The West Australian had a Painted Dog Research poll of 500 respondents on attitudes to the coronavirus, with field work dates undisclosed – or at least its website did, as I can’t see any mention of it in the hard copy. What the online report ($) tells us is that 71% believed the federal government should “enforce a full lockdown”; that 25% expected three months of social distancing, and 23% six months; that 18% were extremely worried about losing their job by September, with another 42% slightly worried; and that 68% were most concerned about the health impact, compared with 28% for the economic impact.
Other than that, I have the following to relate about Queensland’s elections on the weekend, which I’ll put here as the dedicated post on the subject doesn’t seem to be doing much business:
• As the dust settles on the troubled counting process, it’s clear the Liberal National Party has enjoyed something of a triumph in the election for Brisbane City Council, extending their 16-year grip on the lord mayoralty and quite probably repeating their feat from 2016 of winning 19 out 26 wards on the council. Incumbent Adrian Schrinner leads Labor’s Pat Condren in the lord mayoral race by a margin of 5.5%, although the latter gained a 4.0% swing off Graham Quirk’s landslide win in 2016. The ABC projection is awarding 17 ward seats to the LNP, to which they look very likely to add Enoggera, while maintaining a slender lead over the Greens in Paddington. The Greens’ combined council ward vote is up 3.4% on 2016 to 17.9%, and they retained their sole existing seat of The Gabba with swings of 12.2% on the primary vote and 8.5% on two-party preferred.
• However, it was a less good performance by the LNP in the two state by-elections, where all the detail is laid out at my results pages for Bundamba and Currumbin. The party finished a distant third behind One Nation in Bundamba, which remains a safe seat for Labor, and have only narrowly held on in Currumbin, where Labor has achieved a rare feat for a governing party in picking up a swing of nearly 2% at a by-election. Party leader Deb Frecklington would nonetheless be relieved by the result, since a defeat in Currumbin, which a pre-election poll suggested was in prospect, would surely have imperilled her leadership, despite her being able to point to the highly unusual circumstances in which the election was held.
• Speaking of which, I offer the following numbers on the ways the enrolled voters of Bundamba and Currumbin did and didn’t vote, with the qualification that there is an indeterminate number of postals still to be counted — perhaps rather a few of them, given I understood that there had been a surge in applications (although it seems a number of applicants never received their ballots).
Finally, a few thoughts on the situation in the United States, elaborating on a subject covered in yesterday’s post here by Adrian Beaumont – you are encouraged to comment on that thread if you have something specific to offer on matters American, and in particular on Donald Trump’s confounding opinion poll bounce over the past few weeks. I sought to put the latter event in context in a paywalled Crikey article on Monday, the key feature of which is the following comparison of his approval rating trend, as measured by FiveThirtyEight, with comparable trend measures of my own for Angela Merkel, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Scott Morrison.
The upshot is that leaders the world over are enjoying a “rally around the flag” approval bounce, and that Donald Trump’s looks meagre indeed compared with his colleagues across the Atlantic. I feel pretty sure that the lack of a clear bounce for Scott Morrison is down to the fact that there have been no new numbers since Essential Research’s poll of over a fortnight ago, with the surges for Merkel, Johnson and Macron being concentrated since that time.
It’s also interesting to observe that Trump’s improvement has not been consistently observed. The chart below records his trends so far from this year from the five most prolific pollsters. For some reason, Rasmussen, the pollster that is usually most favourable to him — and which is accordingly the most frequent subject of his vainglorious tweets on the odd occasion when it reaches 50% — has in fact found his approval rating going in the direction he deserves. There is also no sign of change from the Ipsos series. However, the improving trend from the other three is more in line with the many other pollsters included in the FiveThirtyEight series, hence its overall picture of his best ratings since his post-election honeymoon.
SK:
You’re in a grumpy mood this morning. Be happy, it’s Friday after all!
Before I head off into work, at home of course, a cautionary tale about the sensitivity of the time frames for action. Currently, Austria and Germany have near identical responses to the virus, and have done for nearly two weeks. Germany, however instituted their shutdown 7 days after Austria. Germany now have nearly 85 000 cases and 1107 deaths, while Austria have 11 123 cases and 158 deaths, while both have similarly low rates of growth in confirmed cases.
So, it’s not just the measures that are taken but when they are taken, and people that put pressure on the Government to act sooner than they wanted should be commended.
Simon Katich
We don’t need a wall.When invading forces from ‘Over East” get to Adelaide they lose their will to live. 😉
As we run out of PPE, doctors and nurses are increasingly reluctant to look after covid patients with inadequate protection. This is the BMA’s ethics statement on the issue.
“Do I have to work if my personal protective equipment is inadequate?
Obligations on health professionals to accept a degree of risk in providing treatment impose strong reciprocal obligations on employers. All employers have both a legal and ethical responsibility to protect their staff and must ensure that appropriate and adequate personal protective equipment is available, and that staff are trained in the use of it. Health staff, and other staff essential to the running of health services cannot be expected to expose themselves to unreasonable levels of risk where employers have not provided, or have been unable to provide, appropriate protective equipment. Where health professionals have a reasonable belief that their protective equipment is insufficient – that it falls short of expected professional standards – they need to raise this as a matter of urgency with their managers. Risk assessments must be made based upon the specific facts of the case, and consideration should be given to finding alternative ways of providing the care and treatment needed. In the BMA’s view, there are limits to the level of risks doctors can reasonably be expected to expose themselves to as part of their professional duties. Doctors would not be under a binding obligation to provide high-risk services where employers have failed to fulfil at least minimal obligations to provide appropriate safety and protection and to protect doctors and other health professionals from avoidable risks of serious harm.”
Holdenhillbilly says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 8:35 am
Western Australia will be the first state to introduce hard borders, promising to turn back even its own residents at checkpoints and airports if they try to come home.
Still wan to know how they are going to get goods across the Nullarbor without letting drivers in?
The local fed LyingN(C)P MP started texting, so I make it a point to send one of BK’s daily @Scovid-19 cartoons back.
Simon Katich @ #14 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 7:03 am
They must have changed formula; previously it was drugs for mind control.
In terms of new cases the situation looks good in the ACT. The site states that there have been no cases of community transmission but that one case is still being investigated.
From what I have been able to gather from friends and rellies, the testing regimes (they have changed over time) have been responsive enough to pick up significant community transmission should it exist.
While I find reason for hope in all this (and have been cautiously optimistic about the situation in the ACT for some weeks) I find it interesting that (expensive) preparations for a bad scenario continue to be initiated in the ACT. I assume that if the worst comes to the worst in NSW and we have spare capacity we would be welcoming severe and critical cases from NSW in particular. Just as Germany is doing for France and Italy.
We had to travel through a large part of the ACT yesterday for unavoidable health reasons. I was able to scout Woden – one of the large regional hubs in the ACT- and there were very few pedestrians, no loiterers, and few cars. This was during what would normally have been a frenetic peak hour. Most business had ‘closed due to the Virus’ signs on their doors. In relation to loiterers, there was little reason to loiter. There weather was ordinary.
https://www.covid19.act.gov.au/news-articles/covid-19-update-2-april-2020
frednk
Truckies still welcome.
.
There will be exemptions for health services, emergency workers, transport, freight, logistics, national and state security and judicial services.
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-premier-mark-mcgowan-announces-hard-border-closure-for-wa-ng-b881508125z
poroti @ #59 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 6:15 am
And FIFO are exempt too.
The reduction in contrails, the virtual elimination of the Asian Brown Cloud and the reduction of global atmospheric pollution levels more generally is going to have a measurable impact on temperatures. The may even provide some input into the scientific assessments that will help recalibrate climate models for cloud effect.
Perth airport has numerous interstate and overseas flights arriving (eg Qantas from London).
What are they going to do with WA residents who get off the planes at the airport (besides the 14 day quarantine)?
Yes, growth rate has been declining, which is great.
But my figures (from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704) show it closer to 1.06 for Australia up to 11:23pm last night.
And the decline appears to be slowing.
We’ve done the easy bits, now it gets harder.
Lots more testing, with isolation of infected, and social distancing required.
We need less than 1.0 before I’ll be popping champagne corks.
‘poroti says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 9:15 am
frednk
Truckies still welcome.’
Not the truckies, perhaps. What’s in their trucks, for sure.
Boerwar: “a frenetic peak hour”
Gee, things must have changed. I worked in the Woden Valley a couple of decades ago, and the idea of a “frenetic peak hour” back then would have seemed a total fantasy!
Qld will be turning back any non-residents without the required permit card from today. FIFO workers considered essential ( eg health workers ) exempted.
NathanA:
”Germany now have nearly 85 000 cases and 1107 deaths, while Austria have 11 123 cases and 158 deaths…”
Germany had about nine times Austria’s population.
On a per-capita basis (Germany vs Austria), that’s 980 cases per million versus 800 and 13 deaths per million vs 18.
Confessions
But they need to do the 14 days bit. Which with the rosters involved makes it look like they would pretty much be ‘stuck’ in WA for a long time. Can’t see doing a 2 week ‘isolation’ each time they come back from home being much of a goer. Especially if they have to stay in an on site donga.
mb
Things change. The ACT population is now 400,000+. In addition thousands of peeps (used to) drive in for work from Goulburn, Yass and Queanbeyand and beyond.
Doesn’t the AMA, or some similar body, have an equivalent statement, Dio?
Acting in the best interests of health professionals should be fundamental.
a r @ #68 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 9:24 am
Close enough to 5%. Creeping down ❓
Confessions says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 9:17 am
poroti @ #59 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 6:15 am
frednk
Truckies still welcome.
.
There will be exemptions for health services, emergency workers, transport, freight, logistics, national and state security and judicial services.
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-premier-mark-mcgowan-announces-hard-border-closure-for-wa-ng-b881508125z
And FIFO are exempt too.
Pretty porous full lock down.
Gladys has Generalissimo Mick onto the case.
I’m not sure he’ll have the time, not with his ongoing investigation into Angus. … oh, wait. …
“ The NSW Premier says she is not going to play the “blame game” over who is responsible for the Ruby Princess cruise ship fiasco, but adds that she has asked the state’s police commissioner to investigate the matter.
“In hindsight, everybody could have done better in relation to that matter,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.”
______
Ya think!
How about taking responsibility for a lack of foresight Gladys. How about doing the right think and resigning.
… Gladys went on to say:
“ “The best advice I’ve received [is that] our authorities in NSW followed all existing protocols.”
“I don’t think it helps everybody to point fingers and play the blame game.”
However, Ms Berejiklian added that the federal government is also accountable for the Ruby Princess matter.
“When it comes to protecting our borders, we have a joint responsibility with the federal government. Normally the states don’t – normally border protection is just a federal issue. But under these difficult circumstances, all of the states have stepped up.”
_______
Frack me dead. Stepping up – existing protocols. … Two months after the Diamond Princess and she’s falling back on existing protocols. …
A week before the Ruby Princess docked the NSW government was still encouraging cruise trips. Little wonder given the industry generates 10,000 jobs for the NSW economy and $2.7 billion to the economy with each overseas passenger spending an average of $1,000.00 each in Sydney alone. Such is the exponential growth that P&O has set up its head office here. 600 direct onshore jobs.
It is in that context that the Liberals, state and federal must be judged. Along with their minions in the relevant agencies.
As disastrous as the decision to allow the passengers to disembark without proper quarantine procedures being in place is, Mick Fuller and Peter Dutton’s conduct this week borders on the criminal.
It was Generalissimo Mick that first raised the issue of the cruise ship companies being based on paper in tax havens and their ships flying flags of convenience. Adding in that many of the staff and crew are foreigners. This was a deliberate provocation of a new wave of xenophobia in the community. Designed to allow his Liberal masters tap into the community bigotry and hate that they have carefully cultivated since Tampa. To deflect from their own terrible, awful incompetence. Of course, Dutton resurfaces from witness protection yesterday to put the boot in.
It have never been a problem for the Liberals to cultivate an industry that is domiciled in a tax haven. Or allow ships flying flags of convenience to birth in Australia. Not when they have been bending over to reap the cash benefits. Not when passengers – many of them Australians – wanted to get off.
Bit now that it is only workers – the crew and staff – who are stranded, then suddenly it’s ok to let rip. Fuller’s and Dutton’s position is putting lives directly at risk. The lives of workers. Those who have little agency in all of this. Those that are stuck on ships off the NSW coast because they were working – albeit indirectly – in support of the NSW economy, there was Only 7 ships, now 5 ‘loitering’ off the coast. 5 out of hundreds of ships stranded around the world (many of those other ships have Australians on board) and yet the attitude of our leaders seems to be to simply allow these folk to die. Out of sight and out of mind. All so they can deflect from their own incompetence.
This is probably the worst set of public administration decisions I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime. Simply and utterly disgraceful from start to finish.
Confessions @ #51 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 6:08 am
There are no more Fridays, Mondays, weekends, public holidays, or any other day for that matter for all those who’ve just lost their jobs.
Australia has ALWAYS sent its soldiers to war with multiple serious deficiencies in quality and number and this has always resulted in large numbers of unnecessary casualties.
The most egregious example happened during WW2. We sent a full division to the Malaya Campaign without tanks, without enough artillery, with a serious lack of automatic weapons, with dreadful communications equipment, with inadequate anti aircraft, without radar, with woeful aircraft and without inadequate naval means to ensure supply. This was a full decade after it was known that all of the above were necessary to fight a modern war. The result was utter defeat and the biggest single contribution to Australian loss of life during World War Two. (The numbers involved were several orders of magnitude greater than the present numbers for C19).
No-one was ever held to account for this gross negligence – not the interwar disarmament movement, not the military for its various deficiences in leadership and preparation, and not the various civilians who ran a series of governments that refused to spend the necessary money for the preparations.
I doubt very much that the Morrison Government will ever be held to account for the various serious shortcomings that have the potential to kill doctors and HCW.
Would I intubate a patient if there was a high chance of catching the Virus because there was insufficient protective equipment?
Would I lay blame on a doctor who refused so to do?
No.
No.
Oh but I am happy. Nothing gets my jollies up more than when sandgropers bring out the secession trope. Just imagine how many Western Australian locals will be playing for your national cricket team. Possibly more than half!
Look, I lived on a boat for 6 months surrounded by sandgropers. I love your people.
Kiwis on the other hand….
One of the core elements of the Gallipoli spirit was machine guns.
The ANZAC ‘spirit’ (aka needless slaughter of Australian soldiers) was ‘necessary’ because there were not nearly enough machine guns.
Trump: “Scarves can be better than masks because they are thicker”.
Imbecile!
Some, like me, are still busy and with home schooling the same happens. I feel like I am working 70h weeks.
Being so busy has meant I am less aware of the hardships going around. So thanks for your post. Times are very tough for so many people.
SK’s been grumpy since the election. Before that he was a great fellow.
bc says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 2:01 am
We used to see bats flying around at night at home. My father once suggested to us that we go out and catch some by throwing a weighted cloth in their flight path. Needless to say, we never caught any. I’m kind of glad of that now.
——————————————————————-
Every night dozens of bats swoop around our building and spend the night in a huge Moreton Bay fig tree.
About five years ago they culled the bat population in the Sydney Domain. Before then, at dusk, squadrons of thousands of bats were in the skies moving from Domain towards the eastern suburbs. At that time, one evening, I counted 300 bats which had flown into the tree.
As they approach the tree they fly very close to our balcony and you can hear the flapping wings moving the air. They are beautiful to watch as they find a roost in the loose branches and hang upside down.
Do these bats or their detritus pose a threat to us.
have you been told today?
Maude Lynne: “And the decline appears to be slowing.
We’ve done the easy bits, now it gets harder.
Lots more testing, with isolation of infected, and social distancing required.
We need less than 1.0 before I’ll be popping champagne corks.”
That’s a pretty tough benchmark you’ve set there, and it might be in some ways unachievable, as it has been reported that some states are no longer bothering to record the numbers of people who have recovered (which I assume would be something we’d need in order to push the rate of growth below 1.0 other than by some sort of estimation process).
The fact is that, if you put today’s figures for NSW and Vic together, they are lower than the combined total for those two states since 21 March: and significantly less than half of the peak numbers so far which were achieved on 28 March. Given that we must expect that some people who are arriving back to Australia or have been in quarantine for a few days must continue to develop symptoms, I think this is about as good a rate of decline as we can hope for.
As I’ve said before, the total figures do not give us much useful information in relation to the potential for silent spread in the community and consequent outbreaks in clusters. I cannot see any reasonable way of predicted the trends for this phenomenon from the available data. It must be seen as an ever-present risk with the potential rapidly lift the trend line at any point.
But there are surely grounds right now for more optimism than seemed possible a week back.
He’ll be recommending burkas next.
Nice to see how frowny capitalists get when they have some free market capitalism shoved up their rectum 😆
—————————————————
Australian PPE maker slams price hikes for masks by Chinese companies
https://www.smh.com.au/national/coronavirus-updates-live-covid-19-cases-near-1-million-worldwide-australian-death-toll-stands-at-24-20200402-p54gmg.html#p50824
Boerwar: “Things change. The ACT population is now 400,000+. In addition thousands of peeps (used to) drive in for work from Goulburn, Yass and Queanbeyand and beyond.”
I’m sure you’re right. It’s just difficult for me to imagine: but then, I have only set foot in the place once in the past 15 years or so.
‘beguiledagain says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 9:50 am
bc says:
Friday, April 3, 2020 at 2:01 am
We used to see bats flying around at night at home. My father once suggested to us that we go out and catch some by throwing a weighted cloth in their flight path. Needless to say, we never caught any. I’m kind of glad of that now.
——————————————————————-
Every night dozens of bats swoop around our building and spend the night in a huge Moreton Bay fig tree.
About five years ago they culled the bat population in the Sydney Domain. Before then, at dusk, squadrons of thousands of bats were in the skies moving from Domain towards the eastern suburbs. At that time, one evening, I counted 300 bats which had flown into the tree.
As they approach the tree they fly very close to our balcony and you can hear the flapping wings moving the air. They are beautiful to watch as they find a roost in the loose branches and hang upside down.
Do these bats or their detritus pose a threat to us.’
Look up ‘Hendra Virus’.
Like Civil Engineer, Free Market Capitalist is a contradiction in terms.
Inadequate PPE for our health workers is a very serious problem. Moses Morrison will not see much more curve flattening if he keeps hiding from actually actively solving this problem.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-03/coronavirus-ppe-doctor-hospitals/12115746
BW, I used to live in Neutral Bay. Would see hundred of bats in the evening flying from north to south – I never understood the direction. Were they feeding in the Domain and B.gardens and sleeping somewhere in the upper north shore?
Are there many horses in The Domain?
Australian Bat Lyssavirus is the only one known to be transmissible directly from bats to humans (three confirmed cases):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_bat_lyssavirus
meher baba @ #86 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 6:51 am
You really don’t understand this shit!!! (i.e. numbers and maths)
A growth rate of less than 1 means that we are starting to move towards an upper limit and a possible end is in sight.
Whilst the growth rate is above one the upper limit remains the total population.
ABC Fact check confirms that while things may look promising, it is just too early to tell whether or not we are “flattening the curve” …
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-03/fact-file-are-we-turning-coronavirus-corner-flatten-the-curv/12113410
I am so lucky to live where I do. The local feed store just made a special trip to deliver dog meat to my home. No charge.
Generalissimo Mick is cheering that he’s been able to buffalo the cruise ships into farking off. ‘It’s a great relief’. …
One wonders how many deaths at sea will now happen before the staff and crew finally disembark at their home port because of Mick … and Dutton’s actions?
A nice little royal commission into that in 3-4 years would be nice …
lizzie @ #94 Friday, April 3rd, 2020 – 7:07 am
Thanks lizzie.
The potential in Counties like India is mind numbingly terrifying.
Always great(?) to have some cultural perspective to highlight the reality in places outside Australia.