Ignorance of history. Gold fish memories. It has always been thus.

Peter: Hear, hear and well said, Sir!

Imagine a world with no whooping cough vaccine!? And the death toll on the hapless, unenviable, newborn babies!?

Take care and stay safe.
Alan B.

How do we ensure Chief Medical Officers do their job, their real job, I want them back in their box advising and just advising. I also want someone who knows about previous diseases rather than formulating Extinction Rebellion's plans for us! No travel, no industry and economic ruin.
I for one do not want to be living in a cave eating grass seeds.

J> B. What a load of horse feather and bird's fur!

A few weeks of restricted movement and closed clubs and pubs is not the dawn of the death of civilisation, numbnuts

If we go back too early, too fast, Genius? And there is a second wave in concert with seasonal flu?

There could be yet another even longer mandatory shutdown and a real reason for rebellious juveniles like your very privileged, very important self, to have something to endlessly whine about!

Poor little ickle diddums, there there, mummy/ll kiss it better!!
Alan B.

Alan B we have our economy trashed. If you had any commercial experience you would realise many people denied work will not get back into it. Many people will lose their houses. House building will stall and we are in for a depression along with the Western World. As a retiree I can amble along unlike so many younger people who will be scarred by this.
We should never have started with this because the Chief Medical Officers will be itching to exercise their new powers and ramp up the economic vandalism. I remind you genius that we have had two flu pandemics in 1957 and 1968 both killed a bit more than a million people each time including my Mother. No lock down, no new political powers and everything carried on.
I also think there will be another burst of old aged deaths this winter and as I am 72 and in indifferent health I could fall victim too. What nonsense a few ninety year olds die and you idiots squeal and run for cover, pathetic.
Lets see how this pans out over this winter but try not to frighten yourself Alan!

Dear JBowyer,

Here you go mate. See, nothing like a regular flu season or even an irregular one.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

I haven't forgotten that the US killed 50 million with the Spanish Flu.

SR we have suffered less than one hundred deaths in Australia and I venture to suggest that is a statistical non event. For that we have debt stretching out beyond my lifetime for absolutely no discernible benefit for our country. The coming depression will really test our idiot leaders and us.
I would certainly think we could see a real resurgence next month when winter starts but flu pandemics in 1957 and 1968 did not result in any lock downs.
Giving some pompous, idiot doctor a title of Chief Medical Officer and letting him shut us down has now been shown to be the height of folly. Welcome to Victoria the state of confusion and debt.

the same ones creating the panic and upheaval are the same mob working on the vaccine! Enough people signed up for the app so you can go to the footy? Good little children who are happy to support little kids and adults throwing tantrums to shut down cities and taking time of school in the name of climate change but now so quick to comply with those who have panicked societies.

Yes J B. I can only thank the lord that fools have no place in the formulation of public policy!

As for the recovery?

We can have one that'll knock your socks off, as a very robust recovery and entirely independent of the actions and Broken record BS of other alleged leaders!

Cannot be that preferred by the robber barons/rogue exploitive employers/extreme capitalists protecting their privileges/profits above all else! And the devil take the hindmost!

Our leaders have to take a moment aand ask themselves, what will I be remembered for and judged for, for my actions and alleged loyalties and Christian integrity coming out of the start of the beginning!?

Or to shore up the political partisan position or did those considerations and the usual BS, business as usual and perverse puppet loyalties prevail?

Did I leave no stone unturned, no former idealogy unjettisoned as we moved mountains to ensure not just a recovery but an explosion of cooperative commercial enterprise!

Because that's is what's required to get this economy up off of the canvas and delivering the knockout blow during the championship round.

There could be, even now, as much as a trillion lazy dollars out there looking for a guaranteed safe harbour and we could provide one if we were to roll out, self-terminating, tax-free, guaranteed returns, thirty-year investment bonds and use that money to get SMR, MSR, thorium and nuclear waste burning technology up and running and powering an economy with no equal.

Start with the world's fastest rapid rail (VLT) along our eastern seaboard and wait for the economy to jump-start in every direction without the usual naysayers' limitations!

We have to understand the new industries will be co-ops and mostly fully automated! And means a serious brake on migration to all but force it into being. And assisted with real tax reform, manifesting as a single tax at an unavoidable 15% flat, above a more generous tax-free threshold!

Put power in the mix at just 3 cent PKWH and just wait to be killed in the rush to invest and relocate!
Alan B.

Dear JBowyer,

You write;

"I would certainly think we could see a real resurgence next month when winter starts but flu pandemics in 1957 and 1968 did not result in any lock downs."

That is because there was a vaccine developed which curbed the infections.

"Hilleman worked under the public radar yet touched most people’s lives. He was chief of respiratory diseases at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research when a new H2N2 type of influenza, termed the Asian flu, hit in 1957—eventually causing more than 1 million deaths worldwide and killing an estimated 70,000 to 116,000 in the U.S. The number of American deaths could have reached 1 million, public health experts estimated, without the quick arrival of 40 million doses of vaccine that fall. With a reputation for emphasizing safety and reducing vaccine side effects, Hilleman nonetheless led that vaccine’s rollout by ignoring anyone who might slow him down, including federal regulators."
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-man-who-beat-the-1957-flu-pandemic/

We do not have a vaccine yet for Covid19.

JB,

Dumb-dumb: " .... we have suffered less than one hundred deaths in Australia ..... " precisely because Morrison ordered lock-downs early. If he hadn't, we wouldn't be much different from the basket-cases like Sweden or the US or Brasil - we would have had maybe five thousand deaths by now.

But no, fewer than one hundred so far. Thanks, Mr Morrison. Thank god you didn't take any notice of that half-wit in the US and advise us all to shine a strong light up our arses, and drink disinfectant.

Now we can get back to business: will the Yanks be able to really say that befoe next year, or beyond ? Dumb-dumbs.

Joe

SR as usual you misrepresent the facts. Faced with two major pandemics with ten times the toll of the current virus no one was stupid enough (Or Dumb Dumb, Joe) to suggest closing down the economy. That was left to the current batch of idiots and look at the result!
Alan B, I am in agreement except I would not think rail was the right way to go but it needs some serious attention and we should be up to the challenge. Your ideas are very good but the current idiocy means very little chance of success.
Joe we have faced these viruses before and we have to get the immunity up and suffer casualties. The good news is I would be a prime candidate to die due to age etc. We should have suggested older people stay in to stay safe not stupid lock downs. You are also missing the point that the current stupidity by the medicals will result in many more cancer patients dead, suffering from no elective surgery and many more depression caused suicides. Like the medical profession you can only handle one thing at a time and cannot see the need for a holistic approach. Much like the current ten ambulances lined up at our major hospitals waiting for a bed.
These dolts could not organise a party in a brewery and delight in the Public Service sport of making everything as slow and inefficient as possible. With the usual mantras of "It's a hospital" or even worse "If it saves one life"!

Dear JBowyer,

How on earth did I represent the facts? If they don't fit your narrative it certainly doesn't follow they are being misrepresented.

I think some other history would be helpful. During the 1957 Flu pandemic governments conducted various forms of shutdowns. In the UK the mines and major manufacturing were closed. The Manchester Guardian was running stories titled ‘Setback in Production — “Recession through Influenza”'.

In the US it caused a recession which took place from August 1957 to April 1958, GDP fell 4.1% in Q4 1957, then plummeted another 10% in Q1 1958.

In Australia classes whose teachers fell ill were sent home rather than overcrowding other classes and facilitating the spread.

This was nowhere near the level of today's response but it wasn't inconsequential either.

SR I was actually at school in the UK in 1957 and there was talk of if enough teachers were ill the school would be closed but it was not. In 1968 I was working in an office in central London again no shut down at all and no one ever suggested it either! I was actually there and life carried on as normal albeit with a lot of people being ill.
There were no vaccines for flu until much later so we just sucked it up and life went on.
What about all the elective surgeries and cancer patients delayed and pushed out in the medico's insane rush to hype this up as some sort of holocaust. This has been as I said before a spectacular own goal and the idiot pollies are now realising how much damage they have all caused. The real irony is the usual suspects have all kept their salaries and pensions whilst the rest of us pay and pay and pay.
Mate you are a useless idiot and will never understand real life, give it a rest!

Dear JBowyer,

You claim: “There were no vaccines for flu until much later so we just sucked it up and life went on.”.

I'm sorry but that is not correct.

“The first flu vaccine lots were produced in June, within weeks of Hilleman’s request. Vaccinations started in July. The influenza pandemic hit the U.S. in early September (just as Hilleman predicted). Forty million doses were given over the next three months.”

The UK were only a month behind starting a massive vaccination run directed at the most vulnerable before the peak in late October.