Coronavirus

[caesar]

I don't understand the reluctance of authorities at least recommending the wearing of masks, even making them mandatory in certain establishments or on public transport etc. No harm can be done in using everything in our arsenal to try to get on top of this thing.

Not that i catch it much but i wear one on Public Transport and doing the Supermarket shopping etc but not in the great outdoors.

The only slip up I made was meeting some fellow PRE ferrals, (an endearing term when referring to Tiger supporters not so when referring to Pie's ), at the London Tavern who have no sense of Social distancing at all

Why are masks not yet mandatory in Australia?

Masks could be the difference between success and failure in controlling the pandemic and saving the economy.

www.theage.com.au

 

[DavidSSS]

There were no actual numbers provided in the article, just an allegation that Victorian health is understaffed. I'm not sure it's a valid criticism; these are exceptional circumstances. How many staff can you afford to have sitting around on the off chance there's a pandemic?

Whatever the numbers are, you can bet there'd be fewer of them under a Liberal government.

I think also, as Sintiger pointed out, it is the way the DHHS is organised which has been a disadvantage in Victoria.

Hopefully someone sticks their head above the parapet and loudly shouts that there has to be a better way to organise the department.

Come on David. The Kennett Government ended in 1999. Whatever his failings, and there were numerous, that is two decades past. The subsequent 21 years have seen 17 of those under Labor Governments. Bracks, Brumby and Andrews have had more than enough opportunity to fix it. It is an indictment on them that they haven't.

As I noted above, succeeding governments from both major parties have not fixed the issues. You can add Baillieu and Napthine to that list.

Bu the point is that the issues with the DHHS's resourcing and organisational structure are coming out now so the opportunity is there to have a good look at this and make it better.

DS

 

[Ridley]

Bu the point is that the issues with the DHHS's resourcing and organisational structure are coming out now so the opportunity is there to have a good look at this and make it better.

DS

Yes hopefully something positive will come out of it.

 

[Coburgtiger]

My son's in Year 12 and he sees it as being his most important year of school. The culmination of 13 years of work. He wants to receive his ATAR just like everyone else and I agree. All the restrictions are arbitrary in reality. Some things are just deemed by society/the government to be more vital than others. I don't think that there's much debate on what the most important year of school is, so I reckon the government has got this call right at least.

You'll get a fair bit of debate about what the most important year of school is.

The only thing that separates year 12 from the other years, really, is the ATAR at the end of it. The ATAR is useful for getting into a university for degree for a short period of time. That's it.

The government could look at different methods of university entrance next year. They could use derived scores for all students based on SAC work (they do this for individual kids all the time). They could look at folio work, interview processes, or general applications. There's no reason to go off an ATAR simply because that's how we do it in non pandemic times.

As far as I'm concerned, the more important aspect of school (rather than a number which may or may not facilitate university entry) is the learning.

Year 12's are fine. They are more or less independent learners by this point, and if they're not, there's not going to be a lot of change in the second half of the year regardless. The juniors are more of a worry.

Then there's the health side. Seniors are infinitely more at risk, and a much more significant public health risk, than any other group of students.

I know my opinion is not shared by a lot of people, but there are other ways to look at this. Year 12 is externally important. Every other year has significantly more value to the learner.

 

[DavidSSS]

You'll get a fair bit of debate about what the most important year of school is.

The only thing that separates year 12 from the other years, really, is the ATAR at the end of it. The ATAR is useful for getting into a university for degree for a short period of time. That's it.

The government could look at different methods of university entrance next year. They could use derived scores for all students based on SAC work (they do this for individual kids all the time). They could look at folio work, interview processes, or general applications. There's no reason to go off an ATAR simply because that's how we do it in non pandemic times.

As far as I'm concerned, the more important aspect of school (rather than a number which may or may not facilitate university entry) is the learning.

Year 12's are fine. They are more or less independent learners by this point, and if they're not, there's not going to be a lot of change in the second half of the year regardless. The juniors are more of a worry.

Then there's the health side. Seniors are infinitely more at risk, and a much more significant public health risk, than any other group of students.

I know my opinion is not shared by a lot of people, but there are other ways to look at this. Year 12 is externally important. Every other year has significantly more value to the learner.

Yep, the Year 12s are being brought back because the ATAR at the end of it all is seen as so important.

I know the ATAR is convenient, and universities need a reasonably efficient way of determining who gets a place. But the idea that one number can sum up a potential university student's probable ability to successfully complete a course has always been a furphy. It is all about convenience.

The Year 11 and 12 students are not the best to be back at school from a public health perspective, but this is all about getting an easy system to rank students.

DS

 

[MD Jazz]

I'll say it again, at no point were students social distancing in classrooms/schools.

They are being asked to sanitise their hands. That's it. They have been sitting shoulder to shoulder, in line with the general overcrowding of classrooms that's happened more and more recently.

It's not unusual to have 27 students and a teacher in a room the size of a living room. This has been the case over the last month too.

It may be, with only seniors going back next week, that it's possible to spread them out more. It's not likely to be effective though.

I personally don't understand why seniors are going back. Senior students are the only ones who have so far been involved (driven?) a cluster of cases. They're the most at risk out of all kids. And the highest risk to public health.

They're also the most successful remote learners out of the group, having some general sense of self motivation, and the fact that remote learning lends itself more naturally to the way senior classes run.

I would have rathered the year 7's be back at school. They're the ones who appear to be lower risk, the ones who are struggling the most, and the ones whose levels of socio-economic advantage seem to affect the most (not evidence based, just personal experience).

I'm not worried about my year 12's, or year 10s, but I have a genuine concern for how the lockdowns this year will affect the juniors long term.

I agree with this. I have primary school aged children and they struggle with remote/online school. And they are extremely low risk.

Hopefully the cases come down over the next couple of weeks.

 

[Sintiger]

I wasn't aware of the mismatch in public health services between Victoria and NSW. That is damning on successive Victorian Governments and hopefully a positive that comes out of this cluster *smile* is that the public health services receive the future funds that they need to provide proper service to the fastest growing population in Australia.

Depends on what you mean by mismatch because it isn’t all bad. For instance Victoria under Kennett was the first to move to activity based public hospital funding in Australia and Victorian public hospitals are still consistently the most efficient and lowest cost in the country.
The other side of it is that other states have a much more centralised management model in public health which meant that they have been able to coordinate the response to the pandemic more easily.

Both of these are a result of the Kennett years

 

[mrposhman]

I agree with this. I have primary school aged children and they struggle with remote/online school. And they are extremely low risk.

Hopefully the cases come down over the next couple of weeks.

I'm similar, have a Grade 4 and a Grade 6.

My biggest concern around all of this is for the kids. Not all kids learn at the same rate, my 2 are totally different. The older one has found learning from home relatively easy, albeit she really misses the socialisation part of school but the internet / facetime etc helps so much more than had a pandemic like this occurred 20 years ago.

My younger one is totally different, not as driven etc. I've been working from home since the start of this and its difficult in the weeks where they are with me (50% shared custody) as I can't provide her as much help as she requires and therefore I feel she may have slipped a bit. There will be many kids like this that maybe are the slower learners or more hands on learners.

My concern (and I've raised it on here) is what is our plan if Plan A (vaccine) does not occur. I don't know of the numbers but I would take a guess that by the end of the year, it could be as much funding would have gone into Covid-19 vaccines / treatments as would normally be given to a disease in 4-5 years. I'd almost be thinking if we don't have a vaccine by the end of the year, it is probably highly likely it may never be coming. Kids will have already had to learn from home for 2 terms (assuming learning from home comes back), and my question is what if this happens again next year with Covid, do we surrender another 6 months of learning? We could end up pushing a lot of kids way back to a point where it is very difficult to recover their learning from.

Its a tough call, but for me, if no vaccine by the end of the year we need to determine what life with an unvaccinated Covid looks like and that might need to include at what level are deaths acceptable as we do with a lot of other diseases.

 

[Coburgtiger]

I'm similar, have a Grade 4 and a Grade 6.

My biggest concern around all of this is for the kids. Not all kids learn at the same rate, my 2 are totally different. The older one has found learning from home relatively easy, albeit she really misses the socialisation part of school but the internet / facetime etc helps so much more than had a pandemic like this occurred 20 years ago.

My younger one is totally different, not as driven etc. I've been working from home since the start of this and its difficult in the weeks where they are with me (50% shared custody) as I can't provide her as much help as she requires and therefore I feel she may have slipped a bit. There will be many kids like this that maybe are the slower learners or more hands on learners.

My concern (and I've raised it on here) is what is our plan if Plan A (vaccine) does not occur. I don't know of the numbers but I would take a guess that by the end of the year, it could be as much funding would have gone into Covid-19 vaccines / treatments as would normally be given to a disease in 4-5 years. I'd almost be thinking if we don't have a vaccine by the end of the year, it is probably highly likely it may never be coming. Kids will have already had to learn from home for 2 terms (assuming learning from home comes back), and my question is what if this happens again next year with Covid, do we surrender another 6 months of learning? We could end up pushing a lot of kids way back to a point where it is very difficult to recover their learning from.

Its a tough call, but for me, if no vaccine by the end of the year we need to determine what life with an unvaccinated Covid looks like and that might need to include at what level are deaths acceptable as we do with a lot of other diseases.

We can eradicate it.

Then with effective border control, quarantine procedures, tracking and tracing mechanisms, we can keep it out.

I'm quite optimistic we'll have an effective vaccine. Not by the end of the year (obviously), but in the next year and a half.

 

[mrposhman]

We can eradicate it.

Then with effective border control, quarantine procedures, tracking and tracing mechanisms, we can keep it out.

I'm quite optimistic we'll have an effective vaccine. Not by the end of the year (obviously), but in the next year and a half.

and thats fine to have as a Plan A but by the end of the year we should have some idea of whether or not a vaccine is likely.

Eradication may be possible in certain jurisdictions (and the whole of Australia is one of them), but should we not have a vaccine, then we need a different plan as shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world is a short term not a long term solution.

 

[Coburgtiger]

and thats fine to have as a Plan A but by the end of the year we should have some idea of whether or not a vaccine is likely.

Eradication may be possible in certain jurisdictions (and the whole of Australia is one of them), but should we not have a vaccine, then we need a different plan as shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world is a short term not a long term solution.

You can only really plan for the short term at the moment. There are simply too many variables.

Will it become naturally attenuated? Will it become seasonal? Will it show any significant antigenic drift? Will any of the hundreds of potential vaccines be safe, effective and scalable? Will we develop antivirals that work, or even find a way to effectively treat symptoms?

None of this we'll know for certain in 5 months time.

There's a good amount we know already. First, it seems to be relatively antigenically stable, unusually so for an RNA virus. Second, we seem to be able to generate good memory lymphocytes against it, and critically, good levels of neutralising antibodies. Thirdly, many different vaccines, even component vaccines, seem to be eliciting these antibodies.

It's looking much more promising than it was a few months ago. Until that's not the case, we have to pursue the option that saves the most lives (and by extension causes the least damage to the economy).

 

[22nd Man]

This is a huge factor. We've under resourced public health forever.

Must be A Vicorian thing given Liberal and Labour have roughly split govt last 30 years though preempting LTRTR ALP have been in power longer than Liberals. They can sheer the blame proportionally.

 

[22nd Man]

Change of tack, the COVId App hasn't proved to be of much help in contact tracing so far.

 

[The_General]

I particularly liked the strong independent opinion that the protest was a factor, and noted that nobody came from the trees to insult or condemn, or even question.

Only bit I don't necessarily agree with is the weather. Tassie is a couple of degrees colder than Victoria and hasn't had a new case in more than seven weeks.

Not saying I agree or disagree with that either Lee, but Tas and Vic aren't equal. For example, they aren't receiving flights from those returning from overseas.
NSW is however, but hasn't had the same type of community transmission. There may be other reasons of course, but its a curious situation nonetheless.

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

Change of tack, the COVId App hasn't proved to be of much help in contact tracing so far.

Would be interesting to see some data on overall uptake of the app vs positives uptake.

 

[Tigers of Old]

Change of tack, the COVId App hasn't proved to be of much help in contact tracing so far.

Trioli nailed Greg Hunt on the 7.30 report. The App has been of no assistance at all in contact tracing according to Dr Brett Sutton. Wonder how much that cost?

 

[AngryAnt]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1281157746545487872

 

[jb03]

Trioli nailed Greg Hunt on the 7.30 report. The App has been of no assistance at all in contact tracing according to Dr Brett Sutton. Wonder how much that cost?

Not much apparently. Was perhaps worth a try but has been useless.

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

Trioli nailed Greg Hunt on the 7.30 report. The App has been of no assistance at all in contact tracing according to Dr Brett Sutton. Wonder how much that cost?

$1.5m

Half the cost is for data hosting by Amazon.

 

[Tigers of Old]

$1.5m

That's not too bad. Shame it hasn't worked.