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Aussies: NSW Politicians, keeping ICAC in business


Jeor

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3 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Pretty much what the UK have done. Schools closed cafes and restaurants takeout or delivery only, pubs closed - but other retail still open. Feel like this is just asking for trouble for the reasons you said

The federal government is prevaricating a lot. It's obvious they want to keep the economy ticking along and want to avoid pulling the pin, but all this is doing is creating a lot of confusion and anxiety.

For example, ScoMo has a real go at young people for not socially distancing properly, and then closes down pubs and restaurants because people aren't doing it properly. Yet he keeps schools open? Based on people not doing it properly, schools are the first things that he should close.

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Well, that was confusing. NSW parents encouraged to keep their children at home, but schools will remain open to cater for parents who still need to send their kids to school.

The sooner we have a full lockdown the better. It's obvious that people aren't really complying with things anyway. The apartment down the hall from me just had a massive party on Sunday afternoon and I felt like being "that" neighbour that tells them off, but chickened out.

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The half measures and announcements that they'll be implementing currently unspecified measures really don't help people remain calm and measured.

Brook said it looks like Gladys and Dan intended to go further but got rolled last night to avoid undermining Morrison.

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Has there been any information on who decided the cruise ship could let all its passengers off? Or was it just that there was no procedure in place at all re cruise ships so no one stopped them?

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11 hours ago, karaddin said:

Brook said it looks like Gladys and Dan intended to go further but got rolled last night to avoid undermining Morrison.

Yes, it looks like the premiers were getting out ahead and then ScoMo put them back in their box.

The depressing thing about all this is that I just read a CNN article about how Hong Kong let down its guard too early. It was doing fine but is now dealing with a second wave; I think the lockdowns really will have to last several months rather than several weeks. Wuhan seems to have normalised after only two months, but China really threw everything at it and were much more draconian so it stands to reason they'd be able to stamp it out sooner than Western democracies.

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1 hour ago, Jeor said:

Yes, it looks like the premiers were getting out ahead and then ScoMo put them back in their box.

The depressing thing about all this is that I just read a CNN article about how Hong Kong let down its guard too early. It was doing fine but is now dealing with a second wave; I think the lockdowns really will have to last several months rather than several weeks. Wuhan seems to have normalised after only two months, but China really threw everything at it and were much more draconian so it stands to reason they'd be able to stamp it out sooner than Western democracies.

Yeah the modelling I’ve seen suggests that the lockdown has to last months rather than weeks - otherwise you achieve only delay.

ETA: Also, finally, the NRL season has been suspended. What a farce that was.

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On 3/23/2020 at 6:40 AM, Jeor said:

Yes, it looks like the premiers were getting out ahead and then ScoMo put them back in their box.

The depressing thing about all this is that I just read a CNN article about how Hong Kong let down its guard too early. It was doing fine but is now dealing with a second wave; I think the lockdowns really will have to last several months rather than several weeks. Wuhan seems to have normalised after only two months, but China really threw everything at it and were much more draconian so it stands to reason they'd be able to stamp it out sooner than Western democracies.

Countries with experience in managing pandemics do seem to have the upper hand though. Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are all reporting a lower absolute number of infections than Australia, despite closer proximity to the original epicentre.

One wild card that seems to have upset the public health response in Australia in the last week or so is arriving cruise ships. 

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We were comparing Australia and Canada a few days ago, and then all of a sudden Canada started posting bigger numbers. I just read that so far almost a million Canadians have returned home, and most would have come from the US. Being an island continent never looked so good, guys!

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11 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

We were comparing Australia and Canada a few days ago, and then all of a sudden Canada started posting bigger numbers. I just read that so far almost a million Canadians have returned home, and most would have come from the US. Being an island continent never looked so good, guys!

For sure Canada has some inherent weaknesses (winter only just ended, land border with the US, unfortunate timing with Spring Break returns). But Canada locked down sooner and more comprehensively than Australia. Aus is basically operating on the premise that community transmission is/has been low. If that assumption proves wrong, then Aus could see a dramatic uptick in cases in the nearish future. 

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Not the biggest story to come out of this crisis by any means...but WA's beloved Rottnest Island is about to be used once again for internment (this time as a quarantine station for cruise passengers). The last time this happened was WWII, when it was used to detain suspected enemy aliens (Italians). 

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I've gone back the other way now - seeing the Italian numbers starting to level off (still a horrible number of deaths, but the daily rate is decreasing), perhaps this won't last the 6 months that ScoMo has been repeating. We might be able to get by with say a 6-8 week complete shutdown and then a gradual reopening.

But either way, I think most agree that a proper shutdown will be needed at sometime. I am hoping Gladys can make that happen tomorrow's national cabinet meeting or at the very least by next week.

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interesting piece here on different strategies to combat Covid-19

Quote

Professor Blakely says the strategy favoured by the Federal Government is not designed to stop transmission.

Rather, it aims to slow it to a manageable level so hospitals don't get overwhelmed.

"You don't go in too hard because you actually want the infection rate to pick up a bit and then hold," he said.

Shutting down non-essential services and encouraging people to stay home and isolate are strategies designed to slow the spread of COVID-19.

"What they're not saying is [that] 'flatten the curve' likely means [that] by the time this is over, 60 per cent of us will have been infected, to develop herd immunity," he said.

Breaking down the latest news and research to understand how the world is living through an epidemic, this is the ABC's Coronacast.
Professor Blakely argues this type of herd immunity is the only way to ensure there is no resurgence of the virus once physical distancing and shutdown restrictions are lifted, and borders are re-opened.

Herd immunity — when a large proportion of a population has immunity from a disease because they have either been vaccinated or previously contracted it — disrupts chains of infection, and helps protect everyone.

And that means a majority of Australians would need to contract coronavirus to keep the rest of the population safe.

(my emphasis)

 

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Yes, it's clear the window has closed where we can prevent the virus from spreading. It's now just a case of how to manage that spread; and I guess the government is playing a game where they want it to gradually spread throughout the population but not too quickly in a way that overwhelms hospitals. If you were being optimistic, you might believe that it has spread quite a bit already and there are a large number of asymptomatic people, but we just don't know enough yet.

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I really feel for Aussies (and others) stuck on cruise ships around the world. Must be very stressful.

And unfortunately it’s just not a priority to repatriate them when the world is facing a global crisis.

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ScoMo spending money like a drunken sailor now with a big wage subsidy. I shouldn't criticise him, as the measure was needed to prop up the economy, but I do chuckle a bit at the surplus fetish they all had for so long that has now (correctly) gone out the window.

Government debt to GDP is still low (around 40-50% compared to Canada, UK, USA which all have 80%+) so we effectively have a rainy day fund we can dip into. Interestingly NZ is also low in the debt-to-GDP stakes (wikipedia says 26%) so they can afford to do it too. It was a joint effort by Labor and Coalition over the past 20 years to get the debt levels back down so they should both get credit for it even if some individual decisions along the way weren't quite right, the overall result means that we can spend a lot now.

Without getting ahead of ourselves too much, the COVID-19 figures look like controlled growth too, no exponential/runaway things happening yet. Our low living density and the fact that our big cities are all far apart from one another is working in our favour.

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11 hours ago, Paxter said:

I really feel for Aussies (and others) stuck on cruise ships around the world. Must be very stressful.

And unfortunately it’s just not a priority to repatriate them when the world is facing a global crisis.

How long do you have left on your canada visa?

 

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43 minutes ago, The Winged Shadow said:

How long do you have left on your canada visa?

I’m can stay here until June 2021. What is not entirely clear is if Canada would let me back in if I returned home for any reason. At this stage I’m staying put!

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Pretty good health data coming out of Australia compared to other jurisdictions. Who knows if the warmer weather is helping, but to be in a situation of only 100 new cases per day (as of yesterday) is cause for optimism. Canada is tracking over 1000+ a day at this point. 

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On 3/30/2020 at 2:49 AM, Jeor said:

ScoMo spending money like a drunken sailor now with a big wage subsidy. I shouldn't criticise him, as the measure was needed to prop up the economy, but I do chuckle a bit at the surplus fetish they all had for so long that has now (correctly) gone out the window.

Brings to mind Friedman's line: "We are all Keynesians now". 

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8 minutes ago, Paxter said:

Pretty good health data coming out of Australia compared to other jurisdictions. Who knows if the warmer weather is helping, but to be in a situation of only 100 new cases per day (as of yesterday) is cause for optimism. Canada is tracking over 1000+ a day at this point. 

Downtick is mostly due to the lockdown on arrivals. But yeah, if we can keep the community transmission under control it's looking good. Not sure where you're getting 100 cases / day yesterday though. The official figures across all the states were 302 for the 1st. Still, seems to be steadily tracking downwards.

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