[Kaiserschmarrn]

Do you have a link about smokers? The data I have seen is mixed. Initially it was thought that smoking increased risk but later data didn’t show any statistical relationship. Hypertension is coming out as the biggie for co-morbidities. Obesity and diabetes are bad too. This is a serious concern when one looks at all the fat people in America.

I should say up front that I haven't really looked into this, but just saw these claims a few times in passing. The main claim was, as you say, that smokers don't show up in the statistics in expected numbers and articles like this sometimes mention downregulation of the ACE2 receptor as a possible explanation for this.

I have an on going lung problem. I get any cold or flu going around. I had two in the last few weeks, but only minor symptoms. I would have ignored them but anyone who is even slightly unwell has to stay home at present. The doctor did send me off for a test but the test clinic refused due to government mandated testing criteria and sent me back to the doctor.

Anyway, my work has been dragging their feet on work from home. I won’t say anymore about that because it would give away who I work for. I have taken a few weeks annual leave up until after Easter. That should be long enough to be able to tell in the Oz gov strategy has worked or if it has failed.

Didn't realise you have a preexisting condition (which presumably increases your risk since it's related to the lungs?). In this case staying home is definitely the best course of action and I'm glad you can use your leave to do so. All the best and stay safe!

As you can see on world test stats, Oz ranks highly. But those tests have been tightly focused on returning travellers, only recently expanding to health workers, suspicious pneumonia cases and prison, aged care and remote communities. There is still no serious effort at community testing. The Victorian gov has just started a random test strategy in hospitals. So, though Oz has high test rates by world standards, we really only know about airport arrivals and cruise ship passengers. The honest truth is the authorities don’t really know the extent of community transmission.


The country is in semi-lock down, which helps a lot. State borders are all supposed to be closed now. Returning travellers are almost all home now (well, in quarantine, but back in Oz). Still lots of idiots on cruise ships. It takes a special sort of stupid to go on a cruise during a pandemic, but this type of stupid appears to be common. But the important thing is that soon the traveller stats, which account for most cases and most tests, will be cleared and we can start to see the important stats of local contagion. Current case stats really reflect the places these travellers have come from (Europe, USA, cruise ships). So the statistical rate of growth is the rate in those places, not the local rate.


Given we just don’t know the local situation, I am “sheltering in place”, as the Americans say, until the real local situation becomes apparent. Note that local deaths also reflect foreign situations at this time. If there is a sudden and unexpected increase of pneumonia or intestinal cases at hospitals in the next two weeks or so, then the plan failed and there was lots of undetected community spread. Otherwise, if no surge in the hospitals, maybe, just maybe, the strategy worked. The Oz gov did restrict travel from China when it was still being described as racist elsewhere in the west. So that would have reduced early infect rates.

But we still need S Korean style community testing. The authorities really need to be able to see what is happening. Also we need Asian style masks for everyone. So yes, within two or so weeks we will know if Australia has managed to avoid the worst of the first wave of this disease. But we still need to adopt more of the strategies other Asian countries have developed through bitter experience.

I have to admit I haven't followed Australia as closely as other countries up until now which is probably a mistake seeing as it's quite important for NZ how you guys are doing.

At least I've got confirmation now that NZ is indeed going for eradication, or "stamping out" the virus as our Director General of Health has called it. He also said there's no plan B if the govt's strategy doesn't work and Ardern has mentioned that people should be prepared for border/travel restrictions remaining in place for quite some time.

[foxdemon]

@Kaiserschmarrn
Australia seems to have been less severely impacted than other places in the world. Why?

Partially due to restricting travel from China early on when everyone else in the western sphere were worrying about not being seen to be racist.

Partially due to dumb luck.

The big threats have been primarily domestic attitudes. Unis trying to keep their international student business going, Oz citizens thinking it is ok to travel in a pandemic (and then complaining when they get quarantined or stuck overseas), and the willfully stupid who went on cruises. Finally, bureaucratic incompetence.



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-03/coronavirus-scott-morrison-national-cabinet-meeting-update/12120584

Community transmission is still a problem

Chief Health Officer Brendan Murphy said Australia should be confident in the country's testing measures.

"Our testing has been probably the best in the world and that we are very confident that, whilst there will certainly be some undetected cases, we have a pretty good idea of the size of our outbreak," he said.

"We still have a lot of issues with people who have contracted the virus from overseas. But we are in control of those issues."

But Professor Murphy said a worrying issue at this stage was still community transmission.

"We know there are over 300 of those in Sydney, about 60 in Melbourne, 30 in Brisbane, and smaller numbers in some other states," he said.

"That means that there are people who have COVID-19 or incubating it, who don't know it. That is why we introduced these social distancing measures that we have all been taking to heart really well.

"We are quietly pleased with the direction we are going, but we cannot stop, because those community transmissions have been growing and they are still growing slowly and we have to keep doing the measures to keep them under control."

So apparently our testing has been the best in the world. Yet it has been almost completely focused on all that unwise international travel. The figures now look good, but only because international travel is now banned. With little domestic testing, we don’t really know the local situation. As you can see in the above quote, the CHO admits thus but tries to make it sound like it is all roses.

So it is a bit like an episode of Yes Minister. Perhaps we could call it Yes Health Minister?

I rather suspect your Prime Minister gave Morrison a kick in the balls as the local strategy seemed to improve after talks between them. The SG Prime Minister might have given Morrison a grilling to. Possibly the liberals were starting to think along the ‘herd immunity’ idea that Johnson had been toying with. Now it seems eradication is the ultimate goal. As it should be.

Australia might just get lucky. But the lack lustre leadership and the general small minded selfishness of many is now clear for all to see. Donald Horne wrote a book titled ‘The Lucky Country’ in the 1960s. This has been misinterpreted to mean Australia is somehow exceptional. But what he mean’t, for those who didn’t bother to read his book, was that Australians are complacent and we are “bloody lucky to still be here”.

Nothing has changed, it would seem.

[colliric]

Easier to explain than that.

https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.ns ... num=&view=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... on_density

Australia has amoung the lowest population density in the world. Even in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane population density is quite low for major cities. Brisbane only has a population density of about 145 people per square kilometre.

Makes it more difficult for airborne/touch based virus transmission generally.

[Rancid]

It took 8 days for our case numbers to double here in the Austin area. I hope that's a good sign.

[Rancid]

WIth respect to testing in the US. On a per capita basis, the US is only behind Germany and South Korea.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviru ... ta-its-not

[Hindsite]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU&feature=emb_title

I suspected the virus came from the lab and even posted my suspicions earlier. I even posted my belief that the lab may be a biological warfare lab and hoped I was wrong. Someone on here called it a conspiracy theory at that time. This seems to verify that at least part of my suspicions were correct. Whether it is actually a biological warfare lab is yet to be determined or disproved.

[Godstud]

. Whether it is actually a biological warfare lab is yet to be determined or disproved.

It's just a dumb theory unless you have some facts to support it. A dumb conspiracy theory. Nothing needs to be "disproved" since nothing has been proven.

Your suspicions are invalid, since there is no actual evidence to support such a theory.

Jesus loved Pork steaks. Disprove it.

[Hindsite]

Jesus loved Pork steaks. Disprove it.

Even you know that could not be true, since Yahshua was Jewish. But I shall not waste my time using the Holy Bible to disprove an obvious false statement to an atheist.
Hallelu Yah

[Godstud]

Even you know that could not be true, since Yahshua was Jewish. But I shall not waste my time using the Holy Bible to disprove an obvious false statement to an atheist.

My point is that you can't disprove something you cannot prove in the first place.

It was not meant to be taken seriously.

[foxdemon]

Easier to explain than that.

https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.ns ... num=&view=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... on_density

Australia has amoung the lowest population density in the world. Even in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane population density is quite low for major cities. Brisbane only has a population density of about 145 people per square kilometre.

Makes it more difficult for airborne/touch based virus transmission generally.

Low population density must help to some extent. Those populations who are overcrowded will struggle to achieve social distancing. But the virus can be transmitted when people do congregate. Australians have largely been diligent with isolation, achieving 90% reduction in social contact. If maintained, and if the government can start producing and then deploying sufficient tests to allow a more targeted isolation regime, following up with rigours contact tracing, then we just might succeed in eradicating the virus from the continent. That is the current Dept of Health plan.

Let’s hope it is not too late. NSW looks worrying to me. It still might get out of control there. Also Victoria has too much local transmission. Then there are clusters emerging in SA and in the Kimberly region.

The government did stop travel from China quickly but then dragged its feet on closing down travel from Europe and the US. Also those cruise ships have been a major source of introduced infections. The NSW health dept really screwed up with that Ruby Princess debacle. Also, test kit and mask production should have been accelerated beyond what they managed to achieve. And chopping and changing what they were telling the public. The basic failure, though, was being reactive rather than proactive.

The next time there is a pandemic, the government response will be much swifter and better directed. Bureaucracy doesn’t cope well when there is no established rule book. But once there is experience, they will write their rules.

Anyway, we will find out in a week or so if the situation in NSW is out of control.

[Rancid]

Death rate here in Central Texas is .8% thus far.

[JohnRawls]

Death rate here in Central Texas is .8% thus far.

Yeah about that. Remember the start of february when tencent actually released something closer to real Chinese numbers even before it got out of control there:

[Rancid]

Yeah about that. Remember the start of february when tencent actually released something closer to real Chinese numbers even before it got out of control there:

I don't remember that, and what is that image showing me?

[Crantag]

I don't remember that, and what is that image showing me?

I reckon that an 11 fold increase in reported cases corresponded to an 81 fold increase in reported deaths over the period?

Actually I don't think these figures say much, we know and knew that the data had a lot of issues. In the period since it is safe to presume the data which are in the hands of the specialists are much better, based on the various 'surveys' of all the outbreak populations around the world.

[Godstud]

@Rancid As long as the cases stay down, the death rate stays down. It's when the system takes in more people than it can handle is when the death rate starts to soar.

USA deathrate, at this time, (overall) is 4.4%. Thailand is sitting at 1% but I worry that not enough is being done, as(I think) it could go "Italy" fast, if things go real bad.

[colliric]

Nice video from Abby.

[Rancid]

USA deathrate, at this time, (overall) is 4.4%

It's 2.7% overall according to the John Hopkins count.

Anyway, Austin put it's stay at home order in very early compared to most other cities in the US. we've been under the order for a few weeks already, while some cities are just getting the order in the last few days. Thus, I suspect our city will fare much better than other cities. It took 8-9 days for our cases to double when most other cities are saying a doubling in 4 days, that's factoring in increased testing rates as well, so ultimately, it looks better, relatively speaking to say, NY, or New Orleans.

[Godstud]

It's 2.7% overall according to the John Hopkins count.

I was strictly going by the numbers that we have, not estimated numbers, including cases that are asymptomatic.

Stay safe, @Rancid

[colliric]

Anyone have an opinion about Abby's video?

[Godstud]

@colliric It's spot on.