As reported by The Guardian, the fortnightly Essential Research poll (a sequence complicated by a bonus coronavirus poll last week) includes the pollster’s monthly leadership ratings, which reflect the findings of Newspoll in very slightly lesser degree. Scott Morrison is up on approval from 41% to 59% (compared with 41% to 61% in Newspoll) and down on disapproval from 49% to 31% (compared with 53% to 35%), while Anthony Albanese is respectively up from 41% to 44% (compared with 40% to 45%) and down from 33% to 29% (compared with 40% to 36%).
For the fifth successive poll, Essential asked respondents about their level of concern about the threat of coronavirus to Australia, to which the combined very concerned and quite concerned responses climbed from 68% to 63% to 82% to 88%, and has now remained steady at 88%. No information is provided on preferred prime minister — we will have to wait for the full report later today to see, among other things, if the question was asked.
UPDATE: Full report here. Scott Morrison now holds a 46-27 lead as preferred prime minister, out from 40-35 last time (note that the BludgerTrack trends are now updated with the latest Essential and Newspoll numbers). The government’s response is now rated good by 58%, up from 45% a week ago, and poor by 21%, down from 31%. The poll also finds 29% expecting a lengthy recession due to coronavirus; 51% expecting that “the economy will be impacted for 6-12 months or longer and will stagnate or show slow growth thereafter” (which for my tastes is not sufficiently distinct in its wording from the first option); and 11% expecting the economy will “rebound within 2-3 months”. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1069.
Greensborough Growler
Thanks.
Beemer
Peter is an expert, but he’s not being a scientist. He’s being a commentator and taking a political point of view over this issue. If he were being a scientist he would argue which specific things he would change in public policy terms and then make a cogent argument about how that translates numerically to risk.
For example, his article complains about people not being allowed to sit on a park bench. Well, actually they are allowed to do so if its for the purpose of resting. This much was explained several days ago.
Quoll: “I heard it and frankly all I can think is that you’re making a ridiculous claim, when both guests largely appeared to be mostly in furious agreement with each other”
Peter Collignon is a globally-recognised expert in microbiology.
John Daley, who excited CC with his suggestion on that program that eradication is possible (although by then he had started to back down a bit from his confident claims about eradication in his article a week or so before), has a doctorate in Law.
CC…I’m not sure what his qualifications are.
For now, I think I’m going to go with what Professor Collignon has to say on the subject.
PS: I don’t even understand how there is any hope of achieving eradication anywhere in the near future. SARS was eradicated quickly, but it didn’t spread very far. Most diseases for which there is a vaccine are yet to be eradicated. Smallpox is an exception, but that took many decades to achieve.
When i say the word expert is used too often i am not saying we shouldn’t seek people’s opinions but just because someone has a job title and a few letters after their name doesn’t make them special.
I expect to be disappointed by the modelling.
Cud Chewer @ #45 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 7:00 am
That’s as may be but I think realistically, enough of them will survive, however it’s a close run thing with the numbers in the Mid West and I wouldn’t put it past Trump to be cooking up a way to cheat to win anyway.
“Peter Collignon is a globally-recognised expert in microbiology.”
Yep he is. And that doesn’t stop him from making errors. Or being a polemicist.
I will quite happily go through what was said in that interview word for word and explain to you why John got it right and Peter got it wrong, on several points.
However, time for sleep for me.
poroti @ #23 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 6:31 am
And the contrary argument at the bottom of the page.
“Professor Allen Cheng, a physician at The Alfred hospital, said 10 days from the point of displaying symptoms was a conservative buffer for most patients to no longer be infectious. He argued a recovery tally was not the best use of resources as the pandemic moves towards its peak in May or June.
“I’m not sure it’s that useful. You can infer it – if a patient hasn’t died or isn’t in hospital after 10 days, you can assume they’ve probably recovered,” Professor Cheng said.”
When a coronavirus vaccine is developed I can’t wait to see how many antivaxxers clamour to receive it.
“PS: I don’t even understand how there is any hope of achieving eradication anywhere in the near future.”
Then you need that explained to you. Its not rocket science.
It starts with keeping people physically isolated from each other. Do that enough and the virus cannot propagate and it dies out. Its very simple and you do not need a degree in microbiology to understand it.
Point 2. Testing is good
Point 3. More testing is better
CC
That is fine and i don’t expect someone no matter how experienced they are to always be talking in scientific terms or whatever expertise that they hold but with how words are twisted the blurring of commentating and expert opinion is what sometimes leads to confusion which is not helped by the media’s inability to tell the difference.
[Also he was on ABC 7:30 last night frothing at the mouth about how we’ve “gone too far” whilst at the same time talking about how we’d “squashed the curve”.]
This is not true.
He upheld the importance of the closure of places where people gather including restaurants, pubs etc and social distancing but said upbraiding people sitting alone on benches or in their cars was counterproductive and excessive.
MB: “When i say the word expert is used too often i am not saying we shouldn’t seek people’s opinions but just because someone has a job title and a few letters after their name doesn’t make them special.”
You’re right. What degree someone has and what job they have are not the main point (although professors at Oxford, Cambridge and the Ivy League unis are usually worth taking seriously). What makes them special is their reputation in global research circles, the numbers of papers published in leading journals such as Science, Nature, the BMJ, the New England Journal of Medicine, etc.
They’re the people I’ve been listening to on this subject. I haven’t heard any of them talking seriously about eradication of coronavirus through a combination of a harsh lockdown and extensive testing. The main voices I have heard suggesting this are John Daley and Cud Chewer.
Some experts, including Collignon, suggest that it might be possible in advance of a vaccine to bring the disease sufficiently under control to allow for a return to some sort of cautious normality. But they say that’s likely to take months.
I think we should take every ‘expert’s’ opinion and weigh them in the balance. Blind faith as regards one over another serves no one well.
Its Time
Given the number of tests we are using, it would take three fifths of bugger all to conclusively re-test every single official case.
Confessions
No rush by them. It’s all part of “the plot”.
……………………………………………………………………………….
Texas Anti-Vaxxers Fear Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccines More Than the Virus Itself
A vaccine for the novel coronavirus is likely at least a year away, but the state’s large anti-vaccine community is ready to resist it.
………………….“I’ll let them vaccinate my daughter over my dead body.” ……………….“Hide in the floors like they hid the Jews from the Nazis,” one suggested. “Hide them in our gun safe (yes, it’s a big safe and yes, we love our guns),” said another.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/texas-anti-vaxxers-fear-mandatory-coronavirus-vaccines/
C@t
I don’t blindly trust experts. I trust my own analysis and quite often find experts lacking. Especially when they try to speak about things they don’t fully understand – and that’s precisely the situation Peter finds himself in. Very often crusty old experts are also lacking in mental agility – precisely because they are so steeped in minutia. They get stuck in tried and tested ways of thinking.
There sure is ‘no such thing as society’ in the UK:
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/thebriefing/max-opray/2020/04/07/boris-johnson-intensive-care
Cud Chewer @ #65 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 7:16 am
Yeah, waste time in redundant testing when you want very fast turnaround of suspect cases when testing for community transmission.
cud chewer: “Then you need that explained to you. Its not rocket science.
It starts with keeping people physically isolated from each other. Do that enough and the virus cannot propagate and it dies out. Its very simple and you do not need a degree in microbiology to understand it.”
Bah Every single person on the planet kept isolated from each other. For how long?
It isn’t even happening anywhere now, even in NZ. They have imposed a harsh lockdown, but there are still reports that lots of people are disobeying it. Have you ever been to South Auckland? If you have, what do you reckon the level of compliance is there? Or out in the remoter rural parts of the country?
In order to eradicate the virus this way, we’d need a global political order such as was described by Orwell in 1984.
SARS showed that there was a a chance that social control might have eradicated coronavirus early on. But then some European governments took their feet off the pedal at just the wrong time and that chance was lost.
If you can find me a significant figure in epidemiology or disease control who says otherwise, I’m quite willing to change my mind.
Cud,
I didn’t directly accuse you of that. I simply suggest weighing all evidence in the balance. Don’t think one ‘expert’ has the wood over all others.
meher baba @ #63 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 7:15 am
Agree. The whole purpose of lock down and social isolation is to slow down the spread of the disease so that our health and medical resources are not overwhelmed.
poroti:
There goes my theory that coronavirus will smack the idiocy out of the antivaxxer movement!
poroti @ #66 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 7:19 am
If only we could protect the children and then let natural selection deal with the parents.
For those saying that we shouldn’t always believe what experts are saying to us, how does that accord with the vehement abuse consistently dished out towards anti-vaxxers on this website?
I had always assumed that the rest of you, like me, were supporters of mass vaccination because you believed the experts who say it’s a good thing.
I don’t know if this link will work, but the video is on the NY Times homepage.
How coronavirus attacks the body. Yes 80% of people infected will have mild symptoms and will recover, but for those who develop severe symptoms it doesn’t sound very pleasant at all.
It will, permanently.
“Bah Every single person on the planet kept isolated from each other. For how long?”
A few weeks, essentially. But you should know that already.
Besides I’m only talking about Australia.
“It isn’t even happening anywhere now, even in NZ. They have imposed a harsh lockdown, but there are still reports that lots of people are disobeying it. Have you ever been to South Auckland? If you have, what do you reckon the level of compliance is there? Or out in the remoter rural parts of the country?”
You do not need absolute compliance. You need enough to reduce the average re-transmission to under 1.0. The less compliance, the slower and more sporadically the virus dies out.
“In order to eradicate the virus this way, we’d need a global political order such as was described by Orwell in 1984.
”
I’m only talking about Australia
“SARS showed that there was a a chance that social control might have eradicated coronavirus early on.”
Actually SARS died out because it was too fatal and there were almost no asymptomatic cases. It limited its own transmission by killing people before they could spread it. 2019-nCoV is a different beast.
“If you can find me a significant figure in epidemiology or disease control who says otherwise, I’m quite willing to change my mind.”
You mean like the experts who advise Ardern?
And btw, I’ve come across a number of actual experts in my research, talking about the real possibility of eradication, at least in places like Australian and NZ. I have over 200 tabs open currently so I’ll get back to you on that.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers
In a very good piece Peter Hartcher predicts that spin doctors will be doing their best to resuscitate right-wing populism.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/spin-doctors-will-be-doing-their-best-to-resuscitate-right-wing-populism-20200406-p54hi5.html
The Ruby Princess mystery deepens.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/government-mps-accuse-constance-of-failing-to-disclose-crucial-ruby-princess-information-20200406-p54hkg.html
The Ruby Princess has become a grim symbol of the pandemic, but the earlier plight of its sister vessel – the Diamond Princess – should have set off alarm bells declares the SMH editorial.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/lessons-from-diamond-princess-not-learnt-for-sister-ship-20200406-p54hlx.html
The AFF says that Morrison is facing a test of his power to influence business judging from the drawn-out negotiations over how shopping centres and small retailers will share the financial pain caused by the coronavirus.
https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/retail-rental-deal-a-test-for-pm-20200406-p54hkq
A high-stakes deal on workplace law has cleared a key obstacle to the Morrison government passing its $130 billion JobKeeper wage subsidy after Porter reached the in-principle agreement with Sally McManus last night in a breakthrough on the emergency assistance.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/union-deal-clears-way-for-130-billion-wage-subsidy-20200406-p54hjj.html
The coronavirus has led to many bizarre developments. Among them is the Coalition singing the praises of the CFMEU writes Phil Coorey.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/cfmeu-joins-team-australia-others-aren-t-so-sure-20200406-p54hhh
Richard Gluyas writes that signs of a credit squeeze are emerging in the $350bn small and medium-sized business sector, as the major banks throw all available resources at the financial needs of their existing customers and overlook businesses desperate for a loan or refinancing deal from a new lender.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/newtobank-smes-face-imminent-credit-crunch/news-story/a42ec5e340cb7e2e1b0d486010022413
The tension between protecting health and the economy has been a constant feature of this crisis but it grows more severe as shutdowns continue says David Crowe.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-cruel-choice-for-australia-in-the-next-virus-modelling-numbers-20200406-p54hgy.html
Health authorities have ramped up COVID-19 testing in hotspot regions across Australia to combat a second wave of infections and have expanded the screening of potentially wider outbreaks.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/tests-to-spread-as-coronavirus-fever-hits-suburbs/news-story/46e14385a7ad9b27e01d51dfb37ea8b7
Nicole Hemmer writes that by putting himself first and pitting the states against the nation he is accelerating the US crisis. The idiot’s a real worry!
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/pitting-the-states-against-the-nation-is-accelerating-the-us-crisis-20200405-p54h8x.html
Adam Cooper looks at what might be in front of Pell after the handing down of the High Court’s decision this morning. Civil cases are lining up.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/holy-week-brings-pell-s-day-of-judgment-but-clutch-of-civil-cases-loom-20200406-p54hko.html
Meanwhile 95 year-old, Eileen Piper, mother of a sex abuse suicide victim, has accused George Pell of physical assault of her brother priest, Monsignor Kevin Toomey.
https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/exclusive-yet-another-assault-allegation-against-george-pell,13767
Whichever way the High Court falls on George Pell’s criminal conviction for sexual abuse, the debate that rolls around the disgraced Catholic cardinal will continue says The New Daily.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/george-pell/2020/04/07/george-pell-high-court-judgment-abuse-debate/
Epidemiologist Mahomed Patel doubts that the data models being released today will tell us we’ve got the COVID-19 fight right.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/will-the-modelling-tell-us-if-we-are-getting-the-fight-against-covid-19-right-probably-not-20200406-p54hhz.html
Jennifer Hewett is concerned that there’s no easy exit strategy from the coronavirus lockdown.
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/there-s-no-easy-exit-strategy-from-the-coronavirus-lockdown-20200406-p54hlg
Morrison has changed tack against his tribal instincts. But what happens after coronavirus asks Peter Lewis.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/apr/07/morrison-has-changed-tack-against-his-tribal-instincts-but-what-happens-after-coronavirus
Patrick Hatch reports that Australian biotechnology giant CSL Limited will work with some of its biggest rivals in the blood plasma business to try to develop a potential treatment for patients suffering complications from COVID-19.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/csl-to-work-with-rivals-for-potential-covid-19-treatment-made-from-recovered-patients-plasma-20200406-p54hly.html
The last thing we need is the Prime Minister praying alongside religious fanatics or weeping over the personal cost of the pandemic he is supposed to be leading us through, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/morrisons-tears-courts-delusions-and-the-pandemic,13768
With Boris Johnson in hospital, government is adrift writes Simon Jenkins.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/06/boris-johnson-hospital-government-adrift-coronavirus
The RBA could help invest in the highly productive economy that will be needed if Australia is to successfully manage its huge new debts suggests Craig Emerson.
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/how-to-defuse-the-virus-debt-bomb-20200406-p54he5
Jennifer Duke and Eryk Bagshaw explain how the real estate industry has warned the situation facing tenants, landlords and agents is “a mess” as cash-strapped residents struggle to pay rent.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/a-mess-renters-landlords-and-agents-face-coronavirus-quagmire-20200406-p54hj9.html
Members of the Federal Parliament’s crossbench are feeling left out when it comes to decision-making on the coronavirus pandemic and say they are being deprived of their role to represent Australians.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6713684/mps-say-they-are-being-deprived-of-their-role-to-represent-australians/?cs=14231&utm_source=website&utm_medium=home&utm_campaign=latestnews
The political bipartisanship enforced by the need for a united front against Covid-19 will be tested on Wednesday when Labor protests against the shutdown of parliament write Malcolm Farr and Paul Karp.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/labor-to-protest-parliament-shutdown-and-push-for-review-of-covid-19-response
Unless it condemns racist rhetoric, Australia risks adding racial harmony to its list of COVID-19 casualties, writes Suresh Rajan.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/collateral-damage-in-the-time-of-covid-19,13747
When we come out the other side of this crisis, will we have learned anything ponders Kaye Lee.
https://theaimn.com/when-we-come-out-the-other-side-of-this-crisis-will-we-have-learned-anything/
Nick O’Malley reveals that new reports show that potentially deadly fine particle emissions are soaring from coal-fired power plants in Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/deadly-pollutant-surged-by-3000-per-cent-at-coal-fired-power-plant-20200406-p54hld.html
Elizabeth Knight tells us that the prominent proxy adviser Ownership Matters will be adding new criteria to its measurement of board performance – their conduct in undertaking equity raisings. And it will be advising large shareholders on how to vote accordingly.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/beware-the-rescue-trap-for-small-shareholders-20200406-p54hjh.html
Not for the first time, Donald Trump tweeted prematurely – and his ensuing threats and rhetoric won’t be able to stop the inevitable when it comes to oil prices says Stephen Bartholomeusz.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/empty-words-trump-s-oil-tweets-and-tariffs-won-t-prevent-pain-20200406-p54hgf.html
Trump touts hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19. Don’t believe the hype!
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/06/coronavirus-cure-fact-check-hydroxychloroquine-trump
Cartoon Corner
David Rowe
Alan Moir
Peter Broelman
Andrew Dyson
Cathy Wilcox is back!
Matt Golding
John Shakespeare
Glen Le Lievre gives Turnbull a reminder
From the US
It isn’t even happening anywhere now, even in NZ. They have imposed a harsh lockdown, but there are still reports that lots of people are disobeying it. Have you ever been to South Auckland? If you have, what do you reckon the level of compliance is there? Or out in the remoter rural parts of the country?
You’re right about that, meher baba. If even we, here, on PB can postulate ways around phone tracking, as but one example, and another of the young man in isolation in a hotel jemmying open the door so he could run away to ‘visit’ his girlfriend, I think it’s safe to say that the human race will be incapable of the sort of solutions Cud is advocating.
Not to mention the fact that isolation is for rich people and rich nations. Those in the slums of the world don’t have the luxury afforded to us and they are the ones who will become the resevoir for Coronavirus. It’s just physically impossible to eliminate it. The vaccine is the only thing that will enable a return to some semblance of normality, and that still doesn’t take into account the world’s poor.
Nope that didn’t work.
meher baba @ #75 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 5:27 am
I support mass vaccination because the evidence suggests it’s a good thing.
Sally McManus for Australia’s second female Prime Minister!
Just as a yard stick, there are about 48 road deaths per million per annum in Australia, a risk we sort of accept. Looking at a few other OECD countries, mortality rates from COVID in Spain and Italy are in the high 200’s per million over a period of less than 3 months. The UK is on 79, while the USA is on 32 but things are going to get much worse there. Australia’s rate is currently 2.
That’s a well written article in the SMH by Mahomed Patel
“All models are wrong. Some are useful.”
Exactly Barney
I trust the evidence. I don’t blindly trust experts.
C@t
I can’t help the fact that a lot of nations are headed to “herd immunity”. But we in Australia don’t have to go there.
Also, a vaccine won’t be what will help us return to normality. What will help us return to normality is a combination of the measures already in place (which are seeing the virus decline) and more aggressive testing. We can eradicate it within Australia, or failing that keep it to sporadic cases. The price of freedom as they say, is vidulence.
And this will happen long, long before we have a viable vaccine.
When a vaccine does arrive, it may help us to ease off on testing. It may allow some of us to travel. That’s about it.
Barney: “I support mass vaccination because the evidence suggests it’s a good thing.”
I assume you haven’t conducted your own mass testing of populations to obtain this evidence, so the evidence you are aware of has come from the published writings and statements of people who are…
CC: “Actually SARS died out because it was too fatal and there were almost no asymptomatic cases. It limited its own transmission by killing people before they could spread it. 2019-nCoV is a different beast.”
I’m sure the medical experts, government officials and health workers in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam and other countries who worked round the clock to bring SARS under control, including developing innovative new approaches to disease control that have served these countries well in the past few months, would be happy to acknowledge that SARS would have died out anyway and they probably needn’t have bothered to work so hard.
No meher
We trust the writings of experts, not because they are experts, but because they are presented clear, cogently and in scientific style. When an expert steps outside the bounds of being clear, cogent and scientific (such as Peter whatshisface) then it needs calling out.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/06/coronavirus-latest-news/#link-RS4CTYUC4JCM7C6ZDLEKXH7LME
“I’m sure the medical experts, government officials and health workers in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam and other countries who worked round the clock to bring SARS under control”
Yeah, yeah, blah blah. That’s assumed. Don’t be a dick.
Morning all
Much appreciation BK for todays news
Meanwhile, despite my disdain for BJohnson, I hope he gets through this. He is in serious jeopardy.
meher baba @ #88 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 5:41 am
There is data to support the claims that vaccinations work, they’re not just opinions.
It’s all about the evidence, that’s science!!!!
Cud Chewer @ #91 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 7:40 am
And therein lies the problem. A LOT of Australians do like going THERE. What do you propose we do about them? Ban all travel to such places once restrictions are lifted?
I believe a vaccine will probably be a necessary item to have if you want to visit the countries who are unable to eradicate COVID-19.
C@t
We really don’t have much choice as far as closed borders go.
We can lift the ban on Australian’s travelling with the obvious testing and quarantine at the end (doesn’t have to be 2 weeks) but of course it will make travel more expensive.
Guess what? I had plans to go to NYC this September. I guess I cheated a bullet on that one.
Even when we have a really good vaccine (no guarantee the early vaccines will be all that good) there will still be the risk of travelling to countries where there are still pools of the virus (and the US is likely to be one). Yeah it’ll probably mutate and become less deadly, but still.. nothing I can do about that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/boris-johnson-under-observation-in-a-london-hospital-for-coronavirus-infection/2020/04/06/bd367094-77e9-11ea-a311-adb1344719a9_story.html
Johnson tested positive 12 days ago, and quarantined himself for a week, but extended that for a further 3 days. Now he’s hospitalised.
In that NY Times video a study of hospitalised coronavirus patients in China showed that 0-2 days after hospitalisation chest scans showed that 56% of patients had recovered. However 3-5 days after hospitalisation 91% of hospitalised patients had significant, severe respiratory issues. This would suggest that things do not look good for BoJo.
Well, one thing seems certain: the cruise ship industry is unlikely to recover from this.
I wonder if I can buy a cruise ship going cheap as my private yacht?