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The death toll in Oz still stands at 7, even though the number of infections is doubling every 3 days. We have already established that death rate figures are complete bollocks because of the numerous flaws in testing. But a toll of 7 would seem to be quite outstanding wouldn't it? (although NZ has 0)
Why does our brains trust think that is the case, and is likely to spike quite soon?
People's stupidity is difficult to scientifically measure.
These blokes however, have had enough....
VIDEO ===> Tuckbot
Many different dialects in this one. Its amazing how dissimilar Italian can be.
Not sure about the brains trust thing Brett but for what it's worth...On last night's Q&A, Prof. Paul Kelly (ANU) said that the average age of the 7 deceased was 86 and the youngest 77. Given that the infection rate is currently doubling every three days, it's inevitable that the mortality rate will increase until the latest brakes kick in, hopefully at a lesser rate. I suppose this'll take a couple of weeks due to the incubation period. I think it was Dr Norman Swan who predicted >50,000 infections by 10 April.Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
The predicted demand for hospital beds raises an ethical dilemma for medicos whose job it will be to triage the patients. At one end of the argument some say it will result in compulsory euthanasia and the others claim it's pure pragmatism in the absence of alternatives.
I'm fascinated by the changes in attitudes. The neo-conservatives are suddenly looking to their smaller governments for help rather than letting the market take care of everything and the climate deniers are all hanging onto the words of experts. I wonder if they've realised it yet.
mick
Is there an argument to be had here?Quote:
Originally Posted by Glider
The doctors will do what they can do to the best of their ability / capacity and it is what it is from there. Just like they would do in times of war.
I don't think this thread is the best forum for an argument on medical ethics. Such difficult choices are rare in the medical profession but they do happen in the career of any doctors working in a hospital or hospice. Of course they do their best under the circumstances but it does knock them around. Spare a thought for them.
mick
Indeed Mick. Very disturbing images of Chinese doctors "snapping" a month or two back. PTSD for life I would say is the result for them after a crisis during which they have to make such awful choices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Glider
I think medics face these dilemmas every day. They must reach a stage with every person where medicine, knowledge and machinery is either not good enough, pointless, futile or obscene.Quote:
Originally Posted by Glider
Interestingly, for those inclined to Science Fiction, there is a show Im deliberately re-watching called Altered Carbon (Netflix). It explores these issues in rich and compelling detail. The sub-narrative is completely fascinating. I strongly recommend it.
You are NOT WRONG!!!!!!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Glider
It went from :
-- the market knows and fixes all
-- hands-off government style
-- hands off our businesses
-- taxes are critical
-- unemployment benefits are Just Fine
To :
-- Bail Out the Big Boys: 125 BILLION EVERY DAY for eternity (USD$625 Billion a week!!!!) Unprecedented Intervention: The Fed Will Purchase $125 Billion In Securities Every Day | Zero Hedge
-- Micromanaged interventions and a strong totalitarian response
-- Telling each and every business what it must do
-- Taxes are now Out The Door
-- Unemployment benefits double
Its almost MAGICAL what shapes these Neo-Liberals can twist themselves into when it affects them personally.
The moral hazard is absolutely unreal. I've a thousand examples.
They are all morally bankrupt. Their ideals are simply formulated to enrich themselves. This disaster has exposed them for the complete hypocrites they are.
It reminds me of the Animal Farm --> "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
(By the way, I dont disagree with societies response, simply the political pricks delivering it)
The number of deaths will depend on things like, the ages of people that catch it, their existing health conditions and level, availability and quality of health care, and extent of testing and tracking. We've done OK on testing but maybe not so well on tracking.Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
So far the greatest proportion of cases in OZ have been travellers who tend to be younger and healthier which has probably kept the death rates down. Australia has a younger age profile than many other countries so all else being equal we should end up with a lower overall death rate (relative to total population not testing), if we don't, we have really screwed up. The Graphs shows not meany people over 70 have been infected.
Attachment 470398
Apart from a couple of cases a success story so far has been keeping COVID19 out of retirement villages and nursing homes although they should probably have gone into full lock down about 3 weeks ago. My Mums place only went yesterday. Mums got dementia but when my sister finally told her yesterday about the situation she seemed to take it in her stride, probably because she's had to cope with many hardships in her life.
Things went pear shaped in Italy once the number of ICU/ventilators were too small to cope with requirements. I don't know about other states but in WA, as of yesterday morning there were 140 cases, 1 death 1 recovered, 12 in ICU and 2 serious. This probably reflects the ages of those infected and that the ICUs are capable of handling these numbers.
This is a very simplified analysis but let's say the numbers increase by only a factor of 10 ie 1400 cases, 120 needing ICU with 20 serious cases. With only 100 ICU units currently in the state (supposedly another 100 on the way) things are going to get deadly. Given a factor of 10 is only about 2 weeks away then a full lock down and more deaths seems inevitable.
Just touching back to the original "empty shelves" theme: apparently food seeds and seedlings are now having a run on them here (Oz), but it's kinda the wrong time of year to start growing many things. In any case, I already have a supply of seeds (always do), and I'm going to build some plastic tents. Would appreciate any ideas in this thread:
Small individual greenhouses for my vege garden this winter - anyone with experience?
I too was thinking about the OP - I wonder how many members ever thought it would come down to where we are today in just 4 weeks when all we were worried about was empty tool shelves?
Quote:
Originally Posted by enceFurniture
As the OP, I was thinking the same thing a couple of minutes before you posted, Bob and FF. Who would have thought a thread on potential tool shortages would run to over 600 posts.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
Sincere best wishes to everyone; be strong and compassionate.
Fair Winds
Graeme
PS: Does anyone know if Bunnings or M10 are still open? Does anyone care?
Removed as it wasn't particularly relevant.
I've seen the hysterical twit feeds on this and there are lots of explanations. One is that many Chinese mobile phones are supplied by workplaces - no work - no phone. Censorship ie removal and shut down by authorities, because just like westerners they like to gossip. Maybe some Chinese finally realised they were being tracked, and valued their privacy or likelihood of being forcibly quarantined or jailed, over the value of their mobile.Quote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
Kiwi friend emailed me yesterday:
"... Jacinda Adern has just announced Level 3.....all non essential businesses must close, we must stay away from all outside public places, playgrounds etc. all schools are closing as of tomorrow....apart from children of essential workers who have 48 hours to arrange alternative arrangements.
In 48 hours (midnight from Wednesday) we are Level 4.... everyone is in lockdown, everyone must stay at home, for 4 weeks!!!!! Supermarkets, Pharmacies, medical services remain open.
NZ is trying to save thousands of lives, (the consequences if we don’t) ..."
I have a couple rifles and ammo, hunting permits etc so food isn't a problem or isolation.Toilet paper on the other hand...........
Thousands of cruise ship passengers told to self-isolate due to coronavirus days after disembarking
(Source: Thousands of cruise ship passengers told to self-isolate due to coronavirus days after disembarking - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation))
On March 18 Health Minister Greg Hunt issued an emergency biosecurity order preventing any cruise vessels from docking in Australia for the next month.
The Australian Border Force Commissioner has said 13 passenger cruise ships were still at sea at the time the order came into force.
Of those 13, the Voyager of the Seas and the Ovation of the Seas docked on March 18, the Ruby Princess docked on March 19, and the Celebrity Solstice docked on March 20.
Some passengers from each of those ships have now tested positive for coronavirus.
People who had been on the Ovation of the Seas were assured in writing by NSW Health officials, and verbally while on the vessel, that they did not need to go into self-quarantine.
But four days after they arrived, passengers began receiving emails and calls from NSW Health officials on the morning of Saturday, March 22 advising them they urgently needed to self-quarantine.
On (the) arrival (of the Ruby Princess) in Sydney on Thursday, March 19, Mr *** expected a long wait at the port for border and health checks, given the concern around cruise vessels in the past. But that never happened. "It was just rush, rush, getting off," he told 7.30.
Forty-eight people who were onboard the Ruby Princess have since been confirmed to have coronavirus.
The above is alarming. What follows is worse.
(The) NSW Health director of communicable diseases, said NSW Health had undertaken risk assessments on all vessels that had arrived in port
"We recognised that risk was there and had a pragmatic approach towards trying to assess that risk," ...
...(The Director) ... said the Ruby Princess was considered to be low risk based on a number of factors.
"No passengers or crew had come from a high-risk country before boarding the ship," .....
"The rate of acute respiratory illness was very low.
"Putting these factors together, it didn't appear there was a significant outbreak of COVID-19 on the ship."
Two notes:
- the NSW Director of Communicable Diseases acknowledged that there was a low rate occurence of acute respiratory illness on the ship, and
- What level of outbreak of COVID-19 is insignificant?
We should have done this two weeks ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by GraemeCook
Here's an interesting testing data table (ordered in terms of #tests/million people)
From COVID-19 testing - Wikipedia
Australia was 4th or 5th on the list for test/million a few days ago, but now we are 15th (OK 13th if we remove the underpopulated Canadian provinces)
Another thing we have going for us is low numbers of positives/1000 tests (12), we are ~16th on the list for this but that includes dubious places like Russia and china.
BTW NZ has only done 8000 tests and has 17 cases per 1000 tests.
If we hold our nerve and institute a total lock down ASAP we have as good a chance as anyone with this thing.
Contrary to popular belief Taiwan only has 1000 tests/million? and 7.1 cases per test.
Attachment 470409
If you are truly isolated you can always drop yer daks in de backyard and use a hose.Quote:
Originally Posted by fxst
If it's raining take daks off and ride around on bike (standing off the saddle) will eventually wash it all off - and down your legs as well.
Nope not a misprint someone from these cruises died a few hours ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by GraemeCook
But what a cock up of the highest order. The whole self quarantine has been a crock from when it first started.
"Oh I will just go to the shops, or work until the test results come in" etc.
Checking in late on this thread.
Ordered ingredients for hand sanitiser three weeks ago and no problem sourcing back then. Was thinking ahead for family and friends who might not get themselves organised before supermarket supplies ran out. Yet to make up a batch as our regular pre-virus supplies are still holding up. Have always had a spare bottle on hand as an essential with snotty young grandkids.
I've been in voluntary isolation for two weeks now. Our immunologist son recommended that I go into early isolation ahead of the curve; being an asthmatic and (just) a bit over the hill I'm a prime candidate. This far into strict isolation I'm thinking it's going to feel like an eternity if it goes on for six months of incarceration, or more. I have toyed with the idea of getting it early before the hospital system is overwhelmed, but no guarantee that I wouldn't still be in an ICU when the peak hits.
Here are a few websites/articles, if you haven't come across them already.
First one has daily stats by country. Nothing new there other than the fact that it is run by a 17yr old. There is some hope for us yet!
Coronavirus Dashboard
I love a graph and here are a couple of recent articles with curves and projections.
As I write the first article/page was current 7 hours ago (I'm not sure how regularly they update it). Helpful to have the data plotted from the same base; ie. since 10th death (so Australia not included) in first graph and since 100th confirmed case in third graph.
Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads | Free to read | Financial Times
The second article is from a financial analyst having a go at some projections. My epidemiologist friend says that financial people should stick to their knitting. Anyway, here it is for those who like do a bit of forecasting with a few coefficients and slopes.
Peak Virus: Forecasting the Peak in COVID-19 Infections in the US and Australia - Christopher Joye | Livewire
Having an immunologist in the family I've been primed to the high probability of all of this for decades, but that doesn't reduce the discomfort and disquiet from the daily impact that it is having now that it is here with us.
This will pass with hopefully as few casualties as possible, but on the other side of the 'bridge' the bigger challenge still awaits us.
Back now to the sanctuary of my workshop where everything seems quite normal. It's where I'm going to keep me sanity through all of this...:U
funny, my wife and i discussed this earlier tonight ...Quote:
Originally Posted by GraemeCook
as I understand the facts considered by NSW Health, especially in relation to the Ovation of the Seas
1. The ships loaded in Sydney and headed towards NZ. (so far, so good.)
2. Boarding passengers were temperature "checked" before boarding.
3. The ships didn't make any port calls or stops in NZ because, before they arrived in NZ, all NZ ports were closed. (so the passengers hadn't actually traveled anywhere they could be exposed to the virus.)
4. The ships returned to Sydney where the passengers who had originally boarded in Sydney were permitted to disembark because, in effect, they hadn't been "anywhere". (so the passengers could be classified as "well" as they hadn't been anywhere they could be "exposed" to a source of the virus.)
Taking the above into account, I see two possible scenarios:
A. among the passengers was a person (or persons) who was asymptomatic to the virus, who then went on to infect the other passengers. (would this be a case of community transmission ?)
B. one or more of the cruise line crew is an asymptomatic carrier of the virus.
There is a third scenario,
C. testing in Australia is so poorly targeted that it's not so much people slipping through the cracks in the testing system, but one of people passing through the gaping holes in the system.
The other possibility is that the virus was already on the ship - I read somewhere this morning that it lasted for 17 days on a surface (which I think may have also been a ship cabin). I don't what the turnaround time is for those ships but I imagine that they are constantly full of people.
(edit) Here it is:
CDC: coronavirus survived in Princess Cruise cabins up to 17 days after passengers left
Thanks, NeilQuote:
Originally Posted by NeilS
Enjoy your voluntary social separation!
You'd have to think that the Cruise ship industry will be buggered for years, if not permanently, after this. They must be massively profitable when you consider what the cost of those behemoths must be, and how many of them there seems to be. Personally I'm not even remotely interested in a cruise.
More info from New Cruise Ships in 2019 - Cruise Critic
The cruise ship building boom that began in 2018 continues in 2019 with 18 brand-new oceangoing cruise ships hitting the open waters (that's four more than in 2018), including some first-in-class vessels and more new expedition ships than the industry has ever seen before.
Ships launching in 2019 will range in size from 70-passenger expedition ships to 6,600-passenger mega-ships. More small ships will debut in 2019 than large ships -- just seven of the 18 ships will carry 1,000 cruisers or more.
And from another source:
Total worldwide ocean cruise capacity at the end of 2018 will be 537,000 passengers and 314 ships.
I'd be pretty sure that building boom just stopped in it wake.
"... Without serious action, Australia may run out of intensive care beds by early April ..."
Without serious action, Australia will run out of intensive care beds | Medium
This paper is based on the simple premise that at the existing exponential rate of growth of COVID-19 and that 5% of cases will be classed as serious requiring intensive care beds, then Australia will simply run out of available ICU beds between 7-9 April 2020. That is, Tuesday to Wednesday the week after next. A little earlier in NSW, a little later in some other states.
It is probably unrealistic to think that the government can obtain more such beds within the next two weeks, and it probably understates how many beds will be required for other, non-COVID-19, patients. Anecdotal evidence is that ICU's already have very high occupancy rates.
This is scary!
This is an interesting article about testing for immunity to COVID-19. There would be a lot of peace of mind knowing that you could not catch the virus.
Finding ways to forge through the COVID-19 pandemic – Harvard Gazette
UQ, with help from some Pharma, is working on a vaccine.
Race to develop coronavirus vaccine - UQ News - The University of Queensland, Australia
Looks quite promising. But it won't be available tomorrow.
NSW currently has 874 ICU beds. At this point in time, of the 818 confirmed cases, 12 are in ICU and 8 require ventilators.
Thats 1.4% in ICU - hope those percentages don’t increase.
We haven't reached peak infection but simple scaling suggests that once the 704 cases reach ~50,000 there will be enough serious cases amongst them to require all the ICU beds. That of course assumes assumes similar rates of seriousness and no deaths or recoveries amongst the current serious cases. It also leaves no beds for any other ICU cases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lappa
Hopefully the recent changes will help slow things down other wise it will be too late.
PS: Does anyone know if Bunnings or M10 are still open? Does anyone care?[/QUOTE]
Here in Victoria yes they are (at the moment).
Yes I care. I need the hardware store open for spare parts and other supplies.
Here in Victoria yes they are (at the moment).Quote:
Originally Posted by Handyjack
Yes I care. I need the hardware store open for spare parts and other supplies.[/QUOTE]
still open and trading normally........they are pretty busy with everyone stocking up
At work today, we have implemented a bunch of things to reduce infection between the office, the guys upstairs designing roof trusses and the grunts like me on the factory floor. No one is to enter another section anymore which is pretty easy for the office workers and the designers. But the factory has multiple zones and processes, of which I can operate all at speed, but most staff can only do one or two zones as assistants. With the amount of work winding down, we are needing to move around a lot having person A work with person B on machine Z, and then person A needs to move to another area and work with person C on machine Y etc etc. So apart from allocating a tape measure, hammer, staple gun and any other bits n pieces to each grunt, we now need to disinfect machinery as we begin to work on them. My point is, social distancing with just ~10ppl doing set processes is a freeken nightmare. I'm in favour of eradicating the virus rather than herd immunity (flattening the curve), as eradication just seems much more plausible. I reckon as more voices like mine are heard, lock down will be in full force by Sunday night.
As we have 2229 ICU beds, that gives us a 4.4% max requiring ICU at 50,000 infections. It’s going to be close.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
i spoke to my sister today - she’s in lockdown in country California. She said Trumpy is considering lifting the lockdowns but she reckons the Governors will overrule him.
My ears are still burning from her appraisal of the guy.:o
An Italian cousin works as a carpenter/joiner from a home wood workshop in a small village in the Alps (district of Trento) and says no hardware stores are open in his district. He's only permitted to work if its an emergency - he makes doors and window fames so not a lot of call for this. So far in 3 weeks of shut down he's only done one paid job replacing a damaged window in a house in the mountains. He does a few odd jobs for himself otherwise he's totally locked down.
We're already seeing this and we're not even locked down. My local FB page is full of people asking for work. And this is only a week and a half into it. What's it going to be like after six months?Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
He's got work do but he's not allowed to do it, or hasn't got the timber or the fixtures and can't get them because the sellers are shut.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tccp123
Not sure if anyone has posted this:
Telehealth system expanded to help patients get help during coronavirus pandemic, more test kits and masks on the way - ABC News
Regards from Perth
Derek
Attachment 470425
Good effort, .06%
At the moment in my area, most businesses are open and it’s business as usual, although lack of patronage is evident in the retail shops. Supermarkets are busy. Obviously restaurants, coffee shops are take away only but most coffee shops were opening around 7am this morning. My favourite coffee shop still had tables on top of each other before the latest close down and people were avoiding it like the plague so there is hope that people are listening. Now they are take away only.
I still had a class Monday with one notified absence. We were supposed to have a hookup with management who were going to explain the future today but that didn’t eventuate which is not uncommon when they call meetings.
None of the students have been told about close downs at work so I can’t see much changing in my industry unless they go UK style.
What are others seeing in your neighbourhood?