So the ABC managed to put in another global warming scare story tonight, warning about the coastline changes that would occur by the end of the century in the most conservative of the IPCC modelling using the highest projection for sea level rise (yes the juxtaposition is rather ironic).
Nice to see CoViD-19 hasn’t managed to change the behaviour of our Auntie.
Apologies for jumping the queue, but having scrolled through all the comments below, noticed no one from ‘over here’ has commented:
Level 3 declared today, Level 4 to kick in Wednesday: essential services to continue while everyone else to remain home, schools closing, no unnecessary travel.
Yep. Greg’s right. NZ is into full lockdown (except for essential-essential services — and that’s not a mis-type.) on Wednesday. We have today and tomorrow to practice in. There goes my walks …
Jacinda’s had a look at the curve and seen how it seems to parallel/track Italy’s.
I admit it: I’m not surprised …
Full details on https://nzherald.co.nz (and probably others if you don’t like The Granny.)
But: I can still raze my CO2 Sequestration. (aka Mow the lawns …) Great! Put more CO2 back into the air to keep it all healthy! Ain’t Motor Mowers wonderful? Great recyclers.
And WHO can join the IPCC other purely political UN departments which are utterly useless and have failed the people of the world. American should stop funding them.
The ABC/CSIRO/SBS/BOM can go home and isolate and get real jobs. We have parasitic viruses enough.
I didn’t mention the WHO since this was supposed to be a thread for other matters but since you brought it up, I feel WHO Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus should be brought up on crimes against humanity for his early statements (in line with China’s) that CoVid-19 did not warrant travel restrictions, was not proven to be human to human transmissible, was not a pandemic etc, etc.
All this delayed the response of governments world-wide and allow the disease to spread far more broadly and far more rapidly than it should have.
if interventions in the country could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease
I am ready for global warming. It is the second day of spring and it has been snowing for the past several hours. It is 32F outside and it the snow is predicted until tomorrow morning. During which it is to warm up all the way to 45F. Then rainy and chilly for the rest of the week. I want the sun to come back and the flowers to start blooming. I guess I will just have to wait.
Not really. Businesses are closed in California, Illinois, New York. Where they can, people are working from home. Now also in Victoria.
While the beer makers are now saying that beer should be an essential service, it is’nt. Nor are newspapers or live television or sport or bars, clubs and restaurants. I would hope landlords give tenants a break on rents. It just means a few weeks lost income, but otherwise there will be no rent when life returns.
This is a piece of chemistry. Deny it new hosts and it will die as quickly as it came. You can get exponential decay as well.
As for that piece of nonsense called Climate Change, I can only hope the Gretas of the world realise how infantile it is. Even if man made Climate Change was true, in 32 years of it, where is the disaster? Compared to a real problem it is fatuous nonsense, total indulgence and fantasy. There is nothing to deny because it is not true. Coronoa virus is a real problem and without a major war for 75 years, the first experienced by most of the planet.
I hope we learn from it. And I hope we survive. And I hope we routinely test for all viruses on incoming guests. The flu season should not exist.
It seems that the agreed solution to Coronavid19 is for everything to shut down.
The social and business destruction I’m already witnessing in the last few days is disturbing and seems projected for greater intensity.
Obviously any suspected cases must be immediately isolated and tested and then quarantined if necessary, but if life doesn’t go on as normal there could be extraordinary consequences.
The Australian response is predicated on the very uncertain data being put about.
Anyone familiar with science and statistics will recognise the problem in comparing figures for the USA, Italy and Britain with Australia.
Here in Australia we have had relatively O.K. screening of incoming “trafficked” residents compared with the three above which each have had relatively porous borders thrust on them. Tuberculosis is one disease that Australia has thoroughly screened until recently.
By comparison Italy is a shambles and the other two have porous border problems.
Governments don’t show much concern when 2700 cruisers can just disembark and scatter.
And in the end, as I’ve said before, over the last three months here in Australia we’ve had;
7 coronavid19 deaths. And that’s a very suspect figure.
290 suicides, approximately.
900 road deaths.
The Big issue is that CORONAVID19 is being publicised as cause of death when in fact it’s most likely a very minor, secondary associated issue.
If only Australia had Leadership there might have been a plan of action based on facts rather than politically inspired emotionalism.
Our economy is being directed to the cliff, don’t think, just keep going.
Four cruise ships (totalling 5 cruises) with sick passengers have discharged their entire compliment of passengers without quarantine into Sydney in the past month. I ship had 158 sick on board (including some with severe fever), was declared disease-free by the captain, was allowed to discharge unhindered, was not quarantined and disinfected, was immediately re-loaded with a couple of thousand fresh passengers, 4 of whom have tested positive thus far as it sits off the coast in limbo.
Authorities are scrambling to trace probably 10,000 scattered people they allowed to waltz off these ships. Incompetence on steroids. They had one job. What do you reckon their chances are? What are our chances? I’m a dead man if it comes near me.
Why have these pus-factories known as cruise ships still been allowed to ply their trade? Even in normal times they are vectors of disease; now more than ever. You can’t visit a pub or restaurant but you can cram 3,000 people into a ship, sharing the same disease-ridden recycled air. At least planes have a hepa-filtration system in their AC, unlike cruise ships.
Then there’s the 18 US tourists in the Barossa who flew over from Sydney without self-quarantining, that Bill in Oz mentioned yesterday. At least 10 are now afflicted, plus who knows how many more on the planes they shared.
It is way too early to say that this disease is just a beat up — as Allan Jones and Paul Murray would have us believe. I don’t doubt that there could be an ulterior motive to the response to the virus. Be vigilant, but don’t discount the virus just yet.
It is still very easy if you are an Australian citizen, to get on a plane from europe, arrive in Australia and say your self-isolating. Then simply circulate as you so please and spread the virus atypically. When Australia gets serious about its testing and quarantining the infection numbers will start to fall. Until then, all this “she’ll be right” nonsense is fatally callous and ingorant.
“Obviously any suspected cases must be immediately isolated and tested and then quarantined if necessary, but if life doesn’t go on as normal there could be extraordinary consequences.;
And then was a bit disconnected in mentioning the cruisers later.
My main concern was the longer term attitudes about unofficial workers slipping in to Italy and the U.S.
As you say, the government failure to currently control borders is out there and should embarrass them.
Having lived through many Australian health emergencies post WW11 including the horribly disfiguring Polio disaster, I can’t remember anything as badly handled as this CV 19 mess.
Agreed. I’m too young to remember the polio epidemic of the early 50s, but the fear factor at that time must have been similar to now, with parents frightened that their kids could have a life of paralysis or in leg callipers in the days before the Salk and Sabin vaccines. I do remember teenage kids at school in callipers and I know big gatherings were banned, but the government reaction was nothing like what we are seeing now of course, and governments do love a crisis — real or manufactured. Had Morrison closed the borders in a timely fashion, this drastic internal shutdown would not have been necessary.
The impact of the business shutdown is going to reverberate for years. Many will be wiped out. A couple of generations that have never known privation will get a sudden life lesson. We can only hope for quinine to save the day in the short term and a vaccine long-term.
In my street there were two people who were obviously severely disfigured by Polio. Lining up for the polio vaccination was not a problem, in fact I looked forward to it.
Don’t underestimate the idiocy and selfishness of many people.
Two utter cretins who reside at my mother’s retirement village hopped off a cruise liner a week ago and promptly turned up for Happy Hour at the village where they mingled with 50 other residents who didn’t know their travel history. The details came out a day later. My mother was rather incandescent, as were most of the village residents.
My mother (85yo) was already in isolation, getting over a bout of chemical pneumonia induced by an incompetent carpet cleaner.
This came a month after her next door neighbour announced that she was going to China to visit her niece. That was about 3 weeks after the coronavirus story broke here. Luckily the plans fell through, but to even consider it at all indicates an acute deficiency of brain cells.
On the Allen Jones thing . . .
Personally I am very dissapointed in his ‘denial’ of the seriousness of the Corona pandemic both worldwide and here in Australia. I could not listen to him for more than 2 mins this morning before I turned him and 2GB radio off. He is trying to play down the statistics and the numbers affected etc and I find his attitude insensitive. Business will recover,but dead people won’t.
GeoffW
I have to agree G W. I have been a bit of an Alan Jones fan. But on this issue he is miles off the mark. Alan appears to be using very selective figures to support his position.
Unfortunately I hear a lot of callers on talk back agreeing with his position. Most of them clearly do not have a clue on the subject.
I think the disease is worth worrying about, but you are right to highlight the economic destruction. Right now the biggest problem might be fear itself.
I don’t like the talk of six months or more of shutdowns. I would hope two or three weeks should bring the problem to heel.
My comment posted before I saw beowulf.
Surely it would be a criminal offence for a captain to fail to disclose illness in passengers under these circumstances.
I am reserving judgement to see if this thing was “built to order”, so to speak. If so, its an effective economic weapon…aided by what appears to be ham fisted govt response to it.
I’ve been warning the consequences of the shut down and partial lock downs run the disk of throwing the baby out with the bath water. It’s too early to tell but it won’t be long before we find out if we are indeed throwing the baby out. Either the leaders know something we don’t (ie, the pandemic is much worse and they are hiding the truth) or they simply are in the dark like the rest of us and are just taking the precautionary approach to avoid any possibility of it turning into a world-wide super pandemic eventually killing millions of people. Let’s hope it’s the latter and the actions being undertaken throughout the world will work. We can suffer a temporary set back economically as long as people don’t panic much more and create other problems the authorities have to clamp down hard on as well as dealing with the virus. I can see the possibility of stock markets being put into a lock down but I hope we don’t need to get there. So far though the panic buying at stores and panic selling of shares is a sure sign many people are on a knife edge. If only people were more sensible about such matters but of course over the recent years we’ve seen how many people are not sensible in terms of climate change.
Starting next week, some folks will get over the panic and try to figure out what they can do — with social distancing, to begin to restart things.
It will be critical to know if recovery does indeed confer immunity. If so, we’ll star having a population much less at risk who can start doing useful things
out and about; and fill in where we need folks and have had a work force struggling and at risk. An economy at zero looks hopeless; one at 20% looks on the road to recovery.
Many people live in a service economy, and lost opportunity is mostly lost forever. But there has been no bombing, and little changeover of industry to weapons.
There will be good will in much of the world to provide credit to rebuild; we’ll discover that “money” is trust, not gold.
There will be a lot of new opportunity in the west. Some fraction of the Chinese industrial resource will be abandoned by the west, and manufacturing and supply chains
rebuilt with construction, then production jobs in our various countries. Some daily activities may change; we had to adapt to metal detectors, now we may walk through
UV sanitizers and decon fogs on our way to sporting events. We may well want some reserve medical capacity.
Mass transit as the sole way to get around a crowded city with small apartments may be a much harder sell for the folks peddling it as a model for our future.
We may see a move back towards the more rural parts of our countries, with massive rebuilding. The cities, for more than one reason, are not fairing well and the
urban governance model was already under attack for other reasons.
More and more reliable energy will be required for a more dispersed population. Personal vehicles will continue to be our choice; ‘mass transit’ may be linking them up to run more efficiently on shared roadways. We’ll want esssentially unlimited bandwidth, which we will have proven to ourselves can reduce the need for being in the same room, and if designed
in into a modern dispersed enterprise, could make a future need for a period of social distance minimally disruptive.
The most important thing we will have to fight for is the to limit the role of government, even though it may be painful to some to see profits being made.
If we restart our economies with a capitalist model, there will be investments, and profits. The pie will grow for all, even though the sharing may not be perfect.
If we restart our economies under the heavy hand of government, “investment” will be redistribution (admitting a fair amount will be needed for those most injured).
It is critical we return to growth. We have sustained enough damage to enter a death spiral if we can’t.
We extracted a lot from our economies for frivolous things. Like Windmills. Like Bullet trains to nowhere. Every country has a herd of government sponsored white elephants.
We need that capital now for changes that are essential. The climate change folks need to go away for a while.
ON some issues, people like me need to give it a rest, too. I’ve been noisy about backfilling public pensions, and double and triple dipping. But I do see a lot of government
folks risking their lives while I shelter in place. It’s still fair to call out the elected folks who have behaved badly and the press, which by and large has played narrative
games long after they should have switched back to reporting, but I’m done bitching about the foot soldiers in our government for a while.
The climate change folks need to go away for a while.
I would go much further. State and Federal governments need to change their tune and scrap the whole emissions reduction craziness. We need to use all our means at our disposal to boost our economy once the virus crisis starts to wane. That includes more reliable and sustainable sources of base load power to get our industries back on their feet, and to bring back some of those we have lost. Not doing that would be keeping brakes on our economy we can ill afford given the circumstances.
Can we make his a virus free zone Please ?
I spent 4-5 hours over yesterday & today working in the garden
Which in recent weeks I have neglected what with being too distracted by..this virusy thingy..
It’s a bit late for some Winter things but I’ve started !
Good to dig the dirt
Wipe out the snail nests
Dig out the couch
Sow some seeds & bulbs
And water the beds.
The brain loves it !
My sentiment too. The Missus and I have 3 allotment plots, the maintenance of which gives us great pleasure and (strangely, given the physical effort) relaxation.
(3 plots because we grow stuff for our busy “kids”.)
Here in the UK it’s the very start of storing with the first lovely sunny day. Itsvalso mothering Sunday so the end result is that millions of Brits crammed into public parks and mountains and coastal reports . Boris did not like this and has threatened a proper lockdown .
Yes the bureacrats throw teddy out of the pram unless you snap to attention …..
Bondi shutdown case in point -acres of sand, UV, salt water and you coukd see on acerage 6′ between most people. Technically it ticks the boxes…but oh no…..we havent cowered enough in fright, so a big tantrum it was….
Shall be good when the adults are in charge again…
I totally agree which is why I didn’t mention other culpable, inter-governmental agencies in my post for comment #1 – there is ample opportunity to raise all sorts of thought/observations/concerns in the CoVid-19 threads.
Thats a bit rich comming from you Bill….being one of the main “alarmists” of this topic on here !
A “dose of your own medicine “ to coin an appropiare phrase .
Personally, i would like to see thwhole blog a “virus free zone” as far as discussion goes.
But its Jo,s blog, she sets the agenda.
There is another Post for the Virus
So why don’t you go comment about it there ?
I just spent more hours in the garden !
I feel as if I’ve escaped from the pandemic & the constant griping
By getting out in the sun & caring for the garden !
Good for my mental health !
🙂
There is another Post for the Virus
So why don’t you go comment about it there ?
A). Because you posted here, and my reply is to your comments.
B). Because i am no commenting about the virus .
Enjoy the garden Bill……that may reduce your contributions to Virus hysteria !
The lockdown in Victoria, announced tonight, will only increase massive panic buying across all consumable sectors. While the lockdown may be for the best, this is going to get worse before it gets better.
The panic in the populace is understandable. The toilet paper panic was a joke.
However, the on-going shortage of meat, eggs, hand-sanitiser, cleaning products, and all paper goods such as paper towels and tissues in supermarkets shows that the supply chain is failing, despite what Coles and Woolies say about the abundance of stock they have.
The 7am-8am access to Coles and Woolies for the elderly has, so far, also failed to ensure those most in need are able to buy essential items at their allotted hour. It is cruel to entice over 60s to venture out at that hour, only to find empty shelves. From reports I’ve read, this is happening across Australia.
Local councils must lift all curfews on trucks delivering to supermarkets 24/7, no matter where that supermarket is located.
Coles and Woolies are making a huge profit at the moment. Yes, I know that they have employed more people to deal with the demand, but when will we see the result?
This panic will only cease when the shelves are fully stocked for at least a couple of weeks. Then, and only then, will people calm down, cease panic buying, and concentrate on dealing with the virus.
Already, tonight, the panic buying has extended from toilet paper, meat, and eggs, to alcohol.
Expect it get worse. What is the solution? Rationing, as in wartime?
I’ve promoted the idea of rationing some time ago to stop the panic buying craziness. If the panic buying continues or gets worse then rationing has to be deployed, and most likely will be. There is no need to hoard now. We are all in the same boat and we all should think of each other and not just ourselves. We as a nation can get through this crisis but only if we all work together and stop being so selfish and/or ignorant. I know it’s a hard call given the craziness over climate change over the years but if we don’t wake up and stop panic buying then I do hope rationing comes into effect soon.
“What I want to know is what everyone is doing with these “panic” buys?”
I suggest that after the crisis is passed, most of the hoarded food will then be thrown out as the “use by date ” is also passed. One insanity replaced by another.
I cant help but wonder if the supermarkets aren’t actually doing all they could….
Case in point – loading dock curfews.
Easy…book 6 trucks to turn up all at once. Hire lots of lackies to unload everything simultaneously in the car park if need be.
Stack stuff in aisles in the super market with lots of temporary guards. Control the flow of goods proactively.
In a crisis, troublesome laws are silenced, military are driving delivery trucks, troublesome pollies are put on garden leave ( if they know whats good for them )
This isnt being handled properly and some of the blame needs to be squarely on the supermarkets who don’t appear to be actually making much of an effort.
Shortening hours or shrugging shoulders is a cop out. They appear to be sticking to their assigned “script”….or is it just an illusion?
I dont know where you live but we have found eveything in abundance today except for sanitiser and toilet paper. Went to a couple of places , and found its more about logistics and timing than a real shortage. Surprisingly calm today, I thought the business closure announcement would spur another wave of panic buying but today was good.
Just looking around and reading announcements its seems a faux shutdown unless you are in hospitality. All kinds of businesses are staying open by rationalising their essentialness or saying they are managing social distance. I will be picking up some gravel tomorrow from my essential garden supply centre.
Still bare and virtually bare shelves here Yarpos , you can buy just two cans of any food item which includes tinned veggies , no mince or cheap cuts of meat and eggs and spuds forget it .
You do live near a major food manufacturing centre from memory maybe that makes a difference .
No I live in the mostly forgotten North East. Seems buyer behaviour varies a lot between centres. Not much manufactured here although there is a lot of cattle and cherry production.
As do I , thought you were closer to where the multi coloured cows are but never mind consider yourself lucky if you have reasonable stock on your supermarket shelves .
New South Wales Government is pushing for a lockdown of all non-essential activities following, Scott Morrison calls for all non-essential travel to be cancelled.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian tonight will inform the National Cabinet that NSW needs a more comprehensive shutdown of non-essential services.
“This will take place over the next 48 hours,” Ms Berejiklian said in a statement.
“Supermarkets, petrol stations, pharmacies, convenience stores, freight and logistics, and home delivery will be among the many services that will remain open.
“Schools will be open tomorrow, though I will have more to say on this issue in the morning.”
end quote.
hmm..
Watch the pandemonium in the next 48 hours as our fellow genteel public try to remain calm, by hysterically buying any product they can, whilst coming into contact with each other.
An adviser to Italy’s minister of health, Professor Walter Ricciardi, said the coronavirus death rate in Italy may be higher than in other countries not only because of demographics — Italy has the second oldest population in the world — but also because of the way Italy records deaths of those who have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus,” Prof. Riccardi told The Telegraph.
Until yesterday I thought short term economic shutdown was the best solution.
But yesterday I concluded from the recent widespread testing in NY USA that COVID19 is not just now spreading rapidly.
In my opinion based on current data, the NY testing (more testing than anywhere else in USA) is merely exposing that COVID 19 has already spread in the USA population.
If the death rate of people under 55 (and otherwise not at risk) is only the 0.2% being reported, perhaps killing the economy
in an attempt to combat something that is about as deadly as annual flu (for those under 55), is not the right solution.
I suspect most people in US cities have already been exposed, but it is political suicide to suggest it.
Perhaps our efforts should be focused on protecting those who are most vulnerable, and that does not require shutting down the entire economy.
JG, once testing, masks, sanitiser, effective treatment etc become available, the reins will be loosened. Your comments are spot on but the health authorities aren’t there yet. If anyone is going to get “there” quickly it will be the Americans. European and Australian responses are persistently behind the curve by a fortnight. It’s going to be unnecessarily painful in both places.
As soon as the curve flattens to the point that the medical load can be handled this is likely to happen.
No one in power is willing to manage the need to choose who will live and who will die due to scarce medical resources.
Three or four cities are likely to be the exception, and may have to be allowed to export some of their ill to the hinterlands,
as they had difficult populations to deal with.
The ruling class rarely decides who lives and dies , thats more often decided my much lower minions. Our leaders just adjust the controls to decide if lots of us die or just a few, others sort out the details.
It’s sort of like coastlines where storm surge/tide/subsidence/tsunami/AGW can wreak havoc. Opportunist’s choice to single out one cause over the other
I’m not sure why they closed the ACT border – was it to keep the politicians in, or out?
I don’t see why they had to do it, Canberra is already an isolated and detached place.
Would the country grind to a halt if we didn’t hear from Canberra for a few months?
I’m sure there are many other comments along these lines…?
As a Canberran I hope it was to keep the politicians OUT and back in their own electorates. How many people actually believe that the countries politicians live in Canberra? They come here to act like kindergarden children for a few weeks of the year and then go back to their homes….
Just watching question time and couldn’t believe it , no bickering ,sneering , yelling , childish rants etc and the opposition were actually interested in something that was affecting the nation instead of their own ideology.
Thanks a lot, Daniel Andrews for your misguided decision to ban off-shore gas exploration. Your turn-around has shown you are a complete leftist muppet when it comes running the state.
Now, Premier Dan, remove the ban on fracking and give Victorians their rightful cheap energy, which they have always previously enjoyed before you ransacked their energy supply for your idiot ideological reasons.
Poor Premier Dan truely is a man for all seasons, if it sounds good, sounds green, sounds like he cares, then just say it! He does not seem to regard” TRUTH” in many of his announcements as of much importance.
Example 1/ He is banning the logging of native forest in Victoria, his statement, ” No longer will Victorias native timbers simply be used to make cardboard” Totally incorrect with the vast majority of native timber harvested used for high quality sawn products .
Example 2/ We will not allow fracking as this destroys farm lands and pollutes ground water. No proof of these claims offered. Why not frack in “non farmed lands”. Not likely just an emotive statement that sounds caring but is just a sop to the green left.
For the many shut in now, it’s spring in the northern hemisphere (and fall in the south). This is Aurora Borealis (and southern aurora) season. There are live aurora cams and it might be nice to see their stunning beauty on your smart tv or computer instead of the news for a change.
Now you stupid people I have stuff to sell while stocks last!!!!!!
I can be found driving a flash car at most empty food market carparks.
I am really selling these at below cost price so if you want a nice clean bottom come get a roll, sorry sheet now!
Ha Bloody Ha!
Ok You can tell I am a POM from my dry sense of humor so here is yet another gem to lighten your day.
Man in woolies car park, Loud Speaker and clients lining up to buy his stuff, Yes I know toilet roll jokes are,,… but that was what he was selling
“VISA Credit cards only No Refunds, American express not accepted……
But there is a HUGE queue people really really need his toilet rolls. The person at his checkout counter whispers in his ear. ‘Sorry boss the battery went flat!’
Now Boss was a really cleaver man and had thought of that.
I just knew that was going to happen why did I tell you to buy all those batters for, GO GET ONE.
Sorry boss we sold all them yesterday!
We can laugh at that now but if we keep locking down more and more over the next few weeks then we will have other serious issues to be concerned about. Let’s hope these shut downs and partial lock downs work and crush the curve very soon.
Well if much of the world diverted the billions/trillions wasted on “fighting” climate changer to fighting the virus and find a cure we would save countless lives compared to the number of lives we would save by tacking climate change, which is of course zero.
A bit of melting around the edges, nothing more. Perhaps because the oceans are warmer as indicated by higher CO2.
What is omitted is the steady growth in the interior of Antarctica which is a desert. Any snow which falls stays there forever and it is growing steadily. It is measured by satellite and given that Antarctica is the size of South America and a block of ice 4km thick And -50C in winter and -25C in summer, it isn’t going anywhere.
The edge of Greenland are revealing the settlements from 1000AD. So nothing has changed. Perhaps that is why it was called Greenland at the time?
One of the great discoveries of the 19th century was that a big block of ice takes forever to melt. Before the discovery of refrigeration, that allowed ice to be exported from New England all over the world. Of course we have to discover that non obvious fact all over again.
The question is why anyone produces such dramatic and very misleading graphs in the first place. Then would you really expect to be paid for producing a report which said nothing has changed?
What is omitted is the steady growth in the interior of Antarctica which is a desert. Any snow which falls stays there forever and it is growing steadily. It is measured by satellite and given that Antarctica is the size of South America and a block of ice 4km thick And -50C in winter and -25C in summer, it isn’t going anywhere.
Not disagreeing with the general point, but i feel it must be said that ice and snow does not need =ve temperatures to “disapear” . Even at -50C it can sublimate into water vapour without melting if the air is dry enough….
… and Antartica is one of the dryest places on earth !
PS..i have no idea of the actual rate or order of magnitude if that process compare to snowfall .
Just sayin” !
An excellent article !
Thanks Ian.
Parts of the media would like to continue the huge climate misinformation scam.
It’s good to call them out as liars !
imo, the NY state government is testing as many people as possible, but it isn’t to improve public health.
They are purposely trying to increase the appearance of COVID19 urgency in NY state.
They want to get the lions share of US federal aid before other states increase testing. It is typical of NY politicians. Looting scum.
Both things are true. Looting scum. And it is absolutely necessary. If the whole country could be tested, this could be eliminated. That is not possible so the only
recourse is to shut the place for three weeks.
Three weeks will pass quickly. The virus dies in everyone. Whether they die is a big question but the virus will certainly die.
The only question is whether we can prevent it from infecting anyone else. If it cannot, the virus is dead. So shut the place.
Not very good in My opinion.
There are so many factors which go to make & sustain a good medical system.
They cannot be charted like this and it is foolish to try.
If only they had thought to ask you Bill , you could have saved them so much work.
There is nothing wrong with this, its just a view/opinion, if they were consistent with there methodolgy and its interpretations its probably a reasonable view of relativities.
What absolutely astounds me is the number of people (still quoting Nameplate mind you) who think that these batteries (which will appear at the waving of a magic wand) are a power source on their own, not even realising that they need to be charged in the first place, and that existing (still Nameplate mind you) wind plants will supply power to the grid ….. AT THE SAME TIME as they are charging the batteries.
If I can be cynical here for a minute, there’s one good thing to come out of this financial meltdown caused by COVID-19, and that’s the fact that at the end of all this, there will be positively ZERO money available for any new renewable power plant.
The existing ones will be allowed to run into the ground, and real money when needed will go to keeping the existing REAL power plants operational ….. AT ANY EXPENSE.
I have this gut feeling that this is the end of those renewable power plants of choice, wind and solar.
Or all the Greens can isolate and use pedal generators like the ones used for the bush radio, they can keep going and save the planet by pedalling harder and charging their phone batteries, hours at a time. I will be enjoying life at home powered by awful brown coal which has given us the cleanest air in the history of this country.
Some good news, I think, in the AEMO wholesale electricity markets.
Last financial year, Vic and SA averaged $110/MWhr.
This financial year to date, Vic $86 and SA $70/Mwhr.
And for Feb 2020, Vic $48, SA $64, and for Mar 2020 Vic $41, SA $47/MWhr.
For all States, March prices are averaging below $50/MWhr, back to the “good old days” of 2015.
It’s unclear what has driven prices down – could it be the end of the RET, surplus capacity, cheaper gas?
Are these prices viable long term, or will we soon see announcements of shutdowns?
“Premiers lost their nerve, they should be ashamed State leaders incited panic across the country by announcing they were effectively shutting down economies, confusing businesses and their customers.”
What utter uninformed rubbish, typical. People are more serious than journalists. The virus can only be stopped by a complete shut down and isolation. Shut everything for three weeks and the virus is dead. It dies in its victims and it cannot survive without new victims. That is a no brainer, but that is ‘confusing businesses’?
People are more prepared to make sacrifices than ignorant flippant journalists. In the US the flags are flying. In WWII people in their hundreds of millions make massive sacrifices, lives on hold for a decade, great and tragic personal losses, the ultimate sacrifice in the tens of millions. Cities like London and throughout the world in ruins. Always for hope of a better future. And some journalist thinks a zero destruction stay at home and watch television for a few weeks is the end of the world? They need to get a real job and a bit of respect for other people. Snowflakes like this are the ones who should be ashamed.
There is also an article by Chris Mitchell saying that too many in the media have an inflated value of their opinions, and don’t consider the problems facing those making decisions.
“Flattening the hypobolic curve would be a good place for the pundits to start”.
And the headline I want to read in three weeks, is “no new cases”. Then a return to work.
By then perhaps we can have the new 45 minute testing kit in Australia and in mass production.
Test all critical groups, health workers first. The virus must not escape from the health system, the only place where it will continue for a week or two.
Identify, isolate, eliminate. No medicines required, just isolation. That’s the part people find so hard to comprehend. This nasty little piece of chemistry is not alive and fragile. It cannot reproduce and dies quickly outside the body. Identify, isolate, eliminate.
And then make sure we are ready. We may need an isolation regime with all overseas travel. As used to happen.
A couple of things:
1. I lived in the Pilbara for 8 years in the 70s. Panic buying happened every time a cyclone approached. So, nothing new about that.
2. Why all the fuss about the virus? “””Great””” men like Oh Bummer and Rudd have told us that the greatest threat to the future of civilisation is climate change. So, why worry about a virus?
And the problem with ‘panic buying’ is that governments including the US formally advised everyone to get 14 days supply in the larder. Then complained that people were doing as they were advised? These are not preppers. This is doing exactly what you are told. As with a cyclone. Sensible advice.
In the South Melbourne market last Wednesday, everyone was lining up. The place was emptied. On Friday, the stalls were full and business was even less than usual. That was not panic buying, it was sensible and as advised. And there were no long lines of people in public slurping oysters. People are being sensible. It is the media who want panic and live for drama and invent it if it cannot be found.
In the US and even Australia, the media hate Donald Trump but 55% of real Americans approve of his strong leadership where the Press want to stop the broadcast of the man elected by the people to lead in a crisis. It’s the unelected ignorant and extraordinarily partisan media vs Donald Trump. And those Hollywood school dropouts like Cher and Barbra Streisand and a host of vastly overpaid actors who think they are the real leaders of America. While they isolate in their holiday homes and private jets and let everyone else deal with the real problems of the world.
As a related comment, I believe the greatest source of rapid infection and distribution are children. People take their kids overseas on holiday and the children are sent to school the day after they get home. Even with a sniffle. Over thirty years I expected this and prepared to be sick two weeks after school started. It was horrible and unstoppable.
So if you are going to go on the trip of a lifetime, leave the children home. Or allow for a 14 day quarantine period on return.
When we beat this virus, we want to eliminate this flippant attitude that it’s someone else’s problem if your child is sick. School is not where they recover and it is not sick child minding for high flying parents.
Just now “Israel’s Defense Minister Posts Coronavirus Idea: Isolate the Elderly; Let Rest Become Infected, Immune”
What utter ignorance. Who said anyone can become immune to corona virus. This is a complete unknown and at present, it seems likely that long term immunity is not going to happen. The mutation seems slow but this virus is lethal. This concept of herd immunity is wrong until proven right. And why should people suffer and die to prove him wrong?
I am so pleased that in Australia, we are not so uncaring or ignorant. The Premiers are acting as they should. Morrison is dithering, but it is not his decision as he controls taxation, so stop taking our money for three weeks. Let the mandarins of Canberra pull in their belts. After all, they do nothing.
> “I am so pleased that in Australia, we are not so uncaring or ignorant”
That was the point of the Bondi Beach crowding on Saturday. Younger people basically saying “Oldie mouldie wrinklies … too bad”.
Requiring people of 70+, or likely 65+, to wall themselves in for 6 months, perhaps longer, under indefinite house arrest whether ill or not, is an increasingly popular notion. I expect it will be in force within a month.
Woolies, Coles, IGA etc have stopped home deliveries except if one is ill (how to demonstrate that to a supermarket ?), no Px from self-isolated GP’s, “social distancing” through a closed door …
Mr Morrison says schools should remain open until a student is found to be positive, while Premier Gladys says schools will remain open but parents can take their children out of school. Its an early Easter break.
Even Albo is confused as to the current policy on schools but it couldn’t be simpler , all schools to remain open except if there’s a virus outbreak .
Some states are calling an early break and some states are looking into distance learning but the school has to remain open during the normal term for any parents that still want to send their kids to school .
Should the schools all be closed is a seperate issue but my two cents worth says yes they should be .
I have never experienced this level of catastrophism in public life before and have a strong suspicion that “the authorities” are just putting on a show for the voting gullibles.
There’s a strong feeling that they don’t know what the problem really is and are simply trying stuff to look busy.
My own personal thoughts are that life should go on as normal, but with one condition: those carrying the virus must be identified, quickly isolated, all of their contacts tested and also isolated and treated/supported during the course of the infection.
Unfortunately, this would require effort and Government cash to implement so the obvious path is to shut everything down.
The fact that on the ground people’s lives are being changed and damaged beyond belief is ignored by the Elites.
The fabric of society is under threat because our beloved leaders are all O.K. thank you very much Taxpayers/voters.
2020, the year that Never Was!
One very simple screening device to be used at entry points to shopping malls, transport hubs, pubs, theatres etc is the electronic temperature device that can be held near the forehead to get a body temperature.
Not seen here in Australia. Are these government “health officials” really at work or do politicians override their advice?
Never before in the field of Australian public health administration have so few ignored so much to the detriment of so many.
My own personal thoughts are that life should go on as normal, but with one condition: those carrying the virus must be identified, quickly isolated, all of their contacts tested and also isolated and treated/supported during the course of the infection.
The only way to identify those carrying the virus is to test everyone. Australia will get 500K test kits by the end of the week. That is 4% needed to test the entire population. Lets say the kits were available. You can train staff to mount 1000 test stations for 16 hours per day. On average each station needs to test 25,000. At 5 minutes a test that takes 2083 hours; almost 6 months testing for 16 hours per day. Possible but not completed till September.
Australian authorities have been too slow in acting. I believe a large proportion of the population has already been limiting contact but a few days will tell if that is the case. Australia’s infection rate is 4d/doubling so not much lower than Italy: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/infection-trajectory-flattening-the-covid19-curve/
Both levels of government, States and Fed, appear willing to throw whatever money is needed to keep people alive and business viable in the future. People are simply being asked to keep their distance from others. There appears to be many avenues to avoid starving to death.
There is no doubt inflationary pressure on medical services with big dollars being offered for doctors and nurses willing to work extra hours. Testing labs are probably being overworked as well but are still functioning. However the deflationary pressure on most parts of the economy are high.
> ” … a large proportion of the population has already been limiting contact …”
Yes.
Another 2 weeks will tell if this works.
Apropos of my comment above on putting older people, healthy or ill, into indefinite, isolated house arrest so the remainder of the population can become “herd immunised” and live normally, Bolt just approvingly iterated it. I don’t know the full extent of his audience but everyone under 55 will quietly take it on board.
Why quote Italy as the typical example ?
Italy is an extreme situation,.. a “statistical outlier” .. and known to have several unique factors which have greatly agarivated the outcomes.
Why not reference Singapore , or S Korea ?
Both Vic and NSW schools close as of today; an early start to term break.
I expect that those deemed to be in essential roles will be able to still offload their children on a daily basis. This is certainly happening in the UK and US.
Jo,
Have you had any feedback from B2B (businesses that supply other businesses) owners that the current shutdown of ‘non-essential’ businesses such as restaurants, hairdressers and libraries is too vague and may be interpreted as applying to B2B businesses that may provide critical functions (such as logistics and maintenance) to essential businesses?
IMO this needs to cleared up ASAP.
State and Territory Premiers and the Prime Minister are now meeting regularly as our leaders to make decisions about actions to be taken to deal with the COVID-19 Health crisis, they are the Council Of Australian Governments members.
The Roles and Responsibilities of Federal, State and Local Governments
The Federal Government
The Federal or Commonwealth Government is responsible for the conduct of national affairs. Its areas of responsibility are stated in the Australian Constitution and include defence and foreign affairs; trade, commerce and currency; immigration; postal services, telecommunications and broadcasting; air travel; most social services and pensions. The Federal Government is also involved, mainly through funding, in many things largely carried out by the States, such as health, education, environmental issues, industrial relations, etc.
State or Territory Government
Under the Australian Constitution, the States are responsible for everything not listed as a Federal responsibility. However, sometimes both levels are involved. Major State responsibilities include schools, hospitals, conservation and environment, roads, railways and public transport, public works, agriculture and fishing, industrial relations, community services, sport and recreation, consumer affairs, police, prisons and emergency services. Each state has its own constitution setting out its system of government.
Local Government
Local Government areas vary greatly in size and character. The Sydney area is divided into about 35 cities, municipalities or shires, each with its own local council. The bigger country centres such as Bathurst or Albury have city or municipal councils. Large but less populated country areas, with a number of small towns and large rural areas, are usually shires with a Shire Council based in one of the larger towns. The power of local governments is controlled by Acts of State Parliament such as the Local Government Acts. Local Councils are concerned with matters close to our homes, such as building regulations and development, public health, local roads and footpaths, parks and playing fields, libraries, local environmental issues, waste disposal, and many community services.
Who Does What?
It is not always easy to know which government is responsible for which service. Although the Federal Government is probably better known to many of us, the everyday things we do usually have more to do with our State or Local Governments.
Great news in the Austrlian..
“The editor-in-chief of the Medical Journal of Australia has heralded the scheduled arrival of 500,000 COVID-19 test kits later this week that deliver a result in 15 minutes.”
Noticed the Lycra clad set not adhering to the two metre rule or the ban on non essential travel this morning .
For some reason the Gym association wants an exemption because they think they’re an essential service !
These Telehealth billing codes are aimed at limiting exposure of high consequence individuals to unnecessary exposure. In my view they should also be applicable to people who have recently suffered a common cold, preventing them from visiting a surgery, but still need a prescription renewal. At my local clinic, the difference between having a billing number and none is $50. I can imagine few people will voluntarily offer that they recently suffered a “cold” if they are going to be $50 out of pocket for their honesty.
> “This blog no doubt attracts those having high consequence of exposure to CV-19”
I see the oblique way you reply to points here, RickWill. No doubt you regard yourself as not of high risk. [Nor am I, by the way. I just have implacable resistance to locking healthy people away in indefinite solitary simply because of age].
> “These Telehealth billing codes are aimed at limiting exposure of high consequence individuals to unnecessary exposure”
Wrong there. Although the rhetoric is about “protecting the vulnerable” (a marketing euphemism), it’s actually about protecting the doctors. It is they who have self-isolated. A woman of my aquaintenance recently had a tele-consultation for a routine repeat Px. She waited on her phone for over 6 hours for her “slot” – the GP doing this was new to the surgery and had only the patients’ records. After a perfunctory 10 minutes, he said he would fax the repeat Px to her chosen pharmacy (one which this local surgery dealt with all the time). After 4 days, no Px or GP phone call was received by the pharmacy. The surgery reception tried to message the GP to find out why – no reply after over a week. She was invoiced, of course.
We are told the shut downs will last for months and not weeks in the MSM. Really? If that’s true then we better be prepared for the biggest depression of all time. This is not joking matter. A shut down for such a period will destroy most businesses and hence jobs.
Exactly! It’s not like anyone could have predicted that when you shutdown the economy and thousands lose their jobs they might try to access a government website looking for help. Who could have known? Not our bloated bureaucracy in the Canberra bubble.
Teva Pharmaceuticals in Israel to donate 6 million hydroxychloroquine tablets through wholesalers to hospitals by March 31, and 10 million within a month.
Has any one worked out what this obsession with paper products is and where it started? I was in my local woolies in Perth on Saturday and almost everything was in stock except toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, dry pasta and baked beans. Is there a connection between excessive consumption of baked beans and the need for loads of toilet paper? 🙂
Strange thing is that there was plenty of canned fruit and veg, canned meat, stews, soups etc. all of which would seem to me to be far more appetising than baked bloody beans. So what gives? Is it simply a lot of dummies attached to smart phones following what they are being told by their new technological god? Strange days indeed.
Time was that during international emergencies people would go to the bank and take out their money but now they go to the supermarket and buy up toilet paper. Even after the banking royal commission people seem to have an unfounded trust in the financial system while at the same time a mad, unfounded, distrust of the food and grocery supply chain.
Those who were in on the initial run on toilet paper were proven to be smart; Anthony Watt made a recommendation in early February to stock up toilet paper. Those slow to respond who ran short will not let that happen again. Poo paper is about as essential as you can get in modern Australia.
In the long run there could be supply issues because Australia has only been producing 60% of its needs in toilet paper; China a net exporter. There are indications that existing Australian production could achieve 90%. Will remain to be seen if we see fully stocked shelves at any time in 2020.
There was a Facebook post that showed an empty page on a writing pad and had the following quote , ” everything you need to stock up on ” .
Not being able to help myself I thanked them and said I’d forgotten to stock up on writing pads and was off to office works .
I have no doubt that every government will consider this “pandemic” to be an invaluable guide as to how the masses will react and how easily they can be controlled (including the non compliant Bondi types, and shame on them too for getting fresh air and immune system boosting sun when they should be inside. End sarcasm) when a real crisis hits. See how people are now buying chooks and setting up veggie gardens.
Sorta like they should have been doing for the past few years to prep for the grand solar minimum, global cooling and global food chain chaos, as per all previous cycles.
Watching the PM live last night it’s a pity no one had the cahones to question why this level of control over people was never implemented for previous disease outbreaks with higher mortality rates (especially since nCov is WAY down the list…), or why people don’t just all wear facemasks instead of collapsing the economy into Great Depression #2, or why everything we do is being tracked and monitored to “protect the children” (reality: track money and asset movements by everyone. Tax grab ) and then let thousands of kids go to packed classrooms. Low risk you say? If you truly care then you should err on the side if safety first surely! Or us it more important for a year or rote learning automaton training?
I guess he wasn’t aware of the newborn babies in the UK and China who tested positive or the 9 month old in the USA positive too.
This will probably all go down in history as a gigantic sh*tshow like the fake CO2/warming lie.
Next month should be a real eye opener..
On average each person infects another person per day. Ten days is 2^10 or 1,000x. That’s all it takes. Only isolation will stop this and until you can tell who is infected, that means everyone. Especially school children who should not be out playing with their friends! Otherwise expect 500 dead in weeks.
On the plus side, total isolation means the virus dies, not us. And just as fast. Three weeks would do.
Pauline Hansen OMG , She just did an interview with Gleeso on skynews and just as I was warming to her as a politician she opened her mouth and let australia know there is nothing between her ears but sound .
“The flu is worse than this virus” – and on and on it went , Mark Latham has probably had a heart attack by now .
Two meter tall plastic screens in the area of the check out operator, wraps around the end with a low level opening to allow you to gather your groceries and pay your bill. Not plexiglass like the vibrantly diverse areas in the US, but enough to keep the customers bodily fluids away from staff.
So the ABC managed to put in another global warming scare story tonight, warning about the coastline changes that would occur by the end of the century in the most conservative of the IPCC modelling using the highest projection for sea level rise (yes the juxtaposition is rather ironic).
Nice to see CoViD-19 hasn’t managed to change the behaviour of our Auntie.
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Sorry, I forgot the link
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-22/rising-sea-levels-queensland-gold-coast/12060230
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Drainage problem, as described.
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Apologies for jumping the queue, but having scrolled through all the comments below, noticed no one from ‘over here’ has commented:
Level 3 declared today, Level 4 to kick in Wednesday: essential services to continue while everyone else to remain home, schools closing, no unnecessary travel.
Righto, carry on, and good luck!
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Sounds like more surfing for you. It’s pretty isolating out there. just you and the good breaks.
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Yep. Greg’s right. NZ is into full lockdown (except for essential-essential services — and that’s not a mis-type.) on Wednesday. We have today and tomorrow to practice in. There goes my walks …
Jacinda’s had a look at the curve and seen how it seems to parallel/track Italy’s.
I admit it: I’m not surprised …
Full details on https://nzherald.co.nz (and probably others if you don’t like The Granny.)
But: I can still raze my CO2 Sequestration. (aka Mow the lawns …) Great! Put more CO2 back into the air to keep it all healthy! Ain’t Motor Mowers wonderful? Great recyclers.
I’ll raise a glass for you in absentia Greg 😀
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And WHO can join the IPCC other purely political UN departments which are utterly useless and have failed the people of the world. American should stop funding them.
The ABC/CSIRO/SBS/BOM can go home and isolate and get real jobs. We have parasitic viruses enough.
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I didn’t mention the WHO since this was supposed to be a thread for other matters but since you brought it up, I feel WHO Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus should be brought up on crimes against humanity for his early statements (in line with China’s) that CoVid-19 did not warrant travel restrictions, was not proven to be human to human transmissible, was not a pandemic etc, etc.
All this delayed the response of governments world-wide and allow the disease to spread far more broadly and far more rapidly than it should have.
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.page
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No…everyone had a relative who was a bit dotty…used to find “people in the attic” to talk to etc.
Well…guess what….
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I am ready for global warming. It is the second day of spring and it has been snowing for the past several hours. It is 32F outside and it the snow is predicted until tomorrow morning. During which it is to warm up all the way to 45F. Then rainy and chilly for the rest of the week. I want the sun to come back and the flowers to start blooming. I guess I will just have to wait.
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Funny how we have to bring up a climate related topic in unthreaded now.
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Not really. Businesses are closed in California, Illinois, New York. Where they can, people are working from home. Now also in Victoria.
While the beer makers are now saying that beer should be an essential service, it is’nt. Nor are newspapers or live television or sport or bars, clubs and restaurants. I would hope landlords give tenants a break on rents. It just means a few weeks lost income, but otherwise there will be no rent when life returns.
This is a piece of chemistry. Deny it new hosts and it will die as quickly as it came. You can get exponential decay as well.
As for that piece of nonsense called Climate Change, I can only hope the Gretas of the world realise how infantile it is. Even if man made Climate Change was true, in 32 years of it, where is the disaster? Compared to a real problem it is fatuous nonsense, total indulgence and fantasy. There is nothing to deny because it is not true. Coronoa virus is a real problem and without a major war for 75 years, the first experienced by most of the planet.
I hope we learn from it. And I hope we survive. And I hope we routinely test for all viruses on incoming guests. The flu season should not exist.
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It seems that the agreed solution to Coronavid19 is for everything to shut down.
The social and business destruction I’m already witnessing in the last few days is disturbing and seems projected for greater intensity.
Obviously any suspected cases must be immediately isolated and tested and then quarantined if necessary, but if life doesn’t go on as normal there could be extraordinary consequences.
The Australian response is predicated on the very uncertain data being put about.
Anyone familiar with science and statistics will recognise the problem in comparing figures for the USA, Italy and Britain with Australia.
Here in Australia we have had relatively O.K. screening of incoming “trafficked” residents compared with the three above which each have had relatively porous borders thrust on them. Tuberculosis is one disease that Australia has thoroughly screened until recently.
By comparison Italy is a shambles and the other two have porous border problems.
Governments don’t show much concern when 2700 cruisers can just disembark and scatter.
And in the end, as I’ve said before, over the last three months here in Australia we’ve had;
7 coronavid19 deaths. And that’s a very suspect figure.
290 suicides, approximately.
900 road deaths.
The Big issue is that CORONAVID19 is being publicised as cause of death when in fact it’s most likely a very minor, secondary associated issue.
If only Australia had Leadership there might have been a plan of action based on facts rather than politically inspired emotionalism.
Our economy is being directed to the cliff, don’t think, just keep going.
KK
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“Here in Australia we have had relatively O.K. screening of incoming “trafficked” residents . . .”
Ah, no we don’t. Our quarantine is a complete shambolic mess.
You missed this story from yesterday Keith.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/five-cruise-ships-that-were-allowed-to-dock-in-sydney-were-infected-with-coronavirus-with-hundreds-of-staff-allowed-off-today-without-being-tested/ar-BB11uy5K?ocid=spartandhp
Four cruise ships (totalling 5 cruises) with sick passengers have discharged their entire compliment of passengers without quarantine into Sydney in the past month. I ship had 158 sick on board (including some with severe fever), was declared disease-free by the captain, was allowed to discharge unhindered, was not quarantined and disinfected, was immediately re-loaded with a couple of thousand fresh passengers, 4 of whom have tested positive thus far as it sits off the coast in limbo.
Authorities are scrambling to trace probably 10,000 scattered people they allowed to waltz off these ships. Incompetence on steroids. They had one job. What do you reckon their chances are? What are our chances? I’m a dead man if it comes near me.
Why have these pus-factories known as cruise ships still been allowed to ply their trade? Even in normal times they are vectors of disease; now more than ever. You can’t visit a pub or restaurant but you can cram 3,000 people into a ship, sharing the same disease-ridden recycled air. At least planes have a hepa-filtration system in their AC, unlike cruise ships.
Then there’s the 18 US tourists in the Barossa who flew over from Sydney without self-quarantining, that Bill in Oz mentioned yesterday. At least 10 are now afflicted, plus who knows how many more on the planes they shared.
It is way too early to say that this disease is just a beat up — as Allan Jones and Paul Murray would have us believe. I don’t doubt that there could be an ulterior motive to the response to the virus. Be vigilant, but don’t discount the virus just yet.
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It is still very easy if you are an Australian citizen, to get on a plane from europe, arrive in Australia and say your self-isolating. Then simply circulate as you so please and spread the virus atypically. When Australia gets serious about its testing and quarantining the infection numbers will start to fall. Until then, all this “she’ll be right” nonsense is fatally callous and ingorant.
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“Governments don’t show much concern when 2700 cruisers can just disembark and scatter.”
I did mention that but didn’t expand on it. Trying to say too much and I should’ve put more comment around it.
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Hi Beowolf
I did say;
“Obviously any suspected cases must be immediately isolated and tested and then quarantined if necessary, but if life doesn’t go on as normal there could be extraordinary consequences.;
And then was a bit disconnected in mentioning the cruisers later.
My main concern was the longer term attitudes about unofficial workers slipping in to Italy and the U.S.
As you say, the government failure to currently control borders is out there and should embarrass them.
Having lived through many Australian health emergencies post WW11 including the horribly disfiguring Polio disaster, I can’t remember anything as badly handled as this CV 19 mess.
KK
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Agreed. I’m too young to remember the polio epidemic of the early 50s, but the fear factor at that time must have been similar to now, with parents frightened that their kids could have a life of paralysis or in leg callipers in the days before the Salk and Sabin vaccines. I do remember teenage kids at school in callipers and I know big gatherings were banned, but the government reaction was nothing like what we are seeing now of course, and governments do love a crisis — real or manufactured. Had Morrison closed the borders in a timely fashion, this drastic internal shutdown would not have been necessary.
The impact of the business shutdown is going to reverberate for years. Many will be wiped out. A couple of generations that have never known privation will get a sudden life lesson. We can only hope for quinine to save the day in the short term and a vaccine long-term.
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In my street there were two people who were obviously severely disfigured by Polio. Lining up for the polio vaccination was not a problem, in fact I looked forward to it.
00
Are you seriously saying that 2000 fresh passengers voluntarily got on a cruise?
Do they not read? The chances of lots of infections is high and the chances of landing at the scheduled ports of call non existent
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Likely because they couldn’t get refunds.
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Don’t underestimate the idiocy and selfishness of many people.
Two utter cretins who reside at my mother’s retirement village hopped off a cruise liner a week ago and promptly turned up for Happy Hour at the village where they mingled with 50 other residents who didn’t know their travel history. The details came out a day later. My mother was rather incandescent, as were most of the village residents.
My mother (85yo) was already in isolation, getting over a bout of chemical pneumonia induced by an incompetent carpet cleaner.
This came a month after her next door neighbour announced that she was going to China to visit her niece. That was about 3 weeks after the coronavirus story broke here. Luckily the plans fell through, but to even consider it at all indicates an acute deficiency of brain cells.
These people need locking up for everyone’s good.
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On the Allen Jones thing . . .
Personally I am very dissapointed in his ‘denial’ of the seriousness of the Corona pandemic both worldwide and here in Australia. I could not listen to him for more than 2 mins this morning before I turned him and 2GB radio off. He is trying to play down the statistics and the numbers affected etc and I find his attitude insensitive. Business will recover,but dead people won’t.
GeoffW
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I have to agree G W. I have been a bit of an Alan Jones fan. But on this issue he is miles off the mark. Alan appears to be using very selective figures to support his position.
Unfortunately I hear a lot of callers on talk back agreeing with his position. Most of them clearly do not have a clue on the subject.
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I think the disease is worth worrying about, but you are right to highlight the economic destruction. Right now the biggest problem might be fear itself.
I don’t like the talk of six months or more of shutdowns. I would hope two or three weeks should bring the problem to heel.
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My comment posted before I saw beowulf.
Surely it would be a criminal offence for a captain to fail to disclose illness in passengers under these circumstances.
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Ted:
This site might have a calmer view of the current panic that that which is being spouted by the msm.
Another O’Brien
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#cases-growth-factor
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I am reserving judgement to see if this thing was “built to order”, so to speak. If so, its an effective economic weapon…aided by what appears to be ham fisted govt response to it.
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I’ve been warning the consequences of the shut down and partial lock downs run the disk of throwing the baby out with the bath water. It’s too early to tell but it won’t be long before we find out if we are indeed throwing the baby out. Either the leaders know something we don’t (ie, the pandemic is much worse and they are hiding the truth) or they simply are in the dark like the rest of us and are just taking the precautionary approach to avoid any possibility of it turning into a world-wide super pandemic eventually killing millions of people. Let’s hope it’s the latter and the actions being undertaken throughout the world will work. We can suffer a temporary set back economically as long as people don’t panic much more and create other problems the authorities have to clamp down hard on as well as dealing with the virus. I can see the possibility of stock markets being put into a lock down but I hope we don’t need to get there. So far though the panic buying at stores and panic selling of shares is a sure sign many people are on a knife edge. If only people were more sensible about such matters but of course over the recent years we’ve seen how many people are not sensible in terms of climate change.
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Starting next week, some folks will get over the panic and try to figure out what they can do — with social distancing, to begin to restart things.
It will be critical to know if recovery does indeed confer immunity. If so, we’ll star having a population much less at risk who can start doing useful things
out and about; and fill in where we need folks and have had a work force struggling and at risk. An economy at zero looks hopeless; one at 20% looks on the road to recovery.
Many people live in a service economy, and lost opportunity is mostly lost forever. But there has been no bombing, and little changeover of industry to weapons.
There will be good will in much of the world to provide credit to rebuild; we’ll discover that “money” is trust, not gold.
There will be a lot of new opportunity in the west. Some fraction of the Chinese industrial resource will be abandoned by the west, and manufacturing and supply chains
rebuilt with construction, then production jobs in our various countries. Some daily activities may change; we had to adapt to metal detectors, now we may walk through
UV sanitizers and decon fogs on our way to sporting events. We may well want some reserve medical capacity.
Mass transit as the sole way to get around a crowded city with small apartments may be a much harder sell for the folks peddling it as a model for our future.
We may see a move back towards the more rural parts of our countries, with massive rebuilding. The cities, for more than one reason, are not fairing well and the
urban governance model was already under attack for other reasons.
More and more reliable energy will be required for a more dispersed population. Personal vehicles will continue to be our choice; ‘mass transit’ may be linking them up to run more efficiently on shared roadways. We’ll want esssentially unlimited bandwidth, which we will have proven to ourselves can reduce the need for being in the same room, and if designed
in into a modern dispersed enterprise, could make a future need for a period of social distance minimally disruptive.
The most important thing we will have to fight for is the to limit the role of government, even though it may be painful to some to see profits being made.
If we restart our economies with a capitalist model, there will be investments, and profits. The pie will grow for all, even though the sharing may not be perfect.
If we restart our economies under the heavy hand of government, “investment” will be redistribution (admitting a fair amount will be needed for those most injured).
It is critical we return to growth. We have sustained enough damage to enter a death spiral if we can’t.
We extracted a lot from our economies for frivolous things. Like Windmills. Like Bullet trains to nowhere. Every country has a herd of government sponsored white elephants.
We need that capital now for changes that are essential. The climate change folks need to go away for a while.
ON some issues, people like me need to give it a rest, too. I’ve been noisy about backfilling public pensions, and double and triple dipping. But I do see a lot of government
folks risking their lives while I shelter in place. It’s still fair to call out the elected folks who have behaved badly and the press, which by and large has played narrative
games long after they should have switched back to reporting, but I’m done bitching about the foot soldiers in our government for a while.
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I would go much further. State and Federal governments need to change their tune and scrap the whole emissions reduction craziness. We need to use all our means at our disposal to boost our economy once the virus crisis starts to wane. That includes more reliable and sustainable sources of base load power to get our industries back on their feet, and to bring back some of those we have lost. Not doing that would be keeping brakes on our economy we can ill afford given the circumstances.
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Can we make his a virus free zone Please ?
I spent 4-5 hours over yesterday & today working in the garden
Which in recent weeks I have neglected what with being too distracted by..this virusy thingy..
It’s a bit late for some Winter things but I’ve started !
Good to dig the dirt
Wipe out the snail nests
Dig out the couch
Sow some seeds & bulbs
And water the beds.
The brain loves it !
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My sentiment too. The Missus and I have 3 allotment plots, the maintenance of which gives us great pleasure and (strangely, given the physical effort) relaxation.
(3 plots because we grow stuff for our busy “kids”.)
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Here in the UK it’s the very start of storing with the first lovely sunny day. Itsvalso mothering Sunday so the end result is that millions of Brits crammed into public parks and mountains and coastal reports . Boris did not like this and has threatened a proper lockdown .
Worked well in Spain and Italy hasn’t it?
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Yes the bureacrats throw teddy out of the pram unless you snap to attention …..
Bondi shutdown case in point -acres of sand, UV, salt water and you coukd see on acerage 6′ between most people. Technically it ticks the boxes…but oh no…..we havent cowered enough in fright, so a big tantrum it was….
Shall be good when the adults are in charge again…
40
I totally agree which is why I didn’t mention other culpable, inter-governmental agencies in my post for comment #1 – there is ample opportunity to raise all sorts of thought/observations/concerns in the CoVid-19 threads.
20
Thats a bit rich comming from you Bill….being one of the main “alarmists” of this topic on here !
A “dose of your own medicine “ to coin an appropiare phrase .
Personally, i would like to see thwhole blog a “virus free zone” as far as discussion goes.
But its Jo,s blog, she sets the agenda.
22
Ahh, many typos in there ..sorry, mobile posting.
12
There is another Post for the Virus
So why don’t you go comment about it there ?
I just spent more hours in the garden !
I feel as if I’ve escaped from the pandemic & the constant griping
By getting out in the sun & caring for the garden !
Good for my mental health !
🙂
20
Totally agree Bill.
You do need to spend more time in the garden.
10
A). Because you posted here, and my reply is to your comments.
B). Because i am no commenting about the virus .
Enjoy the garden Bill……that may reduce your contributions to Virus hysteria !
21
The lockdown in Victoria, announced tonight, will only increase massive panic buying across all consumable sectors. While the lockdown may be for the best, this is going to get worse before it gets better.
The panic in the populace is understandable. The toilet paper panic was a joke.
However, the on-going shortage of meat, eggs, hand-sanitiser, cleaning products, and all paper goods such as paper towels and tissues in supermarkets shows that the supply chain is failing, despite what Coles and Woolies say about the abundance of stock they have.
The 7am-8am access to Coles and Woolies for the elderly has, so far, also failed to ensure those most in need are able to buy essential items at their allotted hour. It is cruel to entice over 60s to venture out at that hour, only to find empty shelves. From reports I’ve read, this is happening across Australia.
Local councils must lift all curfews on trucks delivering to supermarkets 24/7, no matter where that supermarket is located.
Coles and Woolies are making a huge profit at the moment. Yes, I know that they have employed more people to deal with the demand, but when will we see the result?
This panic will only cease when the shelves are fully stocked for at least a couple of weeks. Then, and only then, will people calm down, cease panic buying, and concentrate on dealing with the virus.
Already, tonight, the panic buying has extended from toilet paper, meat, and eggs, to alcohol.
Expect it get worse. What is the solution? Rationing, as in wartime?
60
Expect it to get worse.
80
I’ve promoted the idea of rationing some time ago to stop the panic buying craziness. If the panic buying continues or gets worse then rationing has to be deployed, and most likely will be. There is no need to hoard now. We are all in the same boat and we all should think of each other and not just ourselves. We as a nation can get through this crisis but only if we all work together and stop being so selfish and/or ignorant. I know it’s a hard call given the craziness over climate change over the years but if we don’t wake up and stop panic buying then I do hope rationing comes into effect soon.
50
My local butcher said he couldn’t get any chicken from the distributor the other day.
What I want to know is what everyone is doing with these “panic” buys?
Must have large storages to keep that all meat and eggs in a usable state.
Hope for no electricity outages.
90
“What I want to know is what everyone is doing with these “panic” buys?”
I suggest that after the crisis is passed, most of the hoarded food will then be thrown out as the “use by date ” is also passed. One insanity replaced by another.
90
Freezers are generally sold out in Australia. They will rely on Chinese production for restocking.
Seeds and seedlings are being hit hard. Booze also a panic buy. Some booze outlets in Melbourne shut doors to prevent overcrowding.
60
And the sales of Cola-Cola have increased by 16%.
30
I cant help but wonder if the supermarkets aren’t actually doing all they could….
Case in point – loading dock curfews.
Easy…book 6 trucks to turn up all at once. Hire lots of lackies to unload everything simultaneously in the car park if need be.
Stack stuff in aisles in the super market with lots of temporary guards. Control the flow of goods proactively.
In a crisis, troublesome laws are silenced, military are driving delivery trucks, troublesome pollies are put on garden leave ( if they know whats good for them )
This isnt being handled properly and some of the blame needs to be squarely on the supermarkets who don’t appear to be actually making much of an effort.
Shortening hours or shrugging shoulders is a cop out. They appear to be sticking to their assigned “script”….or is it just an illusion?
30
Fear is a legitimate weapon in war.
The virus was the frightners bit…now the actions of govts seem to be driving a degree of unrest….it seems to be following a script, which bothers me.
The time frames and severeness of impost is ramping up, like a tyrant making laws while high on meth.
When the initial noises started, it was like sensing the train a long way away, through vibrations in the rails.
It does feel scripted. Some will say its the official pandemic “plan”, but its been a shambles , but designed it appears, to cause maximum panic.
I suspect an internal war inside the govt between those who care, and the N W O.
20
I dont know where you live but we have found eveything in abundance today except for sanitiser and toilet paper. Went to a couple of places , and found its more about logistics and timing than a real shortage. Surprisingly calm today, I thought the business closure announcement would spur another wave of panic buying but today was good.
Just looking around and reading announcements its seems a faux shutdown unless you are in hospitality. All kinds of businesses are staying open by rationalising their essentialness or saying they are managing social distance. I will be picking up some gravel tomorrow from my essential garden supply centre.
30
Still bare and virtually bare shelves here Yarpos , you can buy just two cans of any food item which includes tinned veggies , no mince or cheap cuts of meat and eggs and spuds forget it .
You do live near a major food manufacturing centre from memory maybe that makes a difference .
10
No I live in the mostly forgotten North East. Seems buyer behaviour varies a lot between centres. Not much manufactured here although there is a lot of cattle and cherry production.
10
As do I , thought you were closer to where the multi coloured cows are but never mind consider yourself lucky if you have reasonable stock on your supermarket shelves .
00
Yes a semi lockdown in NSW
link and quote:
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2020/03/22/nsw-push-for-lock-down-of-all-non-essential-activities/
New South Wales Government is pushing for a lockdown of all non-essential activities following, Scott Morrison calls for all non-essential travel to be cancelled.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian tonight will inform the National Cabinet that NSW needs a more comprehensive shutdown of non-essential services.
“This will take place over the next 48 hours,” Ms Berejiklian said in a statement.
“Supermarkets, petrol stations, pharmacies, convenience stores, freight and logistics, and home delivery will be among the many services that will remain open.
“Schools will be open tomorrow, though I will have more to say on this issue in the morning.”
end quote.
hmm..
Watch the pandemonium in the next 48 hours as our fellow genteel public try to remain calm, by hysterically buying any product they can, whilst coming into contact with each other.
hmm..
does pandemonium increase pandemic?
70
The Italian numbers could be skewed:
An adviser to Italy’s minister of health, Professor Walter Ricciardi, said the coronavirus death rate in Italy may be higher than in other countries not only because of demographics — Italy has the second oldest population in the world — but also because of the way Italy records deaths of those who have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus,” Prof. Riccardi told The Telegraph.
101
Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285
30
An interesting read.
30
Until yesterday I thought short term economic shutdown was the best solution.
But yesterday I concluded from the recent widespread testing in NY USA that COVID19 is not just now spreading rapidly.
In my opinion based on current data, the NY testing (more testing than anywhere else in USA) is merely exposing that COVID 19 has already spread in the USA population.
If the death rate of people under 55 (and otherwise not at risk) is only the 0.2% being reported, perhaps killing the economy
in an attempt to combat something that is about as deadly as annual flu (for those under 55), is not the right solution.
I suspect most people in US cities have already been exposed, but it is political suicide to suggest it.
Perhaps our efforts should be focused on protecting those who are most vulnerable, and that does not require shutting down the entire economy.
130
JG, once testing, masks, sanitiser, effective treatment etc become available, the reins will be loosened. Your comments are spot on but the health authorities aren’t there yet. If anyone is going to get “there” quickly it will be the Americans. European and Australian responses are persistently behind the curve by a fortnight. It’s going to be unnecessarily painful in both places.
70
As soon as the curve flattens to the point that the medical load can be handled this is likely to happen.
No one in power is willing to manage the need to choose who will live and who will die due to scarce medical resources.
Three or four cities are likely to be the exception, and may have to be allowed to export some of their ill to the hinterlands,
as they had difficult populations to deal with.
40
Just as well its not a real war needing someone to decide who goes to the front line !
00
The ruling class rarely decides who lives and dies , thats more often decided my much lower minions. Our leaders just adjust the controls to decide if lots of us die or just a few, others sort out the details.
10
That’s it.
The social devastation from the “treatment” is a politically inflicted wound that just doubles the pain.
Leadership????
AWOL.
40
No the virus hasnt been sprreading bigly in the background yet. If it were so you would already be seeing massive die offs in returement/nursing homes
40
The statistics on CV19 may be a little overdone when what is possibly a minor association of that disease is recorded as cause of death.
This to ponder”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51978164
Cause of death??
Diabetes 2. ?
30
It’s sort of like coastlines where storm surge/tide/subsidence/tsunami/AGW can wreak havoc. Opportunist’s choice to single out one cause over the other
30
The next level of restriction in Italy is now in force as foreshadowed in a post on Friday. Expect a lot more fines and arrests.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51991972
30
I’m not sure why they closed the ACT border – was it to keep the politicians in, or out?
I don’t see why they had to do it, Canberra is already an isolated and detached place.
Would the country grind to a halt if we didn’t hear from Canberra for a few months?
I’m sure there are many other comments along these lines…?
140
Keeps the locusts out of NSW.
30
As a Canberran I hope it was to keep the politicians OUT and back in their own electorates. How many people actually believe that the countries politicians live in Canberra? They come here to act like kindergarden children for a few weeks of the year and then go back to their homes….
30
Just watching question time and couldn’t believe it , no bickering ,sneering , yelling , childish rants etc and the opposition were actually interested in something that was affecting the nation instead of their own ideology.
10
Without their strong and inspiring leadership, I would be rudderless and adrift on a sea of uncertainty.
How would I know what to do or say next? I would be like an ABC interviewer.
20
Some positive news that has been discussed here before, but still, from an overseas perspective, it didn’t seem to make the news in any significant way.
https://www.appea.com.au/media_release/appea-welcomes-victorias-decision-to-lift-moratorium/
Does Victoria have a Lead scientist because Dan Andrews is funding alchemists, or because they replaced a real scientist with a statue?
40
Thanks a lot, Daniel Andrews for your misguided decision to ban off-shore gas exploration. Your turn-around has shown you are a complete leftist muppet when it comes running the state.
Now, Premier Dan, remove the ban on fracking and give Victorians their rightful cheap energy, which they have always previously enjoyed before you ransacked their energy supply for your idiot ideological reasons.
150
Poor Premier Dan truely is a man for all seasons, if it sounds good, sounds green, sounds like he cares, then just say it! He does not seem to regard” TRUTH” in many of his announcements as of much importance.
Example 1/ He is banning the logging of native forest in Victoria, his statement, ” No longer will Victorias native timbers simply be used to make cardboard” Totally incorrect with the vast majority of native timber harvested used for high quality sawn products .
Example 2/ We will not allow fracking as this destroys farm lands and pollutes ground water. No proof of these claims offered. Why not frack in “non farmed lands”. Not likely just an emotive statement that sounds caring but is just a sop to the green left.
100
For the many shut in now, it’s spring in the northern hemisphere (and fall in the south). This is Aurora Borealis (and southern aurora) season. There are live aurora cams and it might be nice to see their stunning beauty on your smart tv or computer instead of the news for a change.
Here’s one live cam in Manitoba, Canada.
https://explore.org/livecams/zen-den/northern-lights-cam
60
Haven’t seen the local one, Aurora Australis, for six or seven decades.
34° South, East coast.
20
Your right there KK. Used to be a regular night time watch in the early fifties in central Victoria. Not much since then
30
Here is another one:
https://www.theaurorachasers.com/aurorawebcam
I’m certain there are many more out there.
40
Now you stupid people I have stuff to sell while stocks last!!!!!!
I can be found driving a flash car at most empty food market carparks.
I am really selling these at below cost price so if you want a nice clean bottom come get a roll, sorry sheet now!
Ha Bloody Ha!
10
My Father, was really wise.
He had many sayings that are so true today. One that comes to mind is:-
Many stupid men can act the fool, but it takes a really cleaver man to act the clown.
10
The cleaver man acted the clown dead? What say?
40
Maybe that was meant to be “hacked”.
20
Ok You can tell I am a POM from my dry sense of humor so here is yet another gem to lighten your day.
Man in woolies car park, Loud Speaker and clients lining up to buy his stuff, Yes I know toilet roll jokes are,,… but that was what he was selling
“VISA Credit cards only No Refunds, American express not accepted……
But there is a HUGE queue people really really need his toilet rolls. The person at his checkout counter whispers in his ear. ‘Sorry boss the battery went flat!’
Now Boss was a really cleaver man and had thought of that.
I just knew that was going to happen why did I tell you to buy all those batters for, GO GET ONE.
Sorry boss we sold all them yesterday!
30
We can laugh at that now but if we keep locking down more and more over the next few weeks then we will have other serious issues to be concerned about. Let’s hope these shut downs and partial lock downs work and crush the curve very soon.
30
Is there a tax we can just pay to stop the CoronaVirus or does that only work for Doomsday Global Warming?
181
Is there any way we can make this the Statement of the
decadeCentury.Tony.
130
Careful what you wish for…
Stand by for the ….“Economic Recovery Tax “… to claw back all this Stimulus spending. !
00
Well if much of the world diverted the billions/trillions wasted on “fighting” climate changer to fighting the virus and find a cure we would save countless lives compared to the number of lives we would save by tacking climate change, which is of course zero.
30
“Graphing The Icy Reality”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/22/graphing-the-icy-reality/
What happens when you go and look
60
A bit of melting around the edges, nothing more. Perhaps because the oceans are warmer as indicated by higher CO2.
What is omitted is the steady growth in the interior of Antarctica which is a desert. Any snow which falls stays there forever and it is growing steadily. It is measured by satellite and given that Antarctica is the size of South America and a block of ice 4km thick And -50C in winter and -25C in summer, it isn’t going anywhere.
The edge of Greenland are revealing the settlements from 1000AD. So nothing has changed. Perhaps that is why it was called Greenland at the time?
One of the great discoveries of the 19th century was that a big block of ice takes forever to melt. Before the discovery of refrigeration, that allowed ice to be exported from New England all over the world. Of course we have to discover that non obvious fact all over again.
The question is why anyone produces such dramatic and very misleading graphs in the first place. Then would you really expect to be paid for producing a report which said nothing has changed?
90
Not disagreeing with the general point, but i feel it must be said that ice and snow does not need =ve temperatures to “disapear” . Even at -50C it can sublimate into water vapour without melting if the air is dry enough….
… and Antartica is one of the dryest places on earth !
PS..i have no idea of the actual rate or order of magnitude if that process compare to snowfall .
Just sayin” !
10
An excellent article !
Thanks Ian.
Parts of the media would like to continue the huge climate misinformation scam.
It’s good to call them out as liars !
30
imo, the NY state government is testing as many people as possible, but it isn’t to improve public health.
They are purposely trying to increase the appearance of COVID19 urgency in NY state.
They want to get the lions share of US federal aid before other states increase testing. It is typical of NY politicians. Looting scum.
31
Both things are true. Looting scum. And it is absolutely necessary. If the whole country could be tested, this could be eliminated. That is not possible so the only
recourse is to shut the place for three weeks.
Three weeks will pass quickly. The virus dies in everyone. Whether they die is a big question but the virus will certainly die.
The only question is whether we can prevent it from infecting anyone else. If it cannot, the virus is dead. So shut the place.
40
“Cognitive Dissonance Test for TDS-Infected Canadians”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/03/22/cognitive-dissonance-test-for-anyone-infected-with-tds/
“So in the interest of documenting history, let’s compare what has transpired in the United States of America and Canada over the past few months:”
Read on
20
Global pandemic preparedness rankings
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/03/23/images/
10
Not very good in My opinion.
There are so many factors which go to make & sustain a good medical system.
They cannot be charted like this and it is foolish to try.
20
If only they had thought to ask you Bill , you could have saved them so much work.
There is nothing wrong with this, its just a view/opinion, if they were consistent with there methodolgy and its interpretations its probably a reasonable view of relativities.
00
Batteries supplying grid level power.
Think of it like this.
Currently, the largest battery on Planet Earth (you know, that one is South Australia) can deliver 100MW for one hour.
Grid level Batteries MUST be able to sustain a constant supply of ….. THOUSANDS of MegaWatts for three days.
Tony.
80
No big problem . . . . . we just need a few more is all . . . . . 🙂
51
Yes, about 13,000 to supply a minimum during periods of lower demand. Assuming they are fully charged and can be discharged to zero.
And the cost? Just divide by 10 and call it trillions.
Maybe we should buy an extra one, just in case of increased demand on a hot day?
70
What absolutely astounds me is the number of people (still quoting Nameplate mind you) who think that these batteries (which will appear at the waving of a magic wand) are a power source on their own, not even realising that they need to be charged in the first place, and that existing (still Nameplate mind you) wind plants will supply power to the grid ….. AT THE SAME TIME as they are charging the batteries.
If I can be cynical here for a minute, there’s one good thing to come out of this financial meltdown caused by COVID-19, and that’s the fact that at the end of all this, there will be positively ZERO money available for any new renewable power plant.
The existing ones will be allowed to run into the ground, and real money when needed will go to keeping the existing REAL power plants operational ….. AT ANY EXPENSE.
I have this gut feeling that this is the end of those renewable power plants of choice, wind and solar.
Tony.
100
Or all the Greens can isolate and use pedal generators like the ones used for the bush radio, they can keep going and save the planet by pedalling harder and charging their phone batteries, hours at a time. I will be enjoying life at home powered by awful brown coal which has given us the cleanest air in the history of this country.
60
Some good news, I think, in the AEMO wholesale electricity markets.
Last financial year, Vic and SA averaged $110/MWhr.
This financial year to date, Vic $86 and SA $70/Mwhr.
And for Feb 2020, Vic $48, SA $64, and for Mar 2020 Vic $41, SA $47/MWhr.
For all States, March prices are averaging below $50/MWhr, back to the “good old days” of 2015.
It’s unclear what has driven prices down – could it be the end of the RET, surplus capacity, cheaper gas?
Are these prices viable long term, or will we soon see announcements of shutdowns?
50
🙂
I look forward to my next electricity bill.
Maybe.
20
In this Australian this morning..
“Premiers lost their nerve, they should be ashamed State leaders incited panic across the country by announcing they were effectively shutting down economies, confusing businesses and their customers.”
What utter uninformed rubbish, typical. People are more serious than journalists. The virus can only be stopped by a complete shut down and isolation. Shut everything for three weeks and the virus is dead. It dies in its victims and it cannot survive without new victims. That is a no brainer, but that is ‘confusing businesses’?
People are more prepared to make sacrifices than ignorant flippant journalists. In the US the flags are flying. In WWII people in their hundreds of millions make massive sacrifices, lives on hold for a decade, great and tragic personal losses, the ultimate sacrifice in the tens of millions. Cities like London and throughout the world in ruins. Always for hope of a better future. And some journalist thinks a zero destruction stay at home and watch television for a few weeks is the end of the world? They need to get a real job and a bit of respect for other people. Snowflakes like this are the ones who should be ashamed.
80
There is also an article by Chris Mitchell saying that too many in the media have an inflated value of their opinions, and don’t consider the problems facing those making decisions.
“Flattening the hypobolic curve would be a good place for the pundits to start”.
30
And the headline I want to read in three weeks, is “no new cases”. Then a return to work.
By then perhaps we can have the new 45 minute testing kit in Australia and in mass production.
Test all critical groups, health workers first. The virus must not escape from the health system, the only place where it will continue for a week or two.
Identify, isolate, eliminate. No medicines required, just isolation. That’s the part people find so hard to comprehend. This nasty little piece of chemistry is not alive and fragile. It cannot reproduce and dies quickly outside the body. Identify, isolate, eliminate.
And then make sure we are ready. We may need an isolation regime with all overseas travel. As used to happen.
70
A couple of things:
1. I lived in the Pilbara for 8 years in the 70s. Panic buying happened every time a cyclone approached. So, nothing new about that.
2. Why all the fuss about the virus? “””Great””” men like Oh Bummer and Rudd have told us that the greatest threat to the future of civilisation is climate change. So, why worry about a virus?
70
And the problem with ‘panic buying’ is that governments including the US formally advised everyone to get 14 days supply in the larder. Then complained that people were doing as they were advised? These are not preppers. This is doing exactly what you are told. As with a cyclone. Sensible advice.
In the South Melbourne market last Wednesday, everyone was lining up. The place was emptied. On Friday, the stalls were full and business was even less than usual. That was not panic buying, it was sensible and as advised. And there were no long lines of people in public slurping oysters. People are being sensible. It is the media who want panic and live for drama and invent it if it cannot be found.
In the US and even Australia, the media hate Donald Trump but 55% of real Americans approve of his strong leadership where the Press want to stop the broadcast of the man elected by the people to lead in a crisis. It’s the unelected ignorant and extraordinarily partisan media vs Donald Trump. And those Hollywood school dropouts like Cher and Barbra Streisand and a host of vastly overpaid actors who think they are the real leaders of America. While they isolate in their holiday homes and private jets and let everyone else deal with the real problems of the world.
100
As a related comment, I believe the greatest source of rapid infection and distribution are children. People take their kids overseas on holiday and the children are sent to school the day after they get home. Even with a sniffle. Over thirty years I expected this and prepared to be sick two weeks after school started. It was horrible and unstoppable.
So if you are going to go on the trip of a lifetime, leave the children home. Or allow for a 14 day quarantine period on return.
When we beat this virus, we want to eliminate this flippant attitude that it’s someone else’s problem if your child is sick. School is not where they recover and it is not sick child minding for high flying parents.
60
Just now “Israel’s Defense Minister Posts Coronavirus Idea: Isolate the Elderly; Let Rest Become Infected, Immune”
What utter ignorance. Who said anyone can become immune to corona virus. This is a complete unknown and at present, it seems likely that long term immunity is not going to happen. The mutation seems slow but this virus is lethal. This concept of herd immunity is wrong until proven right. And why should people suffer and die to prove him wrong?
I am so pleased that in Australia, we are not so uncaring or ignorant. The Premiers are acting as they should. Morrison is dithering, but it is not his decision as he controls taxation, so stop taking our money for three weeks. Let the mandarins of Canberra pull in their belts. After all, they do nothing.
30
> “I am so pleased that in Australia, we are not so uncaring or ignorant”
That was the point of the Bondi Beach crowding on Saturday. Younger people basically saying “Oldie mouldie wrinklies … too bad”.
Requiring people of 70+, or likely 65+, to wall themselves in for 6 months, perhaps longer, under indefinite house arrest whether ill or not, is an increasingly popular notion. I expect it will be in force within a month.
Woolies, Coles, IGA etc have stopped home deliveries except if one is ill (how to demonstrate that to a supermarket ?), no Px from self-isolated GP’s, “social distancing” through a closed door …
Watch this space.
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I’m confused. Should be be shutting schools and staying home or not?
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Mr Morrison says schools should remain open until a student is found to be positive, while Premier Gladys says schools will remain open but parents can take their children out of school. Its an early Easter break.
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Even Albo is confused as to the current policy on schools but it couldn’t be simpler , all schools to remain open except if there’s a virus outbreak .
Some states are calling an early break and some states are looking into distance learning but the school has to remain open during the normal term for any parents that still want to send their kids to school .
Should the schools all be closed is a seperate issue but my two cents worth says yes they should be .
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Its best to keep schools open for those who want to attend, smaller classes not so bad, distancing being the riguir.
Scott Morrison is sounding like Winston Churchill, not that there is anything wrong with that.
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A good question John.
I have never experienced this level of catastrophism in public life before and have a strong suspicion that “the authorities” are just putting on a show for the voting gullibles.
There’s a strong feeling that they don’t know what the problem really is and are simply trying stuff to look busy.
My own personal thoughts are that life should go on as normal, but with one condition: those carrying the virus must be identified, quickly isolated, all of their contacts tested and also isolated and treated/supported during the course of the infection.
Unfortunately, this would require effort and Government cash to implement so the obvious path is to shut everything down.
The fact that on the ground people’s lives are being changed and damaged beyond belief is ignored by the Elites.
The fabric of society is under threat because our beloved leaders are all O.K. thank you very much Taxpayers/voters.
2020, the year that Never Was!
One very simple screening device to be used at entry points to shopping malls, transport hubs, pubs, theatres etc is the electronic temperature device that can be held near the forehead to get a body temperature.
Not seen here in Australia. Are these government “health officials” really at work or do politicians override their advice?
Never before in the field of Australian public health administration have so few ignored so much to the detriment of so many.
Poor fella my country.
KK
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The only way to identify those carrying the virus is to test everyone. Australia will get 500K test kits by the end of the week. That is 4% needed to test the entire population. Lets say the kits were available. You can train staff to mount 1000 test stations for 16 hours per day. On average each station needs to test 25,000. At 5 minutes a test that takes 2083 hours; almost 6 months testing for 16 hours per day. Possible but not completed till September.
Allowing uncontrolled contact for just 2 months gets you to this situation:
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-they-call-it-the-apocalypse-inside-italys-hardest-hit-hospital-11960597
6 months of uncontrolled contact would devastate Australia. All essential services would be crippled. There would be mass graves.
Australian authorities have been too slow in acting. I believe a large proportion of the population has already been limiting contact but a few days will tell if that is the case. Australia’s infection rate is 4d/doubling so not much lower than Italy:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/infection-trajectory-flattening-the-covid19-curve/
Both levels of government, States and Fed, appear willing to throw whatever money is needed to keep people alive and business viable in the future. People are simply being asked to keep their distance from others. There appears to be many avenues to avoid starving to death.
There is no doubt inflationary pressure on medical services with big dollars being offered for doctors and nurses willing to work extra hours. Testing labs are probably being overworked as well but are still functioning. However the deflationary pressure on most parts of the economy are high.
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> ” … a large proportion of the population has already been limiting contact …”
Yes.
Another 2 weeks will tell if this works.
Apropos of my comment above on putting older people, healthy or ill, into indefinite, isolated house arrest so the remainder of the population can become “herd immunised” and live normally, Bolt just approvingly iterated it. I don’t know the full extent of his audience but everyone under 55 will quietly take it on board.
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Why quote Italy as the typical example ?
Italy is an extreme situation,.. a “statistical outlier” .. and known to have several unique factors which have greatly agarivated the outcomes.
Why not reference Singapore , or S Korea ?
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Both Vic and NSW schools close as of today; an early start to term break.
I expect that those deemed to be in essential roles will be able to still offload their children on a daily basis. This is certainly happening in the UK and US.
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Jo,
Have you had any feedback from B2B (businesses that supply other businesses) owners that the current shutdown of ‘non-essential’ businesses such as restaurants, hairdressers and libraries is too vague and may be interpreted as applying to B2B businesses that may provide critical functions (such as logistics and maintenance) to essential businesses?
IMO this needs to cleared up ASAP.
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State and Territory Premiers and the Prime Minister are now meeting regularly as our leaders to make decisions about actions to be taken to deal with the COVID-19 Health crisis, they are the Council Of Australian Governments members.
The Roles and Responsibilities of Federal, State and Local Governments
The Federal Government
The Federal or Commonwealth Government is responsible for the conduct of national affairs. Its areas of responsibility are stated in the Australian Constitution and include defence and foreign affairs; trade, commerce and currency; immigration; postal services, telecommunications and broadcasting; air travel; most social services and pensions. The Federal Government is also involved, mainly through funding, in many things largely carried out by the States, such as health, education, environmental issues, industrial relations, etc.
State or Territory Government
Under the Australian Constitution, the States are responsible for everything not listed as a Federal responsibility. However, sometimes both levels are involved. Major State responsibilities include schools, hospitals, conservation and environment, roads, railways and public transport, public works, agriculture and fishing, industrial relations, community services, sport and recreation, consumer affairs, police, prisons and emergency services. Each state has its own constitution setting out its system of government.
Local Government
Local Government areas vary greatly in size and character. The Sydney area is divided into about 35 cities, municipalities or shires, each with its own local council. The bigger country centres such as Bathurst or Albury have city or municipal councils. Large but less populated country areas, with a number of small towns and large rural areas, are usually shires with a Shire Council based in one of the larger towns. The power of local governments is controlled by Acts of State Parliament such as the Local Government Acts. Local Councils are concerned with matters close to our homes, such as building regulations and development, public health, local roads and footpaths, parks and playing fields, libraries, local environmental issues, waste disposal, and many community services.
Who Does What?
It is not always easy to know which government is responsible for which service. Although the Federal Government is probably better known to many of us, the everyday things we do usually have more to do with our State or Local Governments.
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Great news in the Austrlian..
“The editor-in-chief of the Medical Journal of Australia has heralded the scheduled arrival of 500,000 COVID-19 test kits later this week that deliver a result in 15 minutes.”
Wow.
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Sounds good.
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Noticed the Lycra clad set not adhering to the two metre rule or the ban on non essential travel this morning .
For some reason the Gym association wants an exemption because they think they’re an essential service !
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This blog no doubt attracts those having high consequence of exposure to CV-19. Many may not be aware that Medicare recently issued billing items for so-called “telehealth” consultations related to circumstances around CV-19:
http://www.mbsonline.gov.au/internet/mbsonline/publishing.nsf/Content/news-2020-03-01-latest-news-March
These Telehealth billing codes are aimed at limiting exposure of high consequence individuals to unnecessary exposure. In my view they should also be applicable to people who have recently suffered a common cold, preventing them from visiting a surgery, but still need a prescription renewal. At my local clinic, the difference between having a billing number and none is $50. I can imagine few people will voluntarily offer that they recently suffered a “cold” if they are going to be $50 out of pocket for their honesty.
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> “This blog no doubt attracts those having high consequence of exposure to CV-19”
I see the oblique way you reply to points here, RickWill. No doubt you regard yourself as not of high risk. [Nor am I, by the way. I just have implacable resistance to locking healthy people away in indefinite solitary simply because of age].
> “These Telehealth billing codes are aimed at limiting exposure of high consequence individuals to unnecessary exposure”
Wrong there. Although the rhetoric is about “protecting the vulnerable” (a marketing euphemism), it’s actually about protecting the doctors. It is they who have self-isolated. A woman of my aquaintenance recently had a tele-consultation for a routine repeat Px. She waited on her phone for over 6 hours for her “slot” – the GP doing this was new to the surgery and had only the patients’ records. After a perfunctory 10 minutes, he said he would fax the repeat Px to her chosen pharmacy (one which this local surgery dealt with all the time). After 4 days, no Px or GP phone call was received by the pharmacy. The surgery reception tried to message the GP to find out why – no reply after over a week. She was invoiced, of course.
That system obviously works very well.
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We are told the shut downs will last for months and not weeks in the MSM. Really? If that’s true then we better be prepared for the biggest depression of all time. This is not joking matter. A shut down for such a period will destroy most businesses and hence jobs.
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Depression is possible, but the housing bubble has to burst before that happens.
In country towns small business is widespread and we are scrambling to survive, but with Morrison at the helm I’m confident of a refreshing outcome.
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Heading to online lectures and tutorials for Uni students where I work.
Will be interesting to see how well “the system” works for this afternoon’s lecture.
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I could be rather sarcastic and say this this is what the NBN was designed for. 😉
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Centrelink crashes.
Who would have thought, eh!
Tony.
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Exactly! It’s not like anyone could have predicted that when you shutdown the economy and thousands lose their jobs they might try to access a government website looking for help. Who could have known? Not our bloated bureaucracy in the Canberra bubble.
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So, how cool is this?
All the recommendations from the PM, his Health specialist, and the Queensland Government is for schools to stay open.
Sooooo, the Teachers Union says that if schools stay open, they’ll go on strike.
Problem solved I guess.
Tony.
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ACT Chief Minister did the same…because of Teachers Union pressure
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Teva Pharmaceuticals in Israel to donate 6 million hydroxychloroquine tablets through wholesalers to hospitals by March 31, and 10 million within a month.
https://www.israel21c.org/israels-teva-donating-potential-covid-19-treatment-to-us-hospitals/
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Hi Jo
Has any one worked out what this obsession with paper products is and where it started? I was in my local woolies in Perth on Saturday and almost everything was in stock except toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, dry pasta and baked beans. Is there a connection between excessive consumption of baked beans and the need for loads of toilet paper? 🙂
Strange thing is that there was plenty of canned fruit and veg, canned meat, stews, soups etc. all of which would seem to me to be far more appetising than baked bloody beans. So what gives? Is it simply a lot of dummies attached to smart phones following what they are being told by their new technological god? Strange days indeed.
Time was that during international emergencies people would go to the bank and take out their money but now they go to the supermarket and buy up toilet paper. Even after the banking royal commission people seem to have an unfounded trust in the financial system while at the same time a mad, unfounded, distrust of the food and grocery supply chain.
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Those who were in on the initial run on toilet paper were proven to be smart; Anthony Watt made a recommendation in early February to stock up toilet paper. Those slow to respond who ran short will not let that happen again. Poo paper is about as essential as you can get in modern Australia.
In the long run there could be supply issues because Australia has only been producing 60% of its needs in toilet paper; China a net exporter. There are indications that existing Australian production could achieve 90%. Will remain to be seen if we see fully stocked shelves at any time in 2020.
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“Has any one worked out what this obsession with paper products is and where it started?”
Its quite simple.
Whenever anyone coughs, everyone sh!ts themselves !!
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There was a Facebook post that showed an empty page on a writing pad and had the following quote , ” everything you need to stock up on ” .
Not being able to help myself I thanked them and said I’d forgotten to stock up on writing pads and was off to office works .
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I have no doubt that every government will consider this “pandemic” to be an invaluable guide as to how the masses will react and how easily they can be controlled (including the non compliant Bondi types, and shame on them too for getting fresh air and immune system boosting sun when they should be inside. End sarcasm) when a real crisis hits. See how people are now buying chooks and setting up veggie gardens.
Sorta like they should have been doing for the past few years to prep for the grand solar minimum, global cooling and global food chain chaos, as per all previous cycles.
Watching the PM live last night it’s a pity no one had the cahones to question why this level of control over people was never implemented for previous disease outbreaks with higher mortality rates (especially since nCov is WAY down the list…), or why people don’t just all wear facemasks instead of collapsing the economy into Great Depression #2, or why everything we do is being tracked and monitored to “protect the children” (reality: track money and asset movements by everyone. Tax grab ) and then let thousands of kids go to packed classrooms. Low risk you say? If you truly care then you should err on the side if safety first surely! Or us it more important for a year or rote learning automaton training?
I guess he wasn’t aware of the newborn babies in the UK and China who tested positive or the 9 month old in the USA positive too.
This will probably all go down in history as a gigantic sh*tshow like the fake CO2/warming lie.
Next month should be a real eye opener..
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Yesterday I noted that we in Port Macquarie now had 3 cases, up from 1 on Friday. Today the total is higher by another 2.
This in a town of around 50,000.
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On average each person infects another person per day. Ten days is 2^10 or 1,000x. That’s all it takes. Only isolation will stop this and until you can tell who is infected, that means everyone. Especially school children who should not be out playing with their friends! Otherwise expect 500 dead in weeks.
On the plus side, total isolation means the virus dies, not us. And just as fast. Three weeks would do.
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Peter, were all those cases inbounds?
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Tourist town , post Christmas holidays and summer, it would be a miracle if there arent far more.
20
US Senate battles over $1,800,000,000 virus/bailout bill
https://aumladder.blogspot.com/2020/03/us-senate-battles-over-1800000000.html
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Lombardy general practitioners “remember having seen very strange pneumonia in December and even November” https://aumladder.blogspot.com/2020/03/lombardy-general-practitioners-remember.html
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Lombardy general practitioners “remember having seen very strange pneumonia in December and even November” https://aumladder.blogspot.com/2020/03/lombardy-general-practitioners-remember.html
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Very, very interesting.
And this might help put some perspective on the “statistics” being thrown around.
KK
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As China gets back on its feet its king hit by a slackening demand.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3076329/coronavirus-china-braced-second-economic-shock-wave-covid-19
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No sympathy there.
10
_
Queensland councils to be tested for democratic support, but voters are washing their hands of it.
https://www.health.qld.gov.au/system-governance/legislation/cho-public-health-directions-under-expanded-public-health-act-powers/local-government-election-and-state-by-elections
Aside from sensible sanitary support, the official direction includes such totally redundant advice as “encourage voters not to gather or linger in or around the polling booth before or after voting.” Yeah so thrilling you can’t keep me away.
Chief Health Officer doing more to “clean up Queensland politics” in one day than the Crime and Misconduct Commission has in 5 years. 😀 nyuk nyuk
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Pauline Hansen OMG , She just did an interview with Gleeso on skynews and just as I was warming to her as a politician she opened her mouth and let australia know there is nothing between her ears but sound .
“The flu is worse than this virus” – and on and on it went , Mark Latham has probably had a heart attack by now .
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Not saying anything shady here but check this senators extremely good run of financial luck , you need to use the tabs for more detail .
http://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/net-worth/Bob-Corker?cid=N00027441&year=2016
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Coming to an Aldi near you, all of them actually.
Two meter tall plastic screens in the area of the check out operator, wraps around the end with a low level opening to allow you to gather your groceries and pay your bill. Not plexiglass like the vibrantly diverse areas in the US, but enough to keep the customers bodily fluids away from staff.
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