Australia Records Zero New COVID-19 Infections (bbc.com) 220
The continent of Australia, where nearly 25 million people live, "has recorded its first day of no local cases of Covid-19 in almost five months," reports the BBC:
Zero cases were reported in the 24 hours between 20:00 on Friday and 20:00 on Saturday - the first time this has happened since 9 June. The state of Victoria - epicentre of Australia's second wave - recorded zero cases for the second day in a row after a 112-day lockdown.
Health officials say more restrictions may be eased in the coming days. "Thank you to all of our amazing health & public health workers & above all else the Australian people," Health Minister Greg Hunt said on his Twitter account.
Australia combined lockdowns with "proactive testing and tracing," the article reports, adding that in addition Victoria "imposed some of the severest stay-at-home and curfew rules in the world."
Health officials say more restrictions may be eased in the coming days. "Thank you to all of our amazing health & public health workers & above all else the Australian people," Health Minister Greg Hunt said on his Twitter account.
Australia combined lockdowns with "proactive testing and tracing," the article reports, adding that in addition Victoria "imposed some of the severest stay-at-home and curfew rules in the world."
And a small flightless bird shall lead them (Score:4)
First New Zealand, then Australia, then the world!
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First New Zealand, then Australia, then the world!
That's been my tactic in the game Risk.
Beware of the flightless bird leaders! (Score:2)
Particularly the ones from Madagascar....and where they might lead us!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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My local supermarket sells the eggs of these flightless birds as fruits! Very delicious although somewhat hairy.
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Pikers ! (Score:2)
First New Zealand, then Australia, then the world!
Pikers ! You couldn't keep up the Democrat hoax for a couple more days.
Now Trumps gonna win.
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Sadly, Covid-19 is such a loser of a disease, it won't even survive on blankets.
Talk about Earth's disappointment in curbing its infection with humans! ;)
"strictest in the world"? (Score:3, Informative)
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Victorians could leave for work if they were in an exempted occupation, their restrictions have just been relaxed in the last few days.
Here's an at a glance view of Australia:
https://covidlive.com.au/ [covidlive.com.au]
Two states larger (by area) of the six states and the capital territory have had zero community transmission for 200 days or more. The only new cases are arriving from overseas in those areas.
Only 16 people are hospitalised, nationally, and sadly one person is on a ventilator.
And you can see that in Australia,
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If nothing else it shows (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, we did quarantine everyone, there are still 20,000 or more waiting to come cable due to lack of quarantine facilities.
Re:If nothing else it shows (Score:5, Interesting)
it's possible to contain the virus.
Yes and no. Australia benefits greatly from geography which allows the limit of spread by limiting movement of people in a way that doesn't prevent life itself from continuing to function.
To prevent a spread you need to limit the movement of an infection. You can do that by ring fencing, but how large do you make that fence? In many states of Australia that fence was 50km. You were allowed to travel 50km from your home to do your stuff. That 50km allowed life to go on but basically eliminated the spread of the virus from one city to another.
Try apply that boundary to Europe. Within 50km of me lives 1/4 of the population of my country. That 50km includes 4 cities, each with their own 50km barrier from other cities. The same distances would do nothing to prevent the spread. So for me to prevent infecting the next city over we'd need to limit it to 10km. But those 10km don't allow me to function in my own city, it would prevent me from going to work so the problem is much harder.
The same applies to inter country travelers. If you're an island that's perfectly reasonable to control this. If you're a country that's 100km across with free movement to your neighbours it becomes very difficult. Even now in Europe with the new lock downs announced there are policies in place for quarantining travelers (not very strong policy but policy none the less) until their corona tests come back negative. That's good right? Oh except commuters in an out of high risk areas area allowed, commuters between countries are allowed as well, no testing or quarantine requirements which sounds strange until you realise just how much of the population falls into this category and how difficult it would be to quarantine and test these people.
Australia and New Zealands owe their success to being islands.
Many Asian countries owe their success to being authoritarian (my mother got "arrested" and was placed in a guarded hospital in Vietnam 2 days before flying out to Australia because someone else at their hotel tested positive, try that in the USA).
Re: If nothing else it shows (Score:5, Informative)
Re: If nothing else it shows (Score:4, Insightful)
The concept of the government being able to dictate where you can move about, for a risk this small, is sickening.
There's something sickening, but travel restrictions aren't it.
It works on two levels, get it? It's an insult - implying that your opinion is sickening - and it's describing the virus, which is sickening millions of people worldwide.
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Australia benefits greatly from geography ... Within 50km of me lives 1/4 of the population of my country.
Australia is highly urbanised. Many could say the same. 60% of the population (15 of 25 million) of the continent lives in the 5 major cities.
If you're a country that's 100km across with free movement to your neighbours it becomes very difficult.
A ridiculous comment that shows you know nothing about Australia's handling of the pandemic. We closed *state* borders and temporarily put police roadblocks around cities. How is restricting national borders harder than that?
Australia and New Zealands owe their success to being islands.
So are Great Britain and North America (see Darién Gap). The virus arrived by air in all four cases, all had lots of international tr
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wide scale testing that is impractical to implement on nationwide scales except for very small countries
See, the thing about big countries is that they tend to have more working people and more money, almost in proportion to the size of their population. If they can just use that feature to ensure that they have more people working on testing then maybe they can just achieve the same ratio of testing people to population?
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I don't understand the argument about larger countries being worse than smaller ones at testing. Surely there must be economies of scale such that larger countries could do better on testing than smaller ones. It is a matter of organization, though. That might be more difficult for larger countries without good leadership (especially when the leadership actively tries to deny the scale of the problem).
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If anything, there are diseconomies of scale to testing. There's a limited global manufacturing capacity for everything you'd need to carry out Covid-19 testings, from reagents to swabs to testing machines and the cartridges for them. Wealthier smaller countries can tilt things in their favour by outbidding everyone else and buying up more of that limited supply, but larger companies have no choice but to expand the overall supply - and the more they do this, the less likely it is that manufacturing capacit
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it cannot be contained without wide scale testing that is impractical to implement on nationwide scales except for very small countries,
If only there were a way to divide up the big countries into smaller pieces. Then we could treat them like small countries. Call them Smaller Than Absolute Total Entities, or STATEs for short. Eliminate it in these STATEs and then it will be eliminated in the surrounding country too.
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In Australia our states can and have set up roadblocks. Our constitution allows that autonomy, since they were separate colonies of Queen Victoria prior to federation.
In your country, YMMV :)
Re:If nothing else it shows (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh no, it's a virus. Unless you put people in an airtight bubble, this virus will not be contained. And those quarantined in a a hotel, were managed by a private security group that didn't bother quarantining those that were infected... So what the fuck... But that was good for Dictator Dan as he used the opportunity to go full blown authoritarian. But look at the actual death rate of COVID 19, since we have hindsight and data. Unless you're a really old person or in rather shitty health, your chances of dying from it are next to zero. But if you want to live in fear over something that has next to no chance of killing you -- give you're healthy and not on your death bed, the authoritarians will gladly rule over you with an iron fist.
That's not what the science says. Social distancing, masks, washing your hands and quarantining new arrivals work well in eliminating Covid-19.
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If you catch COVID, what's stopping you from staying in a hotel for 2 weeks?
The simple fact of knowing whether you have caught it or not yet obviously...
Greg Hunt is one of the problems (Score:5, Informative)
Why does this include a quote from Greg Hunt?
Anyone who lives here in Australia knows he was part of the problem, not the solution. In fact, he was heavily against lockdown, which is the ONLY reason here in VIC why we got it back under control, and if he had been in charge and we had opened up, Australia would be like US now (NSW is still getting regular local infections fairly regularly, just at low rates). And I suspect that here in VIC, we're possibly more sorted than them now.
We are fortunate that VIC wasn't run by his political party (who were the ones in charge of aged care, which was a total f**king disaster)
Re: Greg Hunt is one of the problems (Score:3)
Back under control? You're funny (Score:2)
Sure, its under control for now , until biology takes over again and it starts to spread once more. The laws of viral transmission don't change just because your politicians want them to. Give it a month and it'll be back in force and then it'll be rinse and repeat.
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The lockdown isn't primarily to prevent the spread of disease, although ti does have that effect. It's to *slow down* the spread, so the health system doesn't become overwhelmed.
Re:Greg Hunt is one of the problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course the LNP will be taking credit for this - except they were the ones trying to lift restrictions early.
They won't learn from the results of the QLD election. All the pro-business parties lost out, and the pro-est parties, UAP and PHON, lost out the most.
It's not about liberalism vs conservatism. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is kind of proof that it doesn't have to be about liberalism vs conservatism.
It's about saving lives, and working together.
This time, it just happens that in America, the conservatives, despite having complete control of most of the government, are completely against using that government to work together against the disease, because of their imagination about how it may possibly effect stock market values.
Meanwhile, in this case, Australia and New Zealand and its surrounding Asian nations are also concerned with their economies - but use that same concern to work together and contact trace, and use a comprehensive healthcare system to keep their economy healthy between all political parties.
That's what I mean when I say it doesn't have to be a liberal or conservative thing.
Sometimes, it's the liberal groups that get a bug up their butt about vaccinations or some other utterly insane thing - but now it's the conservatives here.
It doesn't have to be either of them though - we CAN all take our shared health as a bigger priority, AND win better economically for it.
We just have to understand that when a political 'side' gets as batshit crazy as the Trump political era - that you have to work as hard as you can, whatever your 'side' to get past that insanity.
No politics is worth the number of dead we've had, for so little reason other than misguided politics in an insane political cycle.
Ryan Fenton
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The stock market thing is bizare anyway.
Here in Western Australia, the economy has almost gone back to normal, because we've been strict as hell on the virus, and purged it out of the state months ago. In fact for a while we had a number of companies moving here because we're stable and everywhere else isn't.
Meanwhile all the countries that have done half ass jobs of containing it have markets in disarray due to the sheer uncertainty of it all.
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Same in Qld. Our real estate market is enjoying a boom - Victorians buying *sight unseen* or on a video tour of a property. Rentals scare as hen's teeth, they're all up for sale.
Re:It's not about liberalism vs conservatism. (Score:5, Interesting)
The most important thing is to have a leader that people respect and trust, and who can convince them to go along with the restrictions for a short time.
Countries doing the worst are the ones where there is very little trust in the government. In the UK our Prime Minister is known mostly for lying and exaggerating, and has failed to discipline his own people who broke the rules. His party is knee deep in corruption. And sure enough, nobody takes him or his rules very seriously, and we are being hit with a second wave that is worse than the first one.
One day "milestones" are pretty meaningless. (Score:2)
For the past month Australia has been reporting 10-20 cases a day, sometimes a little ore (e.g. 30) sometimes a little less (e.g. 5).
Don't get me wrong, these are very, very good numbers for a country that size, so we should pay attention to *that*. But the fact that it hit zero on one day isn't necessarily significant; it certainly doesn't mean endemic transmission is over. I'm pretty sure we'll see a few cases reported next week.
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Most of the new cases reported recently have been people in Quarantine from overseas.
WA SA Queensland and NT have been at zero a fair bit other than those.
Re: One day "milestones" are pretty meaningless. (Score:2)
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You can also look at the 14 day rolling average which tells the same story.
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Yes, the big picture is quite positive, and I was going to say what you want to see are increasing frequency of days where there is nothing to report.
We should also keep in mind that reported cases are only a fraction of infections, and that asymptomatic/presymptomatic individuals play a critical role in maintaining the pandemic. In the short term, "zero" is just another number like "8" or "10"; it's only likely that endemic transmission has been eradicated when we see no cases for weeks on end.
Now what about foreigners ...? (Score:2)
As a German, I worry that we will bring the disease back in again over their open borders ...
Do they have closed borders for people from infected countries?
I really hope they do.
(No, that is not nationalism, but common sense. Anyone who gets offended, is a dick. Hell, anyone who travels there from an infected country, al least without intense precautions, is a dick.)
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Do they have closed borders for people from infected countries?
Outside of returning residents, people from New Zealand, and a few exemptions around compassionate reasons, residents of all other countries are banned from entry into Australia. Numbers are capped to a few hundred and they must enter quarantine for 14 days, including returning 2 negative tests. Refusal of a test extends the quarantine period.
Re:Now what about foreigners ...? (Score:5, Informative)
As a traveler to Australia for any reason you end up quarantined in a hotel for 2 weeks and get tested. No exceptions, no early leaving, no special exemptions for family or work.
Oh and you have to pay for the hotel yourself.
Oh again, they have limited hotel quarantine capacity so they are heavily restricting the rate at which people can come into the country as well.
Comparison. (Score:5, Informative)
Australia has had 1,000 deaths in 24 million.
Translated to the same number of deaths in the US that would mean about 15,000 total deaths.
Before you jump in and complain about population density, the vast majority of the population is concentrated in the state capitals, with fairly high population density.
Despite the claims otherwise our economy has done fairly well all things considered and at this time restrictions are being loosened slowly.
If we keep up quarantining of incoming international travellers, we could eliminate the virus here completely soon, as we are coming in to the heat of summer.
Turns out a caring disciplined population and bi partisan approach can defeat this virus.
Apart from a small rump of the far right, nobody is complaining at all, we like our elders being safe.
Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
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More false positives needed (Score:2)
Australia and NZ geographically isolated (Score:2)
I am not going to knock the achievements of governments and health services in Australia and NZ, but those countries have an advantage of being fairly isolated and self-contained. Over a century ago, Australia escaped the Spanish 'flu pandemic, by quarantining all ships arriving from abroad. This was in the days before widespread air travel, so the quarantine could be pretty thorough.
One might argue that the UK is an island nation, and could have isolated itself just as effectively as Australia and NZ. Howe
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Australia and NZ,... have an advantage of being fairly isolated and self-contained. Over a century ago, Australia escaped the Spanish 'flu pandemic, by quarantining all ships arriving from abroad.
Completely, utterly, false. ... 'Spanish' flu,” noted Dr Hobbins."
Google says: “In 1919, between one-quarter and one-third of all Australians contracted
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Completely, utterly, false. ... 'Spanish' flu,” noted Dr Hobbins."
Google says: “In 1919, between one-quarter and one-third of all Australians contracted
Interesting. I got my info from a BBC documentary about the 'Spanish' 'flu, made a few years ago. The presenter was Dr Hanna Fry, who I believe knows a bit about epidemiology and mathematics.
I looked up Dr Hobbins myself. There is some interesting stuff he says about comparisons between Covid-19 and 'Spanish' 'flu. I think it possible I was mislead by the BBC documentary. Bear in mind that it was made some years before the current pandemic, so I would discount political agendas as biassing the account. It w
Donald Trump was right (Score:3)
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Collateral damage? (Score:3)
Can we see numbers of suicides, drug overdoses, deaths due to missed cancer diagnoses, missed dialysis, etc?
I don't think we can evaluate the "effectiveness" of the australian strategy until we can look at the whole picture.
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I will also point out (because people don't know) that it is summer in Australia now.
Re:Collateral damage? (Score:4, Informative)
How much is this people avoiding getting tested (Score:2)
If I knew that cases of transmission no matter how mild would result in prolonging lockdowns, I would do everything in my power to avoid getting tested...
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So did Iceland. We still got a new wave.
The worst thing is that "We've got quarantine" creates a sense of hubris, which means that whenever something inevitably slips through the cracks**, you quickly get a new wave because nobody is taking any precautions. Australia has already had two waves (although primarily Queensland the second time around). The Queensland second wave was much bigger than the first.
The more hubris Australians get about the current status, the sooner and more dramatic the third wave
Re:already out of date (Score:4, Informative)
What slipped through the cracks in Victoria were certain social groups who refused to stop socialising in the early stages.
And Qld hasn't had a second wave. That doesn't mean we won't have one, it just means that so far, our choices have worked as desired.
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They're open, there's just a waiting room due to an ongoing emergency.
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I was told any country that doesn't have open borders is racist.
Please provide an example of legislation presented by elected Democratic Politicians that calls for fully open borders.
Thanks.
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So you are basing and entire political party stance and ideology based on one member of the House of Representatives? Who is representing a more liberal area of the United States. What about the many other Representatives that got elected who follow a more moderate stance.
I know, I Know, FOX News doesn't cover them, so they don't exists, except for the times they may agree with her. Because you want a Boogie woman that you are afraid of.
Re:already out of date (Score:4, Insightful)
Poem on the Statue of Liberty:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
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It isn't racist if you treat all people equally.
Saying Mexico Bad while Canada is Good. Or China is Bad while Europe is good. Is probably due to a Racist Bias. If you are going to say. All people who come to our country will need to be in enforced isolation for 14 days from all countries, and regardless of if you are a citizen or not isn't.
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Pffft, with the lack of speed on postal deliveries I can't see any virus living long enough to survive the journey!
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Like what? The virus is waterborne, and can be killed relatively easily when its on surfaces or even people's skin.
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Like what?
Most of the cases with infected goods seem to be related to frozen food. At least two cases have been traced in China and the outbreak a few weeks ago in NZ may well be the same. China has isolated viable SARS-COV-2 from weeks old frozen food deliveries.
In other countries where there is a track and trace system there have been lots of outbreaks related to food processing plants, however these countries didn't tend to be using genetic tracing in the way that NZ and China do so there I haven't yet seen the
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Most of the world only sees the America though a cameraman so there's some connection.
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> It's the continuing positive tests coming from the sewage systems
First it was flatten the curve.
Then it was no new cases.
Now it's when the shit tests negative?
This shit has got to stop... literally.
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Well yes, thats the aim. This horrific disease is never going away until its "literally" stopped. As in, it doesnt exist no more.
Which is kind of obvious.
Re:already out of date (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two things you are missing here.
a) There are serious long term effects for about 5% of people affected (number subject to change in both directions - we won't know the real 3 year effect until about 3 years from now) which will cause serious economic damage. This also means that once enough people have friends infected they start to fear the virus and you get what's essentially lockdown, just without most of the benefits, even when not enforcing it.
b) The actual problem with the disease is it's only a bit deadly. If the virus was really deadly for all people then everyone would just agree to stop and we would get rid of it. It would kill a high proportion of those it infected, but that would be a small number. Because COVID-19 doesn't kill such a high proportion of people it spreads further and causes more death and economic damage.
Since SARS-COV-2 already appears to be adding advantageous mutations [reuters.com] without losing potency and since we know that SARS-COV-2 immunity doesn't seem to last [nejm.org] with more and more cases of reinfection being discovered slowly, there's no possibility for a "live with it" strategy.
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But we have already observed it.
From Nature " his best guess is that it is less than 10%" [nature.com] (you don't get more "scientific" than nature). - more than my 5%.
That's before you even take into account damage to other organs such as brain and heart which are likely to be apparent after years rather than immediately.
For those that are saying "it's just a flu" - it's interesting to know that this type of problem would be entirely consistent with the 1918 flu epidemic [nih.gov].
There's also an NHS study which said something l
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For example there is no vaccine against HIV/AIDS.
HIV attacks the immune system; it's right there in the name. Even HIV won't be unbeatable forever - we could conceivably produce genetically engineered humans which are immune to HIV. There's a whole bag of ethics issues involved in that, but we've come a long way since the days of the plague doctor - resistance to scientific progress is eventually overcome.
Worst case, if Covid-19 immunity doesn't last long enough in most people to create herd immunity, we'll likely end up with something like what diabete
Re:already out of date (Score:5, Informative)
"If this election doesn't send a message to our elected officials that this needs to end, and it continues until the next election, then it ends then."
Funny. We've just had an election in my State where the overwhelming majority supported a govt whose policies were all about restrictions. It was a "go fast, go hard" policy, and we're largely free of restrictions now because of that early response. The opposition's policies of lifting restrictions early has been rejected. The people have spoken. We accepted some restrictions for the common good, and now those restrictions are mostly gone.
I will eagerly watch the US election, to see what the American people prefer - some curtailment of liberties for the common good, or "mah freedums" no matter what.
"Had we known then what we know now we would have been able to save many of those lost"
Again, funny. Early on, we listened to the advice of those whose job it was to give advice in this sort of situation. "Go fast, go hard", and look at the results. We knew, then. Some of us chose to listen, some of us chose to hem and haw and seek political gain. I think the results speak for themselves.
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I will eagerly watch the US election, to see what the American people prefer - some curtailment of liberties for the common good, or "mah freedums" no matter what.
Even in US, there is general consensus that lockdown is a good idea as necessary.
The current battle is versus the people who either believe that covid-19 is a hoax or that doctors falsify covid diagnoses to make extra $2,000. There is probably people who believe both simultaneously.
Re:already out of date (Score:4, Informative)
[citation needed]
I live in a sparsely-populated blue as blue can get state and there is not a general consensus here that a lockdown is a good or necessary idea.
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The developers of the govt app in Australia made the assumption that everyone has the latest phones with up-to-date software. It literally wouldn't install on older phones - the sort of phones that poorer folk can afford on the second-hand market. So you might have success with a certain percentage of end users, but what percentage do you need to be able to rely on the data?
You can argue all you like about making it mandatory, but when the software itself faces practical limitations, what are you going to d
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There are far more deadly diseases that we decided to "live with it".
Can you give me a couple of examples of "far more deadly diseases" that you can catch at the supermarket or at your workplace that are "far more deadly" than Covid-19?
Thanks.
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It's unfortunate that so many died from this disease, but this experience taught us who is vulnerable and who is not, what treatments work better than others, and (again it is unfortunate these people died) those that died cleared the population of those most likely to spread the disease.
Have you seen evidence that those who die from it are also most likely to spread it to others? Because I haven't seen anyone claiming that.
If we assume the elderly and compromised will die from the same level of infection that a young, healthy person would recover from, I would expect those young, healthy people to be out and about more than the elderly both before and after they show symptoms. So those who survive would be most likely to spread it.
I'd be happy to see good research saying the opposite.
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They are more deadly diseases, but they are not as communicable. Even the Flu and Colds, there is a smaller time where you are contagious and where you are showing no symptoms. Some people can be contagious and never have any symptoms, or go weeks spreading it, without realizing they are the cause.
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Even the common cold still is multiple times as deadly as Covid-19 at the time of writing this. (Though that can quickly change, and the jury's still put.)
Such a bold statement requires a citation. I can find no evidence to back up your claim.
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So, what I really objected to is your characterisation that
That's not because personally I'm greatly afraid of it. Instead it's because I have known plenty of people that have been badly affected by it and a number of older relatives of friends that have died of it. For most people you are right - it's not horrific. They just survive, almost certainly more than 50% of them completely undamaged and I would guess more than 75% of them fully able to function. However some do d
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So we're doing better than people burning in the lake of fire for all eternity, so all's well?
If you see a tourist brochure for a hotel that calls itself "slightly better than hell" is your first response to make a reservation?
How the hell is this "trolling"? (Score:2)
If you disagree, disagree in a reply.
If you're triggered, go get a.therapy.
But for god'a sake, look up the definition of "troll" in The Jargon File, children!
Re:Tell that to Dictator Dan. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tell that to Dictator Dan. (Score:4, Interesting)
Err. What are you on about?
Given that you forgot about all the infections in the aged care facilities, and the fact that the fed government (ie, liberals) were trying to reopen Australia fully even when the infection was widespread. Everyone should consider themselves lucky that Dan was in charge.
He wasn't the hotel guard who was having sex with people isolated, and there were violations of isolation in NSW too.
I see you're celebrating your freedom by staying home, self isolating on reddit instead of trekking outdoors.
We've been at 0 for the past few days. Nobody can say Dan didn't do a good job, unless they read political BS from Murdoch Media (who are very pro liberal, because if Greens or Labor takes over, its likely there will be a royal commission to reduce their monopoly)
Re: Tell that to Dictator Dan. (Score:3, Insightful)
Whoosh (Score:2)
You’re missing the fact that in Australia, the Liberals ARE the conservative right.
By the way the bloke the RWNJs here call Dictator Dan is a left wing a Labor premier who did a great job, and has the support of the bulk of his states population.
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Labor is *not* left wing. They are left of the Liberals but that's about it. Their policies are still solidly right wing. The only actual left wing parties we have in Australia are the Katter's Australian, and the Greens.
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Katter? That party is out on its own. It's got policies both left and right-wing.
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The government has opted to pay companies a subsidy for them to pay workers to keep businesses on life support during lock downs.
The businesses are mostly still there and have started to open back up after the lock down. If they survive long term we do not know.
There are some indications that this strategy has worked for the economy as the rest of the country has been open with some restrictions. We have a high rate of testing per population and contact tracing that has managed to find most cases.
From what
Re: Take Away Personal Freedom, Beat COVID-19 (Score:2)
The UK hasnâ(TM)t had a particularly strict lockdown. Itâ(TM)s been far more relaxed than those in France, Spain or Italy, and nothing remotely line Victoriaâ(TM)s. And BTW, deaths per million in the official stats are higher in Belgium and Spain. However, every country measures these differently: in the the UK, anybody who died within 28 days of a positive Corona test, even if they died in a car crash. Other countries just deaths in hospitals. In a few years there will be a proper analy
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in the the UK, anybody who died within 28 days of a positive Corona test, even if they died in a car crash.
And who you think is going to believe such nonsense?
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I hate to say something positive about the UK (being a local) but whilst our daily statistics are based on the measurement you state, the ONS (Office for National Statistics) provides backdated statistics based on actual death certificates which don't suffer from the problems of the daily statistics. Since these actually match reasonably closely the problems are in fact mostly theoretical.
There are other things you can learn from ONS numbers, for example that once coronavirus deaths were greatly reduced, l
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Here ya go, from the Australian Reserve bank:
https://www.rba.gov.au/chart-p... [rba.gov.au]
In Western Australia, the economy is growing, unlike the eastern states. And there are almost zero restrictions, the main being social distancing. Travel TO that state, even if you're from it, is restricted, but getting eased in 2 weeks.
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This is temporary loss of freedom, for long-term preservation of freedom.
I don't want a prison either. But I do want handrails around the cliff with the acid lava pools.
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I know its hard to believe but america isnt the center of the world.
Considering how much commentary on elections for the President of the USA comes from outside the USA it certainly does appear that the USA is the center of the world. I can't recall anyone in the USA being all that concerned on elections elsewhere.
There are plenty of other places like Australia or NZ or Canada or UK where my idea would work just fine.
Yes, and plenty of places where it won't.
BTW: If you need a gun then you are obviously living in a shithole, personally i dont need a gun ever because i dont live in a shithole. You need a gun because you must be surrounded by other gun nutters.
Where did I say I needed a gun?
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they put a ping pong table in at the office so that way people WANT to come to work and put in 12 hour days and productivity has never been higher!
hard to believe there are people who think like this. life is so empty for them that they will give it up for, i dunno, what are you suggesting? card games and archery?