turboplanner

Prince Charles has just tested positive. Source: BBC News

.......especially the day he flew down to Brown Bros in the Beercan and loaded up with six dozen bottles.

They found him six kilometres away by following the tracks and broken fences from the end of the strip, still on the ground at full throttle with his nose wheel collapsed and the mains stuck on the rail line, yelling "GetUp!, GetUp! I tell yer!".

There was the sound of a train whistle and around the bend........

Much of the govt's focus is aimed at rescuing the economy. "The economy" in this context relates to the financial economy. That's why the RB has begun buying govt bonds. This financialised economy is company structures and their capital base. Eg. the govt is pouring $715m into "saving the airlines" while Joyce sacks 20,000 people with no intention of supporting these people's lost income. He is reported as saying that Qantas' reserves of capital will remain untouched. The RB's reductions in interest rates have largely benefited investors by reducing the interest burden on company borrowings. Money can be suppliwed to consumers who will use it to buy essential goods and services benefitting the supply chain. Why can't the government; a)Provide cash directly into personal bank accs, and b) Provide staples of food via modern soup kitchen style?

Again, too much corporate welfare and the population being left to catch-up.

I haven't been following the financial side so closely but from memory the Commonwealth Government is paying $1,000 when your tax return is processed, then two lots of $750.00 cash then a percentage of your wages when you are laid off. Then there are packages for companies to keep employees on, then packages for small business to keep them afloat. Then the Sates Governments are looking at things like Stamp Duty, waiving Registrations etc. There are more things happening every day, so you need to go to the Commonewealth, State/Territory website to see the lists, and make claims.

.......pet Beagle James, and said ".....

Looks like it's started in Melbourne; Minister for Health, Jenny Mikakos has announced:

466 Cases, up 55 from yesterday.

12 admitted to Victorian Hospitals, 2 on life support, 1 aged 30 the other 60 . JM:"This is not an elderly person's disease"

Once again you totally misunderstand me.

I repeat: this little British video explained the virus better than anything produced by our government.

Please either prove me wrong or stop; your condescending attitude is quite offensive.

OK, please disregard everything I said.

..............the Yarra River incident of 1955.

At that point the Great Loxie began to contemplate his navel, which all the team had seen before. There was not a breath in the house. Nothing sturred, not even a mouse, but when.......

......work for the quarter million people who lost their jobs last Friday........his words trailed off because he knew from Loxie's glare that he wasn't getting through, and he knew what a mongrel Loxie was when he was mad (Loxie had become upset at the BOB a few years ago and threw a drunk through the front window, between a Prime Mver and its trailer and through the front window of the hardware store on the other side of the road.

Sticking to aviation grounds, he said "The reason the aviation industry is broke, is that they carry passengers (former avref)."

Loxie.........

On the basis of that appointment, I guess the iron ore mining industry will now be declared an essential industry!

 

BIL does escorts for wide loads, a lot of mining equipment, and also a lot of wind turbine equipment.

But they've shut a big part of his industry down, because the trucks and escorts travel in convoy, and need accommodation and food on the road, often in country and remote regions, and the supply of either cannot be guaranteed now.

It's a real quandary, because now is the time to move all that oversize stuff around, with little traffic and cheap fuel!

Same goes for the major projects that have been disrupting our city roads, but I suspect it's for the basics when Stage 3 comes in and everyone is isolated.

It's been a busy morning:

The RAAF has been mobilised to move freight around.

Surgeries have now been abandoned in Victoria.

The Covid-19 Commission has been established with ex Forstescue Minerals Executive Nev Power in charge

This is tasked with solving problens.

It's not that clear-cut, that you can catch the COVID-19 virus again. A medical article I read stated that you get immunity from the virus once you've had it - but the virus rapidly mutates in a stealthy and cunning manner, and it's possible that people they thought had caught the virus twice, were infected with a new, mutated variety.

 

In addition, they stated that it's possible that some people in China and Japan were released as cured (as measured by normal standards) - but they were still infected at a low level, and not fully cured, and then tested positive again to COVID-19.

Latest news this morning: "Richard Wilkins is shocked that he has tested positive for a third time"

........the great and shadowy person himself, the Australian version of Howard Hughes, A. H. Locks himself, complete with tissues on his shoes stood in the doorway........

Border Force allowed 2,700 people from a cruise ship disperse across our most populous city, having performed no scrutiny, with the vague instruction to "self isolate". These people should have been conveyed to a secure lodging (no shortage of large hotels nearby) and TESTED for god's sake. Who knows how many secondary (and tertiary...and quaternary) infections that "oversight" has caused. This level of bufoonary by those charged with monitoring the bio-security of the place should be treated as a serious crime!

There was one of a similar size which did the same in Melbourne - slipped in and quickly dumped all passengers.

And there was one which came into Portland and offloaded.

There may well be consequences down the track.

When there is no unanimity between States and territories confusion reigns.

That's true and during the 1918 Spanish Flu episode Australia's medical professionals couldn't agree on what to do, the Commonwealth had only been in established 17 years before (the equivalent of 2003 vs today). The States had retained sovereign control, so effectively were six countries (and still are) and they disagreed with the Commonwealth and with each other, and a lot more people died than would have with a common srategy.

There's a story about it floating around at the moment. A guy wrote a book on it, and when this crisis was starting, managed to get it to the Prime Minister early. It's been suggested that because of the Commonwealth's inability to step straight into the States in the bushfire crisis that the PM formed this National Cabinet with the States, and also Territories. What is has done is show us we can make national regulations fast by the National Cabinet agreeing on an action, and the States then legislating for that action. Hopefully this National Cabinet will become a fixture to be oulled out from time to time. Prior to this, the only means of National conformity of State Regulations occurred in the transport industry when interstate transport companies pleaded for common axle weights and dimensions around Australia. The concept adopted was to form a National entity at arms length from government (like CASA) which would come up with a new regulation, that regulation would be enacted in Queensland and the Queensland Act would be mirrored without debate in the other States and the Territories. Instead of the national body remaining a small professional group, it has expanded itself to be about the same size as Queensland Transport and has been a disaster. Hopefully the success of this National Cabinet will allow it to be shut down.

The so-called onfusion blown up by the media about schools turned out to be Victoria moving the holidays forward by 4 days to give the education time to develop Online learning, and NSW struggling to address the situation where 30% of the students had been taken out by parents. That's been explained in Victoria and NSW. Last night the Prime Minister went over the latest Cabinet agreement which was to keep schools open so people like emergency workers could keep their children in school, and to prevent all school children losing almost a year's lessons, so the plan is for NSW and Victoria to both stay open, following the advice of the Chief Medical Officer, but if or when Stage 3 comes in they will probably go straight for online learning becaise virtually everyone will be at home.

There will be some differences by State; the Cabinet last night discussed closing markets down, and because of the different definitions in different States, and the different market make ups (where some are not compressed with large groups attending) the States will be making their own decisions.

Actually Turbs, it didn't.

I was impressed with the clarity and explanation of the British production as compared to the unimpressive messages coming from our own government at the time.

Well I'm sorry for you because you are at risk, but the Australian Government gave you the warning you needed; but how about this from the Victorian Premier this morning announcing Victoria's Stage 2 actions - IF YOU CAN STAY HOME YOU MUST STAY HOME!

My counsin and his wife, who is a nurse at the local hospital came up with a system in the case that one of them tests positive. They've separated into two bedrooms, each with its own en-suite. If one of them gets sick the door will be shut and food will be put on a table/chair by the other. The other person will pick up the dishes wearing gloves and they will be washed and the chair washed down with disinfectant. That sounds a good policy for two people.

Almost all nursing homes, which contain the over 80s groups have been locked down and totally isolated for several weeks.

The above policy would be good to go to now for anyone in the other groups mentioned by the Government. No hospital vs hospital > oxygen > non-available ventilator would seem a no brainer to me.

A look at who actually dies from the Chinese flu...

 

“...Out of the 2,003 deaths, seventeen were people under fifty, and only 5 people under thirty died, while almost two hundred deaths were of people over 90. I’d read that the people dying in Italy were old, but I didn’t realize quite how old they actually are …

 

One thing I learned on this voyage was that the Italians distinguished between dying FROM the virus on the one hand, and dying WITH the virus on the other. Once I looked at the state of health of the Italian victims, however, I could see why they had to do that. Figure 3 shows the generous apportionment of serious diseases and conditions among the unfortunates...”

 

“...it got into the medical system. Doesn’t matter how. But once there, it was spread invisibly to other patients, in particular the oldest and weakest of the patients. It went from patient to patient, from patient to visitor and back again, and it was also spread by everyone in the hospital from administrators to doctors and nurses to janitors. In many, perhaps most cases, they didn’t even know they were sick, but they were indeed infectious.

 

And that’s why the pattern of the Italian deaths is so curious, and their number is so much larger than the rest of the world. It’s not a cross-section of the general population. It’s a cross-section of people who were already quite sick, sick enough that they were already visiting doctors and having procedures or being bedridden in hospitals. It was 85-year-olds with three diseases.

 

And it’s also why the death rate in Italy is so high—these people were already very ill. I can see why the Italians are distinguishing between dying FROM the virus and dying WITH the virus...”

 

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/24/the-italian-connection/

 

This is an exponential moving pandemic. People who have been involved with the slower moving cancers know the importance of measuring the doubling for management, so for Australia you can take note of the total number of cases and total deaths, and see what's happening yourself.

It matters that Australia started locking down as early as it did and consistently as it did.

It matters that Australia used a targetted approach by using its limited test kits to test downstream of known positive cases.

Slowing the thread by a few dozen last month means a reduction by thousands in April/May.

So we are probably not going to go where Italy is, and may be going where South Korea is going, given that we are using the same testing trail strategy.

Hence going harder based on how many people were ignoring or mistaking our intent to isolate as much as we can while still

As far as dying with the disease goes, you could extract those figures, but they are complex. The Key at risk groups are those over 80, those who have diabetes, pre-existing respiratory issues, those who have a lowered immune system such as those who have had chemotherapy - the details are on the Commonwealth and State Health sites. The most common cause of death is pneumonia, so no questions there, the pneumonia can also bring on other issues such as heart attacks etc, and then there will be the people who will die normally while they are positive to the virus, so not caused by the virus.

All of that would be of interest to virologists.

The people who are making these almost daily lock down calls, which the National Cabinet and State/Territories have been adopting is members of the AHPPC, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee.

They have been analysing all of the above, and a lot more than I can remember, analysing the successes and failures overseas, debating it, and then making their recommendations to the National Cabinet, which consists of the Prime Minister, State Premiers and Chief Ministers, which then allows the State and Territory Cabinets and Parliaments to meet and enact policies and legislation giving suitable powers for fast action, eg Police checking people for any breaches of isolation, closure of State Borders, status of schools, legal use of taxpayer finds etc.

That has been working very well without any hysteria.

https://www.health.gov.au/news/australian-health-protection-principal-committee

What I have found is that the National Cabinet live press converences, State/Territory Premier and Chief Ministers, and AHPPC press conferences have been infinitely better than the news after it has been spun, and cut back to fit time slots.

........to breed from the 2% of Rabbits who practised social distancing and self isolation, and soon there were thousands of indestructable rabbits available for sale.

"What we need is a marketing campaign" said Herbie the Chief Breeder. "If we......"

Sounds like people need to stop listening to the media and use government sites for information.

 

https://www.australia.gov.au/

Yes, and the updates have been sometimes more that once a day; The decisions from tonight's National Cabinet also appearing on State websites tomorrow in time for the Stage 2 actions starting at midnight tomorrow.

Thanks for this, Wayne. By far the clearest resource on this pandemic.

It got my attention. Even though I haven't been a smoker, I have the early stages of emphysema.

This virus could kill me.

 

If only our own government could communicate so clearly.

It did; it said the best case scenario was 50,000 dead, the worst case was 150,000 and the people most likely to die would be people over 80 and people with respiratory or lowered immune system, such as people who have had chemotheraphy.

You can stay out of that group by totally isolating; the early lock down of our Nursing Homes will probably save thousands of lives.

I just found out that two people in Mount Gambier have tested positive and the virus is likely to be carried to these towns by people coming home from the Cities, and the tourists that are still out there with caravans.

I missed the end of the press questions, but the government has said they have caught up with the cartels which have been stripping our supermarkets of toilet paper and medical items, and has been able to seize some containers before they've left, but didn't say which nationalities were involved.

To his credit Chris Uhlmann, Channel 9's journalist said he would tell the people who they were and named Chinese and Middle East as their Nationalities.

The Prime Minister and Chief Medical Officer have just finished their addresses after the National Cabinet Meeting tonight.

There will be further tightening of activities from midnight tomorrow night.

The States and Territories will be deciding tomorrow how they handle various things discussed at tonight's meeting.

The lockdown hasn't been fast enough, and a few of the comments on this site yesterday and today show the type of misunderstandings from sections of the community - that's mainly what the States will be working on in the morning.

Having said that, overall as a Nation we have been good in battening down the hatches; it's mainly those misunderstandings that have allows new clusters of victims develop. My recommendation is to Check the Channel 9 app to get the words directly from the Prime Minister and Chief Medical Officer, then watch the Premiers and Chief Ministers confirming what constitutes essential work (everyone now working according to the PM tonight).

By tomorrow night I guarantee that without that, all the instructions will become a blur because things like weddings (only the bride, groom, celebrant and witnesses allowed) , funerals (maximum of ten people only), and restrictions on your freedom will be buried under opinions, spin etc for the next couple of days.

The problem we're running into now is that the degrees of lockdown are happening so fast you can't commit it to memory, and there's no point in asking friends what to do because social media is way behind (for example I've missed in the above about 40 minutes of critical information to keep your parents and grandparents alive).

Turboplanner what do you mean 'negative to the virus'?

Sorry, just my wording - not positive to the virus. At this stage they are saying you can catch it get over it and catch it again etc.

.”.....make ventilators or something?”

“No” replied Turbo, it’s programmed to start migrating all over Australia every winter and gets all but the 2% of rabbits which have somehow learnt social distancing and self isolation. We tested it on humans, went through 500 prisoners before we got it right. How could I have forgotten?” The rabbit factory workers......

"XXXX...."

Yes, I got that, Methusela. And I don't disagree with whatever measures they are taking (which are in any case none of my business, since I don't live there).

However, none of this makes the 'then what?' question go away, for any of us:

The answer to the 'then what?' is you then lift the lid...whereupon the number of cases increases...so you shut the lid again, and so on.

The inconvenient fact is that, unless we can come up with a vaccine or some other measure to combat the thing, the process of not letting the health system be overwhelmed by repeatedly shutting the lid goes on for years.

It's not exactly like lifting the lid and it's changed enough in the last few hours that I can't give you a clear picture, but what worked with the Plague and the Spanish Flu was isolation. The second part is that this virus dies quickly, as short as 5 hours if someone sprays a benchtop by coughing. so we are practising separation from each other by a minimum 1.5 metres, washing hands frequently, and not touching our faces (which transfers the virus from benchtops/food/packages/shopping trolleys. Over apl of the the government has only been testing people who have been in touch with a confirmed case, which up until a couple of days ago was overseas visitors. The community has started to spread it, shipments of test kits are arriving and the government, which had managed to test close to the South Korean level, has gone into high gear. The positive tests, when database shows the streams of the virus, so it's much easier to isolate clusters and lock them down until the clusters are free of the virus. So you have a large part of the population negative to the virus, a small part locked up in clusters, and when each cluster is clear of the virus (successful isolation, recoveries, deaths), the lid can be lifted on that cluster to release those people into the big negative group.