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Remember back in February when the mainstream media was telling us this was “just like the flu”? They weren’t asking the Health Minister “how many Australians might die” or “why don’t we close the borders”. They didn’t want to know whether the PM had calculated the cost of leaving the borders open? They weren’t estimating how many weeks it would be before we ran out of ICU beds. Nor were they demanding to know whether Australians could make more medical masks, had enough ventilators, or should be stocking up with weeks to go, so we could avoid last minute shopper panic. Australians were still booking holidays on cruise ships and flights to Bali instead of putting spare toilet paper in the shed. While the tidal wave was weeks away the media was more concerned about protecting the image of China, not calling this the Wuhan-Flu, and making sure we know how wrong it was to make jokes about not shaking hands of Chinese-Australian doctors. Which is poor taste but hardly a national prime time event. The irony being that now we’re not supposed to shake anyone’s hands anyway. Australians were blindsided by the incompetent media. That’s why they are panic […] 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 […] There is a third way — Why are we so fatalistic? It’s not a choice between Let It Rip and the slow bleed of “Flatten the Curve”. It’s not a choice of health versus money. The third option no one is mentioning is to Crush The Curve: we go hard, fast, and do a major short sharp quarantine. It’s not radical, it’s just textbook epidemiology, it saves more lives and it saves the economy too. SlowMo, Boris and Trump are still two weeks behind the virus. It’s time to get the Third Option on the table. Flattening the Curve is a fatalistic slow bleed that must last months. It rescues us from the demolition derby that the Let It Rip disaster is cursing on Italian hospitals, but it’s deadly for the economy. All leaders who are keeping schools open while turning student dorms into triage units are locked into this limited thinking. It’s the Influenza-plan rejigged. There is another way — (as I’ve been saying) — we stop dithering and acting two-weeks-late, and jump ahead of this inanimate code. We aim for extinction — hunt every infection down, keep most people at home, reduce the spread, then finish by following […] March 19th, 2020 | Tags: Coronavirus | Category: Global Warming, Health, Medicine, Microbiology, Mortality |  Print This Post | | I’ve said from the start that anti-virals were always going to be more useful to us this year than vaccines, which take so long to test and be ready for use. What we really need are anti-virals which also happen to be preapproved and tested and hopefully in mass production. Chloroquine is cheap too, though I doubt Australian stocks of the drug are very high, or that our genius rulers have arranged more. This may be a godsend in Africa where chloroquine use is already high and may reduce the spread of Covid-19 somewhat. The UK banned export of chloroquine a few weeks ago. Clearly someone there thought it might be useful. Wang et al reported on Feb 4th that Chloroquine (anti-Malarial) and Remdesivir (anti HIV) may be useful against Coronavirus. They used lab experiments on cells in glass, which had promise. But “in vitro” doesn’t always mean “in vivo”. So I’ve been waiting for some results on people. Early reports were ambiguous. Recently this was hyped as an “Australian cure” which really just meant the start of a proper trial. There are links to papers and discussion below but I can’t beat this great description explaining how inside the […] March 18th, 2020 | Tags: Antiviral, Coronavirus, Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post | | Oops. Forgot Tuesday. Sorry. 9.3 out of 10 based on 7 ratings Australia has only one mask factory, and the Army was only sent in yesterday to start helping to ramp up production? Six weeks after this disaster was obvious to bloggers-watching-twitter-feeds, the entirely predictable shortage of masks is only just starting to be addressed? Why weren’t they doing this a month ago? Australian Defence Force soldiers have been deployed to help Australia’s only mask manufacturer, Med-Con, near Shepparton. The Federal Government confirmed on Tuesday about a dozen ADF personnel would be called out under the Defence Assistance to the Civil Community rules to help Med-Con ramp up production of personal protective equipment. Three army trucks were seen heading north on Old Dookie Rd about 7.20 am Wednesday morning. Australians are panic buying because the sheer incompetence of our medical advice and management is obvious to everyone. It didn’t occur to me to suggest the government get local mask production running because any sensible ten year old would have seen that coming. The Greg Hunt mantra on Jan 31: WHO declares emergency. “We are prepared.” March 5th: Dental practices face closure because of shortage of surgical masks. March 18th: doctors are warning a promised influx […] Dithering politicians push the fatality from 0.5% toward 5% A gritty analysis by Tomas Pueyo shows how leaders inertia is killing people every day. Some of the victims of tomorrows Virus Get-Togethers won’t die for a few weeks, but the next batch starts tomorrow (and every day until the nation self-isolates, stops the pox-parties, the cough-shopping, and pneumonia-planes. ). And each day there are more than the day before. Sounds macabre, but at this point in an exponential epidemic, it’s just how it is. Since we didn’t stop the Airbussed virus, we’re going to have to shut everything down anyhow, the later we do it, the larger the cost, and the longer it takes. We have to get ahead of this virus. Meanwhile in Australia, the average punter seems to realize this and the mood is hitting feverish notes with tramplings in supermarkets — The government is calling for calm, but doctors are calling for borders to close, and schools to go online, they’re standing outside schools with signs telling parents not to send their children to school. Doctors are warning that we are the next “Italy” if we don’t get our act together. But the government says it’s too […] I seem to have the uncanny ability to predict what frontline experts will recommend days in advance. It’s not genius. Just medical training and that the solution to this is so Bleeding Obvious, and politicians are still 2 to 3 weeks behind an exploding epidemic of an inanimate nucleic acid code. WA hospitals call for state border closures to deal with coronavirus fears (COVID-19) Top doctors across WA’s biggest hospitals are sensationally calling for the state to effectively close its borders to protect West Australians from the coronavirus pandemic. In a remarkable letter obtained by The West Live to be discussed exclusively on this morning’s show, it can be revealed the Combined Medical Leads Advisory Group has raised concerns about the “extremely limited” availability of testing infrastructure and supplies in WA. The group, which includes senior medicos from FSH, RPH and SCGH, also warns there is “limited evidence of effective anti-viral treatment”, “no effective vaccine” and that rationing is already in place at hospitals. It recommends that to “flatten the curve” that attention should be paid to “extending isolation restrictions to all personal interstate travel”. Just to spell this out, all states […] March 17th, 2020 | Tags: Coronavirus, Virus | Category: Global Warming, Medicine | Print This Post | | Scuttlebutt that crossed my desk today says “”US to have nationwide quarantine for 14 days’”. h/t Scott. I hope this is correct. My reply:”Brilliant”. Finally, a hint of an attitude determined to beat this. It’s so refreshing after all the defeatist fatalism telling us this is a disease we have to have. I predict if the US does this, other countries will follow. This is the fastest way to get borders open, and people back to work, and reduce the death toll. Flights will be able to reopen among countries that have done this and done this well. UPDATE: Officially denied already? The Whitehouse has been forced to deny national shutdown rumours.(A search for “Rumor US two week lockdown” turns up almost no news items?) Don’t believe anything til it is officially denied… but don’t believe the rumours. The fact is there are no facts. Forgive me if I repeat: A virus is just an inanimate chemical code. It can’t reproduce and it can’t repair itself. To beat it, all we have to do is out-wait it. Without machinery to copy the code it will degrade into foodsafe ingredients. Air, oxygen, time and light will crack the […] BREAKING NEWS: Since writing this Scott Morrison has finally moved to quarantine all arrivals including planes and ships. He’s still two weeks behind the virus, and playing catch up with Jacinda Ardern, the real leader. But finally the bleeding obvious has dawned. He won’t close schools, and perhaps, suddenly that will now be a viable option, though Sydney still needs short sharp major action to save lives. Could they bear doing no sport or social events for two weeks? The big risk to most states are now flights from Sydney. Will NSW aim for the “slow bleed” eking out infections over months, hoping none accidentally go wild, or will it aim to wipe this out in three weeks so life gets back to normal, and Australia can play sport again against New Zealand, asap? With this news, just in the nick of time, the future is now looking better. My prediction: Watch as leaders all round the world pick this up. This is a good boost for nation states and sovereign borders. All eyes are on the EU now where the open border policy has been disastrous — Spain (6,300), Germany (4500) […] … 9.1 out of 10 based on 12 ratings Finally, some action happening around the world. Australia has banned gatherings over 500, but for some reason gatherings of 1500 small humans on a daily basis are still fine. Admittedly short humans (of the young sort) don’t get as deadly sick, but they still spread it, and generally go back each day to houses with people who are at risk. Homeschooling is now on an exponential growth, and it isn’t the end of the world. Ireland has closed schools, as has Greece (a lot of countries, can someone do a list? ) John Campbell always does a good summary. Sensible. h/t to the person weeks ago who first linked him in. I’m trying to find that comment. The fatalism that says “we have to catch this” is killing people. Let’s aim higher. Anyone who thinks this is still like the flu — check the situation on the ground in the ICU wards of Italy from the doc who manages them.
On the plus side there is a lot you can do to avoid this virus. It is not a fait accomplit. Stay out of its way. Stay home. Order online, avoid crowds. Wash hands, don’t touch faces. […] … 8.6 out of 10 based on 15 ratings Get out of the way of this virus. Could Italy be suffering from a different and nastier strain? Figures from South Korea and the Diamond Princess may not be a good guide to what’s happening in Italy and Iran. There something seriously different going on there. Death rates are much higher than expected. Three weeks ago, Italy officially had three cases, now a thousand people are dead and 12,000 have the virus. The hospital system is already at the point of being overwhelmed. Reports say that even stroke patients are now missing out on help, the ICU wards are overflowing, and the staff are prioritizing younger people because they have a better chance of survival. Perhaps Italians hug more and spread more, perhaps it’s worse because they have an older demographic. But perhaps this is a deadlier strain than the one Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea appear to be containing. The Italian strain, whatever it is, is from the Iranian strain. Every country that has imported infected passengers from Iran will likely also have the Iranian strain. Do we really want to follow Iran and Italy? It’s not impossible — Just stop feeding the virus fresh bodies […] March 12th, 2020 | Tags: Coronavirus, Epidemiology, JoNova's Favourites, Virus | Category: Health, Mortality | Print This Post | | … Do young adults learn anything that matters in school? They’re protesting in the streets but can’t even answer the most baby-basic questions about energy or their pet molecule “CO2”. It’s almost like carbon dioxide is totally irrelevant? Teachers don’t care. Kids don’t care. Media don’t care, and when they all grow up the adults won’t care either. More than 72% of Gen Z ‘don’t know nuclear power is low carbon energy’ Dimitri Macrokefalidis EnergyLive News: Only 26% of people aged 18-24 understand that nuclear power is a low carbon source of electricity, compared with 76% for renewables such as wind and solar, according to a new poll by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). Older people are more likely to say that nuclear power is low carbon. The poll found the level of understanding rising from 47% among 35 to 44-year olds to 61% among 65 to 74-year olds, although it remains well below levels seen for renewables. Good on the Mech Eng’s for asking. I call “fake” on the protesters that tell us the world is at stake but can’t be bothered learning the basics. Wait til they find out […] March 12th, 2020 | Tags: Nuclear Energy, Polls | Category: Global Warming, Nuclear Power | Print This Post | | Moving at sedimentary-rock speed, the Australian government has finally put a ban on flights from Italy effective at 6pm, and only ten days too late. On the 28th of February Italy had 1700 cases and infections were growing at 30% a day. At that point it was obvious where the numbers were headed. Today France, Spain and Germany are where Italy was then. How many infections will we fly in before we do the inevitable and ban them too? Meanwhile Western Australia “has a plan” to strangle the state bit by bit, change shopping hours and do faster burials. All the cases are imported on planes, and all of the solutions include people getting sick. Are we missing something here? Three more diagnosed cases of COVID-19 brings the total to nine in WA WA has released a pandemic plan to keep delivering essential services Dr Robertson said the three people had recently flown back from Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. Health officials were working to identify the flights on which the three patients travelled and would contact the passengers who sat closest to them, Dr Robertson said. The pandemic plan, which […] Here’s one for all the history-deniers from 1885 Mr N Bartley understood Australias climate 134 years ago better than some climate scientists appear to now. After the fire came the floods, Feb 2020. Even then Australia already had a century-long rolling cycle of floods, fires and droughts. One natural disaster after another back when CO2 levels were perfect. These go back to the earliest dates of European settlement. Wherever Captain Flinders landed in 1782 — 1792 he found “found traces of drought and bush fires invariably”. In 1839, the drought was so bad that fish “putrefied” in the big Murrumbidgee River even though there was not one coal fired power plant on Earth. The author laments that the droughts “become forgotten in the flood intervals.” In the modern Wifi era humans can forget even faster. Below is my summary list of the events described in the story. Below that, the full letter. From The Queenslander, Sept 19th, 1885. *Since Captain Flinders was born in 1774 I assume those dates were wrong and he wasn’t commanding a ship when he was 8 years old. Any other suggestions welcome.(thanks Gee Aye, SteveD, James West and Peter Fitzroy) (1795 onwards?)* […] March 11th, 2020 | Tags: Australian rainfall, Drought, Evidence, Fires, Floods | Category: Fire, Global Warming, Meteorology | Print This Post | | .. 7.4 out of 10 based on 17 ratings And so it begins. Suddenly there are no more weddings for a quarter of all of Italy. No more movies, pubs, dance halls or trains to some parts of the country either. Italy is about to overtake South Korea for the number two spot on the list no country wants to lead, unless Iran beats Italy to it (which it almost certainly has already). Today 16 million Italians are not free to go about their business, or go to school. On Feb 21st, Italy had three cases, now 366 people are dead, and 7353 are infected (at least). How life has changed in two weeks and three days. Suddenly France and Germany are about to reach the 1,000 mark. This is what exponential curves feel like. “We are facing an emergency, a national emergency,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in announcing the government decree in a news conference after 2 a.m. — NY Times The Frankfurt and London exchanges dropped by 8 percent in early Monday trading, while in Paris stocks were trading 4 percent lower. An index of Europe’s 50 biggest companies was down nearly 6 percent. Oil prices lost nearly a quarter […] |
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