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.
Puffy.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/dr-fauci-condemns-protesters-clamoring-for-end-to-lockdown-premature-reopening-will-backfire/
Player One @ #395 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:40 pm
I’d still go with you are being dim!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-26/gfc-may-have-caused-500000-extra-cancer-deaths/7447464
Financial crisis may have caused 500,000 cancer deaths worldwide: study
T risto, the Centre Alliance will be offered junior ministries, Pauline will be assuaged by the promise that Chinese Australians will be given a hard time by Border Force when they re-enter the country, and Jackie will be kept happy with a free dinner at the Lodge.
PuffyTMD @ #395 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:41 pm
Then I ask him to show me a death certificate that lists “economic meltdown” as the official cause of death. 🙂
Seriously, if the shutdown is managed competently it should kill no one. There’s no controlling what some people choose to do with their lives. But that’s a vastly different story from C19 victims, virtually none of whom get the luxury of choosing whether or not they want to be a victim.
E. G. Theodore @ #391 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:34 pm
Yes, that’s the scenario that could be prevented by requiring supporting documentation attached when telling the app that you’re diagnosed positive.
Someone with a positive diagnosis could still rort it if they have a collaborator who’s much more socially active than them (submit their documentation via the collaborator’s app instead of their own); but it would be traceable back to them individually (since presumably proving a positive diagnosis requires identifying yourself) which should be an adequate discouragement for most?
There is a point at which the most tolerable medical and economic outcomes intersect and we are better positioned than most to get near it.
One step/example is to find economic activities (plus well being activities) which pose no, or only an infinitesimal risk.
A masseuse who walks on your back is probably not an example.
Fulvio Sammut @ #403 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:50 pm
I like chicken tonight has always been her food and political stance.
Also, people commit suicide every day, for an endless variety of reasons, in good economic times and bad.
The situation in Aged Care Homes being described on The Drum is very concerning. Residents who rely on relatives/friends to feed them, check their well being every day because the staff simply don’t have time, may have been being neglected when the Home is shut down to all visitors. They may not even have eaten for some time.
How many who have died from Covid19 would have died from cancer otherwise.
Covid19 prevents thousands of cancer deaths.
Too late for tonight, sorry (it was cloudy.)
A chance of seeing a bright pass of the ISS tomorrow night; make sure you select and update your location:
https://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544
I wouldn’t bother looking for the Lyrid meteor shower; it (like most) favour the northern hemisphere.
Zwaktyld @ #409 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 7:02 pm
Motor vehicle accidents are down too!
Blobbit: ‘5G?’
It was used for the smart meter project to collect meter data from rural households. A change in strategy by the company means it is no longer required.
It cost a lot to put up 5 years ago and it is a shame to pull it down.
It is in the correct location to communicate with other towers in the broader area. Probably be attractive to a telecommunications carrier.
So if you have contacts that may be interested, let me know.
This paper from just over a year ago in Nature Communications actually suggests that the GFC caused a reduction in total all cause mortality and increased life expectancy across Europe
Others report some increase in suicides but two orders of magnitude lower, thousands, not hundreds of thousands
There is much debate about the reasons, reduced traffic and pollution, reduced tobacco or alcohol consumption, more time for exercise from reduced employment. It seems pollution levels correlate with covid19 mortality rates to some extent as well in one early study by some Italians.
Seasonal changes in weather are a major factor as well
Effect of the Great Recession on regional mortality trends in Europe
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08539-w
Abstract
Previous studies have consistently shown the recurrent relationship between macroeconomic cycles and changes in mortality trends, so that recessions are generally associated with periods of faster life expectancy rise, and periods of economic growth with slower reductions or even increases in mortality trends. Here we analyze the link between annual per capita estimates of gross domestic product and daily atmospheric temperatures and standardized death rates for a large ensemble of European regions to describe the effect of the Great Recession on annual and seasonal changes in all-cause human mortality trends. Results show that the countries and regions with the largest (smallest) economic slowdown were also those with the largest (smallest) strengthening of the declining mortality trend. This procyclical evolution of mortality rates is found to be stronger during the cold part of the year, showing that it also depends on the seasonal timing of the underlying causes of death.
Josh won’t admit it, but we were already heading for a recession.
‘a r says:
Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 6:27 pm
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. ‘
Goodness me. In how many ways…
How many people will die from the global shutdown depends on how long it goes and what happens to global food commodity supply chains. Global starvation levels are finely tuned to food commodity prices and/or to regional climate patterns. The commodity prices are basically fixed by a very small number of food exporting countries, including Australia. (Yes, Australian irrigated crops help stop poor people o/s of dying from starvation.)
If the economic shutdown disrupts food planting, growing, harvesting, storage and international trade then there is a very real potential for millions of people to starve to death because they cannot afford to buy food at high prices. We know that some international food trade has already been disrupted significantly. We don’t know whether this will be on a scale large enough to kill millions.
If the shutdown has also increased global poverty, as it is doing, then ability to pay for food is further eroded.
One of the wonderful initiatives by some members of our family is to provide food for Philippines hospital staff in four hospitals and for hundreds of workers who have lost their jobs. The former is patriotic support for fellow citizens. The latter is a matter of staving off hunger.
Apart from a lack of food killing people, many people around the world who might have been saved by surgery or by medical treatment are dying instead because elective surgery has been shut down or because emergency beds are no longer available when needed.
As noted elsewhere, some unknown number of people are likely to take their own lives as a result of the shutdown – whether it be at despair because their life’s work has gone down the gurgler, because their relationships failed because of the additional stress, or because of the stresses of social isolation.
There is no doubt at all that the global shutdown has already led to a loss of life. The open question is how many more will die before it is over.
Can I just butt in here?
Its true that depressed economic conditions, higher unemployment etc do result in negative health consequences.
However.. the fallacy in the argument over lockdowns comes from ignoring the fact that with no lockdown your economy will tank regardless.
Australia was already shutting down ahead of the government taking any real action.
BW the question is how many were going to die regardless, because of the unavoidable economic consequences.
“Josh won’t admit it, but we were already heading for a recession.”
Josh is lucky.
High Fives in the sandfly community.
Boerwar
Perhaps you would like to explain why ‘keeping it open’ would not lead to even greater death and economic misery as the virus ripped through society ?
Biting midges; no sand required.
‘Cud Chewer says:
Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 7:10 pm
BW the question is how many were going to die regardless, because of the unavoidable economic consequences.’
That is the base line.
There is a global relationship between poverty and commodity food supply on the one hand and starvation on the other.
The global shutdown will, in the short term, impoverish most people. It will create many more people who cannot afford to buy enough food.
Practically everyone I know has suffered some degree of wealth destruction already – and that at a time when the wealth destruction has barely commenced.
This will be true for most of the world’s seven and a half billion people. Millions of these live on day labour and eat on the day if they work on the day. They do this in many dozens of countries where there is not enough money to maintain social security nets.
Add to this disruptions to food supply systems and it could well be that millions will die of the shutdown.
With covid19 starting to make it’s mark, it is still obvious that winter/flu seasons in 2017, 2018 and to a lesser extent 2019 caused significantly increased mortality in Europe in the 65+.
Interestingly pre-covid19, Europe was looking like having it’s least lethal winter in years
from European monitoring of excess mortality site
https://www.euromomo.eu/index.html
Fulvio Sammut @ #379 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 6:23 pm
I take absolutely no notice of GG’s opinion on anything much. He thinks Pell is a good bloke, and told us, vehemently, that the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was ‘a populist witch hunt’. He is good at ferreting out interesting tweets and other fascinating tidbits, but as a general judge of character and reality I don’t rate him at all. I would bet that he doesn’t point too many loan seekers to State Custodians.
AMAZING STORIES on ABC TV News tonight!
Bushfire couple get their loan …
● 6 months after applying,
● 4 months after approval,
and …
● 2 days after their plight was featured on ABC TV News.
What a coincidence!
Again…
My point is that comparing shutdowns to status quo is deeply misleading.
If governments don’t deliberately lockdown, the consequence is a shutdown regardless.
BW
A good explanation from you for why let it rip is so bad an idea.
The US supply chains are being disrupted.
China proved it.
A regime that wanted good economic news tried covering it up. It got out of control as a result.
We have seen let it rip. China did it. We got a world pandemic before the alert was issued.
China then did drastic lockdown proving it worked.
The panic in Morrisons eyes as he first announced the lockdown was very obvious. His faith in his ideology was shaken to the core.
lizzie @ #416 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 7:05 pm
A Morrecession. 🙂
‘poroti says:
Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 7:18 pm
Boerwar
Perhaps you would like to explain why ‘keeping it open’ would not lead to even greater death and economic misery as the virus ripped through society ?’
I actually don’t know the answer to your question. Nobody does, IMO.
On average around 500 million people go to bed hungry every night. On average around five million children a year die of starvation or hunger-related illnesses. Whether the shutdown will materially alter this scale of death remains to be seen. Having had more than a passing interest in this issue for many decades, I would be very surprised if the shutdown impact does not have a material impact.
I was responding to the notion being promulgated on Bludger that the shutdown won’t kill anyone – not really putting the case for whether one strategy or the other would kill more people.
Perhaps the answer is a bit more nuanced. The shutdown will save lives in rich countries and take more lives in poor countries. There is a compounding symmetry here. For example, the average age of Italians is 47. The average age of Filipinos is 26. Sub Saharan Africa average ages are even lower.
We had our flu shots the other day. Hardly seems worth it now.
But… whatever. Better to have it than not have it.
yabba @ #424 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 7:25 pm
I love it when posters expand to tell everyone all the alleged reasons they don’t take any notice of all the things they take notice of about what I post.
I got you, babe!
BB
That crossed my mind as the needle went in.
The comparative numbers month for month last year compared to this year are massively different.
I joked with the doctor about hard it would be to catch flu this year. The national shutdown is one thing. Killing off domestic and international tourism compounds the effect.
When I worked in a tourist location that annually had hundreds of thousands of o/s and oz tourists our community suffered from wave after wave of respiratory and tummy bug infections of one sort or another.
Thinking about the wide range in reactions to the coronavirus…
Why do some get it worse than others?
● Just old age, tired immunological systems?
● Genetic?
● Length/depth of exposure?
● Previous exposure to something similar (possibly quite benign at the time) that causes an immunological over-reaction today?
Due to the lock down Wuhan has been able to reopen its supply chains.
The lesson is in plain sight
https://time.com/5817251/wuhan-coronavirus-lockdown-reopens/
Bushfire Bill @ #433 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 7:36 pm
Bad habits over an extended period. Smoking, obesity, drugs and alcohol.
The access to diseases that you confront over time.
The emergence of conditions over time through genetic disposition.
I’m sure ther are others
Apart from known co morbidity factors, there is some stuff that is extremely difficult to pin down.
Why do some healthy young people die quickly of Covid? Did their immune system help kill them?
All I know is that our immune systems are extremely complex with lots of scope for widely varying individual responses.
Yabba attacks the Growler!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1252373214967169024
Pell has a lot of enemies, and they aren’t all choir boys.
Naturally and logically many are from the ranks of the sexually abused, or their acquaintances.
But many are from international high finance, who Pell put through the wringer while at the Vatican.
He was HATED by them.
One of my nearby neighbours, back when I lived in Sydney, was Pell’s unofficial right-hand man in Rome. Pell’s fixer, finder-outer and minder.
The stories he told three years ago about threats, dark promises, hired assassins and massive corruption would put extra hairs on your chest, boy or girl.
Bill Marx for Congress
@BillforPA14
·
Apr 20
I mean you have to admit it’s hilarious that the people who have spent their entire lives stockpiling beans & ammo and publishing newsletters about preparing to shelter in place during a global crisis are the ones having meltdowns because they can’t go to the cheesecake factory.
There is an increasing number of reports pointing to this co-morbidity
“High levels of air pollution may be “one of the most important contributors” to deaths from Covid-19, according to research.
The analysis shows that of the coronavirus deaths across 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany, 78% of them occurred in just five regions, and these were the most polluted.
The research examined levels of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant produced mostly by diesel vehicles, and weather conditions that can prevent dirty air from dispersing away from a city. Many studies have linked NO2 exposure to health damage, and particularly lung disease, which could make people more likely to die if they contract Covid-19.
“The results indicate that long-term exposure to this pollutant may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the Covid-19 virus in these regions and maybe across the whole world,” said Yaron Ogen, at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, who conducted the research. “Poisoning our environment means poisoning our own body, and when it experiences chronic respiratory stress its ability to defend itself from infections is limited.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/20/air-pollution-may-be-key-contributor-to-covid-19-deaths-study?CMP=share_btn_tw
The paper cited above references that the relationship between unemployment and mortality was attenuated by 17% if you control for air pollution.
Air pollution from fossil fueled economies is a well recognised contributor to mortality, probably not just for humans.
Also cites a study suggesting a 1% increase in unemployment was associated with reduced traffic accident mortality by 3% in US and 2.1% in all OECD.
It would appear that the difference a lockdown and no lockdown (or a late one) is illustrated by the difference between Australia’s COVID 19 experience and that of the USA:
USA: 793,000 cases, 43,000 deaths, ”apparent” mortality about 5%
Australia: 6,600 cases, 71 deaths, ”apparent” mortality about 1%
Translating the US experience to Australia (pro rata) would mean 61,000 cases and 3,300 deaths.
7:30 report is now highlighting the let it rip results in the UK before some sanity was imposed.
Time to send in BK’s avatar. What a shocker, how many more people ended up dying because of this utter failure ? Bloody Third World Countries.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
C.D.C. Labs Were Contaminated, Delaying Coronavirus Testing, Officials Say
Sloppy laboratory practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caused contamination that rendered the nation’s first coronavirus tests ineffective, federal officials confirmed on Saturday.
Two of the three C.D.C. laboratories in Atlanta that created the coronavirus test kits violated their own manufacturing standards, resulting in the agency sending tests that did not work to nearly all of the 100 state and local public health labs, according to the Food and Drug Administration
He found an astonishing lack of expertise in commercial manufacturing and learned that nobody was in charge of the entire process, they said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/health/cdc-coronavirus-lab-contamination-testing.html
The source study itself – Spain, France, Italy, Uk, New York, Chicago – the diesel fueled death traps.
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is an ambient trace-gas result of both natural and anthropogenic processes. Long-term exposure to NO2 may cause a wide spectrum of severe health problems such as hypertension, diabetes, heart and cardiovascular diseases and even death. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between long-term exposure to NO2 and coronavirus fatality. The Sentinel-5P is used for mapping the tropospheric NO2 distribution and the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis for evaluating the atmospheric capability to disperse the pollution. The spatial analysis has been conducted on a regional scale and combined with the number of death cases taken from 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany. Results show that out of the 4443 fatality cases, 3487 (78%) were in five regions located in north Italy and central Spain. Additionally, the same five regions show the highest NO2 concentrations combined with downwards airflow which prevent an efficient dispersion of air pollution. These results indicate that the long-term exposure to this pollutant may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the COVID-19 virus in these regions and maybe across the whole world.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720321215
Bushfire Bill @ #438 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 7:47 pm
So, Pell was hated because he did his job?
There’s a lot of unsubstantiated hyperbole there BB.
I suppose it all adds to the legend of a man who has made reforms against vested interests all his life.
lizzie @ #408 Tuesday, April 21st, 2020 – 7:02 pm
Lizzie,
My Mum’s in an Aged Care home in Sydney. We haven’t been able to visit her for weeks, and I have to say I support the facility 100% in this. Their response has been amazing. They keep us updated with photos and videos a couple of times a day, and they facilitate WhatsApp video chats with the residents.
The efforts of all the staff to keep the old dears safe has been magnificent. And they’ve had to deal with the delicate situation of angry family members who haven’t all co-operated with the restrictions.
The email we received from the head of admin at the home this afternoon was dripping with contempt and rage for Morrison’s comments today. Must be so deflating for them to be doing so much to help and now being portrayed as the bad guys.
Boris has dome splainin’ to do.
The Mafia calls for an inquiry into the Triads and the Yakuza?