CoronaVirus ==> Empty Shelves

[Fekit]

Well on an upside I think it is fair to say our authorities have done a great job in minimising the viral impact on Australian soil. Their tactics have proven to have been the right course to date.

I have to say that I completely disagree with that statement.

It was the breathtakingly slow response that created the numbers that we have. Do you not recall the slow response to calls for a travel ban on China?, or perhaps the late travel ban on Iran when it was clear they were in serious trouble?, how about the absurd timing of the travel ban on Italy.....nearly 2 days after Italy had banned itself?

No the government really hasn't done that well. The actual reason the curve flattened is because of the number of infected people arriving here dropped to near zero a couple of weeks ago.

Additionally, I would like to note that while "the curve is flattening" it is also getting really, really long.

Capture.PNG

The important thing to realise in the chart above, is that the blue section, which has been steadily increasing...........willl.....never.....go....away. And that it will never go away is an important thing to consider because the reality is that, at some stage, everybody is going to get it, and it is likely going to kill anybody that it was going to kill anyway.

[Bushmiller]

The important thing to realise in the chart above, is that the blue section, which has been steadily increasing...........willl.....never.....go....away. And that it will never go away is an important thing to consider because the reality is that, at some stage, everybody is going to get it, and it is likely going to kill anybody that it was going to kill anyway.

Feckit

Not sure I agree with that statement in that it is simplistically fatalistic. If we took it to an extreme you would have to say it doesn't matter if somebody dies in a car crash because they were going to die anyway. Let's be serious: None of us are going to get out alive! However most of us are concerned that we don't go sooner than absolutely necessary.

An eighty years old, just to pluck a figure out of the air, with some health issues such as asthma or a reduced immune system, might still live to eighty five or even ninety under normal circumstances. That same person would be a little peeved to die prematurely.

As time goes on, and on an optimistic note, the world will learn more about the way this virus behaves and at some point the medical expertise will be developed to head it off. This may be in the form of a vaccine or just as likely, different strategies for managing the illness and fewer people will succumb. Eventually, the human race will build antibodies and consequent resistance. Look at what happened to the South American Indians when europeans introduced the common cold? At the moment we have little in the way of a natural immune system as the virus jumped from animals to humans through a mutation and possibly an intermediate host animal too (bats/pangolins/humans), although this is going to be difficult to prove as the Chinese government might have destroyed all evidence from the initial outbreak.

Down the track I don't believe it will kill everybody who today it would kill. Consider all the horrible diseases that we have either eliminated such as TB or smallpox (nearly) or developed vaccines for: The list is huge.

Regards
Paul

[BobL]

I'm not a fan of politicians of any stripe but I'll give credit where it's due. This one came right out of the blue.

Disagree - definitely not out of the blue. The health authorities had been planning for all sorts of scenario including pandemics for decades. They last had a pandemic practice run with whole of Govt in 2006 and 2008 and then as I said the Govt dropped the ball. There is no excuse to let national stock piles of PPE be run down or let go out of date. The animal health authorities of which my BIL is a member regularly cooperate/communicate with human health people on these matters and he says they have been warning govts for years about this. Interesting how the animal health people are much more on top of these types of situations than the human health people have been allowed to be. Maybe its because animals make money and people cost money?

[Fekit]

simplistically fatalistic.

No, it's probably just a fact of life, and like I said, likely not definitely.

If we took it to an extreme you would have to say it doesn't matter if somebody dies in a car crash because they were going to die anyway.

What? Nice of you to make up some compete BS and then project it onto me, thanks for that.

[poundy]

but @Feckit, the good thing about flattening the curve is exactly as I've said all along, we're not going to have more critical cases needing ventilation than we have ventilators, and so the people that this kills will be only the ones who it was going to kill anyway, not the ones that we couldn't save because of a limit on ventilators.

I also think you misinterpret the reason the curve flattening has happened. It's not just "imported" cases, it's also that local transmission has been restricted, ie the "Local - known" section of your bar above, by the lock-down, is growing slower than in many other places in the world observed.

[Bushmiller]

Regarding the relaxation of restrictions we do have to be careful as there have already been countries that have gone off at half cock. I plucked this out of an advertising email I received. Now I mention the advertising aspect because there was a commercial aspect, but the content below I feel is a reasonable appraisal of the caution we should exercise.

"With signs in some countries that the coronavirus pandemic may have reached a plateau, governments are looking at how to lift lockdown restrictions on their crippled businesses and restless populations.It might be a good thing for the economy, but we're not in the clear just yet.>>
You see, in late February, Hokkaido became the first place in Japan to declare a state of emergency due to COVID-19.>>
Schools were closed, large-scale gatherings were cancelled, and people were "encouraged" to stay at home. >>
The local government pursued the virus with determination, aggressively tracing and isolating anyone who'd had contact with victims.>>
The policy worked and by mid-March the number of new cases had fallen back to one or two a day. >>
On March 19th the state of emergency was lifted, and at the beginning of April, schools re-opened.>>
However, just 26 days after the state of emergency was lifted, a new one had to be imposed.>>
On the week of April 6th, Hokkaido recorded 135 new confirmed cases of COVID-19.>>
Unlike the first outbreak in February, there is no evidence the virus has been re-imported from outside Japan.>>
What does this tell us about the virus?>>
If a lockdown is lifted too soon, chances are high that people will be reinfected.>>
Just look at China and Singapore, they seemed to have the virus "under control" for a while, but now they are experiencing massive waves of local transmission of infection and reinfection.>>
Doctors predict there will be 2nd, 3rd, and 4th waves, until a vaccine is discovered.>>

(Which requires at least a year or more of clinical trials.)"

Regards
Paul

[Fekit]

and so the people that this kills will be only the ones who it was going to kill anyway

Isn't that what I just wrote?

I also think you misinterpret the reason the curve flattening has happened.

Well of course you're entitled to your opinion, but I disagree and stand by what I have noted. Undoubtedly the distancing measure have had an impact and that is shown in the numbers, but the principle flattening is due to the cessation of the imports.

[Sturdee]

An eighty years old, just to pluck a figure out of the air, with some health issues such as asthma or a reduced immune system, might still live to eighty five or even ninety under normal circumstances. That same person would be a little peeved to die prematurely.


Regards
Paul

Paul,

You are quite right.

If you substitute 76 for 80 and health issues such as asthma or a reduced immune system with right lung half the size of my left lung and reduced immune system you are talking about me.

I do not want to die and in the normal course of events I expect to live another say 10 years at least.

So for those that are quoting abstract figures and statistics please keep in mind the human tragedies that it entails.

Peter.

[poundy]

Isn't that what I just wrote?

except you cherry picked my comment; we will also NOT LOSE people because we don't have beds or ventilators to keep them alive. Yes, people will still die, but the reason for wanting to flatten the curve is so we didn't have to decide who got to be saved because we didn't have enough ventilators

Well of course you're entitled to your opinion, but I disagree and stand by what I have noted. Undoubtedly the distancing measure have had an impact and that is shown in the numbers, but the principle flattening is due to the cessation of the imports.

Any local case is a source for transmission. The "imports" certainly bought a higher number to start, but once the virus is here and spreading, the volume of spread will certainly outweigh the imported cases, as there were only so many trips in (flights, boats etc).
A good example that highlights how it spreads when social distancing isn't in place or isn't effective, is that the staff on the Ruby Princess have gone from a handful of cases to now over 200. If you consider that a trip to a local shopping centre could have seen a similar spread if restrictions weren't in place, it is clear to me that the biggest spread factor is going to be "normal" local interactions

[woodPixel]

Disagree - definitely not out of the blue. The health authorities had been planning for all sorts of scenario including pandemics for decades. They last had a pandemic practice run with whole of Govt in 2006 and 2008 and then as I said the Govt dropped the ball. There is no excuse to let national stock piles of PPE be run down or let go out of date. The animal health authorities of which my BIL is a member regularly cooperate/communicate with human health people on these matters and he says they have been warning govts for years about this. Interesting how the animal health people are much more on top of these types of situations than the human health people have been allowed to be. Maybe its because animals make money and people cost money?

Totally agree with this.

The government employs THOUSANDS of people whose sole job is to find, mitigate and eradicate these things.

To claim they were surprised by its "sudden appearance" is impossible.

My first public post that this was a "thing" plus a few images I've saved in my "keep" folder dated mid-November. So, it shows I was peripherally aware something was going on. As people may know, I've an unhealthy obsession with markets, especially the futures. I saw blips on copper, coal and the Shanghai Baltic Dry mid November and there are comments on one board where I said the equivalent of "WHAT is going on here people....".

To say that ENTIRE health departments, with infinite resources, PhD's, mandates, tentacles and spies can't do better than some solitary suburban trader is complete BS.

Trouble is, they are paid to turn up, not to actually DO ANYTHING. There were reports. Bums were covered. Denyability was created. Now people are dead.

Of course they knew about it. Of course they wrote up some report for it.... but in the words of Adams in HHGTG (which is required reading for all those who utterly despise bureaucrats)...

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

[Beardy]

I have to say that I completely disagree with that statement.

It was the breathtakingly slow response that created the numbers that we have. Do you not recall the slow response to calls for a travel ban on China?, or perhaps the late travel ban on Iran when it was clear they were in serious trouble?, how about the absurd timing of the travel ban on Italy.....nearly 2 days after Italy had banned itself?

No the government really hasn't done that well. The actual reason the curve flattened is because of the number of infected people arriving here dropped to near zero a couple of weeks ago.

Additionally, I would like to note that while "the curve is flattening" it is also getting really, really long.

Capture.PNG

The important thing to realise in the chart above, is that the blue section, which has been steadily increasing...........willl.....never.....go....away. And that it will never go away is an important thing to consider because the reality is that, at some stage, everybody is going to get it, and it is likely going to kill anybody that it was going to kill anyway.

I think the statistics beg to differ, the infection rate has remained under control and the loss of life has been minimal which I believe was always the target.

[Fekit]

the infection rate has remained under control

No it hasn't. It has, as I have already stated, been steadily increasing.

Capture g.PNG

ABC coronavirus data charts COVID-19 spread in Australia - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[poundy]

No it hasn't. It has, as I have already stated, been steadily increasing.

The infection count has increased, but the RATE has been slowing, significantly. And "steadily increasing" is much better than "exponentially increasing" that would have happened had tighter controls not been in place.... again, just look at other places in the world, they all had much longer periods where the growth was exponential.

[FenceFurniture]

No it hasn't. It has, as I have already stated, been steadily increasing.

Yes, technically it has been increasing Feckit, but I think it can safely be said to be "increasing within control" unlike Europe and USA where it could be described as pretty much out of control.

To save you looking through all the spreadsheets I have posted every three days, Australia's increase rate have been:
29th March n/a (start of my sheets)
1st Apr 33.6%
4th Apr 14.2%
7th Apr 6.2%
10th Apr 5.4%
13th Apr 2.2%
16th Apr 1.7%
19th Apr 1.3%

Not sure what the rates were before April, but the rate of increase since 7th April is pretty pleasing to see, particularly in the last week or so. I suspect that if the rest of the world was able to have the time to look around (and they probably don't at the moment), then Australia and New Zealand would be the Toast of the world, but the rest of the world is toast.


Is our result due to declaring it as a pandemic two weeks before WHO did, and reacting accordingly? Probably. Not forgetting the the bloody Ruby fiasco has added something like 40-50% to the deaths, and I don't know what to the # cases.

[FenceFurniture]

*Be careful of terminology

Number of cases will always increase - cannot go backwards
The rate of increase is the important one - if this rate is slowing, or decreasing (a decrease in the rate of increase ) then we are very much winning the battle, particularly when it is a number under 5%.