the last two weeks. The landline is VOIP so I did check that it is working. It is prone to drop out when Telstra fiddle at the exchange.
So calls for polls and telemarketing here have been zero in the last two weeks or so. We average about two calls per day during the week, using the answering machine as a filter.
A welcome break or lost opportunity for a bit of sport. Could be a result of lockdown in India and Philippines.
61
Rick, I have a similar setup. I received two “Telstra 101” messages on my landline on 7th April asking how I was coping. One was from the IPA and the other from an SA politician’s office. I didn’t know they were there until Easter weekend because of a cordless phone battery issue. I rang them both back a couple of days ago and had a chat for about 10 minutes. I appreciated getting both calls and told them so. That is unusual for me because I would normally associate such messages with spam, but both were from a credible source and I could discern the sincerity in their voices.
10
Many more scientific voices are now being heard pointing out that lock down vs no lockdown (or much more relaxed constraints) is not an explanatory variable to infection rates.
91
Links please. I’ve not seen any scientific analysis but I have seen people conflate dependent variables in gross simple analysis that ignored basic medical principles.
Actual analysis of which forms of lockdown were the most useful would be very interesting and is where I thought the conversation would be now.
31
so you want to model huh? A link from a science journalist.
Read deeply into it lots of flow charts. Good luck 🙂
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-its-so-freaking-hard-to-make-a-good-covid-19-model/
23
Not sure if you are following all the news … you need to see what is happening in Singapore. Doubled cases in last 4 days.
So this tells you that in order to prevent transmission, you have to keep everyone locked up – utterly. And for months … and after months and months you are still going to be left with the question… now what ?
Maybe Sweden has it wrong … but maybe they don’t. We need to keep watching.
00
Jo beat me to it
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence… and yes your claim was extraordinary.
11
Regarding Lockdowns and a Vaccine.
All Humans already have an effective vaccine, it is called the ‘Auto-Immune’ system.
It has to learn how to do it’s job when confronted with new things that do harm to the Human cell structure. A person who has had a heart attack, have relatively short lived antibodies that can be refreshed should the need arise. Yes those antibodies don’t alter the death rate from Heart attacks but they do help the recovery rate. Having been there I was shocked to discover how a very fit old man could be reduced to a weak and feeble almost basket case in such a short time. My ‘Stamina’ disappeared over night!
The Influenza vaccines are a good way for big Pharma to make pile of cash. Its a new strain, here is a new vaccine, which they have been working on for MONTHS!
Question: – If it is a new strain how can they have been working on the new vaccine for Months?
SARS-COV-2 is a new Corona Virus, by taking short cuts and investing in lots of Advertising Bill Gates will have the world beating a path to his door if he manages to produce a vaccine that only kills 700,000 people a year in the USA!
It would not be hard to produce a vaccine that kills all Corona Viruses stone dead! Unfortunately the patient will also die as such a vaccine will kill off all viruses.
Be aware that a vaccine this year will need a different vaccine next year, manufactured at great cost by big Pharma and you will need an updated chip and you will have to be of good character to qualify or face the most recent mutation alone.
A Vaccine is in effect a targeted deadly poison there had better not be any side effects!
There is no money if promoting improved immune systems!!!!!
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🙂 🙂
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Technically auto-immunity is a disaster. It’s a mistaken immune reaction to “self” — think anaphylaxis, lupus, diabetes Type I.
I think you meant something else.
You are right to be wary of the message that vaccines are the only, or automatically best solution. But sometimes developing our own immunity comes at a dreadful deadly cost, doesn’t last long, and isn’t worth it.
The real issue with this virus is that there is so much we don’t know the only choice at the moment is to stop the dang thing til we learn more.
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Slithers
the amount of woo you have employed is astounding. You seem to be equating your ignorance of science as some sort of fact. If you want to have a good argument based on the spurious nonsense that you employed in your post I suggest you got to the blog Respectful Insolence and try that tactic there.
Please do this as I would enjoy the show immensely.
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I post here using Slithers as a pseudonym because I have been using that for over 20 years. I publish elsewhere using my own name. I am an acknowledged expert in Floating Point Mathematics as used in Computers I wrote a software mainframe version in 1971 it is still in use today. I am an expert in the field of Satellite orbits having programmed the UK’s “Black Knight’ rocket. I took the extended MENSA test in 1958 and they declined to give me an IQ number, too many questions answered correctly in too short a time. I think they thought I must somehow have cheated!
I am NOT a scientist. They tend to know lots and lots about less and less.
I am a Logician, a person who leaves no stone unturned and crosses all ‘t’ and dots every ‘i’
I will visit the site your mentioned watch out for my posts there.
Thank you for your comment.
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So’am I Slithers.
There seems to be a few you missed in that missive.
🙂
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There’s another one for you to dot.
🙂 🙁
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Slithers asks….’If it is a new strain how can they have been working on the new vaccine for months?’
They could have been working on it before most of the world knew about it ….if they knew from the start back in November 2019 that it’s a lab-engineered virus they were familiar with…that it’s one that some of them had been involved in engineering before and since the 2014-2017 ‘pause’ on ‘gain of function’ virus research that is for just that…creating a more virulent strain of a known virus in a lab…in order to create a vaccine to counter it.
According to some scientists who are trying to get ‘gain of function’ virus research banned….
[ ‘oddly, in late January right as the pandemic was blooming, Dr. Ralph Baric claimed in an interview that people should be more concerned with the seasonal flu – despite having personally overseen the controversial engineering of a hyper-virulent strain of batty coronavirus just a few years back.
Immediately discounting the burgeoning outbreak of an unknown coronavirus as a non-event seems particularly troubling for someone who’d trained two Chinese scientists on how to make hyper-virulent coronaviruses, especially when it’s hard to imagine that Dr. Baric was unaware his past colleagues were now working at the Wuhan Virology Lab, the epicenter of the outbreak.’]
The same Dr Ralph Baric…who did say in late January …after the release of the genome sequence…that we should be more worried about the flu than Covid19…is now touted as the hero/savior heading the elite team most likely to come up with a vaccine or treatment.
You’d think the Sydney University team who mapped the Covid19 genome sequence would have questions…even if not asked… about it having occurred naturally or not…and there does seem to be some cryptic consternation on a discussion site. following the release of the genome sequence.
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Yep. More and more people are wising up to this though. Thanks in large part to the superb work of people like Bob Kennedy Jr who is being very vocal at this time. Well worth checking out:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/flu-misinformation-and-coronavirus-fears-my-letter-to-dr-sanjay-gupta/
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What’s the plan? Do we stay locked down for ever? There’s no vaccine for the common cold, another coronavirus, after 30 years. People might think we’ll have a temporary lockdown then be safe, but what if the real outcome is we ruin the economy and our kid’s future, then come out of the lockdown with no herd immunity and get the same number of deaths anyway.
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Exactly. The point being we’ve experienced so much damage to our economy we have to start modifying the restrictions to get people and business back to work as much as possible.
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And they want people to down load a govt provided snitch app that uses your phones bluetooth to scan for other phones neaby and report them…to “protect” you of course.
The main phone companies have rushed to provide the operating system changes to allow it to work. An Electronic “Patriot Act” in effect.
Of course, once the corona debacle is over, the snitch ware will still be there, collecting all the info of where yo go, who you spend time with – think of it as real-time Farcebook but with an overt link back to govt. The 1984 “telescreen” in a different form. You’d be bonkers or hopelessly naive to use it…..
This is just the next step toward an oppressive Chinese-govt style social credit system.
One of the downsides to working in IT , is you understand how this stuff works….
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Consider….
Now what govt, based on what we know about how govts work, could resist collecting and storing this type of data?
And the govt holds the decryption key.
People need consider if they want to be the windshield…or the bug….
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-04-17/5-questions-the-governments-coronavirus-contact-tracing-app/12151264
“The Federal Government will soon introduce a contact tracing app, which aims to identify who someone diagnosed with COVID-19 may have come into close contact with in case they need to be tested or quarantined.
“But so far, the plan is a little light on detail.
“The smartphone app will be modelled closely on one similar to that used by the Singaporean Government, according to a spokesperson for Government Services Minister Stuart Robert.
“”This new tracing app will be voluntary and will digitise the current contact tracing process that already occurs when an individual tests positive to coronavirus,” he said.
“”This app will ensure health authorities can get the full picture and not rely solely on the memory of an infected person.”
“Who will have access to our data?
The Government’s app is not yet available and the Digital Transformation Agency did not respond to detailed questions about how it will work.
…………….
“But we also need to know if the data the app collects will be treated in a centralised or decentralised way, said Vanessa Teague, cryptographer and chief executive of Thinking Cybersecurity.
“If it’s centralised and you test positive for COVID-19, the Government or health authority may be able to access a list of encrypted ID codes for all the close contacts you’ve had.
“The Government will “unlock” that data or use it to notify potential contacts.
“In Dr Teague’s view, this model raises problems of both reliability and privacy.
“If there is only one government service that has the decryption key and it goes down, for example, we may not get the critical connections needed to quickly identify other infected people.
“Meanwhile Apple and Google are also developing a digital contact tracing system that appears to avoid a central point of data collection, according to Dr Teague. (Mr Robert said this week the Government is not working with Apple and Google.)
…………..
“The app is not mandatory, so how will government protect people from being penalised or excluded for not using it?
“For example, what would happen if employers tell workers it’s compulsory to have in the workplace?
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The plan is “weeks” only. It should be to stop this now, while we have the chance to,. We need to figure out the cost, how deadly it is (We still don’t even know that for sure) and the treatment. We need to figure out who is at risk — we don’t have gene or blood tests yet to identify who are the unlucky 20% that will suffer hugely. We need to learn how to treat this.
And we need to armour up our docs and nurses. Don’t ask them to risk their own lives when we can’t even protect them with PPE.
Any talk of “months” of anything is premature, defeatist, and unnecessary.
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Carl
I know ranting is good I employ with relief as well from time to time but how about putting up your idea of how we can come out of this. I for one would be interested in reading it.
hell you may even have a good idea!
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Start easing up on restrictions in a phased way. Let people get back to work. Re-start some non-critical operations and procedures such as colonoscopies but at first only so half the hospital beds are occupied. If the hospital and respirator usage starts to go up too quickly, tighten up restrictions again. Treat the patients with Remdesivir or hydroxycloroquin. Instead of using the billions that are being used to subsidise empty hospitals and to pay people who are forced out of work, use the money to boost our hospital and medical ability. Start doing antibody tests to find out how many people have had the virus without presenting to hospital and being tested for the virus.
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On top of the economic damage being caused by lockdowns, avoidable deaths are on the rise. Reported in the UK Guardian that the ambulance officers, doctors and paramedics are seeing a rapid rise in people dying at home from cardiac arrest. The suspicion is that the victims are delaying seeking medical help until it’s too late. Those who continue to argue for lockdown will have plenty of soul searching to do in the coming years.
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With hurricane Katrina, help didnt arrive until after the critical 4 days required for most elderly to die if they required medical help…..
Coincidence?
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This is a good article on the issues of putting an economic perspective on pandemics.
http://timharford.com/2020/04/how-do-we-value-a-statistical-life/
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That article asks a very pertinent question. Fighting this virus demands economic sacrifices: not without limit; and not without end. But if not now, then when?
I say the answer is now. We should start easing some of the restrictions simply because some of them are too draconian.
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This is absurd. A continuation of a lock down for much longer will be economic suicide and lead to more deaths anyway down the track. Just because the majority want it doesn’t say much. I wonder what percentage of the the German people supported Hitler? I’m sure it was very high at least in the beginning. Does that make their decisions correct? Of course not.
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And yet the NZ Finance Minister is warning that “lockdown”, or economic “transformation” if you prefer, will not be ending anytime soon.
So he’s either saying that lockdown is a very slow way to get a result, or that it’s not about the virus.
https://thebfd.co.nz/2020/04/17/covid-19-update-17-april-2020/
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PeterS, instead I see the alternative as absurd. We know the economy will be savagely hit if we let the virus rip. We know that if we let up isolation measures while there is one case of virus roaming free we will be back where we were in mid march again, but worse as winter comes.
So the doctors on the front line are facing work conditions we would only ask of anyone in a war or major catastrophe. Do you expect them to keep working, keep dying and somehow we will get our hospitals back to normal while a global pandemic continues to run?
The polls support the frontline doctors. Experts and citizens agree with textbook microbiology.
But Farmerbraun — I hear you. I have no idea why leaders don’t aim for zero cases and talk about how short this could be — if we do it hard and well. You are picking up on a real and glaring inconsistency in their message. In a few weeks time if we do manage to hold on and get rid of the virus in one or two states, everything will look different and those in lockdown will suddenly see how the only places on Earth that got their freedom and economy back were the ones which got rid of the virus.
I beg to differ. The absurdity is to take a winning strategy and dump it just before it clears the problem away and thereby ensure we redo another round – but worse — causing more death and extending the economic damage.
There is 29,000 BP piece of code running rogue and we have only one way to stop it. We have to stop feeding it fresh bodies.
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We get down to zero cases and then what? Do we remain isolated from the rest of the world for decades, unable to travel, unable to trade?
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That’s exactly would be required if we want to eliminate the virus. We would in fact have to stay locked down indefinitely until an appropriate vaccine is found and given to everyone. Of course that’s absurd, as I stated before.
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Why would we be unable to trade?
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Please see this article regarding bulk cargo ships https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/coronavirus-corridor-through-carrier-ship-ports-exposed/190aa204-bf8f-433e-80f1-bddbddb6168c. Two weeks at sea wouldn’t be enough. An asymptomatic carrier could pass it onto another crew member and so on.
Can we continue business and trade when we can’t leave the country and no-one can come in without a two week quarantine? How will we pay for essential imports such as oil if people aren’t working and producing?
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You are wrong on this one Jo. That’s OK, no one is perfect.
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Jo – I am not sure this is true. From past experiences, we know this did not happen. The Spanish flu of 2018-2019 did not cause an economic disaster. On the contrary, it ushered in the Roaring 20’s. The flu pandemic of 1968 did not cause any economic downtown. Neither did the flu epidemic of 2014-2015 which caused excess deaths of 60,000 in the UK.
What may be more risky is the impact of the self-imposed lockdown. We have never before quarantined healthy people like this. The economic impact is yet to be determined. It is unknown and there is no historical benchmark on which to make any kind of prediction.
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We don’t know anything of the sort, at least one epidemiologist claims we will have a month of high absenteeism and economic impact and then it will be over.
It also depends on HOW we go about management during that period. At some point we have to face reality, relying on a mythical vaccine that may never happen is cert/ainly not a strategy because it ignores reality.
One Way or another we need herd immunity…. don’t argue that there may be no immunity, no acquired immunity would means a vaccine is impossible destroying your own strategy. In the end vaccines end point is herd immunity (from the vaccine) vaccines are just a better way to achieve that herd immunity. There are other ways, live virus vaccines, controlled exposure, treatment strategies (treatments can lead to no immunity though, if the treatment kills the virus instead of endogenous antibodies then limited immunity will be conferred and you won’t be cured). This is one reason why cancer treatments fail no ongoing immunity. If even one infectious cell remains the disease can recur
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“2nd health-care worker dies in Ontario after contracting COVID-19”
She was in her 50s
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-records-second-death-of-health-care-worker-from-covid-19-1.5535485
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Peter s
In the net age one does not need to guess
43.9 percent voted for Hitler in March 1933. The party needed to form a coalition with the DNVP to get into power and even then it was only a barely workable majority. Once they got into power subsequent votes for Hitler were around 90 per cent similar to the sort of support most dictators get in elections. The election was not viewed as free or fair.
The last free and fair election was in November 1932…In that one The national socialists only got 37 percent of the vote and the party actually lost a few percent from the previous election in July of 1933.
And yes they had a lot of elections in the years leading up to Hitler gaining power. Germany was in turmoil due to the depression and war reparations that the French and English imposed on them.
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Do you understand what popular means? Liked or admired. Hitler was even admired by some in England at the time.
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“No one in this world, so far as I know – and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me – has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” – H.L. Mencken
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John Galt
H.L Menncken was not a contrarian then. Plenty of them made money.
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Actually H.L Mencken was an interesting character…Thanks for bringing him to my attention.
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John Galt
H.L Mencken was not a contrarian then. Plenty of them have made money… and lots of it.
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Before the humor: Using a Vox survey is the same thing as asking Michael Mann to certify the hockey stick.
There’s still time for humor. Below is just consolidation of all that gov has advised in the States. Lighten up and read over a cuppa’:
Blue Collar Logic 2 hours ago (edited)
I don’t know who wrote this, but I’d like to buy him or her a drink. You know … if there was still a saloon open on the planet. Anyway … Cheers!
Here are the official Coronavirus guidelines:
1. Basically, you can’t leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.
2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.
3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.
4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.
5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.
6. Gloves won’t help, but they can still help.
7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it’s important to GO OUT.
8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.
9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.
10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…
11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my..
12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it’s better not to go out, well, but no…
13. It’s better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don’t go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).
14. You can’t go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.
15. If you are sick, you can’t go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.
16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn’t wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?
17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with “I don’t want to trigger panic, but…”
18. You can’t see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.
19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don’t live under the same roof.
20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.
21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn’t say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.
22. The virus stays in the air – well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.
23. We count the number of deaths but we don’t know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were “almost dead” to find out if that’s what they will die of…
24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications).
25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?
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This is gold. It would be so much funnier if it weren’t real, but unfortunately it is real. It exposes the Wizard (politicians) of Oz (Australia) behind the curtain (Canberra). Reality bites.
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PeterS
No it is satire…
It is quite good satire and it made me chuckle but it is not “true”.
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cedarhill-
‘many a true word said in jest’
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Thanks cedarhill. I am not yet certified of having the hockey stick virus….the most infectious disease known to mann.
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It isn’t surprising that the public supports lockdowns when all they hear is that they are necessary and are working. However, there are usually two sides to every story. In this case, the other side of the story is one word — Sweden!
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See next post #24 – Sweden government is getting very nervous about the level of required social distancing and now have the authority to implement tighter controls.
Also people think Sweden has done nothing. It implemented many controls sooner than other European countries.
The other Scandinavian countries are already on the other side with the virus all but crushed while Sweden is still climbing its much bigger mountain. They have not contemplated the concept of crushing the virus. Their plan is to build population immunity while limiting the number needing critical care to a level able to get proper health care. It means they are aiming to just slow the rate of infection and accepting the probable death toll to achieve broad population immunity. It is a defeatist approach. No one will want to travel there and no country will want to accept Swedish travellers.
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The scaremongering media would love Sweden to fail; as with the climate change campaigners, they hate good news. The Swedes have kept primary schools and most businesses (including restaurants) open throughout, and their daily new case rate as a percentage of total cases has been falling nicely. Denmark is now moving in the direction of Sweden by reopening schools, even though their daily new case rate is still quite high. The European lockdowns were never intended to eliminate the virus, which is not a realistic goal there; they were to slow its spread sufficiently to prevent overload in the healthcare system.
The Danes have “crushed” their economy, not the virus, which if you believe the Ferguson paper that has been widely used to justify the full lockdowns, will come back as strong as ever a few weeks after the lockdown is lifted. If you don’t believe that modelling, well, why did we even bother with the full lockdown.
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What’s good about Sweden ?
Population 10 million
Infections 12540
Dead : 1333
Deaths per million : 132
Australia
Infections : 6523
Deaths 65
Deaths per million : 3 ( Three ! )
And you want us to do that ?
You must be joking or perverse !
I think we will see a wave of applications from Swedes to migrate here because their government has stuffed up so badly.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
You can look up Denmark for your self !
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Clyde
Hmmm Sweden…..Australia
I know where I want to be.
You cannot actually accurately compare one country to another and come up with a sound argument in a few sentences. There are too many variables to consider and to do this would require you to put up a thesis rather than a few sentences.
I look forward to reading your book
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JanEarth
It won’t be my book. It will be Sweden’s. What we don’t know yet is whether COVID-19 will behave seasonally like colds and non-novel flues do. My suspicion is that it will prove to be the case largely because of people’s life style. That is, congregating indoors during the Winter and having lower relative humidity. And, in the Summer, getting a lot more vitamin D. If that turns out to be the case, and we should know in a couple of months, then Aussies and Kiwis will not be able to be smug about doing the right thing early. It is beginning to look like COVID-19 will behave seasonally because the northern hemisphere countries are all peaking about the same time, irrespective of how they are trying to reduce the spread or when the first fatality occurred. If those in the Southern Hemisphere are smart, they will stock up on personal protective gear, and hope that the laboratories in the north develop a vaccine sooner rather than later. There is an old saying that a good general plans for the worst and hopes for the best. The behavior of the leaders in the southern hemisphere will speak to the quality of the leaders you have. That is because if you already have COVID-19 in your Summer and early-Fall, it may become unmanageable in the Winter.
Yes, cultural differences make make a difference in the rate of spread and severity of diseases. However, Australia and New Zealand are a lot more like western Europe than they are different. That is to say, China is known for its wet markets, unlike the US and Australia. What remains to be seen, which only time will tell, is whether the total deaths per capita in Sweden will be significantly different from the countries that have severely handicapped their economies. At the moment, Sweden is doing about average. We can re-visit this in 6 months.
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How many elections will take place around the world in those six months?
Significant elections involving the sort of leaders who can command a Time magazine cover.
Like Trump. Or Jacinda.
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Sweden is feeling the pinch. While neighbours are already plotting their way out of lockdown after all but crushing the virus, Sweden’s death toll is still rising.
The government now has confirmed power to close down restaurants and other gathering places:
http://www.wirenewsfax.com/the-swedish-government-received-permission-to-close-the-restaurants-and-shopping-centers-if-they-so-wish-the-law-will-come-into-force-on-saturday
– the Law came into force on Saturday 11th April. At this stage there is no indication that the power will be or has been exercised. As the poll indicates most people do not need a law to force them to take appropriate action. I have read that traffic to holiday areas in Sweden over the Easter break was down 90% on previous years.
The IHME projection for Sweden is peak daily death toll of 560 in May. Right now it is 130 deaths per day. It appears new cases peaked on 9th April so the peak daily death toll should be before the end of April. In that case I doubt stronger measures will be implemented.
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After the WHO, IPCC, UN, EU we have the other globalists, the IMF.
“The Prime Minister has warned Australians more bad economic news is coming, after dire predictions for the nation’s growth and unemployment rates from the International Monetary Fund.
Absolute rubbish. We make nothing. We import everything. And our exports are fine but the IMF says everyone is in big trouble? Another computer model driven by economists, like the IPCC models. Our fundamentals are fine.
Certain businesses are going to be in trouble, principally aviation. And with the IMF spreading bad news, people will be loathe to buy new cars or houses or spend, so that is the usual IMF tactic, to make a bad situation worse.
As with the lockdown, what we need from Government is leadership, rules, not policing. And for business the number one priority must be to get electricity prices down. After all, 900% increase with Green taxes to pay for imported windmills and solar panels and 90% of our electricity is still coal from 50 year old plants. If we were not forced to used wind power, it would be unsaleable. Too expensive and flukey. And lunchtime solar is a joke. Payin rates are just theft. Electricity does not go uphill any more than water.
So repeal the RET. And China/Germany might have trouble selling us any more useless windmills. Tough.
And sell of the ABC/SBS. We need the money ourselves. And automate the BOM, if it is not 99% automated already. How many people are sitting around adjusting history to suit the IPCC?
The CSIRO can go too. Sink or swim. CSL has done brilliantly. But we know the CSIRO does nothing.
It’s time for leadership. And all those Clean Energy quangoes and ripoff councils and fake electricity bills and Malcolm’s $12Billion uphill water and Christopher Pyne’s $80Billion for the world’s worst, slowest, most useless submarines. Fake electricity, fake defence and fake investment.
We need as a country to be self sufficient. Under the EU/UN/IPCC/IMF, we are becoming a slave nation, an open cut mine and sending our cash to pay for it.
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Becoming a slave nation? Many of us here would say we already are. We need to reverse it. This pandemic-economic combo crisis has handed to us the perfect opportunity to do so. Now we need to see if our leader has the will, skill and knowledge to come up with the grand plan to make it so. Let’s hope so but I have my doubts. I sincerely hope my doubts are unfounded. Time will tell.
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And the local councils in Melbourne are going to have 4 types of rubbish bins. More sorting for us. And cost. And you can be pretty sure it is all dumped in landfill anyway. And some administrator will get a massive pay increase for coming up with this genius idea. The Green councils are out of control. In South Australia two years ago, the only company which recycled plastic had to close with the loss of 35 jobs because they could not make ends meet with the power prices. And so much of our rubbish is shipped overseas in containers and dumped in SE Asia. A very profitable business, out of sight, out of mind even though is started in four different colored bins designed by overpaid Green councils.
We wanted the lock down. It worked. The experts were wrong with their ‘herd immunity’. Climate Change is wrong. Green electricity is wrong. And CO2 is the gas of life and we need more of it, not less.
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I’d have thought the four bins protocol would have been abandoned but there has been no such announcement and within this hour the Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas was telling Neil Mitchell on 3AW to ease up on the criticism of WHO and negativity to the Belt and Road; all doctrines remain unaltered comrade.
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All people need to do is ignore the specific bin usage, then it becomes unworkable and it stops.
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Some are so pedantic they are so critical of people who place the wrong type of plastic in the recycle bin. Actually it makes no difference for a number of reasons but the main reason is if it did make a difference and was that important they would have stopped using recycle bins a long time ago. Most people don’t bother to check the type of plastic. As far as I’m concerned if it’s plastic it goes into the recycle bin and I let them sort it out at the other end, assuming it doesn’t end up as fill anyway.
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Plastic burns nice and hot in the right furnace…great for electrical energy production….
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I received a reprimand in the mail from the Council about a year ago because an ordinary grey plastic shopping bag was apparently found in my recycle bin.
I thought of replying and asking for evidence…and details about how all other suspects besides me were eliminated…but didn’t bother in the end.
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In NZ , all recycling facilities were closed , being non-essential , and all rubbish , apart from glass, went to landfill.
That continues.
I’m unclear as to whether or not this is progress.
70
Herd immunity is the ONLY way we’ve achieved any sustainable disease control. Vaccines create HERD immunity.
01
TDef
Becoming an open cut mine ? We have been that for as long as I can remember.
So what is your plan to decouple from the global economy so as to ensure we do not crush the country in a way that is far worse than this lock down? We cannot isolate ourselves suddenly from the world without massive consequences to our lives.
Lots of ranting and no substance…a poor diet.
12
To a degree both Tdef and you are right. We need to trade with others but we also need to be more self-sufficient in key essential areas. If we don’t the next big crisis will pretty much guarantee the destruction of our economy and social fabric. Anyone who doesn’t see it that way must have their head in the sand.
11
The posts here are very interesting. It shows the exact opposite of the title of this thread.
51
My observation of the comments on Joanne’s blog is that (a) as regards global warming, Joanne’s blog is close to being an echo chamber; as regards COVID-19 and what to do about it, Joanne’s blog is anything but an echo chamber.
31
“regards to global warming, blog is an echo chamber’
The conversation is an example of an echo chamber.
At least a failed doomsday global warming believer can post a comment here.
30
What you term ‘echo’ is agreeing with a known stance on an issue, so all blogs and even individual views echo some aforementioned position (unless the writer is highly original in their thesis). However to infer more from your comment, an echo chamber supports the view you don’t,whereas the view you do support is not from an echo chamber. But in terms of numbers of ‘popular votes’ Jo’s posts take the minority view on climate change and if the polls cited are to be believed*, the majority view, to which normal usage by a critic would assign the rather derogatory term ‘echo chamber’, the reverse of what you claim.
*about which there is reasonable doubt, of course.
10
Your echo is fading. Are you saying you believe in man-made global warming and that we must reduce our emissions to avoid a climate change catastrophe?
00
I meant no disparagement of Joanne’s blog. Heck, if you read my comments on this blog, you will realize that I am a confirmed AGW skeptic and almost always support Joanne’s AGW position. I also realize that Joanne allows comments contrary to her point of view, whereas many AGW blogs do not. If anything, I meant my comment to convey the worth of Joanne’s blog by noting the large number of comments that appear to challenge Joanne’s position on how to handle COVID-19.
70
Much better, and I agree.
30
Excellent… but you could have stated that conclusion more explicitly. In the blogosphere, as you know, misunderstandings are rife. At face value, your previous comment did read in a rather negative way, most likely because expressions lke ‘echo chamber’ and ‘cherry pick’ are used by people whose habit is to mock and deride without presenting a valid argument. So it’s better to avoid those trigger phrases if that’s not your intent. Glad to read that it was not.. good for you!
10
Most western countries are reporting that participation in their lock-downs and the spirit or cooperation with its intent is far higher than the wildest expectations. When I saw what was initially occurring in Japan and S Korea, I thought, that community self-discipline would never occur in the west, too many willful very low self-discipline angry people. But that expectation was incorrect, self-discipline and good-will emerged fast.
Regarding the supposed damage to social cohesion argument, that there would be riots and mass civil disobedience, where’s it happening? A few places, but very few, mostly where politicians have performed very badly. Bad policing is (or was) a problem in some places (why are UK police always such over-achieving high-handed jerks?). Usually where they harassed people who were being cooperative, doing nothing wrong or harmful, and showing good will. Which just makes people angry. That has been to only real problem in the west, rubbish police. Perhaps they also expected dissent to lock down so took an unreasonable line early, but are surprised to find widespread unanimity of purpose. But most police are not being like that, and are reporting all crime is lower (of course). Plus accidents and illness fewer. Turns out people are suddenly taking much better care of their health and moderating their habits and behaviors.
And where’s the wave of domestic violence and stress boil-overs? Mostly not happening. Where’s all the angst? I don’t see any being expressed, no one I see is complaining (except for the lack of availability of some items, which has now stopped). I asked about restrictions yesterday and a shop attendant said the only restriction they had was on paper towels, not on toilet paper. And the toilet paper war has ended, all quiet on the Western Front!
When I do interact with people there’s a sense of common purpose, a shared experience, everyone’s cooperative, no one is being rude, everyone is waiting their turn, everyone wants the systems put in place to defeat the virus to work. This is a limited view of course, I don’t know what happens elsewhere, but there is no widespread or rebellious behavior or expression of dissent, just the reverse. I can not remember when my local community was this unified and basically cohesive. I think the last time I saw this sense of common experience was the VP50 celebrations (Victory in the Pacific, 50th anniversary 1995) period. People are thankful for what is being done by others and by business to make this work. We are not living on some imaginary ragged-edge of the pending global revolution and collapse of the western world.
If this is a social implosion I’ll have another 3 thanks.
If there is social damage to come it will be at the interface between banks and business issuing bills during the next 12 months, and the people with a reducing living standard and lack of a viable budget or disposable income and savings, or no assets to liquidate to get them through the belt tightening yet to come. But we’ve had a couple of months warning that this was coming. Again that will go well, or very badly, based on how well political leaders and parties perform, and especially is authorities act badly, or not. The do unto others as you would have them do unto you rule, as always, applies very well. Hard to go wrong if that’s being followed during any hard times. My suspicion is a fear of what’s to come is much over hyped, the reality will be far more manageable, less fearful, we’ll recover fast with faith restored in our country, because despite the predictions of societal catastrophe, almost all are rising to this challenge.
Just look at the way we talk to Peter Fitzroy and Gee Aye during this period, look how they respond. And don’t tell me you didn’t notice a major change in tone. We put strong differences in views aside. That’s what’s really occurring all over, unanimity won, that’s what will end the virus here and make recovery fast, so that we can back to being fractious, polarized, and lacking in unanimity and good will.
Maybe that’s the real ‘social crisis’ process we should have side-stepped. Oh well, lets see if “the recovery” is a social one, or just an economic and financial one.
112
I didn’t put differences aside or change tone, that is just your warped view of debate. When someone agrees with you on something unrelated to another disagreement it means that finally they are changing their tone? No.
From my point of view it is interesting to see which people here base their views on data and research and who chooses to just continue denying. The latter are outing themselves as people for who denial is their way of finding relevance.
410
Science is pretty straight forward, any form of “denial” is based on analysis of relevant data and making decisions accordingly.
“Denial” is a purely arbitrary political reference.
QED
40
Well put. Climate change alarmists are in denial of the real science truth. We on the other hand are are in denial of the fake science and lies.
20
Denial is a perjorative term implying refusal to accept a proven and self evident truth. I cannot be a denier. I have found nothing to deny which is supported by facts or physics.
In particular I find the idea that warming is caused by more CO2 is not only unfounded and unproven and unlikely, that CO2 increase is caused by warming is supported by simple known science. It’s called Henry’s Law. And the idea that we can actually alter the equilibrium level of CO2 in the atmosphere is in denial of the principles of gaseous equilibrium considering that 98% of all CO2 is dissolved in the oceans.
51
In fact the word denier was created only when promoters of this preposterous idea of man made Global Warming realised they could not win any argument on science. So they now refuse to have one and send in the damaged children.
50
I stand corrected. You are right. Definition:
Well given the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports our belief that man is NOT causing any significant, if any, change in the climate then we are not deniers but in fact believers; believers of the truth that there is no CAGW.
20
The comment was about expected behaviors and what has occurred, if you want to pretend is was a debate about data … OK. 😉
61
and the other side of the coin is more difficult
https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/04/opioid-pandemic-outdoes-cov-19-pandemic.html
20
CV19 has impacted on the global illicit drug trade. Illicit drug shortages are one of the factors pushing up sales of alcohol.
31
There has been some CV19 antibody testing carried out in the USA. There was a plan to test an entire county in Colorado that includes the Telluride ski resort for free. 6000 samples were taken in late March but only 986 were processed due to CV19 impacting the testing lab located in NY.
Of those 986 lab results there were 8 positives, 23 indeterminate and 955 negative. Given ski resorts were the hot spot for CV!9 in Colorado it appears that not many have gained immunity. Two of the hot spots in Melbourne were traced to Australians returning from Colorado.
62
Thanks Rick. I’m keen to see that study.
30
Hi Jo- You’ve been weeks ahead of the government and the government funded “scientists” all through this thing. It just shows what can be done with logic and evidence based evaluations of the process. Politics, on the other hand, has only handed us tragedy and disaster.
Cheers,
Mike
75
“lockdown supported by 93 per cent of public, poll finds”
I am not supprised — people belive in government salvation, they do not understand that government can not save all of us, and that survivors are going to pay through the nose for salvation.
71
Don’t be surprised. People are mostly clueless, don’t give a damn or are so gullible they will believe in almost anything. If people spent as much time on doing their own research as they do on watching TV and listening to politicians, it would be vastly different and better.
51
Well…funny you should mention that…..
In my office, I like to talk about “stuff” like welding, making your own grog, electrical stuff, going 4WD etc.
Some in the office despite my B.Eng I suspect considered me of the ilk of being a “prepper”. I’m not, rather I just like practical stuff and how stuff works.
Anyway, once the whole loo paper fiasco started and then food started disappearing from the shelves, you could see the attitude toward such things swing the other way.
My hope is this has given people enough of a fright to stop navel gazing about stupid stuff like the leftist fluff of imaginary climate change, and actually learn how to do basic stuff.
70
You sound like my soul mate. We should meet some time.
00
” people believe in government salvation,”
They do and to a fault. But there there only two situations I can see where we really need big government and one is war and the other is pandemic.
Steve, yes, prepper should not be a dirty word. Some of us stopped buying toilet paper in mid Feb, and still don’t need to buy it. Did my best not to contribute to the loo paper panic in any way shape or form.
Self sufficiency used to be admired. Some good things will come out of this pandemic.
61
Here’s a perspective on that very issue from one Brandon Smith.
http://www.alt-market.com/index.php/articles/4192-no-we-are-not-all-in-this-together
21
31.2 This comment is correct.
It is the job of government to deal with war and pandemic
(see the economic concept of the ‘free rider principle’).
Of course governments know that.
When there is a scare the public demands strong action from government.
Strong action is what you will get. Powers and freedoms given will not return.
13
I believe this story is not pay-walled:
https://www.energynewsbulletin.net/covid-19/news/1385045/covid-19-cut-gigawatts-from-oz-renewable-development
I am sure many here are distraught that the CCP virus is having an indirect negative impact on renewables projects.
60
I’m distraught it hasn’t decimated the renewables projects.
20
PeterS
You should probably work on that. You are in for a world of hurt because that is how things are going. I gave up caring years ago, it’s bad for my health.
I hate that word renewables…They are no more renewable than a coal or nuclear power station. They require lots of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport to where they are deployed and wind in particular is environmental vandalism in my view. Don’t even mention those disgusting solar furnaces ( a la Pt Augusta) that have the ability to turn birds into smoking falling corpses in seconds. I am however quite fond of solar panels and have a few of them. They are very useful if you are off grid and have battery backup. Even then a generator is required for those months when Old Sol don’t shine much.
21
I’m not distraught Bulldust.
Not at all.
They are are inefficient, uneconomic (without access to the public teat) and hardly renewable.
Give me a coal-fired power station any day.
00
The Corona virus tracing app I think is typical of people losing focus and going mad with technology to solve a problem that is far simpler, easier and better solved using other means. Instead of telling people to use the app so they tell if someone approaching them has the virus, how about they just wear an arm band that does the same thing. That way we don’t have to rely on installing the app on everyone’s phone. Simples. Ironically it’s also better for privacy since using an app provides less privacy not more in terms of personal tracking. What do others think?
11
Armbands can be forgotten, misplaced or lost whereas a tattooed forehead…
42
Phones too can be forgotten, misplaced or lost. Now a mark on the hand or forehead would be….
01
Serp
I saw what you did there
🙂
11
It’s now more interesting after the CMO said today that if insufficient folks take up the app, it may be compulsory. Think the take up they want is 40%.
00
What company owns the app?
Who are the investors.
00
Probably Saint Cannon-Brookes himself in partnership with Simon Holmes-a-Court….just a detour from their main game of transitioning Australia to a 100% weather-dependent intermittent electricity system.
10
The EU apologies to Italy for not acting sooner and more appropriately. Will Trump and the rest of the world receive the same apology from the Communist Party of China and the WHO? Will the MSM, including our ABC and many other commentators on other networks stop harassing Trump and start harassing the Communist Party of China? When will PM Morrison stand up in defence of Trump and be as critical of the WHO?
50
They say there is no rule book around the current criminal inquiry over the deaths as a result of the debacle of allowing a ship to unload passengers with a deadly virus, but there is a rule book around the exact same result if one is caught importing a deadly virus in undeclared food imports. Is it any wonder why so many people still think this is going to end up being a white wash?
00
Biggest debacle was not the Ruby Princess, it was allowing flights into the country without mandatory 2 week quarantine from mid February. Those who failed us completely are hoping the Ruby Princess will find a scapegoat to distract us from their abject failure.
At the same time as cases were being allowed in from the Ruby Princess and being asked to self isolate, was it not true that people flying in from infected hot spots were able to walk into the country off a plane, and were also told to “self isolate””?
Can someone check those dates and policies?
Cruise Ships may have caused, what, 1/3 of our cases?
120
Jo, what we are witnessing is the usual lack of responsibility of our government leaders. Yet they haven’t suffered any loss of jobs or salary reductions. Ironic is a way to see how our publicly elected officials who are supposed to serve us are now dictating to us who live in the real world we must suffer through various financial sacrifices but the “public servants” escape any of this and in some cases are given wage increases. BTW, any reductions at the ABC yet? Errrrr!
40
Responsibility?
I’d say accountability.
Sack the NSW Health Minister.
Sack the head of NSW Health.
00
Yes Jo this was absolutely true
And here on your blogs we were demanding that passengers on flight from South Korea, Iran, Italy, Spain and the USA not be permitted entry with compulsory quarantine for 2 weeks.
How many people remember ‘Dr Chris Higgins from Toorak ? He came back from skying in Colorado and had mild symptoms on the plane. Yet he sailed through Migration & customs and was working at his practice 2 days later.. Diagnosed 5 days positive after getting home !
Our Commonwealth government finally pulled it’s finger out in mid March at last !
10
So true and we all instantly knew it was wrong…so why didn’t the governments?
They must have known self-isolation wouldn’t work and made a deliberate decision that it was easier to pretend so as not to tread on international toes…especially not to upset China by stopping that last plane from Wuhan….
…all of which makes it hard to believe the present leaders …especially Albanese and Green/Labor…will do what’s required to develop the kind of pandemic plan and the rational economy needed to support it….for a future where pandemics are likely to be more frequent and more virulent…. considering that so may scientists appear to want no scrutiny or curb …on what goes on in virology labs…even in China.
10
New and active cases sorted by Died %
All countries above 500 active, and higher than 2.5% died:
% Died | Country | Active cases | New Cases
15.34 … Algeria … 1,137 … 108
13.95 … Belgium … 22,390 … 1,236
13.32 … UK … 89,020 … 4,617
13.12 … Italy … 106,607 … 3,786
11.35 … Netherlands … 25,649 … 1,061
10.86 … France … 114,295 … 17,164 (horrible)
10.63 … Sweden … 10,657 … 613
10.44 … Spain … 90,836 … 4,289
8.99 … Indonesia … 4,472 … 380
8.60 … Hungary … 1,311 … 73
7.68 … Mexico … 3,273 … 448
7.33 … Egypt … 1,881 … 168
6.40 … Philippines … 4,863 … 207
6.35 … Brazil … 14,710 … 2,073
6.24 … Iran … 20,897 … 1,606
5.69 … Morocco … 1,904 … 259
5.22 … Dominican Rep … 3,344 … 141
5.11 … USA … 585,070 … 29,177 (much talk of opening up is ridiculously premature!)
5.09 … Romania … 5,958 … 491
4.90 … Ecuador … 6,984 … 367
4.81 … Slovenia … 1,033 … 20
4.79 … Switzerland … 9,551 … 396
4.76 … Greece … 1,833 … 15
4.75 … Bulgaria … 640 … 53
4.67 … Denmark … 3,535 … 198
4.57 … Argentina … 1,916 … 98
4.50 … Tunisia … 742 … 42
4.45 … Colombia … 2,539 … 128
4.26 … N Macedonia … 914 … 107
4.06 … China … 1,107 …
3.98 … Canada … 19,064 … 1,550
3.97 … Poland … 6,830 … 336
3.82 … Bangladesh … 1,463 … 341
3.68 … Bosnia Herz … 847 … 57
3.66 … Ireland … 12,708 … 724
3.57 … Afghanistan … 756 … 56
3.34 … Portugal … 17,719 … 750
3.34 … India … 11,214 … 1,060
3.17 … Lebanon … 556 … 5
3.13 … Cuba … 664 … 48
2.94 … Germany … 56,646 … 2,945
2.84 … Lithuania … 918 … 37
2.83 … Austria … 5,080 … 126
2.79 … Ukraine … 3,859 … 397
2.75 … Panama … 3,573 …
2.63 … Czechia … 5,292 … 132
2.51 … Estonia … 1,265 … 34
2.51 … Moldova … 1,865 … 105
0.97 … Australia … 2,658 … 21
New and total deaths, sorted by percent daily spread.
All countries above 100 total deaths:
% New v Active | Country | Total Deaths | New Deaths
16.7 … Peru … 274 … 20
15.0 … France … 17,920 … 753 (not enough lock-down enforcement)
14.1 … Brazil … 1,947 … 190 (going bad fast)
13.7 … Mexico … 449 … 43
13.6 … Morocco … 130 … 3
13.6 … Russia … 232 … 34
10.4 … Pakistan … 128 … 17
10.3 … Ukraine … 116 … 8
9.9 … Chile … 105 … 11
9.5 … Algeria … 348 … 12
9.5 … India … 448 … 26
9.3 … Serbia … 103 … 4
8.9 … Egypt … 196 … 13
8.5 … Indonesia … 496 … 27
8.2 … Romania … 392 … 20
8.1 … Canada … 1,191 … 181
7.7 … Iran … 4,869 … 92
7.5 … Japan … 190 … 12
7.3 … Turkey … 1,643 … 125
5.8 … Sweden … 1333 … 130
5.7 … Ireland … 486 … 42
5.6 … Denmark … 321 … 12
5.6 … Hungary … 142 … 8
5.5 … Belgium … 4,857 … 417
5.3 … Ecuador … 403 … 15
5.2 … Germany … 4,052 … 248
5.2 … UK … 13,729 … 861 (dropping but the deaths remain bad)
5.1 … Argentina … 122 … 10
5.0 … Colombia … 144 … 13
5.0 … USA … 34,602 … 2,159 (this is no time to be opening up)
4.9 … Poland … 314 … 28
4.7 … Spain … 19,315 … 503 (improving)
4.3 … Philippines … 362 … 13
4.2 … Portugal … 629 … 30
4.2 … Dominican Rep … 196 … 7
4.1 … Switzerland … 1281 … 42
4.1 … Netherlands … 3,315 … 181
3.6 … Italy … 22,170 … 525 (death remains high wherever active is high … except Germany …)
2.6 … Israel … 142 … 12
2.5 … Czechia … 169 … 3
2.5 … Austria … 410 … 17
1.6 … Norway … 152 … 2
0.8 … S. Korea … 229 … 4
0.8 … Greece … 105 … 3
0.8 … Australia … 63 … 0
—
Today’s data is a shocker.
I thought today’s deaths and cases data might show a flattening of the rise but that didn’t transpire. It went the other way, we hit the highest daily deaths yet, it’s ~33.4% higher than the earlier peak on 7th of April. Three days of sharp rises. Today was (by far) the worst when I’d expected it to be lower. The total death curve jump is way ahead of the total cases curve, which means cases are not being confirmed before people die.
It had looked like the speed of the spread was dropping so would not produce such a jump in deaths. I hope that isn’t a new trend, because the curve just rose like on March 8th, when it shot rapidly higher. Superficially it indicates new case testing can’t keep up with disease spreading, so we see lower spreading percent but the situation on the ground is higher spreading.
Some resent projections as not helpful as they’re not reliable, so disparaged as “fear-mongering”. They’re nothing of the kind. I agree they aren’t accurate, reality will be different, but projections are a valid way to point to the path we’re on. The projection will more-or-less occur unless we make sure it doesn’t. So far we’ve been making adjustments which greatly reduced the projected totals enormously. So the relativists all clamor, “See, the projections are rubbish!”
Unfortunately they’re not, all we have done is pushed the bigger numbers further out in time by 1 to 2 weeks. No, the big numbers did not go away as many now want to believe, instead the situation remains very broken in other countries, and is getting much worse. Yes, at a slower rate of worsening, but it is getting worse still, and when the numbers become very big, as they will by the end of the month, ‘slower’ is still a fast rise.
At present the curves project ~4,160,000 cases by 30th of April, and 432,000 deaths by 30th of April, or about 20% lower total cases than was projected a week ago, but the deaths are now projected to be ~50,000 higher! How does that work? Because the global % died keeps rising with the increasing scale of the infection each day. That is the creeping insidiousness of this disease. For a long time the observed deaths in China were claimed to be 2.1% of known cases. But the cases outside of China have never been lower than 3.54% of known cases (when the WHO finally raised its alarm) and is currently at 6.64%of all cases have died. And that number hit 15.34% today in Algeria. And that is not a fluke result, there are now three countries above 13% deaths of known cases, and they’re not backwaters — Belgium, UK and Italy.
What this means is that the number of deaths is going to at least double everywhere from here as the scale of infection grows. So far we may have seen 2 to 3% of the deaths to come. We’re still at the end of the beginning of these deaths. Don’t be lulled by local success, this can get much worse fast.
The global % died data shows only 3 days of very slight decline (weekend noise) since Feb 26th. If that steady rise continues it will rise by another 1.5% to 1.75% by the end of April, and the number of deaths will be approaching half a million at that point, > 35,000 per day, and rising fast.
Not a ‘realistic’ number you think? Well almost 11,000 died yesterday.
The unreported deaths in the developing world or poor countries will never get into the stats, they will not get reported, they will get literally buried. The real deaths will become much higher again.
So far we’ve just bought some time, but we have failed to end this wider run-away process. The time we bought is not very useful actually, because the speed and scale of the growth can not be coped with, even if we pushed the bigger numbers back a month. Plus as pointed out, the real spread may be faster than new case verses active cases percentages indicate. How can testing even keep up with such numbers? It won’t.
Many more countries will be added to this above 10% mortality of known cases, before the end of this month (8 today).
The relativist types will say that this is not ‘bad’ in proportion to ~7.8 billion people, except the end of May is heading towards 17.1 million cases, with 4.75 million dead. Except if that occurs we can expect the real deaths to fall closer to 9 million within one month. We probably won’t get that, but I just want to remind that this is going to become extremely ugly in many countries, and the last thing we are going to be doing is opening up borders internationally are this disease works itself out.
The countries like ours which will get out of this mess early (even if there were a persistent tail) are then going to become focused on assisting and relieving this incredible mess in our close neighboring countries.
So if our PPE, medical hardware and drug demand declines here, the investments in new local production will not be wasted, as we will have a very large group of countries needing gear they trust to actually work as advertised. This is a pathway to getting our domestic production of medical items back again (and not just for Australia), which will tend to smash the CCP strangle-hold and monopolies on global medical supplies and drugs.
Lot’s of good is coming for us with the pending boil over in demand. We should not forget that and we should not back off now. If we help people in other countries from here, we’ll actually do very well out of it.
179
Wow.
123
In the last two days NZ has started some “random” testing(it’s all urban) by taking nasal swabs at supermarket queues in some areas with reasonably dense populations , and one with a high % of Pacific Islanders.
So early next week we may get the first picture of the number in NZ who are carrying the virus but do not have the disease, although they may well have a “cold” – there is a lot about at present.
30
Italy: Only 12% of “Covid19 deaths” list Covid19 as cause
Report shows up to 88% of Italy’s alleged Covid19 deaths could be misattributed
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/23/italy-only-12-of-covid19-deaths-list-covid19-as-cause/
The way Italy registers deaths explains their increased coronavirus case/fatality ratio, according to one expert and a report from Italy’s National Institute of Health (ISS).
Citing this report (in English here), Professor Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health said:
The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus […] On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,”
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted
“This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%)”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387
46
We’ve ‘been there done that’ here..
So round we go on this stupid merry go round of misinformation – AGAIN !.
Tens of thousands of People all over the world
Who were alive and kicking despite having
T2Diabetes or some heart condition, etc.
Are now dead because this virus rocked up.
And these hair splitters seem to think we can’t see through their nonsense !
04
Yes Bill.
These people are very dangerous.
But what the devil is their motivation?
00
Do we ignore all the other countries with deaths over 7.5% of known cases on that basis? That’s about what the level was in italy when people were making up these rationalize to explain the higher and climbing death percentages.
But that prior rationalizing of an ‘exception’ was wrong, it’s not the exception, it’s just the first country (where we have sound data) where COVID-19 exceeded the hospital’s capacity to treat even the younger people with adequate results.
I can plot the deaths trend for the UK and USA tomorrow if you like, you’ll see they show the exact same pattern of gradually rising deaths as more and more hospitals are overwhelmed. A few weeks back the UK was doing what the USA’s is doing now.
USA | ∆ % Died
3rd April … 2.67
4th April … 2.61
5th April … 2.86
6th April … 2.97
7th April … 3.23
8th April … 3.40
9th April … 3.56
10th April … 3.73
11th April … 3.86
12th April … ?
13th April … ?
14th April … ?
15th April … 4.43
16th April … 5.11
It’s same as what Italy did. It’s also what these did.
% Died | Country
15.34 … Algeria
13.95 … Belgium
13.32 … UK
13.12 … Italy
11.35 … Netherlands
10.86 … France
10.63 … Sweden
10.44 … Spain
At some point people have to face that the rationales offered were BS, and that COVID-19 is actually a terrible global pandemic.
The US may avoid it, but given they are the biggest infection by far, they will be the ones with the most testing lag and the least clarity about how many new cases are really occurring each day. But if the death percent keeps rising, we know the spreading percent is not catching the real level of new cases.
91
If recovery takes two weeks, extreme cases may take three weeks or more. So the deaths will lag the shutdowns by most of a month. It may be that as countries are flattening the curves, deaths are still to peak. So the conclusion may be premature. And the other is the high rate of death to number infected, which is not consistent with Australia at 1%. Is there any explanation for that?
51
Unfortunately the lagged deaths you’re referring to don’t explain it as it seems that is being cancelled-out by a test processing and reporting time-lag within the overwhelmed countries.
https://i.ibb.co/8sTc2Qf/Daily-Deaths-April-16th-2020.png
https://i.ibb.co/3m5SG9h/Global-Curves-April-16th-2020.png
81
I would still question death rates as an indicator as the delay is large and highly variable between infection and death, as is the likelihood. The predictor of success or failure has to be new infection rate in all cases, the fastest and most predictable metric in growth of the problem.
The conversion of that to death rate so far makes no sense to me, why some should be 15% and others 1-2%. These are not places with poor health systems. History will show what the factors were and we would only be guessing. Sample group, supply failure, some other sort of shortages, experimental treatments.
And test processing and time-lag just add to the variability.
10
Totally agree, of course.
Except when the growth has accelerating into such numbers the most infected countries, where the bulk of the disease is, run out of test processing capacity and the diverging curves are showing that for whatever contributing and human reasons, the new cases are not being processed in time, there are just too many of them. But then the deaths increase anyway, and even with the lag between catching it and death (I’ve read 7 to 9 days for most people, else a long recovery), becomes a more reliable measure of the expansion of the disease.
That is what the diverging lines are indicating. The deaths are real and they imply many new sickening symptomatic cases are not being added to the case totals before they die. This is what the data curves are indicating TdeF, so I’m going to accept the data, the deaths accelerated without a prior surge in new cases to explain it, so the new cases data is the problem (under-reporting), not the deaths, which are real.
As to why the variation in % died, that has been explained at length. Plus it is likely different national medical practices are involved (even within regions in a country), and even different strains involved. It’s academic, it is happening and it is a general trend wherever active cases are high, % died marches higher and higher as the infection peaks. It then rises more as the post-peak phase decays, simply because the number of active cases then falls, so a higher percentage of the remaining cases die, so the percent died rises.
Here’s that effect today occurring within Italy.
Italy (new case totals trending down since ~26th March)
Date | Died %
29th March … 11.03
30th March … 11.39
31st March … 11.75
1st April … 11.90
2nd April … 12.07
3rd April … 12.25
4th April … 12.33
5th April … 12.32
6th April … 12.47
7th April … 12.63
8th April … 12.67
9th April … 12.73
10th April … 12.77
11th April … 12.79
12th April … 12.73
13th April … 12.83
14th April … 12.97
15th April … 13.11
16th April … 13.12
17th April … 13.19
And if [real] new cases can not be tested and added to the case total then the died percentage will rise even faster.
Under it all though total deaths per day remains a fact which can not be ignored. Their proportion grows faster than the total cases grows as the medical system is overwhelmed.
And now those diverging case and deaths curves shows that deaths accelerated without the new cases accelerating in similar proportion. So a growing number of symptomatic cases are missing from the global case totals.
And the problem will be in the most affected countries, especially the USA. Undocumented serious symptomatic cases are present now, in large numbers, and these are not being captured by the known cases data. Then they sicken rapidly (probably outside of a hospital) and they die too quickly to be tested and confirmed. So we get the death data before the case data.
Thus the red line trend diverges from the yellow line trend.
This is a serious matter if the USA (and other highly infected countries) go “opening-up” now. Can you imagine Wuhan being “opened-up” on Feb 15th? I realize the US is talking about a limited opening up (i.e. what China also did), but the risk here is great that the infection is currently larger and more spread out than the known cases data can capture and reflect.
20
WXCycles, what you say is true.
But by the same token
We cannot completely dismiss the number of deaths.
That would ‘throw the dead out with the bathwater’.
And yes that is a sad joke.
🙁
00
Where have I dismissed them at any time?
00
Summer
14
Brazil
20
AFRICA – 16 days of data trends
Split into two groups:
April 1st to April 7th 2020
April 7th to April 16th 2020
—
Total cases trend in each country:
https://i.ibb.co/PwqLYmF/AFRICA-Cases-Trends-1st-April-to-16th-April-2020.png
Spreading trends in each country:
https://i.ibb.co/VJsb6xK/AFRICA-Percent-Spreading-Trends-1st-April-to-16th-April-2020.png
% Died trends in each country:
https://i.ibb.co/nkxhtsG/AFRICA-Percent-Died-Trends-1st-April-to-16th-April-2020.png
Totals all of Africa:
https://i.ibb.co/W5C69T9/AFRICA-Totals-Trends-1st-April-to-16th-April-2020.png
—
Cases roughly doubled in Africa over the last 9 days but case numbers remain mostly low, with about ~661 new cases added per day to the continent’s total.
91
Thanks WXCycles…
It’ seems we here in Oz
Have dodged the bullet
But many other countries are still in the firing line.
I have two quibbles with your figures
1: In the UK deaths in Aged care homes are never listed at due to COVID 19 disease whatever the symptoms.
There has been a huge discussion of this on BBC news online..
2: The death rates for ‘developing ‘ nations is I suspect wildly under stating actual death rates.
The poor in such countries cannot afford western medical & hospital care; it is too expensive.Only by comparing the numbers of funerals from 2019 to 2020 could an accurate estimate be arrived at.
51
The above reply was for comment #30.
Things are getting mixed up a bit.
Also I see that you copped 7 red thumbs for you detailed efforts.
Bugger !
The Save Our Virus mob are have truly infected this blog !
32
(1) Was not aware of that. I sort through what’s currently on the tables. What I do know is the the UK has not updated numbers on their tables — once entered they stay.
(2) I have no doubt that’s true (as you said already with regard to Philippines a few days back). If you look at Indonesia, Philippines and Algeria they all hit really high died % numbers early in their total cases growth, they almost immediately started having a larger fraction die in hospitals. I expect the early deaths really frightened them and they’ve been working hard to lower the death % since. In Philippines it’s worked a bit, for now, but in Indonesia and Algeria they can not get it under control at all.
Not worried about red thumbs, lots of people with a meme, fine, but COVID-19 does not know about their memes.
101
Jo Bells, could you please comment on this-
http://covidperspective.com/covid-is-a-heme-blood-problem-not-pneumonia/?fbclid=IwAR2d4KpT6kBjP1V5OhnF4dRB8mYnBP-RWQQWm05a1vcZSVvj1FEZy67CqEk
20
From the link:
Bingo.
20
The Truth Comes Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wONbGEzeSLo&t=13s
China is as ‘guilty as anything and needs to be held to account’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZYec8ynXhU
30
The WHO and China reject the virus is from a lab. The lines are being drawn. Sparks will be flying soon. All that is needed is the WHO come clean and tell us what they really know given they are so closely aligned to China. We should follow Trump’s lead and stop funding the WHO until they do change.
40
I just heard that there was only ONE new infection in Victoria yesterday!
Tasmania is now leading the pack. All traceable presumably to the Ruby Princess. Plus one worker in up to six places who has spread it around and misled investigators.
So the areas where we can get superspreaders like this are hospitality and cleaning and supply services. In this case to a number of hospitals and aged care facilities.
Unfortunately this will take three more weeks to clear up, albeit in geographically isolated Tasmania. That’s all due to an appalling decision in Sydney to spread the virus aboard the Ruby Princess across Australia rather than deal with the problem. And they will try to blame the captain, in that he possibly told them what they wanted to hear despite the month long saga of the Diamond Princess in Yokahama.
51
From the BBC.Smithfield meat packers. You decide ..”Coronavirus: The untold story of America’s biggest outbreak”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52311877
13
Yep.
Tell it to KK.
The economy will collapse with or without lock-down.
The difference being that lock-down saves lives.
00
61 yr old and 56 yr old couple die in Brampton Ontario from covid19 leaving 3 infected daughters
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/three-daughters-left-without-parents-after-ontario-couple-dies-of-covid-19-1.4899334
There is good reason for people to be afraid of this epiidemic
34
In WA I don’t see why the diseaseless regions shouldn’t be opened now, while keeping
their borders closed until adjacent regions were also disease free. Centre testing
stations in their main towns. Maintain social distancing and cleansing and chase down contacts asap. Amalgamate adjacent clear zones together to allow opening of the regional border. Shut down again if necessary.
The other group that are having it hard is those that have recovered and have antibodies.
Provided they are found as a group to be immune – not proven yet – they should have free range,
with a ‘licence’ to move so they can be officially checked out.
One thing is being said from older epidemiologists in the USA, not part of the official response. They think this bug will be around and a problem until a vaccine is found – if one is found. That leaves us with trying for eradication, or living with it. Now looks to be the most propitious
time to try eradication, while numbers of new cases are so low. When borders reopen, if there is no vaccine, nations are going to demand proof of absence of infection before entry and on return. That spells a hard time for the transportation industry and travel.
50
Am still puzzling over the miracle of the Chinese cure. It’s a nasty disease. Don’t envy them if they get hit with another wave of infections
Yes I think your thoughts are good on this.
02
In theory, yes.
In practice, no.
The regional borders within Western Australia (WA – for our friends in the USA) are as porous as a Chux Superwipe.
Far more people get through than get turned back. There are no tests to determine whether those permitted to enter are carriers. All you need is a legitimate reason or a letter to say you have good cause to pass through.
It’s not a quarantine at all.
Yes. It’s better than nothing. But, it guarantees nothing.
11
*MINOR STATISTICAL CORRECTION
“alert Wuhan (China), the epicenter of the pandemic, today reported 1,290 additional deaths that had not been previously counted and reported, bringing the total number of deaths in Wuhan from 2,579 to 3,869, an increase of 50%, as reported by the Wuhan New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control [source]”
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#news
12
Hmmm maybe the CCP is starting to realise that lying is counter productive and is going to hurt them more than they ever imagined. All the evidence I can see is that the tactic has spectacularly blown up in their faces.
I bloody hope they got the message.
31
governments the world over need to stop playing politics with this epidemic.
Australia is doing a great job. Should be able to start reopening in parts now.
Got to watch up for flareups
42
The govt indicated yesterday (16th April) they’re aiming for a staged partial lifting of restrictions in 28 days (15th of May). I think that stands a good chance of going ahead if no new spreading. We won’t see lifted restrictions before that though.
41
Gently, Bentley.
Give it at least another four weeks before we even contemplate that.
Those “parts” you refer to are not immune to an outbreak given the porous nature of the lock-down. They’re just lucky.
Luck is not a strategy.
00
But who died in Wuhan
That they needed 42,000 funery urns
For the cremated ashes of the dead ?
31
Yes, that’s impossible for tourism, but business can be done over the internet. Most travel is optional. The people affected will be the airlines and airports, not the travellers.
And extermination is working. We should be down to zero new infections by next week. Why accept it as impossible. The world eradicated smallpox. Viruses can be eradicated too, if we can test for them. It’s the testing at the airport which is critical.
I have a problem that we check horses, dogs, cattle and quarantine them. We search for fruit and food and interrogate people who have been on farms and take samples. If you have a viral communicable disastrous disease like the flu which kills 2,000 Australians a year, you can go straight through.
22
Golly Gosh !
Going by the red thumbs for you TdeF
There are many infectious disease lovers here on Jo ‘s blog !
I invented the name “Save Our Virus Mob” as a jest.
Nut it seems like many people actually support SOV seriously.
Just as well that almost all Australians
Support the Lockdowns
And want to destroy this Corona 19 virus.
26
You’re missing the reality of importing and exporting actual things, not just chatfests and document exchanges and lines of code. What do you think is in all those containers and bulk carriers, and the parcel bag in aeroplanes? Can you 3D print me a crankshaft for a D9 next week ? Can I fax you coal, iron ore and cattle shipments for the next few months?
The world eradicated smallpox because an effective vaccine was developed.Thats looking very unlikely for CV.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-17/coronavirus-vaccine-ian-frazer/12146616
22
A vaccine and isolation. We only have isolation but it is enough to eliminate it from Australia, as is clearly happening unless you have different figures. When new infections stop and all infected people are cured, we will have done it without a vaccine.
00
Now we come full circle to the asymptomatic carriers and resumption of trade and travel. You’re not really thinking, just wishing.
00
Joanne , your approach here is consistently that hard lockdown for several weeks will eliminate the virus. If we have asymptomatic carriers, how Is that even possible? You must have a lot of faith that a testing regime will be infallible and universal and undertaken daily, with everyone signed up to tracing apps. And if by some miracle, it could be achieved on this island continent, how are we going to ever open up to international travel?
92
Firstly your asymptomatic carrier will leave a wake like an aircraft carrier. Secondly, once we eliminate this fragile chemical from our island by isolating it and its victims, we will test everyone coming in. When in doubt, two weeks quarantine.
And travel is either elective or necessary. This is a world problem and will be handled. It always has been but all the checking we used to do has been ignored for the last thirty years. We need to go back in time to the innoculation records, testing, interviews, travel records and we need to test for viruses, check temperatures and quantantine when in doubt. It means the days of the shopping weekend in Singapore or the wedding in Bali are over. The world can live without that.
53
And even today 2/3 of all infections in Australia have come directly from overseas. Community spread is negligible and if it wasn’t for the stup*dity with the Ruby Princess, half. What this means is that even from the outset we could have done better, closed the borders faster and been safer. Even so, we have done very well. Solving the problems of the rest of the world? We cannot. But we can at least show them how to do it. Isolate, Isolate, Isolate and test, test, test. The genii can be put back in the bottle. No country is over 0.2% infected. If people want to save their own lives, they know what to do.
42
And the ‘experts’ who said it could not be done or we had to accept it and learn to live with it were wrong. When will Sweden wake up?
32
It’s too late for Sweden…and to makes things worse, they have bats.
From: http://outbreaknewstoday.com/sweden-no-longer-rabies-free-researchers-50972/
“Worldwide, it is estimated that there are more than 69,000 deaths due to rabies annually.”
When will world leaders learn?
12
🙂
11
Where is Bill Gates this is all preventable now?
The estimated 770 000 [570 000−1 100 000] people dying from HIV globally in 2018 Globally
The drop in HIV-related mortality is especially evident in the regions with the greatest burden of HIV infection, including the WHO African Region, home to over 61% of people dying from HIV-related causes in 2018. An estimated 470 000 [340 000−630 000] people died in the African Region from HIV-related causes in 2018,
https://www.who.int/gho/hiv/epidemic_status/deaths_text/en/
WHO: Tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest infectious disease
As the coronavirus death toll mounts, global health authorities are reminding that tuberculosis is deadliest infectious disease in the world. Over a million deaths are reported every year.
https://www.dw.com/en/who-tuberculosis-is-the-worlds-deadliest-infectious-disease/a-52895167
00
Bill Gates is spending billions looking for ways to eliminate or treat Malaria. He is not a government. He cannot make things happen. And his fabled wealth is tiny compared to governments. He would argue that Malaria is the world’s biggest killer by far. That it is not an ‘infectious’ disease is irrelevant.
00
When will the bats of Sweden wake up?
Here is the biggest chance they have of being famous and achieving notoriety.
41
The chief architect of this policy is trying to prove his point. And like a lot of people believes in herd immunity, as did Boris Johnson and many others like the Dutch.
Only when the numbers mounted rapidly through exponential growth did they get scared and retreat, as the Swedes will do. Many people do not understand or believe exponential growth, that 1,000 cases today will become 1 million in only three weeks, that 10 deaths can become 10,000. It is unbelievable and non mathematics types get a shock. And there are plenty of those, including our Scott Morrison. I would put Boris Johnson down now as a true believer.
However what happened in Italy shocked most politicians. Sweden have made a point of staying out of everything, including WWII.
00
Exponential is a big number: TdeF, if that were so, it is likely clusters of high intensity virus would felt in diverse communities around the world. Namely, clusters smaller than a country like Sweden. Where are these clusters, outbreaks, in small isolated country towns for example etc…surely clusters of exponential virus would be popping up everywhere by now, all over the world, many months down the track..?
10
Here is a piece of a jigsaw . Does it fit anywhere?
Luc Montagnier, 2018 Nobel in medicine for his work on HIV, says this:-
“Nature does not accept any molecular tinkering, it will eliminate these unnatural changes and even if nothing is done, things will get better, but unfortunately after many deaths.”
He is referring to the HIV insertion , which can only have been done in a laboratory.
If verified , this raises the possiblity that the virus , after many copies ,arrived in Australasia without the insertion. It is possible that this changes the effects of the virus, either infectivity , virulence, persistence perhaps.
Does this piece fit into our puzzle, where we perceive that the response to the virus may , in these parts , be more damaging than the virus itself in its landed form, which may not be the form that has landed elsewhere?
00
Just posted on his words. Would like to know more though about what he meant.
Australia likely did better thanks to our high Vitamin D levels. But it would be very interesting if there were a deletion. I’ve not seen any mention of that.
11
We also have the blatant liars to contend with.
‘Deputy CMO Paul Kelly pushes the importance of honesty after the PM claims Tasmania healthworker lied about their contact history.’ Oz
In regards to international travel, testing on a massive scale for those leaving and arriving. The asymptomatic carrier should come to light with a cluster and then all known associates can be quarantined.
22
That assumes asymptomatic carriers are rare, and don’t create any new asymptomatic carriers before they are identified.
21
You’re missing the point.
Even non-symptomatic carriers have the capacity to infect others – some of whom will be symptomatic, and will then go on to infect others. They’ll get crook. Sick. They will be identified. They can be tracked.
Hence tracking, back tracking, testing and isolation, is the route to eradication.
Do you not understand that? It’s not that difficult.
11
Exactly.
00
The random testing just actioned in NZ will shed light on this.
If it is found that a significant proportion of the population are carriers, then the cohort of associates will be far too large to make this approach feasible.
00
TdeF, well technically those are answers, if you want to return to the 1950s level of international travel. And trade? All ships crews in lockdown? Air crews in 14 day isolation after every flight? Disinfestation of every surface of every piece coming in or out? Quarantine for air freight goods?
If you’re going to find asymptomatic carriers so easily, you must be very enthusiastic about universal real-time tracking and contact tracing.
24
And cash…without the eradication of cash, our best efforts will be null and void…a single 5 dollar note could infect thousands of dollars. if we could barcode cash, at least if a cash note is found to contain the virus, then other cash notes could be tracked that might be infected that came into contact with the infected note.. 🙂
23
I am sure there will be many who would “somewhat agree” with me.
22
And we need to enforce the eradication of bartering. A single untested broccoli could infect thousands of seemingly harmless broccoli…we need to look at broccoli bartering that could be a vector for accelerated transmission. real-time trafficking of broccoli needs to be forced into law also. Barcoding of all vegetables could help in this.
It is clearly not enough to track people in my non expert opinion, real-time tracking of broccoli is also needed.
22
One wonders about all the imported food we get in from Asia where the
fertilisers may be a bit questionable.
In WA we have the regional areas of the septic system being monitored by
testing for virus to detect hot suburbs.
Pity we weren’t doing that for those flights from China that China made such a fuss
about stopping!
20
Trade? Trade has not been affected. Ships and trucks are busier than normal.
You seem to be conflating tourism and international personal travel with trade. Do we need tourism? No. It is a very modern thing which has exploded out of all proportions. Last year an extraordinary 12 million Australians went overseas. That’s half the population, men, women and children!
What did all that travel do for Australia’s economy? And 5 million visitors came to Australia? Now imagine if everyone stayed home. And had their holidays at home. Would we be worse off or better off? In my opinion, Australian regional areas would boom, which would be great after the droughts and bushfires and collapse of visitors. And backpackers would have to factor in a long stay, which they are currently enjoying. If you are going to be trapped anywhere, a first world country with fresh air, sunshine, no crowds and no Wu Flu would be perfect.
And Australia would be back to having their holidays at home, before it was cheaper to have weddings in Bali, the Phillipines or Vietnam or boat trips down the Yangtze or Scenic cruises down the Danube. A houseboat on the Murray or the Hunter might be the only option. For a Frenchman, that would be paradise.
01
I’m not conflating trade and tourism. I’m questioning your expectation that (a) lockdown can eliminate the virus and (b) that it can stay eliminated in light of our need to import goods from countries who still have the virus. Your vision of new industries in the regions to replace imports is very pretty, but it’s not going to happen in a year or even 10 years. AQIS has done a good job mostly in keeping out agricultural pests, but a human virus is different. Unless we develop herd immunity, every inward traveller will need to be quarantined for 2-3 weeks, and all imported goods disinfected, until the CV is gone, worldwide. That’s s very high price to pay for not allowing our own herd to develop immunity.
10
” Trade has not been affected.”.
That is disinformation . . .at best . At worst it’s outright mendacity.
I doubt that anyone , not even your good self , is taken in by that nonsense.
10
So you are not willing to defend your preposterous allegation that trade is not affected.
But I neglected the possibility that your statement was pure ignorance . My apologies for the slight on your truthfulness.
00
” very enthusiastic about universal real-time tracking and contact tracing.”
That has been a consistent message from that particular ” source”, and others have remarked upon it. There is at least one other here who favours the same “protocols” and economic “tranformation”, also involving a return to “simpler times”, when “emissions” were far fewer.
10
From the NYT “29 Dead at One Nursing Home From the Virus. Or More. No One Will Say.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/nyregion/new-york-nj-nursing-homes-coronavirus-deaths.html?referringSource=articleShare
13
Its time to go wtih the epidemologist who says that ‘social distancing is unimportant’. Also the asymptomatic cases dont really matter eaither. That is because these traditional parameters fall outside ofthe rewlity of what is actually happening.
– China corrects death syatistics for Wuhan by adding 1,390 more deaths
– There are reports of 25-50% of residents in retirement homes dying. Dont ask, dont tell, dont report, domt protect … save money. This is happening in multiple western countries.
– How about the Smithfield pork packer. Essential business. Keep the employees on the line as they drop and infections grow form 100 to 200 to 300 covid19 cases before the CDC comes in and shuts doen this ‘essential business’
With abberwtions like this, who need ststistics or quarantine policy. It’s irrelevant
13
As (mis)leading poll questions go, “Do you want a national lockdown?” is right up there with “Do you believe in climate change?”
Ask ’em how long.
72
Yes. The same virtue -signalling in public , while privately holding the opposite view for oneself. We’ve seen it all before.
00
No lockdown in Sweden
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-swedens-state-epidemiologist-anders-tegnell-can-explain-all-the-covid-19-deaths?video_autoplay=true
14
Its was ever thus.
Menchens hobgoblin plain and simple for all to see.
A generation of snowflakes who wont be able to understand it when their standard of living drops off a cliff.
Its just a good job a Fascist dictatorship wasnt the expert advice , they would have accepted that too.
32
They’re already into Skinny Latte withdrawal.
You can see it in their furrowed brows.
They’re now hunting out Pablo:
https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/7kb5wd/does_anyone_know_where_to_buy_pablo_instant/
00
I am pretty sure a lot of people want some form of lockdown. People get scared, and they react with what they believe is safe behaviour.
I am a bit disappointed by you, though. While people may feel a lockdown is safe and good, there is no actual evidence that lockdowns are a better response and provide more safety from the virus. The fallout of a lockdown may well be worse than the avoided consequences of the pandemic.
If this was some kind of climate thingy you would be all over it, claiming that such measures are without evidence based support. How did fear grip you this time?
42
This is different to the climate debate and any suggestion that lockdowns cause collateral damage is probably true in the US, but won’t happen in Australia.
22
How is a half trillion dollar debt increase not ‘collateral damage’?
62
When it’s trillions of dollars more debt everywhere else. If the whole world is printing money, it cancels things out. Be thankful that Australia is well positioned to spend less
11
When it’s trillions of dollars more debt everywhere else. If the whole world is printing money, it cancels things out. Be thankful that Australia is well positioned to spend less
11
When it’s trillions of dollars more debt everywhere else. If the whole world is printing money, it cancels things out. Be thankful that Australia is well positioned to spend less
11
It’s very infectious pandemic disease thingy.
Just because you aren’t sick & dying
Is no reason to say that all the rest of us
Can just go get sick & die..
13
No one is perfect.
31
I would encourage everyone with an open, inquiring mind to watch this video. It is long –I watched in several bites as there is a lot to take in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndy76mJHD6o&feature=youtu.be
Stefan Molyneux talks to Dr Shiva Ayyadunai —well actually Stefan does not say a lot, he leaves it all to Dr Shiva.
10
Since it was first discovered that a dangerous disease was being passed from the sick person to a healthy one by close contact, quarantine of the sick has been the simplest and most effective measure to prevent spread of the disease.
When you cannot tell who is sick until it’s too late, you quarantine everyone. It’s really that simple and most people anywhere can see that easily. And people fear this virus which can kill them or worse, their children more than than they fear lost jobs, financial ruin or anything else. What price would you accept for the life of your child?
CV19 is a deadly blow to the human race. Can we survive it? And I don’t know the answer.
70
The reality is we have taken a precautionary approach roughly in the middle of the road by applying certain restrictions rather than a complete lock down or at the other extreme no restrictions at all. Sure some still die but that’s what happens when there is a pandemic. If there weren’t any deaths then it would be a pandemic in the first place. I believe we’ve handled the situation amazingly well so there shouldn’t be too many criticisms on how our governments dealt with the situation. Sure there have been some blunders, such as the ship incident in Sydney but that is an outlier and hopefully those responsible will be punished, and not be a white wash.
As for CV19 being a deadly blow to the human race, not so in human lives but certainly in terms of people’s livelihoods. Past pandemics were far worse. I also don’t think we are out of the woods yet on the economic front even if we are in terms of the virus. That brings up another point. We are not placing enough attention on how to revive our economy. PM Morrison is making the right noises on that front but there’s no real plan as yet.
60
The economy will recover into a global recession and global trade collapse, and possibly a credit freeze (as China found out).
We’ll have to change our expectation from expansion of business, employment and profit, to reducing the contraction first and focusing on the domestic growth more.
This is why I think that if Govt/RBA is going to print AUD then Treasury needs to provide such funds now to major infrastructure projects that are ready to go, to ensure there’s a multi-year continent-wide basis for economic activity to grow out of the decline, and add activity and money to the economy. Can;t just tax towns with GST if there’s no sustained source of money coming into towns. Hopefully farms will be ready to go. Live cattle exports are still happening.
60
Each jurisdiction runs it’s own shop. That’s the way it should be in a free country like Oz or America. But it’s less than ideal in this kind of emergency.
Frankly, I don’t believe the human race has ever faced anything like CV19 and we’re afraid and uncertain. What to do? And I have only guesswork about resurrecting our economy. It will probably be a few certain steps with a lot of trial and error.
I do not know how to say more than that. I do know this. If my wife, my son, his wife or my grandson were to be stricken with CV19 and die I would be devastated. That’s a personal loss as dear as my own life. I know they are at risk every day but those risks are visibly, avoidable or manageable. CV19 is invisible, highly contagious and can be carried around and passed around before you show any symptoms. Hello typhoid Mary. I’ll do every thing I can to keep myself and those I love from running into her.
50
Hi Roy,
my own view is that the CV19 problem could have been reduced by continued attention to health controls on cross border movements.
A few of us have referred to Vaccination documents that went with our passports many decades ago but are now absent.
Italy and New York have one thing in common besides the very intense and frightening CV19 mess:
they have had virtually open borders healthwise and the poor local responses to CV19 is Not unexpected.
By contrast, we here in Australia, have had relatively low rates of transfer within our communities because of past screening of travelers.
Each country is different and even within the U.S.there are ructions because places like Michigan are being treated the same as New York in disregard of the actual situation.
In the end we should hope for an end to political a£se covering and a logical, fact based resolution of the problem.
But then, we have politicians standing in the way.
KK
30
What is really difficult in New York is that it is in such a crowded region, continuously built up. Cuomo just sent 10,000 respirators to the State of New Jersey. That’s just across the Hudson river! Bridges, tunnels, railway tunnels it is one city but two states, two cities with different administrations all the way to Governor. A lot of that corridor to Washington through America is solid people. Throw a circle around New York and you pick up 150 million people and two countries and a dozen independent states. And they disagree. And like Australia, the Federal institutions are largely about overseas, trade, defence, customs and immigration not state matters like education, police, health.
As Trump has noted, he cannot tell the Governors what to do. Nor can Morrison, which is why the farce over his acting on bushfires. Or his demand that that the schools be kept open. He has no such authority. His controls are financial at best, not legal. But when things blow up, the journalists blame the Prime Minister or the President.
And the New England area is a mess of Governors and congresses and politicians. It is a mini Europe with a population to match.
41
Yes, on two occasions we’ve traveled from the Washington D.C./Va border area through to New York.
Once by rail, the next by road: it is packed and impressive.
Approaching the CV19 problem in that heavily populated region is fraught with difficulties that seem insurmountable.
Australia is fortunate in having relatively small cities in comparison with that U.S.region.
00
Poll Question: Would you prefer the country to remain in lockdown or risk your vulnerable grandma dying of Coronavirus?
Outcome: 95% of the population wants to stay in lockdown.
31
Yes !
THAT was the question
They asked in this poll !
Cough, cough ?
NO it wasn’t.
21
China has announced it did not count deaths in Wuhan that were not assessed as dying with CV19:
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-raises-wuhan-covid-19-death-toll-by-50-admits-to-missed-cases-2213249
So for no obvious reason, the death toll in Wuhan alone has increased by exactly 1290. Pick a number, any number! Still well below the number determined from the counting of ashes urns. That takes national toll to 4362.
30
As always, it’s a matter of what the question is and how it is asked.
If you ask people if they support a lockdown to minimise the risk from a deadly disease, the implicit question is: ‘do you want to be safe’. Naturally, people are going to respond in the affirmative.
But if you ask people if they want the beaches closed, tt be fined for paddle boarding, to be fined for driving to a mountain bike trail to get some exercise, to be fined for sunbaking alone in a park, to be fined for taking some stuff to the tip, to be fined for going to the hardware store to get some materials for a project you want to do during the lockdown, and so on, AND tell them that there are no rules at all and whether or not you get slapped with a $1,600 fine is entirely at the discretion of individual police officers, I suspect you will get a different result.
Governments rely on people being gullible and easily led.
60
Yes, put like that. A perfect set of leading questions designed to elicit a predictable response. The problem is that it can only take one person to keep the virus alive in community and there are always those who have no sense of responsibility. In fact there are people who are completely irresponsible, selfish, dangerous and even a little mad. Separating them from the behaviour of reasonable people is the job of the police and that makes it a tough job.
So the project can wait and the sunbaking can wait and the driving for whatever reason you make up, can wait. Is that so hard?
In Italy you need a document to present to the police to explain why you are in the car? It is justified, at least according to most of the people in the country. And that make life easier for the police. And safer for everyone else.
It’s not the end of the world. Except for 22,170 Italians who did not expect to die horribly in the last few weeks and the number is still rising.
22
A thread up at Chiefio for comparison
“Reopening The U.S. Economy”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/reopening-the-u-s-economy/
00
“Location, location, location”…..
10
The longer you dig, the deeper the hole, the bigger the pile of dirt there is for others to analyse, and the greater the danger if you haven’t got a ladder to climb out of it.
Some dirt from the hole has already provided politicians and experts with distracting tricks e.g. ‘microwaves, 5G, and Covid-19’ because this stuff has already been largely debunked if not always comprehensively so. Other shovels of dirt, e.g. ‘laboratory testing staff expecting to work twelve hour shifts required for only a third of that time’, and ‘PPE equipment supplies and supply systems totally unfit for purpose’ are much more disturbing and distressing evidence of incompetence and negligence because we know they are true, and we know they demand questions being satisfactorily answered by senior ministers and politicians. Are we being given a glimpse of future dystopia because we have become far too selfish and self-interested as a species? Have our trust mechanisms almost completely broken down?
I have this strong feeling that the real threat is not SARS-CoV-2 but a disease of minds which have been feeble, mediocre and complacent way too long. I read from papers written by esteemed epidemiologists that tests for a virus are relatively easy and fast to set up and yet, deep into this epidemic, the news is that our tests are still unreliable or are not readily available. How is that possible? Have we marginalised the esteemed in favour of the fashion followers?
This prison regime feels unjust because if there were reliable tests then we could demonstrate innocence or guilt via evidence: We already have immunity to Covid-19 and we have no live virus to spread. We have Covid-19 and need to be isolated and looked after until we are no longer a danger to others. A final option would be no evidence of infection or immunity and therefore, if we are considered vulnerable, the need to be moved to a low risk environment where regular testing occurs. Trust, test and treat as necessary, but injustice? – No way.
For sure this lockdown is unprecedented for most but as for the verdict on the virus let us wait for reliable testing and testing regimes, proper data and less stabbing in the dark for answers. Our priority should surely be to never again come up so short on being ready for the worse nature can throw at us on a global scale. Viruses love freedom just as much as we do and are vital to our long term survival against them. We need to deal with these things, and not fear them as we have done with Covid-19.
31
A lot of common sense there Lass.
Thank you.
KK
01
Yes but preparing for a major pandemic requires almost as much resources as preparing for a nuclear attack. It’s not that simple.
00
New-clear attacks are never simple, even if they are new or clear.
00
Not at all cedarhill..from the point of view of someone who has zero interest in politics other than being interested in the connection between government and historical financiers from time to time, research is ever expanding and for example i have been talking/looking at viruses from before the corona incident.
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9G-6MGcSh8
“Solve M.E. Webinar: ME/CFS in the Era of the Human Microbiome
2,406 views
•Nov 15, 2019”
“ME/CFS in the Era of the Human Microbiome: Persistent Pathogens Drive Chronic Symptoms by Interfering with Host Metabolism, Gene Expression, and Immunity
Presented by Amy Proal, Ph.D.
“Join Dr. Amy Proal (Autoimmunity Research Foundation) for a discussion of her article outlining evidence that ME/CFS is driven by complex pathogen-host interactions published in the special issue Advances in ME/CFS Research and Clinical Care. Click here to read the article.
“The neurological illness ME/CFS has been repeatedly tied to infection with persistent pathogens such as enteroviruses, Epstein Barr Virus and other herpesviruses – and there have been outbreaks of the condition over the past decades. Dr. Proal will discuss how expanding research on the human microbiome now allows these and other ME/CFS-associated pathogens to be studied as interacting members of vast human microbial, viral and fungal ecosystems in tissue and blood. It will also explain key mechanisms by which pathogens in these communities – and the proteins/metabolites they create – can control human metabolism, gene expression and immunity in a manner that may contribute to ME/CFS symptoms (with symptoms varying based on a patient’s unique infectious and environmental history).
“Amy Proal, Ph.D. is a microbiologist who studies the molecular mechanisms by which bacterial, fungal and viral pathogens dysregulate human gene expression, immunity and metabolism. Her work further examines how dysbiosis of the human microbiome and/or the human virome can contribute to chronic inflammatory disease processes. As a member of the research team at Autoimmunity Research Foundation, Dr. Proal has authored papers and written book chapters for organizations like the J. Craig Venter Institute and The Autoimmunity Network, and lectured at the NIH and numerous USA/international conferences.
10
I demand a Lockdown Urgently.
In the past 4 months we have lost 63 people to the CV19 epidemic.
In the same period we have lost over 1,000 Australians who have committed suicide because of despair and disconnect.
Governments, the media and general public apparently have decided that suicides are not important and can be ignored.
This unfortunately illustrates the fact that perception is the most important ingredient in policy formulation in Australia.
Isn’t there something Wrong.
Four months.
CV19 63
Suicide 1030
KK
70
For the same period there were approximately 270 deaths in road accidents.
There is No sense of proportion in this.
40
Why should there be? If we had no early lockdown, the deaths from Wu Flu would be 6,000 by now and growing rapidly and that’s based on say the UK, Germany, Italy or the US who are all in lockdown now like the rest of the world.
It’s a perceptual problem, that if the plane did not crash, there never was a problem. And 6,000 dead would not be suicide, it would be mass m*rder.
I also read that tuberculosis is a bigger problem and rabies and so on. Left unchecked, Wu Flu would kill hundreds of millions and be the new winner and we would be stuck with it and waves of it for decades. Like the Black death. The numbers are so large it is all unbelievable. And in Australia we can only be thankful to all the victims in Italy who scared the world’s politicians into reacting.
24
Automobile accidents and gang violence are down, no?
Yes the epidemic makes people depressed. Can imagine it isn’t happening. Hard to hide from the global reprecussions
02
Nobody wants lockdown but are prepared to accept it because atm this is the best method of containment .
Even younger people do not wish to be stricken down or their parents,grandparents,other friends etc dying.
Many people look at the tiny death percentage so far contained because of all the restrictions .
They would all be complaining like crazy if it was the other way around .
This virus is so contagious ,that without containment it would overwhelm hospitals and kill lots of people .
It is not joke , it has alaready destroyed the world economy as we knew it .
10
Lock downs are the best response if we don’t know what the outcome would be if we did nothing. It’s the precautionary approach. The issue then is what to do next. Do we continue the lock down for another month, two or beyond? Some say we should lock down until we have a vaccine but that could take a year or more. A lock down lasting that long would be absurd. So we really have no choice. If we don’t have a vaccine very soon we will have to adopt the mass immunity approach with limited restrictions, much monitoring and great care of the more vulnerable.
20
Ok , lets go for it and test out the absurdity .
See which state or country copes with the herd immunity approach .
How close are the idea of limited restrictions to partial lockdown .
Still lots of variables .
Where do you draw the line , 1%,5%,10%,50% affected community will kill any health and social system .
This has to be managed logically,mathematically and humanely .
01
This is making the rounds regarding treatment from Dr. Ditzchek via American media Doctor Oz:
https://www.doctoroz.com/article/what-doctors-know-about-covid-19-associated-respiratory-distress-syndrome-cards-whats-still
Gives some bio-med details of the virus at work, why the hydroxychloroquine likely works and, perhaps importantly, using ventilators is a counter-productive move where a less lung destroying treatment used in kids with RDS would produce more favorable outcomes for there severe cases.
His profile=:
Stuart H. Ditchek, MD, FAAP
Pandemic Task Force Working Group, New York Lead
Board Certified General Pediatrics Faculty, New York University School of Medicine
Attending Physician, NYU-Langone Medical Center, New York City
Attending Physician, Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY
20
Some thoughts from Amy Proal on twitter.
https://mobile.twitter.com/microbeminded2/status/1242872972580454401
00
Some thoughts from Amy Proal on twitter.
https://mobile.twitter.com/microbeminded2/status/1242872972580454401
00
Being the least sociable person on Earth, I find this social isolation caper quite enjoyable. Not being pressured into attending parties or social gatherings is a blessing for me.
Love youse all – from a distance.
50
6 Feb 2015
Flu jab given to millions is ‘almost useless’
The flu vaccine given to millions of Britons turns out to be almost entirely ineffective, with only 3 per cent of cases showing any useful effect.
Health officials have admitted that the flu vaccine given to millions of people only provides “low protection” against the main strain of the virus spreading around the UK.
https://www.channel4.com/news/flu-influenza-vaccine-ineffective-health-winter-deaths
20
Although this may be too pro-Israel for some, this describes the state of a vaccine soon to go into human trials in Israel:
https://twitter.com/HananyaNaftali/status/1249081203052945415
What is very interesting is the concept of creating something like “stem vaccines” which can be easily modified from generic to specific. This underscores the incredible advances the bio-med industry/world has made in just a few years.
70
Typo: comment #56.2.1.1 should have been posted here.
00
If it works, and if it passes the trials in such a short time, it faces the usual irrational obstacles nearly as bad as if were endorsed by Pres Trump.
(As a grumpy old cycnic I would like to be proven wrong for a change on this one).
40
If it works, and if it passes the trials in such a short time, it faces the usual irrational obstacles nearly as bad as if were endorsed by Pres Trump.
(As a grumpy old cynic I would like to be proven wrong for a change on this one).
00
In polls, people do not answer the question, do not know and have not been given the data from which a rational answer can be derived, nor do they answer from self interest.
Instead, poll respondents give whatever answer makes them feel the most virtuous (self-righteous, responsible, respectable, moral posturing).
Such an answer can be directed by design of the question.
Purchase decisions, or votes, are badly predicted by polls.
50
And in the last few years, polls have been convincingly wrong. Take the US or Australian elections.
I have never answered a poll call. I leave it for people who have nothing better to do or want to make a point. A lot of people do that. So you get the opinions of the sort of people who want to make a stand and have strong beliefs, say in a particular party.
And I have no belief that the usual tiny 1,000 person poll means a great deal statistically in tight situations. This is despite the farcical claim that the results are known to a certain accuracy, usually the large sample standard deviation. So if 400 people agree with a statement, this is quoted as being within 5.0% of the truth. Absolute rubbish. That is just mathematics abuse.
Then not just the unrepresentative sample but the questions can be leading structured for a response. As I said, the polling industry is fearlessly self promoting and in areas where decisions are tricky, often useless. As is proven again and again. I would have more faith in sportsbet.com and the opinions of members of the public who are staking real money on the result.
11
Consider the Federal election. With 150 electorates and a 1200 person survey, you can get 8 people from each electorate on average. Even with only two choices of candidate and no preferential voting and random selection, you would have a Poisson distribution and variations of 50% in the vote for either candidate in each electorate would be normal. That’s nonsense. Doing this 150 times does not make it more accurate but less. The reason politicians take notice is that they do not understand this, so polls push them around on issues, exactly as intended.
On the issue of deaths from Wu Flu, the numbers are quickly frightening so every politician runs for cover. Or they would do nothing, mouthing herd immunity and que sera. And as is the basic conjecture here, it is the people who are demanding isolation and enforcing it and sticking to it. It is the politicians and journalists who are hand wringing. After all what good is debate on the economic future or the speed of recovery to a person who is de*d? And nowhere do I see soup kitchens and people in the streets. It’s only been three weeks! Surely that is meaningless in the greater picture and especially in a country which is not a manufacturing country?
21
And on a note of absolute optimism, as we head for zero cases of Wu Flu in Australia, we will have proven to the world that it can be done. And all those people worried that it is hiding somewhere can relax. It is a fragile chemical which generally does not live long outside the human body and needs living hosts, obviously new ones all the time and must be passed from person to person by contact somehow. So when it is gone for a few weeks, it is really gone.
The only reason we would not open the whole place on a single day is that if it does reenter the country somehow, we have to limit the spread. So it makes sense to open in stages geographically and limit intercity and certainly interstate and international travel. Except for essential workers and trucks.
And be on alert for any sign of the virus, now that almost everyone knows the symptoms. And if people are sick, stay home and isolate. And if you have a fever, get tested fast. Not only are you at risk, so is everyone you have met.
Then all testing can move to airports and shipping. Even today 2/3 of all cases are connected directly to overseas travel, not community spread. If means we stopped it fast. A few more weeks and we would have been just like most of the countries in Europe. Thousands, even tens of thousand of lives lost and others ruined.
12
uh? if 90% want something why do they need a government to make is mandatory?
30
If people had been given honest choices and facts the poll would be different.
It will also be different in hindsight, when people are no longer demob happy, not being paid to have some quality family time – a bonus holiday, the economy has collapsed, they have no job, no prospect of a job for the rest of their working lives……..
22 Million unemployed in the USA already, thousands of companies to crash and millions of jobs to go in the UK the moment the gov. ends the free money.
So far the virus has been implicated (not necessary a fundamental cause) in deaths of less than 0.002% of the global population, about 0.8% of the global population would be expected to die this year ‘normally’. Even if the virus situation worsens drastically, a year down the line this will hardly be a detectable blip in mortality figures, and mortality will drop below normal for a while.
This lockdown will go down in history as one of the maddest decisions ever.
60
It would be very interesting for some in depth interviews to be carried out with the poll respondents to see of they are fully aware of all the implications once these are explained to them. It is very difficult to believe they can be so complacent if they knew the consequences of the economic road to Armageddon the west is taking
50
“#coronavirus New paper suggests it is more 75 times more widespread but less symptomatic”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/17/covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-coronavirus/
00
Waste water results
“Tests of wastewater for viral load in Massachusetts have indicated that there were many more infected than the State figures for the area tested would indicate. There are many many stories of people with a ‘nasty flu that went to their chest’ in December and January before the political panic.”
More at
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/reopening-the-u-s-economy/#comment-128558
10
And the comments there
00
Beat-up under the microscope
Link at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/04/17/your-moral-and-intellectual-superiors-186/
00
Yeah, I call BS on this one. All similarities to HIV are purely superficial. SARS-CoV-2 has similarities to lots of pathogens. So, what?
21
I do not believe in Co-incidences!
Just what did Donald, that Donald know back in January when he tweeted about CoVFeFe?
What COVID-19 does to the red blood cells is to release those chemicals, the Fe3 ion is poisonous and the Fe2 ion is what keeps it locked up safe in red blood cells. The Fe3 is what allows the transportation of Oxygen. This then is a double whammy; Less oxygen because there are less functioning Red blood cells and the Fe3 is a nasty poison.
This would indicate that whole blood transfusion for severe cases requiring ventilation may also be efficacious.
O/T I published on Respectful Insolence today.
00
Well yeah, you bet 90% of the people want the lockdown… in most Western countries 90% of the people are on a paid holiday subsidised by their governments. Trouble is, the government’s money comes ultimately from them, and the bill will come in later.
20
I think you are suggesting that people like free holidays.
00
Am I reading correct here? Jo seems an advocate for lockdown and the crowd seem to be pro freedom and economy. Am I correct ?
10
In general terms you’ve described where I sit.
This is though a need for some awareness of things that might reduce contamination, but not to the extent of a complete lockdown.
00
Am I reading correct here? Jo seems an advocate for lockdown and the crowd seem to be pro freedom and economy. Am I correct ?
20