The fortnightly Essential Research poll focuses, naturally enough, on coronavirus, with 45% rating the federal government’s response good or very good, and 29% poor or very poor. According to The Guardian’s report, it would seem the latter tend to be those most worried about the virus, as measured by a question on whether respondents felt the situation was being overblown, with which “one third” agreed while 28% thought the opposite.
Over the course of three fortnightly polls, the proportion rating themselves very concerned has escalated from 25% to 27% to 39%, while the results for quite concerned have gone from 43% to 36% and back again. The Guardian’s report does not relate the latest results for “not that concerned” and “not at all concerned”, which were actually up in the last poll, from 26% to 28% and 6% to 9% respectively. Further questions relate to trust in various sources of information, notably the government and the media, but we will have to wait for the publication of the full report later today to get a clear handle on them. Suffice to say that Essential still has nothing to tell us on voting intention.
In other findings, 49% said they wanted the opposition to fall in behind the government’s decisions while 33% preferred that it review and challenge them, and 42% now consider themselves likely to catch the virus, up from 31% on a fortnight ago. Seventy-two per cent reported washing their hands more often, 60% said they were avoiding social gatherings, and 33% reported stocking up on groceries.
We also have a Roy Morgan SMS survey of 723 respondents, which was both conducted and published yesterday, showing 79% support for the government’s decision to allow those in financial difficulty to access $20,000 of their superannuation. As noted in the previous post, an earlier such poll of 974 respondents from Wednesday and Thursday recorded levels of trust in various Australian politicians (plus Jacinda Ardern, who fared best of all); a further set of results from the same poll finds Dick Smith, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Andrew Forrest and Alan Joyce rating best out of designated list of business leaders, with Rupert Murdoch, Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Gerry Harvey performed worst. We are yet to receive hard numbers from either set of questions, but they are apparently forthcoming.
UPDATE: Full report from Essential Research here.
Inflexion point:
Not sure we want that as a false dawn!
“ Those are probably the two worst value cars in the world. Ridiculously overpriced, over complex, hugely expensive to service and repair, and less reliable than Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda and many others, as found by objective measurement in many countries. Very good at marketing bullshit, though.”
Yep.
For the skeptics I’m going to repeat this post..
https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/
Play the animation. If you like flick between log and linear.
It boils down to this
The only country that has succeeded in all but eradicating the virus is China. Strict lock down. Strict isolation of positive cases. A rapid ramp up of testing. China proves that eradication is not only possible but is also the least costly path.
The countries that have gone for early large scale testing (Japan, South Korea, Singapore) but without a lock down have achieved a fragile truce with the virus. Lots more people are getting infected in these countries – its just not catastrophic, but merely bad.
The countries that have left it to too late, but then been forced to go into lockdown, like Italy. They’re achieving a flattening of exponential growth, or in Italy’s case its come down to nearly linear growth (fixed number of cases per day). Still not good. Still requires mass testing.
Edit: Oh and of course the US which is totally fucked.
Andrew_Earlwood says:
Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 10:17 pm
“ Those are probably the two worst value cars in the world. Ridiculously overpriced, over complex, hugely expensive to service and repair, and less reliable than Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda and many others, as found by objective measurement in many countries. Very good at marketing bullshit, though.”
Yep.
_______________
So what you will but my Mercedes ML500 was the best car I ever had. It was like driving an orgasm.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/29/coronavirus-latest-news/
Once you’ve had covid19 can you get it again?
Pretty obvious Morrison is resorting to his customary ScoMo-knows-best “On Waters” strategy.
He is far too secretive about everything, from the original “On Waters” incidents through to SportsRorts, to suspending Parliament and now keeping secrets about Coronavirus.
We’re talking one-man rule here, dictatorship, and it’s extremely worrying.
We don’t know.
There are also the related questions of for how long we continue to make long term antibodies and how much immunity we get to mutations.
“What an intransigent moron we have been saddled with. Just when we really needed leadership, we instead get this gibbering Trumpian idiocy.”
Well yes, Morrison is. But I think of people are saying the message now is that confusing, then they’re purposely being stupid.
There’s always going to be edge cases where there’s going to bit a bit of doubt. Life’s messy that way.
We Beemers might be over engineers but that is the price you all pay for reading the ultimate wisdom 😉
I’m not boasting, but my last three German manufactured cars have been by far the best I’ve ever had.
DM,
Sort of. In Germany they are up to 455 deaths on the website I looked at, I think it’s doubled in 3-4 days. Death rates aren’t really what you should be looking for, it’s the lag between cases and deaths that has been the big difference between Germany and the other countries that have been overwhelmed. I thought people were getting it very wrong when they were quoting Germany’s low death rates as a reason for optimism, the deaths would surely come and they did, but importantly we have acted before Germany in a relative sense, and the health authorities deserve enormous credit for this.
However, what increased testing does is reduces the uncertainty in the level of community transmission. While we have a demonstrably good record in identifying positive cases, we really only know that’s true up until the last 7-10 days. If we go through NSW data from press releases, I’m not sure that is holding up quite as well. The most recent numbers for locally acquired from an unknown source for the last 5 days are 207, 170, 145, 88, 74, a bit above a 20% daily increase. A week or so ago I argued against CC for the same as yourself, our testing was doing very well as there was a decent lag between deaths and the confirmed cases. To the credit of CC, my reasoning was accepted but I’m glad that CC is still pushing the fact that at the rate we’re testing, there is still uncertainty in that data.
Now, I’m getting worried, and the slowing of the growth of total cases doesn’t ease those worries.
Blobbit
Back in early March we should have been getting ads that said clearly “stay at home, do not do anything non essential”. Instead all we got was “wash your hands”. That cost us valuable time.
Watching the late night ABC news in Adelaide and there was extensive coverage of the start of the quarantine in hotels for new arrivals. The need for it was not questioned but the coverage was detailed and far from complimentary of the competence of the implementation. Passengers were trooped from hotel to hotel until they got their allocated (spartan) room. Those filmed waited five hours since landing – with no meal. To quote the 50 something figure filmed at the end:
“Prime Minister, I hope you know what you are doing”.
Another group followed finally got settled then had to troop out of the hotel (where they were in isolation) onto the street because of a fire alarm. Brilliant! Well worth watching. Basil Fawlty would be a better manager than ministers in this government.
Sprocket, thanks for that government information.
It looks pretty grim.
The only positive thing that comes out of it is that the government accepts that there must be some form of substantiation of the existence of “financial stress”, whatever that means.
For me, at the very least it would require the production of all bank account statements of the tenant and related entities, up to date financial returns, closure of operations, or production of evidence of significant loss of trade from the first March 2020.
I never had a free ride, or availed myself of negative gearing, and I can’t see myself giving anyone else a free ride at my expense.
IF THE Government gives financial support to operating businesses, they can pay their rent out of that.
Anyway, sorry for my ranting at those who have no control over my situation.
Trump is definitely favourite to win the election later this year. Remarkable when you consider the rank incompetence.
Bushfire Bill:
[‘We’re talking one-man rule here, dictatorship, and it’s extremely worrying’]
I think you’re over-egging it. If you’re right, though, Albanese must be complicit.
Astounding. What’s wrong with Villawood detention centre?
Fessy
At this stage i would expect Trump to do okay in the polls because for many people this is only starting and often there is a lag effect so if that poll was published after three or four months of lock downs and economic disruption then i would be surprised.
Oh, shit. If I stroll around with my wife and the father son and holy ghost my wife and I can be fined but that trio can walk (float) scott free? Fuck, this god bloke must have bought a papal pardon.
Blobbit
I don’t think I’m particularly stupid but what the hell does:
“Only two people should now gather in public spaces and “other areas of gathering”, but it will be up to states to enforce that limit.” mean? What are “other areas of gathering”? Spell it out so there is no ambiguity.
The PM should take some responsibility and not leave it to the states, thus simply passing the buck. You can bet the little creep will take all the praise if somehow we manage to get through this without a large mortality rate.
And to those who rabbit on about demanding the number of seasonal flu deaths as some sort of comparison, I’m now 71 and have lived through a few serious flu epidemics in my time. However, I certainly can’t recall a flu season in that 71 years that caused most of the world to go into lockdown. There’s no comparison. None at all.
Mexican:
Perhaps. I’ve got no confidence in American voters though. Just look at those farmers who got screwed over by Trump’s tariffs yet still think he’s doing a good job!
Itza:
– it seems that the helmet interfaces for NIV as critical for safety and are only widely used in Europe. So we can’t safely use them here even if we could get them, due to total lack of experience (what about HIV pts?)
– A completely healthy anesthetist claimed somewhere to have experimentally intubated himself with a tube fitted with a camera and light… Presumably alone as it sounds like an illegal experiment. Is it even possible?
– Unrelated to COVID – I have particular affection for prone (without intubation of course). I have an IGAM flap from buttouck to close the perineal defect after pelvic exenteration in 2017. Plastics says no sitting for six weeks, hence postural BP drop (postural hypotension?) in attempting to mobilise directly from lying down to standing (weird thing was mobilised for 100m+ around the ward 3 days into recovery, then couldn’t mobilise at all for a week, then for another week, due to risk of fainting). Solved by me with validation by the (very attractive, female in my case) plastics fellow by using:
– 1) on side on bed ;
– 2) move to prone on bed to raise head and wait for BP to stabilise;
– 3) step off bed so legs move down whilst head moves up, thus (apparently) avoiding BP drop and allowing mobilisation at will and up and down the stairs in the hospital three days later.
Bonus was the plastics fellow insisted on getting into prone on the floor and simulating the procedure to ensure she understood what I was proposing!
Was watching a documentary on the granddaddy of pandemics – the black death and one of the responses at the time was to isolate and quarantine people.
History never forgets pity people do.
“Another group followed finally got settled then had to troop out of the hotel (where they were in isolation) onto the street because of a fire alarm. Brilliant! Well worth watching. Basil Fawlty would be a better manager than ministers in this government.”
So….what would you do if a fire alarm goes off then?
And no meal for five hours? FFS people need some perspective.
It is not at all surprising, I was a huge Hillary fan, and I would still argue but for Comey and a media unable to deal with lying sociopaths like Trump, , Johnson, Morrison and Dutton she would have won, but it would have always been close. It shouldn’t have been close.
It has become apparent that these centrist Dems appeal to a quite happy, quite wealthy, quite white base, the quite happy, quite wealthy, quite white base that aren’t Republican or die. They get a huge amount of support from perpetually disappointed pragmatic progressives, but it seems not enough.
“I don’t think I’m particularly stupid but what the hell does:
“Only two people should now gather in public spaces and “other areas of gathering””
I’d take it as private areas where people gather. Not homes, not workplaces, but private places which are set up for people to get together.
I’m struggling to think of any that are open, tbh.
The states and territories ( especially NSW and Vic) gave Morrison a “ get out of backdown with a bit of dignity “ card this afternoon re tighter restrictions.
Let Morrison come out and waffle on today and real clarity around decisions on further restrictions will be announced tomorrow by each state/territory leader appears to be the agreed game plan.
Interesting to see how tight states and territories go tomorrow.
WWP.
Perpetually pessimistic pragmatic progressives would have been more alliterative.
Can we tell if we’re beating the Virus?
Making sense of the numbers: https://youtu.be/54XLXg4fYsc
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/australia-coronavirus-stage-2-shutdown-not-lockdown-which-places-closed-what-open
Questions about cameras in hospitals (for stand-off safe visual monitoring, and hyper-spectral to get IR and hence heat)
– Are they allowed / present in ICU? (seem to be present in EDs; not in patient rooms due to privacy)
– Can they help in a scenario where there are a large number of COVID19 patients outside ICU (e.g. on oxygen only) – can inspect visually (+IR) remotely which is more efficient and safer (but less effective) than physical presence. Could be done from offsite by retired but mentally and visually competent physicians who due to age would be at too much risk to be physically present in the hospital
Bit surprised that South Korea is only introducing quarantine for new arrivals now.
nath @ #5051 Sunday, March 29th, 2020 – 9:20 pm
Forget all of those and just buy a Tesla.
Though you probably can’t now because they come over on boats from the States. 🙁
Blobbitt
Hairdressers of course 🙂
Perhaps we are looking at the figures from our own states’ perspective
Being from WA I am more sanguine as 306 out of 311 positives are from returning travelers and their contacts. In the 311 are 13 from the cruise ships that were sailing past Fremantle.
We have had 2 deaths 28 have cleared their infection
Allowable outdoor gatherings went from 500 —> 100 —> 10 —> 2 rather quickly.
“DMsays:
Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 11:06 pm
Perhaps we are looking at the figures from our own states’ perspective
Being from WA ….”
Me too. I think I’d be a bit more shit scared of I were in NSW.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-29/scott-morrison-coronavirus-covid19-two-person-rule-explained/12101212
This article will help clear up some confusion. It’s a follow up on the details not made clear by Morrison at his presser.
Chewer:
This is not the case in SA where all respiratory swabs are tested for COVID19, even if something else is suspected.
So a GP can take a swab for any respiratory problem that requires one, irrespective of exposure history, and this gets COVID19 tested.
I think that most/all other States are adopting this policy or have done so (in some States there was a shortage of reagent, to which SA was not subject)
I should have know better.
Thank you for the note. I have got my writing bible, Mark Forsyth’s ‘The Elements of Eloquence’ back down off the shelf for some remedial eloquence study.
EDIT: Alliteration is literally chapter 1.
Confessions @ #5055 Sunday, March 29th, 2020 – 7:21 pm
Apparently, yes.
Agree Blobbit
Very happy when they shut WAs border
“Very happy when they shut WAs border”
Yep. Also glad that the quarantine rules came in in time for these latest ships.
nath @ #5058 Sunday, March 29th, 2020 – 10:20 pm
Citroen C5 turbo diesel wagon, 2007. Mine has done 286,000 km, still on original engine and gearbox. I bought it in 2010 with 41,000 on the clock for $16,000. Best suspension of all time. Average fuel consumption, as continuously measured and displayed, 7.2 l/100km. Beautiful, fully electrically adjustable leather seats. First to provide automatic headlights and windscreen wipers and many other amazing capabilities, like ability to raise clearance at the touch of a button for very rough roads, plus elimination of body roll, and on and on.
Same suspension as used under licence by Mercedes. “Hydropneumatic suspension is a type of motor vehicle suspension system, designed by Paul Magès, invented by Citroën, and fitted to Citroën cars, as well as being used under licence by other car manufacturers, notably Rolls-Royce (Silver Shadow), Maserati (Quattroporte II) and Peugeot. It was also used on Berliet trucks and has more recently been used on Mercedes-Benz cars, where it is known as Active Body Control.” Wikipaedia.
Yes, I have a beard, and wear socks with sandals.
Nicholas:
It is true the currency issuing government can never default explicitly in respect of commitments in its currency.
The currency issuing government can default implicitly, but this seems necessarily to be preceded by it ceasing to be the effective currency issuing government, this is necessary in addition to hyper-inflation:
– Germany after WW1 – hyper-inflation; government remained in charge and turned off the hyper-inflation and it dissipated in about two months
– Hungary after WW2 – hyper-inflation; government lost control; implicit default
– Serbia 1990s = hyper-inflation; government ceased to be the currency issuer (USD, Euro and something else were used); implicit default
It was thought that perhaps Germans were special because they deliberately engineered the situation to escape from parts of the Versailles treaty (which they did). But then:
– Zimbabwe – hyper-inflation; government somehow remained in control; no complete implicit default
Exponential decay! Probably not a coincidence.
Next step is 0/total lockdown.
EGT
SA Pathology added c19 to their panel of ‘Flu’ viruses and test them all at the same time
Do they make German cars with Sat Navs that take you to destinations other than Poland?
Danama Papers @ #5091 Sunday, March 29th, 2020 – 10:18 pm
Not proven yet, at least for the current strain.