CoronaVirus ==> Empty Shelves

[Lappa]

You have to wonder when one day it’s 30 minutes only in Hairdressers then it’s OK to stay for hours as usual the next.
Did the experts recommend 30 minutes then the Govt over rule them or did the Govt say 30 minutes then the experts say no, carry on as usual?

Then there’s the case of the Govt order that all gyms must be closed, so a gym owner closes his gym to clients but starts making videos from his gym for his clients to use at home (with no clients at the gym) but the police close him down because gyms have to be closed.?

[Tccp123]

I don’t know anything about the panel of medical experts that are advising our government but assume by some comments here and elsewhere that some think they don’t know what they are talking about?

...and of course the other confronting fact is that governments don't always disclose everything that's going on (for all the right reasons). Some recent examples I've come across were the Australian government's reaction after the bombing of Darwin during WWII when 240 odd people were killed. They suppressed that news because in their opinion it would have had a negative effect on the war effort. Maybe, maybe not but the fact is they didn't tell the rest of the Australian people what had happened.

The other example that comes to mind is the number of casualties reported after the Rape of Nanking. Chinese history books report it as being more than 300,000. Japanese history books report it as being 45.

Don't believe everything you're told...

[Lappa]

Indonesia is not that bad according to worldometer

Indonesia Coronavirus: 1,046 Cases and 87 Deaths - Worldometer

[doug3030]

Don't believe everything you're told...

Having worked in Military Intelligence for 20 years I have heaps of similar stories that I can't tell about what really happened and what the public was told.

OK, cue the oxymoron jokes if you really feel you must - I've heard them all before.

[Tccp123]

Having worked in Military Intelligence for 20 years I have heaps of similar stories that I can't tell about what really happened and what the public was told.

OK, cue the oxymoron jokes if you really feel you must - I've heard them all before.

Hahaha! Leading with the chin. I like that! )

[Tccp123]

Here's some good news to brighten up the mood:

Prince Andrew tests positive for Gonorrhoea – Cutting News

[BobL]

I don’t know anything about the panel of medical experts that are advising our government but assume by some comments here and elsewhere that some think they don’t know what they are talking about?

Wearing my cynical hat, Trumpesque tactics are easy, you pick the panel of experts that will give you the advice you want to hear. If someone is difficult you just replace them. We never hear what all the suggestions are that RE discussed or how they are voted on. There's probably a bit of bully boy tactics and lots of selective data in there as well. It reminds me of one of my students who went to work for the cops as a crime data analyst/mapper. One of his weekly jobs was to mine crime data for anything positive for the ministers weekly cabinet meeting.

I'm somewhat unimpressed at the focus on OS travellers.
If the only people who get tested for COVID19 are persons who have been overseas, or people who have been in contact with people who have been overseas then is it surprising there'a little evidence for local infection? I see VIC is about to test every 5th person that goes to a COVID19 clinic irrespective of the above criteria. Why wasn't this done back at day dot?

[Tccp123]

Why wasn't this done back at day dot?

We all know the answer to that. No one knew where this was going...

[Lappa]

Maybe a lack of test kits?

[BobL]

Indonesia is not that bad according to worldometer
Indonesia Coronavirus: 1,046 Cases and 87 Deaths - Worldometer

Their case numbers are almost meaningless as they have the lowest #tests/capita, 17 tests per million inhabitants, CF, AUS = 7442 and Iceland = 29k

FWIW USA has 1700, pretty poor really

See; COVID-19 testing - Wikipedia

[Lappa]

Australia’s pretty good re tests per million compared to most others.

[BobL]

Maybe a lack of test kits?

Yes it was but they wouldn't come out and say this - all they said we are directing tests to where they thought it would do the most good but they have almost ZERO tests on random local transmission. Hopefully these new tests will fix that. Epidemiologists say that reasonably reliable local infection rate could be obtained with about a 1% of randomly selected persons. That means they need about 250,000 tests done - HUGE job and it would use up a significant proportion of their new test kits.

The blood samples for the new tests could be randomly selected from the ~1,000,000 blood tests done every day. The test is simple enough to be done by any path nurse in any path lab. 50,000 per day, should be able to do it in a week?

[BobL]

Australia’s pretty good re tests per million compared to most others.

Yep we are doing well BUT almost all of the 190,000 tests are of OS travellers or persons known to have been in contact with OS travellers.

The new kits are going to be used initially for persons working in health and aged care. Make sense but you teachers can get to the back of the queue.

[Lappa]

So what - you think it would be responsible to come out at the beginning of this pandemic and announce to the Australian public “we don’t have enough kits to test people”.

if you have a limited supply of kits do you go out and randomly test people and use up the kits or wait for symptoms or test people who have been in contact?

We can’t have it both ways.

hindsight is a wonderful thing!

[FenceFurniture]

I don’t know anything about the panel of medical experts that are advising our government but assume by some comments here and elsewhere that some think they don’t know what they are talking about?

I think the panel of experts largely (not bigly) know very much what they are talking about. They don't always fully agree, as we saw on Monday's Q&A, but they are highly educated in their fields. It's the dickhead pollies that don't like it and don't think that we can handle it....because we might get rid of them for telling us the truth. I think any shutdowns and restrictions should be on the authority of the experts in their fields, not people who are paid to bullsh!t us.

Rudd has his flaws - maybe plenty of them, but by crikey he was good in a crisis and he wasn't scared to call it as it was. We were the toast of the world in 2009-11 or so. ("How did they do that?")