Coronavirus

[Scoop]

Sydney in a horrid way. As much as they have done this to themselves, its a long road out, feel for them.

 

[DavidSSS]

I think is what the term "in the community" means.

My understanding is that unless you are told to isolate then you are "in the community". Ie. you are allowed to live normally under current restrictions, you can work if you are an essential worker, you can go to coles etc.

So essentially this is a measure of how much control contact tracing has over the current outbreak, and an increasing proportion of people being in the community means that contact tracers are falling further behind in the volumes of primary and secondary contacts that they need to contact. Unless they can get on top of this, they will not be able to control the spread and logic tells you that the virus will continue to spread.

Add to this those who are asymptomatic and therefore not getting tested and you get spread. The less people getting the virus means less asymptomatic people in circulation. The numbers now are such that they can't contact trace quick enough, they really can't lift the lockdown until this is under control.

DS

 

[mrposhman]

Watching a few of these pressers now from NSW, you can hear the desperation coming out, from Glayds, Hazzard, and also the journos.

 

[eZyT]

Show some leadership Morrison!!!

yeah and Kevin Sheedy should show some humility.

and maybe The Dalia Lama could dwell on the past,

and Greg-brian Myers could follow through straight on a kick.

oh, and I'd like to see Amanda Vandstone get her listening:talking ratio up a bit too.

Watching a few of these pressers now from NSW, you can hear the desperation coming out, from Glayds, Hazzard, and also the journos.

yeah, they know lockdown lite probably means 5 million people are locked up till the Cox Plate,

and they're gonna have to get some shitty job as Ambassador to Paris, or CEO of the NSW Minerals Council, Or PR boss of Westpac,

or something like that.

 

[Wildride]

16 out of 22 Vic cases fully isolated

 

[Ian4]

I would 100% support a royal commission as long as it involved all stakeholders on a national basis answering questions. And investigating the ruby princess, Vic outbreak, aged care, HQ and the NSW outbreak.

Gilding the lily a bit their mate. HQ whitewash/inquiry was a disgraceful performance by Andrews and all of the ministers and bureaucrats involved.

I agree he has admitted some mistakes but that inquiry was an absolute joke. Collective amnesia and creeping assumptions...............

16 of 22 in Iso for infecious period. phew.

 

[Tigers of Old]

Funniest thing I heard from Gladys today in the presser was her saying she doesn't comment on other states.

 

[TT33]

Lot of talk here about comparative risk, which is a reasonable topic, but let's get some perspective.

Yes, we lose 1,000 people on the roads each year (nationally) - but it isn't as if we just accept this and do nothing about it. Back in the early 1970s we had a road toll well over 1,000 a year in Victoria alone, remember there were maybe 2.5 million people in Melbourne back then. Action was taken, seat belt laws introduced, breath testing, speed limits reduced, cars are far safer etc. I well remember the campaign to get the road toll down to 899 in Victoria. What is it now, maybe 300?

Life has risks, but we do take action to reduce risk.

COVID has been compared to the 'flu, and it is true that the 'flu causes deaths every year without the response we have had to COVID. But there are many differences. As someone above pointed out, the 'flu tends to be fatal where there are other issues and COVID is like a very bad 'flu pandemic, it does kill more and does overwhelm health systems. The 'flu which went around after WWI is a more apt comparison and that killed millions.

The number in Melbourne is not great, was hoping it would keep going down, oh well, it should turn. NSW much worse, I think they are likely to have to wait a few more days until the more stringent restrictions take hold and hopefully the numbers will come down, but NSW will have to restrict movement for quite a while to get this under control.

DS

I remember the "Declare War On 1034" campaign. 1034 was the number of road deaths in Victoria in 1969, just think of that, the Pop. of Victoria was 2.5 to 3M & a road toll that high.
Now with a pop. nearly doubled it's down to approx. 300.

 

[caesar]

delete

 

[mrposhman]

16 out of 22 Vic cases fully isolated

Did they say how many of the other 6 were partially isolated?

 

[Coburgtiger]

Did they say how many of the other 6 were partially isolated?

They just said that they contributed very few new exposure sites due to the lockdown.

 

[RoarEmotion]

I remember the "Declare War On 1034" campaign. 1034 was the number of road deaths in Victoria in 1969, just think of that, the Pop. of Victoria was 2.5 to 3M & a road toll that high.
Now with a pop. nearly doubled it's down to approx. 300.

Ok but we don’t want fifty years to do lockdowns whilst we get better. Sure minimise risk that is obvious. I’m being a bit of a *smile* stirrer but we didn’t stop driving whilst we improved road safety.

we have to open up while recalcitrants get vaccinated (after everyone has a chance) and we improve minimising risk to those at risk.

 

[Wildride]

Did they say how many of the other 6 were partially isolated?

Nope, but they did say that the number of exposure sites were limited due to the lockdown.

 

[AngryAnt]

Yep for sure I’m assuming that once everyone has a chance to get vaccinated there isn’t a secondary effect to the rest of the community And the existing systems can handle the caseload it generates. I was focused on the individual choice of doing something riskier like motorbike riding vs automobile travel and the individual choice to vaccinate once everything is opened up.

I don’t think we have a cohesive view of the secondary effects of lockdown. It gets over simplified to dollars Vs lives. But the mental stress and loss of f2f learning for kids etc are hard to quantify. Being mainly utilitarian in my thinking i simplify an Overall good objective for society as maximising quality of life on average per person over eternity (until sun red dwarfs) but be buggered if I know how you measure that. it fits my narrative on making difficult trade offs like what we are discussing here. (Tim Hartford podcast cautionary tales very good at looking at secondary effects - my classic is where a train derailed it so they slowed it down permanently causing more people to drive to work because that was quicker leading to more automobile deaths than saved by risk of another train derailment)

the road toll is down 20% with lockdowns so a minor secondary effect positive for anyone looking for a ray of sunshine. Flu deaths are zero I heard but haven’t seen stats. I guess COVID got those very susceptible to flu first or they weren’t exposed.

Yep, got it. I don't think we'll know the true costs either way for years and years.

 

[Brodders17]

Yep for sure I’m assuming that once everyone has a chance to get vaccinated there isn’t a secondary effect to the rest of the community And the existing systems can handle the caseload it generates. I was focused on the individual choice of doing something riskier like motorbike riding vs automobile travel and the individual choice to vaccinate once everything is opened up.

I don’t think we have a cohesive view of the secondary effects of lockdown. It gets over simplified to dollars Vs lives. But the mental stress and loss of f2f learning for kids etc are hard to quantify. Being mainly utilitarian in my thinking i simplify an Overall good objective for society as maximising quality of life on average per person over eternity (until sun red dwarfs) but be buggered if I know how you measure that. it fits my narrative on making difficult trade offs like what we are discussing here. (Tim Hartford podcast cautionary tales very good at looking at secondary effects - my classic is where a train derailed it so they slowed it down permanently causing more people to drive to work because that was quicker leading to more automobile deaths than saved by risk of another train derailment)

the road toll is down 20% with lockdowns so a minor secondary effect positive for anyone looking for a ray of sunshine. Flu deaths are zero I heard but haven’t seen stats. I guess COVID got those very susceptible to flu first or they weren’t exposed.

part of the issue also is though we dont know the full effects on Covid, for those who survive. Some appear to have no ill effects at all. Some get a bit crook for a week or 2, some for longer, but then some have ongoing health issues, the cost of which is unknown.
It all makes decision making incredibly difficult.

Then some people suggest that because we have had 1000 deaths, it is measuring the cost of 1000 deaths v the $??billion dollars lockdown have cost. It is actually they 100,000(?) deaths that have been prevented. The ensuing costs of health treatment, work absences from illness etc that all need to be factored in too, a practically impossible tasks.

Lockdown will need to reduce at some point, but it really is impossible to know how and when is the right time.

 

[AngryAnt]

Then some people suggest that because we have had 1000 deaths, it is measuring the cost of 1000 deaths v the $??billion dollars lockdown have cost. It is actually they 100,000(?) deaths that have been prevented. The ensuing costs of health treatment, work absences from illness etc that all need to be factored in too, a practically impossible tasks.

Exactly - the cost and toll of doing nothing and letting the virus go unchecked and the hospital system failing goes unmeasured.

This study had a crack at it, not sure if posted on the thread before.

Yes, lockdowns are costly. But the alternatives are worse

Our modelling shows the elimination strategy, including early, sharp lockdowns, remains Australia’s best policy.

theconversation.com

 

[MB78]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1417683280439111688

Looking at the numbers aged to 40 to 50 fully vaccinated. It shows that the numbers will improve quickly if they can get these Pfizer doses out into the vaccination centres.

 

[DavidSSS]

part of the issue also is though we don't know the full effects on Covid, for those who survive. Some appear to have no ill effects at all. Some get a bit crook for a week or 2, some for longer, but then some have ongoing health issues, the cost of which is unknown.
It all makes decision making incredibly difficult.

Then some people suggest that because we have had 1000 deaths, it is measuring the cost of 1000 deaths v the $??billion dollars lockdown have cost. It is actually they 100,000(?) deaths that have been prevented. The ensuing costs of health treatment, work absences from illness etc that all need to be factored in too, a practically impossible tasks.

Lockdown will need to reduce at some point, but it really is impossible to know how and when is the right time.

There really is no definitive answer as to when we should end lockdowns and find a way to live with the virus. Clearly a much higher level of vaccination is required, but how we determine this is an unknown.

With the 'flu epidemic after WWI they had to find a way to live with the virus, but we have vaccines which changes everything.

We'll see the effects of different strategies across the world and how they fare, in hindsight we'll probably still argue about what should have been done.

At the end of the day we just need to get as many people vaccinated, here and in other countries, and then make a judgement about how we go forward.

DS

 

[MD Jazz]

As far as I can see all other premiers, and Chief Ministers, have responded about the same, after Victoria's failed attempts at managing increasing numbers last year. Lockdown early to stop numbers getting out of control.

It would be great if we had the minutes of the NC meetings released. Was it consensus that the states would handle quarantine themselves? In some ways a real leader would have not ceded responsibility for what was the most important National crisis - covid only came in from OS, with the correct strategy we could have had a covid free nation. I can only imagine the setup costs were obscenely high?

 

[MD Jazz]

The thing about opening up is you still have the choice whether to go out or not. You don’t have to go to a restaurant, you don’t have to go to the football, you don’t have to go to a party. You can make your chances of contracting covid very low with your choices. Just because a nightclub is open doesn’t mean you have to go. Obviously opening up will lead to increased of covid in the community but if you are in a higher risk age bracket getting vaccinated and making smart choices should make you very safe.