COVID-19 Stuff Here

[WorkingClassRugger]

This is the problem with Scomo's leadership though. Since the beginning he has been downplaying how serious this is and each step he taken has been woefully inadequate based on how quickly it gets overwritten by more serious action.

The fact that the states have broken ranks with him is certainly an indication that they don't think he is doing enough.

There is a clear path of how the epidemic will infect our population and how quickly it goes from being not a big problem to being out of control. We have the advantage of being behind other countries and we're not using it very well.

I would argue that no countries have gone into lockdown too early. Most countries in lockdown are dealing with a public health emergency causing their hospitals to be overrun at the same time as shutting down their economy.

What I don't like more than everything else is his priorities seem to only align with certain interests groups and not with what is actually needed to achieve real results. His sole focus during this crisis has been the economy. He may from time to time sprinkle in some platitudes about public health and safety but it's pretty evident that it's the ecomony first, second and third. Which is why he's been dragging his feet to get to where we are no and why he'll have to be dragged to the table once again to do the inevitable.

And in terms of public health and safety it's dangerous. The longer you delay the worse it will get and very likely more people will die that wouldn't had he been more focused on health based outcomes. He and others need to accept that no matter what they wish the economy is going to take a kicking and everything stimulus related will have less to do it keeping it going and more to do with keeping people going. Because if more people become sick and die than what is necessary it won't matter how the economy handled it.

 

[Braveheart81]

BH, I'm not sure whether you're suggesting the Public Health Authorities got it wrong, or the PM ignored them.

There seems to be failures in many regards.

It is hard to tell what advice is coming from where and clearly there is not unanimity between the various people providing advice.

The Chief Medical Officer certainly seems to have fallen into playing down the seriousness of it early in the piece. His appearance on Insiders last weekend shaking hands and saying there was no reason for people not to keep shaking hands only to have that advice changed later that day was a bit of a shocker.

 

[cyclopath]

TL;DR:

• social distancing measures are not understood well enough by many in the community
• relative to other major western nations, Australia is doing well
• we should expect to be locked down locally, rather than nationally
• closure of schools and lock downs are seen as a very strong measure that should be considered only when earlier social control measures are deemed ineffective, however, there is no agreed plan on how to manage a step-down from a measure like this, as relaxing social control measures might be seen as us having 'won' the fight, despite the real risk of additional waves on infection

This is today's advice as requested by the national cabinet: https://www.health.gov.au/news/aust...ronavirus-covid-19-statement-on-22-march-2020

• Australia has surpassed 1,00 cases, which is a significant concern
• situation in Australia as this benchmark was reached is vastly different to that experienced in UA and Italy
• COVID-19 test positive rates in Australia are 0.9% (compared to USA 13%, UK 5%, South Korea 3%)
• of the 7 deaths in Australia, all were people aged 75+
• of the 1,000 positive cases, so far fewer than 20 have required ICU treatment
• HOWEVER
• there are already large scale breaches of movement control measures, including two 'super-spreader' events in Sydney (wedding with 35 infections, plus a church service), who the hell knows what Bondi will do to the numbers

Here are AHPPC's positions (note that there is divergence in some areas from the states' responses):

• supports a national discontinuation of non-essential gatherings, reviewed at one month and at that time, decisions to be made re. relaxing measures or strengthening them depending on the epidemiology
• does not support closure of schools (Victoria closes theirs tomorrow)
• does not support full community lockdown
  • "It is not clear what the strategy for paring back of restrictions should be. Proponents talk about relaxing these measures when control is achieved, by keeping the borders closed for over 12 months until a vaccine is developed. Other proponents have a narrative that a 4-6 week total lock down would enable greater focus on case detection and isolation, contact tracing and quarantine, and to consolidate preparedness of the health system.
    The social disruption of this option is extreme and good compliance has generally required strong law enforcement/military presence. The public messaging of this would be challenging and need to ensure that it does not give false hope that any subsequent epidemic will either not occur or be materially modified as the long term effect of this intervention is unknown."
• recommends stronger enforcement of quarantine measures, including phone checks, mobile phone tracking (currently occurring in Singapore and Hong Kong)
• the triggers for stronger measures are being reviewed from the initial point of >50% community transmission of COVID-19. We are nearing this point currently, and AHPPC is considering that the trigger for a full lockdown could be when there is a substantial growth in local infections, relative to the ability of regional hospitals to manage these cases

3 - the Ruby Princess now stands at 48 cases in NSW and interstate. Will probably be more.

 

[Braveheart81]

A big issue at play here is trust. In a situation where people are prone to panic, trust in our leaders is critical. Whatever the plan is, they need people to trust that it is reasonable and working. When that trust breaks down and people stop doing what you're asking of them, the situation gets worse.

There was unsurprisingly a massive upswing in people trying to access Centrelink. This is playing out both in people physically at Centrelink offices and online. The myGov website is not operational now. The relevant Minister Stuart Robert has announced that it was a DDoS attack that caused it to go down but has not pointed to any party or source being responsible. In my view this is completely unbelievable and he should have just owned the fact that it was overloaded because too many people tried to access it, not try and blame it on hackers.

If you want the populace to continue trusting the leaders you need to be more transparent than ever.

 

[Teh Other Dave]

Stay safe Cyclo and all of you on the front line.

 

[Garry Owens]

^Here here Dave . And props to all in medical services who are at the front of this . Respect. And Gratitude.

 

[Brumby Runner]

There seems to be failures in many regards.

It is hard to tell what advice is coming from where and clearly there is not unanimity between the various people providing advice.

The Chief Medical Officer certainly seems to have fallen into playing down the seriousness of it early in the piece. His appearance on Insiders last weekend shaking hands and saying there was no reason for people not to keep shaking hands only to have that advice changed later that day was a bit of a shocker.

I've thought all along that the CMO has taken a very conservative view of the pandemic and wondered if he was simply being a bit cautious or providing the advice he thought the politicians wanted. Consequently, I haven't personally given much credence to some of his earlier prognostications.

 

[Tex]

The CMO is a well respected professional, with a long history practicing medicine medicine and managing major hospitals prior to entering the public service. From memory he went to Canberra in 2014 so he's hardly a political operator. A straight talker of renown and in these instances, empowered by significant legislative mechanisms.

 

[Pfitzy]

3 - the Ruby Princess now stands at 48 cases in NSW and interstate. Will probably be more.

Reckon that total will be somewhere between 3-4 times that who got off the boat either asymptomatic or mild.

 

[Pfitzy]

The CMO is a well respected professional, with a long history practicing medicine medicine and managing major hospitals prior to entering the public service. From memory he went to Canberra in 2014 so he's hardly a political operator. A straight talker of renown and in these instances, empowered by significant legislative mechanisms.

I hope you're right, mate, but when he got up there and trumpeted the "YOUNG PEOPLE!" line ScoMo did, well. . . . I didn't find him any more convincing - and I really WANTED to.

At the other end of the spectrum is Norman Swan who seems to have his shit together but a significant dose of TheSkyIsFallingItis.

Truth somewhere in the middle, as usual

 

[Pfitzy]

Have been updating my charts as data gets refreshed. A few different trackers are out there, but for consistency I'll continue to use covid19data.com.au - after all, the statistics I'm interested in are about rate of change, not absolute numbers. If their site uses the same methodology each time, then I get consistent results.

I went back and decided to do 2 plots as a sort of comparison for the 2 rates of change:

• March 1st onward is all cases from that date to give a longer term analysis.
• March 10th onward is chosen for being when positive tests reached 100, which is the sample size a lot of the exponential charts are based on.

They are not significantly different in terms of interval, but I wanted to test the theory that 100+ cases makes a difference. Short story: not at this point in significant terms. The difference in daily average case increase is < 2% (1.2044 vs 1.2246)

HOWEVER, I stress that the trend lines are still going up, and in both cases the latest total from 2045 hours today sits just above the trend line.

As of the end of March, the difference between the two sets will probably become meaningless.

 

[Ignoto]

They are not significantly different in terms of interval, but I wanted to test the theory that 100+ cases makes a difference. Short story: not at this point in significant terms. The difference in daily average case increase is < 2% (1.2044 vs 1.2246)

HOWEVER, I stress that the trend lines are still going up, and in both cases the latest total from 2045 hours today sits just above the trend line.

Would you be able to chalk the 'no differences' between the two sets as the current figures are a lagging point and that its still essentially showing transmission from people who were O/S? I would imagine we won't have any clue on how big of an impact social distancing measures put in place last/this week is going to have until Easter?

 

[Up the Guts]

They should have been testing the Uni first grade side repeatedly and using it as a case study. As it was the hooker who had the initial infection, there was ample contact between he and the rest of the team (as well as the opposition) which should have led the virus to spread. Given that there haven't been notable widespread infections across the team, it is either the case that i) they are infected but asymptomatic or ii) contact the day before showing symptoms does not always lead to spreading. My money is on the former, data coming out of Italy is saying that 99% of those who have died had existing medical conditions and 48.5% had 3+ other illnesses. Given this, it seems likely there are more asymptomatic cases (and possible superspreaders) in Aus and around the world than we think.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

The National Cabinet are apparently going to discuss stage two tonight.

 

[Lindommer]

3 - the Ruby Princess now stands at 48 cases in NSW and interstate. Will probably be more.

133 as at 1500 hrs AEDST. Appalling lack of competency on the part of the ship's medicos. This one lot of infected people, who've dispersed to many parts of Australia, could put the country's recovery back weeks, if not months.

 

[Pfitzy]

133 as at 1500 hrs AEDST. Appalling lack of competency on the part of the ship's medicoes. This one lot of infected people, who've dispersed to many parts of Australia, could put the country's recovery back weeks, if not months.

Absolute pooch screw by NSW Government to allow that ship to dock without having those cases reviewed. Ship company wanted them gone and should have been told - in no uncertain terms - to shut the F up.


One dead from Ruby Princess brings toll to 8, after sitting on 7 for a few days.

 

[Lindommer]

The ship's captain pilot's brother-in-law's best mate's wife's cousin's best friend's sister's aunt works with my wife; he's shit scared he's going to be made a scapegoat for allowing the ship to dock. Apparently he was smart enough to take a recording of the medicos' advice the ship was clear (apart from the sniffling passengers and the deliberate non-testing) before tying up.

More to come.

Correction from HM.

 

[Up the Guts]

And, immediately after the ship fiasco, Gladys moves to lock everything down.

 

[Pfitzy]

The National Cabinet are apparently going to discuss stage two tonight.

Bring it - ramp over 48 hours like NZ is doing and let's get some solid data on case increase reduction.

 

[Pfitzy]

And, immediately after the ship fiasco, Gladys moves to lock everything down.

Had relatives on the boat?