Agreed. The deliberate attacks on our freedoms afforded to governments by the China virus, who from here on in will try to manage us instead of represent us, has changed Australia for ever. Once taken, freedoms are rarely returned without rebellion, and we are not that sort of people. That we have been put under duress by a government that was supposed to be right of centre shows us our future. What can we expect from the next Leftist government!

The media has helped the new totalitarianism by causing panic and hysteria. The virus always heads the news: constant yabber of "new cases", when there has been no domestic infection passed on, but has arrived with people allowed in by our 'managers'. If you actually took notice of these propagandists, you would think that people had died ONLY from the virus! Nothing else, including old age and other causes exist! They carefully keep from you the fact that, in countries, like the UK, the number deaths since the virus have been the same as the averages for the past 10 years, well before we heard of the China virus.

What a piece of stitched together, ill researched, rubbish.

It can't even get basic facts right. "Sweden did not close the schools, which is the thing that has been found to cause massive wellbeing losses among the young and their parents in other countries."

Yes they bloody well did. They certainly closed universities and upper highschools but left lower and primary schools open. Just in December of last year they announce all schools would go to distance learning for a period to cope with their second wave.

Just to be perfectly clear the first graphic has nothing to do with the ANU study. The authors do not mention Sweden once.

As to the "media commentariat" the Murdoch press has been dogged in their condemnation of people like Daniel Andrews.

Most Australians are pretty darn grateful for what our leaders have done to keep the scourge of Covid from inflicting a Sweden style nightmare on us.

This bloke is just winging it.

Foiled by The Australian paywall, I could see only this part of a Chris Kenny article, but it says a lot:

"The pandemic has turned us back to our roots. When the British settled this continent in 1788, they established a prison island; now, once more, people are not allowed to leave the place, and we submit to unprecedented levels of authoritarian control".

SteeleRedux

We have already established that your racist sexist and incestophobic BIGOTRY completely invalidate your political opinion.

In any event, you are not "most Australians" and do not represent them. Obviously if most Australians agreed on the restrictions of their liberties by totalitarian fascists of your ilk, no governmental action would have been necessary to restrict them so we are both agreed you're talking nonsense.

You have been brainwashed and do not understand what you're talking about.

You've got a brain. Use it! You need to do independent research and get the facts and understand what's going on .Merely swallowing down what your totalitarian official propaganda manipulators are brainwashing into you does not make you more clever and morally superior, as you mistakenly suppose, but dumber and more docile.

But you need to understand that that's not a reason for other people to have their liberties and human rights violated.

Notice how the left wing just keep rushing in to defend unlimited government power without reason, over and over again? They love it. They think the violations of freedoms and human rights are wonderful because in the final analysis, that's all their ideology has ever been about. Repuslive authoritarian Stalinists to the core, with their rubbish about how government is really an all-knowing, all-caring God, our saviour and redemption. By your own premises you agree you have no valid criticism of government.

Dear Cumberland,

"incestophobic"? Lol. Well yes, you have me there. I do have a strong dislike of incest, most of us do. The fact that you seem to think that is an insult potentially has you as a Tasmanian at the very least.

It was a big bowl of fruit loops for breakfast this morning wasn't it.

The article probably would have been helped had it contained even a short definition of the meaning and thought behind the concept of 'Wellbeing' and 'Wellbeing Years' (WELLBY).

Although it means slightly different things in each jurisdiction, it is a well understood term which allows comparison of population and economic outcomes across time and regions using more broadly based parameters than just GDP and the like. A reasonable explanation comes from the US CDC...http://www.cdc.gov/hrqol/wellbeing.htm

As the data starts to accumulate, it is clear that the lockdowns were/are a monumental error for which populations in places like Australia will be paying for years to come. The excellent analysis in this article, while probably a surprise to many, is just one of a growing body of evidence that the lockdown frenzy that swept the first world was ill-thought out and probably the worst economic/medical error made by collective governments since 1929.

Since most political parties, most medical groups and most sections of the mass media, either supported or at least didn't actively oppose the lockdown frenzy, none of these can be relied on to inform the public of this new understanding. However, the research and information that the lockdowns were a severe error is becoming so overwhelming that its unlikely to be repeated in the future.

Dear mhaze,

You spray: “As the data starts to accumulate, it is clear that the lockdowns were/are a monumental error for which populations in places like Australia will be paying for years to come.”

No it isn't clear at all, rather the exact opposite. Boris didn't go hard like we did and schools in England were ultimately forced to close and are yet to reopen.

Sweden was the only Scandinavian country whose GDP rate retreated last quarter.

You also wrote: “However, the research and information that the lockdowns were a severe error is becoming so overwhelming that its unlikely to be repeated in the future.”

So overwhelming that you can't link to a single bit of it?

Mate I am surprised you are even commenting on this topic as it has been so much of a poisoned well for you in the past. Projection after projection of yours was shown to be completely wrong and you just ended up repeatedly looking like a dill.

Ho hum.

Spending large swathes of time stoically building on my well being on boats and underwater, I don’t notice much has changed.

What pandemic. Have I missed something?

DAN

>Most Australians are pretty darn grateful for what our leaders have done to keep the scourge of Covid from inflicting a Sweden style nightmare on us

Most Australians are idiots but then that's why we have idiots leading us, so I wouldn't use that as an appeal to sensibility.

A lack of granular lock down was ridiculous the state based locked downs were appalling, we are supposed to be one nation not a bunch of insular, small minded states all designed to show which premier had the "biggest swinging dick" and not allowing Australian citizens back into the country (and then quarantine) was appalling beyond words. They have had 18 months to put together a massive quarantine station or lease an empty resort and fly them there but no...

I wish we had adopted a Swedish style system, with better isolation for aged cared facilities and kept us informed and giving advise only, like wearing masks etc I don't need to hold mummies hand because I am scared of the bogger man.

None of this had anything to do with saving lives, if it did cars would be band (direct deaths and indirect deaths form air pollution), alcohol would be banned, cigs would be banned and on and on

"No it isn't clear at all, rather the exact opposite."

Well obviously it isn't clear to you SR...I was talking about people who are vaguely numerate.

Indeed as I read the article I smiled at how far over your head it was going to go given that it involved things like ratios other highfalutin math-y stuff.

I've already shown you a few of the many analyses showing how lockdowns failed or, more precisely, were ineffective. Although, it seems, all of those analyses flew over your head. Think of it like this...

Victoria, was arguably the most gung-ho of the Australian states as regards lockdowns. Even if they were perhaps less stringent than say, WA, their government instituted lockdowns with their normal totalitarian fervour. Yet despite their lockdown frenzy they still managed to have 90% of the total Asutralian deaths.

Likewise NewYork/NewJErsey in the US were among the most strident in terms of lockdowns Yet they managed to suffer death rates higher than almost all other major jurisdictions worldwide. Their lockdowns were a complete failure.

I know this will elude you, but that's what the data shows. As more and better data comes through, and as we learn about the long-term effects of the lockdowns, the truth will become even more obvious. Who knows, maybe one day it'll become so obvious that even people like you will see it.

In the meantime, I remain rather chuffed that I was able to draw attention to these truths over a year ago.

Things that have happened in Australia since the China virus which have the ring of China itself, or North Korea and any other totalitarian dictatorship.

Surveillance and tracking.
Encouragement to dob in people.
A pregnant woman arrested for making a Facebook post.
Police violently arresting people for breaking newly invented laws.
People compelled to cover their faces.
Huge fines under the fiction of health.
Prevention of travel within your own country.
Arbitrary confining people to their own homes.
Talk of vaccination 'passports' for domestic movement and activities.

All on the whims of unelected bureaucrats, with no second opinion from specialist scientists who have cast doubts on lockdowns and psychological-damaging isolation and separation from loved ones.

The political class has got away with this oppression, and we can expect more of it in the future unless we speak up now.

Dear Valley Guy,

I think it was the leadership of the states which got us over the line. Morrison was spouting in June that we were going to have to live with the virus and wanted the borders opened up ASAP. Thankfully the states told him to take a hike. Now he is over in the West telling their premier what a great job he had done helping to keep the economy going. The think is it was done off the back of iron ore prices which exploded because of Covid rampaging through the Brazilian iron ore sector. Our could have been decimated too but wasn't because of state leadership.

Dear mhaze,

Vaguely numerate? That got a laugh. You have been so exposed as having such a rudimentary understanding of figures by me and others you rarely quote them now. Your infamous predictions for Covid are now OLO legends.

SR will rue the day he sided with the hunchback of Spring Street in oppressing Victoria. Andrew's Chinese masters unleashed this on the West and we followed what they said they were doing. Their economy is going very well and we are in deepest debt and inevitable depression.
I am happy to watch this train wreck unfold and hope every sitting politician is removed and advised they can never be voted back in. This is only our first Chinese virus but if the dear leader Chinese Andrews shuts things down again I expect even the dumbest to object. He will shut things down again as, like Hitler, he cannot help himself he is such a monster.

No more than two terms for any politician. They do enough damage even in that time.

I do have a strong dislike of incest, most of us do. The fact that you seem to think that is an insult potentially has you as a Tasmanian at the very least.
Steelredux,
So, does that mean that you support the stirring-up of the Gene Pool which, unfortunately at times, has caused much suffering to invaded people ?

Here is some truth regarding the effectiveness of lockdown’s:

http://gbdeclaration.org/
Galen

Lockdowns? Well...
- If it saved my state from being inundated with Covid-riddled Victorians and New South Welshmen (and women) trying to escape the mess they created down there as multicultural number one, then I'm glad.

You want to know why we had barely any restrictions up here in QLD?
- That's because they kept you southern lot from ruining it for us just like you ruined it for yourselves.

I remember the news, so many people in VIC were caught out not obeying the rules.
Don't come up here trying to escape the mess after you had your lax attitudes down there.

Australia or Sweden?
Who even cares?
The majority of Aussies have probably never even been there.
- And probably never will.

I agree with SR, very sketchy article based on unclear sources and assuming a constant without a clear definition of 'well being' which could normally be criticised by many here like the now cliched 'woke'.

Meanwhile the GB Declaration was simply pseudo science supported by Koch linked organisations preferring the 'letting it rip' libertarian strategy and hoping for 'herd immunity'; DeSmog Blog UK outlined this clearly (the same also know more about climate science denial in Oz than Oz media do....).

"Focused Protection"

"Meanwhile the GB Declaration was simply pseudo science supported by Koch linked organisations preferring the 'letting it rip' libertarian strategy and hoping for 'herd immunity'"

Far from a let it rip strategy, the declaration calls for a "focused protection" approach - perhaps reading the actual declaration rather than the propaganda would be a good idea.

It certainly aims for herd immunity but then again so does the vaccine programme. In the end herd immunity is the only solution to unending lockdowns. The only issue is how to achieve herd immunity - exposure or vaccine.

Focused protection seeks to sequester those most at risk such as the elderly and the already immune challenged while allowing the rest of the community to continue with their lives. The vast majority of the population would get the virus and suffer no or minor symptoms while developing immunity.

It was clear a month or two after the virus hit that the virus held little risk for most people under 65. Had that knowledge been relied on the lockdowns would never have been instituted.

"SR will rue the day he sided with the hunchback of Spring Street in oppressing Victoria"

SR never rues anything. He argues his point until even he understands he's wrong, then proceeds to forget that he ever raised it.

Anyone who was going to rue supporting Chairman Dan's failed approach would have done so by now given how the numbers prove beyond doubt to even the most innumerate that the Victorian leadership botched things badly.

Dear Valley Guy,

I think it was the leadership of the states which got us over the line. Morrison was spouting in June that we were going to have to live with the virus and wanted the borders opened up ASAP. Thankfully the states told him to take a hike. Now he is over in the West telling their premier what a great job he had done helping to keep the economy going. The think is it was done off the back of iron ore prices which exploded because of Covid rampaging through the Brazilian iron ore sector. Our could have been decimated too but wasn't because of state leadership.

Dear mhaze,

Vaguely inumerate? That got a laugh. You have been so exposed as having such a rudimentary understanding of figures by me and others you rarely quote them now. Your infamous predictions for Covid are now OLO legends.

As to Victoria they employed stringent lockdowns precisely in response to a Covid outbreak which got out of control. Could they have done things better? Sure. But they got the job done and most Victorians are grateful to them for doing so. For you to be painting those measures as something that caused the outbreak is completely disingenuous but rather typical from you.

You should indeed be judged on your woeful predictions including the Covid was just a bad flu and hat Sweden was the exemplar of the Scandinavian countries. All scatter line bowling pins.

Mate, and any chuffness on your behalf speaks to your delusions, nothing else.

SR shows total consistency:

Sweden - they totally screwed up - just look at the numbers
USA - Trump totally screwed up - just look at the numbers
UK - Boris totally screwed up - just look at the numbers
Victoria - what have the numbers got to do with it?

Dear mhaze,

I know numbers scare you but here are some approxiate figures to chew on.

If Victoria had followed Sweden's rates we would be looking at 10 times the amount of Covid deaths. If Sweden had followed Australia's rates as a nation they would have seen around 1200 deaths rather than the 13,800 and growing figure.

Pretty simple math old boy.

No matter how hard you huff and puff these are always going to shoot you down. Your posterchild Sweden got ravaged by Covid and yet you are still singing its praises. Once again mate your twisted politics have shown you up. Time to give it a rest.

"Pretty simple math old boy."

Well Maths is always simple when you just conjure numbers out of mid-air. Applying rates isn't the basis of any form of reality. The policies matter. Its just as invalid as saying that if Victoria had followed the rates of The Vatican they'd have had 900 less deaths. That's not the point.

The fact is that Victoria had 9 times more deaths than the rest of Australia combined and if that isn't enough to make anyone who supported Chairman Dan embarrassed then I don't know what is.

Dear mhaze,

Well that is just irrational.

Besides which you are one of those who don't get to criticise Andrews at all because the truth is you would have let the virus rip like they did in Sweden without blinking an eye.

I wasn't criticising Andrews. He's a screw-up from way back and was always gunna muck this up in some way. That he managed to do it in such a monumentally bad way is the only surprise.

That he's the best the Victorian ALP has says alot about them. That the Libs aren't 20 points up in the polls says even more about them and the powers of a compliant press.

No, I was criticising the bozos who, for rank partisanship, fail to or, more probably, refuse to recognise how monumentally bad the Victoria numbers are.

As to Sweden, despite your continued assertions (ie claims devoid of facts) that I supported the Swedish approach that ain't so. Its just one of your traits that anyone who didn't heartily agree with your irrational hatred of the Swedish approach must have supported it.

Oh and BTW I never supported or suggested a "let 'er rip" approach. That's just your comprehension problems leading you down yet another garden path.

A quick couple of mhaze's Covid quotes for the amusement of others.

“But now we know that the threat of this virus to all, other than the very aged with pre-existing conditions, is minor. It’s likely that, had we known the full details as to the dangers of the virus back in February, our response would have been very different. Rather than broad isolation, targeted isolation of those most in danger would have been the go.”

“The economy, lives and savings are being ripped apart. What if it wasn’t necessary? What if this is really just a bad flu season where ‘experts’ panicked and then panicked government “

“Everyone is essentially guessing as to the mortality rate with 0.01% being the lower figure. But any number of analyses equate it the to influenza rate.”

That one was a doozy since it turns out the current mortality rate for the US is 178 times your figure.

Quote

“Paul,

"This is a pandemic,....".

Why is this a pandemic and influenza isn't? Influenza, year in and year out, kills far more than this virus so far even allowing for the Chinese understatement of facts by at least an order of magnitude.

"has the potential to kill millions throughout the world. "

Well that's the point. It doesn't. Faulty early information suggested it might, but that's no longer the case.”

End quote.

Well it has killed far more than the flu and has thus far taken at least 3 million lives.

Time after time you have been utterly wrong. Virtually every little pronouncement you made about Covid had been blown out of the water by facts.

Why on earth should anyone take the slightest notice of you when you open your mouth on this subject?

Attacking Andrews like NewsCorp et al. have done is simply disingenuous when most of the deaths occurred in the federally managed private aged care sector, allowed to operate with watered down standards vs. the state sector aged care in Victoria.

Further, thanks to NewsCorp, 9Fairfax and others with ongoing criticism of Andrews, and implicitly Victorians, it seems more about frustration of almost two decades of Labor rule (interrupted briefly by a Lib govt. led by what's his name ...?) of what was formerly the Libs 'jewel in the crown'.

Again, not helped by Howard dragging the Liberals north to Sydney with Murdoch, latter encouraging others to dog whistle Melbourne/Victoria and Howard also having issues with Victoria describing it as the 'Massachusetts' of Oz.

Shows how little reflection there is when Howard, like Abbott, can lose what were previously safe Liberal seats while junking many moves for gender equity recommended by a Dame Beryl Beaurepaire review in '70s?

Even better, some comments in media reflect the dangers with recent sexual harassment and women issues of and for the Libs in Canberra, 'east suburban doctors' wives in Melbourne ready with their baseball bats'.

Oh look, SR wants to change the subject. Well who can blame him after the kicking he's had.

But SR you don't need to remind me how accurate I've been on this. I already know. But somehow you think you're showing errors.

The WuFlu has been just another flu. In Australia in 2019 its estimated that the flu took out about 4000 people, even after massive vaccinations. The WuFlu took out less than a quarter of that even before vaccines were available.

My points about the WuFlu mainly targeting the old is proven accurate. The median age at death has been 86. (I know when I say 'median' it will confuse SR, but its a bit like average, if you understand that concept.)

When I said, way back in April 2020 that targeted isolation of the vulnerable was what was required, that has proven to be true. Indeed its now being shown in study after study that that is the way the virus should have been handled.

And so on. Its all very gratifying that SR wants to highlight my accuracy and foresight, but its wont to go to my head.

Oh one last piece of hilarity. SR writes "That one was a doozy since it turns out the current mortality rate for the US is 178 times your figure.". Well if that were true then over 6 millions USians would be dead from the virus. It looks like SR has misunderstood case fatality rates and mortality rates AGAIN. The last time he did that and I pointed it out he promptly not only left the thread but exited the site for a week or three. Let's see what happens this time.

Dear mhaze,

You dribble: “Oh look, SR wants to change the subject. Well who can blame him after the kicking he's had.”

Lol.

Well that is a classic piece of self projection from you.

As to this:

“The last time he did that and I pointed it out he promptly not only left the thread but exited the site for a week or three. Let's see what happens this time.”

Well that's a riot because you were totally toweled over that discussion.

However I will admit to getting a decimal place wrong in my last post. It should have been 17 times or 17.8 not 178 the mortality rate.

"However I will admit to getting a decimal place wrong in my last post."

Which is the same as mixing up CFR and IFR. Nice try but you screwed up again due to an imperfect understanding on an issue you pontificate on.

"Well that's a riot because you were totally toweled over that discussion."

Well here's the post where I pointed out your error...
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9249#310676

And here's the post where I reinforced the point as you tried to muddy the waters and hide the error - yet another error. Thereafter you skedaddled.....
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9249#310836

And here's the post where I noted you'd returned after your sabbatical and forecast that you'd try to pretend the error never happened in the hope that we'd all forget the truth. The more things change indeed.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9293#312699

Dear mhaze,

Did you even read those posts?

This was the quote from WHO: “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died.”

You clambered: “WHO was giving a fatality rate of 3.4%. It was this number, which is now shown to be completely wrong,”

So there is absolutely nothing to suggest I confused a single thing. You were the one claiming WHO meant one thing when they said something entirely different and then you banged on about dramatically decreasing fatality projections. It went something like this:

“Virtually every day brings new reductions in projections of the severity of the virus..."By Wednesday, the projection dropped the estimated total deaths to 60,415, revised down from 81,766 deaths, which was revised from down 93,531, a revised number itself.”
...
“So just like a normal flu season.”

The US toll is fast approaching 600,000 deaths. Every number you put up as a projection has been blown out of the water.

How on earth do you continue to stuff this up so thoroughly?

You know all in all we haven't done too badly;
Some states have obviously fared better than others
- Mistakes have been made.

Let's take a step back and think about things though.
Have a look at our leaders, Dan, Gladys, Anna, Scomo

What if we just had them run a regular backyard barbeque
And it was their job to take care of things

Dan on the BBQ, you think he wouldn't burn the snags, half cook the rissoles n burn crap out of the onions or something?
How about Gladys in the kitchen trying to prepare salads and nibblies,
- She'd probably need Anna's help to stay on top of it, she'd be frazzled;

And Scomo would probably be wandering around not even sure what he was supposed to be doing.

He'd probably need others to tell him what to do next -
"Scomo, why don't you set up some tables and chairs?"
"Umm... Okay, glad to help"

Yes mistakes have been made, and mistakes continue to be made.
- But things could be a whole lot worse.

We haven't done too badly, all things considered.
- Or maybe that's just the way I see it from up here in QLD

OK SR tell yourself whatever you need to convince yourself that you didn't mightily misunderstand the issue. But we both know that a year ago you got the numbers wrong by 1000% because you didn't understand the difference between CFR and IFR. Got them so wrong that even you, a past-master at hiding or obfuscating errors (due to practice), couldn't hide the error and instead just slunk away for a few weeks.

Then, just this week, showing you've learned nothing, made the exact same error again.

You know it...I know it. And its this lack of understanding about these fundamental issues that means you can't really follow the rest of the topic.