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Doctors on front line see disaster coming and feel abandoned

Australian Medical Association WA President Andrew Miller said Western Australia was headed for a situation like Italy and are 8 – 10 days behind Sydney. Read his scathing comments below.

The tally in Australia is now about 900, the same as Italy had on Feb 28th, just three weeks ago. Now Italy has 41,000 cases and 3,405 people have died. Their population is three times larger than Australia and slightly older, it’s colder and packed in closer.  At a guess, with the present SlowMo/SlowState response, maybe only 10-20,000 Australians will catch this in the next three weeks? “Great”.

UPDATE: Hospitals in Italy are no longer intubating anyone over 60 years old.  h/t nezy

Italian politicians could have been better prepared, but there’s no excuse for the rest of the world now.

Coronavirus crisis: Australian Medical Association WA President Andrew Miller slams WA Government response to COVID-19 pandemic

John Flint The West Australian

[Miller said:] …“And we’re not doing any of the things that the countries that are being successful are doing like Hong Kong.

“They are using fever monitoring in public, they lock people down away from their families if they’re positive, whereas here we send them home.”Dr Miller said the WA Government knew before today’s announcement that community spread was happening.

“They’re in a state of disbelief, confusion and chaos,” he said.

The AMA has called for the State’s borders to be closed.

Dr Miller said: “They said, ‘that’s ridiculous, we’re not closing them. And it’s impossible and unnecessary because no one gets infected on a plane’.

“And the next day, the Premier comes out and says, “it should be non-essential travel only, interstate (but) we can’t close the borders, that would require a national agreement that contravenes the constitution.’

“The next day Tasmania closes its borders. They’re full of s**t. You can quote me on that.”

He has since apologized for being disrespectful.* No one should waste words on anything except the main problem at hand which is not manners and ettiquette when lives are at stake.

“The AMA (WA) has always recommended that we should be taking ALL measures to flatten the curve of the spread outlined by the World Health Organisation. This includes closing borders, slowing community spread and most importantly — being prepared.

“There are few things more challenging than a truth that our members will die if their basic occupational health and safety requirements as employees are ignored by their employer.

“The employer has no personal protection equipment (PPE). The member must work. Some will get sick and die.

“Over the last weeks our members and others at the health frontline, like aged care providers, have been telling the Government this.

“GPs got some deliveries of two masks per practice again. Aged care homes in several places have no gloves left.

“These are extreme circumstances. Many of our members feel abandoned.”

*Edit: posted “which was a mistake”. Not worth saying. Better to just discuss the things that matter.

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Coronavirus Background: ☀ The Demographics: the young are spared, but the severity increases with age, and slightly more for men than women. ☀ The Ro is 2 – 3 and exponential curves are steep. How Coronavirus kills: why the number of ICU units matters so much. ☀ Illness progression: Dry coughs and Fevers, Aches. In 15% of people, by day 5 breathing trouble starts. In 3% (?) by day 8 they may need an ICU (intensive care unit). ☀ The good case of Singapore but the ominous calculations of how fast the ICU beds may run out. ☀ The story of how American Samoa avoided Flu Deaths with quarantine in 1918. ☀

Economics: ☀ The huge impact on the Chinese economy, the awful case of Iran.☀

Beware UN advice:Ethiopian WHO chief was part of China’s debt trap diplomacy ☀

Stats and Data: John Hopkins Live Map Worldometer

 

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