CoronaVirus ==> Empty Shelves

[Tccp123]

...plenty of evidence that at least one strain, perhaps even the main, of the SF originated there Flu epidemic traced to Great War transit camp - Health News, Health & Families - The Independent

WWI camps with atrocious cramped conditions are thought to be much more likely breeding grounds than the alternative much cleaner and spacious US training camps.

Yet another example of expert opinions differing. Bob's (possibly DNA related?) says the SF originated in a WWI transit camp and had nothing to do with spacious US training camps. My expert source YouTube (probably just as bad as Bob's) seems to say the opposite. It originated in a pig farm in Kentucky and spread wildly in those very WWI military training camps before being exported to the front where is became rampant and spread to other countries.

[NeilS]

Neil, yes, you mentioned your son a few days ago, and IIRC you said he was an Immunologist

Yes, Brett, I happen to have an immunologist in the family.

His advice: Go home and stay there, until advised otherwise.

His mother and I have been in home isolation now for over two weeks. That's for our protection. We are both 70+ and I'm an asthmatic, so in the most vulnerable cohort.

However, none of us is immune and all ages are potentially vulnerable regardless of their health status, as we know from the example of the whistle-blower Dr Li Wenliang who died at age 34 from CV-19.

The 'distancing' measures within the broader community will provide any one of us with an increased chance of survival when the surge in demand for ICU resources comes during the peak of the epidemic.

We greatly appreciate what our fellow Australians are collectively doing to minimise the impact of this epidemic and acknowledge that their considerable sacrifices in many ways is not without a real cost to most of them.

[BobL]

Yet another example of expert opinions differing. Bob's (possibly DNA related?) says the SF originated in a WWI transit camp and had nothing to do with spacious US training camps. My expert source YouTube (probably just as bad as Bob's) seems to say the opposite. It originated in a pig farm in Kentucky and spread wildly in those very WWI military training camps before being exported to the front where is became rampant and spread to other countries.

I didn't make any personal claims about the origins OF SF, I was quoting from an Independent newspaper article who was quoting a, John Oxford, Professor of virology at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London School of Medicine. I have subsequently tracked one of the original sources from the newspaper article.
Who's that lady? | Nature Medicine
Published in "Nature medicine", I'd give it more credence than anything said on youtube.
No one does any fact checking or systematic peer review on anything said on Youtube - its basically just a gossip monger.
Wikipedia can be just as bad but at least there are sometimes links to peer reviewed publications that can be cross checked.

[GraemeCook]

Graeme

As some others have mentioned Virgin does employ many (don't know exactly how many) Aussies and that is good. I guess it is a shame that it is not Australian owned, but that is true of so many Aussie icons (Arnott's as an example) and more a subject for another thread as we have plenty of digressions as it is. I might lean towards assisting people more than corporations as I would expect that to reach the people most needy. ......

Paul, I fully agree with your humanitarian sentiment, but I think you can also analyse how the foreign owners are likely to analyse their options:

Step 1: Realise that their investment has a liquidity shortage - it needs a cash injection. Banks decline to loan more.

Step 2: Ask Australian government for assistance mentioning what great service they give to rural areas and what a great employer they are.

Step 3: Blackmail Australian government. "Give us $$$$'s or we will be forced to sack everyone and we will not be able to pay our creditors or repay our preferred creditors (the banks). Banks lobby politicians on cue. Professional lobby industry springs into action. Cash strapped company can pay lobbyists!,, but not employees!

Step 4: Assuming government stands strong; they realise their blackmail is not working. Crunch time; they now have two options:

• support their investment and inject more cash, or
• write off their investment.

They are simple commercial decisions.

The commercial reality is that most businesses will attempt to get welfare from the government if they think they might be able to. In fact, the Corporations Code requires directors to act in the best interests of their shareholders.

[BobL]

After bagging youtube this visually simulated maths is, at a minimum, interesting

It takes 20 minutes but you should hopefully gain a better idea of the control being pursued by the Govt.

[NeilS]

I have done a little Excel work ...... and right is population infection rate (cases/pop%).

I did something similar a while back, Brett. The two figures I was after were cases per million of population and death rate/m pop.

The first gives a comparative measure of the performance of a government with slowing the spread and the second a comparative measure of the performance of their hospital system.

Putting aside the problem with case identification from the different testing regimes, as we know the raw figures can't tell you how well a country is doing compared to others until you factor that in.

For example, back on 22 March (now well out of date) I got:

Reported cases per
million residents (C/MR )

Country	C/MR
Italy	886.17
Spain	542.64
Germany	265.63
France	221.53
Sth Korea	171.62
United States	77.48
United Kingdom	73.94
Singapore	73.84
China	56.28
Australia	41.49
Canada	30.23
Japan	8.02

This of course doesn't take into account when the virus began in each country and at what point each country is at in the epidemic's trajectory curve. That has to be plotted from a given number of cases (eg >100) and deaths (eg >10). But, none of the current graphs that do that, as useful as they are at plotting a comparative trajectories (eg Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads | Free to read | Financial Times), are as yet providing a population adjusted plot or at least that I can find.

As of today, the US has many more recorded cases than say, Italy, but the US has 5.5 times the population of Italy and when weighted for their respective populations the US is doing considerably better per head of population. However, the story is far from over for the US as it may also be for Italy, etc.

Anyway, I gave up on updating my spreadsheet as it became too difficult to feed in the new data each day. Has anyone found an automated way of doing that?

[Bushmiller]

This may be an interesting link to the worldwide stats situation. If you click on a country on the left hand column it brings up more detailed information on that particular country, but then I couldn't work out how to go back to the "world" except by shutting it down and starting again.

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

Anyway, I gave up on updating my spreadsheet as it became too difficult to feed in the new data each day. Has anyone found an automated way of doing that?

Not yet. I just entered the data manually from the Johns Hopkins site. It would be good to find something that is more or less able to be copied and pasted.

What does your data say the number of cases for Italy and Oz was on the 22nd?

[FenceFurniture]

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

That's perzackly the same site as the Johns Hopkins link goes to.

[Fuzzie]

What worries me is the stats for recovered vs new reported cases don't seem to be following similar trajectories yet. If most people recover the graph lines should sort of mirror each other. Isolation of healthy people is currently 14 days to just see if they develop symptoms. The time to recover once infected doesn't seem to be captured in the stats at the moment. I think this graph is indicating it has to be longer than 3 weeks. How bad is the average case going to be during those 3+ weeks. Will we still be able to look after ourselves in isolation if we don't need to be admitted to hospital? Is this why they are going to have rows and rows of beds set out in the Exhibition Buildings to care for the bad cases?

Coronavirus Cases: Statistics and Charts - Worldometer

[woodPixel]

now is the time when I laugh at my kids about living in a country town and still have no neighbours...was getting tired of the 5 acre block...not any more.
wifey has always had a pantry full of food, convinced we could feed big family for 4 months, 2 freezers stacked with meat, buy from a farmer mate who culls his own lamb, pork & beef. Milk is the problem, dont even think of putting dried stuff near me, from the udder into the fridge

Feel (sometimes ) for those that live in cities....

Ssssshhhh.... Golden rule of the Zombie Apocalypse is not to reveal the location of The Stash....

Our next holiday home

Screenshot_2020-03-30 CoronaVirus == Empty Shelves - Page 62.png

[ian]

It takes 20 minutes but you should hopefully gain a better idea of the control being pursued by the Govt.

IMO, well worth the investment of 20 minutes

[woodPixel]

Thanks WP, I couldn't have asked for a better reply . I expect there will be plenty of "There's talk about..." everywhere, not just where you live.

And kudos for admitting "but I don't know the facts"

Sounds like the young neighbour who "has it" is bearing up well

Its one of those things isn't it. Stats and news reports are one thing, but hearing a NEXT DOOR neighbour taping up the inside of his door is another.

I get the impression, from limited meetings, that he is a bit soft anyway. He doesn't seem to be taking it well. His demeanour, aggression, drinking, anger, 3am shouting-at-the-Xbox is getting a bit out of hand. I've reprimanded him on the building facebook page and offered him assistance for projects/item/necessaries (declined).

I can easily see it turning to vigilantism. There are two bikies here, friendly chaps, but they don't strike me as dudes who will take much of that kind of shenanigans without it eventually resulting in a chat.

Before long, I think we'll all have stories. My three Chinese contacts have not come back....

[BobL]

Here is a 30 minute podcast on how an Italian Village (Vo) conquered COVID19 by the Italian epidemiologist who was involved with the testing.
They tested everyone so within two rounds of testing and isolating the infected they had no more cases.

Jolly swagman podcast
#83: How An Italian Town Conquered Coronavirus — Andrea Crisanti – Joseph Noel Walker

This is how testing should be carried out and follow up testing of possible asymptomatic candidates be performed.

I believe Australian authorities were not able to do this at first because of lack of testing kits but increasingly adopting these ideas in selected areas.

[woodPixel]

Paul, I fully agree with your humanitarian sentiment, but I think you can also analyse how the foreign owners are likely to analyse their options:

Step 1: Realise that their investment has a liquidity shortage - it needs a cash injection. Banks decline to loan more.

Step 2: Ask Australian government for assistance mentioning what great service they give to rural areas and what a great employer they are.

Step 3: Blackmail Australian government. "Give us $$$$'s or we will be forced to sack everyone and we will not be able to pay our creditors or repay our preferred creditors (the banks). Banks lobby politicians on cue. Professional lobby industry springs into action. Cash strapped company can pay lobbyists!,, but not employees!

Step 4: Assuming government stands strong; they realise their blackmail is not working. Crunch time; they now have two options:

• support their investment and inject more cash, or
• write off their investment.

They are simple commercial decisions.

The commercial reality is that most businesses will attempt to get welfare from the government if they think they might be able to. In fact, the Corporations Code requires directors to act in the best interests of their shareholders.

I saw a few interesting points put forward by some (the usual crowd) right winger biz-nuts.

-- If they need yet ANOTHER bailout (after 911, GFC), they fork over, or relinquish shares to the government...
-- If they've engaged in share buybacks to enrich the execs and shareholders, then they should just as well SELL more shares....
-- One wondered WHY individuals had to rely on savings and loans to survive. He conjectured, if "corporations are people" then why treat them differently?
-- Some, rather interestingly, for companies (such as shipping) use Flags Of Convenience. they pay tax in the Bahamas/Panama, but want a USA bailout (what!!?)
-- For those companies who have PAID NO TAX, why should the TAX PAYER bail them out? They are already profitless zombies and should be put to death!

Apologies for making this discussion financial