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Manufacturing consent?
On America’s largest pay TV news service;
Dr Li-Meng it was intentionally released....
I’m not talking accuracy of news here, more the implications of said story...They may be the biggest but they are possibly the worst.
i said that in an earlier post a couple of pages back - if its reclassified then it does not have to be reported. just say 32 cases and u dont have to have a separate tally in brackets.
Your assumptions are based around the continuation of incompetence by the Victorian government, a reckless opening up, and the idea that this is proposing a let it rip strategy. None of those things are or should be true.
I have studied a fair bit of economics myself and would dispute your assertion that outbreak trumps lockdown as the driver of economic outcomes.
How long would it take our state economy to recover if we lost 30% to 40% of our hospitality businesses, and a major chunk of our bricks and mortar retail? It would devastate employment in the state for several years and cause a major crash in the commercial property sector.
I also think you don't have enough data to be confident in your assertions on mental health. I am not dismissing it as a possibility but your example is an extremely narrow set of data in what is a very complex and multi-layered issue.
Can we get away from the notion that it is a binary choice between an extended period of hard and lengthy lockdown and the virus running rampant?
There is a whole range of different scenarios and possibilities. We are now in a position where we should be exploring those possibilities and looking to the fastest way to safely open up our economy and manage risk at the same time. Our Government is not doing that.
Are you referring to something I have said? As I don't think I have implied that the pandemic is over.
I would disagree with the premise of your last two sentences.
The article you quoted spends half the article telling people that COVID ain't so bad if you're young and the other half telling us to put a ring around the elderly and get on with our lives. Forgive me, but I don't see how that is going to lead to anything other than mass infection.
You are welcome to. Studies out of UChig, Copenhagen and Cornell (IIRC) disagree.
It would take a very long time. I'm not disputing that.
Putting a ring around the elderly and liberating the rest, as your article put it, as was done in a few countries, saw consumer spending drop by almost as much as comparable countries whose hard lockdown prevented an uncontrollable outbreak.
Anecdotally, I will not be dining out or shopping in person if there are significant levels of virus transmission in the community. Most people I speak to feel the same. There goes that. The data shows that about a significant portion of consumers feel the same. Between 25-30 per cent overall drops in consumer spending and even more than that figure directed from hospitality/bricks and mortar to food delivery, online shopping.
Well if you don't respect the admittedly limited data, my intuition tells me that when relatives and loved ones die, and every venture out of the house is riddled with anxiety about catching a virus that has run through the community people also will be significantly affected in terms of mental health.
As I said, when you link and endorse articles that spend half the time telling us the virus is not that deadly and we should ring-fence the elderly and get on with our lives, I reckon there's a fair suspicion on the part of the author that the virus could lead to a massive outbreak.
Would policy makers be prepared to be held accountable if we took your approach and the virus did manage to jump containment and rip through the community, collapsing the economy, the medical system and the mental health supports? Probably not. It is a very real risk and not one that can be ignored.
Again, I'll feel much more comfortable with the 'range of different possibilities' if every commentary I read on it isn't littered with attempts to tell the reader that the virus isn't that bad and implicit concessions that they suspect it could run rampant if we followed their plan.
That's the thing, 'safely' opening up the economy may have different meanings to you and I. That's even if there is a 'safe' way to do it. We were still in restrictions and completely blew out.
People who were in quarantine have treated it as an honour system and not given a sh*t. There are still huge swathes of employees who don't even get sick leave. That's on top of the government bungles and contact tracing fails.
I'm just not convinced there is a 'safe' way to open until transmission is incredibly low. That opinion piece did little to sway me. At least the one Sbdan posted used other countries' models.
No, 7577..., I’d never do that. I was referring to the opinion writer in the Age and what he has written. It’s fair enough that you disagree with the premise of my last two sentences. However, I firmly stand by them and have held that stance since the beginning of the pandemic. In my opinion, everybody/country can be a genius one day and a fool the next with this virus.
On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
Your whole view seems to be based on the idea that our government is incompetent and the public is a bunch of uncompliant arseholes.
If this thread is to go by then I'm not alone.
Again, it's only 'destroying' the economy if you presume that we will be virus free (or minimal).
It took us a month to go from ~40 cases per day to >500. Not long after that we were at 700. And that was while we were in the midst of restrictions and pretty much enforced work from home for anyone who could.
I don't think I'm being unrealistic here when I'm skeptical of the claims that 'putting a ring around the elderly' and 'liberating the rest' (which is exactly what Sweden did, it's a myth that they did nothing) won't result in significant outbreak.
It is a very real risk that you, and every other commentator who comes up with this idea seems to be downplaying. If that risk eventuates, then the economic argument is dead, according to data from a multitude of studies now.
You are welcome to that opinion, but you asked for people to put their case forward so I did.
As I said before, we both want the best for society
If this thread is to go by then I'm not alone.
Again, it's only 'destroying' the economy if you presume that we will be virus free (or minimal).
It took us a month to go from ~40 cases per day to >500. Not long after that we were at 700. And that was while we were in the midst of restrictions and pretty much enforced work from home for anyone who could.
I don't think I'm being unrealistic here when I'm skeptical of the claims that 'putting a ring around the elderly' and 'liberating the rest' (which is exactly what Sweden did, it's a myth that they did nothing) won't result in significant outbreak.
It is a very real risk that you, and every other commentator who comes up with this idea seems to be downplaying. If that risk eventuates, then the economic argument is dead, according to data from a multitude of studies now.
You are welcome to that opinion, but you asked for people to put their case forward so I did.
As I said before, we both want the best for society
It is destroying the economy anyway you look at things.
View attachment 962975
From Viz comics
Where do they come up with these fines? It is a very specific non-round number.
Where do they come up with these fines? It is a very specific non-round number.
My guess is X amount of penalty units.
Where do they come up with these fines? It is a very specific non-round number.
Excellent piece by Chris Uhlman, a moderate and well credentialed journalist. So the Age ran it on line but not in the print edition. Meanwhile they publish all the nonsense 'We stand by Dan' crap" Rejoice. Dan Andrews has destroyed the village to save it. "
A very thought-provoking and intelligent piece from Chris Uhlman in the Fairfax(do we still call them that?) press today. It really gets to the heart of the issues around the trade-offs being made right now and whether we are getting our priorities right.
Uhlman is one of the most rational and clear-eyed commentators we have on the political landscape. Even though he is married to a former ALP federal member I would defy anyone to infer a partisan leaning based on his work.
COVID-19 has hammered home some uncomfortable truths about us as a people
As a nation we seem comfortable with authoritarianism and too many relish the role of prefect.www.smh.com.au
There's no parliament to pull him up about it..............or anything.
27 lawfully elected constituencies currently do not have political representation.
The Age has always been further to the left than the SMH. Given it was published online today there is a chance it missed print deadline.Excellent piece by Chris Uhlman, a moderate and well credentialed journalist. So the Age ran it on line but not in the print edition. Meanwhile they publish all the nonsense 'We stand by Dan' crap
Didn't Parliament sit today though?
Do you have evidence of that? Nothing on The Age website to indicate it happened. The hotel quarantine enquiry was on today.Didn't Parliament sit today though?