Mega Thread Coronavirus & the AFL - season postponed. Part 2 * CONTINUED ABUSE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED *

[Chief]

Australian Coronavirus Stats

Latest COVID-19 stats from Australia.

www.bigfooty.com

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

I don't think so. But I think there is the possibility that with current lockdown+closing down more retail that might be enough and that doesn't seem like that much extra to me. I think especially if you add that to a sophisticated testing setup that might be able to get rid of it within a few months. I can't say what the average person will think - I'd imagine that if we can more or less go back to normal life after 4 months while the rest of the world still has to be social distancing for the next 18 months they'd be pretty happy. I think you could sell that to the majority of the public. You don't need 100% compliance with the measures but about 90% would be good.

Definitely a fair point, if you could be pretty confident you can kill it in 4 months then it would probably be an easier sell.

I think you’d need to give assurances that after 4 months we go back to norma if it’s dead - that’s also the thing, you have to get it to zero or you quickly go back to square one you’d think. Also not sure if NSW can get there in 4 months.

Glad I’m not making the decisions because they’ll probably be panned whatever they do - as evidenced by this thread

 

[Crankitup]

Please, not this again.

People go get your flu shot. You don't want to get swine flu and this at the same time unless you don't value your life.

Again? The BMJ study has been dealt with in this thread has it? Link me up.

Nice work by the way. Dismiss the study without any evidence whilst simultaneously escalating the imagined threat to 'swine flu'. Argumentum ad metum.

 

[Forward Press]

Again? The BMJ study has been dealt with in this thread has it? Link me up.

Nice work by the way. Dismiss the study without any evidence whilst simultaneously escalating the supposed threat to 'swine flu'. Argumentum ad metum.

Unless I am missing something you have linked an article that has no relevance to your argument.

 

[Crankitup]

Unless I am missing something you have linked an article that has no relevance to your argument.

Maybe you misunderstood my argument or you haven't read the article.

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Please, not this again.

People go get your flu shot. You don't want to get swine flu and this at the same time unless you don't value your life.

Let me guess the anti vaxxers calling the vaccine not being effective...

Hopeless the lot of them. Even if the vaccine reduces your chances by 40-60% it's still a good thing.

They better be MADE to take the shot for this virus or they can have all their benefits scrapped.

 

[Thrawn]

Let me guess the anti vaxxers calling the vaccine not being effective...

Hopeless the lot of them. Even if the vaccine reduces your chances by 40-60% it's still a good thing.

They better be MADE to take the shot for this virus or they can have all their benefits scrapped.

They seem to also forget that even if it works 40-60% of the time, it can still reduce the severity of the disease.

 

[Forward Press]

Maybe you misunderstood my argument or you haven't read the article.

This is the article from the link you posted:

We need to think beyond containment
In the aftermath of the 2009 H1N1 global threat, the Department of Health’s pandemic preparedness planning team paid particular attention to the value, or otherwise, of containment as a strategy to prevent spread. In 2009 considerable time and effort were spent on a catch, isolate, and treat approach in the early stages of the emerging pandemic, and public health teams were expending considerable energy with, as it turned out, little effect. The resulting UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 20111 emphasised the need to maintain the continuity of essential services and continue everyday activities as far as possible.
Catch and isolate
In a recent speech in the House of Commons, Matt Hancock, the UK secretary of state for health and social care, highlighted the mainstay of the government’s approach, as set out in the plan: contain, delay, research, and mitigate.2 In relation to influenza, the plan sees these phases as detection, assessment, treatment, escalation, and recovery, and during the assessment phase it emphasises the need to actively find, test, isolate, and treat cases—our current approach to covid-19. Unlike for influenza, no vaccine or antiviral agents are available for covid-19, and the mainstay of treatment is supportive care, in high dependency units if necessary, for the most critically ill patients.
In 2003 the catch-and-isolate policy did curtail the outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),3 but will such an approach be successful with covid-19, which has already caused a nationwide epidemic in the most populous country in the world, with new fires starting on every continent? While this isolation and containment policy approach prevails, towns in Italy and whole countries, such as Iran, are being quarantined, with boundaries and borders closed at gunpoint.4 Under China’s totalitarian regime, it has been possible to put in place draconian public health measures that in some cases seem to be an infringement of human dignity, but it is impossible to see how this could operate in the democratic states of the Western world.
Plan for the worst
Experience with SARS and the 2009 influenza pandemic showed that containment can buy us some time,1 and it has done so with covid-19. But containment in the face of a pandemic will go only so far, and we must use this time wisely. We need to start planning for an escalation in our response to new coronavirus infections and a surge in demand across the health and social care sector; the expectation must be that our unscheduled care services and the wider NHS, which are already stretched, will be severely challenged even by a modest increase in cases.
Bhatia and colleagues estimated that, although travel restrictions with China may have reduced transmissions, two thirds of all cases exported from China remain undetected.5 This assessment by the group at Imperial College London is now being played out, with community spread of the virus being seen in many countries, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expressing the view that current global circumstances suggest it is likely this virus will cause a pandemic.6 We live in a world that is globally connected, in terms of the movement of people, goods, and food, while even within close knit communities, such as those currently locked down in Italy and elsewhere, the ideal conditions exist for the virus to spread from person to person. In one of the most cited research papers from the 1990s, Watts and Strogatz showed that the “small world” structure of society facilitates rapid disease propagation between distant and apparently unconnected communities, resulting in sporadic outbreaks that seem to start spontaneously, undermining even the most stringent attempts at containment.7
The clinical features of covid-19 are well documented, with most people displaying mild symptoms or none at all and deaths occurring mainly in elderly and chronically ill patients. This is not the public perception as played out in the media and reinforced by gunpoint quarantine.
Given the lessons from 2009—which taught us that containment for a globally disseminated disease was futile—and accepting that most of the exported covid-19 cases from China (and elsewhere) are undetected, is it not time to admit that a global pandemic is on us? The World Health Organization is reluctant to say so. Once the disease is recognised as a global pandemic, nations, commerce, and healthcare can move into a much more rational phase with resources targeted at those most at need.
The healthcare system in the UK is, like that in many countries, at breaking point dealing with the routine demands placed on it. It is therefore vital that attention moves as quickly as possible to plan for this escalation in demand and identify how we reconfigure services to cope. We should plan on the assumption that most of the population may contract the virus with few or no long term effects, while harnessing vital secondary healthcare resources to treat the small percentage of people who become seriously ill.

Nothing in there about the flu vaccine.

 

[Crankitup]

This is the article from the link you posted:



Nothing in there about the flu vaccine.

I see what you mean. Very strange. The link has been changed for some reason since I originally posted it in another thread (#176).

I'll see if I can find a new link to the original article.

 

[Hawkk]

This is the article from the link you posted:



Nothing in there about the flu vaccine.

That said, the article basically reinforces the Australian current strategy of suppression until you mobilise hospital beds, ICU wards and ventilators and make a decision from there.

We can debate the semantics but unlike Western Europe and the USA we now have time to evaluate the options and decide on whether a full suppression, isolated suppression or full scale herd immunity is the only way we can manage the health and economic implications.

The economy is effectively operating at 65-80 per cent full scale capacity with 90 per cent adherence to the lockdown - much better than I expected, the only industries that have been decimated thus far are retail, hospitality and tourism. Construction, manufacturing, commodities etc are still ticking along - along we do have some trouble waters upcoming with consumer and business confidence at all time lows.

Let’s be thankful that we are not in a position like New Zealand who basically shut down industries like manufacturing, construction and agriculture overnight and now face the highly challenging situation where they need to scale up the economy from a stationary start with little in the way of long term stimulus.

But hey, they have Jacinda (sorry for bias)

And then there is the USA bullet that we have so far dodged

 

[Crankitup]

Flu shots and the risk of coronavirus infections

www.bmj.com

Tamiflu & influenza vaccines: more harm than good?

www.bmj.com

 

[LukeParkerno1]

They seem to also forget that even if it works 40-60% of the time, it can still reduce the severity of the disease.

That too I was trying to be nice. It’s especially important in vulnerable parts of society and yet we have these fruitcakes saying “don’t vaccine”...

 

[Forward Press]

Flu shots and the risk of coronavirus infections

www.bmj.com

Tamiflu & influenza vaccines: more harm than good?

www.bmj.com

A retired pediatrician raises questions that the flu vaccine may not lead to better outcomes for coronavirus patients - which is fair, obviously, given the current situation - but even that same pediatrician concedes more study is warranted and is nowhere near certain in his theories.

I would not use that as compelling medical advice to refuse the flu shot, and to keep touting it as authoritative is misleading. The effectiveness of the flu vaccine has been well studied and approved for use by just about every country in the world - are they all wrong?

 

[Crankitup]

A retired pediatrician raises questions that the flu vaccine may not lead to better outcomes for coronavirus patients - which is fair, obviously, given the current situation - but even that same pediatrician concedes more study is warranted and is nowhere near certain in his theories.

I would not use that as compelling medical advice to refuse the flu shot, and to keep touting it as authoritative is misleading. The effectiveness of the flu vaccine has been well studied and approved for use by just about every country in the world - are they all wrong?

So you read "... flu shots increased fivefold the risk of acute respiratory infections caused by a group of noninfluenza viruses, including coronaviruses " and translated that into "may not lead to better outcomes". Interesting interpretation.

 

[Forward Press]

So you read "... flu shots increased fivefold the risk of acute respiratory infections caused by a group of noninfluenza viruses, including coronaviruses " and translated that into "may not lead to better outcomes". Interesting interpretation.

It's a single pediatrician's theory where even he conceded it warrants further investigation. Which it does - like how anti-malarial treatment might be a cure, or how anti-TB drugs might be a vaccine. There's processes in place to safely research whether it's true.

Like I said, touting it as authoritative is misleading. If I may be so dismissive - this is how anti-vaxxers argue - taking a single piece of evidence not backed up with rigorous peer review and study and holding onto it in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, including national health agencies whose job it is to evaluate their effectiveness and safety for billions of people.

Are you one of them?

 

[Crankitup]

It's a single pediatrician's theory ...

"flu shots increased fivefold the risk of acute respiratory infections caused by a group of noninfluenza viruses, including coronaviruses" is not a single paediatrician's theory at all. He was quoting the results of a study.

The phenomena is noted in other studies and is so well known that a term for the phenomenon has been coined for it - 'viral interference' which specifically refers to the idea that receiving influenza vaccination can increase the risk of other respiratory viruses. There was a Dutch study that showed it occurring in older patients and a study in younger patients that did too.

On another issue, I know people who religiously have their flu shots every year and others that have it every few years. It seems that the latter group may get more benefit from the vaccine than the former.

Getting a flu shot every year? More may not be better

Research increasingly suggests that getting flu shots repeatedly can gradually reduce the effectiveness of the vaccines under some circumstances.

www.statnews.com

 

[Chief]

It will be very interesting to see how much the national suicide rate increases when all this is over. I predict more people will die from suicide within Australia than what will die as a result from complications from the virus. The response is scary, the economy, businesses and lives ruined forever and this sort of response will become the norm.

Chillingly, Scariest Coronavirus Death Toll May Not Come from COVID-19

A great deal of scientific research indicates the coronavirus containment strategy will cause more deaths than COVID-19 would have.

www.google.com.au

It’s the trolley car conundrum.

 

[TDay]

Sorry, I scrolled back a few pages, but couldn’t find your conversation. But my 2 cents worth.

If you can afford it, find a good immigration lawyer.

You can still register your relationship as a Civil Partnership. It’s pretty easy to do online, on your local state government website.

Are you applying for a partnership visa?

Thanks for your cents
Apparently we can get a 600 class family stream tourist visa on compassionate grounds, with evidence that she is my defacto partner which shouldnt be a problem. We will give that a go. Its only a few hundred bucks as well. Lasts for 12 months which is enough time for us to see what happens in the world and work out our next moves.
If you have any immigration lawyer friends that you recommend, please pm me. Im totally down to fork out some $$ to make sure we dont screw anything up and to speed it up

 

[LoungeLizard]

They seem to also forget that even if it works 40-60% of the time, it can still reduce the severity of the disease.

They also forget that reducing it by 40-60% frees up our health care.

 

[Mt Isa Mustang]

Sorry to butt in.

The flu vaccine is between 40-60% effective at protecting people from the flu according to the latest CDC studies. On the flipside it seems that having flu vaccinations every year can make you more susceptible to coronaviruses.

Preventing a covid-19 pandemic

We need to think beyond containment In the aftermath of the 2009 H1N1 global threat, the Department of Health’s pandemic preparedness planning team paid particular attention to the value, or otherwise, of containment as a strategy to prevent spread. In 2009 considerable time and effort were...

www.bmj.com

Yes the relative risk in those meta-analysis I linked was 0.4 - 0.6 RR of flu or flu like illness. I just used NNT (number needed to treat) because it acknowledges the incident rate in the community which is important in considering the effectiveness of a preventative vaccine.

And where in your linked article did it mention anything about flu vaccination increasing susceptibility to corona viruses?

 

[boncer34]

It’s the trolley car conundrum.

Pull the lever. 1<5.

Doing nothing when you could have is by default doing something.

 

[ziad]

Even though mistakes have been made (mistakes will always be made under intense pressure and scrutiny) , I fully support the Government's approach so far even if some of the measures and penalties handed out have seemed somewhat over punitive. And let's be fair, the States themselves have, probably more than the Feds, been very hard taskmasters, especially the NSW and Vic Governments.

But Governments (Federal or State) just can't keep demanding that everyone "trust us" indefinitely.

There has to be a cogent exit plan and it has to have a finite implementation date, give or take a month. That just can't be 18 months time. 18 months time is December 2023!!

If the Goverment(s) want to keep the public on side, they are going to have to give something back.

A concession here, a relaxation there.....something.....or the "public" is going to get very angry very fast.

The morgues and overflowing ICU's speak.
Most people understand we have the weather the storm. Some early wins boost morale and commitment.

What is interesting is that some/many are unable to grasp risk management and uncertainty.

 

[Thrawn]

some/many are unable to grasp risk management and uncertainty.

Ovaltine. Have you ever had this stuff? Why is it called Ovaltine? They should call it Roundtine. You know what I’m talking about.

 

[Boxhead007]

Talk on the radio news dropped the first hint of easing of restrictions in coming weeks.

 

[briztoon]

Thanks for your cents
Apparently we can get a 600 class family stream tourist visa on compassionate grounds, with evidence that she is my defacto partner which shouldnt be a problem. We will give that a go. Its only a few hundred bucks as well. Lasts for 12 months which is enough time for us to see what happens in the world and work out our next moves.
If you have any immigration lawyer friends that you recommend, please pm me. Im totally down to fork out some $$ to make sure we dont screw anything up and to speed it up

I’m in Brisbane, so probably best to do a bit of googling for ones in your area.

Our Lawyer is down the Gold Coast. Was recommended by a friend.

 

[ziad]

That said, the article basically reinforces the Australian current strategy of suppression until you mobilise hospital beds, ICU wards and ventilators and make a decision from there.

We can debate the semantics but unlike Western Europe and the USA we now have time to evaluate the options and decide on whether a full suppression, isolated suppression or full scale herd immunity is the only way we can manage the health and economic implications.

The economy is effectively operating at 65-80 per cent full scale capacity with 90 per cent adherence to the lockdown - much better than I expected, the only industries that have been decimated thus far are retail, hospitality and tourism. Construction, manufacturing, commodities etc are still ticking along - along we do have some trouble waters upcoming with consumer and business confidence at all time lows.

Let’s be thankful that we are not in a position like New Zealand who basically shut down industries like manufacturing, construction and agriculture overnight and now face the highly challenging situation where they need to scale up the economy from a stationary start with little in the way of long term stimulus.

But hey, they have Jacinda (sorry for bias)

And then there is the USA bullet that we have so far dodged

And when they open the doors the virus is still there - it cannot be killed only people get isolated from it.