Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) 2020

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luthor said:
You do see the problem though with trying to identify asymptomatic cases, right?

"if you think your asymptomatic...then come on down"

Right now, there are potentially 25 million Australians with no Coranavirus symptoms.

How do we decide which ones we're going to test?
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Qld have just loosened the criteria as well. Anyone with a temperature and a sore throat/cough.

If it’s out in the community it will eventually lead to hospital admissions and increases in symptomatic infections so it will get found.

Total eradication (if possible) would takes months of testing every cold and flu case to be certain so we stay locked down. Assuming that’s not going to happen we need to either lock down till there’s a vaccine or slowly manage the numbers that contract the disease so that the newly ramped up health system can cope while building herd immunity. I know there’s a lot of nurses being retrained in ICU ATM, add that to the take over of the private hospitals and it looks like the last option is the most likely.

We’re a long way from done.
 
scoman said:
Genuine question...... Aren't all cases really a result of community infection? Isn't the only way to get the virus by close contact with an infected person?

Or does the term only relate to someone who cannot identify an infected person whom they may have caught it from?
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As per your last paragraph
 

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Gadzorks said:
Qld have just loosened the criteria as well. Anyone with a temperature and a sore throat/cough.

If it’s out in the community it will eventually lead to hospital admissions and increases in symptomatic infections so it will get found.

Total eradication (if possible) would takes months of testing every cold and flu case to be certain so we stay locked down. Assuming that’s not going to happen we need to either lock down till there’s a vaccine or slowly manage the numbers that contract the disease so that the newly ramped up health system can cope while building herd immunity. I know there’s a lot of nurses being retrained in ICU ATM, add that to the take over of the private hospitals and it looks like the last option is the most likely.

We’re a long way from done.
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Correct.

Everyone wants instant answers and solutions these days . Searching for reasons why this could be overcome quickly.

It's a worldwide pandemic with no vaccine . Indonesia ,Africa, The Pilippines and many other places have barely started up yet.

In this country we started flattening the curve once we stopped overseas visitors but the trajectory of community transition is still very conjectural ,as has been shown in many other developed countries who thought they had it under control.
 
scoman said:
Ok cool.

Another question...... How is it possible that initially China/ WHO or whatever were saying this virus couldn't be transmitted person to person?
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The CCP lied and covered it up.

There is plenty of evidence that the virus was loose in China as early as early December 2019

Here's one take



There are dozens of other articles/opinion pieces out there that come to similar conclusions
 
luthor said:
The CCP lied and covered it up.

There is plenty of evidence that the virus was loose in China as early as early December 2019

Here's one take



There are dozens of other articles/opinion pieces out there that come to similar conclusions
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Yeah thanks for the link. I remember way back in January it was being widely reported that there was no evidence it could be spread human to human. I think even the WHO were saying something along these lines when everybody knew that had to be B.S.
 
scoman said:
Yeah thanks for the link. I remember way back in January it was being widely reported that there was no evidence it could be spread human to human. I think even the WHO were saying something along these lines when everybody knew that had to be B.S.
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Have a look at this

ghebreyesus - Search Videos

www.bing.com www.bing.com
 
As someone who has been living with this since early February I feel reasonably informed to comment. My parents were on the boat in Japan where they were left to get the virus as they weren’t taken off the ship. They both tested positive and wre eventually evacuated to a hospital in Japan 5 hours drive from Tokyo.....

Here’s my point after that ramble - our current death percentage to reported cases is 0.58%. Now there is no argument that there are more than the 5 800 cases reported but that would decrease the death rate percentage. Let’s say there are 11 600 cases with 40 odd deaths - that’s a death rate of 0.34%

If we can keep the death percentage low surely the government will be under pressure to return us back to normal in 4-5 weeks.
 
nWo said:
As someone who has been living with this since early February I feel reasonably informed to comment. My parents were on the boat in Japan where they were left to get the virus as they weren’t taken off the ship. They both tested positive and wre eventually evacuated to a hospital in Japan 5 hours drive from Tokyo.....

Here’s my point after that ramble - our current death percentage to reported cases is 0.58%. Now there is no argument that there are more than the 5 800 cases reported but that would decrease the death rate percentage. Let’s say there are 11 600 cases with 40 odd deaths - that’s a death rate of 0.34%

If we can keep the death percentage low surely the government will be under pressure to return us back to normal in 4-5 weeks.
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Yeah been going over all this tonight myself. Cases around the world, even in Italy and Spain are on somewhat of a downward trend. Australian cases really looking good at the moment. I can't see any higher level restrictions coming in on the back of that. I think over the next month if the numbers hold there will even be a loosening of restrictions. But I don't think we will be back to normal for a long time. Certainly pubs and clubs and medium to large gatherings will be out till after Winter at the earliest.

What I find difficult to understand is the message I keep hearing that we will need to see 60-80% of people get the virus if no vaccine arrives. At today's rate (108 new cases) that could be 380 to 500 years! Actually we might never get there with births and deaths and all that.

Edit: just read that about 440-480 people die every day in Australia. Not sure what that means for my calculations.... It's late and my head hurts.
 
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scoman said:
Ok cool.

Another question...... How is it possible that initially China/ WHO or whatever were saying this virus couldn't be transmitted person to person?
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To give you a legitimate explanation instead of "they lied" (given that doesn't explain why people believed it)... The identified cases were all linked back to a particular market to begin with, so there was a hypothesis that transmission might have been from contamination due to the animals in that building/area. Think something like Legionnaires Disease or Hendra.
 
nWo said:
If we can keep the death percentage low surely the government will be under pressure to return us back to normal in 4-5 weeks.
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We're keeping the death percentage low because we're keeping the overall case numbers low, therefore aren't running out of ICU beds and ventilators. The death spike in Italy was because their health system is overwhelmed. Ours isn't - yet.

Relaxing things before we've really nailed this thing would be a great way to cause a new store in cases, hospitalisations and ultimately deaths if we do hit that threshold.
 
scoman said:
What I find difficult to understand is the message I keep hearing that we will need to see 60-80% of people get the virus if no vaccine arrives. At today's rate (108 new cases) that could be 380 to 500 years!
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Today's rate is under draconian restrictions and a massive shutdown of businesses. These measures are meant to buy us time to get a treatment or vaccine, they are not sustainable long term.
 

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https://www.theguardian.com/science...droxychloroquine-trump?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

More dangerous idiocy from Trump. The responsible authorities in Australia need to restrict access to this drug so that only people with diagnosed lupus or the less common malaria can access it. It is already difficult for chronic sufferers like my wife to access without this sort of dangerous behaviour from Trump. The AMA should deregister doctors found to be prescribing it to family members. Doctors should know better.
 
dlanod said:
We're keeping the death percentage low because we're keeping the overall case numbers low, therefore aren't running out of ICU beds and ventilators. The death spike in Italy was because their health system is overwhelmed. Ours isn't - yet.

Relaxing things before we've really nailed this thing would be a great way to cause a new store in cases, hospitalisations and ultimately deaths if we do hit that threshold.
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This is a genuine concern. However (and ill admit it defies logic) but it seems once or absorb your wave or arc of infection, you can start to open up without a guaranteed spike in infection. Virus have a lifecycle, they are sucsessful in some places and not in others (as shown) and can go into dorment phases and spike phases.

Wuhan has been 'semi opened' for 2 weeks and comes further out of lockdown tomorrow. There are other examples of places that have maintained social distancing, but largely returned to normal life without massive jumps. Beijing is almost business as usual right now.

I agree we dont want to see it happen too soon, but there is a chance that we could see an easing of restrictions - for example, restraunts and bars allowed to open with a capacity of less than 100 people, gyms allowed to open again - without seeing cases spike or ICUs fill to the brim.

Thats also why the staged approach is good, you can turn the dial down on restrictions and turn it back up if needed.

This notion herd immunity or vaccine is the ONLY answer out of this, is not the experience of other counties ahead of us.

Singapore relaxed a couple of weeks ago and had 800 cases on the back of it, then tightened up and flattened it over a couple of weeks.

I don't think stadiums will be full for a long time and 'normal life' is at least 6 months away (best case) but there is the chance theres a sucsessful, controlled, staged easing starting in 2 months time IMO
 
scoman said:
Yeah been going over all this tonight myself. Cases around the world, even in Italy and Spain are on somewhat of a downward trend. Australian cases really looking good at the moment. I can't see any higher level restrictions coming in on the back of that. I think over the next month if the numbers hold there will even be a loosening of restrictions. But I don't think we will be back to normal for a long time. Certainly pubs and clubs and medium to large gatherings will be out till after Winter at the earliest.

What I find difficult to understand is the message I keep hearing that we will need to see 60-80% of people get the virus if no vaccine arrives. At today's rate (108 new cases) that could be 380 to 500 years! Actually we might never get there with births and deaths and all that.

Edit: just read that about 440-480 people die every day in Australia. Not sure what that means for my calculations.... It's late and my head hurts.
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There are plenty of educated people who disagree with this notion of Herd immunity or vaccine being the only answer.

There are plausable scenarios when you slowley unwind restrictions once numbers are very low, then test and trace in the community.

So you actually go on the offensive with testing - testing healthy people, whole postcodes, door knock and test.. then you weed out cases.

So you actually go on the offensive, whist maintaining SD and monitiring dailey cases.

I heard from a senior nurse yesterday, that the hospital he works at now have senior doctors saying 'they do not expect an influx anymore and elective surgurys may slowley start again in 2 weeks'....

I am not saying we will be rid of this thing in a month, no way. But there are 'containment, test and trace, monitor' scenarios that could see us have business re-open over the next 3-4 months.
 
nWo said:
If we can keep the death percentage low surely the government will be under pressure to return us back to normal in 4-5 weeks.
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I’m not sure you’ve been listening to our state and federal governments.

The death rate is low is because we’ve really minimised community transmission so far.

Our governments keep saying if they lift the current social distancing measures early, then community transmission will start to rise.

Our governments keep saying 6 months, again, and again, and again.

We’re in for a long haul. As we’re now seeing, the number 1 job for police is to fine people for non essential travel. Even if you don’t get out of your car. Read this morning’s ABC articles.
 
We need things to go back to normal as quickly as we can so the economy can recover, but this can't be fast tracked. It will be a massive set back if they loosen restrictions only to put them back again weeks later. Every time you do this you are prolonging the overall timeline that this will go on.

There is no doubt a point at which our health system is on top of this and we can open things back up, even if it means a spike in cases. Once it is at a managable level and isnt increasing, they could put the effort into the tracking of each case and imposing mandatory lockdown and testing for anyone you have been near.

But again, super important things aren't rushed back. There is a lead time in cases, and by the time you realise you need to s**t it down again it might already be uncontainable again.
 
lioninthesand said:
This is a genuine concern. However (and ill admit it defies logic) but it seems once or absorb your wave or arc of infection, you can start to open up without a guaranteed spike in infection. Virus have a lifecycle, they are sucsessful in some places and not in others (as shown) and can go into dorment phases and spike phases.

Wuhan has been 'semi opened' for 2 weeks and comes further out of lockdown tomorrow. There are other examples of places that have maintained social distancing, but largely returned to normal life without massive jumps. Beijing is almost business as usual right now.

I agree we dont want to see it happen too soon, but there is a chance that we could see an easing of restrictions - for example, restraunts and bars allowed to open with a capacity of less than 100 people, gyms allowed to open again - without seeing cases spike or ICUs fill to the brim.

Thats also why the staged approach is good, you can turn the dial down on restrictions and turn it back up if needed.

This notion herd immunity or vaccine is the ONLY answer out of this, is not the experience of other counties ahead of us.

Singapore relaxed a couple of weeks ago and had 800 cases on the back of it, then tightened up and flattened it over a couple of weeks.

I don't think stadiums will be full for a long time and 'normal life' is at least 6 months away (best case) but there is the chance theres a sucsessful, controlled, staged easing starting in 2 months time IMO
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Wuhan waited until they had 0 new cases reported for a week before they started slowly opening back up.

Wuhan also had every infected person under government controlled quarantine, as well as close contacts.

Other suspected people were welded shut inside their apartments for 11 weeks. And when they started opening the appartments, they were finding dead bodies.

There are videos of this from independent media in Wuhan. Then all media was kicked out of Wuhan.

In Victoria, more than 900 people have been fined for leaving their home, when they should have been in government mandated self quarantine at home.

Because our governments won’t place all cases in to government controlled quarantine, expert social distancing measures to remain in place for months to come.
 
briztoon said:
Wuhan waited until they had 0 new cases reported for a week before they started slowly opening back up.

Wuhan also had every infected person under government controlled quarantine, as well as close contacts.

Other suspected people were welded shut inside their apartments for 11 weeks. And when they started opening the appartments, they were finding dead bodies.

There are videos of this from independent media in Wuhan. Then all media was kicked out of Wuhan.

In Victoria, more than 900 people have been fined for leaving their home, when they should have been in government mandated self quarantine at home.

Because our governments won’t place all cases in to government controlled quarantine, expert social distancing measures to remain in place for months to come.
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Yes, they also has a massive infection rate, we don't at this stage and modelling suggests we might not - that's what my post is working around? You can't leave that overriding factor out of your comparison or Aust and Wuhan, surely?

Plus - I agree with most of your post and have stated, it won't be soon, but it is not beyond the rhelms of possibility that we will see a relaxation of some restrictions ease (say... in 3 or so months time) if we continue on this path.
 
lioninthesand said:
Yes, they also has a massive infection rate, we don't at this stage and modelling suggests we might not - that's what my post is working around? You can't leave that overriding factor out of your comparison or Aust and Wuhan, surely?

Plus - I agree with most of your post and have stated, it won't be soon, but it is not beyond the rhelms of possibility that we will see a relaxation of some restrictions ease (say... in 3 or so months time) if we continue on this path.
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I don’t believe the size of the infection rate plays a part in a discussion about Wuhan and Australia.

How many infected is not as important as how long it takes to reach the bottom of the other side of the bell curve.

Wuhan’s bell curve looks like a typical bell curve. They went hard, had the infection peak, and then drop off almost as fast as it rose.

Our leaders keep talking about flattening the curve. One aspect of flattening the curve is that the curve is actually extended over a longer period of time.

I don’t know if we’ve peaked or not (for the record I hope so), but we have to reach 0 new cases before we begin to loosen the current restrictions.
 
I like this article below. Three options mentioned by University of Melbourne epidemiologist Tony Blakely.
No options great but i believe he is right in that the Government have to put in place a plan showing us Australians a way out of this big problem.
No matter what the Government decides it will be seen by lots of Australians as the wrong way to go.
Politically i think they will take what they believe is the safe option and continue what they are doing now.
He explains each choice which have all been mentioned before. He explains how long each may take and some horrible choices and death figures.

Choices are : Eliminate - Squash the curve - Flatten curve to herd immunity.

After reading we can have a vote on which option. At this point in time 15,668 votes have been cast. Once you vote you can see the results
I voted for "flatten curve herd immunity" as i believe this is what will happen eventually.
The world economy will win in the end after governments start to collapse

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...c/news-story/88e6a199e8e55c4730f3a5f271c3c34a
 
Section 5 said:
I like this article below. Three options mentioned by University of Melbourne epidemiologist Tony Blakely.
No options great but i believe he is right in that the Government have to put in place a plan showing us Australians a way out of this big problem.
No matter what the Government decides it will be seen by lots of Australians as the wrong way to go.
Politically i think they will take what they believe is the safe option and continue what they are doing now.
He explains each choice which have all been mentioned before. He explains how long each may take and some horrible choices and death figures.

Choices are : Eliminate - Squash the curve - Flatten curve to herd immunity.

After reading we can have a vote on which option. At this point in time 15,668 votes have been cast. Once you vote you can see the results
I voted for "flatten curve herd immunity" as i believe this is what will happen eventually.
The world economy will win in the end after governments start to collapse

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...c/news-story/88e6a199e8e55c4730f3a5f271c3c34a
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I voted scenario 1.

As it’s the scenario that protects my family.


I’m late 40’s this year. My wife is early 40’s. And we have an 18 month old daughter.

I have asthma/minor reduced lunge function as a result of a vehicular collision 7 years ago. A common cold usually causes 8+ weeks of a respiratory infection for me. Right now I’m in week 4.

My younger sister is severely immunocompromised and has a number of health issues and lives on a disability pension. She also has a 7 year old son. And my mother, with underlying health issues lives with them.

My 75 year old father has diabetes, a heart condition and lives alone. And he’s being stubborn about following the stay at home guidelines.

It’s real easy to choose the “greater good” when two thirds of your family aren’t at risk.

Financially we can weather 18+ months of social distancing. My wife could do it indefinitely, and I’m ok as long as I have my bicycle or exercise routines.

I know it’s selfish of us, as our employment is not at risk. But if being selfish protects my family and daughter, I’m in the squash camp until a vaccine is found.

If a vaccine isn’t found, then the government better have plans for government controlled herd immunity.
 
briztoon said:
I voted scenario 1.

As it’s the scenario that protects my family.


I’m late 40’s this year. My wife is early 40’s. And we have an 18 month old daughter.

I have asthma/minor reduced lunge function as a result of a vehicular collision 7 years ago. A common cold usually causes 8+ weeks of a respiratory infection for me. Right now I’m in week 4.

My younger sister is severely immunocompromised and has a number of health issues and lives on a disability pension. She also has a 7 year old son. And my mother, with underlying health issues lives with them.

My 75 year old father has diabetes, a heart condition and lives alone. And he’s being stubborn about following the stay at home guidelines.

It’s real easy to choose the “greater good” when two thirds of your family aren’t at risk.

Financially we can weather 18+ months of social distancing. My wife could do it indefinitely, and I’m ok as long as I have my bicycle or exercise routines.

I know it’s selfish of us, as our employment is not at risk. But if being selfish protects my family and daughter, I’m in the squash camp until a vaccine is found.

If a vaccine isn’t found, then the government better have plans for government controlled herd immunity.
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Completely understand.
This is why it is going to eventually have a toll mentally and physically on leaders worldwide.
Decisions like this only come along once in a lifetime.

I believe something drastic will be done in the next 6 months when they have a better understanding on infection rates
But what will they do ??
How will citizens react ?, not only on decisions but any time frames that maybe continually extended.
Trying times ahead no matter what decisions are made.

Just noticed the vote numbers are up to 32,600 so a good size poll number . Admittedly it is only a newspaper poll
 
Fascinating press conference right now. Morrison just essentially conceded that waiting for a vaccine is not an option. He said they've taken significant measures to prop up the economy in the short term (6 months max), and they can't consider any options that would require a longer wait and more of an economic boost than that.

So a vaccine may play a big role, but it sounds like it might be more in any potential second wave. It doesn't seem like it's our exit strategy anymore. Wonder what will be.

Either way though, it sounds like the government is absolutely determined that our country is back to normal by September at the latest, and that we won't have the capability to extend the delay any further beyond that.
 
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