No Newspoll this week it seems. News you can use:
• Queensland’s elections on the weekend are covered in extensive and ongoing detail here. To cut a long story short: the state by-elections of Bundamba and Currumbin resulted in victories for the incumbent parties, namely Labor and the Liberal National Party respectively; Adrian Schrinner of the LNP was re-elected as lord mayor of Brisbane; and the LNP have almost certainly retained a healthy majority on Brisbane City Council. In Bundamba, the LNP ran third behind One Nation (and probably shouldn’t have bothered to run), whose presence in the field also took a bite out of the Labor primary vote. Labor did manage to improve their primary vote at the LNP’s expense in Currumbin, where One Nation is a lot weaker, but the latter’s presence means they will get a lower share of the combined preferences and thus fail to bite into the LNP’s existing 3.3% margin. There has been no notional two-party count, but scrutineers’ figures cited by Antony Green suggest Labor received an uncommonly weak 71% share of Greens preferences.
• Roy Morgan’s promise that it would provide further detail on its half-way intriguing findings on trust in political and business leaders (see here and here) has borne disappointing fruit. Rather than provide the trust and distrust scores as most of us would have hoped, a follow-up release offers only blurry impressions as to the specific attributes that caused the various leaders to be trusted or distrusted, in which “honest/genuine” and “integrity/sincerity” were uselessly listed as distinct response options.
• The Tasmanian government has delayed the date for the periodical Legislative Council elections, which this year encompass the seats of Huon and Rosevears, but only from May 2 to May 30. The Tasmanian Electoral Commission says this will give it more time to “ensure electors have access to the voting process and to maintain the integrity of the 2020 Legislative Council elections during the COVID-19 pandemic”, which presumably means a greater emphasis on postal, pre-poll and maybe telephone voting.
I have found myself doing the keep the social distance rules with
a
Low altitude Nazi salute —
Keep back youse lot ❗
I have taken to wearing my hearing aid which enables some sort of conversation at say – three metres. Inspirational stuff
Like
“Ow are yer mate ❓ ”
and
“Beautiful doggie”.
For Lizzie – when I met a cousin after 65 years the first thing she said to me was “I’m taller than you”. Oh, the pain, the pain.
How does Norman Swan prove contact with a known positive case?
I watched a democrat video over the weekend. I’ll post it if I can find it again, it essentially shows Trump before and after news conferences. Yes, it’s a partisan video but it’s not selective editing of snippets put together to create a false narrative, rather it’s demonstrating a clear point.
Given what I can see and my experience with Alzheimer’s I suspect Trump is perhaps a year, may be two at the outside, from being totally non-functional. I’m not a doctor and obviously not in any place to diagnose Trump based on a 5 minute snippet of video but what I can see is a man that has serious memory, speech and cognitive issues and that he has been deteriorating for the past few years. Whatever form of Alzheimer’s it is, it seems to be aggressive but then again he is also under pressure which wouldn’t be helping. Having watched it I actually feel sorry for him.
Cud Chewer
Perhaps constant hand washing isn’t the proof it’s cracked up to be. :ducks:
Spence says:
Monday, March 30, 2020 at 9:55 am
Boerwar – so if I know some people who are really struggling and need some social support I should rely on a phone call or nothing. Meanwhile most of the outside workforce and some of the inside workforce which adds up to a few million people are ok with following the distancing rules.’
Personal touching/close contact/fomite contacts are what is killing tens of thousands of people overseas as we post. The Virus does not care whether people are mentally ill or have asthma or are disabled.
So the optimum answer to your question is ‘No.’
KayJay @ #201 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 10:32 am
Nice watch, sir. 😀
GoldenSmaug
When Ronald Reagan began to fade away, Nancy was able to stand in and protect him. Trump has been such a domineering person that I doubt he would allow it, and anyway without any special knowledge about her, I don’t think that Melania is up for it.
KayJay. Someone put your fence up way too far back!
That looks suspiciously like a black skivvy.
Holdenhillbilly @ #37 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 7:24 am
That’s not a wage subsidy, it’s corporate welfare!
Boerwar @ #93 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 8:06 am
Fair enough to complain about the first thing. What sort of shitty government only repatriates its stranded citizens if they can pay for their own rescue?
Cud Chewer @ #95 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 8:07 am
Also in fairness to China, dictating other countries’ border policies isn’t their responsibility.
If you need to blame someone for the outbreak, blame any nation that didn’t immediately lock down its borders the moment news first broke. Which is basically all of them. And then stop wasting time trying to assign blame. It will fix literally nothing.
You may recall me bleating on about the school (state wide) policy in the first week of term that explicitly stated any child returning from Wuhan were perfectly safe to go to school.
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #200 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 9:32 am
More accurately, let Spencer run free.
GoldenSmaug @ #47 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 10:37 am
Having watched my father and brother go down with early onset dementia I would agree. I doubt Melania has the confidence or skills to be able to help as Trump is such a domineering personality.
Pretty significant drop from yesterday’s ~400 morning update.
laughtong
Somehow I feel that nursing an old man wasn’t what Melania thought she’d signed up for!
Allowing places of religion to flout the two person rule isn’t ‘their choice’. By facilitating the spread of the virus, they are endangering all of us.
Simon Katich @ #209 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 10:46 am
Damn ❗ Youse lot are acting as potential agents for the “Watchers Who Watch the Watchers”.
The fence is an inner fence which was for the benefit of our dogs over the years. Just inside that fence is a groove a few inches deep where the dogs would patrol – keeping elephants away – the groove is gradually getting filled. There is an outer fence (just visible) simply to stop tourist patrolling the yard which is a corner lot.
Black skivvy. Muriel – change of attire – all black is so yesterday. Let’s try for khaki and blue. Hokay ❗ What’s for lunch ❓
Charts from yesterday’s figures, with predictions and CIs for today:
Note that there is basically no change in the growth rate over the last few days, and that 15% growth represents a doubling time of 5 days. Still a *very large problem*.
Lizzie
Two reasons for the LNP’s approach.
They don’t want to look like Labor.
They don’t want one simple payment. UBI advocates will have firm ground to campaign on.
Both reasons of course are ridiculous in the circumstances. I cannot back up what Doyley has been posting more strongly.
lizzie @ #220 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 8:02 am
Red tape for business, bad!
Red tape for welfare, good!
The statistic that I am interested in is NSW ICU bed and ventilator useage.
Today is 26 and 13
Very little movement over the last 5 days
lizzie @ #68 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 8:53 am
Yet you blithely accept that people believe that a book of completely unknown authorship that sets out the myths and legends of a tribe of middle eastern goatherders is ‘the word of god’. There is no real difference at all between that piece of utter irrationality and ‘the rapture’. People actually believe that some bloke, with no actual historical provenance at all, walked on water! Really!
It is all mass hysteria, promulgated in masses to masses, backed up by massive government subsidies.
As I mentioned previously, if we all do our bit with following social distancing etc.
I am confident we can get through this quite well. And getting some normalcy in May.
OC,
Where is that data available?
Does it include new and resolved cases?
This publication has many other stories of complete and utter RW nut jobs (religious and otherwise) who are poisoning the minds of gullible Americans and people in other countries.
The current PM as exhibit A!
yabba
Who are you addressing? It’s not me.
Morrison and co were reluctant to put in strong measures.
Thanks to Vic and NSW pushing the issue last week.
If we succeed it will be down to them
Victoria
I hope you are right.
I fear you are not with this Federal Government making too many exemptions.
Lizzie
I think Yabba meant that comment for someone else.
Guytaur
Don’t know what you mean
Victoria
I do hope so. I’ve never said what I do or don’t believe -about practically anything. 😆
Boerwar @ #157 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 9:39 am
The trout are ferals, and eat Australian native fish hatchlings.
Victoria
Things like the hairdressing exemption.
Lizzie
Most definitely
Guytaur
Ultimately people can decide whether attending hair appointment is sensible social distancing.
And of course hairdressers can decide not to cut hair with n that basis.
I am interested in the 70 plus age group which still stands under 15% of cases in NSW.
15 people aged 90+ with the disease which includes 3 deceased
KayJay says:
The fence is an inner fence which was for the benefit of our dogs over the years. Just inside that fence is a groove a few inches deep where the dogs would patrol – keeping elephants away – the groove is gradually getting filled. There is an outer fence (just visible) simply to stop tourist patrolling the yard which is a corner lot.
____________
Well aren’t we all fancy with an inner fence and an outer fence! Reminds me of a Medieval Lord with his inner castle walls and outer castle walls. Defense in Depth!
Victoria
I don’t think hairdressers are an essential service.
OC and DM,
Going through media releases at NSW health.
ICU in NSW in last 5 days:
16,19,22,24,26
Requiring ventilation:
10,9,11,12,13
Hardly skyrocketing, but not exactly flat either.
DM
Link: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/2020-nsw-health.aspx
I added OC’s latest data point.
Thanks NathanA
An international team of scientists say the coronavirus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in China. Photo: APAn international team of scientists say the coronavirus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in China. Photo: AP
An international team of scientists say the coronavirus may have jumped from animal to humans long before the first detection in China. Photo: AP
The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 might have been quietly spreading among humans for years or even decades before the sudden outbreak that sparked a global health crisis, according to an investigation by some of the world’s top virus hunters.
Researchers from the United States, Britain and Australia looked at piles of data released by scientists around the world for clues about the virus’ evolutionary past, and found it might have made the jump from animal to humans long before the first detection in the central China city of Wuhan.
Though there could be other possibilities, the scientists said the coronavirus carried a unique mutation that was not found in suspected animal hosts, but was likely to occur during repeated, small-cluster infections in humans.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3077442/coronavirus-pathogen-could-have-been-spreading-humans-decades
Victoria @ #237 Monday, March 30th, 2020 – 10:21 am
Fair enough, if other activities are held to the same standard. Let people decide whether or not going to the gym or for a swim is sensible social distancing. And of course gyms and pools can decide to voluntarily shut down if they want, etc..
But since that’s not the standard being applied generally, what makes hairdressers so special that they get to benefit from it?
Shellbell
“I am interested in the 70 plus age group which still stands under 15% of cases in NSW.”
Consider 15% of the population are over 65 years old, the above figure is probably as expected
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/older-people/older-australia-at-a-glance/contents/demographics-of-older-australians
KayJay, charcoal is the new black. My charcoal skivvy has a few holes in it tho so shopping for a new one. I have heard dove grey is the new charcoal.
He has certainly been secretly submerged for a long time.
I reckon it’s because:
(1) His condition with the virus is a lot worse than he said it was earlier; and/or
(2) The atrocious performance of his Border Force in keeping infectious people out has embarrassed him severely and weakened his standing as a contender for Morrison’s job.
Watch it! I am only a few generations from Middle Eastern goatherders.