Essential Research coronavirus latest

Confidence in the federal government and other institutions on the rise, but state governments in New South Wales and Queensland appear to lag behind Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia.

The Guardian reports Essential Research’s latest weekly reading of concern about coronavirus finds satisfaction with the government’s handling of the crisis up two points to 65%, its best result yet out of the five such polls that have been published (no sign yet of the poor rating, which hit a new low of 17% – the full report later today should reveal all).

Last week’s question on state governments’ responses was repeated this week, and with due regard to sample sizes that run no higher than around 320 (and not even in triple figures in the case of South Australia), the good ratings have been 56% last week and 61% for New South Wales; 76% and 70% for Victoria; 52% and 63% for Queensland; 79% and 77% for Western Australia; and 72% and 66% for South Australia. Combining the results gives New South Wales 58.5% and Victoria 73% with error margins of about 3.7%; Queensland 57.5% from 4.6%; Western Australia 78% from 5.5%; and South Australia 69% from 6.9%.

Also included are Essential’s occasion question on trust in various institutions, which suggests that all of the above might be benefiting from a secular effect that has federal parliament up from 35% to 53% and the ABC up from 51% to 58%. The effect is more modest for the Australian Federal Police, up two points to 68%. In other coronavirus-related findings, the poll finds “half of all voters think it’s too soon to even consider easing restrictions“, with a further 14% saying they are prepared to wait until the end of May; that 38% said they would download the virus-tracing app, with 63% saying they had security concerns and 35% being confident the data would not be misused.

UPDATE: Full report here.

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.

1,133 comments on “Essential Research coronavirus latest”

Comments Page 8 of 23
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  1. “porotisays:
    Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 5:47 pm
    Blobbit

    The results are, shall we say, “contested” ”

    Yup. Seems like it should be taken with a very large bag of salt. Even if it’s true there, it seems doubtful that it can be simply extrapolated to somewhere like Australia where we’re not seeing evidence of that sort of transmission, either in hospitalisation numbers or in the positive testing rate of the tests we are doing.

  6. PuffyTMD @ #345 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 5:54 pm

    My son has put forward this premise. Please respond.

    ”
    It is no point shutting down economies because the shut down will cause more deaths than if we let the virus run free.”

    There is no possible response unless he explains “why” he believes this? Suicides? Starvation? Mass killings?

    Explain to him that the 40,000+ deaths in the USA – so far – is not “business as usual”. If it was, they would not be burying bodies in mass graves.

  7. Blobbit @ #174 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 12:40 pm

    “laughtongsays:
    Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 12:35 pm

    As a bowler I can say it is not really common sense.”

    That’s the problem with common sense, it tends to mean different things to different people. It’s why I’m never impressed with it as a justification.

    Favourites only win about 30% of horse races.

    So much for the wisdom of the crowds.

  8. I have a communication tower to sell or rent. Hardly used, 80m high, has power and easy access on a high spot on a relatively flat country side. Within 100km from Melbourne.

    If you know someone that may be interested, let me know.

  9. Lizzie, FYI, the announcement was made by Morrison, and carried on the ABC, Guardian, SMH, 3AW, and virtually every other news channel. The release to reporters said:

    “From next week, all category two and equivalent surgeries will be able to proceed, along with selected category three and other procedures including:

    IVF treatments
    All screening programs
    Post-cancer reconstruction procedures
    Level two dental work (denture and braces fittings, and basic fillings)
    All procedures for under-18s
    Joint replacements
    Cataracts and eye surgery
    Endoscopy
    Colonoscopy”

    For instance, that information was published on the Guardian blog at 1.36 pm

    I am sorry if I appear to be condescending. As far as I know he is a Greek parachutist.

  13. C@t……………Keating was a once-in-a-generation politician for Labor…………he could both out- bastardise the other side, but with wit and wisdom as well. Trouble is he too got ahead of the Oz public who were yearning for more ‘conservative’ times and hence voted for Howard.
    To think Labor wasted two outstanding leaders in both Hawke and Keating.
    What is it about Labor that they feel the need to destroy the very people who best represent them?
    Rudd – whom I never warmed to – still had that touch of bastardry but the softies in the party could not cope with him ‘cos he was a bit rude to them……………………so out he went.
    With Shorten Labor tried the “reasonable man” approach but this did not appeal the the 30-40% of electorate who are both socially and economically conservative….and this includes nominally Labor voters. Big Kimbo was also a “reasonable man” but his 51% of the TPP was not enough to get him into office……..can’t remember but I think it was the bloody Queenslanders who did for him as well. What is it about bloody Queenslanders?

  14. Since the government’s response to the economic shock that the pandemic has brought, has been not enough then Australia could enter the worst economic depression since that of the 1890s or even worse.

    For example; In the 1890s depression GDP fell by 17% over 2 years, well the RBA is predicting -10% for 2020. Therefore; a decline of that the magnatune of the 1890s is certainly possible in my opinion. Also, recovery from that depression could be slow as well, while during the 1930s depression GDP fell by 10% in one year and the economy recovered strongly after 1931.

    That could mean an official unemployment rate of 20%, which could be as high as 30% according to the methodology Roy Morgan uses. This will likely result hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people could eventually emigrate from Australia to other countries whose economies could be doing better than ours.

  16. Reputedly Shouty Mchappyclap on a foundation of Bronte slogan bogan talked to one of the founders of Mmmeeecccrosoft today.

    As in embrace, extend, extinguish!

    I guess there’s hope after all …

    [Presumably Shouty [aka PM 5/ 6 since 2007] is following in the footsteps of KRudd7x7, Juliar and will …. off overseas soonish.]

  17. “Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people could eventually emigrate from Australia to other countries whose economies could be doing better than ours.”

    1. if they’ll have them
    2. if those countries exist

  18. Regarding the app

    I think it is important that the app never transmits data to the server except when the user does something specific (like tap a button) and only on advice from a health worker on diagnosis..

    I think its also important that the app only receives from the server a list of previously submitted codes and no other kind of information. Each code generated uniquely for each contact event and deleted after 28 days.

    Knowing that your data never goes outwards, unless you explicitly permit it, is what is needed for people to understand and trust the app.

    Complex protocols get hard to explain and just won’t get communicated properly.

  19. C@tmomma @ #355 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:07 pm

    PuffyTMD @ #347 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 5:54 pm

    My son has put forward this premise. Please respond.

    ”
    It is no point shutting down economies because the shut down will cause more deaths than if we let the virus run free.”

    Does he really want THIS to run rampant throughout the world!?!

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes#

    ” rel=”nofollow”>

    Shutting down the economy buys the Country time. As has been said before, you can overwhelm your medical, hospital and equipment. All that means is that more people will die from lack of services to save them.

    There is no cure.

    Government’s are trying toslow it down and wipe it out locally by not give it a chance to spread too rapidly.

    Social isolation is one aspect.

    I would not be planning to travel overseas for at least a year.

  24. yabba @ #312 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:11 pm

    Lizzie, FYI, the announcement was made by Morrison, and carried on the ABC, Guardian, SMH, 3AW, and virtually every other news channel. The release to reporters said:

    “From next week, all category two and equivalent surgeries will be able to proceed, along with selected category three and other procedures including:

    IVF treatments
    All screening programs
    Post-cancer reconstruction procedures
    Level two dental work (denture and braces fittings, and basic fillings)
    All procedures for under-18s
    Joint replacements
    Cataracts and eye surgery
    Endoscopy
    Colonoscopy”

    For instance, that information was published on the Guardian blog at 1.36 pm

    I am sorry if I appear to be condescending. As far as I know he is a Greek parachutist.

    You really like to bash up on the women of PB, don’t you!

  25. yabba

    Now you have proved your all-seeing, all-knowing, superiority, would you please drop it? I don’t need an excuse for not being aware of every precious word that drips from Morrison’s lips.

  28. PTMD,
    Would your son really like to subject YOU to COVID-19, just so that the economy could restart sooner!?! You are in it’s target group, after all. Not to mention the fact that those places who have sought to re-open too soon, Japan and Singapore, have had their economies subjected to the whipsaw effect. So it doesn’t actually benefit an economy to open up sooner rather than prudently at a later date at all. It just seems like it will all be okay. However, COVID-19 has other ideas.

  30. Puffy

    “My son has put forward this premise. Please respond.

    ”
    It is no point shutting down economies because the shut down will cause more deaths than if we let the virus run free.””

    If your son had said that to me I’d point out one simple and obvious fact.
    If the government hadn’t done anything, the economy would shut down on its own accord.
    The virus spreads. Thousands die. People do precisely what they are doing now. Economy shuts down.

    The difference is that it would take a long, long time for the virus to do its thing. The repercussions would ensure a slow recovery.

    On the other hand, shutting down the economy and eliminating the virus means the economy restarts a lot sooner.

    Love to see how he responds to that inescapable logic.

  31. Greensborough Growler @ #376 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:19 pm

    yabba @ #312 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:11 pm

    Lizzie, FYI, the announcement was made by Morrison, and carried on the ABC, Guardian, SMH, 3AW, and virtually every other news channel. The release to reporters said:

    “From next week, all category two and equivalent surgeries will be able to proceed, along with selected category three and other procedures including:

    IVF treatments
    All screening programs
    Post-cancer reconstruction procedures
    Level two dental work (denture and braces fittings, and basic fillings)
    All procedures for under-18s
    Joint replacements
    Cataracts and eye surgery
    Endoscopy
    Colonoscopy”

    For instance, that information was published on the Guardian blog at 1.36 pm

    I am sorry if I appear to be condescending. As far as I know he is a Greek parachutist.

    You really like to bash up on the women of PB, don’t you!

    You know it. They say some of the worst, shall we say, humiliators of women, are some of the most intelligent of men.

    As I said previously, yabba may have a high IQ, but his EQ is in the toilet.

  32. Player One @ #330 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:21 pm

    Greensborough Growler @ #374 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:19 pm

    You really like to bash up on the women of PB, don’t you!

    Aha! Perhaps Yabba was the intended target of C@ts “sexism” post? Didn’t make much sense otherwise 🙁

    You have a bolt of lightning strike and this is important enough to comment on? Strange.

    Yabba seems to have moved comfortably in to the role Bemused used to have.

    Nature, vaccuums I suppose.

  33. New rapid COVID-19 test available for WA regional communities

    Introduction of regional on-site testing analysers for COVID-19 – with results available within an hour. The analysers will provide testing capability to regional areas of most need, further adding to the State’s testing capacity.

    For the first time, the McGowan Government through PathWest, is installing molecular PCR analysers in select laboratories outside of Perth – the first of which will be located at PathWest Broome next week, then Kalgoorlie and Geraldton. Feasibility studies are underway for further roll-out to Port Hedland, Albany and Esperance.

    The GeneXpert® analysers will be used for higher risk COVID-19 testing scenarios, such as health care workers, police, hospital patients, people living in Aboriginal communities and those from an area with an increased risk of community transmission.

    https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2020/04/New-rapid-COVID-19-test-available-for-regional-communities.aspx

  34. Poroti
    I am asking him.
    OK
    This is what he wrote. Do not hold back just because he is my son.
    ”
    With a mortality rate of between 1.8 % and 2.5 % of those who get infected
    compared to the number of deaths, pain and suffering of billions who will be forced
    into abject poverty due to the economic crisis caused by
    the world wide shut down of the economy. During the GFC 500,000 people in OECD countries committed suicide.

    Due to financial hardship, this is just one example of many of deaths due to financial hardship caused for economic.
    turmoil.

    This current economic down turn will be significantly worse than the GFC, so we call assume confidently that any deaths and suffering
    due to the GFC will pail in comparison the the impact of this current economic crisis. I feel that we should retrieve to reopen the the economy as quickly as possible to circumvent the deaths and the pain and suffering that will be caused by a global recession.
    With a mortality rate of between 1.8 % and 2.5 % of those who get infected
    compared to the number of deaths, pain and suffering of billions who will be forced
    into abject poverty due to the economic crisis caused by the world wide shut down of the economy. During the GFC 500,000 people in OECD countries committed suicide.
    due to financial hardship, this is just one example of many of deaths due to finacial hardship caused for economic turmoil.

    This current economic down turn will be significantly worse than the GFC, so we call assume confidently that any deaths and suffering.
    due to the GFC will pail in comparison the the impact of this current economic crisis. I feel that we should strive to reopen the
    the economy as quickly as possible to circumvent the deaths and the pain and suffering that will be caused by a global recession.

    With a mortality rate of between 1.8 % and 2.5 % of those who get infected
    compared to the number of deaths, pain and suffering of billions who will be forced
    into adject poverty due to the economic crisis caused by
    the world wide shut down of the economy. During the GFC 500,000 people in OECD countries committed suicide.
    Due to financial hardship, this is just one example of many of deaths due to financial hardship caused for economic turmoil.

    This current economic down turn will be significantly worse than the GFC, so we call assume confidently that any deaths and suffering due to the GFC will pail in comparison the the impact of this current economic crisis. I feel that we should strive to reopen the
    the economy as quickly as possible to circumvent the deaths and the pain and suffering that will be caused by a global recession.

    ‘

  35. PuffyTMD @ #345 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 5:54 pm

    My son has put forward this premise. Please respond.

    ”
    It is no point shutting down economies because the shut down will cause more deaths than if we let the virus run free.”

    You can’t just smack him upside the head for excessive hyperbole?

    Nobody dies of “economic shutdown”. Literally. Nobody. Especially when the majority of people are being forced to experience the same economic shutdown at the same time. Their basic needs will be met and their lives will go on. Perhaps not as they imagined, but they will go on.

    Contrast that with coronavirus, where in most Western nations right now between 5 and 10 percent of the people confirmed infected with it will die as a direct consequence, and he should see why he’s being an ass. The premise that lockdown will kill more people than the virus is absurd. It may annoy and inconvenience many people, but it sure as hell won’t kill them. The virus will.

  37. I reckon Jim Chalmers became Labor leader that alone might result in Queensland swinging hard to Labor, perhaps winning both a majority of seats and even the two party preferred vote. These were something that Kevin Rudd another Queenslander achieved in 2007.

  38. Greensborough Growler @ #382 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:24 pm

    You have a bolt of lightning strike and this is important enough to comment on? Strange.

    Yabba seems to have moved comfortably in to the role Bemused used to have.

    Nature, vaccuums I suppose.

    Maybe I’m just being dim today. I don’t understand either C@t’s post or yours 🙁

  40. Letting COVID-19 ‘run wild’ would be economically disastrous. Not to mention it will kill anywhere between 180,000 to 500,000 people. Also, the health system would collapse in the meantime as well.

  42. a r

    As I pointed out. The fallacy in such arguments lies in the idea that an alternative to an economic slowdown is actually possible. The reality is that there is no scenario that doesn’t involve the economy taking a big hit.

  43. a r:

    Late Riser @ #288 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 4:23 pm

    * The “TraceTogether” server needs to do the job of generating, transmitting and then remembering 10s of millions of IDs every 15 minutes.

    Wait, what? Why does the app not generate random UUID’s (or equivalent) for each event, client-side? The server needs to receive them, but even then probably only in cases where a diagnosis is confirmed. It doesn’t need to generate, verify, or (except in cases of confirmed diagnosis) transmit contact-ids.

    Correct – the Apple/Google approach currently does it on the device, and an app could also do this

    * The server triggers the app on any particular phone to upload its data. We are told this will be only done if the owner of the phone consents.

    Again, wtf? That can only be done if the server-side data isn’t anonymous; for the server to initiate it has to map from a person to the device(s) that person uses.

    Correct – it isn’t anonymous – by decrypting the TempID (or otherwise) the central server can determine the phone number

    It should be that the app initiates the upload upon the user indicating they’ve been diagnosed with C19, possibly with the requirement to attach supporting documentation for review by a server-side admin prior to the alerting of any contacts.

    A virtual Typhoid Mary (or perhaps the “Social Influencer” analogue of Miss Mary) who uses the app claim falsely to be infected, thus inconveniencing any inadvertent contacts by causing them to get tested, is just the kind of power trip some people are into.

  45. AUWU
    @AusUnemployment
    ·
    1h
    We’ve heard that demand for Foodbank has increased by 50%. We’ve heard members have had to apply for emergency/crisis payments to see them through. There was never any need for the government to make us wait til the end of April for the corona supplement

    And all MicMack could talk about this afternoon was how much money the government had tossed at the problems. As if all had been fixed.

  47. ar
    My son asks you this
    “I reject the premise that people do not die because of economic meltdown, and the 500,000 is from WHO.”

  48. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/why-is-the-global-financial-crisis-linked-to-extra-cancer-deaths

    The economic crisis of 2008-10, and the rise in unemployment that accompanied it, was associated with more than 260,000 excess cancer-related deaths—including many considered treatable—within the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), according to a study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Imperial College London, and Oxford University. The researchers found that excess cancer burden was mitigated in countries that had universal health coverage (UHC) and in those that increased public spending on health care during the study period.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/health-27796628

    The economic crisis in Europe and North America led to more than 10,000 extra suicides, according to figures from UK researchers.

    A study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, showed “suicides have risen markedly”.

    The research group said some deaths may have been avoidable as some countries showed no increase in suicide rate.

    Campaign groups said the findings showed how important good mental health services were.

    The study by the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine analysed data from 24 EU countries, the US and Canada.

    There are prolly contrary studies as well.

    Not sure if this is any help.

    Goodnight all. 📺 💤

  49. I am predicting that the Coalition is going to have a very hard time passing through any ‘economic deregulation’ measures, through the Senate. Because Jackie Lambie, One Nation and the Center Alliance I see are unlikely to vote for such measures.

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