Port Adelaide on top: Not the time to be debating how much of a *smile* head Kochy is
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Coronavirus
- Thread starter Tigers of Old
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Port Adelaide on top: Not the time to be debating how much of a *smile* head Kochy is
That is an interesting point.... Goes to the why? us Vics have dropped the ball. Being flippant the volume of invective I have sprayed when watching the tigers the last two weeks has to escape somewhere and it could have been COVId laden.
Other posters have said pretty much the same but I go back to the very early days advice. The risk factors were 1) close contact for more than 15 minutes and 2) prolonged proximity in a confined space for more than 2 hours and 3) hand face contagion. All activities that could not meet 1 and 2 were off.
That still seems to sum up how and where cases are contracted.
I would say extended and nuclear family and home events are more risky than pubs and restaurants where the time spent and distancing are enforced. (Recall the early days where there were dinner parties of 12or 14 with 10 cases eventuating)
I would query that there was a lot of large gatherings until the last few weeks ..traffic on weekends was a throw back to the 70s in my part of Melbiurne. This month it was back to 2019 levels.
And offices cannot operate at anywhere capacity (anyone know if our interstate brethren have allowed office returns?)
That still seems to sum up how and where cases are contracted.
I would say extended and nuclear family and home events are more risky than pubs and restaurants where the time spent and distancing are enforced. (Recall the early days where there were dinner parties of 12or 14 with 10 cases eventuating)
I would query that there was a lot of large gatherings until the last few weeks ..traffic on weekends was a throw back to the 70s in my part of Melbiurne. This month it was back to 2019 levels.
And offices cannot operate at anywhere capacity (anyone know if our interstate brethren have allowed office returns?)
The BLM rally coincided with the relaxing of restrictions to allow 20 people in your house, among other things. I went to a house party that night, in fact. Got a bit relaxed and hugged/shook hands with a few. Not wise, mea culpa, but how many thousands did similar that weekend and the following weeks? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? We all had a hard case of stir crazy, and went a bit OT like kids on red cordial. We got a bit complacent - it's the Aussie way.
On why Vic's numbers are worse, I posted a quote from a Peter van Onselen article, here's the full text:
Jazzy, I don't reckon anyone got hysterical about golf except the people whinging that they couldn't play.
On why Vic's numbers are worse, I posted a quote from a Peter van Onselen article, here's the full text:
Why Victoria has failed to tame COVID
There are serious shortcomings in Victoria which Daniel Andrews and his government will never admit to.
By PETER VAN ONSELEN
Many Australians would be wondering how it came to be that the state that imposed the strictest lockdowns at the beginning of this pandemic is suffering from a second wave of infections on a scale not witnessed elsewhere.
That is Victoria’s fate at present, and the reason it has been forced into localised lockdowns as it attempts to control the spread of the coronavirus.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: AAP
More than a million Victorians are forced to endure additional restrictions, slowing the speed at which Premier Daniel Andrews can move through the three stages of lifting the lockdown, as agreed by the national cabinet.
Victoria is suffering from a surge in community transmissions other states so far have managed to avoid. But why? Several states had large-scale Black Lives Matter protests a few weeks back, so it can’t simply be a case of saying they are responsible for Victoria’s woes when other states are not also seeing a significant uptick in community transmissions.
Besides, evidence of community transmissions because of the protests is limited at best.
Victoria’s failure comes down to its manifestly inadequate organisational health department structure and the subsequent lack of skills on the ground to manage a second wave.
If Andrews asked for help from interstate, the failures could be overcome, but so far he hasn’t. If the national cabinet truly does function effectively, interstate swapping of ideas and personnel could help get the surge of infections under better control in the Melbourne suburbs, where they are out of control.
So far that hasn’t happened, but the national cabinet meets again this Friday.
Like the rest of the country, Victoria was able to control the virus the first time around with swift statewide action to lock down the economy and society. But reopening the state has exposed the organisational deficiencies in Victoria’s health services.
No public health units in local health districts, as happens in other states, is a significant shortfall. The Victorian model centralises power, which reduces the skills and abilities of local health districts to manage outbreaks when they occur. They are the frontline in controlling this.
And Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, sits three levels below the Premier and Health Minister, reducing his line-management rights and responsibilities and hampering his ability to make decisions swiftly in what needs to be a fast-paced response setting.
Sutton isn’t even a deputy secretary within Victoria’s health bureaucracy, as the chief health officers are in similarly large states such as NSW and Queensland. In fact, all other states classify their CHOs as a deputy secretary or equivalent for reporting purposes. In Victoria, the CHO is merely one of seven direct reports to one of the five deputy secretaries who report to the secretary of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. Which means he is a long way down the totem pole.
Sutton therefore doesn’t have the communications team around him that other CHOs (and the federal Chief Medical Officer) have. That’s not a case of Sutton lacking a team of spin merchants, as are often embedded in political offices. I’m talking about health communications teams with the skills to engage with culturally and linguistically diverse communities, or CALD groupings.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton. Picture: Getty Images
These are the communities that are, unsurprisingly, some of the hardest to reach. But they are also the communities most at risk from international arrivals. You would have thought intuitively Victoria would be better at managing such diversity than most other states — but, alas, not when it comes to its Health Department.
Engagement with CALD communities needs to be one of the first priorities of managing this pandemic to tackle surges in community transmission swiftly. But because the Victorian bureaucracy has diminished the standing of the CHO and not invested in public health units in local health districts, it is playing catch-up in trying to manage possible community transmissions in CALD groupings.
Andrews has yet to ask for help interstate, but he desperately needs it. It is perhaps unsurprising that he hasn’t, after Victoria went it alone on several policy fronts during the first wave, and after the Premier recently described South Australia as a destination you wouldn’t want to travel to, in response to SA’s unwillingness to open its borders to Victoria.
Long lines of cars wait for up to two hours at Melbourne’s Highpoint Shopping Centre for a COVID-19 test yesterday. Picture: /Getty Images
The shortcomings in Victoria — which are long-entrenched public policy failures — won’t even be admitted to by its government. Partly, perhaps, because Andrews himself is a former health minister, meaning that the health structure he has overseen as a minister and Premier is one he feels politically compelled to defend.
Andrews gloats about the “army” of contact tracers in his home state, which is a statement of fact. But he glosses over the lack of skilled personnel overseeing them. The biggest army doesn’t always win without good generalship.
As a consequence, Victoria now poses a nationwide risk. Not so much on the health front, as authorities believe that despite the surge in community transmissions in Victoria it should be able to be brought back under control. A daily new infection rate of 15 to 25, which so far doesn’t appear to be rising exponentially, is manageable — notwithstanding a contact-tracing target pushing well above 1000.
The real danger, however, is that Victoria’s second wave will keep state borders closed for longer around the country, thereby doing further damage to the economy and the sectors within it that rely so heavily on fluid travel.
Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.
Jazzy, I don't reckon anyone got hysterical about golf except the people whinging that they couldn't play.
Like the Spanish Flu and SARS the virus may become less dangerous even in the absence of a vaccine. But relying on this is not wise.
I have mentioned this before too, there is absolutely no guarantee of a vaccine. Then we have potentially the situation where it is eradicated in Australia and not in most of the world and we can't really stay locked behind our borders.
It is a huge quandary.
DS
Herd immunity was proven by Sweden to be a failed theory. Only 6.1% of the population has antibodies, and they need at least 60% for it to work. This is a classic example of scientific modelling by very smart people being way, way off target.
As terrible as the outcome for the UK has been, if they had proceeded down this path it would've been far worse.
Always a reaction. You lot get bent out of shape by opinions or facts that aren't convenient to you, and attack the messenger. It's what you do.
Not quite right. Those agitating for golf were seen as selfish despite little evidence it represented a transmission risk. There was no logic to it, it was more a "just suck it up" attitude. The fact that every other state allowed golf without incurring outbreaks was ignored. The health and well-being benefits of golf were ignored. Sam Newman had a good point but because of his antics and the fact it was Newman they were dismissed.
I doubt if they impose further restrictions that golf would again be banned.
Time to start a new graph. Pre Army and post Army. Then we can argue about cause and effect. Even though the army won't be patrolling the hot spot street in tanks will their mere presence scare us into compliance?
I don’t get the army thing. The government really seems spooked. Are we getting the real figures?
I'm not calling this the secnd wave and not even a spike. I think spikes are pointy, we seem to have a raised plateau which is not desirable, but is not growing at the exponential rate that represents an out of control infection rate. It may break out it may not.
And my now ancient statistics degree whispered the chi-squared test to me. That is the one that says is a distribution of events across a number of areas random or not. The current distribution of cases may well fal l within a reasonably expected range. Or it may not. (This last para may wel be BS as my degree was in our last golden era)
And my now ancient statistics degree whispered the chi-squared test to me. That is the one that says is a distribution of events across a number of areas random or not. The current distribution of cases may well fal l within a reasonably expected range. Or it may not. (This last para may wel be BS as my degree was in our last golden era)
I wouldn't. Good luck telling traditional Italian families that have met weekly for decades they can no longer do it. And I imagine that would go for many other families.
I think they are just more available bodies to put on the streets. And disciplined people, who will hopefully avoid the issues the guards at quarantine hotels have had.
