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.
yabba @ #1886 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 12:51 pm
You and Donald Trump are the plonkers spreading half baked solutions to Corona Virus. You have much to be condemned about.
I urge fellow PBers to ignore your rants and take their medical advice from a trained professional.
Today’s number – 87 – sets the “spot rate” for new infections back to under 4%, in fact close to my “3.4%” Magic Number.
The term “Magic Number” indicates that it’s a guesstimate for the “New Cases” number that, if sustained, might herald a stabilization of The Curve (recoveries balance new infections).
It’s based on a hypothetical maximum recovery time of 21 days (for most cases, including symptomless cases), itself based on the “14 day” standard quarantine period with an extra week added on for luck. Hence the word “guesstimate”.
But there IS a Magic Number out there, somewhere, I’m pretty confident of that.
What are the alternatives?
On the one hand we have The Extra Keen, who will accept nothing less than complete eradication of the virus from the face of the Earth. Universal testing, mass quarantine and a safe vaccine provided in the form of 7 billion doses administered by millions of trained medics is the preferred method.
There are problems with this approach. Is it worth the cost? Who decides that? Is a vaccine even possible (in absolute terms, or before the virus mutates and we have to start all over again)? We can test one town in Italy, but can we really test a nation of 3 million square miles, thousands of towns, suburbs and cities and 25 million people living in them? Is there any point in eradication here, when other nations may adopt a different view? And many other practical, economic, moral and logistical questions.
At the other end of the scale are the laissez faire Herd Immunity advocates. Millions would die if we took this approach, but it would be all over quickly, maybe as soon as six months. Too quickly for some, who would unaccountably resist their own deaths for the good of Bondi Boogie Backpackers. At a crude doubling rate of just 5 .5 days we could achieve complete coverage of all 7 billion humans in the 6 months proposed above. For a year, make it 11 days. Two years would require a doubling rate of 21 days – which is close to where NSW is now. It would make our civilization harsher and inevitably more authoritarian and nasty, perhaps for years. Perhaps permanently. The term “post-apocalyptic dystopia” comes to mind.
So, it seems the Magic Number sensibly lies in-between these two extremes, both in achieveability and desirability. Either involves extreme authoritarian measures, perhaps civil disintegration or outright wars over diminishing resources.
Mine’s 3.4% for now. What’s yours?
poroti @ #1895 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:00 pm
How often does a GP have to phone up their patient to check on their recovery? Every day after 5 days until they say they are better?
Why would you want anything more than applies to seasonal flu? If you don’t die, if you don’t get worse and need more attention, you recover.
yabba,
I have a grease trap. I also have 2 sons and I’m lucky enough that they have learned to wash up their own dirty plates, pots and pans. I would be pushing the family bonds to breaking point if I made them go through the rigamarole suggested each and every time they cooked something for themselves. I count myself lucky that one of them collected the fat from the sausages he had every day for breakfast and reused it as lard.
Also, the problem is somewhere in the S bend, which is before the water gets to the grease trap. I think, that after living here for 25 years, it is acceptable that this is the first time we have had this problem. It has therefore, imho, zero to do with incorrect cleaning practices, because, yes, if there is ever a surfeit of fat or oil we do deposit it in the bush outside, but, after 25 years, even the best practice can’t withstand time and tide.
Now, I would also appreciate it if you didn’t try and insert another derogatory put-down, if or when you reply.
C@tmomma @ #1897 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:01 pm
You’ve been too lazy or stupid to track the posts which you took umbridge at. You don’t seem to realise that you only get half the story because you loudly block others. I’m not going to be part of your melodrama.
meher baba @ #1879 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 10:32 am
Or in the case of the Liberal Party members, failed everywhere else.
Ryan StruykVerified account @ryanstruyk
Reported US coronavirus deaths via @CNN:
5 weeks ago: 1 death
4 weeks ago: 19 deaths
3 weeks ago: 58 deaths
2 weeks ago: 323 deaths
1 week ago: 2,043 deaths
Right now: 8,488 deaths
phoenixRED @ #1907 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:18 pm
The only silver lining is they’re cumulative figures, not daily counts. Spain only made the BBC news because it’s back down below 800 deaths per day.
meher baba @ #1879 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 10:32 am
A big +1 there. The result has been , in my opinion, a great decline in the quality of the end product.
It’s Time says: Sunday, April 5, 2020 at 1:23 pm
phoenixRED @ #1907 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:18 pm
Ryan StruykVerified account @ryanstruyk
Reported US coronavirus deaths via @CNN:
5 weeks ago: 1 death
4 weeks ago: 19 deaths
3 weeks ago: 58 deaths
2 weeks ago: 323 deaths
1 week ago: 2,043 deaths
Right now: 8,488 deaths
The only silver lining is they’re cumulative figures, not daily counts. Spain only made the BBC news because it’s back down below 800 deaths per day.
****************************************************************
I have read various US experts on here Its Time and they are saying the US still has to peak in 4-6 weeks time – its getting ugly very fast over there ….
Simon Katich says:
Sunday, April 5, 2020 at 11:47 am
ABC journo cadetship aint what it used to be. The change in the makeup of ABC journalists and program hosts is deliberate and been going on for years to the point they talk about (every reducing) silos still holding out.
The Coalition do one thing well when in government. They consolidate power. Relentlessly. They lay awake at night working out new ways to silence and marginalise opposition. From the make up of ABC journalists to attacking Peppa Pig and Sesame St. There is an army of them ready to hit anyone who sticks their head up.
————————————————————————-
As a former journalist myself, I too have been alarmed by the trend of ABC News to pick up either former News Corp journalists or those from the commercial TV networks.
A lot of this is the view that “to pick up more viewers we have to do what the commercial outlets are doing. ” Hiring staff from 7, 9 and 10, especially producers and news managers, is seen as improving ratings and viewership. This enables ABC to demonstrate to the politicians that ABC is appealing to more than a minority of Australians. Then these news managers hire their old Murdoch mates.
The once proud ABC news and public affairs tradition, exemplified by Kerry O’Brien and programs like Latline, Four Corners and Foreign Correspondent suffers as ABC TV newscasts tend to ape commercial network news and their emphasis on local crime and traffic accidents and programs like A Current Affair.
David Speers is a great example of ABC news executives looking for ways to boost their ratings . In the days at Sky, I always found him very deferential to the Coalition and in a gotcha mood with Labor. I think even he, towards the end of his stay with Murdoch, finally began to realize the snake oil salesmanship and bullshit of the LNP and seemed to be subjecting them to greater scrutiny.
As for people like Carvelas and Probyn, you can almost sense their relief at no longer having to toe the Murdoch or Stokes’ party line. There are probably others as well.
That said, I have been tremendously impressed during the bushfires and the present crisis, at the professionalism and competence of dozens of young ABC reporters around the country. You don’t really understand how difficult it is to do live reports and convey in a matter of minutes the situation in your region. They have been simply amazing.
And they represent a multicultural picture of this country that until recently was missing from the ABC.
The sad fact is,some of these bright young people are probably going to seduced by the commercial networks or will fall victim to the perennial budget cutting by LNP governments.
The hairs on the back of my neck still stand up when I hear Charles Williams’ “Majestic Fanfare” on ABC radio because I know I am going to hear the best in Australian broadcast journalism.
Is today’s confirmed cases of about 117 too good to be true? Are there fewer tests because the plane and ship arrivals have washed through the system? Looks to be the case in NSW anyway.
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/diseases/Pages/covid-19-latest.aspx#statistics
It’s Time
Embrace the “blocking” . Think of it this way. A Footrot Flats cartoon showed ‘Prince Charles’ walking past Major in his kennel , no response from Major, Dog walks past and Major goes ‘angry’ . Dog continues with a yuge smile thinking “I’m a threat” .
FOR FUCK’S SAKE P1 you keep accusing me of not letting things go, and THEN you berate me for letting things go.
You assume I read all of your posts and charge me with responsibility for correcting other’s interpretations of them. If I knew what the fuck you were trying to say even half the time, I might, but I don’t, so I won’t.
And then you close it off by saying The Management would be upset if anyone else challenged you. Thou hast taken the name of the Moderator thy God in vain and thy intellectual knavery is again noted.
C@tmomma knows I was not having a dig at her. The operative sentences in my very short post were: “What of it?” and “She’s human”, which you have neglected to refer to (you do that A LOT). We’re ALL human.
Stick to the South Coast, P1. You’re out of your league here.
Bushfire,
The problem with your 3.4% is that it requires all the current measures to remain in place.
Relax any effective measure and you’ll just see the numbers climb again.
PuffyTMD:
Putting the phone in a Faraday Cage should do it.
One can purchase fancy “Faraday Bags” at inflated prices, but it might be that an empty Twisties packet will do it too.
On the topic of the ABC – I see next Thursday has listed :
Barrie Cassidy’s One Plus One
Thursday, 9 Apr
Series 2020 | Episode 1 | Charlie Magnuson
9:22 PM – 9:52 PM [30 mins]
ctc CC Repeated on Friday 10 Apr at 5:30 AM,
Join Barrie Cassidy for a new series discussing Leadership. He meets captain of the Bawley Point Rural Fire Brigade Charlie Magnuson, who steered his team through the recent fire season going above and beyond in the crisis.
and as much as I was a great Jane Hutcheon fan it will good to see Barry back on the screen again
phoenixRED @ #1910 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:27 pm
That’s what exponential growth is all about. And it’s not controlled by too little too late.
Some people here have a really unhealthy obsession with me!
Absolutely accept that Barney. And assuming we can’t keep civilization in lockdown forever, something’s going to have to change.
A workable treatment that takes the nasty edge off prognosis, with less social distancing therefore required, in combination with an acceptable rate of new infections is my bet.
We have such acceptable rates for other things: flu infections, lung cancer due to smoking, traffic fatalities being just a few. There is no compulsory flu vaccination, smoking is still legal (for various reasons, noble and otherwise), and although we try to make our roads as safe as possible we accept there will be deaths.
poroti @ #1913 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:35 pm
I prefer to exercise my scroll finger. Even some of the worst posters here rival a stopped clock in being right.
phoenixRED @ #1917 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:37 pm
This is exactly what people need to see at this time of plummeting confidence in our ‘leaders’.
There ARE genuine leaders out there in the community and Cassidy recognises the need to expose them to a cynical society.
The interesting thing about testing is that the work in NSW fever clinics has dried up over the last week with the exception of the “backpacker specials” in Bondi and Byron
I suspect the worried well have washed through as the paranoia has settled. Still 3500 tests on a Friday isn’t bad. The daily pick up rate is now at about 3%
Oakshott:
April 1-4 RAH COVID19 Stats
Apr 1 – 40 treated in the RAH, inc 6 in ICU; 53 in HITH
Apr 2 – 24 treated in the RAH, inc 6 in ICU; 56 in HITH; Total of 107 discharged prior to 12:30 April 2nd (total from the start of the epidemic to that time)
Apr 3 – 32 treated in the RAH, inc 9 in ICU; 49 in HITH; 8 (?) discharged in 24 hours prior to 12:30 April 3rd (Dio => “EGT 7 of the 9 on ICU are ventilated.”)
Apr 4 – 24 treated in the RAH, inc 9 in ICU; 49 in HITH; 7 discharged (? where did the 8th go?)
It’s Time
I did not mean to suggest you do the blocking. The ’embrace’ was for how you take being blocked.
Rex Douglas says: Sunday, April 5, 2020 at 1:47 pm
phoenixRED @ #1917 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:37 pm
There ARE genuine leaders out there in the community and Cassidy recognises the need to expose them to a cynical society.
*************************************************************
Totally Agree Rex – GENUINE leaders and REAL heroes that do so many unrecognised tasks on a daily basis in our community – other than kicking a football or scoring runs in a cricket match
It seems as though the Coalition are using the same private medical outfit, Aspen Medical, for the COVID-19 outbreak that they sent overseas from Australia to deal with the Ebola outbreak:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-coronavirus-death-toll-rises-to-16-with-2580-confirmed-cases-across-the-state-20200405-p54h6g.html
beguiledagain
I could understand the issue with the ABC hiring producers and news managers from the FTAs since the FTA product is pretty useless but i don’t get the problem with journalist because i would think part of the motivation of wanting to work at the ABC is because of its approach against that of the commercial media.
beguiledagain @ #1911 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:29 pm
Todays Insiders was ok.
I think journo’s know the different audiences they communicate to.
They’re a bit like politicians who say one thing in Queensland then contradict themselves in Victoria.
Bushfire Bill @ #1920 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:44 pm
Perhaps we maintain isolation for nursing homes and other vulnerable groups. Maintain the hygiene measures throughout the community. Otherwise go back to normal. Then wait for a vaccine or a least medication which reduces the fatality rate significantly for vulnerable people.
McGowan’s govt has done a good job so far with their coronavirus response, but the real test will be in 6-12 months from now.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-05/how-mark-mcgowan-is-leading-wa-coronavirus-response/12115282
I’ll post the RACGP guideline on covid and ACE-I . I wouldn’t change from an ACEI to any other antihypertensive at the moment but it’s a rapidly changing field.
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/ace-inhibitors-arbs-and-covid-19-what-gps-need-to
https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-face-mask-virus/
–––––––
E. G. Theodore @ #1916 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:07 pm
Wrap the phone in 2-3 layers of aluminium foil.
Oakeshott country @ #1923 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:48 pm
When does flu season start?
poroti @ #1925 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:50 pm
No problem. I always had a soft spot for the dog.
This virus could be the nail in the coffin for the US.
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say the next election could be the last chance for the people to save themselves.
I have a MiFi connection for my internet and my desk is a metal fixture.
When I first set up my MiFi it was sitting on my PC tower under the desk.
I had to move it as it seemed to be acting like Faraday cage and I couldn’t get a reliable connection anywhere else in the house.
Once moved, no problems. 🙂
Excellent announcement from the Andrews Govt re accomodating health workers who require isolation.
It’s Time @ #1934 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 12:00 pm
Don’t know, but speaking to my folks this morning, they’re going for their shots this week.
Rex Douglas @ #1936 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 2:04 pm
Even the dumbest Trump voter would realise that, if he wins, it is his last term. And in 4 years time I don’t think the Repugs could find another candidate with Trump’s special qualities.
Diogenes
Thank you very much for that link. I know someone who has had a heart attack (and stents inserted) who protests that he doesn’t need BP med because his BP is always ‘normal’. The article explains why he does.
Rex Douglas says: Sunday, April 5, 2020 at 2:04 pm
This virus could be the nail in the coffin for the US.
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say the next election could be the last chance for the people to save themselves.
*******************************************************
Some in the US are resistant to change
Bushfire Bill @ #1914 Sunday, April 5th, 2020 – 1:35 pm
Let it go, BB. I have.
Reporting some pandemic statistical work from peeps who do it for a living:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-05/coronavirus-research-preprints-summary/12107112
His attempt to outrun the Virus was foiled by the plods.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-05/taxi-driver-loses-licence-over-excessive-speeding-on-highway/12122832
How to rid the world of Covid 19.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1246583966695452674
Something else Trump does not get: the number of gains of rice upon a chessboard.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-05/coronavirus-exponential-growth-explained-by-rice-on-a-chessboard/12122214
Trump supporters do not think his presidency will finish, seriously.
They might realise there are only supposed to be 2 terms but they do not believe it applies to their President.
I hope this is accessible for those who would get some use from it. It’s a PDF tutorial about how to sew your own face mask from material you should have at home:
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6860-printable-face-mask-tutorial/ded6e67bb78f2599a7ff/optimized/full.pdf#page=1
The current flu vax was released 10 days ago to high vulnerable groups and more general release from now. One way to control flu is with a lockdown. Indeed, the NSW Health pandemic plan is a modified version of the pandemic flu plan. Flu vax is absolutely vital this year