News Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread II

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Jul 11, 2017
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This is a real good read on the state of various treatments and diagnosis methods at the front line in India;
In brief
⬇️HCQ, ventilators,
⬆️steroids, aspirin, oxygen treatment

Some thoughts on symptoms and double checking test results inside too.
 
Do you know how many fire Royal commissions there have been in the last 80 or so years.

What has this got to do with anything? The last royal commission into bushfires in Victoria was in 2009.

Have you read the report from the RC?

Yes

So many of those recommendations are now standard practise, not just in Victoria as a result of governments implementing them. I didn't realise Dan the Merciless was running the state 10 years ago when the report was handed down none the less he must have been given he solely failed to implement the report and is guilty.

Most of the preventive work done has been in the form of powerline management, even though these count for a minority of bush fires, the vast majority of bushfires are caused by lighting in remote areas.

After the 2009 royal commission the government established the Powerline Bushfire Safety Taskforce, this was during the Baillieu government (LNP) which evaluated the best way to mitigate powerline caused bushfires was with underground lines but that would have cost $40b to do so the government went with the cheaper REFCL but the system was only partially operation as of the last bushfires, it was more than a decade since the last major bushfire and they still haven't managed to even get the powerline safety measures in place yet.

Other measures that changed such as communications and warning systems were made and put in place but a lot of people still died, whatever causes the bushfire (most likely lightning), the only way to mitigate it is through adequate land management. It is the only preventative measure that will prevent the loss of life and massive damage by reducing the fuel load (particularly around rural towns) which will mean when fires start then they can be managed. It doesn't matter how many firefighter you have or how many planes you have when the fire is burning so hot they can't do anything other than watch it destroy half the state.

This is the part of the royal commission in 2009 in relation to land management, i will put it in a quote so you do not need the whole thing reproduced if you reply.

LAND AND FUEL MANAGEMENT

Prescribed burning is one of the main tools for fire management on public land. It cannot prevent bushfire, but it decreases fuel loads and so reduces the spread and intensity of bushfires. By reducing the spread and intensity of bushfires, it also helps protect flora and fauna. Ironically, maintaining pristine forests untouched by fuel reduction can predispose those forests to greater destruction in the event of a bushfire.

About 7.7 million hectares of public land in Victoria is managed by DSE. This area includes national parks, state forests and reserves, of which a large portion is forested and prone to bushfire. DSE burns only 1.7 per cent (or 130,000 hectares) of this public land each year. This is well below the amount experts and previous inquiries have suggested is needed to reduce bushfire and environmental risks in the long term.

The Commission recognises that prescribed burning is risky, resource intensive, available only in limited time frames, and can temporarily have adverse effects on local communities (for example, reduced air quality). Nonetheless, it considers that the amount of prescribed burning occurring in Victoria is inadequate. It is concerned that the State has maintained a minimalist approach to prescribed burning despite recent official or independent reports and inquiries, all of which have recommended increasing the prescribed-burning program. The State has allowed the forests to continue accumulating excessive fuel loads, adding to the likelihood of more intense bushfires and thereby placing firefighters and communities at greater risk.

The Commission proposes that the State make a commitment to fund a long-term program of prescribed burning, with an annual rolling target of a minimum of 5 per cent of public land each year, and that the State be held accountable for meeting this target. DSE should modify its Code of Practice for Fire Management on Public Land so that it is clear that protecting human life is given highest priority, and should report annually on prescribed-burning outcomes.

To ensure continuing environmental protection, the State needs to improve its understanding of the effects of different fire regimes on flora and fauna. The Commission proposes that DSE expand its data collection on the effects of prescribed burning and bushfire on biodiversity. Maintenance and extension of data collection on Victoria’s flora and fauna assets has not been a high priority. It needs to be improved so that more informed and scientifically-based decision making can accompany the development of prescribed-burning regimes that meet conservation objectives as well as accommodating bushfire safety considerations.

Managing clearing along roadsides is a particular challenge for municipal councils. The councils are responsible for bushfire prevention and mitigation and biodiversity management along local and some arterial roads; VicRoads has similar responsibilities for rural freeways and arterial roads. In some cases these roadsides contain the only remnant native vegetation in an area and offer important wildlife corridors and shelter. Consequently, differing objectives for road safety, biodiversity protection and bushfire prevention can be difficult to reconcile.

In the case of bushfires, roads and roadsides can be important fuel breaks, so road managers need to reduce the fuel levels in preparation for the fire season. Roads are also essential for people seeking to escape fires and for emergency services seeking access to fires. Since the 2009 fires land and road managers and the CFA have identified high-risk roads and are carrying out fuel-reduction work to reduce the future risks of bushfire.

The Commission is aware of the unresolved tensions between mitigation of bushfire risk and environmental conservation in the approach to roadside clearing and the legislative complexities to do with road safety, biodiversity and bushfire risk mitigation that affect roadside management. These concerns would be reduced if the State’s planning provisions were amended to facilitate a broad range of roadside works to reduce bushfire risk, if municipal councils received better guidance to help them resolve competing environmental and bushfire management objectives, and if VicRoads implemented a systematic statewide assessment of bushfire risk for all roads.

Despite this, one of the towns scorched off the map last year hadn't had any burnoffs for 20 years. The lack of burnoffs particularly around rural towns is the greatest cause of human lives being lost.

The burnoffs not only reduce the fuel load, you have to actively manage the land so you have access to remote areas, a large problem we had was that we couldn't access some bushfires until the fires were out of control because most of the paths used for land management had been grown over or obstructed due to lack of use.

We still had an abysmal amount of burnoffs and some firefighters made public how difficult it was to get approval to even burn off on private property.

There have been countless RCs into fire in this country, they average one every five or six years I think, and the recommendations are nearly always the same as is the response. If anything the Black Saturday RC has been taken more seriously than others

You must be sick of reading me tell you that you are wrong, but... you are wrong. There have been less than 30 victorian royal commissions since 1877 and only one, the 2009 royal commission, was on bushfires.

Here is a list of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Victorian_royal_commissions

As for Morrison. He failed to provide or fund necessary air support (fed responsibility not state) despite repeated warnings. Multiple fires could have stopped earlier with that air support. Then released the funding during the height of the crisis when it was useless as it was needed for leasing contracts six months earlier.

Australian state and territory authorities have a constitutional responsibility, within their boundaries, for coordinating and planning for the response to disasters and civil emergencies.

The responsibility to have firefighting aircraft is on the states. We have an Emergency Management taskforce under the
Department of Home Affairs and when states are facing an emergency the federal body helps where they can but they are ultimately not responsible.

Would it be ideal to have a national based system? Probably, but Morrison doesn't have constitutional power to dictate to the states how to handle emergency management. The Federal Government allocates revenue to the states and it is up to the states how they spend that revenue.

So the states pushed the Morrison government to boost the national aerial firefighting centre for $11m but the Victorian Government pissed $650m on putting surge protectors on rural power lines when it was only meant to cost $150m and the state government is so cash strapped that it doesn't have $11m for more planes, all the states don't combined?

It is just politics, what they put in front of Morrison was a fish hook to bait him on climate change issues.

Parks NSW have done more hr burning and land management in the last decade than the previous two despite current state gov cut backs. And NSW was the state hit hardest by the fires.

I do not think anyone has got close to the 5% per year benchmark.

We are probably going to have a lean season this year because half the country is burnt to a crisp, but as experts say, if you want to fight a bushfire today, you need to do the prep work 5 years ago. What you do now isn't going to have much of an impact on the immediate, but you need to do the work over time to manage it properly.
 
The knives are out.....

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has slammed Premier Dan Andrews COVID-19 “failures” as fresh claims emerge that the Morrison Government raised concerns Victoria wasn’t being transparent over the rising number of cases.

Federal sources have revealed that the state’s chief medical officer Brett Sutton was “overwhelmed” in the early days of the virussecond wave and that the states were concerned they were not getting the information they needed over new cases and contact tracing.
The issue came to light after the state’s new deputy chief medical officer Allen Cheng started briefing on the data this week and health officials said far more information was suddenly being provided.


The Herald Sun reports today that some federal sources claimed Victoria was being “almost obstructive” on sharing the information.

However, senior government sources told news.com.au that rather than being deliberate, they suspected the Victorian CMO was “overwhelmed” and Mr Sutton was spending hours everyday preparing for and attending marathon press conferences that have been lasting for up to 90 minutes a day.

Prof Cheng, an Alfred Hospital infectious diseases expert who replaced Annaliese Van Diemen last Friday, was regarded as “more across the data”.

Asked about the reports today the Prime Minister noted that massive task of contact tracing in Victoria had become “tighter and more reliable” as a result of the intervention of the Australian Defence Force.

“One of the things the Defence Forces have been doing, they are a new type of keyboard warrior,’’ he said.
Earlier today, when asked when numbers would come down in Melbourne today, the Prime Minister hinted there were reasons why it was hard to know.

“It’s still hard to say. That’s what we aren’t getting told,’’ he told 2GB radio.

“I mean, we hopefully see, would like to see things improve over the next seven days, but we certainly haven’t seen that up until now. So it’s, these changes have got to get locked in down there in Victoria.”

Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Thursday that the states were “trying” to offer more transparency.

“The Prime Minister, and the chief medical officer in particular, were very, very keen to be able to collate and share all data to make sure it is available to all,’’ he said.

“We think that that’s an important part of information-sharing, learning and accountability. They’ll give an update on that tomorrow, so I’ll let probably the chief medical officer, in particular, comment on the ability of each state.

“The issue will be whether all have been able to develop the systems necessary to provide full public transparency. But I do know that they’re trying.”

Victoria’s health department rejected any suggestion that it was failing to share data on the spread of the deadly virus.

“Victoria works cooperatively with all jurisdictions,” a DHHS spokeswoman said. “All relevant data is shared in the fight to slow coronavirus.”

In an emotional interview on Sky News, a frustrated Mr Frydenberg said he was “devastated” by the plight of his fellow Victorians and admitted he was angry about why it had happened.

“It should have never gotten to this. But I’m not serving Australians or Victorians by engaging in a slanging match, my support goes to the Victorian people at this difficult time and we need to all think about that,’’ he said.

“We are in a state of crisis right now. The emotional toll on Victorian families, on young women trying to home school their kids and hold down a job at the same time; on grandparents; on businesses that have had to close their doors with millions of people uncertain about their job future – they’re the real issues.

“The premier yesterday faced a number of questions. What happened in quarantine were significant failures that cannot be repeated,” he said

Mr Frydenberg is preparing to enter into a fortnight of self-isolation in Canberra in order to be able to attend the next sitting fortnight that commences on August 24.

“My job, the Prime Minister’s job, is to get help to the people who need it most,’’ he said.

“Ultimately, we are all Australian and we are all in this together, and as a Victorian, I am so devastated about what has transpired in my state.”

Annaliese Van Diemen has been shitfted to "non Covid duties".

LOL.

She seems to have disappeared from twitter, too.

LOL.
 
Apr 24, 2013
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Annaliese Van Diemen has been shitfted to "non Covid duties".

LOL.

She seems to have disappeared from twitter, too.

LOL.


Someone has to mop the floors
 
Shame. The right wing losers who got emotional about a tweet sooked hard enough. She was all over the mall cops fiasco.

Is there any evidence of this? Even if true, then there appears to have been no positive outcome of her being "all over the mall cops fiasco", but I'm willing to hear about what I missed and the significant contribution she made to the position we are now in.

The thing about the reaction to the tweet is that her supporters here (lefties? but not leftie "losers", of course - no such thing) weren't willing to concede it was reasonable for people to conclude it was inappropriately tone deaf (let alone historically inaccurate).
 
Man that’s Dr and you probably shouldn’t take any satisfaction out of the medical fraternity being brought into political games at this point..

Unfortunately, it's way past the point of keeping the medical fraternity out of the politics of the situation in which we find ourselves. I take no satisfaction from that.

Yeah, she's Dr. I know plenty of them, don't you? Are you really admonishing me for being disrespectful for not using a title in a Bigfooty post? Wow.
 
Feb 11, 2013
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Is there any evidence of this? Even if true, then there appears to have been no positive outcome of her being "all over the mall cops fiasco", but I'm willing to hear about what I missed and the significant contribution she made to the position we are now in.

The thing about the reaction to the tweet is that her supporters here (lefties? but not leftie "losers", of course - no such thing) weren't willing to concede it was reasonable for people to conclude it was inappropriately tone deaf (let alone historically inaccurate).
Slamming the medical people for quarantine fiasco is a little bit ridiculous, they weren’t overseeing, although they ultimately should’ve been, but someone in .gov overruled both them and the coppers..

It’s the multimillion dollar question why??
 
Feb 11, 2013
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Unfortunately, it's way past the point of keeping the medical fraternity out of the politics of the situation in which we find ourselves. I take no satisfaction from that.

Yeah, she's Dr. I know plenty of them, don't you? Are you really admonishing me for being disrespectful for not using a title in a Bigfooty post? Wow.
No, I’m pointing out she’s not elected, she got to her position through merit.

are you stating the medical frat had any way shape or power to hold the security guards to account??
Or her actions caused further cases/deaths?
 
Slamming the medical people for quarantine fiasco is a little bit ridiculous, they weren’t overseeing, although they ultimately should’ve been, but someone in .gov overruled both them and the coppers..

Agree, but I absolutely wasn't slamming the medical people for the quarantine fiasco if that's what you're implying.
 
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Is there any evidence of this? Even if true, then there appears to have been no positive outcome of her being "all over the mall cops fiasco", but I'm willing to hear about what I missed and the significant contribution she made to the position we are now in.

The thing about the reaction to the tweet is that her supporters here (lefties? but not leftie "losers", of course - no such thing) weren't willing to concede it was reasonable for people to conclude it was inappropriately tone deaf (let alone historically inaccurate his ).

The people who got upset by the tweet have an amplified media voice. The screeching got them this one.
 
No, I’m pointing out she’s not elected, she got to her position through merit.

are you stating the medical frat had any way shape or power to hold the security guards to account??
Or her actions caused further cases/deaths?

None of those. You're being misleading.

I laughed because it's been my view since her tweet that she is not up to the job. Now she's out. The tweet was poor (IMO) and now she's off twitter.

You are deliberately twisting my words to suggest I am apportioning blame for the fiasco.
 
Sep 21, 2004
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None of those. You're being misleading.

I laughed because it's been my view since her tweet that she is not up to the job. Now she's out. The tweet was poor (IMO) and now she's off twitter.

You are deliberately twisting my words to suggest I am apportioning blame for the fiasco.

Your feelings should have nothing to do with her competency.
 
Your feelings should have nothing to do with her competency.

I LOL'd that subsequent events are consistent with my view of her.

The thing is, I have no political alliance, so I don't get emotional about criticism of public officers just because they're on my team. Some, like yourself, do.

I'm labelled a leftie on the Trump thread on the MB, and a right wing loser here.

I'll criticise those in elected positions if they deserve it, no matter what political persuasion.
 
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None of those. You're being misleading.

I laughed because it's been my view since her tweet that she is not up to the job. Now she's out. The tweet was poor (IMO) and now she's off twitter.

You are deliberately twisting my words to suggest I am apportioning blame for the fiasco.
If I got pulled up half the s**t I write on here, I probably wouldn’t have a job in your eyes either.. twenty words don’t abscond a career.
 
If I got pulled up half the sh*t I write on here, I probably wouldn’t have a job in your eyes either.. twenty words don’t abscond a career.

Bigfooty is not twitter. I don't have twitter for that reason.

And I never said it should "abscond" her career. Indeed, I was very clear that I wasn't calling for her resignation / sacking.

The tweet undermined my confidence in her ability to perform the position. Yes, my own feeling. But now she's gone ...
 
Feb 11, 2013
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LOL. As this is the Victorian public service you're talking about, there's almost zero chance of that being the case.
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