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.
Shimon ProkupeczVerified account @ShimonPro
Calls over a loudspeaker of “Team 700,” the code for when a patient is on the verge of death, come several times a shift. Some have died inside the emergency room while waiting for a bed.
13 Deaths in a Day: An ‘Apocalyptic’ Coronavirus Surge at an N.Y.C. Hospital
Hospitals in the city are facing the kind of harrowing increases in cases that overwhelmed health care systems in China and Italy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-hospitals.html
MB
If you read the reporting you will find that almost all of those strings in the Trump Covid19 package were inserted by Democrats in the Senate, who refused to pass it otherwise. Elizabeth Warren was a key figure in re-drafting the legislation. Trump had nothing to do with it.
Some details of the strings and who wrote them are here:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/23/1930463/–Excuse-me-Elizabeth-Warren-fact-checks-business-news-host-on-Republican-coronavirus-giveaway-bill
https://www.wired.com/story/split-over-covid-19-politics-geography/
This article says that the covid19 infection rate is much higher in Democrat states.
Phoenixred I can’t find the original Nate Silver article claiming the opposite. Can you help?
Speaking of competence, imagine if WA Premier Mark McGowan had been in charge of cruise ship arrivals in eastern states instead of Dutton. Australia’s Covid 19 infection total would have been about 200 less by now.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-26/passengers-on-artania-cruise-ship-off-wa-test-positive-covid-19/12091884
meher baba
While the other approach you support is ‘totally proven’ ?
Socrates says:
Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 3:19 pm
MB
If you read the reporting you will find that almost all of those strings in the Trump Covid19 package were inserted by Democrats in the Senate, who refused to pass it otherwise. Elizabeth Warren was a key figure in re-drafting the legislation. Trump had nothing to do with it.
————————-
In the American system it doesn’t matter as much who placed amendment or provision into a package because the President is ultimately the one that signs off on it and the point remains that Morrison wouldn’t go as far.
“Socratessays:
Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 3:21 pm
Speaking of competence, imagine if WA Premier Mark McGowan…”
Dutton screwed up, but to be fair McGowan had that lesson to learn from.
McGowan gets points from me for actually learning that lesson. Also points for being proactive and getting Rotto set up.
Cud Chewer says: Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 3:20 pm
https://www.wired.com/story/split-over-covid-19-politics-geography/
This article says that the covid19 infection rate is much higher in Democrat states.
Phoenixred I can’t find the original Nate Silver article claiming the opposite. Can you help?
************************************************
The original article only had this ???? …….. hope it helps
https://t.co/IwPxTfnoeB
Nate SilverVerified account @NateSilver538
Follow Follow @NateSilver538
Increase over yesterday in detected coronavirus cases. Hopefully, grouping things by region helps even out disparities in testing rates.
South: +32%
Northeast (excluding NY): +30%
Midwest: +27%
West (excluding CA & WA): +23%
New York: +20%
California: +20%
Washington: +11%
Poroti
I am sure there is but the debate in America seems to be shifting on taxpayer bail outs with many calling for such restrictions.
Another thing to think about in relation to the idea of a total lockdown is that Australia is a very different sort of geographical space to Italy. Unlike Italians, a very high proportion of suburban Australians live beyond walking distance from supermarkets, pharmacies and other key services. They depend on private cars to get to and from these services. They shop less frequently than people in many other places, and depend on large refrigerators and freezers to store fresh food.
If just about everything is locked down, and your refrigerator or car stops working, you might struggle to get them repaired. If you actually need a replacement vehicle or fridge, you would really struggle to get them. Now, if like a lot of journos and academic public health experts, you live in an inner city area, you’ll probably be able to walk to the shops every day and buy fresh food. But if you live out in the boondocks with a large number of kids, and the lockdown ends up going for months, you could be in significant trouble.
This is just one of a large number of reasons I could give you that it makes perfect sense to try to keep as many things going as long as you possibly can, and also why I suggested yesterday that NZ (which is equally prone as Australia to suburban sprawl) is really going to struggle to sustain what they’ve done.
It isn’t all about the economy. Unfortunately, the government (up to today, when they’re doing a bit better) hasn’t been great at explaining all of these things.
To go with MBs point, I’m not sure the phrase “no harm done” quite cuts it. I’d have some more confidence in them if they recognised just how does the consequences of a total shut down are.
It may be necessary, but that’s a pretty naive line.
Where have all the grey nomads gone?
McGowan is telling Dutton to TURN BACK THE BOAT.
CudChewer
“This article says that the covid19 infection rate is much higher in Democrat states.”
Is this because these states tend to contain very big cities (Seattle, NYC, Chicago, LA, San Francisco)?
Note that New Orleans is reportedly experiencing a Covid19 surge. But it has a fairly modest population by US standards (~50th largest city). Louisiana is a red state, with N.Orleans a Dem enclave.
poroti: “While the other approach you support is ‘totally proven’ ?”
It will be proven/disproven over the next few days, as the impact on the statistics of all the people coming back to Australia already infected begins to fade (although the continued crowding at Sydney Airport arrivals won’t help) . If signs then emerge of significant community spreading beyond known clusters, then we can conclude that it is disproven. And then we need to go full monty.
But so far, there is no convincing evidence that we are careening along the path towards the Italian situation.
meher
Even a lot of suburban Australians who go to the shops by car are still in the habit of shopping for the next day or three.
Also, whilst you’re pointing out correctly that the virus will spread slower in less dense areas, a high rate of spread in the denser areas will quickly translate to more infections in suburban areas, because of the web of social connections.
And none of this is a good argument for avoiding closure of all but essential services. There are still far too many people out on the streets making contact with each other.
Further on the cruise ships off WA, there is clearly a problem for the international cruise industry, which they were evidently happy to off-load onto any Australian state dumb enough to let them in. There are three ships off WA now – the Artemis, Magnifica and Vasco De Gama. Only the Vasco De Gama sails from Freemantle and has Australian passengers. Note this comment on the Magnifica (zero Aussie passengers):
“The Magnifica cruise ship has been denied entry to the port of Dubai, so is stuck off the WA coast.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-26/passengers-on-artania-cruise-ship-off-wa-test-positive-covid-19/12091884
Seriously, is that right? Consider how many other ports are between Perth and Dubai, that evidently won’t take them either. That means that Djakarta, Singapore, Madras, Mumbai, Colombo, and all the ports on the African east coast have knocked them back. They are all closer to Perth than Dubai.
Everyone else in the shipping control world learnt their lesson after the Diamond Princess in Japan in January. But Dutton had to make the same mistake here before we could learn from our own mistake.
If the CMO and deputy CMO were oncologists, and you presented with an early lesion, their advice would be something like:
Look Vogon, it’s only small now, and if we surgically remove it, you’ll miss work for a week or so in recovery. Lets wait a bit, and if it metastasizes then we’ll have a crack.
meher baba @ #2264 Thursday, March 26th, 2020 – 2:31 pm
Problem is by the time you get that sort of evidence it’s too late to do anything about it. The evidence lags two weeks behind reality.
“It will be proven/disproven over the next few days, as the impact on the statistics of all the people coming back to Australia already infected begins to fade (although the continued crowding at Sydney Airport arrivals won’t help) . If signs then emerge of significant community spreading beyond known clusters, then we can conclude that it is disproven. And then we need to go full monty.”
This is a dangerous experiment and a needless excuse for delay.
There are several confounding factors.
Firstly the rate of overseas sourced infections will drop off. That makes it harder to attribute any slowing of growth to internal behaviour.
Secondly, despite the government’s fairly weak measures, much of the actual behavioural change occurred starting early last week. There were huge drops in the use of public transport, sales volumes of discretionary items etc. All of this says that at least some of the population got the message and acted well before the government. This change in behaviour will hopefully show as a weakening of growth in infections and if this is correct then it will start to show up later this week. Whereas the government’s measures taken over the weekend won’t show up (if at all) until mid to late next week. Again, all of this complicates how the results will be interpreted.
Thirdly, this is a dangerous experiment. Introduce half assed measures. Wait two weeks. Argue about it. Introduce more half assed measures. We don’t have a month to run this experiment meher.
We need to get R0 from closer to 3 to under 1. The present community reaction isn’t enough because only half the community actually gets it. The present government action is just not enough. We need 80%+ of the community to be effectively in lockdown to control the virus.
I went into town yesterday. Sure, the food court was roped off. Sure a lot of people were being careful. But some weren’t. But the worst part was that a lot of the other retail/commercial parts of town were still open for business. And in my town that means a lot of car parts and car related stores. Lots of people making contact with each other. This just won’t work.
Where have all the Grey Nomads gone? The van storage yard where we keep our van was completely full when we returned home on Tuesday.
meher
We are actually doing worse than Italy in terms of the rate of growth of infections at an equivalent number of days past the first 100 infections. That’s even scarier when you consider the relative population sizes.
Scotty from Marketing definitely has a bad case Cormmanitis Vibble-Vobble –
https://www.smh.com.au/national/hairdresser-rulings-make-a-mockery-of-social-distance-messaging-20200326-p54e2x.html
Assantdj
It shows how little nous this Govt has. Surelya better plan is to organise for a barber/hairdresser to be on call in-house for service personnel to keep them looking ‘tidy’.
This mob haven’t a clue about organusing efficiently.
a r
[Problem is by the time you get that sort of evidence it’s too late to do anything about it. The evidence lags two weeks behind reality.]
There is comparative data which shows, after 16 days from when we and other countries hit 100 cases, which seems to be recognised as a fair starting point, that we have 6,700 less cases than Italy.
As well we know we test much, much deeper.
The big schemozzle at Sydney airport this afternoon- NSW Health vs Border Force.
If anyone spots Dutton, please let the world know. He possibly looks like this:
Shellbell @ #2274 Thursday, March 26th, 2020 – 2:52 pm
Don’t think you can directly compare curves between a country with a population of 60 million and one with a population of 25 million?
We probably also want a better benchmark than “at least we’re not Italy”.
Vogon Poet and others: you are continuing to assume that there is a proven approach to knocking the virus on the head that would involve shutting absolutely everything down for 4-6 weeks.
This idea is being pushed everywhere, eg on the ABC’s podcast entitled “The tantalising scheme to fix coronavirus in only six weeks”
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/coronacast/the-tantalising-scheme-to-fix-coronavirus-in-only-six-weeks/12090206
But this idea is just (to quote Keats) a “wild surmise”.
Most public health experts, including Brendan Crabb from the Burnet Institute (whom I quoted in an earlier post), aren’t actually proposing the idea of a short, sharp response. They are proposing that we should impose all the controls necessary to “flatten the curve”: that is, to slow the rate of spread sufficiently to prevent hospital ICUs from becoming overwhelmed at any stage before a vaccine and/or cure becomes available. Crabb and others of a like mind simply think that the only way to guarantee the curve is flattened is to put all possible controls in place. Others, such as the health advisers to the Federal Government, feel that the curve can be flattened with fewer controls.
The three main people I have heard arguing strongly that a short, sharp response will work is John Daley of the Grattan Institute (who is not a medical expert, but a former McKinseys management consultant), Norman Swan (a medically-trained journo) and Jacinda Ardern.
If I was confident that a short, sharp response of the sort NZ and India are now trying to implement would actually knock the virus on the head, then I’d be mad not to support it. And I’m sure the Federal Government would jump at it.
But, as I said, it’s a theory with little in the way of evidence to support it. So, as I said, it’s really only a surmise.
If there are still large crowds at airports then people are crazy.
ar: “We probably also want a better benchmark than “at least we’re not Italy”.
Jacinda Ardern has taken her nation into total lockdown on the basis that NZ might be on the same trajectory as Italy. So she clearly saw it as a benchmark.
MB
““It will be proven/disproven over the next few days, as the impact on the statistics of all the people coming back to Australia already infected begins to fade (although the continued crowding at Sydney Airport arrivals won’t help) . If signs then emerge of significant community spreading beyond known clusters, then we can conclude that it is disproven. And then we need to go full monty.”
If in my practice as an engineer I took this approach to bridge design and then said “Well the cheap one fell down and so now we will build the expensive one. Sorry about the deaths.” I would not only be sacked but could be charged with manslaughter. Correctly so. I will not defend this thinking from a PM, just because we have grown used to unprofessional low standards of decision making.
Cud Chewer says:
Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 3:20 pm
https://www.wired.com/story/split-over-covid-19-politics-geography/
This article says that the covid19 infection rate is much higher in Democrat states.
___________________________________
Those stats were from 10 days ago. I wonder if they reflect, at least in part, the level of testing taking place – with Democrat led states taking the issue more seriously.
a r
Why not? People are using curves to make points about South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China
Davidwh
“If there are still large crowds at airports then people are crazy.”
We must remember that over 40% voted Liberal or National and over 5% voted for Hanson, Katter or Palmer.
shellbell
https://coronavirusgraphs.com/?c=h&y=log&t=line&f=0&ct=&co=21,116
Australia compared with Italy in terms of doubling period
Notice that once you get past the initial period (relatively few cases, statistical noise, mostly oversea entries) Australia settles down to a doubling period of around 3-3.5 days. Notice also that the doubling period for Australia has if anything gotten worse (shorter) over the past week.
Notice how Italy’s doubling period over the past week has shown a steady improvement over the past week – from 3 days to around 6.
Why? They introduced lockdown. We haven’t, yet.
meher baba says: Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 3:57 pm
Vogon Poet and others: you are continuing to assume that there is a proven approach to knocking the virus on the head that would involve shutting absolutely everything down for 4-6 weeks.
If I was confident that a short, sharp response of the sort NZ and India are now trying to implement would actually knock the virus on the head, then I’d be mad not to support it. And I’m sure the Federal Government would jump at it.
But, as I said, it’s a theory with little in the way of evidence to support it. So, as I said, it’s really only a surmise.
************************************************************
This interactive article is a good read
Trump Wants to ‘Reopen America.’ Here’s What Happens if We Do.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/25/opinion/coronavirus-trump-reopen-america.html
meher
“Vogon Poet and others: you are continuing to assume that there is a proven approach to knocking the virus on the head that would involve shutting absolutely everything down for 4-6 weeks.”
There is no proven approach. However, you are assuming that taking a half assed approach that doesn’t involve full lockdown can work. That’s a dangerous bit of “wild surmise” on your part.
WTF is it about hairdressers for this effing government ? Even the bloody industry lobby wants them closed. Have we got some serious hair fetishists in the government or something.
Yet we get twats like Dr Kelly droning on defending it with stuff like……………………
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/mar/26/australia-coronavirus-lockdowns-social-distancing-live-updates
cud chewer: “We are actually doing worse than Italy in terms of the rate of growth of infections at an equivalent number of days past the first 100 infections. That’s even scarier when you consider the relative population sizes.”
Do you seriously believe the Italian numbers re total cases? From early in the piece, Italy was reporting a rate of significantly more than 1 in 10 infections leading to serious illness or death. In Australia, the rate has remained at below 1 in 100. Perhaps the Italian population is more unhealthy than our on average (eg, due to an older demographic, much greater pollution and higher rates of smoking), but I very much doubt it’s more than 10 times as unhealthy.
I think a lot of the difference is due to the Italians failing to identify a large proportion of their people who are infected, which is turn due to a very high incidence of undetected community transmission.
meher
“The three main people I have heard arguing strongly that a short, sharp response will work is John Daley of the Grattan Institute (who is not a medical expert, but a former McKinseys management consultant), Norman Swan (a medically-trained journo) and Jacinda Ardern.”
And 6,000 Australian doctors
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-25/sydney-morning-briefing-wednesday-march-25/12085778
And the AMA
meher baba says:
Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 3:57 pm
….
But, as I said, it’s a theory with little in the way of evidence to support it. So, as I said, it’s really only a surmise.
One small problem with your view. You get one chance to give it a go. You don’t get the option of stuffing it up and than calling for a rerun when you discovered NZ had a lot better outcome and we have a lingering problem and a lot of dead.
CC
What number of new infections did we need yesterday and today for the doubling rate to be 3-3.5 days?
Now here is a bunch of optimists.
I’m guessing it will look something like this.
meher
I don’t believe the Italian numbers. They clearly had far more infections than diagnosis for quite a while and there’s probably a lot of milder/asymptomatic cases in Italy that still aren’t on the official record.
I think that Australia has done a better job of catching cases, so far. In part because a lot of our cases were imported and the testing rules worked ok for this group. However, our testing rules are shit for catching community spread.
And even based on what we can see, the trend is not our friend. People are spreading the infection in the community and its growing exponentially. The present community response is inadequate and the present government response is inadequate.
What we are going to see over the next two weeks is quite likely a reduction in the exponential. But its still going to be exponential. Even if the doubling rate goes from 3 days to 5, that’s still a disaster. Its just a disaster that has been stretched a couple more weeks.
The grim reality here meher is that the virus will force a lockdown. Why? Because as the number of infections climb into the tens of thousands, people are going to respond by hiding in their homes. There’s no point to avoiding lockdown, meher. Its coming whether the government mandates it or not. We only get to choose when. Its just simply not avoidable. So the entire premise of this economy vs lives argument is utterly beside the point.
The sooner we go into lockdown and then implement a mega-testing strategy, the sooner we get out of this and the less the damage to the economy.
shellbell
A doubling rate of 3.5 days implies a daily increase of 21.9 percent.
A doubling rate of 3 days implies a daily increase of 25.9 percent.
https://coronavirusgraphs.com/?c=pa&y=linear&t=line&f=0&ct=&co=21
Why did Taiwan Singapore South Korea work.
They were ruthless with tracing contacts and quarantine.
We have not.
That’s why we have to go into lockdown.
Restricting contact between people is simple maths. Less contact less chance to spread. You do it by surveillance and locking the infected down so the rest of society can continue to operate or you lock down the whole population.
South Korea tested fast with many to trace all those in the church and who they interacted with. They had drive thru testing sites to do it.
They then got those people who tested positive into quarantine.
Thus the virus had no contact to spread. Thus the South Korea success. Ditto Taiwan and Singapore. They were ready due to previous outbreaks from SARS and the like.
Australia is not being ruthless on the quarantine thing. That’s why we need lock down.
It’s that simple.
I haven’t made that assumption. In fact I’ve pointed out the opposite. A lockdown won’t make the virus go away. Not after 4 weeks, or 6 weeks, or 52 weeks. You’re entirely correct on that front. The virus doesn’t go away until there’s a vaccine (or other effective treatment/cure) and the majority of people have had it.
A strict-enough lockdown slows the spread (and there’s ample evidence of this) until proper prevention/treatment is possible. A lax approach (or no approach) means the health system gets overrun. Italy experienced this. The US is on the verge of experiencing it. When this happens, people die. And concerns like “I can’t fix my car” start looking fairly petty.
The rest is the same as I posted yesterday. If your priority is the preservation of life, you lock down as hard as required to bring transmission under control, for as long as it takes to develop effective treatment. If your priority is something else, please leave medical decisions to the doctors.
guytaur
The other thing that China did is that when you tested positive you get quarantined with other people who had tested positive and away from your family.
We need both lockdown and mega-testing and isolation.
These people are behaving willfully or are oblivious to the social-distancing rule:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8153885/Thousands-Australians-arrive-China-Japan-Middle-East.html
Ruby Princess Mk2. Where’s NSW Health?
No such thing happened at a pre-poll location (Mudgeeraba) today where crosses on the floor indicated where one must stand. All went off rather well. In and out in five minutes. And to top it off,
I managed to buy 9 toilet rolls at Woolies, Robina Town Centre.