If they keep shooting rubber bullets at Australian citizens, & their vicious behavior to people who are offering no danger to them, I will be surprised if there aren't a few dead police some time pretty soon.

Australian backbone is likely to make a very sudden reappearance quite violently.

"So nearly 1 in 3 of my age group is so seriously impacted they are presenting at hospital. Very sobering."

Well not quite. 1 in 3 of your age group WHO GET A POSITIVE TEST are hospitalised.
But only 50 in every 100,000 in that age group get hospitalised. (0.05%)
And only 10 in every 100,000 in that age group go into ICU. (0.01%)
and only 1.8 in every 100,000 in that age group die. (0.0018%)

By way of comparison, the death rate for that age group for road deaths is 0.005%...so the chances for that age group to die of WuFlu is similar to their chances of dying from road accidents.

Yet we aren't demanding they be banned from the roads. We not saying they need to have their heads read if they drive. When people start saying that the risks of getting in a car are sobering, I'll take them seriously.

The difference? We've grown up with road accidents. We can evaluate the risks based on past experience. We know there's a risk getting in a car but we have a feel for that risk. We know there's a risk with the WuFlu but we don't have a feel for that risk.
So we, or some of us, go weak-kneed at a risk that is minor, while getting in a car without a thought. Why? Well if we had daily press briefings telling us how many people were killed or hospitalised due to road accidents and dire warnings at every turn that death is around the corner, perhaps things would be different.

I wonder if the government/media/health bureaucracy could create a great scare based on 'sobering' road deaths. Based on what we've seen over the last 18months, anything's possible.

Dear Foxy,

There have been quite serious incidents of unacceptable thuggish behaviour from some of the protesters. However I find it hard to equate having urine thrown at you with being pushed violently to the asphalt in a manner to cause your head to quite violently strike the road and then have two loads of pepper sprayed directly into your face.

I have no reason not to believe the woman wasn't 70 but would consider any evidence to the contrary. What is clear from the videos is that she was standing a distance in front of the crowd and was flanked by two media photographers. She wasn't advancing at the police nor was she throwing items or acting in an aggressive manner.

I know serving police officers who were in attendance at the protests. They both frown upon unacceptable police actions as they serve to dramatically lessen support from the wider protester group and the public in general.

http://youtu.be/Em4O2GHWwOI

The group who gathered outside the CFMEU headquarters repeatedly made the point that they didn't expect to be moved on 'because we aren't 70 year old ladies' and 'there would be hell to pay if they tried that here'. The police did indeed leave them be for most of the day. It was point that resonated even if the police had changed tactics for strategic reasons.

There is absolutely no doubt that both hard right and left groups have taken the advantage of protests to act in a deeply anti-authoritarian and thuggish manner. But there is a large proportion of protesters who are there because of what they deem overreach by the government. That is a legitimate reason to protest even if I personally don't agree with it.

Dear mhaze,

Again with this juvenile crap?

I clearly stated this was a percentage of Covid cases before I related the percentages.

Secondly your utter bastardisation of the statistics, such a prime example of the Prosecutor's Fallacy, is so utterly disingenuous it is painful. Give it away.

Dear Foxy,

Can I add if you are on Facebook go look this bloke up. He is called the Real Rukshan and I have been following his live streams over the last few weeks. He has his own biases as do most media but it was a good resource for first-hand news.

This is a recent Age article on him which is reasonably on point.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/who-is-the-real-rukshan-20210924-p58umr.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1632556381

Pauliar,

No one believes that these thugs rioting are anything other than the same CFMEU thugs that have used violence so many times before.

Nobody says anything about the hundreds of new infections reported daily in Victoria, despite the loony lockdowns. 847 yesterday. None in SA, Tas, NT without lockdowns. Creepy place Victoria. Thick inhabitants.