SR wrote, more in hope and ignorance than evidence: "The 'total number of deaths'. (remember that pesky figure) had been on a solid downward trend through the decade"

In fact when you run the numbers the trend for total deaths is up, even if you use SR's raw figures. I could walk him through the actual calculations but it involves icky things like adding and subtracting so he'd get lost after a few seconds. But just eye-balling the data where most years show an increase would indicate what the maths proves - the trend has been up.

But SR wants it to be a downward trend and in his world that means it is a downward trend.....or something.

Armchair Critic wrote: "It kept a barrier between the infected and me."

Yes in the same way as wearing garlic keeps the vampires away. If you wanted to personally lockdown there was never anything stopping you from doing so. But as a mandated governmental order it did nothing to reduce deaths.

Meanwhile, do you have any compassion for the bloke down the road who spent 30 years building his business only to see it destroyed as his customers were mandated to stay clear?

In breaking news the Australian government is begging New Guinea and Fiji to send a delegation to Canberra to explain how to handle the virus. As the government pointed out, Australia has had 909 deaths from the virus whereas Fiji only had 2 and PNG only had 39 deaths.

Some fools thought the reason for the difference might have been differnt levels of populations and that adjustments needed to be made for that when comparing. But the experts said that wasn't the case and you always just use the raw numbers. Besides, making that type of adjustment was rooly-rooly hard involving esoteric things like multiplication and long division and it was therefore best avoided.

mhaze,
PNG & Fiji don't have as many nilly willy blow-ins as Australia.

Dear mhaze,

Lol. Mate I put the 'total number of deaths' in quotation marks because I was referring to your version of it, adjusted for population.

Are you really saying there wasn't a downward trend before 2020?

mhaze: PNG is basically a collection of isolated small communities. Indeed, although is has about 9 million people, there are only 2 (yes that's right- just 2) cities with more than 100,000 people. In fact that are only about 25 cities/towns with more than 5000 people.
And it is normal for someone from one village in PNG on one side of a mountain valley to have very little interpersonal exchange with someone of another village on the other side. It commonly takes hours or days by foot to get from one village to another.

These naturally occurring conditions in PNG, where the population is divided and separated from each other into small groupings, are exactly what imposing borders crossing restrictions and lockdowns are mimicking! However, lockdowns go further with the goal being breaking people up into smaller than village sized groups, ie: family units.

Also, PNG's population is a very young one. The median age is in the low twenties. It is a very small percentage of the population that is over 40, ie, in age bracket where the coronavirus fatality rate starts to increase dramatically.

It is also worth pointing out that although the natural remoteness and separation of PNG villages and village life combined with a young population has kept virus deaths down so far, the virus is now starting to gain traction. This is because the spread of the virus is not defeated by remote village life, just slowed down. In the last few weeks PNG has been starting to suffer badly- the health system is about to be overloaded.

In an unvaccinated population, only elimination via lockdowns with closed borders combined with contract tracing/community testing and isolation of those found infected or possibly infected can ever truly beat the virus.

individual,

" nilly willy blow-ins..."

But while-ever SR's around we'll a surfeit of blow-hards as well.






SR,

Oh so now you're using the adjusted numbers. Whatever suits your current needs, eh? Since you totally screwed up the trend you decided to hide the error by claiming you were using different numbers. Standard SR there, underhanded in the service of hiding being perpetually wrong.

"Are you really saying there wasn't a downward trend before 2020?"

No...the maths is. That's true with the caveat that its based on the raw numbers that you've been swearing up and down are valid and that its for the period in question. See what I did there SR...I removed all the weaselly tricks you were going to use to hide your error.







Meanwhile in the adult world, a new report in Britain saying that the effects of the lockdown will be felt for the next decade. eg

Declining public trust in government.

Widening inequalities: geographic, health, racial, gender, digital and economic inequalities have been exacerbated by Covid.

Worsening mental health: soaring mental illness, especially among children, low-income households...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/23/uk-faces-covid-decade-due-to-damage-done-by-pandemic-says-report