In 2019 over 4000 people died from influenza. The previous year it was over 3000. (Imagine some talking-head on TV lamenting about 15 deaths “today”…everyday through the season) To date we had 30 Wuhan Virus deaths.

Increasingly, as new and better data becomes available, the threat from the pandemic seems to recede. The original thoughts of 500,000 deaths in the UK and 2,000,000 in the US have become 20,000 and 100,000.

Whereas the original fears were that the virus had a fatality rate (ie the percentage of patients who die having caught the virus) of 2% - 5%, again better data now has this being well below 1% and likely it could be in the influenza region of 0.1% or lower (perhaps as low as 0.01%).

Even in Europe, where things are much worse than anything we’ve seen here so far, they are getting strange signs that things aren’t all doom and gloom. Check this site which shows a strange lack of increase in overall deaths in Europe…http://www.euromomo.eu/index.html

There’s no validity in criticising governmental responses to the so-called pandemic. They were all flying blind on this (thanks China/WHO) and there were no good options – only bad and less bad.
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 nature of government is that it never admits error and when presented with the chance to take more power, rarely passes up that chance. So we are unlikely to see a reverse of course. But we should now recognise that we are continuing the strangulation of the economy through choice rather than necessity.

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

This is the weirdest post I've seen in a while. The very page the mhaze links to (ie. http://www.euromomo.eu/index.html) explicitly shows in a very clear graphic and graphs how the virus is causing massive changes in the death rates across europe. On the map displayed on the website's front page all the areas in dark blue mean that there are very great increases, these are countries with a z-score of 7 and above. (A z-score is a calculated figure from statics that relates a data point to its deviation from the mean of a bell curve. A figure of 7 is really high!). So guess which countries are dark-blue; yep, all those with high incidences of the virus, eg: Italy, Spain, etc. And yet mhaze says "Check this site which shows a strange lack of increase in overall deaths in Europe".

As an aside: What is interesting from this site's data is that there is a slight decrease in deaths in the past week for 16-64 year olds. But this is to be expected, because most of Europe is in lock-down and thus not doing the dangerous things (like driving a car, working, going out at night and getting drunk/into fights) that they normally do.

Also, where did mhaze get the "again better data now has this being well below 1% and likely it could be in the influenza region of 0.1% or lower (perhaps as low as 0.01%)." from.? I haven't seen anyone else on the web claiming this.

And as for the decrease in predicted number of deaths. The number is decreasing BECAUSE of the governments' extreme lock-down reaction. The 100,000-to-millions of deaths that people used to quote were from before the various governments' responses. Since the lockdown/other measures have been implemented the numbers have been and are continually being revised and as excepted the projected figures are decreasing.

Dear thinkabit,

I wouldn't pay too much attention to what mhaze has to say.

The thing that he doesn't seem to understand is the fact that there is no vaccine for the Wuhan virus, which means that if it is allowed to spread unabated it will kill tens of millions and could even lead to an extinction event for our species.

The problem with mhaze is that he is just an engineer or some such trade and does not have a knowledge of the world in which he lives. He thinks that people who study the Arts things like history, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, philosophy, etc., do not know anything and are the cause of the world's problems.

thinkabit,

First a little explanation on the EuroMomo data. When I posted the link it was still showing the Week 12 data. The site has changed a little since then with a Week 13 update. In posting the Week 12 data they commented there was "no increased mortality is observed in the reported mortality figures for the COVID-19 affected countries."

Although the data shows increases in some locations it doesn't show an overall increase in deaths across Europe. You need to look at the graphs for the overall data and compare the deaths during this influenza season as compared to previous influenza seasons. Equally, look at the data for each country and note that only those known hotspots show an increase. Other nations show a decline in deaths.

You write: "The [predicted] number is decreasing BECAUSE of the governments' extreme lock-down reaction." Actually the decline is due to many of the inputs to the models being altered with new and better data. For example, the assumption about the re-infection rate was originally wrong. Equally the assumptions about the percentage requiring hospitalisation was too high. And the numbers of asymptomatic patients originally confused the models.The data from the Diamond Princess threw many assumptions into doubt. (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/16/diamond-princess-mysteries/ ....one of many analyses of that vessel if you care to look).

As to the lower mortality rate, again much has been written on this but for starters....

http://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/03/26/stanford-physicians-suggest-covid-19-could-have-lower-mortality-rate-than-flu/

if you can get past the WSJ paywall then there's a better explanation there from high credentialed academics .

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/31/time_for_a_second_opinion_142817.html

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.

Mr O,

The adults are talking now. Be a good boy and be seen but not heard.

Mhaze

Its what they are not telling us in regards to totally destroyed economies that is far more concerning than the virus itself. People are relatively content at the moment because the sugar money is being handed out and no public servants have lost their jobs.

Any comparison between the rate of influenza, and the rate of coronavirus is of no value. This is a pandemic, which if allowed to go unchecked has the potential to kill millions throughout the world. Many western governments, our included, were caught napping, and some are now paying the ultimate price with the loss of the lives of their citizens in great numbers. The USA, UK, Spain and Italy are the biggest nappers of all, and they are paying dearly now for their tardiness.

runner, several bible bashing preachers in the state of Kansas intend to conduct Easter services within their churches. These fools claim no harm will befall the congregation as God will protect them from the smite of the Devil, aka coronavirus. All well and good if they are right, but what if they are wrong and 50,000 others die because of it. Do you agree with the intended action of these bloody bible bashers?

mhaze,

I think what you are trying to tell me is that you don't want me in The Forum's Old Farts Club.

-in my previous post: "statics" should obviously be "statistics"

Dear thinkabit,

Yes mhaze's grasp of figures does not represent the shining peak of his abilities but at least he has a crack.

I found this site particularly insightful. It is a well credentialed team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

It breaks down the projections of each state in the US depending on how well they will cope with the many victims likely to be impacting their respective health systems.

They take into account not only resources available but also what measures the various jurisdictions have enacted to flatten the curb.

As of now they have the US with 10 days until peak resource use on April 15, 2020 and a shortfall of beds of 87,674. They have modelled the total death toll at 93,531. Well worth a look if you are interested.
http://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

That's right Mr O, HAND IN YOUR ZIMMER FRAME! You are being cashiered out of the Forums Old Farts Club, you'll never be eligible for the 750 free incontinence pads from ScumO' now to boost the economy. I do suspect you were never a member, not the far right sort of material needed. I was booted years ago, when I enlisted I put up my age, told em' I was the legal age for membership, 87, when I was only 66. Then they found out I was a lefty who didn't believe The Donald was the true messiah! That was the end of me! Is mhaze still the Grand Poobah of the lodge?

Paul1405,

The reason they don't like me is simply because I happen to be very smart and know all about the Arts things like history, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, philosophy, etc., the very stuff they don't have a clue about.

They get very upset when I point things out that they don't know about. Well I guess that is how people end up when they don't continue pass a sixth grade education and end up being engineers or other like trades.

Mr. Opinion,

Let's talk about this old farts business. How old are you? I seem to remember that you said you worked part time 'in retirement'. Did you lie about that, as well as everything else?

I was watching a video taken by a hidden camera of totally empty waiting rooms in emergency departments of a number of New York hospitals, described as overwhelmed by the MSM. When his filming was discovered by either cop or security personnel at the entrance of one hospital emergency dept. he was threatened with arrest.

It certainly did not look like any were overwhelmed.

At the same time the testing centers in New York were filmed empty. The field hospital in central park, & the huge military hospital ship are not getting much use.

It certainly looks like the thing in New York at least is hugely overplayed, but then cameras have been known to lie in the past.

With the attitude of most of New York, & particularly the governor & mares politics, the seriousness of this thing could be played up as bad a con job as the Trump impeachment democrat bit of garbage was.

Interesting the politics of those here jumping on the pandemic band wagon. Perhaps this one runs on the same track as the global warming gravy train.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but the action from the UN & the WHO tend to indicate their main worry is the effect on China & the global warming scam, & not much on health.

"We are all in it together". "We produce enough food for 75 million people". "The Prime Minister is doing a good job".

What bollocks! Scumbags are still selfishly clearing supermarket shelves and hoarding. This morning the major food suppliers tell us that there will be shortages for the foreseeable future. People with the virus are not all isolating. Politicians are lying more than ever, and it looks a though the NSW health department WAS told that there were sick people on board the Ruby Princes when it docked, but they were still allowed into the community. The NSW health minister spluttered over his lies. And, the PM? Well he is still spreading alarm by telling us the crisis will last another 6 months (nobody really has a clue) while he wrecks the economy by slinging money around, desperate to hold onto his half million dollar job, when he should have introduced rationing and enforced it. The people who sell stuff don't care who gets what or who misses out - as long they get the money.

Australia is rooted; probably permanently.

Hasbeen,

You have really lost the plot! And this from the only ever recipient of a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Sydney.

We all know that the United Nations is corrupt and useless. Some of us know that one of its branches, the World Health Organisation has been bought by China; which is one reason that its current Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus backs up China’s lies abut their virus and what they claim to have achieved. There is an other reason.

The DG is an Ethiopian. He spent four years as a minister in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a wing of the ruling, Marxist-rooted Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front - a violently repressive regime.

Lovely gent!

The other reason, then, is that China is HEAVILY investing in Ethiopia, and will soon own the joint when the country cannot pay its dues.

The rottenness of the UN/WHO and other departments, and the people behind the whole circus, is plain for everyone to see. Why does Australia - or any Western country - have anything to do with it!

ttbn,

I've always said that Australia has a Chinese future. But I never expected it to come on the back of a Wuhan virus!

'Runner, several bible bashing preachers in the state of Kansas intend to conduct Easter services within their churches. '

so so selective with your hatred Paul. You said nothing when democrat mayors encouraged hundreds of thousands to gather for Chinese new year claiming Trump was racist in suggesting isolation.

and I doubt the deaths caused by Christians transmitting the virus is a small percentage of the regrerssives million of unborn babies each year Paul. Time to get over your hatred.

"You said nothing when democrat mayors encouraged hundreds of thousands to gather for Chinese new year claiming Trump was racist in suggesting isolation."

Now runner, since you have made me aware of this ridiculous nonsense regarding Democrat Mayors in the United States, I'll give you my opinion. Fools endangering the lives of thousands.

Now I'll give you my opinion of those bible bashing bastards in Kansas. Fools endangering the lives of thousands.

Would you like to comment on the BBB's? You said nothing about them, just a bit of defection as usual.

BTW The wife enjoyed an online church service yesterday morning, conducted by her minister, through the church YouTube channel, nothing wrong with that.

Gauss who had to show her how to find it? ME!

Over the weekend China has been appointed to a panel on the UN Human Rights Council, despite its own ongoing human rights abuses. On this panel, China will represent Asia-Pacific states, which INCLUDES AUSTRALIA. Ye Gods!

ttbn,

About bloody time! At last the UN recognises that Australia has a Chinese future as well.

We're all going to be united in China's Asia-Pacific Empire. Ni Hao Mate! Stone the bloody Wuhan bats cobber! Fair Dim Sum Mate!

Dear mhaze,

I have had a chance to track down your week 12 bulletin which you said stated "no increased mortality is observed in the reported mortality figures for the COVID-19 affected countries."

Well it turns out you have yet again chosen to shamelessly cherry pick a statement that had been heavily qualified in the original article.

“Some wonder why no increased mortality is observed in the reported mortality figures for the COVID-19 affected countries.
The answer is that increased mortality that may occur primarily at subnational level or within smaller focal areas, and/or concentrated within smaller age groups, may not be detectable at the national level, even more so not in the pooled analysis at European level, given the large total population denominator. Furthermore, there is always a few weeks of delay in death registration and reporting. Hence, the EuroMOMO mortality figures for the most recent weeks must be interpreted with some caution.
Therefore, although increased mortality may not be immediately observable in the EuroMOMO figures, this does not mean that increased mortality does not occur in some areas or in some age groups, including mortality related to COVID-19.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20200329153053/http://www.euromomo.eu/index.html

Nasty habit of yours old boy, do consider dialling it back a little.

The Diamond Princess is an interesting study in this regard. The vessel was like a little controlled experiment on the lethality of the Wuhan Virus. People sailing around in close proximity to others who had the virus. It effectively became an unintentional virus incubator.Additionally all but of a few of the people on board were tested so we got a full picture of this microcosm on society.

There were over 4000 people on board. Of those only 17.5% actually caught the virus. Of those almost half (334) were asymptomatic. Seven people died - all aged over 70. The fatality rate for those who had the virus was 1.8% falling to 0.91% for who had symptoms. 0.17% of all those on board died. But old people were over-represented on board as compared to US/Australian society. So extrapolating into the broader community the fatality rate based on these numbers would be in the range 0.025% to 0.625% with the calculate rate of 0.125%.

This gets us in the same area as the fatality rate for influenza.

At the outset, WHO was giving a fatality rate of 3.4%. It was this number, which is now shown to be completely wrong, that was originally fed into models to achieve the early dire death numbers. Additionally it was originally thought that each case transmitted the disease to 8-10 others. This is now more likely to be 3-4 others. Again these numbers fed into models give highly exaggerated death rates.

So this issue returns. What if we and much of the world panicked into adopting policies based on erroneous models using erroneous numbers.

Some have suggested that China could be sued for hiding the existance
of the corona virus until it couldn't be hidden any longer.
Many said that is a nonsense, China would just ignore any claim.
Then I remembered, US law enables a litigant to sue a foreign government
and if, in this case, China ignored the court's decision orders to seize
any assets of that country in the US can be enforced.
Now China has a lot of assets in western countries, so there would be
plenty of targets.
Perhaps we need a law like that.
Case record, someone sued Saudi Arabia over 9/11 but could not prove that
the Saudi government was involved.

We know some societies have fared rather well in the crisis without the need to effectively mothball their economy. Places like South Korea, Taiwan, even Portugal - I know it hasn't done well as compared to us in terms of death rates but very well as compared to it neighbours.

SKorea and Taiwan are interesting in that they know China better than most and were therefore not sucked in by the original lies perpetrated by the China Communist Party. Taiwan had the added advantage of not being a member of WHO and therefore avoiding all the utter misinformation put out but that walking advertisement for the closure of all UN agencies.

So closing down society wasn't necessarily required. But we had untested models telling medical bureaucrats and thereafter politicians that the sky was about to fall. That those models were working on faulty early data is now pretty clear. Even the very best of forecasting models are subject to GIGO - garbage in leads to garbage out.

It seems obvious that there is an element in the US decision making structure who want to bring the economy out of mothballs earlier rather than later. But there seems to be no such constituency here. Closing the economy for six months will do unimaginable damage for at least a generation.

Each month 100 Australians die in road accidents. To date the Wuhan Virus has killed about 15 per month. Maybe thousands would have died had we not taken these panic measures. But the growing evidences suggest not.

Is the destruction of the economy worth it?

mhaze

I am not sure if we will ever know how effective our actions were and were not. You can be sure it will be politicised for the next 20 years. I tend to l lean towards your view that we have spent far to much appeasement money which in the end will lead to far more pain than the virus itself. We have also surrended far to many freedoms for fear. It is a difficult one as Australians by and large like to do the right thening but as showm by the selfish brainwashed adults and kids gluing themselves to the road recently logic goes out the window. The police have gone from watching these tantrum throwers and seeming powerless to fining people for eating kebab. Go figure!

Mr O,

"I think what you are trying to tell me is that you don't want me in The Forum's Old Farts Club."

No, I'm telling you that your comments are of no value, add nothing to this or any other thread and consist of inanities shouted from the back of the grandstand. And we'd all be better off without it.

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.

Paul, can you provide a link for these Kansas preachers you're on about. I can't find nothing about it on the WWW but would like to follow it to see the results of these services, if indeed they are taking place.

SR,

Still at it I see.
I wasn't hiding the week 12 data. I posted it and then it was changed. I didn't cherry-pick but merely pointed out to thinkabit that the site actually recognised that the data showed little in the way of excess deaths, a fact he couldn't see.

But standard SR here. Pick up a minor peripheral issue, exaggerate it beyond all recognition, misinterpret some point or other, make inane claims about said misinterpretation and then make moronic pronouncements.

Normally this would result in a three day dual as you are slowly bought to a realisation that you were off coarse, but this time....not playing.

mhaze: "I didn't cherry-pick but merely pointed out to thinkabit that the site actually recognised that the data showed little in the way of excess deaths, a fact he couldn't see."

I was looking at and commenting on the current info as displayed yesterday on the site you linked to. It clearly shows that there is a LARGE uptick in deaths compared to the average for the whole of Europe. It's the forth graph from the top: "Pooled numbers of deaths- all ages". It clearly shows that the current death rate is way over 4 z-scores. Even 4 z-scores is a large uptick.

By the way: in your first post you suggested that the fatality rate could go "perhaps as low as 0.01%". In Italy it is already higher than this. Ie. current deaths in Italy approx. 16000 and total population is approx. 60 million which gives 0.027% . Spain has a comparable rate also.

mhaze, you either have no comprehension of how serious this virus is, or you simply want to pay silly buggers with reality. Yes, influenza is a serious life threatening disease that ravishes the human population on a regular basis, and at its most serious in 1919 the pandemic killed millions world wide, including between 13,000 and 20,000 in Australia with a population at the time of only 5 million people . In no way does the terrible contagion that influenza is negate the potential devastation of another serious disease covid-19. The data is in the facts, and the fact is this virus is impacting the lives of billions throughout the world. Please stay safe in your bubble, I would hate for any harm to befall you because of your ignorance of the facts.

I have my flu shot every year and never get the flu; the simple fact that there is no vaccine for this virus is the problem.
To me, isolation seems a very good measure.

One plus point is that it shews that politicians don't need to go overseas on a regular basis to have a chat to their opposite numbers.

it will be politicised for the next 20 years.
runner,
Yeah well, the GFC has been used as an excuse for longer than that but then again only by the Left. At least no-one can use COVID-19 in the same manner !
Let's hope the Left becomes more cooperative from this for the common good !
The Conservatives too need to stop themselves from knee-jerk policies & bring the Public Service salaries & benefits back to Earth !

Dear mhaze,

You write; "Normally this would result in a three day dual(sic) as you are slowly bought to a realisation that you were off coarse(sic), but this time....not playing."

Oh dear, really? Rather it takes at least three days to either admit your errors or for you to walk away and announce the end of the debate. That this took just two days is something at least.

Here is a site which monitors the European flu season. As you can see it was a relatively mild one in comparison to some of the ones which had shown up on your graphs.
http://flunewseurope.org/

It should be fairly easy to ascertain which deaths will be contributing directly to the corona virus toll.

What is also quite startling how quickly you climate deniers have jump aboard this issue. Is it that you are so against accepting modelling of predicted deaths or that you object to the "scare campaign'.

Regardless it is an interesting phenomena.

Information is now coming to light that the China virus might not have come from the wet market, but from a laboratory not far from the market. The head of the lab hearing, the first report of the virus, wondered if the virus had come from her lab. After she was called in and 'interviewed' by authorities, she changed her mind.

thinkabit,

" It clearly shows that there is a LARGE uptick in deaths compared to the average for the whole of Europe. It's the forth graph from the top: "Pooled numbers of deaths- all ages". It clearly shows that the current death rate is way over 4 z-scores. Even 4 z-scores is a large uptick."

Yes, I understand your point. But my point was that the correct way to look at this is to compare the numbers to previous peak seasons. Currently the overall death rate is below that of the three previous seasons. And nobody quite knows why. It may be that increased personal vigilance is reducing overall deaths. But irrespective of the reason, there is no evidence for mass deaths as predicted, except in a few isolated and often atypical locations.

" you suggested that the fatality rate could go "perhaps as low as 0.01%"."

Yes, but I wasn't offering that as THE number, just the lower end of a potential range. That, currently, some locations are exceeding that number doesn't invalidate it since other locations are below it. I'd also point out that the 0.27% figure you give is way below the usual influenza death rate of 0.1% .

But I'd like to thank you thinkabit for at least addressing the data and the issues. It seems many here have just adopted the view that they'll believe whatever the government has told them and that they'll ignore and/or leave unaddressed any contrary data. I'd imagine that type of thinking is the result of years of practice.

SR,

"Here is a site which monitors the European flu season. As you can see it was a relatively mild one in comparison to some of the ones which had shown up on your graphs."

Well the data I showed was for overall deaths, not just influenza deaths but basically you've shown my point exactly.

"What is also quite startling how quickly you climate deniers have jump aboard this issue. Is it that you are so against accepting modelling of predicted deaths or that you object to the "scare campaign'." (btw I'm not a 'climate denier' but for some, in the absence of argument, labels are indispensable)

Yes the correlation occurred to me as well. I think its due to years of learning the climate models are heavily flawed and therefore being sceptical of other untested models.

Just a few more examples of failed forecasts which have come to light today...."

On March 27 the favoured model predicted there'd be 65,434 people hospitalised by 4/4 in NY. In fact they were 16,479 -out by 400%.

Overnight the new model results had "# of deaths projected decreased from 93,531 to 81,766" (USA). Virtually every day sees projected numbers falling. (By comparison flu deaths in 2017 were ~61000).

Paul,
"you either have no comprehension of how serious this virus is, ..."

I fully understand how serious we've been told the virus is and that you've accepted that absolutely. And I accept that in the early days when data was scant, the estimates were arguably valid and the measures taken understandable. But my point is that better numbers mean better understanding and its time to implement policy based on that better understanding.

So Paul, no attempts to explain why this is a pandemic and flu isn't. Just that that's what you were told to believe I guess?

Nothing on Kansas? Please don't leave us thinking you just made that up.

I think the Diamond Princess numbers are highly revelatory. So why ignore them?

The Court assumed the “jury had assessed the complainant's evidence as thoroughly credible and reliable” yet because the evidence from the “opportunity witnesses' was not contested they should have acquitted.

It use to be that the victims were not believed. Now even when their evidence is fully accepted the perpetrators can still walk free.

Dear mhaze,

I gather you are looking at the link I posted for the modelling figures given this is the figure it is showing now.

Don't you recognise how modelling is done? The figure was closer to 200,000 when I first looked at the site. However as more and more states enacted more and more robust responses the modelling reflected those changes as it was expected to do.

What spurred these states to enact the protocols they did? Many far in excess than those recommended by Trump and the Federal authorities? The bloody modelling mate.

This is how it is suppose to work with Climate Change too.

Those countries like England, Sweden the Netherlands and to a degree the US who were prepared to let this run through their populations and strive for a 'herd immunity' with as little impact on their economies as possible have had to dramatically revise their approach as the models were refined. They are paying a price for their tardiness. However the whole world will pay for tardiness on GW.

Damn. Please ignore the first two paragraphs in the above post. Control A is a dangerous tool sometimes.

Mr 0,

For someone with engineering training you are remarkably dense. This could never be an extinction level event. While there are a large number of fatalities these are mostly affecting the elderly. For the evolutionally active population below 50yrs the fatality rate is <1%.

There is no upside to this plague. It is something you survive. That the world learnt from the Spanish flu shows that we don't always repeat our mistakes.

Isn't it surprising, well perhaps not, that the very people who are crying "racist" when Coronavirus is referred to the Chinese virus, are still referring to previous such virus attacks as the "Spanish" & the "European" flue.

That they only believe something is racist when it refers to a not white group is just so obvious, & so disgusting, that they should be excluded from discussions.

SR,
"I gather you are looking at the link I posted for the modelling figures given this is the figure it is showing now."

No I was referring to the link you had on European flu cases.

"The figure was closer to 200,000 when I first looked at the site. However as more and more states enacted more and more robust responses the modelling reflected those changes as it was expected to do."

That's just not true. Deborah Birx has specifically said that the 100000 - 200000 figures were from models which took the mitigation measures (social distancing etc) into account. The originally 2 million deaths figures that has Paul wetting his pants were what the models said would happen without societal action.

The 200,000 figure has been declining because new and better data has been flowing. And that data is almost always less alarmist. The original figures assumed a high contagion rate which is now known to be wrong. The original figures assumed that close to 100% of the population were susceptible. That is now known to be wrong.

As each of those wrong assumption are replaced with more accurate assumptions in the models inputs, smaller case and death rates come out.

And as the dangers from the Wuhan flu tend to the less extreme so should the extreme counter-measures be reassessed. Since we and the US are now in for a penny, we may as well stay in for a pound. But Morrisson et al are talking about this economic mothballing continuing into 2021. That, based on current information is just wrong and must be reassessed.

This economy should be allowed to flower again by the end of the month.

Economist Peter Smith asks:

"If essential services and so-called essential services can keep safe while keeping on running, why can’t every business. Sure, they would need to put in extra measures, cleaning, have hand sanitizers, wear masks and gloves maybe, distance a little more maybe, take temperatures of employees on arrival, make sure those who are sick don’t come in. It can be done."

Smith believes the shut downs are untenable and can't go on. Governments need to balance benefits against costs.

" It’s hard these days with such a moronic media and large swathes of POPULATIONS LACKING THE STOICISM AND COMMON SENSE OF PREVIOUS GENERATIONS. But that’s when leaders of stature are needed".

I'm not sure that we have any "leaders" with enough "stature" to see us through this.

Governments need to balance benefits against costs.
ttbn,
You forgot the juggling of the throwing spanners into the works Left !

Nah Hassy, I just refer to the chimney flue, now that's not racists, although it usually BLACK!

Are these guys a couple of the Old Farts from this Forum?

"The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) condemned on Monday in the "strongest possible terms" two French scientists who suggested Africa be used as a testing ground for a vaccine against the novel coronavirus." How about we inject a couple of frogs with strychnine and see if it kills the virus.

Nah, how about we inject the 10 highest paid people in the world health organisation, then infect them to see if it works. At least the useless bunch would have done something useful for once in their privileged lives.

If the first one doesn't work, then move to the top floor of the UN for further tests, & make those bludgers of some use just once.

Dear mhaze,

You write; “That's just not true.”

Don't be a complete idiot. The figure of 81,733 projected deaths comes directly from this site http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

You have got some second hand quote from it which is fine but I have been following this site for a while now and seen the figures adjust as States up their isolation protocols.

The main protocols are “Stay at home order”, “Educational facilities close”, “no-essential services closed” and “Travel severely limited”.

As you can see New York has adopted the first three, stay at home order on March 22, educational facilities closed March 18”, and non-essential services closed on March the 20th.

http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/new-york

New Mexico has only implemented two and four closing schools earlier than New York on the 13th and non-essential businesses on the 24th.

http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/new-mexico

Of course there are many other parameters but these four protocols are considered central to the ultimate total and I have watched the figures adapting as states bring them online.

If you want to know how Oregon can confidently send 140 respirators to New Yorks City it is based on the modelling showing them falling well short ofusing their available resources in that state.
http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/oregon

The site now has a bunch of European countries too.

“Today IHME releases its first estimates of predicted peaks in COVID-19 deaths and hospital resource use among countries in the European Economic Area (EEA). This initial release focuses on countries in the EEA, and for three of these (Germany, Italy, and Spain), we also include predictions at the subnational level.”
http://www.healthdata.org/covid/updates

Hassy, your suggestion is something Nazi's would do. I only wanted to inject a couple of frogs!

Dear Hasbeen,

How's it going old cock.

So a couple of French scientists get called out by WHO for wanting to test their vaccines on Africans rather than their own citizens and you want to inject WHO staff as a consequence of their temerity?

Any idea how sick that sounds?

SteeleRedux,

Don't go picking on Hasbeen. It's not his fault; it's all that Wuhan bat soup he's been eating lately that's making him say these sorts of things.

I do believe Hassy was a member of the Luftwaffe back in the day, flying his trusty old Messerschmitt. Hassy needs help understanding English, does anyone "sprechen deutsch"?

Any idea how sick that sounds?
Steeleredux,
Any idea how sick your question sounds ?

Dear individual,

Nope. Why don't you tell me?

SteeleRedux,
Supporting corruption & incompetence is very, very sick in my opinion, that's why !

Dear individual,

Stop being a dropkick mate.

I found the idea of deliberately infecting 10 people with the virus out of some manufactured spite to be reprehensible and you have translated that into me supporting corruption?

What an idiotic think to say.

Indy, a brilliant idea for you!

Since you are so set on taking out those non-productive's. We could kill two birds with the one stone. Those Aged welfare folks, how about we call for "volunteers", I can see you warming up right now, we put them up for experimentation, say 1,000 we inject with paint thinners, and another 1,000 with battery acid, etc, etc, then we introduce them to their new best coronavirus! Never know we might eventually discover a vaccine! For those who don't wish to volunteer, soup kitchens and salt mines seem a very good idea. Of course this would not apply to self funded retirees such as myself, but some must make a sacrifice for the common good. Can I count you in?

What an idiotic think to say.
SteeleRedux,
Really ? Think about your idiotic reply to Hasbeen !

Dear individual,

Well here is my reply to him;

"So a couple of French scientists get called out by WHO for wanting to test their vaccines on Africans rather than their own citizens and you want to inject WHO staff as a consequence of their temerity?

Any idea how sick that sounds?"

You first claimed it was sick and now it is apparently idiotic.

Why is it idiotic in your eyes?

SteelRedux,
That's what Hasbeen said & he is right ! You're the sick one for not supporting him !

Nah, how about we inject the 10 highest paid people in the world health organisation, then infect them to see if it works. At least the useless bunch would have done something useful for once in their privileged lives.

If the first one doesn't work, then move to the top floor of the UN for further tests, & make those bludgers of some use just once.

SR,

"You have got some second hand quote from it which is fine but I have been following this site for a while now and seen the figures adjust as States up their isolation protocols."

Firstly, it wasn't "some second hand quote", it was from Brix. Look her up and then ponder how idiotic your assertion was.

You are claiming that the constant reductions in the scary numbers from this healthdata site is due to changing mitigation actions. But its rubbish.

On 31 March healthdata were projecting that the number of beds needs for Wuhan virus suffers by 5 April would be 179267. But on 5 April they reduced that to 90353. What massively increased mitigation efforts caused the halving?

There weren't any and therefore your assertions are out the window. The reason for the cuts in projections/guesses is that new and better data was fed into the models and new and better forecasts came out. LOWER forecasts.

Even after those adjustments they were still out by almost 300% once the true figures came through.

Your assertions are rubbish SR. But I won't bother to wait around for an acknowledgement of that. After all, this is so complex and you are so accomplished at muddying the water to hide error, that it'll be child's play for you to avoid any sort of honesty.

I've been at pains to avoid blaming any governments for taking actions which, in the light of day and with a fuller understand of the overall problem, seem precipitous.

Decisions had to be made and medical bureaucracies all around the world were crying 'wolf'. Governments had little choice but to act as they did, although some didn't and seem to be the better for going down a different path.

But overnight we had the Australian government start to release details about the modelling that underpinned their decisions.

* The models weren't based on Australian conditions.
* The data plugged into those models was based, primarily, on data from China.

From China!! The only country who we know has lied about all aspects of the virus from the time they first identified it, and their (fake) data is what we use to inform our decisions.

As he was making the explanations, you had the feeling Morrison was standing there wondering how it got to the point where he had to make such admissions. Looking foolish doesn't go close to describing it.

Yet here we are and there's no going back.

But there are options going forward and one is to start opening the economy as soon as the Easter break is over. But our leaders won't take that option. The politics are such that, were they to do so, they'd be blamed for every death thereafter and salvaging something from the economic wreak isn't worth that type of publicity

could not help but laugh at Nicholas Reece insisting the Government release the modelling used in order for them to make decisions. He obviously forgot how Labour/Greens were about to totally destroy the economy based on the gw myth and refused to show any modelling. I am just hoping the data used for modelling is not nearly as corrupt as the gw thieves have used in scamming the public.

As he wriggles and back flips in an attempt to deflect criticism from his own incompetence on the covid-19 crises gripping America, Donald Trump, not satisfied with blaming the Obama administration for his monumental cock-ups, is now trying to blame the World Health Organisation (WHO). Not content with just being an incompetent fool, Trump has with this pandemic made himself a dangers incompetent fool! As he threatens to withdraw much needed American finance from the WHO, it will impact on the way the WHO is able to coordinate attempts, as world wide research tries to find a vaccine for this virus. Trump is threatening millions of lives with his incompetence and politics. All Trump is concerned with is his re-election in November, if he is not careful there might be no one alive to vote for him.

MHaze,

Governments are choosing from a wide variety of responses to the Covid-19 crisis.

Some seem to have gone hard early on, once they realised the seriousness of the situation and urgency of response, anticipating rapid disaster if they didn't. China, South Korea and Australia and New Zealand seem to have chosen to be careful early. They have grasped the rudiments 0f what 'exponential' means.

Others, such as Italy and Spain, Britain and the US, have been a bit more laissez-faire, perhaps in the belief that, since they didn't actually ask for it, it will go away. A bit like Donald Duck or Wiley E. Coyote running off the cliff - because their oblivious to gravity, it won't kick in, not until they look down anyway. I look forward to Trump looking down, perhaps a bit late: the US will hit a million cases by the end of next week, with maybe 50,000 deaths. Children shouldn't play with matches, or run for president.

We could all get it now, massively overwhelm the health system, kill off most of our health professionals, and pick up the pieces later - those of us who survive. Or just play Russian roulette, that might give us more of a chance.

Joe

mhaze, can you give us some stats on the use of refrigerated trucks to hall away dead bodies in a flu outbreak, maybe go back to 1919. For anyone who is interested there is a very good doco on YouTube (made before the coronavirus) about the influenza pandemic of 1918. About 40 minutes long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDY5COg2P2c

Wuhan is open for business again so why don't we all chip in a few bucks each to send mhaze over there to do some ground zero stat-taking. He'll be happy to have a job doing the thing he likes most: looking at numbers; and we'll be happy to see the back of him and his boring arguments about numbers, numbers, and yes you guessed it more bloody numbers.

This is worth the time to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGC5sGdz4kg&fbclid=IwAR0wQxSBJd73zuHx7INaZ9DIjMrDsxsSt4YBA7MLoEor_OyysTzs0NlFPnw

Paul,

Well if you keep asserting (claims without evidence) that Trump is a fool, incompetent etc, you might eventually convince someone its true. Maybe even yourself.

Of course Trump must be a fool because he's letting all those Kansas preachers run services in Easter. OH, wait...that was just something, it seems , that Paul made up.

There are all sorts of villains in this saga, but at the top of the list is the Chinese Communist Party and the WHO.

The CCP kept the virus a secret for at least a month,gaoled and persecuted doctors trying to get the truth out, allowed millions to be exposed to the killer, and millions more to transport it all around the world. It is credibly calculated that, had the CCP been completely open about the virus from the outset, 95% of the current problems, cases and deaths would have been avoided.

WHO actively helped in the CCP's efforts to hide the virus. It wantonly and willing believed and disseminated every lie told by the CCP and sought to protect the Chinese from any criticism. In mid January, even though it had been known for a month (and probably longer) that the virus could be transmitted person to person, WHO was telling the world the opposite. And in late January WHO was telling the world that travel bans weren't required or helpful. Remember they criticised Trump and others for instituting such bans on 31 January.

The most charitable thing that could be said for WHO is that its completely incompetent. But in reality, despite the US paying for it, WHO is really just a Chinese mouth-piece. It leader owes his job to the CCP and is still trying to cover for them.

WHO is the first in a long line of organisations which will pay for their duplicity in these events.

The country that is doing the best in regards to the Wuhan virus is Taiwan. They never trust the CCP and, since they aren't part of WHO, they didn't get exposed to the WHO lies. If only we were so lucky.

mhaze,

When you leave NUMBERS out of your arguments you actually start to make sense.

Yes, I also think WHO has a lot of explaining to do on the question of its relationship with China.

Everyone knows my views on China. I shouldn't be smug but I can't resist saying: "I told you so!"

I also think a lot of Australian politicians, bureaucrats and business people have a lot of explaining to do on their relationship with China over the past 30 years, which I see being the underlying reasons that our society has crashed to the extent it has from the Wuhan virus.

Mr O,
"When you leave NUMBERS out of your arguments you actually start to make sense."

Yes, we've seen many times in the past that numbers confuse you no end.

__________________________________________________________________

More on WHO....
“The Chinese Communist Party used the WHO to mislead the world,” Rubio stated. “The organization’s leadership is either complicit or dangerously incompetent. I will work with the Trump Administration to ensure the WHO is independent and has not been compromised by the CCP before we continue our current funding.”

_________________________________________________________________
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.

Moreover, the projected total hospital bed shortage decreased from 34,654 to 15,852 (a revised number from April 5), and the so-called “peak” of hospital usage was pushed up from April 15 to April 11. The peak daily death toll was also moved up to April 12, from the revised April 16 date."

________________________________________________________________
"the US will hit a million cases by the end of next week, with maybe 50,000 deaths. "

So just like a normal flu season.

Dear mhaze,

Don't be thick mate, this is what I said;

“The figure of 81,733 projected deaths comes directly from this site http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

You have got some second hand quote from it which is fine but I have been following this site for a while now and seen the figures adjust as States up their isolation protocols. “

That quote from your post was "# of deaths projected decreased from 93,531 to 81,766" and the earliest record of it was made of Twitter by Alica Smith on Twitter. Let me know if I was wrong.
http://twitter.com/Alicia_Smith19/status/1247140408125202433

Brix has nothing to do with the Health Data site. She is from the White House team while the site is independently run from donations by the Bill and Melinda Foundation.

The site now shows total projected USA death at 60,415 by August 4, 2020. which is startlingly 10% under that of the UK. Fortunately the US had very solid state leaders who have managed to protect their population for a buffoon for a leader, not so the UK who have an extra special stupidity behaviour from theirs.

'Fortunately the US had very solid state leaders who have managed to protect their population for a buffoon for a leader, '

Oh its the Russians Steelie sorry no Ukraine. And you expect to be taken seriously! Are you related to Jim Acosta? Oh well what would you expect from lying liberal left media. Thank God few are listening anymore.

Each life saved from the China virus has cost $300 million. That's a starting point for nationalising, without compensation, Chinese properties in Australia.

Dear runner,

No leaping to the defense of Boris then? Well he isn't your president then is he.

Dear runner,

No leaping to the defense of Boris then? Well he isn't your president then is he.

loved the fact he got Bexit done Steelie especially after so many said it was impossible. I don't like many of his other policies. I do pray he finds repentance before anything to bad happens to him.

Trump must have plenty of faults. Just that regressives need to continually make up lies to hide their hatred. Just makes me like him more.

Covid looks like killing no more in one year than a bad flu. We can't blame pollies for wanting to cover their arses so far, but as the numbers roll in you'd hope they'd flip to the exit strategy sooner rather than later.

We have no choice other than herd immunity, as expeditiously as possible. There's no vaccine for colds so to base public health policy in an expectation of one for covid is a strategy based in fear and hope.

I'm struck with the parallel of expecting science to come up with a breakthrough on storage to make renewables viable. Meanwhile we back them up with fossil-fuels, or just burn fuels because storage isn't viable (note Germany, Japan). Faith based policies have no place.

Here's some interesting COVID-19 stats:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=ArcGIS+CSSE

Choose the Top Search Result
'Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) - ArcGIS.com'

Going by those numbers:

Queensland, Australia
Confirmed: 953
Deaths: 4
Recovered: 345
Active: 604

Victoria, Australia
Confirmed: 1,228
Deaths: 12
Recovered: 736
Active: 480

New South Wales, Australia
Confirmed: 2,773
Deaths: 21
Recovered: 4
Active: 2,748

QLD - Over 1/3 recovered
VIC - 60% recovered

** NSW - 4 out of 2773 recovered **
- with 21 deaths

4 recovered - 21 died;
That means right now in NSW you're over 5 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than recover.

Armchair Critic,

All that calculating must be making you thirsty! Care for some good old-fashioned Wuhan bat soup?

Just as with the bushfire crises, its reasonable to question if conservative governments in Australia are equipped to deal with crises in the order of magnitude presented by the cornoavirus. The Morrison government was certainly slow out of the blocks, but did manage to make up some ground, late but luckily. Morrison was mainly concerned with the economic issues rather than the more important health consequences, more or less, left health as a states responsibility, count our blessings on that one. The Berejiklian LNP government in NSW has been left behind, with its medical response, the inept handling of the 'Ruby Princess' debacle shows how incompetent the Berejiklian government really is, the voters should punish that incompetence severely at the ballot box.

The last time Australia faced a crises of the magnitude of the coronavirus was World War Two. The federal government at that time was a conservative one led by the Nazi sympathiser and apologist, the founder of the Liberal Party 'Pig Iron' Bob Menzies. Shown to be inept and lacking the fighting qualities need, the Menzies government collapsed, and another short lived conservative incompetent in the Country Party's Arthur Fadden took over. A no-confidence motion seen Fadden arse holed from government, and the outstanding war time leader, Labor's John Curtin took over and guided Australia successfully through the dark wartime years.

Is Morrison a Menzies, possibly not. Is Albanese a Curtin, certainly not.

The Queensland Premier clearly believes that it is not "all for nothing" with the very wild statement that the lockdown and inconvenience to everyone has saved 30,000 Queenslanders' lives. No evidence, of course

Not ones to let a crisis go to waste, the anti-smoking lobby has called for a ban on the sale of cigarettes because smoking 'kills more people than the China virus'. Fat chance. The projected rake in from smokers is projected to be $17.2 billion for the coming financial year. That money will be needed to help pay off the huge socialist spend up.

I wonder if the anti-smoking fascists know that another fascist, Adolf Hitler, was founder/convenor of the world anti-smoking movement.

Hey ttbn,

"The Queensland Premier clearly believes that it is not "all for nothing" with the very wild statement that the lockdown and inconvenience to everyone has saved 30,000 Queenslanders' lives. No evidence, of course"

It's hard to say how bad things might've been if they didn't act to prevent uncontrolled community transmission.

If you take a look at the charts in this article, you can see how the measures taken over the past two weeks have most certain;y averted a major crisis.

We're not out of the woods yet but at least we're now in a position where hospitals should be able to cope with any further influx of cases, hopefully.

It doesn't mean more people aren't still going to die, but it does mean hospitals should cope, that infected patients will receive a high standard or care rather than being quarantined in their homes and left to die alone.

I'm satisfied that Australia's response has had a positive impact on the pandemic and safeguarded many people in the community, but it has cost a hell of a lot of money.

Hey Mr Opinion,
"All that calculating must be making you thirsty! Care for some good old-fashioned Wuhan bat soup?"

We know now that virus has been engineered, which means it didn't come from bat feces in the market, though I'm fairly sure Coronavirus does come from bats.

From what I understand, Glycoprotein GP120 (related to HIV) is the way in which the virus gets past your immune system.
This was not part of any of the previous strains of Coronavirus and had to be inserted into the virus with a gene splicer.

It seems to me they muddy the water that much in the beginning to make everyone confused and already believing one thing, so that when the truth comes out later, everyone's already formed an opinion based on the previous bs they feed them and they can continue to control the narrative with doubt, confusion and a genuine lack of concerted effort to inform the public of the facts.

News is not about informing the public on the facts.
News is about making up your mind for you on any given topic.

“You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”

ttbn, what did you spend your $750 govvy welfare gift on? Fags and booze! Seen one welfare wombat on the telly saying when he got his 750 bucks the first thing he was going to buy was 8 boxes of VB!

How's this ttbn,

CAPITALISM'S backup plan is SOCIALISM.
LIBERALISM'S backup plan is AUTHORITARIANISM.

Thought that was cute. but true.

Are you still clinging to The Donald, and Buggy Boris as the savours of the Free World?

Armchair,

"** NSW - 4 out of 2773 recovered **
- with 21 deaths"

Your source is wrong. Last time I looked the NSW figures showed over 1000 had recovered.

Paul,

"Is Morrison a Menzies, possibly not. Is Albanese a Curtin, certainly not."

Is Paul an historian. Absolutely not. His understanding of the 1939-41 Menzies government is laughably wrong. Just more Marxist myths about the past that Paul absorbs without the slightest understanding.
But there was one big mistake Menzies made in those years. He should have arrested and interred for the duration of the war all those union leaders who were taking their orders from Moscow and seeking to destroy the war effort in 1939-41. Australia's preparedness would have been immensely improved had he done so. But he was too much the democrat.

SR,

"Brix has nothing to do with the Health Data site. She is from the White House team while the site is independently run from donations by the Bill and Melinda Foundation."

Birx is the main contact between the modellers and the White House. As such she is intimately involved in and aware of the changes in model outcomes. She has said that the original higher forecasts already had the social distancing built in.
Therefore any further fall in forecasts is due to other factors. See my previous posts for details on that.

The Institute of Public Affairs has stated that the government will have to cut spending to repay the China virus' cash splash. Before the current crisis, the interest on government debt was $16 billion per year. The IPA estimates that the post crisis interest rate will be $30 billion per year.

Paul1405,

I have very little confidence in the LNP $130 billion stimulus getting to the employees and preparing them for what is now looking like an economic depression coming their way.

LNP economic policy has always been targeted at helping business with the idea that there is a trickle down effect to the betterment of lower classes. Just won't happen!

Most of that $130b will go into the pockets of middle and upper class Australia to be put aside to help them get through the anticipated depression. It's just human nature for them to do this.

Question I am now asking is not Will there will be a depression? but How long will it be for?

What will it be like living in an Australia with 3-4 million unemployed workers standing in line at the 'Wuhan Bat Soup' Kitchen with their families; I can just hear little Johnnie saying "Daddy, do you think there will be enough Wuhan bat soup left for us?"

Unemployment now at 16.8% ((Roy Morgan). Underemployment, 27.4%. Given that many of the "hibernating" businesses will never restart, we won't be seeing an end to what China has wreaked on us. The moron who used the term 'hibernation' for the act of suddenly closing businesses and throwing people out of work should be tarred and feathered, and forced to run a gauntlet of angry, unemployed people.

We can't even be sure that we will ever regain the freedoms China has taken off us, with the help of our own politicians. Morrison hasn't stopped smirking about his new powers. Victoria police, no longer able to hound Cardinal Pell are hounding 17 years olds for having a driving lesson. Police are investigating a health matter (Ruby Princess). Brad Hazzard still has a job!

Internationally, the next leader of the Free World could be a senile old man who was accused of suffering "three strokes" during a 5 minute speech, most of his utterances being, "You know, the thing", when he couldn't think of something he should have known by heart. That's who the American Left will be voting for.

Freedom and prosperity are on the way out. China is winning, with the help of the dicks in Canberra.

ttbn,

I'll make sure I keep you a bowl of Wuhan bat soup.

Another example of the idiocy of the ACTU. They stood back and said nothing about the ridiculous number of foreign worker visas the Morrison government handed out (while we have 700, 000 of our own on the dole); now their leader, McManus, is demanding that these foreign workers, out of work because of the China virus, be included in taxpayer handouts. So far the government has told them to go home, but we all know that they could go to water at any time.

The biggest threats to Australia? China, our own politicians, and unions; not necessarily in that order.

Hey mhaze,

"Your source is wrong. Last time I looked the NSW figures showed over 1000 had recovered."

Well that'd make more sense, it's a percentage more in line with the other states.
Thanks for correcting me.

Somebody must've stuffed things up somewhere.
That site's supposed to be the most up to date compiling COVID-19 stats.
On the other hand what are the chances any of these bozo's would actually get something right in 2020?

- Slim To Nil -

While people are losing their jobs and businesses, Albo is calling for more funds for the ABC. We have no hope of ever getting decent government with the sort of idiots we have in government and in opposition.

Hey ttbn,

Sorry I forgot to add the link earlier to the C19 Charts.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704

Come, come, mhaze, you try to bucket me re the 1939/45 political situation in Australia during a time of cries, maybe you don't consider it was such a time. Menzies was a pathetic leader, unable to act decisively and suffered the consequences.

The facts for you mhaze!

September 3, 1939. Menzies declares war on Germany.
With war looming in the Pacific, Menzies lost the confidence of his own party, the conservative UAP, and was forced to resign the leadership, 27 August 1941. A joint UAP-Country Party conference chose another incompetent, Country Party leader Arthur Fadden as Coalition leader, and Prime Minister. The Fadden Government lasted only 40 days before being defeated on a confidence motion in parliament, 9th October 1941. Labor's John Curtain become Prime Minister. Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, 7th December 1941. On the evening of the 8th December Curtin broadcast to the nation that Australia was at war with Japan. The only time Australia has independently declared war, in 1939 Menzies had declared war on Germany in response to a declaration of war by the British government.

Where are your facts mhaze? Maybe you don't understand history, or you're just a far right revisionist.

Hey AC, good to see some sensible posts from some, keep it up. I did some research on the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed 20 to 50 million world wide. Seems it was actually American Swine Flu, originating in pigs in the Mid-West USA, early 1918, not proven conclusively, but there is plenty of evidence. Taken to Europe by newly arrive US troops. Why it was called Spanish Flu, both sides in the war suppressed their own death tolls from the flu, not wanting to give advantage to the other. Spain was neutral in the war, and freely reported its death toll, so it got the label of the Spanish Flu, wherever it came from, it certainly was not Spain.

cont

cont

"At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain. Citizens were ordered to wear masks, schools, theaters and businesses were shuttered and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues before the virus ended its deadly global march." Sound familiar, not written about the Coronavirus, but the 1918 flu pandemic.

Mr O, I absolutely agree with you on how the cash splash may not be used as intended.

What about this; "We're all in this together!" Seems that does not apply to New South Wales LNP Minister Don Harwin. Dear old Don was spotted choffing off to his million dollar holiday haunt on the NSW central coast for Easter. Is it a case of "Do as I say, not do as I do!" Big Nose, when you finished sacking Brad, sack Don!

Hey Armchair,

and others....

This doco makes a pretty good case that the virus was created by the Chinese military and covered up by the CCP.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/coronavirusfilm?utm_source=Epoch_Times&utm_medium=Banner

Its pretty long but worth the effort.

Bear in mind that it is made by The Epoch times which has links to Falun Gung and is therefore anti-CCP. So ignore the propaganda bits, particularly the last 5 minutes or so. But the factual portion appears to hold up.

"I do believe Hassy was a member of the Luftwaffe back in the day, flying his trusty old Messerschmitt. Hassy needs help understanding English, does anyone "sprechen deutsch" Paul.

Come on Paul, what utter garbage you talk.

If I had been a member of the Luftwaffe, England would have lost the war & surrendered before Pearl Harbor.

Hasbeen,
Paul1405, SteeleRedux & Mr Opinion would have made perfect Kamikaze Pilots for attacking a toilet block ! Would have given the Luftwaffe chaps something to laugh about & brighten their miserable days !

Well Paul,

That's a whole lot better than your first effort. At least now you've dropped the Nazi sympathiser/Pig Iron Bob bullsh!t.

I can't help but notice that you've decided to ignore the point about the unions being in cahoots with Moscow to hinder the Menzies Government's war efforts.

I also can't help but notice that you've completely missed the fact that the parliament Menzies faced was hopelessly divided and that his was a minority government opposed by an ALP that was much more interested in gaining power than in helping the war effort.

Hey Mr Opinion,
"LNP economic policy has always been targeted at helping business with the idea that there is a trickle down effect to the betterment of lower classes. Just won't happen!"

If you don't like trickle down policy, come up with something better, I did.

It's called 'Socialist Base Level Employment Scheme'.
Take the 5% unemployed Capitalism needs to prevent wage growth and turn them from a liability to an asset.
Double Dole for full-time work doing things to help the government save money.
You already pay someone $500 a fortnight to do nothing ($50 work-day).
Why not pay them $500 a week and get a full-time worker instead?
It only costs an extra $50 a day from someone doing nothing to someone doing something constructive full-time that helps the country.

People would confirm a work-shift through myGov which would also match jobs to skills via a digital resume.
Skills and Training would be almost entirely app-based.

People taking part in the non-compulsory scheme would also earn Training credits which could be used to increase skills (Pay for Training and Testing)

If you don't like trickle down then try trickle up.
All you have to do is change the rules of the game.

This ends the 'I can't get a job' excuse and stops a need for half the social programs that are needed to deal with peoples problems caused during difficult times in their lives.

This stops them falling down in the first place.
And it's not a hand out being unfair to existing taxpayers.
It's a hand up.

Hey mhaze,
I'll give it a look.
Epoch Times are sometimes out in front with the facts.
- Many Thanks -

Hey Paul1405,

"I did some research on the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed 20 to 50 million world wide. Seems it was actually American Swine Flu, originating in pigs in the Mid-West USA, early 1918, not proven conclusively, but there is plenty of evidence."

Yeah, it's not Spanish at all, courtesy of the good ole US of A.
I've heard a few of my YouTube hosts mention it lately.
If I hear any of them mention it again and get any more specifics I'll share it with you.

Chinavirus / Wuflu probably didn't originate in China either.

America's a funny country.
Federal reserve is not a department of the Federal Government.
It's no more federal that Federal Express.

They will name government bills big grand names, but really they're the opposite of what they're called.
For example:

National Defense Authorisation Act
- is actually the National Offense Authorisation Act
(That's what it REALLY is)
Defense Threat Reduction Agency
- is actually the Defense Threat Production Agency
(That's what they REALLY do)
Etc.

Can't remember them all, but there's heaps of joke names that make fun of all these bills and agencies.

I haven't dropped it mhaze, I just didn't mention it in my last post that 'Pig Iron' Bob was a Nazi sympathiser and apologist. 'Pig Iron' got his nick name from authorising sales of iron from Port Kembla to Japan, which was turned into bombs dropped on innocent civilians in Manchuria and China, then on our own people in Darwin 1942. Patriotic unions tried to stop the practice to no avail, that's why you claim they were in league with the USSR.

During WWI, although being of serviceable age, when 95% of such men volunteered, by the standards of the times Menzies was a coward, failing to enlist, preferring to stay at home in the family mansion. Did Menzies receive a white feather in the mail, we'll never know.

Just on Menzies and the Nazi's; In August 1938, while Attorney-General of Australia, Menzies spent several weeks visiting Nazi Germany. He reported in glowing terms the achievements of the Third Reich, brushing aside their human rights violations, he thought that the Germans should take care of their own affairs, and had no intention of war. Was he disappointed that he didn't have an audience with the Fuhrer, where he could have given a good old "seig heil" to Adolf, we'll never know

Hey AC, just on the claim that the 1918/19 Spanish Flu was actually American Swain Flu. Regardless of it origin it wasn't Spanish, they just happened to be neutral in WWI and openly reported their cases, so the name stuck. Plus the fact the Allies didn't want to stick their new compatriot America with creating a world wide pandemic.
I'm writing this from memory from what I've read and seen. In the winter of 1917, a back water doctor in the Mid West USA, Kansas, reported to Washington that a highly virulent strain of flu had killed an usually high number of hog farmers and their families, mostly young health people, in the area. This was not that unusual, as previous outbreaks of Swine Flu in remote pig farming areas of the Mid West had occurred, and as quick as they came, they subsided with the change of seasons. Washington simply noted the doctors report, and took no action. What was different this time was America joined WWI, and young farm youth were enlisting and being located in large numbers away from remote isolated areas to army camps, where overcrowded conditions were right for the spread of influenza. At the time the US Army was dealing with a serious measles outbreak, not giving a high priority to the influenza.

The vast majority of US troops shipped to Europe, disembarked at the French port of Brest, where influenza among allied troops was first reported. It quickly spread with the movement of troops. It was not until later that it spread into the German army and its allies. Neither side reported on the epidemic, not wishing to give the other an advantage.

The only other creditable explanation for its origins is that it was brought to Europe with British Empire troops from the far east. However the outbreak in those troops definitely took place after Brest. My Old Man, who was a young boy during WWI, told me where ever it came from, it wasn't China

individual,

Haw haw haw ....... You funny. Plus the fact you have an undiagnosed mental disorder.

Sorry Hazzy, I got the wrong war, you were too old for that one. I remember you were flying a trusty Fokker with the Red Barron in an earlier war.

See your days as Captain Bligewater on the Great Barrier Reef, were not entirely wasted, you managed to do your part and contribute to the 60% destruction of the reef today. Well done Old Cock!

Oh I have enjoyed the utter madness and wackiness of the Trump briefings I have managed to catch. This little snippet from Reddit jokes was a gem;

"Captain Trump of the RMS Titanic:

There isn't any iceberg.
There was an iceberg but it's in a totally different ocean.
The iceberg is in this ocean but it will melt very soon.
There is an iceberg but we didn't hit the iceberg.
We hit the iceberg, but the damage will be repaired very shortly.
The iceberg is a Chinese iceberg.
We are taking on water but every passenger who wants a lifeboat can get a lifeboat, and they are beautiful lifeboats. Look, passengers need to ask nicely for the lifeboats if they want them.
We don't have any lifeboats, we're not lifeboat distributors.
Passengers should have planned for icebergs and brought their own lifeboats.
I really don't think we need that many lifeboats.
We have lifeboats and they're supposed to be our lifeboats, not the passengers' lifeboats.
The lifeboats were left on shore by the last captain of this ship.
Nobody could have foreseen the iceberg."

Paul,

I'm not going to regurgitate this all over again. I previously educated you on this issue but clearly your prefer the myths to the facts. So go here to see what I filled you in on two years ago...

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=8088#251153

"Patriotic unions tried to stop the practice to no avail, that's why you claim they were in league with the USSR."

No I was referring to the coal strikes of 1940 where unions, acting under orders from Moscow, tried to interfere with the war effort. Remember Russia was then an ally of Hitler.

Thanks, Steele :). Brilliant take on Captain Marvel. You could have added:

1. Hey, what if we just let it take its course so that all the infections are over in a fortnight and we can get back to work ?

2. Let's do this all again, when a second round of infections hit ? And then a third ?

3. Anyway, the Chinese caused all this so it's their problem.

4. Has anyone tried Vicks Vapo-Drops ? I'm brave ! I'm smart !

Oops: all of those options 1-3 are already being canvassed. The US is stuffed.

Joe

"It is an ostensibly conservative government that has promoted this self-lacerating national panic, the same government that served as steward at the desecration of marriage. Some conservative commentators will tell you, for so they are hinting, that when the panic abates the Liberals will be well-positioned to carry through a real dismantling of the architecture of the Leftist state apparatus, so desperate will be our finances. But we know better from bitter experience. LIBERAL GOVERNMENTS DO NOT SO MUCH DISAPPOINT AS NEVER INTEND". (retired judge, Stuart Lindsay).

It is no longer good enough to say, 'Well at least they are better than Labor' because, apart from border protection, they are really not; they haven't been since John Howard lost the plot, and his seat with it. And, while we are talking borders, the LNP mass immigration program is as appalling as Labor's is.

Government largesse will only delay the coming economic crunch that will result from Morrison's heavy handedness. Morrison won't suffer personally. No politicians and advising public servants (including ABC operatives calling for even tougher measures and more job losses) - the highest paid in the world - will suffer the financial agony heading for all those people who have lost jobs, businesses and homes. These people are telling the rest of us what we can do and putting restrictions on our freedoms. But what do they get up to on weekends? Are they short of toilet paper? One politician has been caught out in the last couple of days; fined, and now resigned as a minister, he will have to manage on a backbencher's screw. What a burden! Politicians are as cunning as shitehouse rats, so we don't know what they get up to out of the public eye. The one just mentioned must be a real bozo to get caught.

How can we keep voting these jerks in!

According to the Reserve Bank, people are now panic withdrawing large amounts of cash. Wonderful times ahead! Let's hope that cash doesn't go the way of toilet paper.

Ttbn,

I support your suggestion that public servants' guaranteed incomes be either held steady or in some cases (where utter uselessness can be easily demonstrated), cut.

On the other hand, given that there are around 750,000 international students currently in Australia, many almost finished their studies, rather than expect them to go home, why not offer them citizenship ? Apart from the obvious fact that they deserve to finish their studies if they have come this far, it would be a massive boost not only to our eventual population but to our relations with neighbouring countries.

And best of all, it would bring howls of impotent rage from some of the thumb-up-arse closet racists on OLO :). Oh hello, Misopinionated, I didn't see you there, I thought your periodic three days' out was already over and that you were back under heavy medication.

Cheers,

Joe

Dear mhaze,

Your original post starting this thread claimed in part;

"Even in Europe, where things are much worse than anything we’ve seen here so far, they are getting strange signs that things aren’t all doom and gloom. Check this site which shows a strange lack of increase in overall deaths in Europe…http://www.euromomo.eu/index.html"

I said in reply to it that "statement that had been heavily qualified in the original article"

In support I pasted a quote from the page; "Therefore, although increased mortality may not be immediately observable in the EuroMOMO figures, this does not mean that increased mortality does not occur in some areas or in some age groups, including mortality related to COVID-19."

You attacked with the following; "But standard SR here. Pick up a minor peripheral issue, exaggerate it beyond all recognition, misinterpret some point or other, make inane claims about said misinterpretation and then make moronic pronouncements."

Could you now please return to the site which now shows those delayed figures. They reveal a huge up surge in deaths after what was the tailing off of a mild flu season in Europe. http://www.euromomo.eu/index.html

My question is, do you stand by the assertions you made in your original post? Particularly "But now we know that the threat of this virus to all, other than the very aged with pre-existing conditions, is minor."

Finally what do you think the figures would have looked like if the disease had been at its worse during the peak of the flu season and if the mitigation efforts around the world had not been implemented?

Can you really expect figures to be accurate after health systems become overwhelmed?
What if the dead aren't collected or counted yet?

apparently not one person has died of any other flu than Covid 19 in New York in the last month or so! This is starting to smell more and more.

Hey SteeleRedux,

Coronavirus in New York came mainly from Europe, studies show.
http://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html

Quote >>New research indicates that the coronavirus began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February, weeks before the first confirmed case, and that it was brought to the region mainly by travelers from Europe, not Asia."<<

'Every Single Individual Must Stay Home': Italy's Coronavirus Surge Strains Hospitals
http://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/817974987/every-single-individual-must-stay-home-italy-s-coronavirus-deaths-pass-china-s

Quote >>Remuzzi says he is now hearing information about it from general practitioners. "They remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November," he says. "This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China."

He says it was impossible to combat something you didn't know existed.<<

So whats the take away?
1/ Majority of cases in New York came from Europe not China.
2/ The virus was in Lombardy and Milan (as I tried to explain earlier) before it was in China.

I know you don't don't subscribe to anything I put forward about the origins of the virus, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong.

I don't read newspapers, and the online site is paywalled, but another source reports that, in The Australian, someone called Steve Waterson wrote an article, which included the question, 'When did precious become priceless?" The question referring to what Waterson calls the PM's sense of Christian compassion (saving everyone at massive cost to the economy) leading him to get the balance wrong - most people won't be affected by the China virus, and most who are will suffer only mild symptoms. Prime Minister Morrison has been "manipulated by modellers" (as with climate modelling), according to this story.

This theory could be agreed to by some, poo-pooed by others. But the theme of the thread is "What if it's all for nothing", and this one more thought on the matter.

Hey ttbn,
I think most of the actions government has taken to stop the spread of C19 are justified.
We've done fairly well to prevent a much more serious situation.

I'm not sure all of the handouts given out are justified however.
I think a lot of it might prove to have been unnecessary.

I think if we can keep the daily total of infected under 100 and maybe bring it down a little more, we might be able to start letting some people go back to work, so long as they can ensure social distancing rules stay in place.

Whilst we should be cautious to not rush for normality too soon, I'd be happy to keep the current measures in place for at least another week, after that look at particular jobs and ways we can start to get things back to normal, where it's safe to do so.

Kogan are selling 3M Masks that work out at $14ea.
http://www.kogan.com/au/buy/3m-9502-n95-particulate-respirator-mask-25-pack-3m/

If an employer can provide masks and gloves ($5 for a box of 100 Ansell disposable gloves at Bunnings - if you can get them) and social distancing measures remain in place then I think this is enough basic protection if the number of daily infected continues to fall, that we can consider some people returning to work where it's relatively safe or low risk to do so.

Looking ahead it's time to start asking some serious questions.

If I apply all the crap I go on about re:
The way to the truth on any issue is to separate arguments that do hold merit from those that don't.

COVID-19: What, When, Where, Why, How

The when and where is a big job, really a matter of tracing many when and wheres to get to where it really all started.
That's one line of inquiry.

- But another line of inquiry is that the virus can speak for itself -

The most important first question to start this Covid-19 investigation should be this:

** Did COVID-19 come from a lab or was it an accident of nature? **
http://youtu.be/NdMt8bHfQKM

[Cont.]

The reason why knowing whether COVID-19 came from a lab or was an accident of nature is the most important question is this:

Firstly, it's the whole nature of the 'What'.
I can't get to 'Why' if I don't first know the 'What'.

I want to know whether:

A/ This came from nature and humans as a whole will be ok once we develop an immunity to it.
OR
B/ Whether or not this was concocted by people in a laboratory for the specific purposes of deliberately harming other people (in ways that may not even be fully known to us yet)

This stuff might be human-roundup and in six months time everyone drops dead, I don't know.

Let the virus speak for itself.
Did it come from a lab or an accident of nature?

If we find evidence it is NOT an accident of nature, then further questions should be devised and asked, in order to get to the truth of it.

Are we about to see the biggest manhunt in Australian history as the government starts to round up those 1.2 million temporary visa holders who lost their jobs a casuals and cannot sustain themselves because they are not entitled to welfare?

They have been given their marching orders by the government. But how many of them want to or cannot return to their homes in places like China, Sudan, Indonesia, India, etc., and are in hiding in cities and towns around the country?

STOP PRESS

Just saw Josh Frydenberg on The Insiders say there are 2.2 million temporary visa holders working as casuals in Australia.

They will need a lot of vans to round up this bunch!

An anonymous blogger refers to the people on ABC's 'Insiders' as a "pack of morons" who should socially isolate themselves and read something "other than the Communist Manifesto".

Why? Well they have called for the government to borrow more money to spend to alleviate the effects of the China virus.

Anon wonders from whom the money would be borrowed. It would, of course, be from 'others', and not from the likes of Marxist morons working for the ABC. So, who would lend money to a government chucking the stuff around in order to give the impression that they are 'doing a good job', and should be re-elected when the time comes? No real people at the current interest rates. So, who/where?

The Reserve Bank could print more money?
Banks forced to buy government bonds?
Raids on superannuation funds?

No matter where extra money could come from, what these ABC clowns are really calling for - in accordance with their greed for other people's money - is "state confiscation of wealth".

The chance of most Australians being laid low by the virus of a Communist Chinese government is very low; nothing compared with the financial ruin that our own neo-Communists would have us suffer

ttbn,

When we come out of the effects of the Wuhan virus we can just restart the economy the same way we have been keeping it afloat over the past 30 years: Bring in lots of cashed up Chinese migrants and sell off our assets to Chinese State controlled companies. I think Soot 'Beam up me Scotty' Morrison would probably tell you: "it's worked before so why not do it again."

In times gone by, a crisis like the China virus would have favoured parties of the Left. Even now, our left of centre Prime Minister is being praised for spending other people's money. But, there is one big difference between our left-leaning LNP government and the hard Left Green Labor mob - border protection. And the China virus came over our borders.

Labor will not benefit from this crisis as it once would have. Labor, with blackmail and threats from the Greens, and it's own Marxist elements, has crippled itself with policies of open borders, identity politics and other obsessions of affluent Communists in the ABC and the public service. And, if anything underlines the importance of strong border protection it is the Chinese virus.

With numbers out of control in the US, maybe we should start calling this disaster the 'Trump virus' ?

Of course, since he didn't start it, he really doesn't have to do anything about it. It's somebody else's fault. So, in a way, it's not actually happening. After all, where have you seen anything like this in Marvel comics ?

Joe

Loudmouth,

In a 1966 edition of Captain America comics of course!

Dear Loudmouth2,

The last press conference from Trump was brilliant.

“This is a very brilliant enemy. You know, it’s a brilliant enemy. They develop drugs like the antibiotics. You see it. Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it.

"And they're constantly trying to come up with a new – people go to a hospital and they catch – they go for a heart operation – that's no problem, but they end up dying from – from problems. You know the problems I'm talking about. There's a whole genius to it."

“We’re fighting – not only is it hidden, but it’s very smart. Okay? It’s invisible and it’s hidden, but it’s – it’s very smart.”

Leaving aside the fact that antibiotics don't kill viruses I just love the incoherence on display. It is so cringe worthy it is addictive. This is the President of the United States of America. Who would have ever thought it.

SteeleRedux,

At least give Trump some credit for not claiming that he is smarter than the Wuhan virus.

It shows the world that he can be diplomatic when dealing with the enemy.

Credit to the PM for talking about self-sufficiency after the Chinese virus. Let's open that there is enough money in the kitty to kick it off following his economic overreaching.

Japan, as part of distancing itself from China economically, is spending $3 billion to get Japanese manufacturers to back out of China set up back in Japan. Fifty American companies returned to their own country last year.

If we have the money to spend what we are spending now, we should be able to follow suit. And we have 700,000 unemployed, plus those thrown out of work by the Chinese virus, to put to work

Queensland police have issued 450 plus fines for Chinese virus related transgressions, realising over half a million dollars for the state. Ironically, many businesses are going broke over the enforcement of these very same restrictions people are being fined for breaking.

Education Minister, Dan Tehan, his $365, 250 salary including perks still coming in, is making smartarse remarks to people with no income thanks to the Chinese virus and his government's heavy handed closures of workplaces - "If life gives you lemons make lemonade". Their new-found powers are emboldening politicians to show more contempt for the electorate than ever.

ttbn,

Please stop using the term 'Chinese virus'. It is racist and uncalled for and you should be ashamed of yourself. The proper term is 'Wuhan virus'.

PS have you seen the videos of people masquerading as Chinese in order to get preferential access to baby formula at supermarkets, which they can then sell in China for a huge profit? There should be a law against people masquerading as Chinese. It's disgusting; it makes Chinese look like parasites.

Hi Steele,

In good times the world can afford the luxury of a bubbling bubble brain like Donald Trump. A "leader" to be scorned, lampooned, ridiculed, nothing more than the butt of many a joke, that's 'The Donald'. Unfortunate in a time of cries that's no longer the case. Countries look to their leaders for guidance in these troubling times, the world needs great leadership to take it through the catastrophe and guide it to safety. Sadly America has 'The Donald, Britain has bug ridden Boris, a couple of conservative nincompoops, and one only has to look at the results in those countries to realise that these "leaders" are no longer a joke, they cost thousands of their citizens their very lives.

Yet even on this Forum, 'The Donald' has his disciples, who see him as some kind of savour, the new messiah no less! As another ding bat closer to home would say; Please explain.

Hi Paul,

Yes, I agree that Trump's incompetence may cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the US. Still, they voted for him so they're stuck with him. Very cruelly, Lenin is supposed to have said that people get the government that they deserve. Even the Yanks, I suppose. Of course, Francis Fukuyama did put a question mark at the end of his book title: ".... The End of History ?"

Their exponential is still way above 1.0, their growth curve is not flattening: two thousand deaths each day seems to be how it will all go for the next week. Epidemiologists and statisticians must have some sort of measure in which - in this case, for example - the growth in cases of infection outruns the capacity of the health system. I have great fears that that will happen in Africa, India, refugee camps all over the world, particularly in Bangla Desh, Africa and the Middle East.

I don't understand the policy of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua to ignore the whole problem. Maybe they think it's a Yankee plot. Well, no, and even if it were, it would still impact on their population with devastation. We can only hope they get some sense before that runaway point is reached.

Cheers,

Joe

ttbn, I watched Josh Friedbrain on 'Insiders' and he wouldn't be drawn on the issue of manufacturing "self-sufficiency" for Australian industry, as is the majority of the conservative side of politics. The advocates for some degree of self-sufficiency like Bob Katter are seen as whacko's of little consequence.

ScumO' and Friedbrain are very much in the Globelest camp on this, as are their strongest backers, it pays big dividends for them. Other than talking about niche industries, which after all are nothing more than glorified cottage industries, they are not interested in any large scale manufacturing in Australia. BTW when this is all over they may make a concession and allow an Australian face mask industry, to placate the health concerns of the general populace. Imagine, our very own face mask industry, and not having to rely on imports from China in times of need, what a relief that will be. All thanks to ScumO' and Friedbrain.

Just on the future self sufficient growth of Australian industry, the "Face Masks Manufacturing Industry". According to ScumO' and Friedbrain, projected modelling shows that every Australia should be able to produce 40 face masks a day at home in their cottages, on their trusty old 'Singer Sewing Machines'. That's 100,000,000 per day, 364,000,000,000 per year, Chrissy Day off. Now with pandemics running on a 100 year cycle, the next one due in 2120, ScumO' and Friedbrain said Australia will be fully prepared, full self sufficient, for such an event with a stock pile of 364,000,000,000,000 face masks! That represents a face mask to projected population of 47 still living, a ratio of over 1 trillion masks per person! As The leader of the free world 'The Donald' would say "A beautiful set of numbers". When asked, how did that equate to the GDP quantitative earnings ration on a seasonally adjusted basis Treasure Friedbrain said Treasury projections in these times of fluoserty (new word) put that figure in dollar terms at "lots" possibly even "lots and lots"! He went on to say the Australian people will be well satisfied with this great achievement and wants to remind them that in February 2020, he was able to reduce unemployment from 5.3% to 5.1%, a beautiful set of numbers, all while creating another new job at the Moonee Ponds Pizza Store, which closed down in March 2020! But he did give the new guy 1,500 bucks.

Just reading a few comments:

"So a couple of French scientists get called out by WHO for wanting to test their vaccines on Africans rather than their own citizens and you want to inject WHO staff as a consequence of their temerity?"

Dr Fauci himself was caught trying to recruit people to fast-track human trials outside of the FDA.
You should take a better look at the very people you're currently trusting.

To everyone who is pointing the finger at Trumps incompetence:

Trumps being played by those around him.
He's been driven off a cliff deliberately, and the entire US and global citizenry along with it.

Pay attention to this smoking gun:

** Fauci predicted the Trump Presidency would be hit with a bioweapon 10 days before his inaugruation. **
I'm telling you all this thing stinks.

Stop arguing over changing outbreak statistics and other pointless crap.

COVID-19 is a Bioweapon.
It was released probably because the Trump-Russia bs failed to remove him from office.

It's not a PANdemic, it's a PLANdemic.

I think he's being fed bs by those around him to make him deliberately misstep the handling of the virus, to give Biden half a chance to win the election without campaigning, and with Hillary, Obama and the Deep State gang running things behind the scenes.

You're not looking in the right places, and with the corporate media there are no right places.
If you don't watch these 2 videos then you'll all going to be clueless going forward and that's what you deserve.
You're not looking in the right places and not asking the right questions.
I'm giving this to you, get smart for crying out loud!

How does the corporate media turn you all into clueless morons at each others throats?
You're all muppets I demand you GET THE FACTS.

Fauci, Birx, and Redfield - Army Virus Bioweapons Plan
http://youtu.be/CJelNf7hewk

Fauci’s tune is easy to pick out in coronavirus SARS2
http://youtu.be/rzrHlVujkF0

You're all acting like chooks running around with their heads chopped off.

And that makes this thread:

- All For Nothing -

AC,

All threads could be seen as "all for nothing". After the first few comments, things always descend into a boring spectacle of the same handful of posters arguing with each other. You only have to look at the ID's to know why they are going to say. No need to read. Nothing achieved.

The governments own stats say in 90% of cases they know where it came from.
In cases where it's known (90%), only 10% of those are from Asian countries.
The vast majority of COVID-19 cases came from Europe.

These are the worst contributors for origin of the virus, which we should've blocked, or in the case of cruise ships, managed better.

1. Europe
2. Cruise Ships
3. Americas

- These 3 alone have accounted for 80% of all cases.

http://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers

Dear Armchair Critic,

You obsess; “COVID-19 is a Bioweapon. It was released probably because the Trump-Russia bs failed to remove him from office. It's not a PANdemic, it's a PLANdemic.”

So now it is the Democrats who done it? Whew mate, you do have it bad don't you.

Well it was some long term planning that went into this one then. Thy must have set up a few of the bird flu pandemics of the past just to lay in wait for Trump.

All rubbish I'm afraid but if this is what keeps you going have at it mate.

Luciferase

Thanks for your suggested link way above.

That is the most sensible explanation I've yet seen.

Dan

SR,

Re the Euromomo data. I don't know what you think you see there but two things remain apparent:

1. That the number of deaths remains on par with a severe flu season
2. The deaths are largely confined to the elderly.

Nothing much has changed there.

" I just love the incoherence on display."

Yeah, we wouldn't want a president who wasn't 100% coherent 100% of the time....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omHUsRTYFAU

But that's different because....reasons.

_______________________________________________________________

runner,

"This is starting to smell more and more."
I wouldn't rush to conspiracy here. Just people reacting in a crisis with less than complete competence. Its very true that there is growing evidence of the number of deaths due to the virus being overstated - that we are counting people who died WITH the virus rather than just those who died OF the virus. Cases where people are bought to hospital with acute organ failure from a previous condition, being exposed to the virus and then being counted as a wuhan virus victim. There's also anecdotal evidence that the numbers of heart attacks are startlingly down in NY with the assumption being that many people dying of heart attack are being counted as virus victims.

When this is all over, epidemiologists will pull all this apart and its likely that the number of Wuhan virus deaths will be downgraded. Then people will be talking about a conspiracy to hide the true death rate.

mhaze,

What are you planning to do if all of the epidemiologists end up dying WITH the Wuhan virus instead OF the Wuhan virus or in the worse case they end up dying OF the Wuhan virus instead of WITH the Wuhan virus?

Kudos for calling it Wuhan virus instead of adhering to China's request to refer to it as COVID-19. China shouldn't be allowed to escape its responsibility for this pandemic and be allowed to think that all countries round the world should just get on with business as usual in order to shore up the Chinese economy against collapse.

Dear Diver Dan,

Really? If you are talking about Professor Knut Wittkowski then please be aware the guy had a shocker. I'm no expert but when I watched it even I knew he was talking out of his arse.

This is what he said on April the 1st (the video was uploaded on the 3rd) when he was asked why he thought the pandemic was over.

“There are no more cases in China and in South Korea. The number of new cases in Europe is already beginning to decline. The virus came later to the US so here we see a bit of an incline maybe and a levelling off within the next couple of days.”

On the day of the video the new cases figure in Europe was 34,000 the very next day it was 54,000. So much for a decline.

This is what he said what would have happened in the US if intervention had not occurred, something he advocated.

“Two percent of all symptomatic case will die, that's 2 percent of the 25,000 per day so that is 500 people per day and that will happen over 4 weeks so that could be as high as 10,000 people.”

Well even with all the interventions this guy was saying were counter productive the current death rate per day is is now 4 times his prediction, the total number of deaths is already over double his predictions and the US is still pretty well at its peak. One shudders to think what it would have been if the government had followed his advice.

Just another typical contrarian mimicking Trump's talking points unfortunately.

Dear mhaze,

You are bloody well kidding right. You made much of flat figures and now they are spiking you are saying it still marries with your orginal position? Rubbish.

And you were wrong on this; “But now we know that the threat of this virus to all, other than the very aged with pre-existing conditions, is minor.” Just look at the 15-64 year old spike on your link.

You are now wrong when you claim “That the number of deaths remains on par with a severe flu season”. No they don't. Those countries heavily impacted by the virus have seen current figures blowing past figures out of the water. Look at Italy, Spain, Netherlands, or England. All smashing the previous three years flu records.

While we can cut Italy and Spain some slack because of how quickly the virus reared its head, but the Netherlands and England decided to go the 'herd immunity route and look how many deaths it has cost them.

Why don't you admit you were wrong on this an move on.

SteeleRedux,

Interesting to see you raise the issue that England decided to go the 'herd immunity route.

My reckoning is that China used the herd immunity approach in Wuhan. They haven't come out and said this but it makes sense that this is what happened because (1) they kept it secret in the early stage and (2) only released it to the news after it had peaked and (3) the infections came to a sudden halt and decline halt. I think these points all indicate a herd immunity approach.

Bug Ridden Boris, followed the same route taken in London during the Plague of 1665. Red crosses on doors etc, and he stopped eating figs, however he did stop short of having all the cats and dogs destroyed. Should have surrounded himself with burning candies like the Pope in Rome did. It must have worked, he didn't catch the pox!

mhaze wrote 5th April "But now we know that the threat of this virus to all, other than the very aged with pre-existing conditions, is minor."

"Check this site which shows a strange lack of increase in overall deaths in Europe" The facts since 5th April have shot mhaze claims to pieces.

SR,

Here's what I wrote on the first day of the thread by way of clarification....

"You need to look at the graphs for the overall data and compare the deaths during this influenza season as compared to previous influenza seasons."

That still remains correct.

As to the 15-64 yr olds, I guess if you struggle with numbers you could think that the data would be distributed across that age group. But you'd be wrong. We know, based on other data, that the deaths concentrate at the upper end of that cohort.

__________________________________________________________________

You might notice that I also mentioned the Diamond Princess in those early posts, a subject that SR and the like avoided like the plague, if you'll forgive the expression.

This very interesting article also mentions that vessel and the data from it. Since that data doesn't match with what most people want to be true, its been ignored. But it still remains valid....

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-its-so-freaking-hard-to-make-a-good-covid-19-model/

Dear mhaze,

You said; "You need to look at the graphs for the overall data and compare the deaths during this influenza season as compared to previous influenza seasons."

We sure have and what looked to be a very mild season has been taken off the rails by the Coronavirus.

Yuo then said; “As to the 15-64 yr olds, I guess if you struggle with numbers you could think that the data would be distributed across that age group. But you'd be wrong. We know, based on other data, that the deaths concentrate at the upper end of that cohort.”.

Nobody made that contention at all. Another straw man from you. However given there was such a mild flu season the sudden uptick in deaths in this cohort does show the age group has indeed been impacted heavily by the virus. You would have to be utterly blind not to accept that as a fact.

If we had access to the age data by country I suspect it would be far more pronounced in those countries most rife with the disease.

Basically mate the whole premise of your first post has sunk from sight and all you are doing now is trying to save a couple of deck chairs.

Give it away.

SR

I know it not the popular view, but there are other considerations, namely the economy: that is where Trump trumpets.
So the western economies are incredibly fragile. Chinese economy is fragile for the reason of its dependency on the West.

Since the subprime collapse, quantative easing ( printing money), has been legendary.
The Feds lowering interest rates to almost zero for this reason has created a debt bubble, which is a contagion with ruthless consequences for everybody.

Trump is correct in applying the logic; which will be more painful, watching the vulnerable in society melt down during a corona virus pandemic, or watching the consequences of a global finnancial melt down?

Also keep this in mind, the hardest hit has been small business. This lockdown nonsense has decimated it. That is stupid governance. Nothing is worth that price.
To substitute the contributions of small business with government printed money, is fairy-land economics.

The situation in society is out of control while looking like its in control.
I can sympathise with the rigging of objectionable flags on the Telstra tower in Melbourne overnight. It makes sense.

We are not living through an Ebola plague, with a death rate of 97%, if we were then all the overkill would be justified.

Dan

I agree completely Dan. I believe this cure is likely to be a lot more devastating than the disease.

I had my 20Th birthday party just 6 weeks ago. At my party we were discussing that if I can hang around for another 4 years we can have a huge 21St birthday party. Yes I'm a leap year kid, [special from the day I was born], I've been around just over 80 years, So one of the more vulnerable.

It is nice of you lot to be so worried for my well being, but I am more worried about my kids & grand kids futures. My kids are OK, still employed & likely to remain so, but on 4 day weeks. My son is fine, the navy keep chasing him every couple of months to come back, they are desperate for engineers with experience, but many of my neighbors & their kids are home, & some are already worried about their mortgage in the years to come.

Many doubt their previous employers will reopen their business, & the older ones know how hard it is for 50+ people to find jobs.

If we don't reopen for business in the next month or so, some of us oldies may survive longer, but how many younger lives will be destroyed to achieve this? Much as I would like to have that 21St birthday party, I am not sure it is worth the huge cost to the current younger & next generation, this lock down is causing.

"I (Hasbeen) believe this cure is likely to be a lot more devastating than the disease." Tell that to the average New Yorker and many others. In fact its the very measures being taken, testing, quarantining, social distancing, etc, in countries like Australia that is having a huge impact on the spread of the virus, and consequently the number of deaths. Donald Trump is a prime example of a dill brained politician who failed to act with any degree of expedience in relation to the virus, and now his country is suffering horrendous consequences because of his inaction. Hassy your simple rabid right perversion with money matters is dangerous in the extreme. Yes lets hope the cure is more devastating than the disease, because the devastation the disease is capable of is far more horrendous than any simple money implications can ever be.

BTW you say you are coming up "21" that means you have spent most of your life thinking as a child, and it shows.

Hasbeen,

If you hadn't been born in a leap year does that mean you wouldn't have been born at all if it didn't happen in a leap year?

SR,

"...what looked to be a very mild season has been taken off the rails by the Coronavirus."

Do you need a hand moving those goalposts?

Nowhere did I suggest that the Wuhan Virus didn't cause deaths merely "a strange lack of increase in overall deaths in Europe".
The current deaths rates as per the site in question shows that they are no worse than death rates in other flu seasons. Yet we didn't close down the entire society during those severe seasons.

"Basically mate the whole premise of your first post has sunk from sight "

Assert (a claim without evidence) what you want SR, but the fact is that there is nothing in my original post which I'd change now despite every expanding data.

It remains my view that the early (incorrect) data about the virus panicked medical bureaucrats, who in turn panicked politicians who were anxious to avoid being saddled with the deaths and that the closure of economic life turned out to be unwarranted. If we could go back to early February knowing what we now know about the virus, this would have been done very differently.

Dear Hasbeen,

Oh come on old cock look on the bright side.

Families once virtually estranged because of brutal commutes and savage working hours are now betting to spend time together, in some cases really getting to know each other for the first time.

The nearly 40 million dollars per day Australians were pumping into pokie machines is now still in their pockets.

We as a society have got to learn what the essential things in life really are.

And what should please you more than anything: the smashed avocado, latte sipping set that you so despise are no longer a thing with all their trendy cafes having been closed down.

All those arty farty galleries have been shuttered, all those highfalutin ballets and orchestras cancelled. You really should be feeling like a pig in mud but still you are on here grizzling away.

Some people are never happy.

Dear mhaze,

Slippery as a butcher's dick mate. Oh well having you concede even an inch was never going to happen was it.

As for this “The current deaths rates as per the site in question shows that they are no worse than death rates in other flu seasons.”

Not in the countries that had been caught out early. In those places this has been far worse that any flu season shown on that site. The only reason it has been kept low overall is because of the very mild flu season and the fact that EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES HAVE BEEN PUT IN PLACE TO CONTAIN IT”S SPREAD.

Why is this so difficult for you?

Misopinionated,

Did you mean:

"If you hadn't been born in a leap year does that mean you wouldn't have been born at all ... ?"

Or conversely,

"If you hadn't been born in a leap year does that mean ... it didn't happen in a leap year?"

Is English your second or third language ? Does logic play any part in your small thinking repertoire ? Are you somewhere along the autism spectrum ? Or perhaps only about fourteen ? And only part-way through your TAFE environmental sociology diploma ? Or all of the above ?

But I suppose, as a village idiot, you dress for the occasion :)

Joe

Only 44 cases in the last 24hrs, great news everyone.

Loudmouth,

Looks all right to me.

Have you awarded yourself any more imaginary degrees lately?

SR,

Are you sure you don't help with those goalposts?

"Not in the countries that had been caught out early. In those places this has been far worse...."

In my early posts I specifically pointed out that some countries had higher rates than others, but that I was referring to the entire European situation as regards the extent of the deaths.

So what does good 'ol SR do. Tells me I should be looking at the individual countries only. This is standard SR. Misinterpret/misunderstand a point and then demand that others respond to and accept his misunderstanding.

Its as though I point out the sun rises in the east and SR declares that I need to look at the sun at 4pm which is nowhere near the east and therefore I completely wrong. The very definition of not being able to argue on the merits of a case.

Dear mhaze,

You were more than welcome to state that overall deaths in Europe were not remarkable when you first posted the link.

That is not the issue.

But to extrapolate from the figures that "the threat of this virus to all, other than the very aged with pre-existing conditions, is minor." and that "we should now recognise that we are continuing the strangulation of the economy through choice rather than necessity." was just typical rubbish from you.

The severity of the virus and the impact of mitigation measures could only be properly assessed by looking at the figures by country. You just refused to go there because it didn't fit with your sloppy, disingenuous narrative.

The figures have caught up with you yet you are steadfastly refusing to acknowledge what you put in your first post has turned out to be a crock.

Live with it mate.

You really are a know it all dill, with as capital D SR.

You have no idea of what I or anyone else is, but we all can see right through the likes of you.

I married a ballet choreographer, I so hated the arts.

Dear Hasbeen,

So your partner had an Arts degree then?

Hasbeen,

I sympathise with you.

If I had to watch my wife's 6-8 year olds classes doing Swan Lake every second day I would be pretty angry with the performing arts myself.

"The severity of the virus and the impact of mitigation measures could only be properly assessed by looking at the figures by country."

I was only ever talking about the mitigation measures here. Read the first line of the first post.

Why do we need to assess the severity of the virus "by looking at the figures by country."?

While you're in the mood to go back and check the accuracy of the data perhaps you'd like to address this..."As of now they have the US with 10 days until peak resource use on April 15, 2020 and a shortfall of beds of 87,674. They have modelled the total death toll at 93,531. Well worth a look if you are interested."

Also well worth pondering the gullibility of some.

'Only 44 cases in the last 24hrs, great news everyone.'

tell that to people unbale to say goodbye or farewell loved ones Armchair. Only time will really tell if that is good news.

Hey runner,

"tell that to people unable to say goodbye or farewell loved ones Armchair. Only time will really tell if that is good news."

Well the stats are looking encouraging but I think there's still cause for concern given the recurring nature of this virus.

I don't make the rules, and I completely disagree with the idea people can't farewell loved ones.
I think it's disgusting, there must be a way to accommodate these people.
I'm fairly sure these are Dr. Fauci's recommendations:

Ep 28.8: Dr Fauci Pharmacy: Preventing you from seeing your parents on their last Easter of life
http://youtu.be/O1jnEIOoWRc

Found out today the US was funding a program in China to gather Coronavirus samples and transfect them to pigs.
Apparently Trump cut the funding 3mths before the outbreak was known.

I found out here (they discuss it immediately at the start of the video)
http://youtu.be/6101hJNhUW4
- But apparently there's more info on this at Infowars.com
(I haven't watched them recently)

Also a bit more here:
http://vermontbiz.com/news/2020/february/13/leahy-coronavirus-and-trumps-budget

"In China, the PREDICT program sampled more than 10,000 bats and identified more than 500 new coronaviruses, including a strain that is a 96 percent match to the 2019 novel coronavirus strain. The known existence of, and readily available data on, such a close relative is one reason China was able to quickly sequence the novel strain and identify the animal source of the outbreak.

As the ten-year PREDICT program comes to an end this year, USAID is working to design the next phase of programming to build on the successful analytical and modeling work demonstrated through PREDICT. Others in the international community should use the lessons learned and techniques proven through PREDICT to inform their own efforts.

Hey SteeleRedux,
"So now it is the Democrats who done it? Whew mate, you do have it bad don't you."

I never specifically said 'Democrats'.
It may be better to say 'Deep State'.

For that, think more 'Shadow Government'
And for that, think more 'Beaurecrats and Department heads that transcend who holds the Oval Office at any particular time.
Beaurecrats who think they are smarter than any Commander in Chief;
That spend their lives knowing all the things about Government (and people within Government) the President does not; and have other interests with other elites or say big pharma or big oil etc.
For this think 'Highest Secrecy'
And for this, think 'NATO Blackberries with Military Grade Encryption'.

Understand that both Democratic and Republican Senators have vested financial interests in all these wars, arms sales, shares in oil and mining, big pharma, chemical or agricultural businesses etc.

NATO Blackberries with Military Grade Encryption, is what you have to look for things of a covert and secretive nature and for that you end up with Peter Strozk, as well as these global operations usually involving USAID.

No way SR, she did have a bit of paper from the Sydney Conservatory of Music, & another bit from the Julliard School in New York, but it is feeling, not paper that a dancer make.

We did over 15,000 miles together. If you want a good helmsman in a yacht surfing down braking seas in a howling gale, get a dancer, they can feel movement almost before it happens, no bit of paper will do that for you.

SHAMEFUL....'Bug Ridden' Boris, was in the news, the poor dear contracted Covid-19 and spent time in the hospitals ICU, with lots of get well's, and cheerios from all sorts of people Boris recovered and is now chirper than a jaybird, bully for Boris. UNFORTUNATELY, hundreds of Britain's elderly are dying in aged care homes, or at home, without any medical attention what so ever. People unable to breath, dying in agony without the slightest attention. Even though the officially reported death toll in Britain is horrendous, the deaths of these elderly folk in aged care homes and at home is not even been counted. The two biggest age care providers put the number in their establishments alone at 500, 3rd April, the actual number today is most likely several thousand, not counted, not even given a second thought. I'm so glad Boris recovered!

That other bleep, bleep, bleep Donald Trump is doing everything he can to make himself look good, deflect any blame from himself, and win votes. All while thousands of his fellow countrymen die from the virus. Well done Donald!

Oh dear suddenly Paul pretends he cares about the vulnerable. Among the biggest grave dancers on olo.

Paul,

Yes the nursing homes debacle are a travesty. I've also read similar accounts from Italy and France.

But that's what you get when you have socialised medicine.

SR, "Families once virtually estranged because of brutal commutes and savage working hours are now betting to spend time together, in some cases really getting to know each other for the first time".

And you don't think that is a recipe for a huge increase in reverse domestic violence

Hasbeen,

I have never come across "reverse domestic violence." Can you please explain what you mean by that term?

Yep, that's right mhaze, they should have a dam fine private health system like in New York, where if you have private health insurance you get your own private coffin and don't have to share a box with anyone else! Fan-f'n-tastic!

Of course you will be voting for that little miracle worker, and life saver, 'THE DONALD'. What about those big bad fellas at the WHO! The Donalds cut off their cash, they were telling him porkies, now who said that covid-19 was just a touch of the flu. No vaccine for that mob.

Paul,

"private health insurance you get your own private coffin "

I don't think private insurance covers funeral costs. But I guess you weren't thinking straight in your anxiety to attack the great Satan.

"you will be voting for that little miracle worker, and life saver, 'THE DONALD'. "

If only I could....

" they were telling him porkies, "

Yes the WHO were shown to be either utterly incompetent (well after ll they are part of the UN) or merely a mother-piece of the Chinese Communist Party.

As one wag said, The Donald has said to the WHO..we won't be fooled again.

How can anyone be so dumb.

"reverse domestic violence" is when it can be shown that it was actually started by the female.

"reverse domestic violence" is when it can be shown that it was actually started by the female."

ie about one in three of all DV cases.

Dear mhaze,

So you want to be able to vote for Trump? Well there is one hell of an easy fix for that mate. Emigrate now. In fact I will stump up a few hundred quid as a starter for a one way ticket for you.

Don't get me wrong, I find the buffoon highly entertaining. Every day he does something to blow my mind. Today it was holding up the distribution of the $1200 stimulus cheques because he wanted his name on each and every one, this is despite it being a Congressional initiative. His narcissism know no bounds.

“The issue boils down to a simple question: What matters more during a crisis, getting stimulus checks to individuals in need as quickly as possible or ensuring that the checks bear President Trump’s name? Sadly, the Treasury Department and Trump believe the latter.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/shaharziv/2020/04/15/trumps-narcissism-may-delay-your-1200-stimulus-check/#301539de6180

Now there are active protests from Trump supporters about isolation initiatives in some States.
http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/upset-with-gov-whitmer-protesters-bring-lansing-to-a-halt-during-operation-gridlock

All stirred on by Trump's political appointees like the current US ambassador to Germany.

“The tension has prompted Republican lawmakers and supporters of the president to publicly call for Americans to defy their local orders, claiming they infringe on constitutional rights. On Monday, Richard Grenell, acting director of the Office of National Intelligence and the U.S. ambassador to Germany, posted a photo of the Bill of Rights on Instagram with a title “Signed Permission Slip to Leave Your House.” Below the post, in the caption, Grenell wrote “Love this!” A reporter tweeted the post after its publishing saying: “Seems the top US intelligence chief ADNI &#8294;@RichardGrenell&#8297; isn’t a fan of the stay at home orders.” Grenell responded: “‘Seems’ Grenell is a fan of the Constitution to me.””
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a32160723/michigan-protests-coronavirus-lockdown-conservatives/

But what this really boils down to is you would be perfectly happy if the ideology of the orange buffoon were running this country even though our 60 odd death toll would instead be sitting at 3,000.

Utter Trump derangement syndrome. Away with you.

SR,

You should write more concisely. Anyone reading your posts would think you have a pathological hatred of the US president. When we all know its an ignorant hatred of the US president.

Unfortunately, even if I could get to the US now I wouldn't be able to vote for him. You have to be a US citizen to do that. You probably don't know that since your imbued with DNC rhetoric where all illegals are allowed to vote...as long as they vote the right (left?) way.

I couldn't help but notice that you went very silent about Trump's rhetoric after I posed the video about the Obamessiah's troubles when the teleprompter wasn't on.

Still, SR, only another 4 1/2 years and your nightmare will be over.

Hi SR,

Yes, I suspect that this turd of a man will go down in history as by far the worst President that the US has ever had.

With the daily number of new COVID-9 cases barely flattening, or flattening at a very high level, and with much of small-town US to be infected yet (although it's possible that god will provide), the US could be in for a longer lock-out than most other countries, which, in Drumpf's view, would be bad for [his] business. So he has been dragging his heels from the beginning on all of this: a minor outbreak no worse than the flu, it would be all over by Easter, and the US would be back in business. And anyway, it's all the WHO's fault. It's never the Duck's fault.

And on top of all that, Drumpf is encouraging a bidding war between states for PPE, which could risk the very fabric of the Union.

So what do you think of a Democratic ticket of Biden and a certain well-known and highly-respected Black woman as his running mate ?

Maybe a bit late now, but I'd be happy to migrate to the US to vote for that :)

Cheers,

Joe

Hasbeen,

Sorry but there is no such thing as "reverse domestic violence". I did a search on the web and couldn't find it mentioned at all.

However, there is domestic violence against boys and men as distinct from domestic violence against women if that is what you are implying.

Maybe you can take this up with the other members of your The Forum's Old Farts Club over a Bundy & Coke telling each other BS stories about how you were the first man on Mars and other such wondrous feats.

Dear mhaze,

Oh I think my posts are pretty clear.

You wrote; “Anyone reading your posts would think you have a pathological hatred of the US president. When we all know its an ignorant hatred of the US president.”

Don't be a dropkick. I don't hate the fool, I enjoy him. He brightens my day. I find it revealing and delightful the contortions you lot have had to go through to support his crazy narcissistic behavior and somehow turn his buffonery and incompetence into a virtue.

Your excuse “Unfortunately, even if I could get to the US now I wouldn't be able to vote for him. You have to be a US citizen to do that.” is easily solved, just become a US citizen. It would do me a favour if you were to renounce your Australian citizenship while you are at it. He is and will forever be your president, it will be a match made in heaven. I wish you all the best with its consumation.

"Don't be a dropkick. I don't hate the fool, I enjoy him. He brightens my day. I find it revealing and delightful the contortions you lot have had to go through to support his crazy narcissistic behavior and somehow turn his buffonery and incompetence into a virtue."

Lol

Certainly the dummy spitting, the tantrums, the lies, the conspiracies performed daily by those with Trump Derangement syndrome is entertaining.

Dear runner,

I'm afraid there was a slight miswording in your post. Here is probably what you meant to put;

"Certainly the dummy spitting, the tantrums, the lies, the conspiracies performed daily by Trump..."

Who can forget the Corona virus was 'fake news' at one stage driven by the Democrats. All highly entertaining.

But if yo want to see Trump Derangement Syndrome at its finest who could go past this from the US Ambassador to Denmark;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ4RX5PsnFM

This is so much bloody fun.

Runner,

Wow. Talk about pot, kettle :)

But no, it's not entertaining, more like frightening and disastrous. This virus hasn't got into the smaller US cities and towns yet, so Drumpf might be dopey (or opportunist) enough to lift restrictions just at a time when community transmission is hitting those areas - from which, I suspect, medical and support personnel have left to tend to the crisis in the big cities.

And the cities have barely reached their flattening of the curve, with deaths still at horrific levels. Long way to go yet :(

But of course, it won't be his fault, it's bound to be someone else's. It's always someone else's.

Joe

yeah Steelie and Loudmouth

Obviously your Trump Dreangement syndrome leads you to ignore the number of democrat mayors and Nancy Pelosi celebrating and telling people to join in on the Chinese New Year despite warnings. Nothing like a bit of selective amnesia. But carry on your hating.

I wouldn't judge Trump, or any leader, on the basis of deaths per capita at this point in time.

Right now the US is further towards herd immunity than Australia, and will have the same per capita death rate as Australia in the final washup. We'll come out of lockdown in a month then go back in as soon as there is the inevitable uptick in deaths despite social distancing, cleanliness, testing, tracking and quarantining.

I find Trump as amusing and alarming as anyone, but the US health system hasn't been overrun, with enough beds, oxygen and ventilators so far. His sin in the eyes of his opponents, is allowing deaths through not putting 330M people into lockdown to emulate NZ, and not forcing the economy into a coma with welfare, as in Australia. I think most Americans support him in this, at least while the health system copes adequately, but he'll not have much support if it doesn't.

Dear Lucifrase,

What on earth are you talking about?

Most of the US is in lockdown, some part more restrictive than in NZ or here.

The issue is that Trump delayed for over a month on getting with implementing containment strategies and that has caused enormous numbers of unnecessary deaths.

“90 percent of US coronavirus deaths could have been avoided if measures taken just two weeks earlier”
http://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/493128-90-percent-of-coronavirus-deaths-may-have-been

Your pie in the sky predictions are just that. If NZ or Australia strives for virtual eradication we will be able to take the brakes off our internal economy with far more confidence, but we have a winter to get through yet. That will be the real test.

'Right now the US is further towards herd immunity than Australia, and will have the same per capita death rate as Australia in the final washup. '

So right Luciferase. It will be a long time before anyone will be able to be called a winner (if any) in this game. 'Experts' all over the place disagree with each other. Facts will never fit the narrative of the Trump haters. I mean when he achieved record unemployment among the black Americans it was all Obama's doing. You can't ever get a sensible conclusion from those suffering from hatred and Trump derangement syndrome. No good news fits their narrative.

It it still a herd if there is only one donkey left in the herd? That's where The Donald is taking the American herd.

runner, in the critical period between February and mid-March, The Donald totally underestimated the health aspect of the cornavirus. The consequences of The Donald's inaction during that critical period have been catastrophic for the American people. Do you deny that?

SR, the states in the US have make their own moves, it not directed nationally. They make their own moves coming out of it too. In either direction they can do whatever they like with Trump's advice.

Do I see you setting up for the 'seasonal' defense in the event of failure of the test, track, quarantine approach after lockdown is lifted? We'll be told by its fans we just need more testing, and on we'll go to the next cycle of slowing down the inevitable.

'runner, in the critical period between February and mid-March, The Donald totally underestimated the health aspect of the cornavirus. The consequences of The Donald's inaction during that critical period have been catastrophic for the American people. Do you deny that?'

As one of olo' s chief tantrum throwers Paul I have not seen you make one positive comment on Trump in 3 years. Keep twisting facts to fit your narrative. It would not matter if there was no deaths in the US, you would still find fault.

runner, the reality is too painful for you, so you create a false "what if" alternative, saying "It would not matter if there was no deaths in the US, you would still find fault." That's not the reality, there are tens of thousands of deaths in America, that's the reality I am commenting on.

I've never been much interested in American domestic politics, and I've not commented greatly in the past on that subject here. I understand Trump's "opponent" for the top job is another Trump with half a brain, that must be some improvement, but we must still pity the American people. Trump was, as I understand it, at one time the "star" on some low budget TV show, I never tuned in. Now he is the "star" on the stage of the real world. Unfortunately on the telly he could act the complete goat being the jerk-off he is, and people could all have a laugh, with no harm done. The reality is the above things, the virus, deaths, in the real world are much more serious, and no laughing matter.

I note your time on the Forum has never seen you make any positive comment about The Greens or their politicians, maybe you are also biased.

There's a part that doesn't make any sense to me which is the fact there were internal documents within US military and government warning about the potential effect of COVID-19 in either late December or early January.

So why was Trump saying it's only a flu, it'll be gone in a week or so?

There's really only 2 reasonable answers:

1. His advisers were walking him off a cliff;
2. He was misinforming the public deliberately.

Hi Paul,

Can this sort of idiocy really be true ?

http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/coronavirus-backlash-us-citizens-protest-on-streets-in-zombie-hordes/news-story/ccd6d61a96e13f3c0488b2cc09779964

God help America.

Joe

Hi Joe, unfortunately its true,

"President Trump is seen to be encouraging the protests. A day after Mr Trump gave U.S. governors a road map for recovering from the pandemic’s financial pain and told them they could call the shots, he egged on demonstrators in Democratic states in a series of tweets: “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA.”

Did you see the way Trump stood over Dr Anthony Fauci as he backtracked after saying lives could have been saved if the Administration had acted earlier. Trump stood over Fauci like some kind of Hitler.

Meanwhil this is how a progressive country gets on the front foot in assisting its citizens and doesn't have them having to mass outside centrelink offices.

http://youtu.be/xU_P0m-_EmE

thanks Paul and Steelie for your daily dose of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Not nearly as entertaining as the lying liberal left leaning media but I suppose you filter your narrative through them anyway.

Hey Paul1405,

"Did you see the way Trump stood over Dr Anthony Fauci as he backtracked after saying lives could have been saved if the Administration had acted earlier. Trump stood over Fauci like some kind of Hitler."

I didn't see it, but Fauci is a little garden gnome.

Did any of you happen to see the way Fauci gave a little pistol hand gesture towards the reporter that Trump had an heated exchange with about a week or so back?

Why did he do that if they're all not deliberately trying to lead Trump off a cliff?
And it's not the first time Fauci used a crisis to get government money, he did it with Anthrax and Aids too, and he stands to personally profit from this virus from patents.
- He's getting rich of this crisis, and his department is getting cashed up too.

Don't be surprised if there's more viruses released in the coming months.

Yes Armchair I think Trump has woken up to Fauci. Got pretty bad connections through Clintons etc. Also find it interesting that those who push so hard for euthanasia are not willing to let oldies make up their own mind whether they want to risk going for a walk in the park or not. Happy to slaughter the unborn and elderly but then insist they are locked in cages with no say. No wonder the yanks are rioting. Hopefully Australia will open up again before appeasement money runs out or you can be sure their will be trouble here.

Runner,

Speaking of slaughtering the elderly, isn't that one of the likely consequences of Trump's support for the relaxation of movement, his half-wit push for a policy of moving towards herd immunity ? i.e. bugger all those old people who might be infected, they've had their lives, and bugger all those health professionals who will be overwhelmed - and in Trump's own case, of course he imagines that he is already immune thanks to his wealth and general superiority over all others: sooner or later, he will gloat that Boris got the virus but he didn't. Utter turd.

Has the curve flattened yet in the US ? No. So even if it did slowly flatten from now, it will take many weeks, perhaps months, before it is down to manageable levels. In the meantime, death numbers will rise across the country. What's the bet that deaths in the US exceed 100,000 by the first week in November ? And thanks to Drumpf, the daily number of new cases will still be unacceptable even by then ?

Joe

Consider New York State ~15000 deaths, so far, with a population of ~20 million. This is 0.75 deaths per 1000 people.

Herd immunity comes from ~80% infections, i.e. 16 million infections in NYS. Death from infections @ 0.37% applied to a general demographic (see my earlier posts for this figure from a German study) = 59200. This is ~3 deaths per 1000 population, which is four times the current figure (above) so NYS is 25% towards herd immunity, and increasing.

Whether actions, or inactions, ultimately 'cost lives' on the way to a return to normal (no quarantine, no economic hibernation) can only be analyzed when the fat lady has sung. A figure of 3 deaths per 1000 (or update of this with larger sample studies) will become the benchmark. Sweden will compare better than NYS or any other jurisdiction.

Is Australia's (cyclical lockdown, national debt and all that flows from these) a sensible approach to a prospect of 3 deaths per 1000?

your hatred is certainly affecting your judgement Joe. I have no doubt that Trump like every other leader in the world has made mistakes. Don't forget the NY Mayor and Pelosi accusing Trump of racism when he stopped flights from China. They were also happy to encourage hugging the Chinese and encouraging people to join in with hundreds of thousands of others for the Chinese New Year just to go against Trumps advice.

You also have to be blind not to see the power hungry mayors telling people not to go fishing or allow a grandmother hug her grandkids while totally ignoring their own rules. I say let the old people decide themselves if they want to rot on their own in a flat or take the risk of a visit from a daughter or son. Meanwhile while numerous lose their jobs and livelihood just about everyone sucking on the tax payer keep their jobs. Its not as simple as 'Trump is in idiot'. In my opinion he is the best US President I have witnessed in my to many decades. The fact that the socialist and lying liberal left media hate him to such an extent just confirms that. I suspect he cares far more about human life than the baby killing democrats and republicans. I get it. You hate him to. You have every right to choose. Only untwisted history will really determine his performance as far his handling of this crisis. You of all people should know that history these days is written according to a narrative. Look what they have done with Windshuttle and aboriginal history.

Runner,

As an example of Trump's fervent efforts to build friendly relations with neighbouring countries, and at the same time open up parts of the economy AND simultaneously protect citizens, try this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/deportations-coronavirus-guatemala.html

Yeah, that should do it.

Joe

"Consider New York State ~15000 deaths, so far, with a population of ~20 million."

In an interesting exercise, if you treated New York City (ie lower NY State) as a country it would have the highest numbers of tests, infections and deaths per million of all other countries.
Equally, excising the NYC figures from the rest of the US data would have the US drop out of the top 10 countries on any of those parameters.

Remember that the mayor of NYC was still telling people in mid March that it was OK to travel cheek-by-jowl on the subway and even now the subway is being heavily used. But he's a Democrat so....shush!

The fact is that Virginia et al aren't NYC and even though the fascist-lite Democrat leaders of these regions want to impose burdensome restrictions on the serfs of those states, said restrictions are unnecessary.
That the citizenry of those places are now rising up in defiance of their overlords tells you all you need to know about middle America. That they are doing it with the encouragement of Trump tells you all you need to know about their president.

Of course is isn't and won't happen here. We are a different and diffident people who have meekly accepted the withdrawal of a range of civil liberties. Its been disappointing and instructive. At least there seems to be some push-back on the idea of using technology to track our every move, so there's some hope yet. Nonetheless, I wonder just how much of our previous liberty will ever be returned.

Runner,

I've very impressed with how many African countries are handling the Covid-19 threat, given that they would have relatively few physical and professional resources. With 1.4 billion people, four times the population of the US, they have far fewer occurrences and deaths from Corona virus, due to more intelligent leaders.

Meanwhile, in the US, now the world hotbed of disease, more than seven hundred thousand people have tested positive (so God knows how many there really are who are positive), around half of the world's total, and 34,000 have died. And the US Curve hasn't really flattened yet - and with dick-wits wanting to open up the country, we can prophesy an upward continuation of the Curve and runaway increase in the numbers of deaths from here until November.

If I was an African, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near a sh!thole country like the US.

Joe

"59200. This is ~3 deaths per 1000 population, which is four times the current figure (above) so NYS is 25% towards herd immunity" What a fantastic effort by those New Yorker's, good old American know-how, without even trying, agree Luciferase. And should there be no "herd immunity" just a quarter of a million dead, so its better luck next time.

What Comrade Stalin said; "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a Statistic." Seems to fit in with what you are saying Luciferase.

'f I was an African, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near a sh!thole country like the US. '

you are suffering TRS Joe. I see no Americans lining up to immigrate to Africa. You seem to be losing your marbles

From http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/07/flu-experts-predict-4000-australians-will-die-from-influenza-this-year 3000-4000 die from influenza annually, and that's with a massive immunization program for >65's and uptake by a very large part of the remainder of the population.

Roll this common virus out to 3-5 years, the general cycle for expectation of an individual suffering flu due to it's continuous evolution, and you have up to 20000 deaths of people even in a heavily vaccinated population. Compare this with ~75,000 in one year through CV19, say, for which no vaccine exists. CV19 will be like a 'flu on steroids without a vaccine, but that is in prospect. Also, it's likely CV19 will evolve over 3-5 years like the 'flu, reinfecting a fifth so of the population each year. If a coronavirus vaccine isn't found, there'll be interesting times ahead just on this basis.

It's time to understand what we have here in CV19. Maintaining it's elimination/suppression will require Australia to isolate itself from the world, leading to significant economic and social consequences. We have to bite the bullet and get down the herd immunity pathway, as distasteful as that is, and we should do it intelligently, like the Swedes.

Luciferase, are you volunteering to lead the herd towards that goal of immunity?

Here we go, that's you at the head of herd!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOOs8MaR1YM

Paul1405, you do get hysterical when it comes to arguing against logic. Me putting my hand up to be one of the 3 in 1000 will not change another's survival odds one jot.

I do volunteer, however, to be responsible for myself and to care for the health of others through distancing and cleanliness. I am vulnerable to the worst of the virus but it is not nearly a guaranteed death sentence should I be infected.

I see it more like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUPHiTu6PgQ

Just talked to one of my sons who's doing 2-weeks iso at home. I explained that what he's going through (for the second time as he was detained in quarantine in a hotel where he first landed when enroute to home from o/s) is to improve the average person's chance of survival from 99.7% to a theoretical 100%. Then there's smashing the economy to bits that he'd planned to build his material life through.

There is nowhere on the planet that the elimination path has been demonstrated to work for such an infectious virus in which half the infected are asymptomatic, whereas herd immunity is a fact.

Dear runner,

You do realise Trump Derangement Syndrome was actually first used to refer to traditional Republicans who would bend a knee to Trump.

The actual first outing of the phrase was used during the Bush administration, was then adopted as Obama Derangement Syndrome to refer to the 'Birther's' like Trump.

You certainly are afflicted with a Gillard Derangement Syndrome.

Dear Lucifrase,

It would be an interesting exercise if we took the logic forward. So let's say Generation X is really saying you are sacrificing our long term economic futures to save 3 in a thousand baby boomers now. Following your logic why can't we say fine, let them die, but when you eventually turn 60 we will cull 3 random people, mainly with co-morbidities, from your cohort each year. After all don't you owe it to future generations too?

Have to waste a post before a smarty points to elimination by vaccination (e.g. smallpox, measles). I mean by testing, tracking and quarantining, of course, the Australian way. Some supression will occur this way, slowing attainment of herd immunity, but not elimination.

'You certainly are afflicted with a Gillard Derangement Syndrome.'

actually Steelie I am over that. Turnbull has made Gillard look very good

Steelie, at my sons' ages their quarantining efforts are making even less than a 0.3% difference to them personally, as they are below an average risk which includes old Boomers with co-morbidities.

Without doing the calc, the difference between their current chance of being part of 3 deaths per 1000 and 100% survival would be well less than 0.1%.

Their generation isn't getting much out of the sacrifices, that's for sure. That's why the Swedish approach, where the Boomers quarantine themselves until herd immunity is nearly reached, while the economy carries on, makes the most sense. Australia is headed for a U-turn after a couple of cycles of lockdown and economic coma.

Luciferase, try selling your 'Swedish Model' with its huge death to population ratio compared to Australia. If Australia had gone down the Swedish road, based on that countries stats, we should now be looking at 3,800 (actual 71) deaths from 35,000 (actual 6,612) infections, with 1,300 (actual 26) new cases per day, giving us 70 (actual 1) deaths a day.

Why Not "herd immunity"; from an article in 'The Guardian' by Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz. (an epidemiologist working in chronic disease).

Herd immunity is a simple epidemiological concept that describes the state where enough people are immune to a disease that it stops spreading in the population. Basically, if 80 people out of 100 can’t get the disease, then the 20 people who can get it will be protected because they are never actually exposed. Any outbreaks of the infection would quickly die out in this scenario.
In Australia, that would mean roughly 15-17 million coronavirus infections. The death rate from coronavirus, given a health system that is not overwhelmed is likely to be around 0.3-0.6%. Multiplying those numbers, if we pursue herd immunity, the best-case scenario has between 43,000 and 100,000 people in Australia dying. A more pessimistic view of the fatality rate, where the hospital system is overwhelmed, as many as 250,000 people could die before reaching a herd immunity threshold of only 60-70%."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/17/herd-immunity-is-a-fatal-strategy-we-should-avoid-at-all-costs

Paul1405,

I note the range 0.3-0.6% based on the Diamond Princess analysis. I have more faith in the study I've already referred to, 0.37%, being based on a real community with a normal age demographic, not figures projected from the demographic onboard a cruise-ship. I'll stick with 80% antibody positive as the herd immunity target, rather than the authors 60-70% he based his calcs upon, which he seems to derive from nowhere.

By my reckoning, given the population of Sweden of 10M, to reach herd immunity will involve the death of 30,000. So far there are 3,800 dead in Sweden, meaning it's 1/8 of the way towards herd immunity, unlike Australia.

The author talks of the lack of homogeneity of HI as if it's a major point. The second law of thermodynamics will take care of that over time.

He refers to http://tinyurl.com/ybrcm3wz where community division is noted but I'll pick this as the most pragmatic statement from a Swede, '“I’m proud that Sweden is allowing us to take responsibility ourselves instead of being under lockdown,” says Therese Börjlind, a 35 year old accountant, rushing to a family gathering.' If everybody does that, including the >80's and >60's with co-morbidities the article refers to (which the state must aid in nursing homes, particularly), the less likely will be a need to close school to slow the spread when it's rate is too high, as mentioned.

Sweden has control over the capacity of its health system and the rate of spread of the virus. The fact it's death number or rate is this figure or that must be seen within these parameters, not compared with Australia.

That Sweden is performing some 'experiment' is only true in seeing whether an educated population sufficiently shares acceptance of science and disavows policy based in hope of a vaccine. The greater experiment is what we are trying in Australia, which has no successful precedent with such a virus, inside or outside a lockdown situation.

I came across an article today that listed all deaths in Australia from the Wuhan Virus with their ages and I ran it through some calculations. (Note some ages were listed as 'in their 80's' etc which I rounded as being 85, 75 etc.) Doing that shows that the average age at death is 79.06 . Only two people under 60 have died from the KungFlu and one of those wasn't Australian.

The upshot is that this is an old persons disease. The young get it, and recover, having developed anti-bodies. Indications from research overseas is that the number who have such anti-bodies is being massively under-estimated.

So calculations like those from Paul where he applies infection fatality rates of 0.3% to the whole population utterly misunderstands reality. The fact is the IFR for those under 60 is effectively zero.

So if we had vigilantly isolated the elderly from the outset and allowed those who weren't ever really endangered by the virus to contract it and build anti-bodies, we would be in a very much better place than at present.

There is no reason why we couldn't adopt that policy right now except that it would require the entire political and medical system to admit monumental error. And that's never gunna happen.

Sorry to have to waste a post, but I misunderstood your figures Paul, Sweden has 1511 deaths as at yesterday. Call it 1600 today, so its a tick over 5% towards HI.

If it is decided that people over a certain age are to be sacrificed for the convenience of younger people, by exposing them again and again to the Covid-19 virus, but who wish to avoid having to go through the agonies of not being able to breathe day after day while the virus damaged or destroyed one's lungs, kidneys and other organs, can I please respectfully suggest that we of the wrong age be given pills or injections of some sort, like in Solent Green ? Maybe cyanide, or just a good dose of morphine ?

Perhaps something relatively painless, so that as we fade away, we can contemplate the future, say in forty or fifty years, for our tormentors, and be consoled by the possibility that more virulent strains of the virus will soon strike people at younger and younger ages.

Wow, I never thought that I would ever recall the spirit of Charlton Heston :). And against fascism too !

Joe

mhaze, Paul's 0.3% figure you refer to is actually mine, which is derived from a 0.37% rate across a general demographic in Germany and a presumption of 80% as the target for HI. Paul's article mentions a paper based on projections to a younger demographic based on the Diamond Princess, which corroborates my figure. You provided a link previously to figures which support mine, and now you have a new set based on your own analysis of what may be an unrepresentative sample from China.

Paul's article, without stating any basis for calculation, says "If we take a more pessimistic view of the fatality rate, where our hospital system is struggling, we could see as many as 250,000 people dead before we reached the herd immunity threshold of 60-70%.". That just won't happen, even if we had no health system at all, and it's plain fear-mongering garbage. Let me explain.

Say we take the article's worst case in the range given of 0.6% death from infection, and, highest theoretical HI threshold the article mentions of 85% (I read the reference attached to the article and can find 82% if the R0 is nearly 6, but oh well) So, we have 25M Australians x 85/100 x 0.6/100 = 127500 deaths. Let's add 5% as the proportion of people who would be hospitalized (the UK experience), bugger it, no let's double that, and let's assume they all die! Now we're up to 140,000. What else do we have to assume to get up to 250000?

It doesn't help to have such hysterical figures thrown up by the Guardian for anyone to propagate as fact. You have to believe there is an agenda there. Why does it always come down to a division between those who believe in pixie-dust (a vaccine will come, viable storage for intermittent energy sources will come) versus those driven by data? We are a scientifically illiterate nation living in a fantasy-land, and our impending continued isolation from the world just cements the fact.

Dear mhaze,

You wrote; “The upshot is that this is an old persons disease. The young get it, and recover, having developed anti-bodies. Indications from research overseas is that the number who have such anti-bodies is being massively under-estimated.”

Well let's go back to your original link and look at the 15-64 years and see what the figures show. Well look there, hardly a zero impact by anyone's imagination.

Anyway have the figures given you any pause for reflection? Any reason to stop this line of argument? If not why not?

http://www.euromomo.eu/index.html

Luciferase

"Paul's 0.3% figure you refer to is actually mine".

The actual quantum of the Infection Fatality Rate isn't really my point. I just used that number as an example. My point was that the number can't and shouldn't be applied across the whole population.

Say the IFR is 'x':

IFR for 0 - 30 yr olds is effectively zero.
IFR for 30-40 yr olds is so close to zero as to be considered zero.
IFR for 40-50 yr olds is maybe x/10.
IFR for 50-60 yr is maybe x/5
IFR for 60- 70 yr old is around x
IFR for 70 - 100 yr is 10x

Again these are indicative numbers. The data is so bad and so skewed that definitive figures won't be known for 2years at best.

So my point was that there is no value in lockdowns for those under 50 and little value for those under 60. Its the 60 and up that need to be protected while the rest develop immunity. Then they can be reintegrated into the wider community.

Paul's notion of applying the IFR to the whole population misses the point because it simply doesn't apply to most of the community.

As to a vaccine, it seems that the lockdown strategy is heavily reliant on the notion that a vaccine will appear in the next 12 months. But it should be pointed out that after 35 yrs an AIDS vaccine is still unavailable. What happens if a vaccine doesn't materialise? We can't lockdown forever.

mhaze,

There are two figures:

1. Deaths per hundred infections (percent) as determined in the Germany study where the denominator (the number infected) is known through testing for antibodies in the whole population. That's 0.37% and naturally comprised from the demographic distribution in the town studied. You are correct that the components are lower and higher death risk groups, it's a weighted average arising from the population pyramid and the risk of each demographic e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australiapop.svg

2. Deaths per 1000, this is calculable from the deaths per hundred infections (above) and presumption of a percentage antibody positive needed for herd immunity. I used 80% to give 0.3%, or 3 deaths per 1000. This is the same for populations of similar demographic distribution to the German town, with deaths being almost entirely the old and vulnerable, as you observe. The figure would be higher in Japan, say, which has the worlds oldest average age.

You provided a graphical distribution that Steelie now refers to, I see. That doesn't support your effective zero risk assertion for the young older than ~9 y.o.

There is death involved in taking a HI approach, which can be minimized by the Swedish method. The percentage for HI will not be met, but it will be close* and considerably safer for the vulnerable to re-emerge into. *(If 20% of the population is sequestered then the remainder will reach HI at 80% of its population, i.e. 80% of 80% gives 64% HI overall. This is waaay better than zero HI).

'Elimination' by test, track, quarantine (TTQ) pathway, might appear to be getting there while we're under quarantine, except for where it's not. It will ebb and flow greately with each change to the lockdown situation. In the end, it reap's more death than under the Swedish approach because the vulnerable cannot be safely cosseted through years of ebb and flow, while the economy goes to blazes.

Brainwave! A good business would be a pop-up bar, as the ability to pop-down will suit this environment (should anyone have the money for a beer, that is).

'Where's Fauci?' America panics as doctor absent again from White House briefing
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/dr-fauci-press-conference-white-house-coronavirus

- Apparently Trump found out that the coronavirus bat studies, part of the PREDICT program which are a 96% genetic match to COVID-19 (which itself looks engineered and thus part of a bioweapon program) were funded by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (i.e. - Anthony Fauci himself signed off on them)

Fauci's antics during press briefings have been undermining Trump anyway.

Coronavirus and discussion with George Webb 4-19-20 by Dr. Paul Cottrell
http://youtu.be/kXrmzo3tOH8

Luciferase

"You provided a graphical distribution that Steelie now refers to, I see. That doesn't support your effective zero risk assertion for the young older than ~9 y.o."

I don't think so.

This is really rather simple. In Australia, no one under 40 has died. So the numerator in the calculation (deaths/infections*100) is zero. Therefore the answer is zero. Therefore the infection fatality rate for that cohort is zero.

There is just no way we can act as though we know with any precision what these ratios are. We don't know how many infections there really are. Even in the German study you quote, the entire village wasn't tested. There is evidence in LA that the actual numbers of infections have been underestimated by orders of magnitude.

Equally, we can't speak with certainty about the numbers of actual deaths. Although it seems rather clear in Australia what the number is, that not true world-wide. There's plenty of evidence in NY that they are counting deaths WITH CV19 not deaths OF CV19. Some in Italy say that the deaths rate due to CV19 was overstated by 80%.

Upshot is that we don't know either of the critical numbers in the ratio with any degree of certainty. We can make guesses but that's all they are.

Meanwhile, we have closed down the entire country when, it seems, the vast majority of people were never in danger and those who were could have been easily, and more effectively, isolated without such closure

Dear mhaze,

You write;

“Some in Italy say that the deaths rate due to CV19 was overstated by 80%.”

Struth mate. Really?

Go look at your own link. Scroll down and check out the line graph for Italy. What other explanation are you going to put up for the horrendous spike in mortality? Errant Bocce balls? Give it a break.

SR,

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/report-italian-adviser-suggests-that-coronavirus-death-rates-in-italy-may-be-exaggerated/

"“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,” he says."

And many other articles I've seen along the same lines if you cared to look.

There is a significant debate about the difference between dying OF the KungFlu and dying WITH it.

Its all very well to be sceptical of data. Its the correct attitude.

But to be sceptical due to ignorance and remain sceptical without bothering to rectify the ignorance? Well that's very SR.

mhaze,

Going to the original document re the 0.37% figure, and using a translator, you are right, mhaze, it was a statistically large, approx 1000 person sample:
http://www.land.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/zwischenergebnis_covid19_case_study_gangelt.pdf (Coincidently, on the same day this was published Singapore with its strong testing regime had an official CFR also of 0.37%, 6 out of 1,623 cases).

I have faith in statistics involving large samples or entire populations. The 70 or so deaths in Australia does not represent a sample size appropriate to base conclusions upon, yet you have done so in coming to an approach to dealing with the virus through HI. I agree with the approach but not your stats suggesting no probability of deaths.

Here's something interesting that suggests revising down the HI target, but I won't revise my calculation, based on 80%, yet http://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/10/opinion/its-possible-flatten-curve-too-long/

Luciferase,

Again I'm not arguing with you over the 0.37% figure. I just don't think we can be too definitive at this point. We might have large numbers available and all else being equal we could rely on those large numbers. But we can't be sure that the testing regime is indeed random. There's every chance that its biased toward finding people with severe CV19 and missing those who are already recovered from a mild dose.

Again, I agree that the Australian data is small and definitive conclusions can't be drawn from it. But the age at death data is repeated in many places eg NYC http://www.statista.com/statistics/1109867/coronavirus-death-rates-by-age-new-york-city/

Even in Italy only 2 people under 20 have died and they both had pre-existing conditions.

I remain very confident in saying that this is an old person's disease and our response would have been both different and better had we known that from the outset. Now that we do know it, our responses ought to change.

Mhaze,

Are you suggesting that primarily, it is older people who need to self-isolate, wear masks, etc. ? That children should be going to school, shops, cafes and restaurants should re-open, sporting events (minus the oldies) should re-commence ? Sounds reasonable.

It may not be as simple as that. Children may go to school and then go to see their grandparents on the weekend, etc., and may be carrying the virus, and of course with no sign of it. Yes, in those circumstances, isolate older people even from their grandkids, that makes sense, until there are no more new cases and tracers have identified every potential carrier as they appear.

And there are regions across Australia where there are no cases, or no new cases, where restrictions can be relaxed. As long as anybody coming to Australia can be isolated for at least the fourteen days, it may even be safe enough to allow in-bound travel. And of course, depending on the state of their work-forces, many businesses can re-open soon.

But give it perhaps another week or so, to ensure that the virus is under control.

Of course, sh!thole countries like the US are many, many weeks away from doing any of that, perhaps months, perhaps never, with their curves still rising or stabilising at very high levels. God help America, and certainly their wonderful health professionals.

Joe

mhaze,

I fully agree with your last paragraph but one last time on the 0.37%:

You say, "But we can't be sure that the testing regime is indeed random." A translation from German with DeepL states a 'representative sample' was used. That would suggest an eye to what 'representative' means. These are real scientists seeking real answers, no hidden agenda.

You say, "There's every chance that its biased toward finding people with severe CV19 and missing those who are already recovered from a mild dose." No, this was an antibody test of everyone in the sample from a region CV19 had passed through. It picked up everyone who had been infected. Testing was not targeted.

I calculated 3 deaths per 1000 population. What 3 lives are worth in comparison to the quality of life of the remaining 997 seems the moral question in pursuing HI. However, ''elimination, which will only be suppression as Singapore is finding, will be lived out in waves for several years with probably the same number dying, or more I've argued, as HI is reached, assuming no vaccine.

Dear mhaze,

What knots you are tying yourself into just to stop having to acknowledge your stuff up old chap.

So a 70 year old who has at least a couple of decades of enjoying and mentoring to grandkids left to him is fair game for your willful spread of the plague because he happens to suffer from a dose of high blood pressure?

What are you bloody well thinking?

This All-Cause Mortality Surveillance 16 April 2020 – Week 16 report (up to week 15 data) from Public Health England has an incredibly sobering graph with a nearly doubling of observed compared to expected number of all-cause deaths in all ages.
http://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/879714/Weekly_all_cause_mortality_surveillance_week_16_2020_report.pdf

This little pissy rant you are on is both disrespectful to those thousands of excess deaths and exceeds the utterly spectacular disregard of the facts of the climate deniers.

Again I extort you, give it away, leave it to the real fringe dwellers like Lucifrase. Your credibility may be in tatters but it is not yet obliterated. Give it that slim chance of recovery it deserves.

Well there you go 'extorting' people, Steelie, but not by force of argument, that's for sure.

Dear Steele,

Did you happen to watch Q&A last night?

Interesting information about the coronavirus
and a warning of what could happen.

Look at what's happening in the US:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-outbreak-response-trump-us

We're so lucky our government is listening to the
medical experts. We haven't yet experienced bodies being wheeled
away or makeshift hospitals everywhere.

Dear Foxy,

I will admit to finding Q&A a bit of a struggle at the moment but I'm sure it will grow on me. I tend to prefer my dose of Covid19 information to be meaty right now so it comes via the web mostly. The TV tends to be reserved for entertainment. Blood River on SBS and The Capture on ABC have been outstanding downtime.

Dear Lucifrase,

Yes the 'h' did go missing didn't it but I think I will leave it uncorrected as it kinda fits don't you think.

2009, the Swine flu turned up, and 20,000 Australian deaths were predicted.

"By the end of 2009, around 38,000 Australians had been infected and there were 191 dead: a crude death rate of 0.9 per 100,000. The disease had a hospitalisation rate of 13 per cent, with 13 per cent of those admitted needing to be placed in intensive care. Despite the rate of infections and deaths, the Rudd Government DID NOT impose any restrictions on movement or force businesses to close". No lockdowns. Normal movement and activities of citizens. Health Minister Nicola Roxon ignored the 'experts', dire predictions, and models.

A Labor government: one of the worst. But comparing its reaction to the bureaucratic hysteria of the current government, with its draconian restrictions and economy wrecking reaction to the Chinese virus, well …. 600,000 people were not there thrown out of work, wondering if their employers would ever start up again .

SR,

"So a 70 year old who has at least a couple of decades of enjoying and mentoring to grandkids left to him is fair game for your willful spread of the plague because he happens to suffer from a dose of high blood pressure?"

That's not even close to what I've been arguing. Indeed its diametrically opposite to my view.

Look SR, I get that you're hurting because you've made a fool of yourself here over misunderstanding data, graphs and statistics, and misinterpreting arguments. And I know that standard SR MO in that event is to muddy the water as much and as soon as possible. But just making up my opinion out of thin air and doing so in ways that as opposite to what I've said, is a new low, even for you.

LM2,

Yes I do think that those under 50 should be set free now. And that those over 70 should be sequestered for an extended period. That means no contact with others unless those others are shown to be CV19 negative or have positive antibodies tests.

I know that's not easy. Currently I have responsibility for three people over 85 (my and my wife's parents) and am vigilant about keeping them isolated and especially distant from grandkids and great-grandkids. Its not easy but its do-able. Indeed one of the three was tested yesterday due to a raised temperature and confirmed as CV19 negative.

Luciferase,

The link in SR's last post, which he presumably misunderstood, shows again that there are no excess deaths among the young. Just a bit more evidence.

You might also be interested in this...
http://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/health/coronavirus-antibodies-california.html

which shows both that the numbers with antibodies is higher than previously expected but also discusses the problems getting verified data.

LM2,

"Of course, sh!thole countries like the US are many, many weeks away from doing any of that..."

Its important to understand that the USA is a very diverse setup. Indeed, were you to consider New City City separately to the other 49 1/2 states, things look very different. IF NYC were treated as a country its statistics are the worst in the world while the other 49 1/2 states would be among the best in the world.

Many reasons can be listed for that. Personally I'd put it down to having an incompetent governor and a mayor who simply doesn't get it.

Nonetheless, there is no reason why the rest of the USA shouldn't get back to a semblance of normal life asap while NYC gets its act together

Dear mhaze,

"The link in SR's last post, which he presumably misunderstood, shows again that there are no excess deaths among the young. Just a bit more evidence."

Normally I find your slipperiness amusing but this isn't just crude misrepresentation but utter contempt for the facts.

We have come a long way from your original assertion; "Check this site which shows a strange lack of increase in overall deaths in Europe…http://www.euromomo.eu/index.html"

As my link does show an increase in unexpected deaths due to the virus in the 15-64 year age group the young you are referring to has certainly narrowed markedly.

Well I should at least be thankful the right here aren't parading the streets with high powered weapons at the urging of their president to ignore lockdown orders.

The second wave will be devastating for the US, hopefully wiser heads and leadership in Australia will protect us from the idiocy which prevails at the moment in Trump's America.

mhaze, I am 80. I totally deny you, any politician, bureaucrat or definitely the SRs of this world the right to dictate to me how I should spend the last few years, or months, as the case may be, of my life.

It must be my right in a free society, to take my chances of contracting the coronavirus, or holing up in a tree in an attempt to avoid doing so. The authorities, listening to bureaucratic & academic medicos have made such a mess of these restrictions, they are ludicrous, & deserve to be ignored.

You can run on a beach, but swim or sit down & it will cost you a grand. While I am happy to comply with restrictions that limit any possibility of my infecting any of the general public, it must be my right to take that ever chance of becoming infected I choose.

The ratbag lycra wearing bikers can do what they like, but do the same thing in your car, & it's another grand. My old remote flying mate can't go fly his planes at his club, or come down here & fly totally privately by himself on my private strips, or it's another grand. Surely, only a demented ratbag, or a bureaucrat could possibly have come up with such a disjointed pile of garbage in these restrictions. Those of us who are more interested in doing our thing, rather than trying to live forever, should be allowed to enjoy our simple pleasures, so long as we effect no one else.

My neighbors kid can ride their pony, but if my grand son came & rode the horse kept here for him, god knows how much it would cost us.

At age many skills & abilities are beginning to atrophy. A lay off of months from driving, water skying, or flying our RC planes will see some never do these thing successfully again. No one has a right to make others lose these attributes, just because they are bloody minded little dictators. Obviously lefty would be dictators like SR love it.

Hear, hear Hassy!

You shouldn't have to live your twilight years on your knees, which is where this is going.

Should we attempt to avoid the loss of 3 lives while ruining the material life of 997 others when the mortality outcome will be the similar whatever strategy attempt is chosen? This is not a moral question needing Geoffrey Robertson's help to answer.

They say China is hiding the truth, may well be, but its time 'Bug Ridden' Boris and his Tory bunch in Britain came clean on the number of Coronavirus deaths in the UK. Only publishing figures for those dying in national hospitals, and not including those deaths in nursing homes, or at home is deceiving the British public and the rest of the world. Boris has been slack in every department, from not attending or chairing important meetings, to the procurement of vital equipment. Like that other half wit conservative in the US, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson has been a complete failure when it comes to handling this pandemic.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/20/boris-johnson-sunday-times-prime-minister-coronavirus

In 1665 the wealthy of London deserted the city for the country, leaving the poor in overcrowded slums, starving, lacking medical attention, and awaiting their ultimate demise from the ravishes of the pandemic sweeping the city.

In 2020 the wealthy of New York deserted the city for the country, leaving the poor in overcrowded slums, starving, lacking medical attention, and awaiting their ultimate demise from the ravishes of the pandemic sweeping the city.

Not much has changed!

SR,

"Check this site which shows a strange lack of increase in overall deaths in Europe"

That's what I said three weeks ago. And it remains correct today. That you misunderstood the graphs then and are still trying to find a way to pretend otherwise is both funny and sad. I spoke about Europe. You scurry around trying to find this or that corner of Europe with excess deaths and then pretending that you've made some discovery.

The only discovery is that you're incapable of understanding even the simplest of concepts and/or letting it go when shown to have failed to understand even the simplest of concepts.

BTW did you notice that some of the locations in the graph you rely on don't any excess deaths. How can that be? Best pretend that we didn't see it, eh SR.

BTW also, I can't help but notice that when presented with data about Italy and the potential overstatement of deaths, you couldn't retreat fast enough, sans acknowledgement of your error. Same old SR.

Hasbeen,

I haven't got the slightest problem with anyone of your age deciding to roll the dice by venturing out into the viral world. I'd simply want to know that they have been fully appraised of the risks involved. Thereafter their, or in this case your, call.

Luciferase,

You could be right. Us oldies may have had our turn and, for the good of the young, we should be prepared to take our Kool-Aid at some point. Give me a couple more years first, though.

Maybe eighty should be the limit: the Youth Freedoms Police should be tasked to come around on our eightieth birthdays and take us off to a despatch centre. After, say, our sixty fifth birthday (younger if they are ill), all Australians should be required to wear some distinctive clothing, perhaps a badge of some kind, perhaps particularly dull-coloured clothing, maybe a muddy khaki-grey mix, something unattractive anyway.

Any Olds trying to pass as a Young should be given high-priority for subtraction. The property of all Olds should go into a pool for Youngs, inheritance should be abolished and Olds moved to one-bedroom holiday and pleasure homes after they turn, say, seventy but communication with their children could still allowed on weekends. Olds could be regretfully denied medical attention which Youngs rightly deserve first.

Wow, one can really exercise one's imagination when it comes to the disposal of unnecessary populations :)

Joe

the same ratbags that want to keep Hassie locked up in order to save the vulnerable are happy to promote euthanasia for the elderly and slaughter for the unborn. One day you will realise its about control for socialist/god deniers. Just like the gw preachers flying around the globe telling us not to fly economy. The fear that Norman Swan and others whose data is crap installed in the Premiers have turned into power and control. People are fined for eating kebabs while both Labour and Liberal pollies have been holidaying and letting out their properties for short term rent. Salaries and jobs are guaranteed for public servants while others sit at home being told they hate the elderly if they go out. Smells quite a bit. Just hope your elderly don't die because you are unlikely to be allowed go to the funeral (unless you are of a particular identity).

Here are my tips for 100% survival, Loudie:

1. If we go the supposed 'elimination' path, stay isolated for years while herd-immunity is reached and the world beyond your door goes to economic blazes.

2.If we go a Swedish path, stay isolated for a relatively much shorter time while herd-immunity is reached and the world beyond your door maintains economic activity and constancy.

Keep the YFP number handy as you may need its help.

Dear Lucifrase,

You write;

"2.If we go a Swedish path, stay isolated for a relatively much shorter time while herd-immunity is reached and the world beyond your door maintains economic activity and constancy."

While there are many articles appearing extolling the virtues of the Swedish path and saying they will soon reach herd immunity they have just had the highest number of deaths in a day.
http://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

At what point will you accept they have achieved herd immunity? It should be noted that the Swedish government was not trying for HI indeed highschools and universities remain closed, rather they recognised that given low population densities and the distancing which has always been part of their culture along with a high degree of personal responsibility there was an opportunity not to go as hard as some other countries.

Why would you assume the Swedish example wouldn't have had an even greater toll if tried here in Australia?

The ATO will be jumping on anyone accessing the $10,000 from their super if they still have job i.e not affected by the China virus.

Luciferase,

What makes you think that 'herd immunity' will ever be reached ? Or that immunity can be attained, let alone for a large fraction of the population ? Or, of course, that you will be part of that superior population ?

What if the virus actually damages a person's lungs, kidneys, heart or other organs, lowering their immunity for the next time but masking the fact that they may be carriers as well ?

I can follow the logic of the notion that if large numbers get the virus, get over it with some immunity, they will eventually form a large part of the population. Presumably younger people. Who, I hate to tell you, will grow old in their turn.

Current restrictions allows for another model: a wind-down of the infected and carrier populations through firm lock-downs and keeping all potential carriers out, like the Chinese did at Wuhan, welding apartment doors shut, etc.: perhaps we could call this the 'Wuhan Model'.

And what might be the impact of simply removing all restrictions ? If a large proportion of the entire population, say 1 %, 250,000, came down with it in the next two or three months ? Quite feasible. What impact might that have on the health system ? Could it cope, or would it be overwhelmed, as it seems to be in the US, where incompetence rules ? Perhaps in future, it will be called the American Virus. No wonder Trump wants to pass the buck, he's got only six months to wish all of this away. Eight hundred thousand cases, forty thousand deaths, and counting.

Joe

Steelie,

HI is reached when, by my calculus (which I have explained here) 3 people per 1000 population have died (using a lower R0 estimates around, it's possibly closer to 2.5). Sad to use such a statistic as a 'goal', but the number will be reached whether we want to reach it or not. At the moment there is no such statistic proffered in the public domain, only hysterical charges of eugenics vs elimination (Godwin's Law). Whatever statistic is ultimately agreed upon, the principal applies that HI will be the outcome of any approach with this virus. By my estimation 30000 Swedes will die enroute to HI, and 75000 Australians.

How many deaths per day is too much? That depends on health-system capacity. The Swedish gov't has control of infection rate through voluntary compliance with its guidance and closure powers so as not to overwhelm capacity. School closure is an option (they must think kids have something to do with spread!) and, AFAIK, the situation right now is per http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-idUSKBN2141D3

From your chosen data site http://tinyurl.com/y9xn3krb Sweden is running up to half the Spanish death rate per day and rising. When will it be too much? When the health system can't manage the caseload, is the answer. The Swedish strategy will be a failure when that happens, not instantaneously but irretrievably. It's not any particular number, if that's what you want me to choose.

What's utmostly important is that those at the medical frontline have all the PPE they need at their disposal, however fast the caseload.

I truly admire the people of Sweden.

Dear Lucifrase,

You say; "I truly admire the people of Sweden."

I'm not sure how much the Swedish people had to do with the decisions of their government nor how many would have preferred the route taken by other Scandinavian countries who have managed to keep the death toll at far lower levels.

There were many schools in Sweden who took upon themselves to close like they did here against the advice of the government. The car manufacturing industry also shuttered their factories and are only now looking to slowly ramp up again albeit with social distancing measures even more stringent than those within our own sector.

In fact virtually all of the major Australian manufacturing companies have kept operating unlike those in Sweden.

So the fact that the Swedes have closed their high schools and universities without the strict dictates of a right wing hands off government is indeed impressive.

Sorry Steelie, I don't wish to be disrespectful, but I think we're done and you're simply grasping for new grist.

This this bloke should have the final say. From about 23.00 to 23.30 he hits the nail bang on the head regarding how we find ourselves in this absolute bloody disaster. I strongly suggest that everybody take the time for this.

http://unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/?fbclid=IwAR19GTIbcdLpYYfUCtH2XNVPoF8FClyMwFaKLsAxaXlYCPJqwUUs-xjEFPI

I don't believe we can live with what the HI advocates are suggesting. There are too many possibilities and unknowns to go down that path.

*Is herd immunity possible, and at what cost?
*If achievable is immunity permanent?
*What are the long term health effects of the virus?
*Is there a possibility of a more virulent strain developing?

The only worthwhile course of action is containment, while working on a vaccine.

Joe,

Soylent Green....Edward G Robinson....Strawberries.

What is your favourite fruit?

Some good news; A team of scientists at Oxford University and a separate team at Imperial College in London plan to start human trials into a vaccine this week, with production potentially starting before the trials are completed.

Joseph Stiglitz on Trump's botched handling of the cries;

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/22/top-economist-us-coronavirus-response-like-third-world-country-joseph-stiglitz-donald-trump

*Is herd immunity possible, and at what cost?

Yes, humans have been at war with viruses for millenia, and won (Spanish 'flu) or come out even (common cold, seasonal 'flu). It will occur whatever strategy is followed, with similar mortalities.

*If achievable is immunity permanent?

Probably not as the virus will evolve (slower than 'flu it is thought, but whatever) and a portion of the population at a time will be susceptible, like 'flu.

*What are the long term health effects of the virus?

Why would answering this make a jot of difference to the strategy when the outcomes will be similar in mortality?

*Is there a possibility of a more virulent strain developing?

Just as 'flu which constantly evolves, so will this, so yes.

The only worthwhile course of action is containment, while working on a vaccine.

If you don't believe herd immunity is possible then no vaccine is possible either.

Eliminating the virus by testing, targeting and quarantine is not possible. Listen to the man in the video link I gave above.

Politicians are having a field day acting out decisiveness and strength 'based on medical advice'. Look at the genuflection they receive from the people they have frightened. There is no precedence for the elimination path we are on with so infectious a virus and high percentage of asymptomatic carriers. The great experiment is not Sweden's but the path we are on, which completely ignores health outcomes from economic lives being dashed to the rocks for a generation.

Dear Lucifrase,

I think we are indeed done. We certainly have a huge difference with what we deem a disaster. To me what has happened in Sweden, the UK and in the USA particularly NY are disasters. To you they appear to be shining examples of a bit of unproven short term pain for long term gain.

What I object to is people holding up places like Sweden as some kind of success story. Two days ago the Spectator was pontificating “Sweden is sticking to its policy because, on the whole, it is balanced and effectual. So far, the actual development is generally following the government’s prediction. On Monday, 1,580 people had died and tested positive for Covid-19. The number of daily deaths has remained pretty stable at about 75 for a while but is now on a declining path.

The daily death toll in the last two days have been the highest on record at 185 and 172.
http://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

This is despite closing high schools and universities and switching off major manufacturing.

I'm not sure how to argue this with someone who is determined to be blind to the figures so happy to leave it there.

Hi Steele,

The bottom line of HI vs. Lock-Downs is that, in one case,

* the curve is likely to go high, fast, and stay high, or decline only slowly - or keep going up - with an overwhelmed health system, but an inefficiently-functioning economy;

And at the other extreme, the curve rises, is controlled and declines relatively quickly, inflicting far fewer deaths, but with an even more inefficient economy.

The death differential could be in double figures or worse. Australia's final figure for 2020 could reach 100, while the US total of deaths could reach could reach into the hundreds of thousands by next month.

So we trade off deaths against incomes: If a life is worth, say, a million dollars a year, then in the US - apart from hypothetical numbers if there had been lock-downs earlier - then the economic savings of, say, thirty thousand excess deaths would be around seventy billion dollars. So far.

Of course, some regions, age-groups, professions, etc., etc., are far less impacted than others, in every country. Of course, where the curve has been. controlled and reduced to extremely manageable levels, restrictions could be lifted selectively. In Australia, most of southern WA, SA, for example; 20-40 year-olds; many occupations which do not involve personal contacts.

Have we reached that point on the curve yet ? Maybe not, maybe another week or so. To get to the point where we have massively excess capacity in our health system would be ideal - and the sensible long-term policy would be to try to keep it that way, in order to combat black swan events in the future.

Joe

Has anyone received their flu injections yet?

If not, why not?

Hi Foxy,

We got them mid March, Over 65 and children free. at the Chemist $15. Did you see a 106 year old woman in Britain survived the corona virus, sick for 3 weeks but she pulled through, doctors were amazed. For runner and the religious I'll put it down as a miracle.

Hi Joe,

The price of a British life in WWI was 16 pounds, $32. The wholesale value of human raw materials, as mostly fertiliser, was less than a pound, war and viruses are inefficient killing machines. I have no sympathy for America, but a lot for the American people. I recall reading something Ho Chi Minh said about Americans during the Vietnam war. When told of the overwhelming American firepower compared to Vietnam, Ho said we will win, because the American people are soft, our people are hard (words to that effect), he was right.

Joe, I didn't know you were named after Comrade Stalin, is your middle name, Vissarionovich. LOL

Scary news, some people who have recovered from covid-19 are becoming reinfected some months later, herd immunity?

"A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported."
I understand Trump had one doctor fired for giving the facts out about hydroxychloroquine and tried to have the report suppressed.

Clive Palmer has also tried to get in on the hydroxychloroquine as well.

Paul etc,

"some people who have recovered from covid-19 are becoming reinfected some months later"

Evidence? Link?

"showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals."

It was a small analysis of VA data. It wasn't a trial. Even the authors said it merely indicated more research was needed. There's evidence that the sicker patients were given the drug while the healthier were given other medication. There are several other studies that show the drug works.

But as usual, the TDs crowd leap on this one minor report. It even got a run on (y)our ABC last night. Did the other studies?(he says, tongue firmly in cheek).

"I understand Trump had one doctor fired for giving the facts out about hydroxychloroquine and tried to have the report suppressed."

Evidence? Link?



SR,

"This is despite [Sweden] closing high schools and universities and switching off major manufacturing."

Major manufacturing switched off? Evidence? Links?



Foxy,

Got the jab yesterday. Pneumonia vaccine as well. I had to take one of the 90 yr olds I look after to have her bi-monthly heart checkup, so got the jab at the same time.

Quite the rigmarole to even get in to see the doctor these days.

But also have one of my charges in hospital at the moment. Getting into a hospital is a real trial these days. Probably easier to get into the Kremlin at the height of the cold war than getting in to visit a sick patient today.

Hi Paul,

Glad to hear you've got the jab.

Is Joe (Loudmouth) really named after Stalin?

I'm named after a Lithuanian goddess (smile).

Go figure.

Good Morning mhaze,

We've also received the jab as well as the pneumonia
shot. I must admit I now get nervous about doctor
visits. The reality sinks in when he's wearing a gown
and mask. As for hospital visits?
I've go a few appointments coming up in July. Who knows
what will happen by then. We've got a friend in
a rehab centre that we're not able to visit. She had a
bad fall. But we speak on the phone daily.

Strange times.

Dear mhaze,

You asked “Major manufacturing switched off? Evidence? Links?”

April 17, 2020 03:17 AM
Volvo's Sweden, Belgium plants to resume car output Monday

“Volvo will start filling orders for the V90 wagon (shown) again on Monday at its plant in Torslanda, Sweden.

Volvo will restart its vehicle assembly lines in Torslanda, near Gothenburg, Sweden, and Ghent, Belgium, on Monday, ending a car production shutdown that started in March to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the automaker said Friday.”
http://europe.autonews.com/automakers/volvos-sweden-belgium-plants-resume-car-output-monday

Dear mhaze,

Oh by the way, your site has had a facelift and look pretty good. There is and extra functionality which is being able to switch from Cumulative to Weekly. I suggest you try it out. It real is very sobering and hardly supports the contention that this is in any way like and ordinary flu.

http://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

Dear mhaze,

Remember you were touting this just a couple of weeks ago;

“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.”

And saying; “So just like a normal flu season.”

Well that projection has gone up. It is now at 67,588 for estimated total deaths. I don't think that has happened for any other country that I am aware of. What are the chances that by the time Trump has finished it will have hit 70,000 plus deaths. In fact given the protests I'm predicting possibly 100,000 plus. Yes, the man reeks of competence.
http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

'Dangerous Donald' has become completely unhinged. Now he wants to know why people can't be injected with a dose of DISINFECTANT! He's had a brainless explosion, DISINFECTANT kills the virus 99.9% of the time, in under 3 seconds. LINE UP FOR YOUR JAB OF PINE O' CLEAN! THE POOR BASTARDS DELUSIONAL!

America has passed the grim milestone of 50,000 Covid-19 deaths. With no end in sight!

Dear mhaze,

The Public Health England Week 17 report in now out. Scroll down to Figure 1 to see the graph of all-cause deaths in all ages. What an astounding figure.

http://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/880812/Weekly_report_mortality_w17.pdf

In your first post you intimated this was little more than a common flu saying "But now we know that the threat of this virus to all, other than the very aged with pre-existing conditions, is minor."

You also opined "The nature of government is that it never admits error".

Is it the nature of mhaze to do the same?

SR,

So manufacturing wasn't closed by the Swedish government but by some companies. They say its due to CV19 but Volvo Australia admitted it was supply chain problems.

The Swedish government didn't close manufacturing as you said. Naughty, naughty.

I don't know what you think you're seeing in the Euromomo site but it isn't the facts. Weekly deaths are falling in line with other flu seasons but more precipitously. Trough to trough numbers compared to 2017 look about the same. It also continues to confirm that the disease very much targets the elderly. I know you don't want it to be true, but alas....

"It is now at 67,588 for estimated total deaths."
Flu season 2018-19 - ~61000 deaths
Flu season 2017-18 - ~80000 deaths.

Yep a normal flu season.

As to your UK figures, yes they are up. But if you look at the Euromono site you'll find many places that are down. Why aren't you talking about them? I never said it would be uniform in all places. Just like flu, some places do better than others each year.
But standard SR here. Cherry-pick data. I've used this analogy before- if I said the sky was blue, SR would want to point at that single white cloud as evidence it wasn't. Childish - yes. Accurate - no. Search for truth - not even close.

I can't help but notice SR that you're avoiding the point about 49 1/2 US states doing better than most places on earth. Can't imagine why.

Paul,
"Now he wants to know why people can't be injected with a dose of DISINFECTANT!"

Do you fall for EVERY bogus claim about Trump? You fell for the one about the doctor being sacked. When I asked for data...crickets. Because it was fake news.
Now this? Struth. You don't have to be utterly gullible to fall for all this gumph...but it helps.

"Now he wants to know why people can't be injected with a dose of DISINFECTANT!"

Do you fall for EVERY bogus claim about Trump? Now this? Struth. You don't have to be utterly gullible to fall for all this gumph...but it helps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqI5_jH-AbY

The mans an IDIOT!

Hi Paul,

Don't be too hard on the US President.

He might have something there.

After all it appears that the sale of alcohol
has gone through the roof. So maybe he's onto
something. And Aussies think its working great.
And the sale of booze is good for the economy. (grin).

Paul,

MSNBC? oh dear!!

It is truly written that Trump supporters take him seriously but not literally, while his opponents take him literally but not seriously.

_______________________________________________________________

A short history of the virus responses in NYC:

31/1 - Trump closes all travel from China except returning Americans. Called racist, xenophobic etc etc

2/2 NYC Health Commissioner - Join the parades and don't believe the misinformation from Trump

2/2 NYC Health Council head - huge crowd is powerful message of defiance against Trump scare tactics

24/2 Pelosi urges people to join downtown crowds

3/3 NYC mayor urges people to get out, visit cinemas, ignore CV19 warnings

3/4 Democrats announce inquiry into Trump's handling of the virus.

All deaths in NYC Trump's fault, apparently.

Dear mhaze,

You really are being utterly childish yet again.

You claim;

“So manufacturing wasn't closed by the Swedish government but by some companies. They say its due to CV19 but Volvo Australia admitted it was supply chain problems. The Swedish government didn't close manufacturing as you said. Naughty, naughty.”

This is what I actually said;

“There were many schools in Sweden who took upon themselves to close like they did here against the advice of the government. The car manufacturing industry also shuttered their factories and are only now looking to slowly ramp up again albeit with social distancing measures even more stringent than those within our own sector.”

So why do you do it? Is it just deflection? Mate it really is kindergarten stuff.

And this,

“As to your UK figures, yes they are up. But if you look at the Euromono site you'll find many places that are down. Why aren't you talking about them?”

Because after the record breaking 'worst in 40 year' flu season and a pretty bad on the years after Europe had been enjoying a mild season in terms of excess deaths. But you know all this, it is evident from the figres. But you aren't going to let t get in the way of you defending unto the death a completely false representation of the figures.

Time to grow up.

Dear Paul1405,

This is a good breakdown of how stupid suggestions have people acting stupidly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMSgoppbXiU&t

Thanks Steele, The latest from the 'Dangerous Dr Donald' and his jab of "DISINFECTANT", well he was just "geeing up" the news reporters, so he claims. Seems even his minders who try to vet every word he says, in the hope of avoiding the foot in mouth disease the poor fool suffer from, missed that one.

With all the CV-19 news, something that went under reported was Trump's directing the US Navy to “shoot down and destroy” Iranian gunboats that “harass” U.S. ships. “Shoot down” implies that the target is airborne, are these flying gunboats?

A spokesman for the Iranian armed forces Abolfazl Shekarchi said Trump’s threat is misplaced. Quoting Shekarchi according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency.

“Today, instead of bullying others, the Americans should put all their efforts toward saving those members of their forces who are infected with coronavirus.”

"The World Health Organization has pushed back against the theory that individuals can only catch the coronavirus once, as well as proposals for reopening society that are based on this supposed immunity."

"In a scientific brief dated Friday, the United Nations agency said the idea that one-time infection can lead to immunity remains unproven and is thus unreliable as a foundation for the next phase of the world's response to the pandemic."

Like comment on that mhaze?

Paul,

Simple question: have any health workers, doctors, nurses, contracted the virus more than once ? That Chinese doctor who blew the whistle on the virus, seemed to get re-infected, and died.

Okay, another question: of those hundreds of thousands who have recovered from the virus, have any been reinfected ?

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe,

Its possible that the antibodies developed within the human body from covid-19 may offer some limited protection, such as less severe symptoms as is the case with the common cold, but like the common cold there is no evidence of lifetime immunity. Have people be reinfected, without a scientific study over a long period of time, its impossible to say what the reinfection rates could be, but there has been mention of refection in some cases.

"While there’s a consensus that the key to ending the coronavirus pandemic is establishing co-called herd immunity, there are many unknowns. One is whether researchers can develop a safe and effective vaccine. Another is how long people who’ve recovered have immunity; reinfection after months or years is common with other human coronaviruses. Finally, it’s not clear what percentage of people must be immune to protect the “herd.” That depends on the contagiousness of the virus."

"The WHO said it’s reviewing the scientific evidence on antibody responses to coronavirus, but as yet no study has evaluated whether the presence of antibodies “confers immunity to subsequent infection by this virus in humans.” And while many countries are currently testing for antibodies, these studies aren’t designed to determine whether people recovered from the disease acquire immunity, the agency said."

Herd immunity, is a very dangerous pathway to follow, a huge number of deaths, without any guarantee of long term immunity for the survivors.

Not to sure if mhaze, will be back to respond, he hangs off every word Trump utters as being gospel. Dangerous Dr Donald said DISINFECTANT was worth a try. Maybe poor mhaze consumed a bottle of Pine O' Clean on The Donald's advice. I hope not, the manufacture said his product will kill you!

Paul,

Is this fair dinkum ?

" The State Department is warning that commercial flights to the United States from overseas may end in the coming days and urging Americans abroad to grab any opportunity to board them. "

Of course, this was from the New York Times, so it's probably fake news. But are the Yanks just getting around to quarantining the country ? In late April ?

On the Insiders this morning, I was a bit upset about van Onselen's comment about taking advice from barflies - I can see his point, of course about disinfectant, but I've known one or two quite intelligent barflies.

But what's the bet that disinfectant sales in the US, especially out there in hick country, have soared ?

Joe

From the great Scott Adams..."Watching CNN cover the news from an alternate reality in which they pretend to believe Trump asked a doctor about injecting Clorox and Lysol into #coronavirus patients is flat-out amazing. It's the "fine people" hoax all over again. How do their viewers fall for it every time?"

I don't know how they fall for it...best ask Paul, LM etc.

"Is this fair dinkum ?"

Yep its true. There are commercial flights into the USA. They are only available to US citizens and permanent residents.

You'll be surprised to learn that the same applies here. Citizens can fly into Australia but will be subject to quarantine.

I think you'll find this is the case in most countries. But since its Trump let's just criticise the US