"The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has warned of “growing concern” over dozens of “mystery cases” of coronavirus that cannot be traced by authorities, as the state recorded 397 new infections and three more deaths on Saturday.
The Victorian deaths – of a man and a woman in their 80s, and a woman in her 90s – and the death of an 83-year-old man connected to the outbreak at the Crossroads hotel in south-west Sydney, New South Wales, took Australia’s coronavirus death toll to 201 since the pandemic began.
NSW announced 17 new coronavirus cases on Saturday. At least one of the 17 new cases had no known source of infection. " The Guardian
————–
Australia has a population of 26 million. Victoria State 6.6 million. 201 cumulative deaths country wide? And Victoria State is locked down? pl
6,459 died from AIDS in Australia; 208 from novel coronavirus [‘Australia built its response to HIV/AIDS from the grass roots up, not from the top down.’]
From OffGuardian:
[[[#Melbourne have declared an emergency #curfew for a disease which has killed 208 people in 4 months. That’s 0.004% of the city’s population. The 7 people who died yesterday were all over 70, 4 were over 80 and 2 were over 90. #Covid19 #Australia #victorialockdown]]]
https://twitter.com/OffGuardian0
A city of 5.2 million.
There are 208 deaths in Australia. Officially related to COVID-19
Compare this [as here] their and our grossly disproportionate response — to AIDS.
[[[Since then, and as at 30 September 2004, in Australia there have been 23,989 cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and 9,392 cases of AIDS resulting in 6,459 deaths from AIDS.
After a rapid increase in HIV/AIDS caseload in the mid-1980s, cases of new HIV infection declined significantly when the HIV epidemic did not take hold in the general heterosexually active population but was largely contained to those groups first affected by HIV.
For nearly two decades, Australia has controlled the spread of HIV/AIDS, and maintained very low rates of new HIV infection relative to comparable countries.]]]
https://archive.lowyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/pubfiles/Bowtell%2C_Australia%27s_Response_to_HIV_AIDS_logo_1.pdf
And this is worth noting from report:
[[[Australia’s relatively successful response to HIV/AIDS came about because the Australian people, civil society organisations, clinicians, researchers and provincial and national governments fashioned timely, practical and imaginative responses to the complex political, social, economic and public health challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Australia built its response to HIV/AIDS from the grass roots up, not from the top down.
Public concern and mobilisation and action by communities first affected by HIV/AIDS obliged Australia’s national and provincial governments to respond quickly, generously and creatively to the threat posed by HIV/AIDS.]]]
-30-
I think a proper way to think of the Covid-19 is that it is real but the response is way overblown and too political. I have this feeling that in the scenario where Trump loses the election, suddenly and miraculously everything goes back to where it was pre-Dec 2019 and Biden and the Dems become global saviors. Sweden is good example with respect to Covid-19 handling, they didn’t lock down and still managed to keep the economy and social sanity up and running.
Absolutely ridiculous, this doesn’t even warrant “dog bites man” ‘news’. COVID fever (pun intended) is a godsend to the lazy MSM willing to persuade us that bad flu is the new Black Death, just to sell newspapers/get clicks.
This is the real immunity we all need – immunity from fear-mongering journalists (& politicians) with vested interests in having us all in a perpetual state of fear. Wake up people.
All
The response to the Wuhan virus by “free” societies shows that there is an inherent authoritarianism.
The draconian lockdown announced recently in the state of Victoria in Australia is a very good example of using public health as the excuse to control the population. Mao and Stalin would be very excited with how complaint people have become.
Contrast with Sweden where the government treated all it’s citizens as mature adults. No authoritarianism with lockdown edicts. However, Swedes socially distanced, wore masks, did not crowd in bars but went on with their lives.
By way of population comparison, the country of Australia (26 million) is about half the size of the state of California (44 million). Australia’s population is also spread over a much larger surface area, with fewer and smaller urban concentrations.
Babara Ann,
Did you take your complicit bias test to verify you are racism free before commenting? No, well not to worry, so far it is only mandatory in Michigan to become a police officer or practice medicine. (Apparently the person who sent all those infected patients back to nursing homes was biased, Oops, that was the governor, bias testing of politicians is not requried). These requirements only came into being in 2020 after China’s unleashing of “Covid fever” as you call it.
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/07/michigan-to-require-all-medical-professionals-to-undergo-implicit-bias-training.html
Meanwhile did you notice the other story within the story in the Guardian:
“much of what the Guardian holds dear has been threatened – democracy, civility, truth.
The country is at a crossroads. Science is in a battle with conjecture and instinct to determine policy in the middle of a pandemic. At the same time, the US is reckoning with centuries of racial injustice ”
Yep, ‘Merica be all systemic racist and founded in evil, just like the 1619 project says it always was. (Which should make one wonder why all those immigrants want to get here.) George Floyd replaced Jesus as the focal point for Easter celebrations, church services were declared “non-essential”, (how dare a free people practice their religious faith in person without permission from the secular state) due to the dangers of Covid, so said the secular experts. We must submit to the secular state in thier efforts at erasing our connections to our fellow man by “social distancing”, by erasing our individual identity by the mandatory wearing of face burkas – masks – of dubious other value, without which you are forbidden to shop, to walk the street, the beach and soon your own yard. Step aside neighborhood karens, an entire force of Covid mutaween will be employed, just like the ‘contact tracers’, to ensure compliance with secular authority. This must be put into place, along with all the other socialist justice mandates, prior to the election, otherwise Trump may win and undo it all. Enacting them into law now is at least an “insurance policy” angainst his, and his supporters, undoing any of the ‘progress’, to the change we can believe in reforms the left has been pushing for decades.
I appears the Ozzies are following the Taiwan/South Korea model: Drastic measures to nip it in the bud. Not a bad idea IF you can pull it off. It certainly appears to have worked in those two places anyway.
Due to the string of nasty bugs that have come from China in the past, it appears the countries in the neighborhood have pre-existing systems which anticipate a really nasty one springing up.
Everybody wondered if Kim in North Korea had croaked when this broke out but it appears they had only deeply isolated their Dear Leader to protect him. They too are on constant high alert, as they damn well should anyone who shares a border.
I believe only the state of Victoria under the order of its premier Daniel Andrews has locked down.
Jim
Deaths due to COVID-19, as of today, 6206, out of a population of more than 10 million souls.
Death rate: 0.06206 %
In the state of Michigan, that is.
All:
An interesting overview of flu Vs COVID 19. In England, the flu hits in waves between October and March and, sooner or later, everyone gets it…
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-happens-when-flu-meets-covid-19
On the other hand, daily deaths in UK due to colorectal cancer is 319! Yet no one is panicking
Col. Lang, thank you for posting this question. Why indeed the lockdown in the State of Victoria?
Australia, nationally, has Covid – 19 under control. There is little or no covid – 19 in the rest of Australia. There is contact tracing and quarantine if necessary. The international borders are virtually closed. The Victorian borders are closed.
So from a National perspective, we have this thing beat, at least for now, according to the science. Everything has worked as advertised by the scientists and doctors.
Victoria is about 25% of Australia’s population and about 25% of Australia’s GDP.
Australia is indeed sparsely populated, however the population is heavily concentrated on the East Coast. Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, has 5 million people. That’s bigger than all American cities except New York.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
So we currently have the potential for an almost New York style covid -19 explosion of cases in Melbourne if this thing gets away from us, and you saw courtesy of CNN what that was like.
…. And yes, it is getting away from us. We have “only” 123 deaths. We have about 7000 active cases. However the science tells us that those numbers are going the wrong way and there is, of course, the lethal two weeks lag in hospitalisations and deaths. So yes, we have lost control in the city of Melbourne according to the science. There is the beginning of untraceable community transmission that by definition cannot be stamped out by contact tracing.
So to provide the answer. Yes, it is a lockdown for Melbourne. It’s a national issue.
How we got here is the subject of my next post from another computer while this ipad battery charges.
We currently JUST (my capitals) have control over the pandemic in Victoria
So part deux of my post.
Australia has Covid-19 beat – except for Melbourne. If it wasn’t for that city, we could pretty much return the nation to normal. Dan ANdrews, despite what he says, didn’t make this decision on his own, there was National encouragement, with the prospect of a New York style disaster if the virus got out of hand.
So now Melbourne faces up to six weeks of lockdown: curfew 8pm to 5 am. only one person a day to do shopping no more than 5 miles from home. No leaving home except for defined work purposes, masks,etc.
I know how we got here, I will give you the politically incorrect version.
We started by closing the borders. Overseas arrivals – returning residents only, were placed in two weeks hotel quarantine. A significant percentage brought Covid 19 back with them and not from China either.
The hotel quarantine was enforced by security guards, not Police or officials. These were “contractors”.
You guessed it! The contractors hired low paid, untrained, unqualified, uneducated muscle for the guards.
The guards, being young, human, male and bored and some of the “guests” being young, human, female and bored, amused themselves together.
…and where did these security guards go home to? The Victorian Lebanese Moslem community. The first we knew of it was “an extended family cluster of Covid-19 cases across six households in the Northern suburbs” as the media reported. This community had been ignored by the health messaging. The men though the virus was bullshit and put there trust in Allah. The women, who perhaps could have helped, did not speak enough English and had little education.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/coronavirus-hotspots-and-the-family-clusters-driving-its-spread-20200622-p55504.html
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-09/al-taqwa-college-coronavirus-covid19-cluster-melbourne-truganina/12437584
Police reports allegedly describe how the virus infected “the family from hell” – car thieves, burglars, drug dealers, etc. naturally this family passed the virus around.
Police and now media reports describe how the virus infected the African community for similar reasons.
https://www.news.com.au/national/qld-teens-test-positive-to-covid19-after-shoplifting-heist-in-vic/video/112c2fe657207c6b8b2e4363cad14d86
The virus is now established in Melbourne in low paid work socio economic environments which led to the surprising (not) statistic last week that 25% of positive cases, who were required to quarantine themselves, were actually out working while infected. They cannot afford not to work.
Add to this the venal behaviour of “for profit” nursing homes for the elderly – low paid workers visiting multiple homes each day.
The government has only a blunt instrument when dealing with law breaking infected people; lockdown and curfew.
Fred
I confess I have not been tested for implicit bias. I would therefore advise anyone with any pre-existing conditions making them susceptible to offense to take appropriate protective measures before reading my comments. People with truly frail sensibilities would be well advised to avoid contact with my opinions entirely and should probably wait for the authorities to declare my views safe before risking exposure to them.
blue,
Waiting for the bus like a Swede.
https://twitter.com/samir_madani/status/1290042758925676545?s=21
I recall many, many years ago walking down a quiet street in Stockholm. As I passed this guy on the street I instinctively said Hi! He walked a few a steps before turning around and said “I don’t know you”. To which I replied “That’s why I said, hello”.
Social distancing comes naturally to Swedes.
This virus has become such a political football that I have come to the conclusion the release was intentional.
We constantly hear about athletes(College, MBL, etc) and young individuals testing positive. So what. They are showing no damn symptoms. I watched a delusional young lady yesterday on CNN say she tested positive a day ago. I believe she was a teacher.
She was showing no symptoms. The reporter of course didn’t ask her what symptoms she had. If you are not showing symptoms then you do not have COVID-19. Regardless of what they say. Do I have the Flu if I have no symptoms? Am I spreading it? I don’t believe non-symptomatic individuals are spreading it.
As for the numbers being reported, they are worthless. Too many stories of false positives.
I do believe the virus is real and kills older individuals. But if you get it then you better stay away from the emergency room. A ventilator is a death sentence. No matter your age. Stock up on ivermectin.
Also the campaign against HCQ goes much darker than TDS. I see a coordinated campaign unfolding with a goal in mind.
This would be the first seasonal respiratory illness that was deadly in summer. Even the Spanish Flu took a break in the summer before the second wave.
My view is this a coordinated campaign with sinister motives to keep up the fear before we have to really worry this Fall and Winter.
I don’t put it pass this subterranean underbelly to release a new more lethal virus this coming flu season.
If you are 40 and below there is close to zero risk. Above 60 be careful.
Walrus,
Thanks for the links to the stories wherein details show it is uncertain where the virus originated (in relation to the cases reported). The guilty parties, by your conjecture are: the young, capitalist employers, immigrants, thieves(alleged). Proof, news stories which imply much but supply few facts. Number dead? . Well, sure less than the black death that was projected by ‘experts’ in March.
What is your government’s objective, eliminate all viral transmission until a ‘cure’ or vaccine is available and made mandatory for all residents? That is already an impossibility as the virus is already on the island. Go ahead and destroy your economy, I suspect you’ve pacified your own people well enough that they won’t rebel.
In the US we were sold the idea by “experts” that this virus was not only highly contagious but highly fatal and provided multiple computer modles (see links below) of projected death totals up to 2,000,000 of all ages. Thus the idea of “15 days to slow the spread”; which promptly became “bend the curve”; that has now morfed into the same assinine idea of lockdowns until a cure or vaccine is available, all with little factual basis behind the rationale and even less legal authority. Coupled with this unjust and unconstitutional power grab is a revolutionary movement disrupting multiple cities – all under control of the same political party for decades – the party that refused a peaceful transfer of power in 2016 – because of “Russia Collusion”. That disruption also includes violent protests resulting in the destruction of buildings, public and private, and public monuments of all types. Now we see the organized “resistance” of unionized government employees – the teachers – to the very idea of going back to work. No Serviam! They are shouting, and loudly too. They are also adamant that elected officials (almost exclusively on the left) forbid that privately schools or homeschooling be funded with tax monies or that funding be refunded to taxpayers.
Lastly, and most importantly, has been the concerted attacks upon the very fabric of society: family and faith. Social distancing, mandatory masks, declarations of “non-essentialness” – which includes every religous institution in the country. Propagandizing acceptance of those ideas is the greatest victory by the left since they drove prayer out of the public schools in the ’50s and ’60s. Protests and funerals for public officials and the secular martyrs of the left are perfectly acceptable, Easter services for Christians were forbidden, as most religous services still are. I won’t quote Jesus here as those on the left know exactly what they are doing.
https://www.washington.edu/news/uw-in-the-media/coronavirus/
Oh look, first story up, Covid-19 is pushing a third of the Arab world into poverty. I assume that’s in addition to the ones already in poverty. Thanks China; and government lockdowns of economies. I wonder what those lockdowns are going to do in the inner cities of the USA. To follow your example let me ask the non-PC question: Does anyone want to give odds on re-enslavement of black America with local welfare offices as the new slave masters?
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
The Imperial College report from March, when the academic expert was skipping stay at home orders to get laid. He was special, thus not subject to the same restriction as the seperate but equal people. I don’t think he’s missed a single paycheck either.
Since COVID-19 disease is under control in USA, why the panic?
Notations to denote its rate of spread, via: R, Re, R0 and Rt —– related to United States is edifying.
First, R0, the gold standard to determine how serious a disease outbreak might be was never seriously determined for COVID-19.
Or, if it was, that wasn’t shared with the public.
Instead, we got were wildly inflated death estimates on the one hand, and wildly ranging R0 values — which meant that every asshole and their brother and Fauci could claim what ever they wanted to claim.
R0 is supposed to be a number, not a range, for it to have meaning and be useful.
In other words, our TOP DOWN medical “experts” failed to calculate R0 – a number – when it mattered.
Put another way: This is Failure #1.
R0 = 1 means a disease is not spreading.
R0 measure rate of spread of disease from one person to another, averaged over a population.
In a recent essay, July 13, 2020, The-Scientist.com danced around this failure.
Their song and dance illustrated at: “epidemiologists are reckoning with the uncertainty around SARS-CoV-2’s biological parameters by assuming a range of values rather than fixed numbers, says University of Idaho epidemiologist Benjamin Ridenhour, who is helping state officials predict the spread of the virus. He’s placing confidence intervals around every biological parameter in his model. His R0 could be anywhere from around 1.3 to 4,”
Except that the function and use of R0 is as a: Point Estimate – not a wild range with, as here, more than 300 percent of wiggle room. Ridenhour, shut up.
What is amazing is this essay discusses “super spreading events” – such as occurred in Gov. Cuomo’s criminal order to apparently murder elderly in NY, sending ill patients in hospitals back into nursing homes – without ever stating such obvious examples, as Gov. Cuomo’s perfidy.
[[[Contact rates are critical for nailing down R0
How many people one person comes into contact with can differ dramatically depending on their activities and the populations and structures of their towns and cities. It’s particularly important to account for this variation in the early days of an outbreak, when some infected people, often called “super spreaders,” transmit a disease to an exceptional number of others. While it’s possible that some people might have some phenotype that causes them to shed more virus than others, super spreading usually arises from the fact that some infected people come into contact with a lot of others, such as those living or working in elderly care homes and passengers and crew aboard cruise ships. Althouse says he prefers to talk about super-spreading “events” rather than individuals.]]]
Or, instead of an individual spreading it, you have Gov. Cuomo, aka Dr. Death, ordering this to happen! Should he be charged with murder, and should others of his heinous ilk? [It could be specific, localized R0, as in NYCity, could be used in a criminal proceeding against this guv, thus, no R0?]
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/why-r0-is-problematic-for-predicting-covid-19-spread-67690
The essay takes the unfortunate view that COVID-19 was beyond the ability of TOP DOWN medical “experts” and therefore they must be excused, though without saying so directly, and adding insult to injury, proposes a wildly preposterous range, in its place, thus defeating purpose of R0 as a scientific measure.
How serious, or not, is the current rate of spread of the disease?
Assuming data from https://covid19-r0.com/ is accurate – “The Covid-19 Accelerometer Dashboard: World Statistics of Rt (Effective Reproduction Number)” it is fair to ask: why the ongoing hysteria?
Just about all states in the USA are at or near 1.0.
See https://covid19-r0.com/ For worldwide data. [this data shows the difference between R values in terms of how long it takes for cases to double, for values greater than 1.0
See https://rt.live/ for each USA state.
You may notice the values less than 1.0 mid April through early June, for many states. Since, at those times, there was the most new cases, that means the virus reached its peak and has declined since.
In other words: proof the “curve” got “flattened”.
But the Nurse Ratchets running around like medical experts wanting more pain and suffering onto the population are not satisfied COVID-19 is under control.
Look at the data, you decide.
PS
The CDC in January published an essay on R0, including: “In summary, although only 1 true R0 value exists for an infectious disease event occurring in a particular place at a particular time, models that have minor differences in structure and assumptions might produce different estimates of that value, even when using the same epidemiologic data as inputs.”
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/25/1/17-1901_article
This is an important essay for the simple reason that it discuss use of R0 in determining vaccination use.
Not once does this CDC essay refer to SAFE vaccinations, of course not.
Perhaps the signal reason we don’t, after more than half a year of BS, an anywhere near accurate R0 point-estimate value for COVID-19 might be because: it might actually be “too low” to justify vaccinating the population with whatever poison and death potion the Bill Gates’ of this world expect to make Billions of dollars on.
And thus, the evidence pouring in from folks who were never tested for the disease being told via letter from some government agency that they tested POSITIVE for COVID-19.
Who knows if this is true; what is true is there is no COVID-19 R0 value to justify vaccines at this time.
And if the above data is accurate, the US is in better shape than Germany, China and Russia viz. spread of the disease.
According to Patrick Henningsen, Post Modernesque language games are being played – on the people.
Whether he is right or wrong, you decide, and this is what he says about “new normal” narratives:
[[Anywhere you see the phrase, “the New Normal” – you should reject it. It’s based on fraudulent premise that #COVID19 is somehow fundamentally much greater threat than other infectious diseases, when it’s not.
Anyone pushing this should be confronted and publically admonished.]]
https://twitter.com/21wire/status/1262809385472057344?lang=en
https://twtext.com/article/1262809385472057344
This hocus pocus would not be complete without mentioning NBC.
NBC news’ “Science” contributor and virologist Dr. Joseph Fair.
Not once did Fair test positive for the disease.
This did not stop him nor NBC for doing what they do best. . . .
“My undiagnosed/suspected COVID illness from nearly 2 months ago remains an undiagnosed mystery as a recent antibody test was negative. I had myriad COVID symptoms, was hospitalized in a COVID ward & treated for COVID-related co-morbidities, despite testing negative by nasal swab,” Fair said.
Read all about it if you haven’t yet had the pleasure at
https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/10/nbc-contributor-reveals-he-never-tested-positive-for-covid-after-network-followed-his-alleged-recovery/
or straight from the horse’s mouth,
https://twitter.com/curefinder/status/1280555579702992896
‘Undiagnosed and suspected’ now passes for Science in the halls of American Medicine and the corridors and ER and patient beds of hospitals?
-30-
blue peacock,
“The draconian lockdown announced recently in the state of Victoria in Australia is a very good example of using public health as the excuse to control the population. Mao and Stalin would be very excited with how complaint people have become.”
I disagree. Please see below.
“Contrast with Sweden where the government treated all it’s citizens as mature adults. No authoritarianism with lockdown edicts. However, Swedes socially distanced, wore masks, did not crowd in bars but went on with their lives.”
That’s what it will take to go on with our lives here in the US. Wearing masks, physical distancing, and contact tracing. But even at this moment, after more than 140K excess deaths, we still argue about whether wearing masks is necessary for public health reason, or is it a political statement.
If people are not willing to look for examples in countries such as China or Vietnam (i.e. communist countries), then they should look at South Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong, Singapore, and learn how those countries have been keeping their economy going (no nationwide lock down within their borders), and have not sufferred like we do here in the US. What they have been doing since January: wearing masks, physical distancing, and contact tracing.
The lockdowns that occured at hotspots in any country were absolutely necessary, because those 3 most important things to do were not enforced by the goverment (or not taken seriously by the people). Failure to do any one of these 3 important methods = failure to keep the pandemic under control. And that failure has resulted in the last resort method: locking down a large region so it will not spread to others (i.e. buying some time for the healthcare system to avoid collapse like in Italy).
I have family and friends in Melbourne, Victoria, Oz. Here is their view:
Pity when intelligent media fall for stories sufficiently remote for the truth standard not to apply.
By the measurable test of seriousness — excess mortality — the Covid-19 infection rate in Victoria was about 7% above the seasonal norm (5-year average) in March-April, then fell under the norm as the restrictions curbed influenza spreading and morbidity. The second spike in Victoria almost certainly repeats this, but the margin above norm must be greater.
By the measurable tests of the medical care system, the hospital facilities are in ample supply; the ICU proportion is down to 10%; and the death rate (of hospitalization and active cases) is minuscule. One reason is that the majority of positives now, and the majority of hospital cases, is aged between 20 and 40; they don’t die.
By the test of proportionality, the Victoria measures are more damaging to the economy than they warrant. However, there is no explanation for the difference between Vic and NSW; they are both testing roughly equal numbers each day — 18,000-25,000 — but Vic is uncovering three times the number of positives. Why is not a question any medium in the country is asking, or claims to answer.
The politics of the difference reflects partisan variation — Vic is Labour, NSW is Liberal-National; policy differences — Vic is pro-China; and media campaigning — Murdoch media are hostile to the Vic govt, and the other media company, Channel 9-Fairfax follows the sensation-mongering.
The underlying sociology is the same as in Europe, the UK, the US — it is the underpaid, crowded under-class which is disproportionately infected and spreading the virus as they go to work (low paid delivery, taxi, service); gather at home; send children to school or church, etc. The so-called “disaster declaration” is the tag required for the lifting of certain restraints on police powers to detain, arrest, etc., and to allow delegation of police powers to military.
When dealing with an exponentially growing disease, these numbers should be very concerning. The numbers in the US were minuscule in January. Trump was calling it a disease that would soon vanish. IMO this is a very serious disease with a lot of strangeness surrounding it.
Looks like a tradesman can still work on sites at reduced numbers but no domestic small jobs in Melbourne.6 weeks is a long time.Thats a long time with no income.Might as well do some home renovations.
Fred asks: “What is your government’s objective, eliminate all viral transmission until a ‘cure’ or vaccine is available and made mandatory for all residents?”
No. That is the New Zealand model, which was successful for them because their even-greater isolation and even-smaller population made that feasible.
The Australian federal government decided that was not feasible, and went for a policy of “containment” instead.
That means
a) social distancing and hand washing
b) at the hint of the sniffles you go for a test
c) voluntary isolation while you wait for the results
d) mandatory isolation if you test positive
e) contact tracing on (d)
Everyone understands that under that model local flare-ups are inevitable, but contact tracing is meant to contain each one.
So long as that remains true then life goes on at something approaching normality. You social distance. You limit crowds. But you can earn a wage. You can go to the gym, or to the pub.
It DOESN’T work when contract-tracing breaks down, and then you have to go into lockdown until you pull things back to where covid-19 is “contained”.
Walrus is quite right, Australia has this “contained” everywhere except for Melbourne. And the reason why is as he said: the Victorian government used unprofessional private security personnel in Melbourne hotels. By contrast the NSW government used local law enforcement in Sydney hotels.
Success or failure in Australia isn’t being measured in case numbers or in per-capita comparisons with other countries. That is seen as the wrong approach.
Success is when the health authorities know where people are catching the disease, because then they can stamp out the hot-spots. Failure is when nobody has any idea where the new cases caught the damn bug because at that point you can’t target your response.
I know this is may be foreign to people in the USA. But here the Federal government laid out what it was trying to do and how it intended to do it, and then explained, explained, explained the metrics that will force them to take us from one stage of lockdown to the next (and, obviously, back the other way).
Everyone knew. Nobody could claim ignorance. There is zero impression that the government (either at the Federal or the State level) is attempting to push any agenda other than This Is What Our Medical Boffins Are Telling Us.
Yeah, Right
The attitude is quite different here. Distrust of government, any government, is built into the vast majority of Americans.
I believe that I am far more sick from having to read about and worry about COVID19 than I would be if I were finally infected by it.
Yeah, Right,
Mandatory face burkas, social distancing and crowd limits are not “something approaching normality”. Restricting religous services while allowing political – one side only – protests and staged funerals for the symbolic elite are social control mechanisms.
“Success is when the health authorities know where people are catching the disease…”
You are saying that stopping people from dieing is no longer a policy concern (perhaps it never was), it is eradicating the spread of a very survivable viral infection? That seems a rather asinine policy to submit to as a citizen.
Yes, that has always been my understanding. The levers of power here are immeasurably smaller, so less need for vigilance.
Or we simply don’t have a high enough opinion of the political class to fear them, however much we consider them untrustworthy (which, of course, we do).
If you really want to know the Australian attitude to “government” then consider this: as far as I know we are the only western-style democracy to have lost a head of government.
Not killed. Not overthrown. Just…. wandered off when nobody was paying attention and he was never seen again.
Walrus – I was going to ask if I could submit your entry, with the references, to an English site that looks at Covid. As a brisk no-nonsense account of how things can go badly wrong if even one link in the chain breaks.
Then I came to my senses. The site would be ringing with “racist” and “Gotcha” for days. The common sense of your entry would be immediately overlaid with all that and its value would be lost.
As far as I know that would happen also if you published it an a Melbourne paper. To judge by the people from there I’ve met it’s generally much the same there.
So it is that it’s only on a site thousands of miles away from both of us, Colonel Lang’s site, can such matters be discussed without fear of the sense immediately being overlaid by the irrelevant. Makes one thoughtful, that.
As for the Covid debate, it’s become so intertwined with politics that it’s no longer purely a public health matter.
If it ever was. The public health measures that can be taken in Mongolia aren’t measures you could ever get away with in Germany. The measures that can be taken in Germany wouldn’t fly in Montana. Cultural characteristics are as fixed a variable in public health as those the epidemiologists puzzle over and unless they are taken into account no policy can be effective.
Except here in England, of course. Our politicians have so confused the matter with fuzz and PR that no one really knows what’s happening: and we proceed on our way in a state of slightly grumpy nescience.
GMA covered the Georgia YMCA story this AM. The big headline is 260 got sick. In reality 260 kids tested positive. IOW 260 kids caught a summer cold. The story is being used to shut down school for the fall as the dangerous spreaders will going back and infect others.
https://www.ajc.com/news/coronavirus/260-coronavirus-cases-tied-to-north-georgia-camp-outbreak/NZDPEZRRUNHT7CVE43JOPUAVSY/
My feeling is that we need the kids to be exposed to the virus. Over 99% will not suffer any major consequences. I can understand the older teachers being concerned, but as a country I feel it is an illusion that we can be made 100 per cent safe from this thing.
I understand the plan includes one having to stay 6 weeks at whatever location you slept at last night and allows for warrant less searches of homes by the police. That would be troublesome in the USA.
Trust the government: I remember back in the 60s-70s when birth control pills were introduced and touted, “we really need woman to take them as our population is 180 million people and we’re approaching doom, it’s way too many people”. Now we have 330 million and it’s just not enough.
james
We are perhaps unique in the English speaking world for our tradition of distrust of government. It dates from colonial times.
Fred,
“Mandatory face burkas, social distancing and crowd limits are not “something approaching normality”. Restricting religous services while allowing political – one side only – protests and staged funerals for the symbolic elite are social control mechanisms.”
I somewhat agree with the substance of what you said. But the slur “face burkas” is not necessary.
“You are saying that stopping people from dieing is no longer a policy concern (perhaps it never was), it is eradicating the spread of a very survivable viral infection? That seems a rather asinine policy to submit to as a citizen.”
In my opinion, the generalization “this virus is fatal to the elderly” used by the health authority had caused a wrong perception in the public. What you think above is a case in point.
This virus is actually very serious to people who have some pre-existing health condition such as diabete, high blood pressure, heart disease. That covers a substantial part of the population here in the US (about 100M). The older you are, the higher probability that you have these pre-conditions. And especially for most people who are 70 or older. Doubly serious for the elders because their bodies cannot sustain a prolong fight against the virus. The population of 40 or younger people is most likely not to have those illness, therefore it is not so serious to themselves. However, they can spread the virus to other people very easily, since this is a new virus.
james
Typical Canadian
Fred: “That seems a rather asinine policy to submit to as a citizen.”
A curious sentence. Being a citizen by definition involves submitting to policy. It is the difference between society and anarchy. Between a citizenry and a mob.
You have accepted without question policies that are asinine, and you don’t ever think about them because you have followed them all your life.
For example: you never question the policy that says you can be arrested for walking naked down main street, no matter how hot the day. It never occurs to you to drive down the other side of the streets, nor do you deny that a red-coloured light on a street corner rules tells you when you can and cannot move, even if you are running late, damn-it.
Our government has set out a four-stage series of lockdowns and explained what you can and cannot do in each. The decision for when each stage is triggered is theirs because, you know, making decisions on our behalf is what “governing” is.
If we don’t like it – if we consider it “asinine” – then our remedy comes at the voting booth. But not before: I no more have a “right” to do that than I have a “right” to run red lights or walk around Pitt Street Mall with my wedding-tackle hanging out.
“Mandatory face burkas, social distancing and crowd limits”…
A statement as unbecoming as it is ignorant.
Mask wearing has never been compulsory in Sydney. If it ever does become mandatory (and the state government reserves that right) then *by* *definition* the government is admitting we have left normality way behind. One follows the other, it is not a decision that will be made on a whim.
As for social distancing and crowd control, such rules have always existed. Nightclub owners and eateries have always had limits on clientele as part of their licenses, and always for reasons of public safety.
Your life is ruled by rules, Fred, always has been, in numbers too many to count.
To complain about these current rules while not even being away of how you have lived your life is to reveal the depths of your prejudices. Nothing more. No less.
Tonyl,
“Face burka” is used as a metaphor, not in any religious sense, but as a symbol of submission to unjust government commanderance of the inherent rights of Americans. Thanks for confirming the effectiveness of the term. This disease isn’t killing people with high blood pressure, which is quite treatable; it is killing the old, those actually sick, and the clinically obese, but actual data on co-morbidities of those who died is not published.
The manipulation of data and risk by professional bureaucrats like Fauci and Birx is entirely political. Destruction of much of the economy and social fabric of the country is also political and has nothing to do with saving the elderly. Blaming children, or “The population of 40 or under”, is just another excuse to promote economic destruction of those at the bottom of the economy. The elderly can be given some other method of protection. The discussion of alternatives, other than sites like this, is generally silenced in one manner or another.
Yeah Right,
You sound like a subject of a state, not a citizen to whom government is supposed to be the servant, not the master.
Fred,
“”Face burka” is used as a metaphor, not in any religious sense, but as a symbol of submission to unjust government commanderance of the inherent rights of Americans. Thanks for confirming the effectiveness of the term.”
You cannot be serious! (as John McEnroe, my all-time farorite tennis champion, used to scream in US Open). It is a loaded term. An implicit putdown to people who wear burka for cultural or religious reason.
“”The population of 40 or under”, is just another excuse to promote economic destruction of those at the bottom of the economy.”
Sorry you feel that way. You seem to see ghosts everywhere.
If you actually read what I posted, I’ve emphasized that there is no need to close down the economy, if we do the 3 things: wearing masks, physical distancing, and contact tracing. In the US, we have failed to do these 3 important methods to slow/stop the pandemic. We are killing ourselves because we are too busy arguing about ideology.
TonyL
No, we are killing ourselves by shutting down the country so that a socialist province of the globalist state can be built on the rubble.
Fred: “You sound like a subject of a state”
A subject of the Queen, in fact. Though nobody cares, least of all Her Mag Queen Lizzie.
Fred: “not a citizen to whom government is supposed to be the servant, not the master.”
Ours is a Westminster-style of parliamentary government.
Governments are created by the Parliament, which in turn is elected by the people.
Governments rise or fall entirely upon whether (or not) they enjoy of “confidence of the house”. As long as they can do that then they “govern”, and the role of the voter is to determine who makes up that parliament.
If we don’t like that then there are well-defined remedies:
(a) seek redress in the courts or
(b) grit our teeth until the next elections, then rip ’em a new one.
So the government is the servant of the parliament, each member of which in turn is the servant of his/her constituents.
The voter is neither a servant of the government, nor is it a servant of the parliament, much less the servant of their sitting member.
I’m (slightly) curious: what is your concept of “governing”?
To my mind it is the government that governs because – axiomatically – that is what makes them a government.
You have a different concept, apparently.
But, so sorry, “government is supposed to be the servant, not the master” strikes me as a an example of empty posturing, it is not a political manifesto.
send hurricane isaias out to sea,let it linger there with lightning skyward and seaward.salvations witness.
TonyL,
“implicit putdown” ‘face burka’ is a completely made up the term, as is your implied outrage.
“we are too busy arguing about ideology”
No, but the left is quite busy destroying society in a desperate attempt to keep Trump from being reelected.
Yeah Right,
I’m writing a comment on a blog post, not a political manifesto, however I’ll point out we have other options here than just the two you mention.
Latest advice is that the Melbourne outbreak is caused by a mutation that makes it the most infectious strain on the planet so far. That is another reason for the lockdown.
…”I’ll point out we have other options here than just the two you mention”…
I quite agree that there are a range of options.
I disagree that I am in any way responsible for introducing a dichotomy into this thread.
That would be someone else, posting back on 04 August 2020 at 12:33 AM