Doctors on front line see disaster coming and feel abandoned

Australian Medical Association WA President Andrew Miller said Western Australia was headed for a situation like Italy and are 8 – 10 days behind Sydney. Read his scathing comments below.

The tally in Australia is now about 900, the same as Italy had on Feb 28th, just three weeks ago. Now Italy has 41,000 cases and 3,405 people have died. Their population is three times larger than Australia and slightly older, it’s colder and packed in closer.  At a guess, with the present SlowMo/SlowState response, maybe only 10-20,000 Australians will catch this in the next three weeks? “Great”.

UPDATE: Hospitals in Italy are no longer intubating anyone over 60 years old.  h/t nezy

Italian politicians could have been better prepared, but there’s no excuse for the rest of the world now.

Coronavirus crisis: Australian Medical Association WA President Andrew Miller slams WA Government response to COVID-19 pandemic

John Flint The West Australian

[Miller said:] …“And we’re not doing any of the things that the countries that are being successful are doing like Hong Kong.

“They are using fever monitoring in public, they lock people down away from their families if they’re positive, whereas here we send them home.”Dr Miller said the WA Government knew before today’s announcement that community spread was happening.

“They’re in a state of disbelief, confusion and chaos,” he said.

The AMA has called for the State’s borders to be closed.

Dr Miller said: “They said, ‘that’s ridiculous, we’re not closing them. And it’s impossible and unnecessary because no one gets infected on a plane’.

“And the next day, the Premier comes out and says, “it should be non-essential travel only, interstate (but) we can’t close the borders, that would require a national agreement that contravenes the constitution.’

“The next day Tasmania closes its borders. They’re full of s**t. You can quote me on that.”

He has since apologized for being disrespectful.* No one should waste words on anything except the main problem at hand which is not manners and ettiquette when lives are at stake.

“The AMA (WA) has always recommended that we should be taking ALL measures to flatten the curve of the spread outlined by the World Health Organisation. This includes closing borders, slowing community spread and most importantly — being prepared.

“There are few things more challenging than a truth that our members will die if their basic occupational health and safety requirements as employees are ignored by their employer.

“The employer has no personal protection equipment (PPE). The member must work. Some will get sick and die.

“Over the last weeks our members and others at the health frontline, like aged care providers, have been telling the Government this.

“GPs got some deliveries of two masks per practice again. Aged care homes in several places have no gloves left.

“These are extreme circumstances. Many of our members feel abandoned.”

*Edit: posted “which was a mistake”. Not worth saying. Better to just discuss the things that matter.

______________________________________________

Coronavirus Background: ☀ The Demographics: the young are spared, but the severity increases with age, and slightly more for men than women. ☀ The Ro is 2 – 3 and exponential curves are steep. How Coronavirus kills: why the number of ICU units matters so much. ☀ Illness progression: Dry coughs and Fevers, Aches. In 15% of people, by day 5 breathing trouble starts. In 3% (?) by day 8 they may need an ICU (intensive care unit). ☀ The good case of Singapore but the ominous calculations of how fast the ICU beds may run out. ☀ The story of how American Samoa avoided Flu Deaths with quarantine in 1918. ☀

Economics: ☀ The huge impact on the Chinese economy, the awful case of Iran.☀

Beware UN advice:Ethiopian WHO chief was part of China’s debt trap diplomacy ☀

Stats and Data: John Hopkins Live Map Worldometer

 

8.2 out of 10 based on 46 ratings

133 comments to Doctors on front line see disaster coming and feel abandoned

  • #
    Sceptical Sam

    Just as well we don’t have a Labor Government in Canberra.

    WA Labor is unable to get its head around what’s happening.

    The Federal Labor boyos would be beside themselves with panic.

    Their union comrades are well if front of them. They need to listen.

    81

    • #
      el gordo

      Scott Morrison is throwing off his centre right mantle, pulling the rug from under Albo, the government is going to nationalise businesses which fail.

      22

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        …the government is going to nationalise businesses which fail…

        Well, that’s the scuttlebutt in the MSM.

        However, why own them when you can support them with guarantees and taxpayer subsidies?

        For example,would the Government want to own Virgin Airlines? It’d be a bottomless taxpayer pit. Better to financially support it through the difficulty and keep the competitive two airline policy flying.

        Would they nationalize the banks, or any one of them? Marxist theory: “expropriate the expropriators’. That’s more likely the policy prescription of the Labor Marxist boyos. Remember the policy Labor took to the last election? What’s his name Bowen saw himself as their new Vyacheslav Menzhinsky.

        Nope. Nationalization is a lefty fantasy perpetrated by the usual suspects in the left leaning MSM.

        Don’t get sucked in.

        80

        • #
          TedM

          “Well, that’s the scuttlebutt in the MSM.”
          Correct S S. and as usual the MSM scuttlebutt is pure bovine faeces.

          60

    • #
      AP

      I reckon things would have been very different if Tony Abbott was still PM. Comparing the dunce (Slo Mo) with the school dropouts (Labor) is cold comfort. SloMo’s response has been pathetic. And that snivelling little beast Greg Hunt – he isn’t worth a single square of toilet paper at the current value.

      It was laughable to hear SloMo on the radio today trying to explain his 4sqm per person policy. What a joke.

      130

  • #
    Deplorable Lord Kek

    we just have to hope the virus has mutated.

    the politicians have done nothing to stop it.

    50

    • #
      WXcycles

      Or force it to a head to get action.

      22

      • #
        TedM

        Or perhaps a royal commission after the pandemic has taken it’s toll. I would think that an R C into the handling of the pandemic will be the last thing that the Chief Commonwealth Medical Officer will want to see when he sees how many deaths have been the result of his policies.

        However I think that the grieving members of the public will think differently. Unfortunately there may be more than 100,000 Australians who will no longer be with us (assuming that at 73 I’m still one of us) to demand the Royal Commission that they deserve.

        40

    • #
      Rolf

      Mutate to hit politicians with no understanding of asymptomatic spread of decease, would be master stroke. I would have the laugh of my life.

      30

  • #
    Springdam

    Sounds like your premier is from Africa. I’m thinking ostrich!!

    60

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Or possibly thinking what to do unlike the President of the WA AMA? For starters are citizens interState or overseas to be denied entry?
      Why does he see similarities between WA and northern Italy? For a starter the temperatures are different.
      What action has he envisaged other than panic? Has he considered various medicines?
      Frankly I sense panic from the President of the WA AMA. Whether it is justified I can only know in about 3-4 months.

      50

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Here on the mid north coast of NSW I am digesting the news that of the 66 people currently in lockdown today, 3 of them were being taught by my wife yesterday. We were informed an hour ago.

    I had the futile idea that we were safeish, at least from the first wave.

    100

    • #
      yarpos

      can pop up anywhere

      we had our daughter waiting to be isolated when a friend went to test
      our next door neighbour developed chesty cough stuffed up head

      all tested and just average lurgies

      71

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Peter:

      The odds are in your (and your wife’s) favour. Good luck to both of you.

      100

    • #
      DOC

      With luck i hope ‘yo all’ gets the mild/almost symtomless form of the infection
      and that isolation is all you all need. Good luck, fingers crossed and all the best.
      Remember, hopefully if that was the case the disease could become yesterdays worry, sort of like being vaccinated.
      Not sure if that’s the case yet, but sure hope so.

      30

    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      We will, of course, find out in due time. The only confirmed case is a 14 year old schoolgirl, the 66 are the class and the parents, or which 3 of the parents were being taught by my wife. The risk is low, as G3 says, nevertheless…

      80

      • #
        robert rosicka

        Took five days to get the results back for the friends contact that had us wondering , yes as said hope your result is same as ours and negative Peter .

        71

    • #
      Annie

      I hope she’ll be fine Peter.

      50

    • #
      RicDre

      Good luck to you and your wife Peter.

      50

  • #

    “The AMA will advocate and facilitate members to do all sorts of things on climate change.” Andrew Miller…paid to bed-wet.

    A system overloaded by publicity, politics, simulation and projection. Let’s hope we don’t cop a real fire in this crowded theatre. I can live with the BoM’s dodgy rain gauges, but I might actually need a hospital.

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    • #
      DOC

      Don’t judge your doctors by the AMA. The AMA is a political beast, but on
      this occasion Andrew Miller couldn’t play a straighter game for the frontline troops.
      Not all doctors are AMA members anyway.

      130

  • #
    yarpos

    oldest daughter, husband a 2 kids picked this year to do a family version of the lap of OZ, currently around Port Lincoln heading to WA. Great timing huh?

    80

    • #
      DOC

      People are scarce generally on the trip, especially going via Esperance. Hope they
      are into oysters around Ceduna or further on into WA. I wonder if we test for COVID at Eucla
      yet? We are very selective of people we let in you know.

      50

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        The best pub and restaurant in Esperance the “Pier” is still operating.

        Try the King George Whiting with a bottle of Houghton’s savvy b.

        10

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Not a clever idea !
      Go North instead.
      It rained there a month a go
      So it will e beautiful now !
      Better option

      40

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Southern WA is a must but spend time there while indigenous communities are closed up north , the biggest problem with the communities being closed is fuel so stay on the blacktop and take their time it’s a magnificent state .

      30

  • #
    DOC

    I’ve said before, mainly for the earlier Federal Government, politicians are like rabbits in the spotlight.
    They couldn’t believe something this big was actually happening while they were unlucky enough to be the one’s
    in charge. It’s just as unbelievable that the response of the State government is still like a stunned mullet.
    One has to question the level official advice from the official epidemiologists in charge. Are they also frightened
    by the magnitude of what they have to tell the State government to do, or do they tell the State government and get
    a telling off about what is politically acceptable by politicians, themselves unable to face the size of this problem.

    Go back to November or December when the USA offered China assistance and was rebuffed. From that stage Western governments
    must have known there was a major contagion on the loose or they wouldn’t have offered to assist. They are all damned however
    because the shortages currently in PPE shows they didn’t switch on until very much later, late January or February that
    they were staring possible armageddon in the face. We were all actually shipping in the virus with travellers, knowing we
    were doing so, knowing China was in trouble yet our political class and it seems their advisers did nothing but wash hands.
    It is obvious it wasn’t just the Federal government caught out in disbelief – was it simply exhausted by the fires – the
    State government here seems to have just sat back thinking we had so few cases and hadn’t read the book or heard of this blog.

    It is quite apparent now that this State government is only just waking up. No doubt Jo has already sent McGovern the graphs (he’s not dumb)
    and scares the pants off him. His idea to shut the State borders would have been at least symbolically meaningful, but is he waiting
    for the Federal government to get on top of supplies? I think we can tell him that if that’s the case, WA will be at the bottom of
    the list because most politicians are eastern staters and most of the first supplies will go to those States with the rapidly
    escalating numbers. WA should do a bit of its own self preservation in the meantime and get on with shutting the borders as best it
    can to try to control new sources of spread of COVID-19. At the same time try to find its own supply of PPE, or see if it can get the
    stuff made in WA – by use of emergency powers if necessary. At least be a politician, an ex naval officer, and show a bit practical
    ingenuity and start believing those at the warfront instead of the crazy Party appararchiks and bureaucrats. Start looking into
    supplies of quinine – or making it – in case it is the goods. Go down in history as a man of action for all the people, not a party wimp.

    Its one thing to lose healthcare staff through childcare requirements. Its entirely a different kettle of fish to lose them
    to COVID-19, especially when it appears you are asking them to handle a disease which seems to give them the more severe
    forms of it, possibly because they get a bigger dose of the bug from badly affected patients.

    90

  • #
    DaveR

    It seems to be clear enough that those governments who go early and go hard are containing the spread. Think Singapore and Hong Kong. Possibly even China now.

    On the other hand, the inaction of those governments who believe in open borders and dont want to offend or discriminate against anyone (even the contagious) has allowed the virus to spread rapidly. Think Italy, Spain and here comes UK.

    What can be difficult about closing off WA? (Sorry Western Force).

    80

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    You can excuse incompetence of people…..but only up to a point.

    After that, you need to contemplate something much worse.

    Cicero had wise words about that.

    70

    • #
      PeterS

      Incompetence should never be an option for a leader of a nation. I thought we learnt that lesson with Rudd and Gillard.

      60

      • #
        LightningCamel

        And you expect people to remember back that far? 🙂 You are a starry eyed optimist you little devil.

        10

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Seems that stupidity and incompetence are as infectious as this virus when it comes to our political elite!

      20

  • #
    Jambo

    Every government in the world, aside from a few exceptions such as India and Taiwan, are being completely reactive to an utterly predictable and preventable outbreak.

    The decisions they need to make are crystal clear but it’s delay and cross your fingers time. No consistency, no joined-up thinking, just utter crap.

    Shut the place down, shut everybody non-essential up for three weeks, hospitalise all cases, trace, track and treat.

    Step up people or resign and let somebody with a clue take over.

    171

  • #
    Bill In Oz

    Here in SA, we used to have ‘quarantine checkpoints” for FRUIT FLY at all the major interstate roads.
    But they were sort of clsoed as a cost saving measure 15 or so years ago.
    Maybe it’s time to reinstate them to prevent infected folk entering SA

    50

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Entering or leaving Bill ?

      60

    • #
      Ian Hill

      There is still one on the road from Mildura to Renmark Bill. I went through it in early January.

      30

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      And, they run random ones too, Bill.

      I got caught in one just outside Morgan last year. Took an age to get through. I passed the test.

      It’s truly a stupid system.

      30

    • #
      LightningCamel

      They are still there on the major highways but only opened at random intervals. Aimed mainly at fruit fly and grape diseases. Also westbound in WA on the Nullarbor and up north.

      20

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Ah…and yet more socialism….now we see more agendas at play….

    Universal basic income. I very much sympathize with people being out of work, I’m just wary of this situation being used as a trojan horse for more horrors of socialism.
    I think scanadavia tried this…failed…

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-20/universal-basic-income-reverse-taxation-workers-coronavirus/12075260

    And a cashless society…

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-20/will-coronavirus-kill-off-cash-in-australia/12065860

    81

    • #
      Rolf

      Government want cashless societies, then they may control and tax every penny. Especially in Sweden where taxes are very high. Cashless means a ways to raise taxes even further and when the black market starts off. They can tax that too. Cashless, means citizens are pushed back to the days when only trade is possible with item for work or item for item or face taxes strangling your slowly.

      30

    • #
      Rolf

      Government want cashless societies, then they may control and tax every penny. Especially in Sweden where taxes are very high. Cashless means a ways to raise taxes even further and when the black market starts off. They can tax that too. Cashless, means citizens are pushed back to the days when only trade is possible with item for work or item for item or face taxes strangling your slowly.

      30

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Citizen….your papers please.

    I’m sorry…but this is getting a bit excessive….

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-faces-being-locked-down-suburb-by-suburb-20200320-p54cba.html

    “NSW and Victorian suburbs face being shut off and put into lockdown while rescue flights are set to take off to pick up stranded Australians overseas as part of government preparations for the coronavirus outbreak to worsen.

    “The national cabinet will next week consider how to implement lockdowns on a suburb-by-suburb basis after a tightening of restrictions on all pubs, cafes and other non-essential indoor activities.

    50

  • #

    Check out Event 201 and listen through the corporatese and self-important twaddle to catch their real meaning. The intentions of the globsters could not be clearer. Of course the streets of HK and Paris have been quietened down! But that’s just the start.

    This is a drill sent live, based around a strain of virus which may exist but the effects of which can easily be confounded with any respiratory problem. The number of cases is so tiny the confounding is no problem.

    We can still take this back, but only if enough people turn off the globsters’ putrid media. Obviously none of what they usually talk about matters since it’s all been scrubbed for Fifty Shades of Corona and it’s made no difference. If they decide on a good bracing war because someone has done something mean to “beautiful babies” they might make space for that. Or maybe they’ll just do the war and park the news of it under synchronised swimming results. After all, they’ve just buried a major recession.

    I’m not smarter than anybody but I am less media-saturated than most. That’s how I know. I wouldn’t know otherwise. Once people are self-isolated the media saturation will be absolute, part of the plan.

    These are the same creatures and same mentality that brought us the climate stunt and the ruinous farce of renewables. Turn them OFF.

    105

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I was talking to a shelf stacker in one of the supermarkets. Seemed a decent bloke & smart. Been doing double duty as bouncer and guard as well.

      I asked him about what he thought whether the media was creating panic – he was 100% in agreement and thought they “were irresponsible scum”.

      He agreed the answer is to shut down the media, and restore calm.

      Maybe we need to have a Nuremberg Trial for the media as well…..they seem to rate a special mention.

      Plenty of good case material when it comes to trial…..

      172

      • #

        When I talk to people about the place – strangers, friends, family – there’s still doubt about the reality or at least scale of the “pandemic”, for now. As for after they’ve been isolated with round-the-clock media, maybe they’ll get conditioned pretty fast.

        Here, on the other hand, it’s already a competition to see who can propose the biggest, fastest and sternest measures against a problem which, as far as I can see, is only a bit more real than the Christchurch dummy-shoot or Elon’s Upholstery in Space.

        The thing that is real, the massive economic collapse, might well be cured for a while by more can-kicking and money-printing. After all, they’ve been able to distract from that brontosaurus-in-the-VW so far, against all likelihood. Can one just shut down the global economy on top of a massive financial collapse? Who can know? Not me. But every little skeric of privacy or choice still matters to me. It looks like more than a skeric of all that is about to go, and once that toothpaste is out of its tube…

        Maybe I need to talk to people out there, people like your shelf-stacker, while there’s still an “out there”. It’s not that I feel I know more or am any smarter, but I’m certainly equipped to spread the gospel of the off-button. I do know the off-button.

        So if I go quiet here, it’s not that I’m in a sulk. It’s just that there’s a point of incompatibility that’s not worth going beyond. And I think I’m there. (Goes both ways, of course. I’ve taken things to this point.)

        So, to conclude…

        Stop Globalism. Do tradition, family, privacy, property. And do coal.

        171

  • #
    Slithers

    Time to Vote.
    Hundreds of you visit here and read, peruse, scan,

    Why do you not Vote?

    02

    • #
      LightningCamel

      If I’m feeding a troll here then you may all heap red thumbs on my head to your hearts content but I’m curious as to what Slithers thinks we should vote on. Or even what sort of votes he is referring to.

      If it is the sparing use of thumbs then my response would be that this group is a place for thinking people to exchange ideas which you may or may not agree with. Thumbs are used for a comment on a post which effectively shows some particular idea. Sort of a “well said that chap” whether we agree or not. It is not a place for fake consensus or pointless popularity contests.

      40

  • #
    ren

    Why not use the plasma of those who have recovered, if this could be the only rescue?
    If you do not manage to develop antibodies, that no drug will help.

    50

  • #
    Bill In Oz

    This is how it becomes a disease which is in the community !
    The Australian today “An exclusive 45-resident nursing home in Parkside in Adelaide’s inner suburbs has been placed in immediate and total lockdown after an aged care worker who tended to an undisclosed number of residents this week contracted coronavirus while playing a social basketball match.

    In an alarming scenario for the elderly residents, their families and staff, the St Louis Nursing Home in the exclusive suburb of Parkside has barred all visitors and rostered on extra staff to keep the affected residents safely isolated in their rooms.”

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/…/c29095355873dc86095443e8…

    An allied health worker at the Aged care home played a game of basketball la week ago. One of the other players was diagnosed with the virus.So all the other players at the game were as well. And she then was diagnosed as infected……

    The

    40

  • #
    Jambo

    When Mark McGowan was a kid his mum probably asked him att some point ‘if all your friends jumped off a bridge would you?’.

    We now have the answer.

    Every leader in the world, with a few exceptions, has jumped off the bridge called Acting Too Late. Little Markie is now going to leap off after them.

    There is no need for it. The exponential curve is exactly the same for every country. Those that have flattened in out did so at great cost after a great many preventable deaths and it involved extreme measures, The extreme measures will always be necessary so why not introduce them at the start of the upslope?

    WA is almost literally in the best position in the world and McGowan could have stopped the spread at 5,10,20 cases but did squat all. We are now going to hit 80 and then she’s off to the moon. In two to three weeks we will all be in lovely lockdown but the situation will be a 256/512 times worse than if he had acted last week.

    Get out of the way Mark, go jump off a bridge by yourself, don’t tie us to your sorry ass.

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  • #
    John Galt

    ‘Hell is coming’ — Bill Ackman has dire warning for Trump, CEOs if drastic measures aren’t taken now
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/bill-ackman-pleads-to-trump-to-increase-closures-to-save-the-economy-shut-it-down-now.html

    Investor Bill Ackman urged President Donald Trump and corporate America in an impassioned plea on CNBC to shut down the country for 30 days to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus, calling it the only option to rescue the economy. “America will end as we know it. I’m sorry to say so, unless we take this option,” he said. Ackman added that if Trump saves the country from the coronavirus, he will get reelected in November. “The hotel industry and the restaurant industry will go bankrupt first, Boeing is on the brink, Boeing will not survive without a government bailout,” Ackman said. “Capitalism does not work in an 18-month shutdown, capitalism can work in a 30-day shutdown.”

    Ackman predicted that hotel stocks including Hilton could “go to zero” soon if no action is taken. He is a major shareholder in Hilton.

    “Every hotel is going to be shut down in the country. … If we allow this to continue the way we have allowed it to continue, every hotel company in the world is done. No business can survive a period of 18 months without revenue,” Ackman said.

    40

  • #

    Added/Edited:

    Australian Medical Association WA President Andrew Miller said Western Australia was headed for a situation like Italy and are 8 – 10 days behind Sydney. The tally in Australia is now about 900, the same as Italy had on Feb 28th, just three weeks ago. Now Italy has 41,000 cases and 3,405 people have died. Their population is three times larger than Australia and slightly older, it’s colder and packed in closer. With the present SlowMo/SlowState response maybe only 10-20,000 Australians will catch this in the next three weeks. “Great”.

    UPDATE: Hospitals in Italy are no longer intubating anyone over 60 years old. h/t nezy

    Italian politicians could have been better prepared, but there’s no excuse for the rest of the world now.

    Will post more later today.

    102

    • #
      Sunni Bakchat

      Was in contact with a friend last night who works at the most senior level of the Italian bureaucracy. Italian government has been monitoring civilian cell phone location data for clustering. As a result of gatherings of cell phones (very likely in people’s hands, bags, and pockets) authorities have prepared another level of social restriction that will involve mandatory incarceration for breach of social separations orders ie. you will no longer be fined for gathering in groups greater than two; you’ll automatically be put into jail. Implementation is days away if authorities decide to follow through. Proposal is on Conte’s table. Possibly as early as this evening.

      It’s starting to sound like the resistance on the other side of the Alps. Words is stealth gathering of people has been occurring in basements, etc. Who’d have thought the Italians would ever do that?

      For those libertarians who’ve been carrying those unused Faraday pouches about in their briefcases, now is perhaps the moment!

      20

      • #
        Environment Skeptic

        Interesting Sunni Bakchat..I think i have said earlier that my cousins in Italy say there is a lot of unhappiness with respect to government and politics there. And the economy has been very seriously downward spiraling for perhaps more than twenty years. A long time. The tension is palpable they say. Children never move out of home, and my earlier comment with respect to “population density” are related. And then factor in the homeless emigration explosions, the list of anomalies is extensive.

        40

      • #

        Sunni

        As we have both said before, This problem in Italy has largely come about because they are famously tactile, famously inter generational, famously old, famously big smokers, Famously resistant to anti biotics and live in an area with famously bad air pollution

        Just theoretically shutting them into their famously small apartments is not going to stop any of the above. They will stil cluster in each others homes, hallways, courtyards and on their evening promenade.

        How on earth would there be enough room in prisons for half the population?

        30

        • #
          Sunni Bakchat

          Tonyb, clearly the government is debating the efficacy of introducing this approach. The Spanish are all but doing this now. It would be exceedingly linear to suggest behaviour modification was not part of the government’s equation. Your points on environmental factors do not require ad nauseum repetition to be understood.

          20

      • #
        Sunni Bakchat

        Reports out of Andalucia, Spain today that handcuffing and arrest is being threatened by the Guardia Civil after first fine for leaving home without due cause. Would not surprise me at all if the GC in Spain went down this path given the country’s history.

        20

    • #
      Environment Skeptic

      In Italy, the population density is extremely high. (My cousins there talk about this all the time) As many as three families living in a single apartment.. Italy has been in recession for many years. In view of the cases being locked up in close proximity to each other. Not like here in Au.

      40

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Anybody in Perth (and the rest of Australia) who is over 65 years of age and doesn’t self-isolate for the next 4 weeks is not interested in living.

      Two weeks ago (Friday) there were 60 cases in Australia. Last Friday about 230. This Friday around 900.

      if that’s not exponential I’m a monkey’s uncle.

      51

      • #
        Rolf

        It’s the same everywhere due to inaction and stupid people on our payroll.

        20

      • #
        TedM

        Yes SS. Today is my last fay for any shopping for an unknown period. As I have a friend who did business in China and has Chinese friends and business acquaintances both in China and also in Australia, I was warned to start preparing for this over a month ago.

        The time has come for me to go into personal lockdown, I hope that others of my vintage who are out there in covid-19 land, are wise enough to do the same.

        50

    • #
      Doc

      60yo as cut off.
      That’s a system overwhelmed.
      There must be a lot of <60yo getting hard hit, or exhaustion of equipment and personell.

      Indonesia is now in trouble as well.

      30

    • #
      Raving

      Italian infection rate is still only point 78 percent. Cases can grow bigly. soon they won’t be intubating anyone

      10

      • #
        LightningCamel

        Actually a tenth of that. Worldmeter says 780 per million, thats 0.078%. One percent is 10,000 cases.

        20

  • #
    max

    The World Health Organisation estimates that the number of people dying from `seasonal influenza’ each year is between 290,000 and 650,000.

    It’s worth repeating: in a bad year, well over half a million people die from the flu. In one bad winter month, the death toll from flu could approach 100,000.

    That’s not the number who get it. That’s the number who die from it.

    And the coronavirus?

    Well, today (the 16th March) the official figure is that just over 6,500 people have died of the coronavirus since the first diagnosis was made. It’s difficult to know when that was. Some authorities claim that it was last November. Others say it was January. But if we are cautious and say that the coronavirus didn’t start killing people until a month ago then the disease has, in that time, killed 6,500 people. That’s the global figure – which includes China. In a bad year the flu would (at this time of the year) have killed more than ten times as many people. So we could say that the coronavirus is one tenth as deadly as the flu. I’m not trying to downplay the coronavirus. I’m just providing the facts.

    The WHO also points out that the `ordinary’ flu is easier to catch than the new coronavirus.

    And the USA’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 45 million people a year catch the flu. The coronavirus will have to accelerate at quite a pace to get anywhere near that figure – especially since the flu is easier to catch.

    http://www.vernoncoleman.com/coronavirus3.htm

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      Environment Skeptic

      Salient info and well worth looking into. Thank you incredibly!

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      Environment Skeptic

      Totally wow!

      It’s worth repeating: in a bad year, well over half a million people die from the flu. In one bad winter month, the death toll from flu could approach 100,000.

      That’s not the number who get it. That’s the number who die from it.

      Here is a free disclaimer 🙂
      Disclaimer: My views and opinions should not be interpreted as medical advice, and are only my very own attitude and personal opinion that is still in alpha testing phase. Always seek qualified medical advice from your GP

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    max

    Coronavirus – the Madness of Governments

    Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc FRSA

    Governments around the world are clearly suffering from mass hysteria. It used to be a problem found mainly among groups of teenage girls. It is now a problem affecting national governments and international organisations.

    This isn’t anything new, of course.

    It has always been governments which have created unnecessary scares – and there has often been a hidden agenda. (The disease caused by the coronavirus is clearly both unpleasant and potentially dangerous, and sensible precautions are required as they always are. What I am talking about here are the political aspects of the coronavirus.)

    And as a medical writer I have frequently found myself trying to defuse the fear created by stupid politicians and civil servants.

    I was the only doctor in Britain to oppose the BMA’s view that `AIDS will affect us all’. (I was vilified for disagreeing with the establishment. At its peak, more people were employed as AIDS advisors than had the disease.)

    I disagreed with the Government view that Mad Cow Disease would kill half a million or more. (I got into trouble for that though the death toll came to less than 200).

    I opposed the Government when it threatened us with death by avian flu. (More trouble for me for daring to question the authorities.)

    I opposed the Government when it was claimed that swine flu would kill 65,000 in 2009. (That made me even more unpopular though I was right again. Less than 500 people died and the Government wasted £500 million of our money on vaccines which had to be thrown away.)

    And on and on it goes. Over the last few decades there have been scares almost every year. And almost every year the establishment has been wrong. They keep picking the wrong things to worry about. And they miss the really big threats.

    I am now convinced that the coronavirus scare is just the latest load of horseshit. Scientists have identified a bug and scared us without offering any solutions and as with global warming the `cure’ is doing far more harm than the problem. Maybe the Bilderbergers thought the climate change hoax wasn’t scaring us enough.

    It annoys me intensely that the world’s governments seem determined to overreact and to create a crisis out of a very small health problem. (What will they do if the plague comes back?)

    Copyright Vernon Coleman March 14th 2020

    http://www.vernoncoleman.com/madnessofgovernments.htm

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      Bravo for putting the other scares in perspective at the time.

      Tell me, if a true mass pandemic was on its way, how would it look different to what’s happening now?

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      Rolf

      Well,
      1. by doing nothing and all healthcare system around the world overrun Wuhan-Covid-19 death rate is more close to 10%.
      2. Or as in Italy right now between 8.57% and 19.80% (Mortality with one week lag, but will converge to CFR).
      3. Countries acting fast and with serious measures seem to have about 4% death rate.
      4. Compare this spread of potentially 60-70% with flu that is way less. How many are infected with the flu ?
      5. Flu Death rate is probably 0.1%
      6. Now compare the numbers. Flu potential 1 million deaths in one year. Wuhan-Covid-19 could be as much as 218.000.000.
      7. WC-19 could be with protective action everywhere 218 times as bad as the flu. Now with governments doing nothing …
      8. You head the way Italy, France, Germany, UK, USA, Sweden, Netherland ….. you name it …. are going that is : at least 8% maybe a lot more. Death rate.
      9. The non action route at least have the potential of 500 times the flu. Maybe it’s worth considering some action ?
      10. Scare by government ? Really it’s more the other way. They talk it down. The scare comes from people who can see what is ahead when government fo nothing.
      11. Now, tell all over 60y in Italy this is nothing … They don’t get any care because they don’t need any help ?
      12. Those over 60 should actually be exempt from tax collection in Italy as they are excluded from health care system ! (I will file a law suite as soon as anything alike will happen in Sweden).

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      robert rosicka

      Max years ago we had a boss at a mine I worked at who’s safety motto was –
      When your numbers up it’s up !
      Sounds like you both went to the same school !

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      Sceptical Sam

      You were invited to respond Max.

      Cat got your tongue?

      People want to know.

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    AndrewWA

    The AMA is little more that a Union for Doctors – and one which many Doctors elect NOT to join.

    It does not represent ALL doctors and certainly can claim no 97% consensus on any issue.

    It’s a political organisation with its own agenda and most often aligned with the Left side of politics.
    The AMA’s view on Climate Change is just one example of its alignment.

    I don’t consider the AMA is a credible source of sound recommendations for the way Australia (both Federally and a State level) should act in response to the the COVID-19 threat.

    There are very good reasons why Doctors usually make such poor representatives/politicians.

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    Environment Skeptic

    Wow…..

    The World Health Organisation estimates that the number of people dying from `seasonal influenza’ each year is between 290,000 and 650,000.

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      TdeF

      And it’s about time that stopped too. What governments and people are doing for Coronavirus will dramatically affect, even eliminate the imported ‘flu season’ in Australia. This should never have been tolerated.

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    TdeF

    As James Delingpole points out, Dr. Roy Spencer, meteorologist has noted the extraodinary COVID-19 resistance of malaria ridden countries and the lack of it in countries without malaria. President Trump is pushing this approval. Of course this has been noted by others but Spencer’s demographics are compelling.

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    Macha

    Rubbish article. Pure Alarmism to compare Italy to Australia.

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      Environment Skeptic

      As i never tire of pointing out, my cousins in Italy are in such a deep and long lasting recession, that grandchildren live with the grandparents in tiny appartments…very high population density.

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      Sunni Bakchat

      The precautionary principle is a good mental framework to use in a situation where outcomes for a good percentage of the world population are binary (life or death/lasting injury). Ask yourself what benefit do you and the society in which you live receive by being incautious. Ask yourself what the price of prevention for your broader society is in the circumstances.

      It’s a damned inconvenience but its better than the alternative. It is no coincidence this virus in many respects, rewards selfless behaviour.

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    Doc

    Wonder if they need the full flash Harry ventilators they use in ICU and theatres these days where
    you need a drivers licence to run them. I wonder if someone has worked out the specs.
    needed and supplied them to design engineers used to making ventilators. The old
    fully mechanical devices, pre electronic era modernity, may be manufactured more quickly to
    ameliorate the situation while the modern complex devices could be used on the more severe cases
    as they develop.

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      Konrad

      Intelligent question Doc.

      Here’s an answer: We are stuffing up big time. We are taking the medical approach, not the science/engineering approach.

      A significant number of infected will need breathing assistance to survive (40% below the age of 50). Medicos default to what they know, what they have rote learned. First NIV oxygen (non invasive ventilation), then intubation and mechanical ventilation when that fails.

      But both these approaches require trained personnel and specialist equipment. Pure oxygen is not to be treated casually, a build up to just 24% in an enclosed environment with porous surfaces and materials, including human hair, is a serious fire risk. Later intubation carries considerable infection risk. We simply don’t have the equipment or trained personnel to provide these options to the number of critical patients than is now guaranteed by Dr Brendan Murphy’s poor decisions.

      But for a large number of younger persons that get into breathing difficulties, we can use the science/engineering approach. That means patients in head down prone position, using cheap CPAP machines normally used for sleep apnea conditions, with masks modified for fluid drain. Combine that with the zinc/Chloroquine therapeutic drug approach, and field hospitals will be able to save thousands (yes, this is Australia’s coming reality) while keeping existing hospitals for those with complications.

      By an unbelievable stroke of luck, Australia manufactures CPAP machines locally, and there are 10s of thousands of functioning units in the country. It’s like the gods have conspired against Dr Murphy’s plan for maximum death toll …

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        DOC

        The prone position is a difficult position to maintain and to nurse, Konrad.
        As an ex anaesthetist, there are laryngeal masks and yes, CPAP machines. I would
        imagine the more severe patients would require PEEP and I believe they also have a
        different pattern of ventilation to support them. I used to cart around an old Nuffield
        ventilator in the earlier days, and that was probably as simply constructed,mechanical
        ventilator one could get, without all the bells and whistles and software in the modern machines.
        Such a machine may be adequate for the less severe but obviously very sick patients
        if required in large numbers. That would free up the great modern machines that are
        in short supply for the more difficult patients by a simple swap over. The difficulty
        could arise from space requirements where the machine is gas driven and drives a bellows.

        I use a CPAP at night. Great business to be in, that one. People live longer, get fatter and snore.

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    Sunni Bakchat

    Speaking of abandonment and disaster. Netflix here in Europe is now officially on the Fritz due to overload. The psychological dimension, Hmmmm!

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    Konrad

    OK, OK, I admit to taking the rampant censorship of valid science on the Wu from Fluhan by the establishment media, GooGooPlex, TwatFace and FaceBoot a little lightly. After all, it has been easy for folks like me to screenshot all posts, and keep a permanent offline record of what the Andrew bolt blog and many others refused to publish over the last 5 weeks. All the evidence that scientifically literate persons were trying to stop what has happened, and the permanent record of media attempts to stop us preventing Dr Murphy’s unnecessary death toll.

    But the censorship is going too far now. I’m no footy fan. But censoring “COVID-19”?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Px__4hMnQ
    That one had me laughing at a brilliant Aussie take on this mess.

    You know, there was a one hit wonder from a band called “Bowling for Soup” called “Highschool never ends”. If this level of CCP compliant censorship continues, “Bowling for [Bat] Soup” might have to release “Outbreak never ends”. The lyrics just rewrite themselves …

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      Rolf

      Don’t laugh it’s happening in Sweden already at daycare centers. Parent are not told if personal is infected with Wuhan-Covid-19 ‘because of security’. However they inform parents about other issues like measels and flu. This look like they are going for herd immunity at any cost in Sweden. Remain to find out the cost. Sweden now only test people admitted to hospital in Stockholm. (Due to lack of testing kits). Soon will be the same all over Sweden.

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        LightningCamel

        Possibly, but more likely their PC rhetoric is catching up with them. Can’t possibly identify any group, might be called nasty words like wacist.

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    RicDre

    The latest victim of COVID-19 in the US:

    Kohl’s, in reaction to coronavirus outbreak, to close all stores nationwide until April 1

    https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/kohls-coronavirus-closed-april-first

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    ren

    In summary, we have found that patients with COVID-19 are prone to digestive symptoms and nearly half report a digestive symptom as their chief complaint. In rare instances, patient can even present with digestive symptoms in the absence of respiratory
    symptoms.
    Compared to COVID-19 patients without digestive symptoms, those with digestive symptoms have a longer time from onset to admission and a worse clinical outcome.
    These results obligate additional research evaluating the prevalence, incidence, predictors, and outcomes of digestive symptoms in this still emerging pandemic.
    https://journals.lww.com/ajg/Pages/default.aspx

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      Konrad

      But surely this is impossible! Who could ever imagine a virus targeting the ACE2 cell receptor could ever cause gastrointestinal symptoms? Let alone be spread like novovirus?

      No! We must listen to Dr Brendan Let-them-die Murphy. This is called a “respiratory illness” by all the best medical “experts”. Dissent cannot be tolerated!!

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        So the public were right to buy warehouse loads of toilet paper!

        Or are they actually saying if you have digestive problems you are more likely to get covid19?. If so get in the supermarkets quick and buy up all the bran and whole meal bread!

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        ren

        In addition to the lungs, the virus also attacks liver cells.

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        DOC

        ACE – Angiotensin Converting Enzyme – WAS generally associated with the kidneys before I retired. My, how times have changed.
        ACE Inhibitors are one of the big antihypertension medications these days, along with ACE receptor blockers.
        Will have to look it all up again.

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    Conscientious hand and surfaces washing and sanitizing, and isolation of individuals showing symptoms, are all reasonable…but:

    The real key is not an outside, man-made vaccine, but individuals knowing how to stop the virus at the entry point to their bodies, and if it slips past the entry point into the body — generally through the digestive tract — how to support the body’s natural defenses to shut down the virus inside.

    I would not write this if I didn’t know from long experience. Up until about 10 years ago, I would get a bug pretty regularly, once every year to 18 months, and going to the doctor to get a ten-day regimen of penicillin or amoxicillin, or an antibodies shot. Eventually I realized this was not the way to live, and I looked for natural remedies to halt the disease cycle in my body.

    To make a long story short, I found that, at the first slightest sign at the back of my mouth, the entrance to my throat, of incipient unwellness, just licking a small bit of chili powder (!) shaken onto my palm was enough to completely stop any infection. I earlier tried chewing a small piece of garlic, but though it was helpful, once I found the absolute efficacy of the chili powder, I stopped using that, though I sometimes add a dash of garlic powder to the chili powder, just for the added flavor. I also keep my nasal passages open (very important), but most important is keeping the entrance to the throat clean and treated with that smidgen of chili powder when needed (sometimes I use a quarter- to half-teaspoon of hot sauce instead of chili powder, just for variety).

    I use echinacea and goldenseal to support my internal defenses, especially if the bug gets past my throat defenses,. I use aspirin if I feel the slightest tendency to fever, but echinacea is the main thing (I use more than is recommended on the bottle, because I know to use more when I feel the illness is persisting, resisting). I haven’t been sick, certainly not needing medical attention for the last 10 years or so (remember that line in “Poltergeist”, where the psychic says, “This house is clean!”; that’s how I feel, after all those earlier years of repeated annoying illnesses). I haven’t gotten sick or needed any medical attention since, the last 10 years or more (I’m 72 now). Early this year, a particularly quick bug got past my throat, and I had to fight it with echinacea-goldenseal for about a week, but I never got outwardly sick — no fever, no coughing fits, etc. — I just kept dosing myself and not burdening my stomach with too much or too questionable food, until the bug gave up and everything got back to normal. I recognize illness, and its defeat, largely through its effect upon my digestion.

    All that this country [USA] is going through is completely foreign to me, in my personal invulnerability. This “crisis” is just another desperate attempt, for the Insane Left and anti-Trump globalists among the Republicans, to harm President Trump — and also to rehabilitate the Democrats before the election, after all the blatant insanity they have foisted upon the country since Trump’s election, and the blatant insanity of their presidential candidates now; they have kept their base in the thrall of a cult belief in an evil Trump, and that is a criminal misinformation of the American electorate, for which the whole party — now the Insane Left — needs to be utterly destroyed, removed from American discourse.

    And by the way, I voted Democrat for President for 28 years, through 8 straight presidential elections, before Obama, whom I recognized as a thoroughly false man, rooted in the Black Muslim, anti-American mindset. The last 11 years have been exceptionally painful to watch a misinformed and incompetent electorate continue to vote for a party that is no longer a legitimate political party, but only a criminal organized mob and an insane cult. This should be apparent to everyone by now.

    I know, from Jo’s posts on this, and from most of the comments, that what I have written will likely not be welcome. But all of the alarming numbers you read or hear about are anecdotal, not general, not representative of a situation common to all countries or states. We are not hearing what proportion of those who get sick are already compromised by other health conditions, for example; the most surprising fact about this so far is that children don’t get sick from this — that is not just surprising, that is entirely out of joint with the entire history of disease among mankind. The second biggest surprise is that the median age of those who die from it is given as up around 81 — that alone, even without the seeming total immunity of children, should tell anyone, especially a competent “expert”, that the virus is in fact weak, and only kills the very oldest and/or weakest. Add to such considerations — which the incompetent experts (that’s right, incompetent, all of them, and addicted to vaccines as the only solution) seem entirely incapable of entertaining — the political fact that we (in America, and I know inthe UK, EU and Australia as well) have been warred upon, on every front, by an Insane Left (my term, since the 2008 election of Obama), whose attempted coup d’etat against our duly elected President has been open and brazenly illegal. Then political weaponization of this “pandemic” — as all of the USA’s federal agencies were weaponized, to target the non-Left and Trump most especially — must be understood, and properly weighed, before believing ANYTHING the “consensus” or Leftist-cult authorities are telling you, as terrorizing propaganda, all day every day.

    I will not get sick. I will come back on the other side of this and let you know how it went with me. This is just the latest Insane Left hysteria to drive the voters to them; it is all they have ever had, since Obama. The sky is falling. As a competent scientist, maybe the only one, I believe not.

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      Harry you are most welcome to speak as you see fit.

      But all of the alarming numbers you read or hear about are anecdotal, not general, not representative of a situation common to all countries or states. We are not hearing what proportion of those who get sick are already compromised by other health conditions, for example; the most surprising fact about this so far is that children don’t get sick from this — that is not just surprising,

      We did indeed discuss the demographics already, and several times.

      The median age at death might in the early 80s but the median age of hospitalization is 64 or so in Italy and they have run out of ICU beds to the point where people over 60 may not get one — they’re giving up. So more half the patients that need an ICU will be turned away to likely die.

      You may well want the best data on this topic, but we have to decide what to do right now based on the best we have. Should we listen to what the doctors in Italy are warning us about?

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        Environment Skeptic

        Jo…the population dynamics, the tide of immigrants, the poverty. The true numbers from Italy are a complete unknown, just as they are in China and Korea.

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        Environment Skeptic

        Forcing people to lock down is contributing to the spread. Many here are not taking into account that people in Italy live in apartments like sardines. I suspect many people are dying from the lock-down conditions, not the flu.

        How do you self isolate in a can of sardines…or worms if you like.

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        Environment Skeptic

        If people in Italy are being forced to cram into apartments with two generations of families, what does that tell you?

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    ren

    BERGAMO – A war theater image: in the center of Bergamo. A long column of military vehicles stops in via Borgo Palazzo – a few hundred meters from the cemetery. They are the army vans used to transport the coffins from the Bergamo cemetery to the crematoria of other regions.
    The reason, as is now known, is that the mortuary in Bergamo has not been able to accommodate the coffin of coronavirus victims for days. And the same goes for the crematorium (there is only one in town, it is active 24 hours a day). Ever since Covid-19 began to mow down the Italian Wuhan – Bergamo remains the most affected province in the country so far – cemetery services and funeral agencies have gone haywire.
    To relieve the mortuary of the cemetery – with no more space available – it had been necessary in recent days to line up the coffins of the deceased in the church of Ognissanti, inside the cemetery. Since yesterday, the solution identified to deal with the emergency has been the use of army vehicles. Coronavirus victims are transported to other regions: starting from Emilia Romagna. The first shipments of the coffins were in Modena.
    > Lombardy, Fontana’s dramatic appeal: “Stay home, soon we will no longer be able to help those who get sick”.
    https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2020/03/18/foto/bergamo_non_c_e_piu_posto_70_mezzi_militari_portano_le_salme_fuori_dalla_regione-251650969/1/?ref=fbpr&fbclid=IwAR2zUPrDwk4PEHzBwSku5G39TNT3xHjVi41G018bGohhKpONh4MPzHpOELU#1

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    ren

    Italian doctors say Covid-19 is not like flu. Rather, it resembles chronic pneumonia.

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      Environment Skeptic

      Imagine being locked in an apartment with 10 or more people chronically?. If one person sneezes everyone gets it and then everyone pass it back and forth to each other.

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        WXcycles

        … and then everyone pass it back and forth to each other.

        I can’t see how that can be an issue, we’d probably have more virus in 1 cubic cm of our own body than we’d NET receive from an ill lover, if we both have an active case. If it was a significant issue we would not a have hospital wards, nor be putting moderately ill patients into commandeered sporting venues, where they recover and walk out.

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      farmerbraun

      You don’t need a Covid 19 test to determine that someone has pneumonia.

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    Bob in Baltimore

    Still on track for 125,000 Coronavirus deaths in Australia Jo?

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    • #

      Depends entirely on what we do. I’ve never made any predictions — merely pointed at what was possible if we Let This Rip. The point of discussing those numbers was to wake up people who were saying the economic cost of action would be more than the cost of preventing deaths. All the people then who said it was impossible to close our borders are not clamouring for them to open now are they?

      If we’d closed borders on March 1 when I mentioned that those kinds of numbers were possible our case load would be declining now on the way to 0.

      Instead we are following the Italian option at 1,000 cases and probably doubling every 4 days (would be every 2 days if we weren’t already taking some action to distance ourselves). But as our hospitals fill and overflow the panic will mean belatedly we end up locking down and doing all the things I suggested we prepare for in February.

      I’ve never thought we would “Let It Rip” — the inhumane option — I’ve always said we were going to quarantine, but doing it earlier would be so much more effective than waiting.

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        Raving

        Now the world will play musical chairs while trying to forestall herd immunity. Global shutdown, travel and otherwise is going to go on for months to years.

        Hard to believe those Japanese and Chinese numbers. Don’t see how being first out of the gate to win herd immunity helps economics when you are shunned by those trying to avoid it

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      farmerbraun

      Bob, there is more than one coronavirus . You want to nail that down a bit?
      Say excess winter deaths from flu complications attributable to initial infection with CoVid 19 . . . .something like that?

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        farmerbraun

        Other factors might be such things as whether or not the OZ medical system borders on collapse most winters.
        The NZ one does.
        I’d like to see some info on actual living conditions in Wuhan or Lombardy compared to a nice modern condo in the sunshine by the sea , where the salt water gargle is a daily occurrence.

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    LightningCamel

    Some more food for thought.
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/18/the-danger-of-making-coronavirus-decisions-without-reliable-data/

    One point regarding the availability of ICU beds, does anyone really think that every 80 year old who turns up at hospital with viral pneumonia ends up in ICU with the full ventilation catastrophe? I can’t quote the figures right now but an informed estimate is much more than half go nowhere ICU and instead end up with supplemental oxygen and being “kept comfortable”. This is in Australia where the health of the average octogenarian is, as several have said in these pages, better than that of the average Italian in the same cohort. The lowering of a reference age after, I am sure, an analysis of the individuals comorbidities may not be such a seismic shift.

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    farmerbraun

    So far in NZ those who have returned on-shore ; been tested; found to be + Covid 19; and hospitalised, have all been well enough to recuperate at home. But they are largely not elderly; more likely young fit and healthy.

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    Destroyer D69

    Dr Miller said: “They said, ‘that’s ridiculous, we’re not closing them. And it’s impossible and unnecessary because no one gets infected on a plane’. The airflow in the cabin of a pressurised aircraft is filtered BEFORE it enters the cabin and is usually from front to rear of the cabin and overhead to floor level on the way to the outflow valve,generally towards the rear of the aircraft. The amount of air available for the cabin can be reduced by the crew if is a requirement to conserve fuel as the source of cabin air is the air entering the engine(s) delivering the cabin air. So unless you know the actual airflow pattern in the cabin there is no way to generalize the risk in an airliner as only two rows each side of an infectious person as has been promulgated.

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    ren

    A complication of the flu is most often bacterial pneumonia, which is treated with an antibiotic. Covid-19 causes viral pneumonia quickly.

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    Slithers

    I have a problem, A SERIOUS problem!
    I have several hundred e-mail notifications in my in-box,
    They are arriving faster than I can read them….
    What should I do???

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    Slithers

    Ok I have most if not all of the symptoms, well I am still able TO TYPE.
    As One of those Grey Haired People, I extol you youngsters to stand back and think about how Grey Haired People came to be here!!!
    They were SUCESSGFFULL EVEN IF WE COULD NOT SPELL!
    WE MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING RIGHT
    I live in an aged care facility 160 really old fragile people, not me of course I am the old insufferable bastard who wont die and leave you all his money!
    Sorry about the French but times being what they are needs plain language
    Think about this 160 residents AND ten CORONIVA TEST KITS WHICH WILL BE RETURNED YES/NO IN THREE DAYS!
    I THINK THE MORTAL;ITY RATE IS FASTER THAN THAT! If YOU GOT IT YOU DIE!
    SO AS I SEEM TO HAVE ALL THE SYMPTOMS AND AM STILL HERE I AM EITHER VERY LUCKY….. MMM thinking ABOUT THAT MAKE THAT UN-LUCKY AS THERE WONT BE ANYONE HERE TO LOOK AFTer
    Seriously depressed, Michael

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