Thread: Potential Good News On the COVID Front

I feel kind of glad right now that I am "stuck" in a country that never seemed to be flustered by the idea of "do whats best for the many". Can we believe the official numbers? I'm not entirely sure, but at the same time everyone went early into face masks all the time, a lot of offices shut down - wfh - schools closed early, graduations, outdoor events cancelled, etc. Most of it happened with a simple "please" from the government. The fact that Vic, a relatively sparsely populated state outran Tokyo, a super dense city almost equal the entirety of Australias population, suggests something very interesting.

Things are pretty much back to normal here, as far as you'd know, but of course there are no tourists, and everyone continues to wear a mask all the time. It's almost like universal co-operation and thinking of others works or something

Originally Posted by q9

I feel kind of glad right now that I am "stuck" in a country that never seemed to be flustered by the idea of "do whats best for the many". Can we believe the official numbers? I'm not entirely sure, but at the same time everyone went early into face masks all the time, a lot of offices shut down - wfh - schools closed early, graduations, outdoor events cancelled, etc. Most of it happened with a simple "please" from the government. The fact that Vic, a relatively sparsely populated state outran Tokyo, a super dense city almost equal the entirety of Australias population, suggests something very interesting.

Things are pretty much back to normal here, as far as you'd know, but of course there are no tourists, and everyone continues to wear a mask all the time. It's almost like universal co-operation and thinking of others works or something

That's probably because the Japanese are notoriously good at following protocols
Not at all suggesting that that's a bad thing (I actually really like it), but it's the result of hundreds, if not thousands, of years of everyone following strict social norms as a way of life. I doubt you'd find that level of social order anywhere else in the world.

Yep, it's quite something. Nobody here likes it any better than anywhere else, but its more like "well we need to deal with this now."

Apparently there is a law on the books that would have given the government the power to force closures if this was a strain of influenza. But as it is distinct and different from influenza, it doesn't apply and they can't use it. Wild, eh?

So they simply asked everyone to help.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I have to say I find it reprehensible that the federal government comes down hard on the labour states (Victoria & WA) when the area greatest hit, as you have identified, the elderly and the fragile, are in fact the commonwealth responsibility.

Paul

Don't forget that quarantine on incoming people from overseas is also a Commonwealth responsibility, in fact one of the reasons we federated.

In this responsibility they failed and left it up to the states to organize for which they were never prepared.

In the rush to contain the virus coming from overseas mistakes were made and the states get blamed whilst it is the Commonwealth fault in failing, as usual, their responsibilities.

Peter.

Originally Posted by allfix

I believe that everyday influenza deaths toll added to road deaths caused by drug and alcohol abuse, deaths and diseases caused by the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and prescribed medicinal is far higher than what we are experiencing right now.
And I'm not an expert nor a Doctor but I do believe that the majority of deaths by Corona virus are from aged or fragile people (the majority).
What I can't understand is why there is an emergency now (rightfully) and we're being punished with strong restrictions including a curfew like during a war time and nothing was done before for the above cited diseases?

The thing you keep missing is that this disease is new and has a massive toll on populations that currently are not exposed to such significant death rates - the Melbourne aged care system is a clear demonstration of this. How many hundreds of aged people have to die from careless spreading of the disease? Those people aren't exposed to abnormal / higher than normal risks on the road or for drug / alcohol / tobacco / prescription abuse, those risks still apply at the same rate as last year, but with COVID they clearly are being exposed to risks that they cannot control. That is why restrictions are necessary, to stop actions of others impacting you and your family. I'm not in an at-risk category, but members of my family are, and I'd prefer to have restrictions on me knowing that this reduces the chance of me unknowingly giving the disease to members of other people's family who also may be at significant risk should they fall ill with this disease. These restrictions are for the benefit of everyone... And yes I'm in Sydney and am therefore lucky not to be in a lockdown, and I'm also still in a job, and in a job where I can work remotely and not impact others, but if those restrictions were in place on me I'd be concerned but realise that they are intended for the greater good, even though from my profile alone I am at a lower risk should I get the disease.

Originally Posted by Sturdee

Don't forget that quarantine on incoming people from overseas is also a Commonwealth responsibility, in fact one of the reasons we federated.

In this responsibility they failed and left it up to the states to organize for which they were never prepared.

In the rush to contain the virus coming from overseas mistakes were made and the states get blamed whilst it is the Commonwealth fault in failing, as usual, their responsibilities.

Peter.

Thought this was appropriate

Elan

That video is absolutely pertinent.

I believe it is galling (euphemism on my part so I don't get booted off the Forum) that the federal government is so quick to cast aspersions on individual states when arguably they (the federal government) have committed the greatest travesties in quarantine of persons entering Australia and abysmal failure with the aged care.

A disgrace.

Regards
Paul

Hadn't heard from a friend in Chicago for a while, so checked her FB page, to find that she had died in July from COVID. Older (59) but not old and certainly not fragile. In our last communication in June, she was complaining that her boss wouldn't let her work from home. Apart from that, she had locked down and wore a mask everywhere.

This thing is serious, folks. Don't complain about little inconveniences.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I believe it is galling (euphemism on my part so I don't get booted off the Forum) that the federal government is so quick to cast aspersions on individual states when arguably they (the federal government) have committed the greatest travesties in quarantine of persons entering Australia and abysmal failure with the aged care.

"galling" is not IMO an euphemism

to my mind a very apt description of the Federal government's "responsibility" shifting and the like

Originally Posted by Cgcc

D.W. - it seems worth mentioning that in terms of comparisons to the flu - the numbers are with (perhaps belated and undercooked) but fairly extreme efforts made to contain the virus that are not done each year with the flu. It also kicked off in the US in earnest well after winter.

It obviously has not died down in the summer. Whether or not it goes up in the winter, it is still only about 6 months into the year for the US.

Chris

No efforts are made in that statement to put covid on equal footing with the flu. If we did the same as we do now, I would guess that we would have fewer respiratory infections and fewer flu cases.

Death due to flu is sort of a foreign thing for most of us on the ground. I've lost relatives in their 90s when they got the flu and pneumonia or something and pneumonia, but we don't generally ever consider day to day issues with the flu here other than the misery that it causes, especially when it goes through elementary schools.

Just before covid came this year, there was an influenza outbreak. It went through daughter's school like a sickle mower knocking the kids out. My Mrs. volunteers a day a week in the cafeteria (something they didn't do when I was a kid), which entails helping the very early age kids manage their lunches (opening things, calming kids having meltdowns, etc). In early march, one of the lunch splits (maybe 100 kids at a time) had three kids in the same lunch throw up in their lunch boxes.

That's what we think of the flu. It does kill a lot of people, but not the garden variety 55 year old diabetic who ends up on a ventilator with covid.

That said, I did actually know someone who died during the last swine flu outbreak - it was a girl in her late 20s. She was pregnant, and died with no other conditions or complications (you may recall that outbreak was, for some reason, really hard on pregnant women and didn't seem to have much overall effect otherwise). Since it only happens once, it's a horrible thing but nobody pays much mind to it later "well, yeah, there was ____, but nobody else we know of even got sick".