Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[tgh]

Eradication was the impossible dream when we set out to face the foe
For us, dreams are coming true
Why would/should we destroy such a magnificent achievement ?
Just a little more little patience and the miracle will be done….

 

[N860CR]

Eradication was the impossible dream when we set out to face the foe
For us, dreams are coming true
Why would/should we destroy such a magnificent achievement ?
Just a little more little patience and the miracle will be done….

Because it wasn’t, and as far as we’ve been told, still isn’t what’s been planned for. If we had the powers that be announce a month ago “ok then plan has changed, we’re eradicating now” and outlined how we’ll do that, then great. But this is fast becoming a rudderless ship.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Eradication was the impossible dream when we set out to face the foe
For us, dreams are coming true
Why would/should we destroy such a magnificent achievement ?
Just a little more little patience and the miracle will be done….

You are assuming that they are mutually exclusive.

We are not talking about not doing anything, but rather the continued aggressive clamping down (tracing, isolation testing etc) on any new case, combined with some control measures being maintained. There are now very few cases about. If eradication is going to happen it will happen anyway with sensible controls.

Maintaining interstate border controls now will make no real difference to eradication, but it is doing large damage to the airlines, tourism, business, workers, families etc etc.

 

[Pushka]

This is what really annoys me. We were told “spread the curve” so as to not overwhelm the hospital system. We were told eradication is not practical and is not the goal. So where are we now? The hospitals ran empty and are still well below capacity so that’s not a risk. So what are we doing?

And today, even under restrictions, our SA Government has restarted the voluntary redundancy offers to frontline medical people, particularly Nursing. Mixed message much?

Our plan for the future should be the management of outbreaks. They will occur as soon as we start to move back into anything resembling the world we want to live in. Which is not stuck in our remote villages which is where we are now.

 

[N860CR]

And today, even under restrictions, our SA Government has restarted the voluntary redundancy offers to frontline medical people, particularly Nursing.

Doesn’t surprise me. We’ve had full time NSW Health nurses stood down as far back as Easter.

 

[Pushka]

Doesn’t surprise me. We’ve had full time NSW Health nurses stood down as far back as Easter.

Yes. We had that too as the Public Hospitals were abandoned for fear of Covid and elective surgeries banned. A reasonable call at the time.

 

[JohnM]

If there's one thing that I've learned from 50 years as a (biological) research scientist is that science and politicians are like oil and water - immiscible.

They will initially take notice - and then do the opposite in response to the braying crowd.

I think Saint Marko may start losing his lustre with reported claims that 'The WA borders will remain shut for months'.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Yes people have died because of the lockdown and others have suffered serious health consequences.The problem is there is no counting of these unintended consequences but if my experience is anything to go by the unintended deaths due to the lockdown would exceed deaths due to Covid 19.

As things progress there will be definitely be a count of unintended consequences, morbidity and mortality.
My front line experience is not the same as yours in regards to unintended deaths so far.
I guess we will see with data whether either of our anecdotes are accurate.

I am immensely grateful that we took the actions that we did to squash the curve for Covid-19.
I think having done that we need to continue to take advice from the CMO and delegates and get our country and economy opened again.
It’s definitely time.
I can’t and won’t agree that the decisions made earlier were wrong.

 

[RooFlyer]

Eradication was the impossible dream when we set out to face the foe

Well, no. Eradication was specifically denied as impossible. "Flatten the curve" never "Eliminate ... (anything).

Just a little more little patience and the miracle will be done….

OK, but how much patience? Even now, Australia's borders are not totally sealed - any number of marine and air workers coming and going. Goods coming in by air can be carrying. Cases ARE being imported (eg WA and the sheep ship). Just a little carelessness will see it into at least a local community. Cases WILL re-emerge in Australia, even after a vaccine is widespread.

So, again, just how long do you want the lock-down to go?

 

[JohnM]

The problem now seems to be fear of easing the foot off the brake pedal for an even bigger fear of being blamed if there is even the slightest blip.

Fear breeds fear...

 

[OZDUCK]

If there's one thing that I've learned from 50 years as a (biological) research scientist is that science and politicians are like oil and water - immiscible.

They will initially take notice - and then do the opposite in response to the braying crowd.

I think Saint Marko may start losing his lustre with reported claims that 'The WA borders will remain shut for months'.

Well there was a poll in 'The West Australian', on 31 May, for what that is worth, that came up with a 90% majority in favour of keeping the State Border shut. (Pay to Read unfortunately.) 90 per cent of West Aussies want border shut

Of course, the climate does seem a bit less frazzled here as many restrictions have been, or will be shortly, removed and that all the new live cases have been contained at the International border by quarantine measures.

 

[JohnM]

Well there was a poll in 'The West Australian', on 31 May, for what that is worth, that came up with a 90% majority in favour of keeping the State Border shut. 90 per cent of West Aussies want border shut

Of course, the attitude does seem a bit less frazzled here as many restrictions have been, or will be shortly, removed.

That's paywalled.

Now, without wanting to cast any aspersions on the in-the-past excellent 'West Australian' (which I subscribed to for about 45 years), I will need to be shown that those figures came from a statistically-valid random poll and not just a reader survey before I will take any notice of them.

 

[Pushka]

The problem now seems to be fear of easing the foot off the brake pedal for an even bigger fear of being blamed if there is even the slightest blip.

Fear breeds fear...

Which is why the State PMs might be happy if it goes to the High Court because then they can lay the blame on someone else.

 

[OZDUCK]

That's paywalled.

Now, without wanting to cast any aspersions on the in-the-past excellent 'West Australian' (which I subscribed to for about 45 years), I will need to be shown that those figures came from a statistically-valid random poll and not just a reader survey before I will take any notice of them.

Yes I realised that it was paywalled and added a note to my post a couple of minute after I posted it.

Sorry JohnM Unfortunately this is the only poll about the matter that I have seen.

 

[drron]

But Princess Fiona just which CMO/CHO do we take notice of.The Commonwealth CMO and his deputy and obviously the NSW and Victorian CMOs do not believe in State border closures.Looking at the CVs of them all I still regard the Commonwealth deputy CMO has the better credentials when it comes to managing a viral pandemic.
And quite frankly the QLD CHO has shown a few weak spots. Admitting the closing of schools was not based on science but to scare people into obeying lockdown restrictions.Then today in regards to the Blackwater case she first said that the death would be considered a Covid death even if the post mortem showed a different cause and later saying a false positive test was a very rare event.She obviously doesn't understand that if you are testing a lower risk group the proportion of false positives is higher than when testing a high risk group.
For example if you test 100 people in a low risk group where you expect 1 true positive and the test has a 99% accuracy it is likely that 2 positive tests will be the result - 1 true positive and 1 false positive.So 50% of the positive tests will be a false positive.But if you test 100 people and expect 9 positive tests then if you get 10 positive tests then 9 true positives and 1 false positive so a false positive rate of 10%.And this is a test if you test 100 negative patients the test will be correct 99% of the time.

 

[oz_mark]

Well, no. Eradication was specifically denied as impossible. "Flatten the curve" never "Eliminate ... (anything).



OK, but how much patience? Even now, Australia's borders are not totally sealed - any number of marine and air workers coming and going. Goods coming in by air can be carrying. Cases ARE being imported (eg WA and the sheep ship). Just a little carelessness will see it into at least a local community. Cases WILL re-emerge in Australia, even after a vaccine is widespread.

So, again, just how long do you want the lock-down to go?

Depend what you call lockdown. I don't feel locked down. Just heavily restricted.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Well there was a poll in 'The West Australian', on 31 May, for what that is worth, that came up with a 90% majority in favour of keeping the State Border shut. (Pay to Read unfortunately.) 90 per cent of West Aussies want border shut

Of course, the climate does seem a bit less frazzled here as many restrictions have been, or will be shortly, removed and that all the new live cases have been contained at the International border by quarantine measures.

Yes other polls are similar:

However, a new survey by the Australia Institute suggests more than three quarters of Australians support states closing their borders to interstate travel.

Strong support was recorded in NSW (70 per cent), Victoria (76 per cent), Queensland (78 per cent) and Western Australia (88 per cent) in the survey of 1005 people.

“The strong support for state border closures shows that while there is much public relief with some public health restrictions lifting, there is also still much community concern regarding the spread of COVID19,” the institute’s executive director Ben Oquist said.

Australians want state borders to stay shut as new infections near zero

Aussies are overwhelmingly in favour of remaining within their own state – and keeping others out – even as we get closer to achieving zero new infections.

thenewdaily.com.au

The frazzled though in WA may include those working for/in airlines, airports, tourism, hotels, accommodation etc

 

[JohnM]

Yes I realised that it was paywalled and added a note to my post a couple of minute after I posted it.

Sorry JohnM Unfortunately this is the only poll about the matter that I have seen.

If The West just asked people to register a voluntary view on a categorised web site of their doing, that is statistically meaningless because it is biassed in a multitude of ways.

If they paid a creditable pollster to randomly contact a sufficiently large representative cross-section of the population and ask exactly the same question(s) of each person, then that would be statistically credible.

The methodology for these things must be the first thing stated. Usually it is not.

Now, far be it for me to make assumptions...

Of course, the answers derived by both methodologies could be the same - but still only one would be credible.

 

[JohnM]

For example if you test 100 people in a low risk group where you expect 1 true positive and the test has a 99% accuracy it is likely that 2 positive tests will be the result - 1 true positive and 1 false positive.So 50% of the positive tests will be a false positive.But if you test 100 people and expect 9 positive tests then if you get 10 positive tests then 9 true positives and 1 false positive so a false positive rate of 10%.And this is a test if you test 100 negative patients the test will be correct 99% of the time.

Similar head-spinning statistics also rear their head in such things as PSA screening: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie?

That's where science and intuition/emotion/politics collide...

 

[RooFlyer]

Depend what you call lockdown. I don't feel locked down. Just heavily restricted.

Yeah, fair 'nuf.