Coronavirus - Australia
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@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
I understand the State's closing their borders.
M4L - does FNQ have the health system to deal with an influx of virus-ridden retirees? I'm not sure it does. Likewise coastal communities in NSW.
As it stands it might be better to have a smaller intrastate travel market than no market at all.
what influx? from where?
We have 2 hospitals. In 18 months we will have, 2 hospitals. Are we saying no one come to Cairns ever?
No, but if the virus spreads through Sydney and borders are open, isn't there a risk of it coming into the community?
Then you have the residents plus the grey nomads and holiday makers, and once they get it it's not like they can get on a plane home.
Influx probably wasn't the right term to use, but holiday/retiree spots are certainly a bit vulnerable...
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@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life I was supposed to be on the bike as of this Saturday into Qld, SA, NT and WA.
I'm not even pretending that's going ahead now. This is cooperative federalism...
it's keeping families apart. This country has a huge amount of FIFO workers who cannot get home now.
I'm thankful I got to Qld when I did. It had a been a year since I was last there and it's looking increasingly uncertain when I can go back.
People can't visit relatives. You can't do business. It's infuriating. And to think there is no end in sight...
All because 0.085% of the population as of yesterday had a virus and 0.001% had died from it. Over seven months...
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@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
I understand the State's closing their borders.
M4L - does FNQ have the health system to deal with an influx of virus-ridden retirees? I'm not sure it does. Likewise coastal communities in NSW.
As it stands it might be better to have a smaller intrastate travel market than no market at all.
what influx? from where?
We have 2 hospitals. In 18 months we will have, 2 hospitals. Are we saying no one come to Cairns ever?
No, but if the virus spreads through Sydney and borders are open, isn't there a risk of it coming into the community?
Then you have the residents plus the grey nomads and holiday makers, and once they get it it's not like they can get on a plane home.
Influx probably wasn't the right term to use, but holiday/retiree spots are certainly a bit vulnerable...
i get your point, but there is such thing as risk/return.
right now, according to the worldometer stats that have proved pretty reliable, Australia has 55 people listed as serious/critical. This is despite the "explosion" over the past month. 55. In the country. At the start of this we had what, 4,000 ICU beds? I thought we were supposed to be building capacity over this time, what do we have now? What is our new capability?
NSW is recording what, up to 20 new cases (not deaths, not serious, critical health issues, cases) per day. And yet for all of this, the borders are closed for the foreseeable future. How many people live in NSW?
The situation in Auckland today should be a wake-up call, this thing is here, it's in teh community, and getting completely rid of it is impossible. I fear that the opposite lesson will be learned, and governments drunk on the polling of fear with elections coming up, will double down on restrictions.
Believe it or not, i am not advocating open slather. And i am not even coming at this from a tourism angle (i am waaay past that). But i am sick of politicians and health officers who can't see past the end of their nose (or the next election) making damaging decisions and never, ever being called upon to discuss end dates, or a plan for the future.
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@mariner4life I agree with all of that.
It's clearly a delicate balance. Especially for the travel industry. Things are too conservative at the moment, but there's also a relationship between consumer confidence and the spread of the virus. If borders were open, how many people would be having a weekend in Melbourne?
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@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life I agree with all of that.
It's clearly a delicate balance. Especially for the travel industry. Things are too conservative at the moment, but there's also a relationship between consumer confidence and the spread of the virus. If borders were open, how many people would be having a weekend in Melbourne?
because, if social media is anything to go by, people equate getting Covid with ending up unconscious in ICU
What are the actual risks? If 50,000 people caught it, how many would end up in ICU?
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@mariner4life supposedly 1%...?
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@mariner4life for me personally, im not too worried about catching it....but i would be mortified if i spread it and someone did end up in ICU
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@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@barbarian said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life I agree with all of that.
It's clearly a delicate balance. Especially for the travel industry. Things are too conservative at the moment, but there's also a relationship between consumer confidence and the spread of the virus. If borders were open, how many people would be having a weekend in Melbourne?
because, if social media is anything to go by, people equate getting Covid with ending up unconscious in ICU
What are the actual risks? If 50,000 people caught it, how many would end up in ICU?
The real challenge is that we don't seem to really know the fatality rate, or how this spreads, and how long it's viable on surfaces, and so on. There has been a major shift in NZ from 'masks don't help' to 'masks should be mandatory'. I don't know what evidence that is based on, but it's sliding under the radar a bit. I don't think it's wrong, but it's like the shift from 'flatten the curve' to 'eliminate'; has a big effect on how we're trying to respond.
There seem to be three options
- Eliminate (and pray for a vaccine)
- Mitigate with social distancing and other simple actions (flatten the curve)
- Tolerate and live with it (Sweden)
the issue is that without good data, no-one can compare the risks. If fatality rates are 1%, hospitalisation is 3% and everyone gets the virus, then option 3 looks dead in the water. However, if you start looking at 0.1% deaths, 0.5% hospitalisation and herd immunity around 50% it's a totally different risk discussion. The problem is we just don't know (still!), and we can't see excess mortality. Sweden and USA are good examples of how important implementation is.
Also, I'm really nervous that people won't be nearly as compliant this time around. We may wind up in Option 2 or 3 through the actions of people who just don't care, and that will really annoy me.
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@taniwharugby that's a really high number - if it's 5% then eliminate is the only viable strategy. What's the source of that?
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@Kiwiwomble said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@mariner4life for me personally, im not too worried about catching it....but i would be mortified if i spread it and someone did end up in ICU
I'm in the strange limbo of being incredibly blasé about catching it, and taking considerable steps to ensure no one else gets it. I've been WFH since this all started and only leaving to go shopping or footy training.
My patience is wearing thin.
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@antipodean sounds very similar to us, we've generally only gone out for food or exercise since March, went once for breakfast when things briefly eased...didn't feel right so didn't again, agreed it is getting old but i think thats also why the most recent restrictions didn't change life for us much
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@nzzp said in Coronavirus - Australia:
The real challenge is that we don't seem to really know the fatality rate, or how this spreads, and how long it's viable on surfaces, and so on.
My understanding is they do know how long the virus lives on different surfaces.
As for fatality rate the testing numbers in each jurisdiction are:
And the confirmed deaths/ cases is 1.52%
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@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
@nzzp said in Coronavirus - Australia:
The real challenge is that we don't seem to really know the fatality rate, or how this spreads, and how long it's viable on surfaces, and so on.
My understanding is they do know how long the virus lives on different surfaces.
Do you have a link? I'm genuinely interested, as if it is known, it doesn't seem to be communicated widely. Last time around some people advocated for disinfecting your groceries - although apparently there are no known cases of transference like that.
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@nzzp from the ABC reporting:
A widely accepted study in the New England Journal of Medicine published in March is still considered to provide the best evidence of how long coronavirus can last on different types of surfaces.
Under experimental conditions it found:
- The virus could still be detected on stainless steel and plastic after 72 hours
- No viable SARS-CoV-2 could be detected on a cardboard surface after 24 hours
- No viable SARS-CoV-2 could be detected on a copper surface after four hours
There is no current evidence that anyone has become infected by ingesting the virus in, or on, food or drink.
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There are some outliers that bump that world figure
In aus the mortality to cases looks like 1.5%
While the current ICU figures to current cases is about .6%Considering the time and resources thrown at this thing, why don't we have good dats?
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@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Australia:
There are some outliers that bump that world figure
In aus the mortality to cases looks like 1.5%
While the current ICU figures to current cases is about .6%Considering the time and resources thrown at this thing, why don't we have good dats?
Yeah, best to dig down one more level and look at western democracies with decent testing and honest statistics.
Edit. No, don't do that. I just did. It is surprisingly bad.
Not trolling, I genuinely thought I'd see 1% stats.But. Death rates on 'Closed Cases'.
USA - 6% - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
UK - no data
Italy - 15% - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/
France - 27% - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
Spain - no data
Sweden - no data
Belgium - 36% - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/belgium/
Australia - 3% https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/
Austria - 3% - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/austria/ -
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Australia:
All because 0.085% of the population as of yesterday had a virus and 0.001% had died from it. Over seven months...
I wonder if that is 'died from it' or 'died with it'.
My partners grandmother has just been diagnosed with it. She is 98 years old, with a heart condition, severe dementia and a current UTI. She caught it because she had a violent turn in the nursing home breaking PPE equipment and wandering into a covid patients room. She was taken to hospital initially but after diagnosis returned to the home.
If she dies in the next month I assume that will be chalked up as a covid death..but what if she fights it off and dies in a few months time? Sucks that she likely has to die alone.