Corona virus part 2

[croe04]

Can we stop drawing unfounded comparisons to other countries? Sick of hearing 'oh because x happened in [insert country], x is gonna happen to us'.
This not only induces more panic, it also is completely untrue. Circumstances matter, a lot.
On a more positive note, while we are among the top 20 countries in terms of number of cases, among those 20 countries we have the second lowest net fatality rate at 0.32%.

[purple5ive]

The outcome from this pandemic is going to be pretty bad we all know it. You cannot solely blame the government for what supposedly will happen.

Be glad your not in a 3rd world country where you get fkall incentives from the government, they are the people that are going to be absolutely decimated!!!
People take everything for granted here!!!!

It has nothing to do with the governments stimulus or lack there of. We are however saving what? 100,000 people this year, to lose 200,000+ in the next 5? And throw in potentially crippling the healthcare sector further irrespective of any pandemics, and schools, and infrastructure etc. since money doesn't grow on trees, these bloody large stimulus packages eventually have to be paid for in one way or another. Meanwhile the whole show has lost a sizeable portion of its revenue.

Maybe my concept and ideas surrounding somewhat preventable but inevitable death is completely different to 99.99% of everyone else. As sad as it is, I'd rather let the bell curve happen, and happen fast. Lose a portion of the population while the majority will be left relatively unscathed, and greatly reduce the after affects on that majority both personally and publicly.

Or just blanket ban travel to and from third world shitholes that like to root bats or whatever the **** they did to start the mutation

the government is doing what they can, theres so many things unseen to most normal people they have to deal with im sure..
yes money doesnt grow on trees, but atleast theres some sort of relief in terms of a stimulus package at the cost of more issues later on down the track financially ofcourse.


but i think fixing the problem at hand now is more important than worry about what will happen in 5 years time!!!

and yeah im not so sure about letting the curve take its course, look at the situation italy is in, it would be a lot worse than that, id hate to see people i know in their situation!!!

i was born and brought up in a 3rd world country, i have seen what happens there, and what happens here for an equal amount of time.
and i can tell you right now, in a situation like this you do not want to be that person living in a 3rd world country and you definitely do not want to let the curve take its course in countries like that, its will be absolute carnage!!
there is no medicare, no centerlink or nothing of that sort, so once the pandemic is over, they basically will have to start from scratch again, be glad your not in a situation like that..


yes i agree the international borders should have been closed weeks ago, that would have stopped a fair bit of it...

[cobby]

The outcome from this pandemic is going to be pretty bad we all know it. You cannot solely blame the government for what supposedly will happen.

Be glad your not in a 3rd world country where you get fkall incentives from the government, they are the people that are going to be absolutely decimated!!!
People take everything for granted here!!!!

Maybe my concept and ideas surrounding somewhat preventable but inevitable death is completely different to 99.99% of everyone else. As sad as it is, I'd rather let the bell curve happen, and happen fast. Lose a portion of the population while the majority will be left relatively unscathed, and greatly reduce the after affects on that majority both personally and publicly.

On paper not a bad idea, in reality something else.

If it were your wife, mum or dad on that hospital bed and a doctor told you they had someone else more important to attend to and left them to die literally choking to death we would see how you would feel.

So not to dissimilar to an unforeseen fatal stroke or complete and systemic organ shutdown likely due to chemical contamination from defence force practices in the 60s and 70s. Or repeated concussions and limb displacements from shaking like an old 2 cylinder 2 stroke engine for over a decade even after the million and one pills consumed... Been there done that.

And objectively, given they'd actually lived a decent chunk of life, it sure as **** beats finding out someone who otherwise would barely be affected by this mutation and has lived completely stuff all compared to them is currently taking up one of those hospital beds after being found by his missus and almost his kids trying to neck himself since in all likelihood he will lose everything.

That will soon become the reality for a lot more people

[Bugatti]

Can we stop drawing unfounded comparisons to other countries? Sick of hearing 'oh because x happened in [insert country], x is gonna happen to us'.

This not only induces more panic, it also is completely untrue. Circumstances matter, a lot.

On a more positive note, while we are among the top 20 countries in terms of number of cases, among those 20 countries we have the second lowest net fatality rate at 0.32%.

croe, I respect your opinion, truly do, and you are correct.

Unfortunately it is a conundrum.

"unfounded" is a perspective notion though. I would probably agree with your comment if the comparisons were said to be "ludicrous" comparisons. Yes, ludicrous is a perspective notion as well but better describes the effect.


Governments us comparisons as a "loose" snapshot as a comparison, to formulate their own strategies. Yes, not ideal as every country, people, demographic, culture etc are different for every country. But with limited known knowledge, what else can we do ????




The Conundrum is:

Comparisons used to instil concern, can also cause panic.
BUT
Comparisons used to instil calm, can also cause complacency.



The statistic that you quoted (comparing other countries, so it is somewhat unavoidable), you have to acknowledge, is a snap shot taken "now" , even though each country is at a different stage of their own curve line. Is it an accurate gauge, who knows ????

Secondly, that snapshot statistic, is taken of curves who's trajectory are somewhat still going upwards, and on pattern, a fair few are increasing exponentially. How this fits in to Australia's success and strategy , , , , who knows.



In my opinion, a very important and relevant statistic, to gauge where Australia is heading is.

What and how are the countries fairing if you divide them into these two categories;

Counties that compel citizens (if not "enforce") them into social obedience , verses , Countries where social liberties and freedom are accommodated (if not) vehemently defended?

This would truly show , , , , if social distancing or lockdown works, as apposed to in being in place (and not adhered to).


Cheers, Bugatti

[skronkman]

Number of reported cases is mostly bogus and is absolutely not comparable between countries. Every countries testing and reporting methodology is different. It’s trying compare apples and oranges. We all know China’s data is full of sh!t. America have a don’t test, don’t tell policy. Australia has strict guidelines on who can be tested (you could be showing all the symptoms but if you haven’t been overseas or know you’ve been in contact with a known case, no test for you) and thus limiting the number of recorded cases artificially.

Number of deaths is more difficult to fake but not impossible (China had a huge number of dead being blamed on unspecific pneumonia that weren’t recorded in the corona virus statistics but very obviously were related). Once the medical system is overrun then people start dying of unrelated (usually treatable) issues as they cannot get a doctor or a hospital bed. Do you included these in the stats? And then is it fair to compare number of dead in absolute terms? Or per head of population? Or based on population density?

The only thing we know about it so far is that slowing down the spread buys us time to look for solutions and hopefully keep the rate of hospitalisations below the capacity of our medical system. The alternative is mass death and suffering in our community.

[croe04]

Governments us comparisons as a "loose" snapshot as a comparison, to formulate their own strategies. Yes, not ideal as every country, people, demographic, culture etc are different for every country. But with limited known knowledge, what else can we do ????

Comparisons used to instil concern, can also cause panic.
BUT
Comparisons used to instil calm, can also cause complacency.

The statistic that you quoted (comparing other countries, so it is somewhat unavoidable), you have to acknowledge, is a snap shot taken "now" , even though each country is at a different stage of their own curve line. Is it an accurate gauge, who knows ????

Secondly, that snapshot statistic, is taken of curves who's trajectory are somewhat still going upwards, and on pattern, a fair few are increasing exponentially. How this fits in to Australia's success and strategy , , , , who knows.

This would truly show , , , , if social distancing or lockdown works, as apposed to in being in place (and not adhered to).

'Loose' is the only sort of comparison that should be made between any nations during this time because of the innumerable number of extant factors and massively differing circumstances, like you said. It's inevitably hard to avoid comparison, but take them with a grain of salt.
What i'm against and what I was referencing in my original comment is people jumping to conclusions that because it's hit the fan in other nations, it's gonna hit the fan here, completely irrespective of the aforementioned factors and circumstances.
Adherence to lockdown and social distancing will undoubtedly work, but we won't see the effects of it for days, if not weeks, because of the virus's incubation period.
As for my mention of our low fatality rate, as I said, take it with a grain of salt. overall cases will undoubtedly increase exponentially, but fatalities and cases seemingly increase at similar rates, so our fatality rate may remain mostly constant, or decrease as testing criteria grows. It wasn't supposed regarded as 'look how good australia is going ! we're a-ok! nothing to worry about over here!!!'.

[piscateur]

I think comparisons between countries are inevitable, and yes it wont provide finite or accurate figures, but it does give us educated indications. We can have a look at the desparation of Italy, and the relative calmness of Taiwan and Singapore (or even cities like Nanjing), we don't need their exact data to know who has approached this pandemic in a better way, and we need to take heed form lessons learnt eslewhere. Here where the media is free we have efwits like Alan Jones down playing this as an over hyped media stunt, and its not as serious as the common flu,(which I believe he should be hauled over the coals for endangering lives). You had Trunp calling Covid19 the Democrat's new Hoax and saying it was all under control and would get cases close to zero before long and be over by April, only to do a complete 180. I hope his downplaying of this will not cost the US too much in the delayed reaction.
I like the leadership of Ardern and her influence over our Politics. Yes she has been forthright abd decisive, but NZ's econony is considerably smaller and possibly more agile than ours. So I don't necessarily think our Government (I dont think Scomo has any leadership qualities Nor Turnbull for that matter) has done a bad job, because there isnt a right or wrong, and it will only be told with the benefit of hindsight how we fared.

[rb85]

It's not good to compare different countries but learning from what they have done well as well as what they could have done better is important as Australia has the benefit of hindsight to an extent. People really need to buy into the social distancing and extra precautions to reduce the overall impact of the virus.

And objectively, given they'd actually lived a decent chunk of life, it sure as **** beats finding out someone who otherwise would barely be affected by this mutation and has lived completely stuff all compared to them is currently taking up one of those hospital beds after being found by his missus and almost his kids trying to neck himself since in all likelihood he will lose everything.

That will soon become the reality for a lot more people

Cobby have read what you have to say and even though I agree about the seriousness of mental illness/suicide nobody has the right to determine how decent chunk of life anybody gets to live. If people are suicidal due to life pressures etc there is help out there. People have the ability to be resilient and recover from financial hardships if anyone is feeling suicidal seek help as mental illness is a disease. But treating ones illness and not another because you get to determine how long someone is allowed to enjoy life for is wrong.

[Bugatti]

If people are suicidal due to life pressures etc there is help out there. People have the ability to be resilient and recover from financial hardships if anyone is feeling suicidal seek help as mental illness is a disease. But treating ones illness and not another because you get to determine how long someone is allowed to enjoy life for is wrong.

Too true rb

And even just talking to a mate, or a neighbour, or sometimes a quick chat to the cashier at the fruit & veg while she packs your shopping. Not about anything full on, could be about the weather (that's an easy one), the price of Broccoli (don't start me), anything to have a chat and a chance at a smile. Sometimes just a little (or big) chat about anything with anyone can just pick you up just that little , , , , and every little counts , , , , you get enough littles, you end up with a lot.

I know with me, sometimes when I have been feeling "heavy" , , , , a little mindless banter can pick me up. That someone spoke to me

Cheers, Bill , , , , I'm only a PM away

[laneends]

Can we stop drawing unfounded comparisons to other countries? Sick of hearing 'oh because x happened in [insert country], x is gonna happen to us'.
This not only induces more panic, it also is completely untrue. Circumstances matter, a lot.
On a more positive note, while we are among the top 20 countries in terms of number of cases, among those 20 countries we have the second lowest net fatality rate at 0.32%.

There is a lag between fatality and infection rates. Todays death rate is a consequence of last weeks infections. Infections may have started later in Australia, hence the death rate curve is only just starting to kick in. So survival rate is better measured by todays death rate as a percentage of last weeks infection rate..