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.
a r
A strict enough lockdown does mean that the virus goes away. It needs to continually infect more people to exist and if there’s no physical path for that, it will die off in a matter of a few weeks.
Cud
Yes. I just don’t use China as an eg to avoid the whole you need to be a dictatorship to do it. Granted Singapore comes close.
The analogy that comes to me is: you are heading for a chasm and can’t stop. So, do you hope you have enough speed now to jump across, or do you accelerate. If you accelerate, how much harder do you go? If you don’t go fast enough you won’t make it across, you’ll plummet to your death. If you go faster than needed, you’ve wasted energy. You don’t have time to calculate the optimal strategy. What are you going to do?
I would love someone more articulate than me to come up with something better.
Mavis says: Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 4:28 pm
I managed to buy 9 toilet rolls at Woolies, Robina Town Centre.
**********************************************
Wishing you a * Happy Ass * celebration, Mavis 🙂
cud chewer: your concept of “exponential” and mine are clearly very different. Of course when a trend starts from a base of zero, doubling is going to occur at various intervals of time at even the lowest arithmetical rate of growth.
What I would consider to be exponential growth would be one where the rate of growth itself is frequently doubling (or more). Since the overall numbers got reasonably large in mid-March, we have seen jumps in the rate of growth around nearly 80 on 16 March to 226 on 21 March to 370 on 24 March. It’s now been reasonably steady for 3 days. And it would need to jump dramatically again soon – to something like 800 per day – for me to consider the rate of growth to be truly exponential.
But, as the old saying goes, it all depends on whether you went to Oxford or Cambridge.
phoenixRED:
[‘Wishing you a * Happy Ass * celebration, Mavis ‘]
Thanks, cobber. I was down to two rolls.
ar
At least here in Australia our government has stood tall and protected out inalienable right to have fabuloso hair styling before we die of the corona virus.
Tim Watts says people are receiving pay up or leave letters from their landlords.
Jason Falinski says Oh dear how sad that’s un-Australian, but makes no suggestion that the government will be of help.
bc @ #2302 Thursday, March 26th, 2020 – 4:31 pm
Clearly, you appoint a committee to determine the optimal acceleration, stock it with people who wouldn’t know a parabola from a parasol, and then sit back and await the publication of their final report. Which you then send off to committee to determine an appropriate legislative response.
Or at least this is what I am learning from the Morrison government 🙁
Vogon Poet: “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.”
If your priority at all times was the preservation of all possible life, we wouldn’t drive in cars, we wouldn’t engage in casual sex, we wouldn’t drink alcohol, smoking would be punishable by prison sentences, etc, etc. I have met doctors who would like to put very strict controls over all of these activities, and more. Sometimes they also say things like “leave the medical issues to the doctors.”
But we don’t live in a medical dictatorship. There’s give and take in all this. I think, in extreme circumstances, Australians might accept the measures taken in Wuhan – even including the breaking up of families – but, in order to do so, you’d want to be able to produce more convincing statistical evidence than, for instance, Ardern’s “Italy once had only 200 cases.”
So far, the signs – based on a rapid increase in the amount of testing over the past few days – are that we are not experiencing significant community spread beyond a few clusters. Maybe that situation will change over the next few days. But maybe we are also managing the virus as a community much better than Italy did, so we won’t see the dramatic surge in cases (in reality, quite likely in the many hundreds of thousands) that Italy experienced.
I take my hat off to the Federal Government for continuing to resist the panicky demand that we lock everything down now. Obviously you and many other posters on here don’t agree. We’re going to find out soon who is right and who is wrong.
Exponential works like compound interest. It means that something is increasing by a constant multiple per time period. If something increases by, say, x% each day, then if it starts at 1 on day 0, it will be 1 + x on day 1, (1 + x) squared on day 2 and so forth. It will double approximately every 70/x days.
Socrates: ‘We must remember that over 40% voted Liberal or National and over 5% voted for Hanson, Katter or Palmer.’
My OH says that 50% of the population is below average intelligence. I think that number is wrong, I think it is closer to 8O%!
Player One says Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 4:40 pm
Which can’t start until the Parliament you shut down resumes in six months.
Reasoning by analogue is heavily flawed.
You can choose to go head first over Niagara Falls or you can have a nice steak for dinner with a glass of shiraz
I love sticky-beaking at the backgrounds behind interviewees at home.
Cud Chewer @ #2300 Thursday, March 26th, 2020 – 3:29 pm
While the “enough” part may make that technically true, there’s no evidence that even the strictest lockdowns tried to date are adequate to make the virus go away. All the places touted as successes, every single one, still continue to see new cases on a daily basis. They’ve brought the spread down to manageable levels, but it’s not gone.
And as HK recently saw, if you relax restrictions while in this state it just takes right off again.
While that’s also true, it seems at least one of the following is likely:
– Denying the virus a physical path is more difficult than people think
– The virus is more contagious than it’s given credit for
– The virus persists in the environment for longer than it’s given credit for
meher baba @ #2310 Thursday, March 26th, 2020 – 4:40 pm
Well, if it was me, I probably wouldn’t be betting on someone who clearly doesn’t know what “exponential growth” means 🙁
You can choose to go head first over Niagara Falls or you can have a nice steak for dinner with a glass of shiraz
I’ll go for Option 2.
ar
The success of countries like South Korea is no rush on ICU beds while not shutting down the whole of society and economy.
Surveillance and isolation does work to flatten the curve.
We won’t see stopping the virus until we get vaccines for that herd immunity.
In 2018, the nominal world GDP was $84,835.46 billion in 2018, and it’s projected to be $88,081.13 billion in 2019.
The impact of the virus so far is likely to exceed 10% of global GDP…or more than USD8.4 trillion. The sum of all the stimulus measures so far announced is a lot less than this…maybe about USD5.0 trillion…and not all of this will be delivered in a timely fashion. In many parts of the economy the contraction will easily exceed 20% of total GDP for at least a few months.
Synchronised global recession is practically unstoppable. Because of the very high leverage built into the economy, once a recession commences it will be very hard to arrest.
meher baba says: Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 4:40 pm
I take my hat off to the Federal Government for continuing to resist the panicky demand that we lock everything down now. Obviously you and many other posters on here don’t agree. We’re going to find out soon who is right and who is wrong.
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I sincerely hope – LESS PEOPLE DIE – on the chosen option that proves correct
Reposting from my earlier David Walsh – MONA – post (remember Walsh made a bazzilion from gambling)
More here, and well worth the read if you’re into numbers, and Walshie’s mind at work.
Freo’s famous market is to be closed for 6 months I gather from local news…However, stall holders will be slugged $100 a month for ‘storage’ of their gear……………….
In Shanghai, family members just back from Canada, are locked down in their apartment for 14 days. There is an automatic alarm on their door (NOT a lock or welded bars) which warns the local compound authorities should they try to break out. However, once this period is over, the inhabitants will be free to leave the premises. News from family member is that things in Shanghai are back to 75-80% normal for that city.
While China is a dictatorship, the local population were willing to accept the impositions placed upon them by the authorities…………the PLA did not need to get into the streets though true to say, there are heaps of other persons in some kind or another of a uniform to impress upon the populace the urgency and necessity of the measures…………….
Meanwhile, we have dummies here who turn up in their thousands at the beach and according to one poll, 35% of those surveyed think the whole virus thing is overplayed.
I would suggest a good slab of these are Morrison’s “Quiet Australians”…and they probably think he is doing a good job, come what may……………………..
“Jobs shed at West Coast Eagles as clubs struggle”
Any word if the quite well paid footballers are going to help out the admin staff getting the chop….
lizzie
“Tim Watts says people are receiving pay up or leave letters from their landlords.”
Yes, yes… but won’t somebody PLEASE THINK OF THE HAIRDRESSERS!!!!
guyatur
“Yes. I just don’t use China as an eg to avoid the whole you need to be a dictatorship to do it. Granted Singapore comes close.”
I know quite a few students from Singapore. Most are terrified of saying anything bad about their government. I remember one Singaporean student who did speak freely – she first looked around to check there were no other Singaporeans within earshot before unloading.
Lizzie,
We offered a rent reduction several days ago, about 30% or so for six months, and I’m pretty sure the real estate agent is giving us the run around to protect their cut of the rent.
lizzie
“Tim Watts says people are receiving pay up or leave letters from their landlords”
Presumably the State Premiers can simply direct the policy not to enforce evictions.
Back to the very mundane but important topic of toilet rolls.
Many households including ours are close to running out – we have a 5 day supply, but have not been able to buy any for over two weeks.
I was not concerned until today because I can see no reason why the run on toilet paper is continuing. However, continuing it is. I asked at Woolworths today if they are getting deliveries. The answer is yes, after the store closes, but they are all gone after the end of the “community hour” between 0700 and 0800. The staff member has no suggestions for how to buy toilet rolls if you are not elderly or infirm. They did a good impression of a Gallic shrug (my OH does this beautifully – it must be genetic).
So, when does this turn into a public health emergency? Australian households are not set up to survive long without toilet paper. If we use rags, we will either clog the sewers, or provided a toxic waste problem for the garbage man. We also do not have the immunity that you get by catching some 20 stomach bugs by using the toilets in a country without a good toilet wiping material system. I have experienced the 20 bugs personally. It is not pleasant, but after that you are fine.
Can Australia afford to have many of us come down with gastro bugs while battling COVID-129?
Who is actually buying the toilet paper?
How can deliveries be so scant that all the TP goes during 0700 – 0800 when only people with health care cards are allowed to buy and there is a 1 pack limit?
Should the Federal of State governments star proper rationing?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
I hear the reason for the change in the hairdresser rules was because of a grey roots campaign.
meher baba says:
Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 4:31 pm
What I would consider to be exponential growth would be one where the rate of growth itself is frequently doubling (or more).
Maths obviously eludes you.
From a collaborator in South Korea (who is Australian):
“It looks like a total disaster over in Australia – and all of the government’s own doing!
So I guess that we would be looking at ~September to come here? ” [ that is me visiting South Korea.]
“Thanks in advance for your thoughts.”
Oldies buying for others
Toilet roll takes up volume, so you can only fit a certain amount on a truck.
BS Fairman
“I hear the reason for the change in the hairdresser rules was because of a grey roots campaign.”
I’m ashamed to say I laughed out loud at that. 😀
Also, Zeh, I love your reference to Snow Crash
Very prescient!
Douglas and Milko @ #2329 Thursday, March 26th, 2020 – 5:02 pm
Clearly, the cunning Boomers are buying up all the toilet paper, and then reselling it on the black market to supplement their grossly inflated superannuation balances, their negatively geared rental incomes, and their franking credit payments. I mean – who could live on those alone?
Just lurk outside the supermarket after the Boomer-only hour, look shifty, and flash a wad of cash. You will be inundated with Boomers trying to unload a few rolls of 3-ply to make a fast buck 🙂
D and M
“ Can Australia afford to have many of us come down with gastro bugs while battling COVID-129?”
————
Indeed, i gave myself food poisoning 48 hours ago. And i was thinking, after my 10th toilet visit, do i have enough toilet paper? Luckily, it did not last much longer than 24 hours, but it is a bit of a worry.
But i do have a couple of those yellow local phone books. They are the back-up. Should need arise .
MB,
What I would consider to be exponential growth would be one where the rate of growth itself is frequently doubling (or more). Since the overall numbers got reasonably large in mid-March, we have seen jumps in the rate of growth around nearly 80 on 16 March to 226 on 21 March to 370 on 24 March. It’s now been reasonably steady for 3 days. And it would need to jump dramatically again soon – to something like 800 per day – for me to consider the rate of growth to be truly exponential.
If you say the rate is the percentage change d/d, as is standard, then in exponential growth that rate is constant. The absolute value of the change (flow) grows in proportion to the cumulative value (stock) – and both follow exponential curves. In fact the rate of change of the rate of change is also exponential, and so on, and so on.
As you say, the absolute value of the change doubles every few days, because it is growing exponentially.
Did someone say never miss a golden opportunity.
B.S. Fairman
🙂 I would have 😀 but there is a possibility there is a grain of truth in it.
Don’t feel sorry for them.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/26/subscribers-flee-foxtel-and-kayo-as-sport-seasons-cancelled-due-to-coronavirus
P1
No chance. All those multi neg geared rental property owning Boomers will be flat out at home re rolling all the 3 and 4 ply rolls into single ply rolls to sell you.
More signs of the Government’s inability to get its act together. It’s as if its a group of people who are in government for the first time and are just finding their feet.
1. It announced to day it was talking to Ford to use its former factory to manufacture medical ventilators. Why wasn’t it talking weeks ago?
2. The severe shortage of PPE for medical staff. Why isn’t there back-up storage of supplies in case we should ever face an epidemic?
According to Juliette O’Brien national numbers have gone up 370/380/380 the last three days.
Blobbit
That actually makes sense – the supply is volume limited, and everyone who can is (sensibly) buying a bit extra.
Shellbell @ #2344 Thursday, March 26th, 2020 – 4:19 pm
Do you know when she takes the count each day?
Latest WA number – increase from 205 to 231
The last 7 day increases are below. The growth looks like it may be slowing here. I suspect it’s still the reduction in imported cases.
12, 26, 30, 20, 35, 30, 26
23 recovered
4 cases from cruise ships. 51 cases directly from cruise ships.
Doubled in roughly 5 days – 120 cases on 22/3 to 231 today. (90 cases on the 21/3)
a r
If the forward-infection rate is less than one and those infected develop antibodies the virus does go away.
The only way to sustain this is to have a forward -protection rate greater than one.
Forward infection rate = 3. We are in deep shit.
Forward infection rate approximately 1.0 but greater, we have the resources to manage the fallout but the methodology to get there has to be maintained for a long while.
Forward infection rate < 1.0, it dies out.
Morrison is going for the manage option with along tail. It will damage more lives because even with the medical resources people die and the damage to the economy will be greater if the methods to get to about one include the closing down of all social activity ( which is pretty much where we are).
Far better to get the forward infection rate under one.
It's not PHD virology, it's basic maths.
no meher
Its still exponential growth in Australia with a doubling rate of a bit over 3 days and its been consistent about this for the past 2 weeks.