Covid 19 -

[Polyal]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

wrong with point 2

OK so you and Cav.

Clearly there are older/wiser people on AFF, but as a general comment is would be pretty accurate.

[EgoFG]

Some approx figures from crunching some US numbers from CDC,
Comparing the first 37 weeks of this year to 2018 (a high flu year)


Deaths Attrib to Flu/Pnemonia (Incl Covid-19)
2020 211,597
2018 143,882
'excess' 67,715



Total Deaths
2020 2,202,027
2018 2,021,634

'excess' 180,393


[opinion]

It is harsh, but one could say that about 70% of Covid Deaths would have died anyway.
also that there was an unexplained increase in death in the order of about 5% - could this be the 'lockdown' effect, or an increase in violent crimes due to riots ?

[/opinion]

[PhilT2]

Originally Posted by EgoFG

Some approx figures from crunching some US numbers from CDC,
Comparing the first 37 weeks of this year to 2018 (a high flu year)

So what does it look like when compared to a low flu year?

[b0son]

Originally Posted by EgoFG

It is harsh, but one could say that about 70% of Covid Deaths would have died anyway.

Two points...

1. you're comparing 2018 with 2020... what social distancing measures were implemented in 2018? likely, virtually none, rendering a direct comparison irrelevant.

2. serology studies suggest the flu hit a very significant proportion of the population (close to half). covid-19 has been a fraction. now compare the death rates.

Let covid-19 run rampant, and you will have a problem that dwarfs a bad flu year.

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by b0son

Two points...

1. you're comparing 2018 with 2020... what social distancing measures were implemented in 2018? likely, virtually none, rendering a direct comparison irrelevant.

2. serology studies suggest the flu hit a very significant proportion of the population (close to half). covid-19 has been a fraction. now compare the death rates.

Let covid-19 run rampant, and you will have a problem that dwarfs a bad flu year.

Or look at it the other way around.

How many people have not been hospitalised or died from flu this year that would have in a 'normal' year because of the measures to stop Covid-19 transmission?

In Australia the number of flu deaths this winter was zero.

36 people have died of flu in Australia so far this year, last year it was about 500.

We know Covid-19 is more contagious than flu.

The hospital system would be over run if Covid-19 gets away from us, and not just by the Covid-19 infected.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...c56a8c0cfb7fb6

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-...ralia/12480190

[b0son]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

Or look at it the other way around.

How many people have not been hospitalised or died from flu this year that would have in a 'normal' year because of the measures to stop Covid-19 transmission?

And how many people haven't been involved in workplace accidents because they weren't at work? How many fewer road accidents have there been because there were fewer people on the road?

Yes, there's been a huge economic cost. But there are a lot of people who would have otherwise been dead. Arguably, if covid-19 had been allowed to run rampant, people would have started self-isolating out of fear for themselves or for family, especially if things had started becoming like they were in Italy or Spain. I don't think it's really worthwhile blaming the government for overreacting.

[Romulus]

4. Not afraid of a virus.
5. Have a functioning immune system not destroyed by pharmaceuticals.
6. Not believing the hype peddled by the government and it's media puppets.

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by Romulus

4. Not afraid of a virus.
5. Have a functioning immune system not destroyed by pharmaceuticals.
6. Not believing the hype peddled by the government and it's media puppets.

I have to say your 2nd point is very selfish, you may have a great immune system but 4 of the 7 females in my direct family (wife, daughters, grand-daughters) all are on medications for a couple of different things and they all reduce their immune systems, 3 substantially, all under 40 years of age.

So your words ring a bit of '**** you Jack, I am OK' and typical of the generation that was one of the main spreaders in the latest Victorian outbreak

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

I have to say your 2nd point is very selfish, you may have a great immune system but 4 of the 7 females in my direct family (wife, daughters, grand-daughters) all are on medications for a couple of different things and they all reduce their immune systems, 3 substantially, all under 40 years of age.

So your words ring a bit of '**** you Jack, I am OK' and typical of the generation that was one of the main spreaders in the latest Victorian outbreak

To the contrary, where did I say I didn't care about others? I care about those who've;

• the elderly and those at risk
• lost their incomes
• livelihoods
• family members due to suicide
• the upcoming housing crash
• economic ruin the country is going to face

What Im not accepting of is those who think I'm responsible for their health. A bit like thinking the government is responsible for looking after my health. Wrong. The government at all levels has demonstrated a gross incompetence in 'looking after health'. This is indicated by the poor health of the population in general, with 40% of Victorians having comorbidities according to Vic Health. The government doesn't decide what's good for me, that's my job as an adult.

It's the governments job to protect borders, fund the military, Police, teachers, nurses etc and protect our civil liberties. It's my job to look after my health.

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by Romulus

To the contrary, where did I say I didn't care about others? I care about those who've;

• the elderly and those at risk
• lost their incomes
• livelihoods
• family members due to suicide
• the upcoming housing crash
• economic ruin the country is going to face

the suicide thing is a bit of a Furphy, the suicide numbers have NOT increased as a result of the COVID, however people calling help lines is definitely up

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Romulus

The government at all levels has demonstrated a gross incompetence in 'looking after health'. This is indicated by the poor health of the population in general, with 40% of Victorians having comorbidities according to Vic Health.

Again, many of these comorbidities can't be controlled and aren't the result of poor diet or lifestyle.

You are very contradictory in many of your statements. You clearly mean well but what you type certainly can be taken that you only care about yourself.

Originally Posted by Romulus

What Im not accepting of is those who think I'm responsible for their health. Wrong.

Of course you are. You have a duty of care for the health and safety of other people.. even total strangers.

It's why you have to disclose your HIV status before having unprotected sex.
It's why you have to give way to pedestrians and can't just mow them down with your car, why you can't just knock your asbestos house down and let it blow over to your neighbour's, why you can't do a whole bunch of things... and why you're ordered to stay at home and isolate until you get your results back if you've been covid tested.

I'm not sure how to ask this without it seeming like an attack - because it isn't - but I'm curious if you've ever been diagnosed with narcissism or similar? I think it'd be interesting to know as it may go some way in explaining why you're so focused on yourself and show little to no regard for others.

[HIPO]

Originally Posted by leesa

Of course you are. You have a duty of care for the health and safety of other people.. even total strangers.

It's why you have to disclose your HIV status before having unprotected sex.
It's why you have to give way to pedestrians and can't just mow them down with your car, why you can't just knock your asbestos house down and let it blow over to your neighbour's, why you can't do a whole bunch of things... and why you're ordered to stay at home and isolate until you get your results back if you've been covid tested.

I'm not sure how to ask this without it seeming like an attack - because it isn't - but I'm curious if you've ever been diagnosed with narcissism or similar? I think it'd be interesting to know as it may go some way in explaining why you're so focused on yourself and show little to no regard for others.

WOW!

[buggerlugs]

Originally Posted by leesa

I'm not sure how to ask this without it seeming like an attack - because it isn't - but I'm curious if you've ever been diagnosed with narcissism or similar? I think it'd be interesting to know as it may go some way in explaining why you're so focused on yourself and show little to no regard for others.

You know Leesa, he'll probably take that as a compliment.........

[PhilT2]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

I have to say your 2nd point is very selfish, you may have a great immune system but 4 of the 7 females in my direct family (wife, daughters, grand-daughters) all are on medications for a couple of different things and they all reduce their immune systems, 3 substantially, all under 40 years of age.

So your words ring a bit of '**** you Jack, I am OK' and typical of the generation that was one of the main spreaders in the latest Victorian outbreak

Many drugs can be immunosuppressive; hydroxychloroquine for example.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5795753/

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by PhilT2

Many drugs can be immunosuppressive; hydroxychloroquine for example.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5795753/

and 3 of the 4 in my family take that, plus a cocktail of other immune suppresants

[FPV8U]

Originally Posted by PhilT2

Many drugs can be immunosuppressive; hydroxychloroquine for example.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5795753/

Are you implying that HCQ could make someone more vulnerable to contracting Covid 19?

There are currently government backed studies in this country using HCQ in high risk environments such as hospitals and nursing homes to prevent contraction your implication if I’m reading that right is irresponsible to feed even more unsubstantiated fear about this medication.

[russellw]

32 new cases for Australia and 5 deaths so the CMR rises to 3.185% while active cases drop to 1,699. NSW recorded 6 cases, WA 3, SA recorded 1 with the balance in Victoria. The Victorian State 14 day moving average is now 32.36 with metro at 26.7 (37 unknown) and regional at 1.1 and no unknown cases.

9 new cases and no deaths for NZ so CMR is 1.371% and active cases rise to 62.

The UK had 6,178 new cases yesterday, the highest since April 10th and they must be getting close to a 2nd lockdown. We know they are now not counting their mortalities by the WHO guidelines so we are going to ignore those figures.

Just over 35.5k new cases in the USA yesterday and 979 deaths sees CMR drop to 2.895% and active cases drop to 35.9% with the raw numbers falling slightly. Note that the USA is actually minus one day due to time differences.

Other notable points:
Europe recorded a new daily cases high of 51,527;
Global cases pass 32M, the last 1M taking only 3 days again;
The USA completes 100M, India 66M, Brazil 17M and Indonesia 3M tests;

Moldova (786), United Arab Emirates (1,083), Tunisia (1,219), Netherlands (2,357), Indonesia (4,465), Iraq (5,055), Spain (11,289) and Israel (11,316) all recorded new daily highs; those in blue for the second consecutive day and those in red for a third or more consecutive day.

[FairmontGS]

I wonder how Israel managed to stuff things up so bad? Unusual for them. They're usually on top of everything and ahead of the game.

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

I wonder how Israel managed to stuff things up so bad? Unusual for them. They're usually on top of everything and ahead of the game.

they thought it was 'just a flu' and 'herd immunity' is the way to go, and they are aren't the only ones, ScoMo was going down that path until he got pulled up, Trump is a believer in that theory, Johnson was too until he go it. Italy and Sweden subscribed to that theory as well

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

I wonder how Israel managed to stuff things up so bad? Unusual for them. They're usually on top of everything and ahead of the game.

I believe it is political instability.

Normally a problem on its own, add a pandemic and it turns it up to 11.

Even in a first world democracy like Israel.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

I wonder how Israel managed to stuff things up so bad? Unusual for them. They're usually on top of everything and ahead of the game.

Israel presents some interesting data from a study perspective. They have a National Health service with universal coverage for all residents but the hospital system is under stress at the best of times with lower rates of beds & nurses compared to the OECD average (2.2 beds & 5 nurses / 1000 population) when the OECD average is 3.6 and 8.8, respectively. Worth noting that Australia had 3.9 & 9.1 before the pandemic started. They are even worse for ICU beds / 100k with slightly under 4 (Australia was 9.4) so their ability to cope is somewhat limited. All of the above is exacerbated by being much worse outside the major cities.

The early response was good after their first case in February off the Diamond Princess. They closed borders and quarantined travellers returning from high-risk areas. They also quarantined diagnosed individuals but testing was slow to ramp up.

They also initiated mitigation steps included physical distancing and other measures like limiting the size of gatherings to 100 (11/3) and then 10 (15/3) as well as introducing a contact tracing app run by the Israeli Security Agency (and we had doubts about ours). From 19/3 they introduced a State of Emergency to make the rules enforceable and went into a lockdown similar to the current Victorian one including mandatory face masks from 25/3 and a 100M limit on the distance you could travel from home. In another mirror of Australia, from early April some cities were declared no-go hot spots and some even closed altogether.

These restrictions were gradually eased these from April 26th with reopening of street stores and barbershops but malls & gyms remained closed until May 7th when they reopened with restrictions on the number of people allowed and then on May 27th restaurants reopened, with restrictions on diners and masked staff.

In another mirroring of Victoria (or we pinched it from them) they implemented a gradual easing of lockdown restrictions included allowing outdoor groups <20, removal of the 100M limit and meetings with family members however they set reverse targets for that easing with restrictions being reintroduced if any of a number of things happened like (1) >100 new daily cases (excluding overseas arrivals, retirement homes and cases in known hotspots) (2) the doubling time of infections decreases to 10 days or (3) the number of patients in serious condition reaching 250.

Additional easing of restrictions continued throughout May and looking at that first wave graph below, you'd say they had done a good job with an early peak in the 7-800 bracket and then a gradual reduction down to ~25 cases a day with one spike that coincided with a religious celebration.



Comment: As a country with 8.6M people it's not much more than the 6.6M in Victoria and the adult populations are even closer (5M for Victoria & 6.2M for Israel) plus the population density of 400 per km² is not dissimilar to that of Greater Melbourne which is ~500.

The good news ends there. From late May it was clear that case numbers were starting to rise again but they didn't reintroduce countermeasures until July 1st with the tracking app reauthorised for use. Then on July 6th they introduced: restriction of social gatherings to <20 indoors and 30 outdoors as well as the closure of gyms, night clubs and other venues.

From 17th July, these were further tightened with no seating in bars or restaurants; weekend lockdown of non-essential businesses; beach closures and gatherings limited to 20 people outdoors, and 10 people indoors but most of those were reversed after complaints from the business community including re-opening of restaurants, pools, and beaches and weekend closures of malls / markets cancelled.

In late August they introduced a traffic-light system to rank the severity of the pandemic in each city / town / region and then closed schools and introduced a night-time curfew for towns for those classified as 'red' from September 6th.

From 18th September there is a national lockdown for 3 weeks with:

- people limited to within 500M of their homes, except for work and essential activities such as buying food;
- closure of malls, stores (except food / pharmacies), hotels, restaurants, fitness clubs and swimming pools;
- gatherings limited to 10 people indoors, or 20 people outdoors;
- closure of schools;
- no seating in bars or restaurants (delivery service & take-away allowed).

On 10th September they became the country with the highest rate of COVID-19 infections per capita with 2,198 per 100k.

The 25th May onward graph below show two things: (1) the case numbers are much higher than the first wave with peak and average case numbers up to 10x greater; and (2) the measure introduced along the way seem to have had very little overall impact.



Comment: I think the targets for reintroduction of restrictions were too high; they were too slow in reintroducing them and they caved in to business pressure when they should have stuck to their guns. I expect they will have to extend the current lockdown or risk a 3rd wave.

Here is the entire timeline graph:

[Citroënbender]

I’m not sure if they (Israel) capitulated to business pressure or pressure from the orthodoxy in terms of “reopening too soon”. I believe many more pious Israelis would put “spot risk” (meaning an exceptional event with elevated risk) ahead of overall directions for disease control. Look at the huge - even this year - pilgrimage to Uman. Relatedly, it was early in Victoria’s woes that a couple of minyans got pinged despite warnings directly delivered. If you put fealty to G_d and a dash of associated fatalism before the laws of your country, of course these things happen.

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

I’m not sure if they (Israel) capitulated to business pressure or pressure from the orthodoxy in terms of “reopening too soon”. I believe many more pious Israelis would put “spot risk” (meaning an exceptional event with elevated risk) ahead of overall directions for disease control. Look at the huge - even this year - pilgrimage to Uman. Relatedly, it was early in Victoria’s woes that a couple of minyans got pinged despite warnings directly delivered. If you put fealty to G_d and a dash of associated fatalism before the laws of your country, of course these things happen.

The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently under investigation for corruption. Many believe he should stand down while the investigation is ongoing.

Even his supporters believe he is at least 'distracted' by his situation and that may go some way to explaining how the governments handling of the pandemic went from great to very poor.

There is mistrust with the government and some Israelis openly defying restrictions.

There are many lessons to be learned for Australia looking at the situation in Israel.

[HIPO]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently under investigation for corruption. Many believe he should stand down while the investigation is ongoing.

Even his supporters believe he is at least 'distracted' by his situation and that may go some way to explaining how the governments handling of the pandemic went from great to very poor.

There is mistrust with the government and some Israelis openly defying restrictions.

There are many lessons to be learned for Australia looking at the situation in Israel.

Yep bent as, doubt he'll be around next year!

[Trevor 57]

it most certainly does, my family members have been warned by their specialists about it

https://www.rheumatology.org/I-Am-A/...uine-Plaquenil

read the first paragraph

It is believed that hydroxychloroquine interferes with the communication of cells in the immune system.

[FPV8U]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

it most certainly does, my family members have been warned by their specialists about it

Edit: I now see you were confirming the immunosuppressive element.

It will be interesting to see the results of the Shield Trial study underway early next year in regards to HCQ use in high risk environments based on what your family has been told.

[Bossxr8]

The inquiry into the hotel quarantine debacle is a real eye opener into just how incompetent our government, and the various government run departments, really are.

No one has been able to determine who ordered the security to be done by private security. None of the relevant ministers, department heads etc. Either that or they are all lying through their teeth. Someone made the decision, it didn't just happen on it's own

[cheap]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

The inquiry into the hotel quarantine debacle is a real eye opener into just how incompetent our government, and the various government run departments, really are.

No one has been able to determine who ordered the security to be done by private security. None of the relevant ministers, department heads etc. Either that or they are all lying through their teeth. Someone made the decision, it didn't just happen on it's own

Should be easy enough to follow the paperwork and emails.

Someone in GovCo authorised the contract and payments.

Follow the money...

Pointless in claiming amnesia, a coverup is impossible as far too many people have died. If Victoria tries to wallpaper it over, then the Feds may initiate their own royal commission.

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by cheap

If Victoria tries to wallpaper it over, then the Feds may initiate their own royal commission.

I would like to see a Royal commission into Royal commissions as no one is ever found accountable.