Essential Research and Roy Morgan: more coronavirus polling

Two new polls suggest early skepticism about the threat posed by coronavirus is fast disappearing.

As reported by The Guardian, Essential Research has unusually conducted a new poll just a week after the last. This effectively replicates last week’s suite of questions on coronavirus to tie in with an online forum later today involving The Guardian’s Katharine Murphy and Essential Research’s Peter Lewis.

The results show a sharp rise in concern since last week, with 53% now saying they are very concerned, after the three previous fortnightly polls had it progressing from 25% to 27% to 39%. Only 18% now say they consider there has been an overreaction to the thread, down from 33% last week, while 43% now think the threat has been underestimated, up from 28%. These results imply little change to last week’s finding that 39% thought the response about right, though we will presumably have to await publication of the full report later today for a complete set of numbers. The poll also finds overwhelming support for the restrictive measures that have been taken. The rise in concern appears to have been matched by a decline in skepticism about media reportage, which 42% now say they trust, up from 35% last week.

Also out today is a Roy Morgan SMS poll on coronavirus, showing 43% support for the view that the federal government is handling the crisis well with 49% disagreeing — a rather weak result by international standards (it is noted that a similar poll in the United Kingdom a bit under a fortnight ago had it at 49% and 37%). This poll finds an even higher pitch of public concern than Essential, in that only 15% believed the threat to be exaggerated, with fully 81% disagreeing. Relatedly, 80% said they were willing to sacrifice some of their “human rights” to help prevent the spread of the virus (evidently having a somewhat different conception of that term from my own), with only 14% disagreeing. The poll was conducted on Saturday and Sunday from a sample of 988.

UPDATE: Full report from Essential Research here. The recorded increase in concern about the virus is not matched by a change in perceptions of the government’s handling of it, which 45% rate as good, unchanged on last week, and 31% rate as poor, up two. There is also a question on concern about climate change, which refutes the hopes of some conservative commentators in suggesting it has not been affected by the coronavirus crisis: 31% say they are more concerned than they were a year ago, 53% no more or less so, and 16% less concerned. However, the number of respondents saying Australia is not doing enough to address climate change is down from 60% in November to 55%, with doing enough up one to 23% and doing too much up one to 9%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1086.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,376 comments on “Essential Research and Roy Morgan: more coronavirus polling”

Comments Page 34 of 48
1 … 33 34 35 … 48

  3. Bucephalus @ #1646 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 11:16 am

    It’s Time,

    I fully understand the fiscal imbalance and that is exactly why the three tiered system needs to be scrapped. Regional governments would concentrate on regional issues with their own revenue base (uncorrupted like the current GST is) and Federal Government have its own revenue base spent on Federal issues.

    Yeah, so completely different to the current arrangements.

  5. Dr. Dena Grayson‏Verified account @DrDenaGrayson

    #COVID19 deaths in #NYC continue to skyrocket faster than *anywhere* else globally.

    #Coronavirus deaths also surging in #Michigan, NJ, and #Louisiana.

    #CA and #FL are earlier in their outbreaks, so time and TESTING will tell.

    The next 4-6 weeks will be hell.

  6. Scott @ #1650 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 11:17 am

    New zealand 797 cases , with 92 recovered

    Australia 5105, with 345 recovered

    At the moment the trend can change
    It seems new zealand , recovery is quicker than Australia

    Recovery figures for Australia are rubbish.
    “Across Australia, at least 346 people have recovered. This figure underestimates the true number of recoveries because it is reported in only four jurisdictions — Victoria, WA, the ACT and Tasmania — and only Victoria reports this figure daily.

    A NSW Health media spokeswoman told ABC News it does not report this figure because it is too difficult to define when a person is considered to have recovered from the disease.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704

  7. bushfire bill: “The idea that there is a massive tsunami of cases just over the horizon, about to strike, and that what we’re seeing now is a false low tide before the real catastrophe hits us, doesn’t add up, particularly given the social isolation measures now in force and even – informally – in force from a few weeks ago.”

    Don’t you understand, it’s all coming from the “exponentiality”, which only the initiated devotees can comprehend.

    I reluctant to go into all of this again, but I will simply note that I think that the concept of “exponential growth” that some posters on here appear to have derived from the physical sciences (as opposed to the colloquial use of the term, which is suspect is what is meant by many talking about the epidemiology in the media) is based on the concept of a consistent percentage rate of growth that leads to an increase that is relatively flat at first and then quite dramatically turns into a steep upward curve.

    And I agree that this sort of growth could reasonably be described as “exponential.” But, while the growth rate over the past couple of weeks has typically been above the level that could be described as “linear” or “arithmetical”, if you look beyond the daily rates, it does seem to be showing emerging signs of a downward trend back towards arithmetical growth. So I’m really struggling to see any convincing evidence that we are about to experience the dramatic upward curve that some seem to be eagerly anticipating.

  8. It’s Time @ #1618 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 11:51 am

    It is a human invention [mathematics]

    This is not true. Mathematics is a human discovery – all of the mathematical structure exists with or without humans to appreciate it, we are merely learning it for ourselves.

    If an intelligent civilisation existed in some far-off star system a billion years in the past, or will arise somewhere a billion years in the future, our poetry wouldn’t mean anything to them (or theirs to us) – but we can be sure that on the prime numbers we would agree.

    Apparently it’s a belief system according to GG. So that makes his belief in the loving sky fairy just as valid.

    To be fair to GG, while mathematics itself is not a belief system, the Platonic idea that mathematics either underpins the universe, or has some kind of existence independent of it, rather than just being a remarkably successful approximation of some aspects of the universe, is a belief system. It is called “Mathematicism”, and, like “Sky Fairies” can (probably!) neither be proven nor disproven 🙂

  10. It’s Time says:
    Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 12:22 pm

    A NSW Health media spokeswoman told ABC News it does not report this figure because it is too difficult to define when a person is considered to have recovered from the disease.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704

    ————————————————-

    I guess NSW health on that statement shouldn’t report the death figures either , because they would not be certain to say whether the corona virus was the main caused of deaths , or part of the cause due to other underlying health conditions people had .

  13. meher baba @ #1657 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 11:23 am

    bushfire bill: “The idea that there is a massive tsunami of cases just over the horizon, about to strike, and that what we’re seeing now is a false low tide before the real catastrophe hits us, doesn’t add up, particularly given the social isolation measures now in force and even – informally – in force from a few weeks ago.”

    Don’t you understand, it’s all coming from the “exponentiality”, which only the initiated devotees can comprehend.

    I reluctant to go into all of this again, but I will simply note that I think that the concept of “exponential growth” that some posters on here appear to have derived from the physical sciences (as opposed to the colloquial use of the term, which is suspect is what is meant by many talking about the epidemiology in the media) is based on the concept of a consistent percentage rate of growth that leads to an increase that is relatively flat at first and then quite dramatically turns into a steep upward curve.

    And I agree that this sort of growth could reasonably be described as “exponential.” But, while the growth rate over the past couple of weeks has typically been above the level that could be described as “linear” or “arithmetical”, if you look beyond the daily rates, it does seem to be showing emerging signs of a downward trend back towards arithmetical growth. So I’m really struggling to see any convincing evidence that we are about to experience the dramatic upward curve that some seem to be eagerly anticipating.

    I’m not sure which is the bigger idiot.

    Look at the cumulative new cases in Australia over the month of March – 28cases to 4,561 cases. How would you describe such growth? stable? constant? oscilatting? exponential decay? linear? exponential growth? And that’s after progressively more restrictions to slow the spread.
    https://www.covid19data.com.au/

  15. Bucephalus says:
    Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 11:56 am
    Both the Bushfires and the Pandemic has shown how poor the understanding of our Constitution is and how few understand the Federal-State arrangements. Even on this site apparently informed participants don’t know s$&t. After it has died down surely a campaign to abolish the Senate, State and Local Governments and establish regional governments is vastly more important than stupid things like a Republic.

    _____________________________________-

    We can have both. The interesting thing is that the restructure of The Australian federal system was a beloved desire of Gough Whitlam. Funny how the right has massively embraced the left agenda in this new world turned upside down by Pandemic

  16. Scott @ #1660 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 11:30 am

    It’s Time says:
    Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 12:22 pm

    A NSW Health media spokeswoman told ABC News it does not report this figure because it is too difficult to define when a person is considered to have recovered from the disease.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704

    ————————————————-

    I guess NSW health on that statement shouldn’t report the death figures either , because they would not be certain to say whether the corona virus was the main caused of deaths , or part of the cause due to other underlying health conditions people had .

    Try not to be too thick.

  17. “meher babasays:
    Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 12:03 pm
    11 days after reaching the 100 case mark, NZ has reported 797 cases in total. By comparison, 11 days after reaching 100 cases, Australia had reached 1072 cases in total. The relevant point here is that NZ has a population one-fifth of that of Australia.”

    Looking at the reported numbers, NZ was in a much worse situation than Australia. I don’t know how they were testing, but whatever it was, it seems they did need to act.

    The population ratio is fairly irrelevant at this stage. In the early stages, it doesn’t really matter if you have a population of 1M, 10M or 100M. Effectively there’s a close enough to infinite pool of potential people to infect. For the early stages total number is more relevant.

  18. DM: “OK, here you go:
    – Absolute numbers of new infections is proportional to the number of existing cases.
    – All other things being equal, the growth rate is constant.
    – For small proportions of a population, i.e. in the initial growth phase of viral spread, the growth rate is independent of the size of the population.”
    It’s the basics, MB.”

    The last point, which is an assumption rather than a mathematical point, is arguable, but what do you consider a small proportion of a population of 5 million? NZ’s current caseload is not far short of being the same proportion of its population as Australia’s caseload is of ours.

    The first two points don’t make any sense. “Absolute numbers of new cases are proportional to the number of existing cases”? Absolute numbers of anything can always be considered “proportional” to the numbers of anything else. So what on earth are you talking about?

    And “all other things being equal”: what “other things”?

    Perhaps this is satire?

  21. Bucephalus

    I don’t worry on a daily basis, but I do when someone like Tony Abbott has such influence, or the Right to Lifers. The Fundies’ attitude that only the rich are worth supporting by government is definitely a worry.

  23. Bushfire Bill @ #1641 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 12:11 pm

    The amplification of caseload proceeds here.

    This morning we’ve seen an official caseload of around 2300 increased to “15,000” based on a sequence of hunches that feed off each other to increase a kind of paranoia. It happened last night too on another sequence of what seemed like guesswork.

    While the precise factor may be guesswork, the existence of “amplification” is not. It is based on evidence from Hubei province.

  24. BTW – those extra 4000 ICU beds. Anyone know if
    1. that can be achieved
    2. what the time frame would be

    Given the global demand, I’m really struggling to see this as being at all realistic in the short term. I’d love to be wrong of course.
    (asked this last night, but it went of into a discussion on how amazing ICU is – which it is)

  25. It’s Time

    “Look at the cumulative new cases in Australia over the month of March – 28cases to 4,561 cases. How would you describe such growth? stable? constant? oscilatting? exponential decay? linear? exponential growth? And that’s after progressively more restrictions to slow the spread.
    https://www.covid19data.com.au/”

    The first part of the growth, from 28 cases to when the numbers reached the thousands, was always going to be exponential in every sense of that word, as it didn’t take very many new cases each way to produce a growth rate of 200% or more. A similar trend has been observed in every other country. What then happened was that, in some countries – eg, South Korea, Singapore and Japan – the growth rate then settled down into something more akin to linear or arithmetical. In other countries the growth rate continued to explode.

    Well, I would describe the growth over the past four days as bordering on arithmetical, or linear, rather than exponential. And, sure, it’s only four days, but if we were about to see a dramatic upwards curve, you’d really be expecting to see quite different figures to these.

  26. Are you worried about the prevalence of Catholics in the ALP? The SDA Union?
    __________
    I am less worried than I used to be. The results of the plebiscite on marriage equality and the fair wage scandals which have impacted their cosy deals with Colesworth have been big blows to them. Euthanasia legislation has now been passed by ALP government in VIC and WA. This would have been unthinkable years ago. So they have lost some big battles. I suspect that they are just a gang set on pursuing patronage and cushy seats rather than trying to control the morals of the nation anymore.

  27. “While the precise factor may be guesswork, the existence of “amplification” is not. It is based on evidence from Hubei province.”

    Though I think people are being a little inconsistent. They’re using ICU/death rates from identified cases in other places, then applying those to the guessed number of cases. This doesn’t recognise that those other places aren’t picking up 100% of their cases either.

  28. The proportion of the population with the virus at this point is completely irrelevant. What matters is the density of connections between people.

  29. The right is in existential crisis of their economic model.

    They don’t want Eat the Rich Morlocks to be real.

    So we have Alan Joyce arguing only Qantas should be nationalised and not Virgin as well.

    We are only in the short term effect.

    While the same here, in the US the next few days are going to be very interesting. End of the month rents mortgages utilities and other bills fall at the end of the month. There due to the domination of privatise everything for so long the failures are going to be dramatic.

    We know the 3 million unemployed applications are under reporting the problem.

  30. @poddiguy
    ·
    Mar 26
    Replying to @AnthonyCole68
    A friend of ours Husband was the bus driver that drove the 12 Hillsong members around South Australian towns after their gathering , I think three tested positive and now all of them are in isolation in the Barossa . The driver is in iso now

  31. Bucephalus @ #1622 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 11:56 am

    Both the Bushfires and the Pandemic has shown how poor the understanding of our Constitution is and how few understand the Federal-State arrangements.

    I agree with this. And the misunderstanding seems to be strongest in the respective governments themselves. In both cases, things didn’t start working properly (if they ever did) until the two governments began to mesh properly.

    Even now, it is the States that are driving the Feds – who continue to bluster a lot but do very little – into taking the necessary actions.

    If nothing else, I think we will start to – finally – see a revival of the role of State governments, which have been largely somnolent in recent years, appearing to believe that their most sacred responsibility is the rorting of their citizenry on behalf of their “mates”.

  33. Looks like NZ testing is only moving into broader testing as well

    “The case definition has been amended to de-couple respiratory symptoms from a travel history with testing made available to people with respiratory symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 infection (including the acute onset of cough with or without fever) regardless of travel history or known contact with a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19. Priority groups for testing have been included in the case definitions.”

  34. Re the “miracle drug” dreck from Newscorpse . A sober look at the compound concerned . For lizzie an interesting morsel of info re the drug.

    Although the FDA has not approved its use for these conditions, both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

    Could chloroquine treat coronavirus? 5 questions answered about a promising, problematic and unproven use for an antimalarial drug

    I am a medicinal chemist who specializes in discovery and development of antiviral drugs, and I have been actively working on coronaviruses for seven years.

    However, because I am a scientist and I deal in facts and evidence-based medicine, I am concerned about the sweeping statements the president has been making regarding the use of chloroquine or the closely related hydroxychloroquine, both antimalarial drugs, as cures for COVID-19. So let’s examine the facts.
    https://theconversation.com/could-chloroquine-treat-coronavirus-5-questions-answered-about-a-promising-problematic-and-unproven-use-for-an-antimalarial-drug-134511

  35. Projections of acceleration mostly depend on our behaviour being stable. Our behaviour is *not* stable at the moment. We have been, and still are, changing it. Trying to determine what curve we’re on at the moment is problematic. Any naive curve fitting and estimation of growth rates off current data is most likely going to be inaccurate.

  36. meher baba @ #1675 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 11:43 am

    It’s Time

    “Look at the cumulative new cases in Australia over the month of March – 28cases to 4,561 cases. How would you describe such growth? stable? constant? oscilatting? exponential decay? linear? exponential growth? And that’s after progressively more restrictions to slow the spread.
    https://www.covid19data.com.au/”

    Well, I would describe the growth over the past four days as bordering on arithmetical, or linear, rather than exponential. And, sure, it’s only four days, but if we were about to see a dramatic upwards curve, you’d really be expecting to see quite different figures to these.

    So why would you expect rapid deceleration in new cases? We have hopefully reached an inflection point.

  37. “ Even now, it is the States that are driving the Feds – who continue to bluster a lot but do very little”

    FFS – that’s because the States have the responsibilities and powers and the Federal Government doesn’t.

  39. “DisplayNamesays:
    Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 12:50 pm
    Projections of acceleration mostly depend on our behaviour being stable. Our behaviour is *not* stable at the moment. We have been, and still are, changing it. Trying to determine what curve we’re on at the moment is problematic. Any naive curve fitting and estimation of growth rates off current data is most likely going to be inaccurate.”

    100%

    At best it can only show what’s happened.

  41. DisplayName

    Projections of acceleration mostly depend on our behaviour being stable. Our behaviour is *not* stable at the moment

    That was the main flaw in DTT’s ‘we’re all doomed’ projections for Ebola.

  42. TPOF

    My opinion on Local, State and Federal Governments and the Senate have nothing to do with the Pandemic – I have held these opinions for decades.

  43. poroti

    Every drug I take is said to interact badly with something else I take. I have to rely on my specialist/medicos to protect me. 🙁

  44. For those that like modelling, this paper from the group at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine may be of interest: https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/control-measures/report/uk_scenario_modelling_preprint_2020_04_01.pdf

    I found the supplementary information on their model parameters useful.

    meter baba, you previously mentioned your respect for Prof MacIntyre’s opinion. Perhaps this article published yesterday may be a enlightening summary: https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/public-health-health-systems-and-palliation-planning-covid-19-exponential-timeline

  45. MB,

    > The last point, which is an assumption rather than a mathematical point…

    I reckon 100/5M and 100/25M are both relatively close to 0, and maths backs me up.

    > The first two points don’t make any sense. “Absolute numbers of new cases are proportional to the number of existing cases”? Absolute numbers of anything can always be considered “proportional” to the numbers of anything else. So what on earth are you talking about.

    Are you familiar with compound interest? Same idea. Interest payable is proportional to the outstanding debt balance. If you don’t pay the interest this period, then the debt grows by an absolute amount that is proportional to this time-period’s outstanding balance. In this case, the rate of growth of debt is the interest rate.

    > And “all other things being equal”: what “other things”?

    Ah, things like govt policy and people’s behaviour?

    What the initiated are trying to do is work out how the (exponential) growth rate is changing over time , in response to changes in policy. This involves some mathematisation of the problem.

    The basic mechanics/biology of viral spread tell us that exponential growth is to be expected. So that’s the starting point.

    Next we look at the parameters of the model. I’ve been charting the 5-day moving average of the growth rate, and projecting some confidence intervals around its future value. This allows me to express a degree of (reasonable) uncertainty around the future growth rate of reported virus cases.

    Although the absolute number of new cases is relatively stable at the moment, there is nothing inconsistent with exponential growth here – it is just that the growth rate parameter is changing. The basic biology of the virus has not changed. In other words, the underlying model is still exponential, but the growth rate is time-varying.

    It is a good thing that the policies implemented to date appear to be driving the growth rate down. But when it levels out, we will still have exponential growth, albeit at a slower rate.

    This is like trying to forecast how the RBA will set future interest rates in order to predict future loan liabilities, but doing it every day with some nasty lags between policy implementation and monitoring of the effects, and noisy shocks (e.g. Ruby Princess) added to the mix. A key difference is that we have a fairly good understanding of how the RBA implements its policies in response to economic data; whereas we are learning how social distancing and restrictions on arrivals affect the growth rate of this virus on the fly.

  46. Sandy Logan

    If this is true that @PrincessCruises pre-warned @NSWHealth of their ill PAX, why weren’t pandemic flu border measures, towit “screening of passengers on cruise ships prior to disembarkation, where there is evidence of cases of influenza on board” undertaken?
    Quote Tweet
    Princess Cruises
    @PrincessCruises
    · Mar 31
    Replying to @Cosmophylla
    The ill people were reported to NSW Health, who advised that we could proceed with disembarking all guests prior to test results being received. We gave full disclosure and followed the instructions of the local authorities.

  48. poroti @ #1684 Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 – 11:49 am

    Re the “miracle drug” dreck from Newscorpse . A sober look at the compound concerned . For lizzie an interesting morsel of info re the drug.

    Although the FDA has not approved its use for these conditions, both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

    Could chloroquine treat coronavirus? 5 questions answered about a promising, problematic and unproven use for an antimalarial drug

    I am a medicinal chemist who specializes in discovery and development of antiviral drugs, and I have been actively working on coronaviruses for seven years.

    However, because I am a scientist and I deal in facts and evidence-based medicine, I am concerned about the sweeping statements the president has been making regarding the use of chloroquine or the closely related hydroxychloroquine, both antimalarial drugs, as cures for COVID-19. So let’s examine the facts.
    https://theconversation.com/could-chloroquine-treat-coronavirus-5-questions-answered-about-a-promising-problematic-and-unproven-use-for-an-antimalarial-drug-134511

    Facts – so inconvenient for a genius like Trump and the believers.

    BTW, has anyone fact checked the anecdote that Trump cited?

  49. Displayname:

    The proportion of the population with the virus at this point is completely irrelevant. What matters is the density of connections between people.

    Actually it’s always the “average” degree (“connections per persons”) that matters, provided it is the “effective” connections that count, namely those that can transmit connections. I.e those that connect a parson to another person who is not already infected (because one can’t be infected twice, or at least being infected twice has no further effect)

    Roughly, the number of “effective” connections for a given person (during some period, say one day) is E = C – I, where
    C – the number of other people with whom that person has contact (“close contact”)’;
    I – the number of those people who have already been infected

    Early on, E = C-I is usually very close to C, since I is close to zero.

    It’s only when the proportion of people in the population who are infected becomes quite large that I becomes significant

    And it only at this point where I becomes significant that that the proportion of the population infected become significant, since they are in essence one and the same.

    What this means of course that in attempting to control early on, one must focus on C rather than I, by reducing the “average” C in a variety of ways.

Comments Page 34 of 48
1 … 33 34 35 … 48

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *