• Welcome to the Green and Gold Rugby forums. As you can see we've upgraded the forums to new software. Your old logon details should work, just click the 'Login' button in the top right.

COVID-19 Stuff Here

Tex

John Thornett (49)
I've found that the media reporting is toxic in the extreme and on a personal level, fairly deleterious to my mental health. We're at a point in time when we would be best served by focusing our attention and energy locally, rather than each of us worrying about international news items that are so far from our locus of control.

My advice, if you're struggling with this situation, is to stop checking a media business' interpretation of information, stop reading car-crash articles about Italy, USA and Western Europe. If you need to be up-to-date, seek out the same source material that the journos are relying on.
 

Ignoto

John Thornett (49)
That's not 100% accurate.

COAG has elevated any advice given by Australian Health Protection Principal Committee to have equal standing with that given by COAG, which is a major upgrade in the management of the situation by professionals, rather than politicians.

Tex, compare that to the recent bushfires and it was Shane Fitzsimmons essentially running the show while Gladys played second fiddle. It is odd that we move away from a system that has shown to work in our natural emergencies to what appears to be an response that is not consistent.

I think what clearly demonstrates the politicians ultimate failure is the handling of the Ruby Princess docking in Sydney. The NSW Health Minister cleared all passengers to go home without test results or isolation. Then he turns around and simply says "my bad".....
 

Ignoto

John Thornett (49)
I've found that the media reporting is toxic in the extreme and on a personal level, fairly deleterious to my mental health. We're at a point in time when we would be best served by focusing our attention and energy locally, rather than each of us worrying about international news items that are so far from our locus of control.

100% agree with you. It's absolutely horrendous to read. Don't even bother reading some of the social media sites like Reddit. Some people simply won't listen to why its necessary to keep the economy in mind when making health decisions, nor do they want to face the hard reality that decision makers need to make.

Hell, I've got a mate who should know better as he is a Doc. All he's been posting on Facebook is doom and gloom. When I pointed to him some positives that Australia is doing (i.e. we were/are one of the leading countries doing testing, our death rate is low, our population is on average 8 years younger than Italy and we're not a nation of smokers) he brushes it aside saying we shouldn't congratulate ourselves.

Nothing seems to appease some members of our society.
 

Dctarget

John Eales (66)
Interestingly, Dandrews came out yesterday saying Vic will close all non-essential businesses in the next 48 hours. Went to the national cabinet and now it seems only hospitality venues will be closed. You can still go to your physio, JB Hi-Fi, dog groomer, cafe for takeaway. Reading between the lines it seems Scotty got cross and came down hard on him to cause this back track. Didn't even know that was possible.
 

Tex

John Thornett (49)
That makes sense. The strong advice is to hold off on triggering a societal shut down until it is absolutely necessary.
 

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
Interestingly, Dandrews came out yesterday saying Vic will close all non-essential businesses in the next 48 hours. Went to the national cabinet and now it seems only hospitality venues will be closed. You can still go to your physio, JB Hi-Fi, dog groomer, cafe for takeaway. Reading between the lines it seems Scotty got cross and came down hard on him to cause this back track. Didn't even know that was possible.

I think the Feds would have had some pretty sobering predictions about the economy they would have wheeled out that would have changed the tune of Andrews and Berejiklian. RBA and Treasury data projections are pretty rubbishy for anything over a year but they have access to very good numbers in the short term.
 

Froggy

John Solomon (38)
Both Andrews and Gladys took this stance to the National Cabinet meeting last night, a bit of pre-negotiating grandstanding.
The big factor that seems to have dominated that meeting is that all states had to be singing from the same hymn sheet, I don't know whether that came from Morrison or Murphy, but they certainly both took that position very strongly last night.

While not an apologist for these guys, I think it's disappointing that so many on here just want to bag the politicians regardless of what they do. You all trashed Morrison for not taking the lead during the bushfire crisis (on which I totally agree with you) and now when he takes carriage of this, you all want the politicians out of it and leave it to the experts. Why not just say 'I don't like the guy, I don't care what he does I will criticise it'.

We are facing the biggest national crisis since WW2, the politicians are acting on the advice they get from the public health authorities, I really don't know what else you expect them to do.
 

Dctarget

John Eales (66)
Both Andrews and Gladys took this stance to the National Cabinet meeting last night, a bit of pre-negotiating grandstanding.
The big factor that seems to have dominated that meeting is that all states had to be singing from the same hymn sheet, I don't know whether that came from Morrison or Murphy, but they certainly both took that position very strongly last night.

While not an apologist for these guys, I think it's disappointing that so many on here just want to bag the politicians regardless of what they do. You all trashed Morrison for not taking the lead during the bushfire crisis (on which I totally agree with you) and now when he takes carriage of this, you all want the politicians out of it and leave it to the experts. Why not just say 'I don't like the guy, I don't care what he does I will criticise it'.

We are facing the biggest national crisis since WW2, the politicians are acting on the advice they get from the public health authorities, I really don't know what else you expect them to do.
Not at all. I'm happy for him to take the lead on it - it's his job. But as others have posted he proudly boasted he went to the footy just last weekend then gets upset when a few days later people still go to the beach. He has a chance to get ahead of this and he's squandering this.
 

Dctarget

John Eales (66)
I don't know whose ambit this was but by god this is fucking stupid: 48 people who were on the Ruby Princess that docked in Sydney, after the cruise ship ban, who were allowed to go home have tested positive for Cornavirus because the cruise was deemed "low risk".
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Yep, Gladys, who won't be marked on the economic outcomes, is in favour of shutting everything down, Scomo, who will be marked on the economics, wants to keep things open. Regardless of whether you align more with the position of Scomo or Gladys it's pretty obvious that they're still playing politics even in the crisis. You don't want politicians running the show because their incentives are not tied to optimal outcomes but instead their self-perceived popularity.


You don't think Scomo is going to cop a lot of blame if we end up with thousands of people dying and our hospitals completely overloaded?

They'll all get marked on the economics. State budgets are going to be disastrous too. In many ways they have a free run to inject as much stimulus as required. Clearly most of that comes from the Feds because they're the only ones who can issue money.

Do you think that keeping things open is a possibility in a situation like Italy where several hundred people are dying every day? At some point your society stops adhering to the advice given if they lose confidence in their leaders.

We need our leaders to lead. At the moment more of that seems to be coming from the states than the Feds. Scomo still seems to be mainly sticking to it not being that big a deal.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
While not an apologist for these guys, I think it's disappointing that so many on here just want to bag the politicians regardless of what they do. You all trashed Morrison for not taking the lead during the bushfire crisis (on which I totally agree with you) and now when he takes carriage of this, you all want the politicians out of it and leave it to the experts. Why not just say 'I don't like the guy, I don't care what he does I will criticise it'.

We are facing the biggest national crisis since WW2, the politicians are acting on the advice they get from the public health authorities, I really don't know what else you expect them to do.


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.
 

Ignoto

John Thornett (49)
You all trashed Morrison for not taking the lead during the bushfire crisis (on which I totally agree with you) and now when he takes carriage of this, you all want the politicians out of it and leave it to the experts.

After seeing the damage Patient 31 caused on South Korea which was known for weeks, you've got to wonder why on earth Scomo attended the Sharks game (or allowed it to go ahead) and hasn't shutdown any type of religious gatherings.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
After seeing the damage Patient 31 caused on South Korea which was known for weeks, you've got to wonder why on earth Scomo attended the Sharks game (or allowed it to go ahead) and hasn't shutdown any type of religious gatherings.


He didn't attend in the end I don't believe. He said all that week he was going to attend and then didn't at the last minute after Dutton had the positive test for COVID-19.
 

Froggy

John Solomon (38)
He has shut down religious gatherings, and, while he (quite stupidly) said he was going to the Sharks game, in the event he didn't.
Given the response of all the other footy codes, I think the NRL are showing extreme irresponsibility, and are just asking to be closed down.
 

Froggy

John Solomon (38)
BH, I'm not sure whether you're suggesting the Public Health Authorities got it wrong, or the PM ignored them.
 

Ignoto

John Thornett (49)
Fair enough, I missed the religious gatherings, I take back my remark on that one (and him personally attending the game).
 

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
You don't think Scomo is going to cop a lot of blame if we end up with thousands of people dying and our hospitals completely overloaded?

Where did I intimate that? Of course he will be blamed if that eventuates but he's going to be judged pretty harshly on the economic outcomes. The general public will not attribute the economic consequences to the states regardless of their budget outcomes, economic literacy is very low amongst the wider population.

Shutting everything down isn't a trivial hit in the hip pocket, we have very good econometric and clinical studies pointing to increasing mortality rates when joblessness increases. Here's a good meta-analysis estimating the loss of a job increases the chance of fatality by 63%:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/


This is a delicate balancing act between saving lives by stopping the virus and saving lives by preserving the economy. The fact that Scomo is so indecisive should illustrate that, if the optimal answer was obvious he would have chosen that because that's what will be best for his political life in the long run.

This isn't a defence of Scomo, ideally he would have been on the front foot weeks ago stopping migrants coming in and he wouldn't find himself in this situation (although, who was advising him on this? This has been mismanaged from the top since the WHO first started ignoring Taiwan's suggestions that it was spreading person to person). There's a whole range of questions that need to be answered when designing a shutdown plan. How long do we shut everything down? What triggers a reopening? How do we control social distancing fatigue?
 

I like to watch

David Codey (61)
He didn't attend in the end I don't believe. He said all that week he was going to attend and then didn't at the last minute after Dutton had the positive test for COVID-19.

More accurately, after his political minders told him it would be a “brave” decision to attend....
 

Teh Other Dave

Alan Cameron (40)
I hate to say it guys, but the horrible scenes in Lombardy, Washington state, and Hubei are newsworthy as a human tragedy. Western Europe and the UK are next, and we're not that far behind. The worst part is that we've been allowed to observe China, then Italy, and now the US, but have still pretty much followed their trajectory.

The worst part? If we were prepared to take the hit early, learn from the places that learned the hard lessons from SARS, the economic hardship could have been attenuated. Instead we're now in a situation where we are staring down the barrel of both serious economic decline AND catastrophic, preventable loss of life (in the thousands).

Think of all the public messages that governments have put out regarding the war on terror. Now think of the near-complete absence of any coherent communication of a strategy to deal with the pandemic. And by that, not just (late) announcements of closures, but proper, timely public safety announcements.

The people in medicine (including epidemiology) I know are in disbelief of the public and government responses. They're frightened of the deluge to come. They'll be risking their lives to treat these patients, and will probably be isolated from their loved ones while all of this goes on. Patients will die in isolation. I'm sorry to say it, but while the economic fallout of limiting the spread will be devastating, but the human cost of the virus will be far, far worse.
 
Top