Essential Research: leadership ratings and more coronavirus

Monthly leadership ratings from Essential confirm the overall picture painted by Newspoll, with both leaders up but Scott Morrison especially so.

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.

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.

2,902 comments on “Essential Research: leadership ratings and more coronavirus”

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  1. ‘A really chilling moment’: Trump refuses to allow Dr. Fauci to answer question on dangers of hydroxychloroquine

    During a press briefing Sunday night purportedly aimed at providing the U.S. public with crucial information amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump refused to allow the nation’s top infectious disease expert to answer a reporter’s question about the efficacy of an anti-malaria drug that the president has recklessly touted as a possible COVID-19 treatment despite warnings from medical professionals.

    Before Dr. Anthony Fauci could respond to the question about hydroxychloroquine, Trump—who was standing back and off to the side of the podium—complained that Fauci had already spoken about the drug “15 times.”

    “You don’t have to ask the question again,” said Trump, stepping forward and moving closer to Fauci as another reporter began asking a separate question.

    “This is a really chilling moment from a science standpoint, with Trump having just pushed an unproven COVID treatment and Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., getting muzzled on live TV,” tweeted Andrew Freedman, a climate reporter for the Washington Post. “Was clear Trump didn’t want to be contradicted.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/a-really-chilling-moment-trump-refuses-to-allow-dr-fauci-to-answer-question-on-dangers-of-hydroxychloroquine/

  2. Re :Norman Swan on ABC bagging the use of masks.
    It is but one quiver among others in the armory we can use. I will continue to follow Bill Bowtell et al and wear masks along with distancing and handwashing. I will probably continue after this crisis is over when I have a cold or travel by air.
    Another issue….my daughter is struggling with depression and normally I would hop in my car and visit for reassurance.
    Another is a single parent with an autistic child on his own…these are difficult times.

  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

    In 2005, Corporal Joe Bauers, a United States Army librarian, is selected for a suspended animation experiment on grounds of average appearance, intelligence, behavior, etc. Lacking a suitable female candidate within the armed forces, they hire Rita, a prostitute whose pimp “Upgrayedd” has been bribed to allow her to take part. The experiment is forgotten when the officer in charge is arrested for having started his own prostitution ring under Upgrayedd’s tutelage. Over the next five centuries, the expectations of 21st-century society lead to the most intelligent humans choosing not to have children, while the least intelligent reproduce prolifically, which creates generations that collectively become increasingly dumber and more virile with each passing century. In 2505, Joe and Rita’s suspension chambers are unearthed by the collapse of a mountain-sized garbage pile, and Joe’s suspension chamber crashes into the apartment of Frito Pendejo, who releases him.

    The former Washington, D.C. has lost most of its infrastructure, with people living in plastic huts called “domistiles”. The human population has become morbidly stupid, speaks only low registers of English competently, and is profoundly anti-intellectual, with individuals being named after corporate products. Suspecting hallucination, Joe enters a hospital, where he is incompetently diagnosed, and comes to realize what has happened to him and to society. He is arrested for not having a bar code tattoo to pay for his doctor’s appointment, and after being assigned the grossly incompetent Frito as his lawyer, he is sent to prison. Rita returns to her former profession.

    Joe is renamed “Not Sure” by a “stupid” speech-recognition tattooing machine. He takes an IQ test and is assessed as the smartest person alive. He then tricks the entrance guard by telling him that he was in the wrong line and he should be in the getting-out line. He escapes by simply walking out the door while the guard is checking his prisoner exit records. Once free, Joe asks Frito whether a time machine exists to return him to 2005, and bribes him with promises of riches through compound interest on a bank account Joe will open in the 21st century. Frito claims he knows of one, and leads him with Rita to a gigantic Costco store, where a tattoo scanner identifies Joe. He is apprehended but is surprised to be taken to the White House, where he is appointed Secretary of the Interior, on the grounds that his IQ test identified him as the most intelligent person alive.

    In a speech, President Camacho gives Joe the impossible job of fixing the nation’s food shortages, Dust Bowls, and crippled economy within a week. Joe discovers that the nation’s crops are irrigated with a sports drink named “Brawndo”, whose parent corporation had purchased the FDA, FCC, and USDA. When Joe has the drink replaced with water, Brawndo’s stock drops to zero, and half of the population lose their jobs, causing mass riots. Joe is sentenced to die in a monster truck demolition derby featuring undefeated “Rehabilitation Officer” Beef Supreme. However, Beef Supreme’s derby vehicle is too large to enter the arena.

    Frito and Rita discover that Joe’s reintroduction of water to the soil has prompted vegetation to grow in the fields. During the televised event, they arrange for the sprouting crops to be shown on the stadium’s display screen, and Camacho gives Joe a full pardon. Joe and Rita decide to stay in the future, afterwards finding the “time masheen” Frito had mentioned is merely an amusement ride which is history-themed (but, of course, inaccurate). Following Camacho’s term, Joe is elected President. Joe and Rita marry and conceive the world’s three smartest children, while Vice President Frito takes eight wives and fathers 32 of the world’s stupidest children. Meanwhile, Upgrayedd travels to the future in search of Rita, as Rita had insisted to Joe he would be able to.

    Sounds all too plausible now…

  7. Quasar:

    I’d never in my life used the Facetime feature on my phone until now. Admittedly it’s a work phone so would never use it for personal calls, but I’m finding Facetime is very useful for connecting with people I’d normally see in person on a regular or semi-regular basis, but now can’t.

  9. Some positive signs from New York.

    New York, the epicenter of the global coronavirus outbreak, has begun to show the first signs of controlling the crisis: Its staggering death and hospitalization rates have started to stabilize, according to figures released by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday.

    But striking a note of optimistic caution, Mr. Cuomo warned that the state’s progress could continue only if New Yorkers, like those around the world, maintained a sense of discipline and suppressed their natural impulse to gather in the parks or on the streets, especially as the spring weather starts improving.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-curve.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

  12. Thanks, Confessions…have been scared off facetime by my first experience of seeing up someone’s nostrils.
    Maybe time to revisit.

  15. Of course, we will always have RWNJ Neoliberal Conservatives to keep spreading the virus around:

    He cites an example of how this politicisation is creating “cognitive dissonance”. One of his adult sons works for a company in San Diego where most staff are working from home as recommended by the public health advice. However: “My son says that some of the more conservative people go to the office every day, try to continue as normal, to signal that they don’t believe the liberal media conspiracy.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/spin-doctors-will-be-doing-their-best-to-resuscitate-right-wing-populism-20200406-p54hi5.html

  16. Cud Chewer: “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.”

    I think the question about borders is the big one. I have been reading the recent statements by the strong proponent of NZ’s stage 4 approach, Professor Mike Baker of the University of Otago, eg in this article:

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/coronavirus-nz-with-a-chance-to-be-only-western-nation-to-eradicate-covid-19-expert.html

    He states that, until the stage 4 restrictions were imposed, he was struggling to get a good night’s sleep from worry. Being an epidemiologist, the prospect of hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs was clearly not such a concern to him.

    And that wasn’t just a cheap shot by me. He goes on to praise NZ for being the only nation with an “elimination goal”. And, from a purely epidemiological point of view, this makes some sense: given NZ’s geographic isolation from the rest of the world, if anyone can do this, they can. (And I’m still a little sceptical: NZ is actually quite a large place – bigger in area than the UK – and a significant proportion of its population lives outside the main cities and is quite dispersed.)

    But an “elimination goal” is purely an epidemiological concept. And it seems to me that, compared to Australia and many other countries, NZ is somewhat lacking in an economic goal re coronavirus. Baker talks of a future global scenario in which the numbers of cases are

    “”going to just keep climbing. It will be millions of people at a certain point, and many countries will no longer count people dying from this infection. It’s very grim, and I think just another very good reason we are fortunate to be in New Zealand and do absolutely everything we can do dampen down transmission.” By the time a vaccine is ready – perhaps 12 or 18 months from now – he predicts more than 20 million will be dead. “This virus is on a terrible trajectory, it’s relentless, and it’s going to infect about 60 percent of the world’s population over the next one to two years.”

    This implies a situation in which NZ will stay hunkered down for two or more years while the rest of the world goes through all this turmoil. Which makes good epidemiological sense, but what’s going to happen to the NZ economy over this period? There are few developed nations on earth more dependent on export income than NZ: from primary industry, manufacturing and, of course, tourism. Theoretically, you could still export a lot of stuff while totally locked down, but you are going to struggle to promote your products and win contracts in a global market that’s set to become extremely competitive.

    I therefore suspect that the idea of an extended era of “Fortress NZ” is economically and probably socially unsustainable.

    And it’s the long-term sustainability of whatever measures we impose that seems to be bothering the likes of Collignon. And I think he has a point.


  17. 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.

    And what are Bill Bowtell’s qualifications?
    Actually, I had thought he had stopped commentating but apparently it’s just that he is no longer the ABC’s go to.

  18. Morning all. Thanks BK. Obviously given the crisis the UK NHs is facing, Boris Johnson would not be in the ICU unless he was seriously ill. As Confessions post suggested, if he is not released with 48 hrs he then has a real risk (30 to 50%?) of death.

    I hope Johnson lives but there is a supreme irony that a man who was in favor of cutting the NHS for years is now dependent on it for his survival. Trump and Pence take note?

  19. OC: “And what are Bill Bowtell’s qualifications?”

    Not sure. He wasn’t on the program we were talking about. He has chosen to adopt a very strong anti-government stance. His main criticisms of the government seem to relate to how slow they were to control the borders: which I reckon is a pretty fair criticism.

    Is he talking about eradication? I can’t immediately find any articles in which he is, but I might have missed something.

  20. OC.
    Bill Bowtell,
    Adjunct Professor UNSW Strategic Health Policy Consultant especially related to HIV/Aids policy, global health and development

  21. An extensive news review from PNAS on vaccines, I think I also noticed via Peter Collignon. A sobering assessment of a vaccine for coronavirus, with commentary by people deeply involved on the original SARS outbreak.
    Whatever the cause of SARS-1 apparently disappearing, some viruses have proven far more difficult to develop vaccines for, including these.

    The breakdown of ecological systems seems to be one of the most immediate causes of increased risk, according to those who study zoonotic diseases and something we can actually do something about.

    News Feature: Avoiding pitfalls in the pursuit of a COVID-19 vaccine
    Lynne Peeples
    https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/03/27/2005456117

    Researchers need to understand in particular whether the vaccine causes the same types of immune system malfunctions that have been observed in past vaccine development. Since the 1960s, tests of vaccine candidates for diseases such as dengue, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have shown a paradoxical phenomenon: Some animals or people who received the vaccine and were later exposed to the virus developed more severe disease than those who had not been vaccinated (1). The vaccine-primed immune system, in certain cases, seemed to launch a shoddy response to the natural infection. “That is something we want to avoid,” says Kanta Subbarao, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, Australia.

    This immune backfiring, or so-called immune enhancement, may manifest in different ways such as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), a process in which a virus leverages antibodies to aid infection; or cell-based enhancement, a category that includes allergic inflammation caused by Th2 immunopathology. In some cases, the enhancement processes might overlap. Scientific debate is underway as to which, if any, of these phenomena—for which exact mechanisms remain unclear—could be at play with the novel coronavirus and just how they might affect the success of vaccine candidates.
    ———————
    Vaccine experts have underscored the need to avoid mistakes from the past, such as the halting of SARS vaccine development. More coronaviruses are likely waiting in wild bats, primates, and rodents, ready to make the jump to humans. “Ecological disruption really increases the odds that we might encounter a pathogen that we’ve never seen before but grows in us just fine,” says Rasmussen.

  22. Cat

    The hardcore RWNJs, like anti-vaxxers and some posters here, can never admit they are wrong. They are psychologically incapable of it. I think the best strategy against them is to ignore them or ridicule their irrationality. Debating them is a waste of time.

    But the real battle is to highlight to the rest of the population that these people are wrong. There is lots of evidence around now to prove that.

  26. Socrates @ #126 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 8:38 am

    Cat

    The hardcore RWNJs, like anti-vaxxers and some posters here, can never admit they are wrong. They are psychologically incapable of it. I think the best strategy against them is to ignore them or ridicule their irrationality. Debating them is a waste of time.

    But the real battle is to highlight to the rest of the population that these people are wrong. There is lots of evidence around now to prove that.

    Yes, as Peter Hartcher’s column posits, Neoliberal ideology is facing its toughest test and is being found severely wanting.

  27. Oh dear. I think we are going to find certain among the Tradie class the most ignorant and recalcitrant. I just had one drive past the house in his little tipper truck shouting out the window repeatedly: “Wake up! Get up off your asses! Wake up!”

    *sigh*

    Homespun bromides and anti science, anti elites, anti experts and scientists, political Populism has a lot to answer for.

  28. Cat

    Having studied economics, I thought neo-liberalism was bs when it was dreamed up 30 years ago. But a long period of peace and prosperity allowed it to be accepted without challenge. It is not an ideology so much as an excuse for the powerful to exploit people. And sycophants to the powerful get well paid to write sophistry in support of it. It needs to be fought against. It is also a virus.

  30. I can’t find Bowtell’s qualifications. They are not in medicine, public health or epidemiology.
    He was a political advisor to Blewitt and Keating.
    35 years ago The dreadful Bruce Shepherd accused him of being the head of a gay mafia in the Commonwealth Department of Health

  31. Socrates: “The hardcore RWNJs, like anti-vaxxers and some posters here, can never admit they are wrong.”

    I think the disease of never being able to admit one is wrong is about as rampant on PB as is coronavirus in NY right now. And I’m perfectly willing to admit to being infected with it.

  33. NSW numbers 49 new (57 yesterday and defying expected Monday peak)
    2 deaths – 1 Ruby Princess; 1 Opal Nursing Home
    No figures on ICU, ventilators or community acquired yet

  34. Socrates @ #132 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 8:48 am

    Cat

    Having studied economics, I thought neo-liberalism was bs when it was dreamed up 30 years ago. But a long period of peace and prosperity allowed it to be accepted without challenge. It is not an ideology so much as an excuse for the powerful to exploit people. And sycophants to the powerful get well paid to write sophistry in support of it. It needs to be fought against. It is also a virus.

    And the powerful will always be looking for ways to exploit people. They devote lots of time, money and human resources towards it. Have done for centuries.

  36. OC

    Bill Bowtell is a strategic consultant specializing in health policy, and the application of new technologies to social marketing.

    From 1983–87, he was senior adviser to the Australian health minister, involved in the implementation of the Medicare scheme; and for the development of the Australian response to HIV/AIDS in which he has maintained a long and close interest. Between 1994 and 1996, he was senior political adviser to Prime Minister Paul Keating.

    Bill has served as National President of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, a trustee of the AIDS Trust of Australia and served on many HIV/AIDS-related committees and task forces. He has a particular interest in developing effective preventive health campaigns at national and international level.
    ———

    Bowtell is an adjunct professor at the Kirby Institute for infection and immunity at the University of New South Wales. He was the architect of Australia’s world-leading response to the AIDS epidemic several decades ago. More recently, he worked for 15 years with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

    https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2020/03/21/what-morrison-did-wrong-coronavirus/15847092009555

    ———–

    When I do a search for Bowtell at The KIrby Institute nothing is retrieved.

  40. Quoll @ #29 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 6:43 am

    Peter Collignon (ANU) pointed towards a pertinent article reconsidering the Spanish flu the other day, apparently after some of the stories about various drugs for covid19 doing the rounds. He seems to have more nuance, experience and perspective than the judgements some make around here. I can see he might upset some bludgers given their rabid worshipping of Dan Andrews and his comments and questioning about Vic going overboard. Unless we are actually now a fascist dictatorship it seems an entirely valid point of public discussion about the level of control over people’s lives and biological plausibility.
    He makes his points for himself in the Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/05/we-need-to-live-restricted-lives-for-at-least-six-months-police-enforced-lockdowns-are-unnecessary

    re the paper he pointed to, maybe the extreme fatalities in the Spanish flu were actually due to the excessive use of aspirin, which had just had it’s patent rights forcibly taken from the German company Bayer after the US joined WW1. This may particularly have been the case in US military camps after the US Surgeon General, US Navy and JAMA recommended it just before a major spike in deaths in Oct 2018. Seems there’s a mythology that the Spanish flu was the making of aspirin in popular public perception, at least in the English speaking world. Though these levels of use were subsequently found to elicit exactly many of the symptoms/pathology that were represented in those “killed” by the flu.

    Salicylates and Pandemic Influenza Mortality, 1918–1919 Pharmacology, Pathology, and Historic Evidence
    Karen M. Starko
    Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 49, Issue 9, 15 November 2009, Pages 1405–1410,
    https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/49/9/1405/301441

    Abstract

    The high case-fatality rate—especially among young adults—during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic is incompletely understood. Although late deaths showed bacterial pneumonia, early deaths exhibited extremely “wet,” sometimes hemorrhagic lungs. The hypothesis presented herein is that aspirin contributed to the incidence and severity of viral pathology, bacterial infection, and death, because physicians of the day were unaware that the regimens (8.0–31.2 g per day) produce levels associated with hyperventilation and pulmonary edema in 33% and 3% of recipients, respectively. Recently, pulmonary edema was found at autopsy in 46% of 26 salicylate-intoxicated adults. Experimentally, salicylates increase lung fluid and protein levels and impair mucociliary clearance. In 1918, the US Surgeon General, the US Navy, and the Journal of the American Medical Association recommended use of aspirin just before the October death spike. If these recommendations were followed, and if pulmonary edema occurred in 3% of persons, a significant proportion of the deaths may be attributable to aspirin.

    Peter Collignon has also more recently pointed to the premature ending of a chloroquine trial in Sweden due to extreme side-effects, which were known and not unexpected.

    Really interesting post thanks. The wide use to overuse of new drugs well into the second half of the 20C preceded the advent of the type of compulsory extensive and time consuming animal and clinical trials we see today, thankfully. Some examples would be the oft mooted belief that Nitrous Oxide (almost universally used in anaesthesia and elsewhere until the late 20C) wouldn’t have ever got FDA (or equiv) approval. And then there’s the case of Pentothal, the groundbreaking change in induction of anaesthesia from inhalation (ether et al) to intravenous. It was introduced into practice in the late 30s, without complete understanding of side effects and the need to taper dosage according to the clinical situation. From this arose the infamy of Pearl Harbour, 1941, when it is loosely claimed more Americans were killed by Pentothal than Japanese because it was injected in a virtual fixed dose unaware that in ‘shocked’ patients with depleted blood volume and cardiac output, the cardiac depression from Pentothal that was selectively delivered to the organs where blood flow is tried to be maintained in these situations (heart, brain) at the expense of non vital organs (skim, muscle, gut) effectively delivered a lethal dose that was enough to kill you, pre se.

    So it is interesting to read about Aspirin, as the new wonder temperature lowering drug, being used almost willy nilly, even to the point of toxicity then pulling back a bit. (That’s not uncommon – watching Das Boot the other night, it was like watching the subs pushed to their depth limits, then coming up a bit) Such was the way things were done. One small point: the article suggests that the lower childhood mortality in the Spanish flu might reflect the lesser use of Aspirin in this cohort, whereas the evolving concept of immunosenescence might be a more significant factor.

    That said, I was recently told by my cardiologist that everyone should be on low dose Aspirin unless otherwise contraindicated (and that’s where the debate should be).

    I very much appreciate your point about the need for nuance and perspective.

  43. Fairly simple answer: “Nice” Scotty from Marketing for a little while then the even harder and more vicious hits on poeple will appear. If we thought the LNP was nasty pre-Coronavirus then we can only imagine what’s coming.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2020/apr/07/morrison-has-changed-tack-against-his-tribal-instincts-but-what-happens-after-coronavirus

    Ah, republicans, always ready to stoop to new levels of power grabbing, lunacy and stupidity.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/06/wisconsin-primary-election-in-person-voting-coronavirus


  44. Bill Bowtell is a strategic consultant specializing in health policy, and the application of new technologies to social marketing.

    Still don’t know what his qualifications are and I am not sure if he is bringing anything to the table except the belief that the government response has got everything wrong.

  45. Re Bill Bowtell: it looks as if his biggest claim to fame is as a former political adviser and an administrator in relation to HIV/AIDS. All very significant and useful experiences, but not ones which give him any standing as a scientific or medical expert in relation to infectious diseases.

    And, as I said earlier, he appears to have adopted a harshly critical stance towards the Government’s approach to coronavirus (check out his twitter page). So it’s understandable that the ABC has chosen to stop using him.

  46. Guardian Essential poll: coronavirus response boosts Scott Morrison’s approval rating

    PM’s approval climbs from 41% to 59% with support from voters across the political spectrum

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/07/guardian-essential-poll-coronavirus-response-boosts-scott-morrisons-approval-rating

    It found 45% of Labor voters approved or strongly approved of his performance. And the same proportion of Labor voters disapproved or strongly disapproved of the job he was doing. That produced a net approval rating of 46% of Labor loyalists.

    And a remarkable 29% of Green voters backed or strongly backed the prime minister. However, a majority of Green voters – 55% – were not impressed, producing a net disapproval rating of 56%.

    The Labor and Green support could reflect the interventionist measures the federal government has launched, particularly on wage replacement and increased dole payments.

    They are policies which contrast with the conservative economic and welfare stances Morrison championed pre-pandemic.

    But those policies have not put off coalition voters, 87% of whom told Essential Research they approved or strongly approved of Morrison’s actions.

  47. Oakeshott Country @ #144 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 7:31 am


    Bill Bowtell is a strategic consultant specializing in health policy, and the application of new technologies to social marketing.

    Still don’t know what his qualifications are and I am not sure if he is bringing anything to the table except the belief that the government response has got everything wrong.

    It would seem his experience is in dealing with epi/pandemics.

    One wouldn’t need an in depth knowledge of viruses to do this!

  48. On how far to extend restriction of movement in public, and questions about going to the beach and the park, I think that extreme restrictions can be justified in making the point and scaring the shit out of people. It’s a case of ‘give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’.

    There are sensible and better informed people who can and would evaluate and behave sensibly and self monitor according to each situation. Then there’s the rest, and we are all in this, all have to cooperate, and all have to suffer that the safety net needs to be thrown as widely as possible as a cover all.

    So speaketh someone enjoying isolation.

  49. Being an anti-vaxxer and a christian are extremely highly correlated. Virtually all of them already believe irrational nonsense based on the collected myths of a few itinerant middle eastern tribes, authorship of which tripe is completely unknown.

    Our prime minister also ‘believes’ in this particular collection of garbage (talking bushes, walking on water, raising from dead, parting seas; you’ve got to be kidding!), right down to himself and the other ‘saved’ ones flying up into the sky in the ‘rapture’, which isn’t even in his ridiculous book.

    People with the capacity to sincerely believe deranged nonsense plainly have defective reasoning capability. To expect them to reach logically sound decisions based on a careful examination of evidence is wishful thinking. They simply cannot do it. They are also completely incapable of perceiving their incapacity. This shortcoming, when it affects too large a proportion of a population, is likely to lead to severe deleterious effects, as illustrated right now in the USA.

    In Australia, amongst many other negatives, it led to many parents trusting the organisation that was actively facilitating and covering up the systematic rape of their children. The leader of that organisation will find out his immediate fate today.

  50. m b

    …but not ones which give him any standing as a scientific or medical expert in relation to infectious diseases.

    Agree. A conclusion I reached some time ago. Given his political background he does not come across as unbiased.

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