CM, like Trump you see the pandemic as a competition, where the winner finishes last. Trump earlier touted 100,000 as a good number, now as the US death toll reaches, and will soon surpass that figure within days, will Trump come up with a new best result, say 200,000. The reality is Trumps primary concern is the profits of capital, and of course saving his own hide. I understand he is claiming to be on his much touted miracle drug hydroxychloroquine. Is he also consuming a daily dose of disinfectant as well, as he also put forward diso as a cure. Dangerous Doctor Donald, the medical EXPERT!

Toni Lavis,
If these experts are so knowledgable, why don't we ever get to see them perform expertly ?
Or, are you implying that all these expert commentators on the ABC are of actual benefit to us just by giving their expert opinion ?

Given the madcap fining of people in Australia for breaking virus 'laws', the UK experience might be of interest; there, all prosecutions under their Coronavirus Act have been unlawful. The CPS revealed all 44 charges it had so far checked had been withdrawn or overturned. It might be worth the while of offenders here to appeal against the far too easy and lazy on the spot fines handed out in Australia, particularly in the People's Republic of Victoria.

Yeah, we should put our trust in ignorance instead of expertise.
Toni Lavis,
I did say people who know not ignorant academic experts. Aren't we literally forced to put our trust into ignoramuses in Authority every day ? Aren't all decisions in authority made by such people ? How many people in authority are not highly educated/indoctrinated ? Could a lesser educated person actually stand a chance of getting into authority ?
I'm not on about professionals, I'm on about experts who don't actually do anything besides talking on the ABC !

Individual,

Can you get it through your head that there may be four million people in Australia with university qualifications, but only a small fraction of those are academics ? i.e. working at higher education institutions ? The rest are all out there working in all sorts of organisations.

And even some of those academics, at universities and VET/TAFE colleges, are actually doing a hell of a good job. I certainly remember many wonderful, hard-working, thoughtful lecturers and tutors at uni, as I'm sure many of us on OLO can. One lovely bloke teaching us demography in the late seventies had worked in Indonesia and contracted malaria there. He still used to come to work with us, shivering and sweating. Now deceased, but never, never forgotten.

So differentiate:

*. four million graduates, many with their Fine Arts or Performing Arts degree, or Film Direction, or Games Development, so many expecting early and world-wide recognition of their amazing talents, but now working on the check-outs at Coles or Aldi

from

*. 122,000 academics working at universities in 2018 (Ed. Dept figures, on: https://www.education.gov.au/higher-education-statistics), maybe half of whom are actually doing a good job, leaving sixty thousand or so for you to get stuck into, out of nearly four million graduates.

Not all graduates are academics. Not all excellent tradespeople are officially qualified or did apprenticeships. Some of both also may actually be shonks. Takes all types.

Joe

Australia's response to the pandemic has so far been
successful compared to other nations. Of course despite
our successes we have made some major blunders.

For example, allowing 2700 passengers to disembark from
the Ruby Princess cruise ship on 19 March even though
many were showing 19 like symptoms. More than 600 cases have
now been linked back to the ship.

Then there's been some Australians who have also ignored
social distancing recommendations and crammed into beaches
and parks.

We now have the Australian government who's looking at
ways to ease restrictions but won't make decisions until
it sees how the coming weeks pan out.

One option that's being tried is lifting restrictions
slowly in individual states and territories on a trial
basis before applying the changes nationally.

At the moment about 10% of Australians who've caught the
virus don't know how they got it which is a sign of
community spread. Although this is a small proportion it
could easily spiral out of control if all regulations
are lifted too early and people are allowed to mix freely.

" We cannot relax yet," seems to be the general consensus.