This morning while at the Post Office,
I was in the queue when two men with masks entered.
Total panic!
Then they said, "This is a robbery" and
we all calmed down.
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This morning while at the Post Office,
I was in the queue when two men with masks entered.
Total panic!
Then they said, "This is a robbery" and
we all calmed down.
I saw this headline on the ABC website
Coronavirus hangs over Australian sport like an ominous sense of dread
Then I had a browse of some Italian news websites reporting
Increasing numbers of younger people with COVID19 without comorbidities turning up at hospitals needing ventilators.
Medical staff including medical students in their final years of study working 12 hour days.
Child COVID19 carriers being baby sat by grandparents resulting in high numbers of seniors dying.
Groups of people on "fun runs" through cities being confronted by small groups of elderly persons and told using a full range of expletives and gestures to go home.
Small groups from the cities illegally leaving their homes and moving to the countryside (plenty of spare housing in dilapidated old villages in Italy) following regular medieval practices especially involving the bubonic plague. Naturally any Locals are highly highly concerned about this and reporting them - sooner or later they may start taking the law into their own hands.
Individuals singing and playing various instruments including kitchen utensils from their apartment windows and balconies some forming community choirs in solidarity.
Numerous small fish appearing in previously near lifeless Venetian canals.
[QUOTE=BobL;2177617)Increasing numbers of younger people with COVID19 without comorbidities turning up at hospitals needing ventilators.)
[/QUOTE]
Hands up all those who didn't have to Google ""comorbidities" :-)
Excerpt from a piece in The Australian:
"It might seem like it, but this isn’t the world’s first flu pandemic. In 2009 H1N1 — known as “swine flu” — infected 61 million people and killed about 590,000 globally, 80 per cent of whom were younger than 65.
In 1968, the H3N2 flu killed one million people, including 100,000 in the US, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
About a decade before that, the H2N2 flu pandemic killed 1.1 million people.
None of the previous pandemics caused a recession, let alone a near 30 per cent drop in global stock prices.
This is, however, the first flu epidemic where everyone has a digital megaphone.
There’s no reason why this coronavirus should be far more deadly than those previous flu pandemics, provided the death rate ends up lower than feared."
Funny in this context but not so funny when you are behind the counter when it is said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tccp123
Just as important as the death rate are things like the infection rate, incubation period transmissibility during incubation. So far on balance Covid19 seems nastier than the ones you referred to. Using a back of the envelop calculation i estimated about 100000 people in just Oz will die in the first wave of COVID19 unless significant steps are taken. A few days later medical experts came out with the same number (96000). The final death rate could be much higher because depending how quickly it is allowed to develop because it can easily overwhelm medical facilities causing many other people with serious medical problems to also die because the can’t be attended to. Just like any pandemic this is also just the first wave until a vaccine is available it will revisit us and reap more victims a number of times.
"Covid19 seems nastier than the ones you referred to"
Why do you say that?
The 96,000 deaths referred to were quotes as being possible if the worse case scenario occurred which were deaths in the younger population as well as the elderly, rapid spread in a very short period of time over whelming the hospital system, etc, etc.
I blame the media including social media for all this panic - the Daily Tele ran a front page article with your numbers claiming “96,0000 Australians to die” then ran the conditions required to reach that number on page three.
The other thing that amuses me is we can’t have a gathering of 500 people or more buts it’s OK to travel in a train with standing room only, for 40 minutes to an hour, to go to work?
Longer incubation period during which those infected don't seem to be showing clear symptoms which gives them a greater chance of spreading it around.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tccp123
Many children and young adults may not get any symptoms so become very effective spreaders. At least with the other flu's if anyone caught it caught they exhibited the symptoms pretty rapidly so were placed into isolation.
The latest estimates by US epidemiologists are, if more is not done asap, there will be about 1 million COVIOD19 deaths in the US alone (this roughly matches the 100000 in Oz) many of those will not COVID sufferers due to the lack of facilities - this makes it ~10X worse than H1H1.
The Chinese actions in Hubei were extremely draconian but so far appear to have been successful in containing this first wave. They had to be draconian because they were the first to be exposed so had no idea how bad it would be, and in this first wave appear to have got away with just 3000 odd deaths. Most people have no idea that pandemics don't work proportionally but exponentially so by any country taking too few countermeasures too slowly this enables the disease to very quickly get totally out of controls eg Italy.
I had to admit I was on the "YAWN" side about the whole thing started but this changed especially after following a few medical websites, talking to two of the family who are epidemiologists, and even more so when my numerous relatives in Italy started contacting me about it. Whatever the case I would rather hope a lot less people than 100,000 Australian die from Covid19 - for reference ~3500 a year die from the regular flu.
I don't think the government or aussies are taking this anywhere seriously enough. I don't watch much TV but have not seen a single public health announcement about this on TV or as official social media announcements. Done right these could serve to calm as much as heighten peoples awareness about this.
As Dr Norman Swan from the ABC health report says "When this is all over I will be very happy if only a few thousand people die and to be told, or hear shock jocks saying, I told you so, versus to hear, you were right"
Congratulations, Bob, you have used a word that is not in the Oxford English Dictionary - the real twelve volume OED on paper with hard covers!Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
So I turned to an American source, the National Institute of Health, who state as follows: "...Comorbidity is associated with worse health outcomes, more complex clinical management, and increased health care costs. There is no agreement, however, on the meaning of the term, and related constructs, such as multimorbidity, morbidity burden, and patient complexity, are not well conceptualized....".
Defining Comorbidity: Implications for Understanding Health and Health Services
I think this paraphrases as comorbidity is serious but we are not sure what it is.
Maybe I should ask Dr Google?
World Health have estimated that in infected areas between 60-70% of the population will contract COVIOD-19, and the mean death rate recorded is around 2%. Angela Merkel has stated that it is possible that up to 70% of the German population may become infected and that their government is planning for that level of disruption. She stopped short of saying that Germany is planning for up to 1 million deaths from the virus; just simple arithmetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
So true; filtering the announcements through the mouths of politicians certainly impacts on its credibility. ScoMo's performance on TV the other night had as much gravitas as the ladies flogging laundry detergents. I would much rather hear directly from the Director of Public Health.Quote:
I don't think the government or aussies are taking this anywhere seriously enough. I don't watch much TV but have not seen a single public health announcement about this on TV or as official social media announcements. Done right these could serve to calm as much as heighten peoples awareness about this.
Services NSW are emailing how to's and updates
The Italian mortality rate (based on published figures) is 0.002%. If you apply that to the Australian population it's about 560.
Another side effect is with cancellation of sports events, schools, workplace disruptions is the internet is getting swamped with extra traffic and slooooowwwwwiiinnngggg down with people working from home, downloading movies and on line gaming
That's probably true. Pornhub has given quarantined Italians free access to premium Pornhub while in lockdown....and now we have the answer as to why all the dunny paper panic buying :DQuote:
Originally Posted by rwbuild
Looking at todays cumulative death rate per head of population is an unreliable indicator about what is going on now and what might happen. That's why we don't see death rates published by medical people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tccp123
Peak infection let alone peak mortality in all EU countries appears far from being reached
Here are the known infections for Italy, Spain, Germany, France, and USA
Attachment 469948 Attachment 469949 Attachment 469950 Attachment 469951 Attachment 469954
Australia's curve is not much different.
Attachment 469960
Oz Public health officials should have probably nobbled air travel and large gatherings back when the curve was flattening out in Mid Feb.
Now its growing exponentially and could be really hard to slow down.
Until these graphs tip over we won't have much of a clue about what is going on and should play it safe - not my words, but from epidemiologists.
The only graph that has tipped over is in China where in a region of about 60 million people after DRACONIAN control measures were applied they report ~3000 deaths.
If that's true, that's commendable, but as I said the death rate before won't be proportional to control. If controls are backed off by even just a whisker then the growth can continue to be exponential.
I am reminded of nuclear reactor control, if the control rods are not inserted far enough the reactor can very rapidly get out of control, sometimes just backing them off by just a mm can result in a runaway section.
Anyway this is largely irrelevant to the Italian medical staff on the front line who are stacking the 250 people that died from COVID19 yesterday in their morgues largely because they did not have the ventilators or staff to cope with the additional rush.
Should we be accepting the death rates of past epidemics as any sort of guide of how to live today? Imagine the uproar if we have to occasionally use abacuses?
I'd rather miss a footy for a few weeks or months than for any of our docs to be placed in the same position as many Italian medical staff are current facing right now and for the foreseeable future. Never mind those that died.
a couple more charts
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/478H...capita__1_.jpg
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Mw6r...100th_case.png
It looks like South Korea may be getting on top of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Not as sure about Iran,
Italy is on the data still accelerating.
and as for the US, "nothing to see here" is starting to look beyond wishful
Going off on a slightly different tangent, given the chaos reported in supermarkets yesterday, what do YOU plan to do (in terms of shopping) to ensure you have enough to get through the weeks/months ahead? Will you just act normally and allow all the nervous nellies to strip the shelves bare or do you wade in with them so you have enough to keep you going?
We have an upright freezer which SWMBO keeps pretty much full at all times and our pantry is always well stocked so we should be OK. The only thing that we were low on was breakfast cereal so I bought 2 packets yesterday. We have fresh vegetables in the garden and the apple trees have fruit on them
The only thing I have doubled up on are medications for both of us. At a pinch, we could survive without those if we were careful as neither of us have life threatening conditions.
I reckon that we would be able to survive up to 3 months isolation so not particularly worried.
I have just about finished all required outside jobs so am prepared to spend any isolation in the workshop where there are 3 projects on the drawing board
I have been giving serious thought to this question. Normally I only buy personal toiletry items, slabs of bottled water (4-5 a time to make it worth grabbing a trolley), juice, and chocolate from Coles/Wooleys. I probably should buy some stuff, but I don't want to be "one of those people!".Quote:
Originally Posted by Tccp123
Attachment 469966
There are 5 Coles/Wooleys/Aldi's within 3km of my house and they haven't had dunny paper, bleach, spagetti etc etc for the last week and a bit (since I noticed anyway, could have been longer but I don't go in those aisles normally).
If you think the toilet paper and tissue shortage is bad now, wait till they close the schools and you have thousands of teenage boys at home with nothing to do.:D
I doubt that they will stay home but rather hang around shopping centres. The girls will be just as bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexS
Well, (apart from a few people visiting us and taking me out to see mum who is in dementia care, or for coffee) we have been confined to the house for the last 4 weeks because I have a broken ankle and SWMBO has vertigo and cannot ride in a car let alone drive. For a week or so we've had friends and relatives visiting and bringing groceries but for the last 3 weeks we have used on-line shopping so we're reasonably practiced at this now. It's not perfect but we have not gone without everything except dunny paper, and have even built our pantry up this way. I hope I can get the Moon Boot off early next week and get a few more things including some specialised bulk roo meat pet food which we purchase from a specific supplier.
As far a dunny pape goes we have some but we also have a bidet tap next to one of the dunnies.
According to QLD health authorities they only have about half the required numbers of ventilators needed for even a modest projected outbreak and NSW have even less. Small simple ventilators are available from china but the more advanced ones come from Europe/Japan but I guess we won't be getting many from those sources.
NZ have only 6 confirmed cases and they are about to tighten their borders far tighter than we are.
I cannot see why we are still allowing flights to or from anywhere in SEA.
China may be ok sooner than elsewhere but they may not be letting any Aussies in.
But modelling of previous epidemics show that travel restriction does very little, only high levels of social distancing can really put a dent in the progress of an epidemic.
Is this the same idiot that said, when this first started, there was no need to check the temperatures of people entering Australia or restricting flights in from countries such as China?Quote:
Originally Posted by GraemeCook
South Korea and a Japan have been doing this for some time.
BTW I agree the Scott Morrison’s performance last night was pathetic.
Latest news states they don’t know how long the virus lasts for on surfaces eg door knobs etc. Information suggests between a few hours and maybe a couple of days.
So once again, why are they saying public transport is OK?
The only places open should be supermarkets and pharmacies and they should be playing classical music.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chesand
It might not matter if schools are open or closed eventually enough students will be staying home that the ratbags will be the first to skip classes. Italy is offering free downloads , might be away to keep them at home??
I would hark back to post #64 (page 5) and point out little that Craig warned of has not eventuated.
Coronavirus: Analysts Don't Understand It - Craig Dalton | Seeking Alpha
This was the final warning in the last paragraphs:
"But the purpose of this article is not to predict an outcome, but more to promote a sceptical assessment of analyses suggesting this is a short term event on a par with SARS or recent pandemics.
(Blog post updated 19th February, 2020)
Dr Craig Dalton is a public health physician and conjoint Associate Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He is a former CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer and runs Flutracking.net one of the largest national surveillance systems for influenza-like illness in the world."
It could be a protracted pandemic and this in itself sets it apart from previous flues and other significant illnesses. In the last 24 hours we have at work implemented precautions. We are a group of people where working from home is not an option!
Regards
Paul
I might chip in on this one, as I do have a bit of cocktail-party knowledge.... My son works alongside the owner of a fairly large IGA here. He is a "Do-All", but mostly ensuring the shop is kept spiffing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tccp123
There is absolutley NO SHORTAGE of anything other than for shelf-grabbers. Metcash, the supplier to literally all supermarkets regardless of brand, has storerooms stuffed to the gills.
The only reason TP is short, is because stupid people are grabbing 10 packets at a time. Rational rationing of this stupidity will guarantee supply to all.
If people thought there was a sudden shortage of Grunkohl or Surströmming they would stack their pantries. Yes, Grunkohl is a thing they stock!
--> ON MEDS
However, I might add, importantly, I did ask the local chemist about blood pressure and cholesterol management drugs... YES there is a shortage. YES it will get worse. YES they will run out. ALL the bases are made in China and India and they are NOT getting more for the foreseeable future.
My local bloke is a compounding chemist and I had a joke with him that all he needs to do is release the recipe to the local meth cooks and it would be solved overnight, he advised its not that simple. The bases are super important and not readily "brewed up".
DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS IF YOU NEED THEM.
Be safe.
Attachment 469971
Here is a link to a first hand Italian experience : From an Italian to the rest of the world: you have no idea about what'''s coming. : China_Flu
On another note, my three contact in China are gone. I have no word. Last I heard is they had run out of food and money, ones father was sick.... now, nothing. Not even a post. IDK what this means.
I would ask you to go to the Wuhan live cameras. See how many residential lights are on? None. It is 3 hours behind us (+8 GMT), so its 9pm right now.....
Be safe.
It looks as though the NZ Government is doing a Ken Henry -- go fast, go hard, go big, go familiesQuote:
Originally Posted by BobL
depending on how the NRL reacts, the 2020 season might be abandoned, given that if the NZ Warriors return to NZ they will face a 14 day quarantine and thus miss the Eden Park double header with Australian Rugby.
would be nice if the Aus Gov were a little more proactive with encouraging social distancing.
an update based on what Alberta and the rest of Canada is doingQuote:
Originally Posted by ian
Canada's population is about 36 Mil.
Australia's population is about 26 Mil. So population wise, an approx 50% difference.
Canada has 218 confirmed cases of Covid-19.
As of Saturday morning (March 14), Australia had 197 confirmed cases. Say 1.5 times the number of confirmed cases in Canada.
Alberta. Gatherings of more than 250 people are actively discouraged and outright banned if the 250 will include vulnerable people e.g. over 65s, travelers from outside Canada. BTW,
In AUS the restriction is on gatherings of 500 or more and importantly the "ban" doesn't start till after this weekend's footy matches. Go figure!
Canada is leaving the flu season.
Australia is entering the flu season. Not good.
I'm afraid that once again our leadership is letting us down badly. Scotty from marketing announcing to all and sundry that he intended to attend a footy game before the crowd ban comes in tomorrow because "it might be the last one I'll see for a while". Then he announces that he doesn't need testing for CV while cleaners in bio suits swab down the Cabinet Room after Peter Dutton because he's been advised that it's unnecessary.
I put the whole panic thing down to social media. In Oberon, where NO ONE walks up the street with their head buried in a smartphone, there's the normal stocks of dunny paper on the shelves. No wait! I did see one bloke with a loaded trolley five days ago. SWMBO reckons he's probably a loo paper scalper from Sydney set to make a killing from the fearful.
Marshall McLuhan was spot on. "The medium is the message. That is merely to say the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale which is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves or by any new technology."
Rumoured shortages = panic buying = unexpected production demand = longer lead times = empty shelves. We saw it all in industry in the early 80s. Thank goodness the supermarkets are applying the brakes. Hopefully pharmacies will take their lead.
mick
Using in your figures, Canada’s infection rate, as a percentage of population, is 0.000606 and Australia’s is 0.000758.Quote:
Originally Posted by ian
Where is this “1.5 times” coming from?
The toilet paper fiasco is bizarre. Millmerran, a town of a little over 1400 people, has two supermarkets and there is no toilet paper to be had. people from Brisbane travelled to Toowoomba with the express purpose of buying up toilet paper but found the shelves bare so they continued on to Pittsworth, another 40Kms away, where they found the same bar shelves. Not to be daunted over this they went another 40km to millmerran where they bought everything on the shelves loaded up their vehicles and left.
Millmerran is now out of loo roll.
I have to assume these people were scalpers and not just your everyday fearful person in the street. So perhaps the government could make itself useful and introduce emergency legislation to make it illegal to sell such product at more than the recommended price: Just for a few months perhaps before reverting to normal commercial practice. This would be more to discourage similar activities with other products than solely for the once ubiquitous and humble loo roll.
Regards
Paul
EDIT: This story has been debunked. Full apology on next page (post #204)
how to solve the TP shortage by Rob Cosman
YouTube
Population of Canada -- 37.6 million (source: Canada, Demographic IndicatorsQuote:
Originally Posted by Lappa
-
Google Public Data Explorer )
population of Australia -- 25.2 million (source: 3101.0 - Australian Demographic Statistics, Jun 2019 )
37.6/25.2 = 1.49 (close enough to 1.5 ??)
I'll accept your figures for infection rates because
1. the number of Canadians testing positive has increased very materially in the last 24 hours, and
2. I haven't seen the latest figures for Australia as it's still early Sunday morning in Perth, and
3. currently there's a PLUS 17 hour time difference between Sydney and where I live in Alberta meaning that with the rapid change in the number of confirmed COVID-19 infections comparison of infection rates are more than a bit rubbery.
The point I was trying to convey was that in Canada the restrictions on travel (essentially don't travel outside the country) and limits on venue size (maximum of 250 people) compare less than favourably with those currently in place for Australia (venue size limit of 500 doesn't start till Monday) and overseas travel is still mostly OK.
I was at my local nordic centre this morning (Saturday) and while the place was fully staffed and the maintenance staff were working outside, the place was fully taped off because it can accommodate more than 250 people. although the corridors, toilets and cafeteria (limit to 3 people at a time) were still functioning the centre looked like a ghost town.
Anyone seen the ads? The ones I’ve seen are about as attention grabbing as a blank hospital ward wall, Too little, too late, too slow, too confusing, too much political backside covering, too selfish, too self serving, etc
i guess it’s business as usual?
it's just too depressingQuote:
Originally Posted by BobL
That's the really sad part.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
Once again Australians look across the ditch and think "why can't we be more like ..."
Bob,Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
Has put it put perfectly,
The real problem is investment,
If we all just sit inside for a few weeks take a breather extra.
But all I hear on the news is sports are cancelled($)
This is canceled($)
Extra
As for Scotty,well he showed his true marketing colours during the fires.
Sorry Rant over,
Cheers Matt.
As an isolated nation with a small population and only small pockets of population densities, you would like to think we have a better scenario than most countries to deal with the situation
Lets hope our fearless leaders are up to the challenge.