News Coronavirus Thread

[spurs]

Oh FFS mate, ease up!!

Vaccines are already in phase I trials, so they still have to advance past phase II in order to hit the market.

If we can put a handbrake on the thing then a vaccine becomes a moot point anyway. You will make your own vaccine (antibodies)

Well you are the self appointed CV king, so I had to ask the question. I wanted to play on your ego for an answer.

 

[rickety]

It's a brilliant little bit of organic chemistry. Remdesivir is designed to slip in to the cellular membrane and it also incorporates a similar structure to the RNA nucleoside adenosine phosphate (the amino acid adenine with a phosphate backbone) which pairs up with viral Uracil in the viral RNA template, and then other functional groups on the compound bring replication to a grinding halt. It basically acts as an unseen saboteur.

Remdesivir

View attachment 859513

Adenosine monophosphate

View attachment 859515

Adenine-Uracil RNA bond.

View attachment 859522

Sounds like one of these blokes

 

[Roscoe]

Hey gk, is it any better if he corrects a policy on the same day!?



Golfers who had hoped to tee off this weekend had better think again as the game remains officially banned in Victoria. There was a glimmer of hope for desperate golfers after the Department of Health and Human Services advised that golf was not prohibited, and could be played if care was taken.

But in an embarrassing departmental blunder, the advice was wrong after a misunderstanding of a government staffer. It comes as Golf Australia today changed its advice to golf clubs. It had been recommending clubs close but today advised they could open with care.

“Acknowledging the long challenge that lies ahead of all Australians during this pandemic, we have been encouraged to see golf played in comparative safety in five states and one territory in recent weeks as we all adopt social distancing necessities,” it said in a statement.

“Under strict and specific safety protocols – enforced by state and territory guidelines as well as individual club rules – Golf Australia is now satisfied that golf can be played at minimal risk. Having worked collaboratively with our clubs and other stakeholders, we are now comfortable to alter our position and encourage courses to open and for people to play.”

Premier Daniel Andrews has repeatedly urged Victorians to leave the clubs at home. “I’d love to be playing golf. We all would. But I don’t need to play golf, and me playing golf is not worth someone’s life,” he said this morning.

But in what appeared to be an undermining of his position Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services wrongly advised there was nothing stopping golfers hitting the course. Responding to questions about the state of play, a department staffer advised “golf is not specifically prohibited”. The unidentified staffer, from the COVID-19 Directions Team, said while golf clubs should be encouraging people to stay home, there was nothing stopping play. But golfers had to maintain physical distancing from other people, and only meet with one other person if they are from another household.

Under the government’s tough stay at home restrictions Victorians can leave home for food and supplies, medical care, caregiving, work or study, or basic exercise. “Club members should consider whether golfing is essential exercise,” the DHHS email advised. “In addition, the recommendation for the public is to remain within their immediate neighbourhood to exercise and to only travel out of their neighbourhood if necessary. “Accordingly, golf clubs should be encouraging people to golf locally.”

DHHS advised golf clubs to ensure any shared equipment was thoroughly sanitised, and provide hand sanitiser on the course. It also emphasised people should be staying at home. “The Andrews Government is directing all Victorians to stay at home to help limit the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). If you can stay home, you must stay home,” the email said.

Victoria’s golf ban has been the subject of anger among keen golfers, with the sport still allowed to be played in other states across the country. AFL great Sam Newman, 74, this week staged a one-man protest at Parliament House over Mr Andrew’s tough stance. “You give me a legitimate reason why golfers can’t socially distance, not touch one another, walk around a golf course, obey the strict rules,” he said. “It is nonsense, there is everyone out on the street jogging, spitting, vomiting. It’s extraordinary. I saw people kicking a football on Olympic Park yesterday, it’s nonsense.”

Shadow sport minister David Hodgett said “most Victorians just want to do the right thing, but draw the line when it comes to limiting healthy activities that pose little risk.” “This is just one of a number of examples of conflicting advice and inconsistency of message between the Premier and Victoria’s Chief Health Officer.”

The Premier has been contacted for comment.

As an avid golfer and footy fan living in Brisbane I can understand the plight of like minded Victorians. At least here we are permitted to play golf to relieve the boredom. Some sensible rule changes apply which do away with the need to touch flags, sand buckets and rakes and we only play in pairs and maintain social distancing. Here's hoping your Premier sees sense.

 

[DesertRoo]

Sooooooo....when do you think we will have a vaccine and fuc# this virus off?

Might be wrong but I don’t think we’ll ever get a vaccine for it SARS, as it mutates quickly, but my guess, it’ll be another one of those weird things you catch at a back street bar in Thailand. you’ll end up getting a bunch of shots, from a nurse who can’t speak English and you’ll spend the next three days recovering.

 

[mouncey2franklin]

Apparently the government is stating that if not enough people download their Ministry of Freedom app to track where they go and who they mix with, then the restrictions will have to be kept for longer.

I hope you guys all download the app and do you bit to help flatten the curve and stay home and we're in this together and whatever else it is that we're meant to be doing all of this for

 

[Snake_Baker]

Found another opening?

 

[sbdan]

Apparently the government is stating that if not enough people download their Ministry of Freedom app to track where they go and who they mix with, then the restrictions will have to be kept for longer.

I hope you guys all download the app and do you bit to help flatten the curve and stay home and we're in this together and whatever else it is that we're meant to be doing all of this for

I'll download the app for sure. But if I'm up to no good I'll leave my phone at home.

Phone tracking is already happening. I have been on a jury panel where the dude was convicted on his phone movements. This was in 2015.

 

[Tas]

In my opinion there now needs to be some random sampling of all communities. That might be done using say the Electoral Rolls, by issuing requests to a number of people in various localities, to present for testing. This would not however pick up any information on the level of infection/exposure within those under the age of 18.

That wouldn't be an effective use of resources, because 99% of tests would just come back as negative, we have less than 1% of the population infected, any possible positive results would likely come from people who live in hot spots or from someone who works in an industry which possible exposes them to the virus.

It would be more effective to target people with a higher probability of being exposed to the virus. I see a lot of people in my area wearing masks and people are washing their fruit and veggies with soap but we have like zero infections in the whole LGA, taking a random sample of people in this LGA would be a waste of test kits, people getting paranoid here is probably doing their health more harm than good elevating their stress levels like they have been. If you are not in a hotspot, i think just keeping your distance from other people is a safe enough precaution.

For example according to Google just over 16000 people live in Mitcham. If say a request was made of a random sample 1600 or 10% of that population for testing for covid-19, some pretty good results should be achieved. A sample size of 10%, should also be able to provide a pretty good idea of how various age groups are affected.

The likely result would be that they are all negative. Mitcham has 16k people, is part of the greater city of Whitehorse of 176k people and there are 4 known cases in Whitehorse, or 0.00023%, it is hard to determine the source of their infection from such as small pool.

I think you would need to see substantial human-to-human transmission before you could hope to get some meaningful data from completely random testing.

No doubt this would involve a lot of testing, but it would also give the best idea of just how much the general population has been exposed so far. In my opinion the real worry is no-one really knows how many people, have been in contact with the virus and contracted it but not exhibited any symptoms.

It may also be that, while we are all walking around, eyeing off others, suspicious that they might have it, the reverse could well be true and very few have been in contact and caught the virus. If this was found to be the case, then, it is a nightmare waiting to happen. Open things up again before the virus is actually eradicated, risks another batch of highly vulnerable people to catch it and potentially die.

I think while we have a limited number of testing kits and can only process so many so fast with the labs we have, the testing needs to be used where we believe we have the capacity to find asymptomatic people who might start a human-to-human transmission chain. People who work at airports, the police exposed to the quarantine of people, all hospital staff should be regularly screened, etc. Random testing in hot spots where the number of cases are increasing and it is not due to returned travellers then it is important to track down those who could be spreading it.

 

[Steamin Beamin]

I'll download the app for sure. But if I'm up to no good I'll leave my phone at home.

Phone tracking is already happening. I have been on a jury panel where the dude was convicted on his phone movements. This was in 2015.

lol damn that must've sucked for the dude.
So I've got bunch of old phones, which one should I install this app on...

 

[The acurate one]

.

Sent from my SM-A908B using Tapatalk

Right I'm a huge fan of yours Micky, but you are pushing the boundaries of decency by publishing stuff like that. And you know when I question someone around boundaries of decency... we've a problem

 

[Horace]

That wouldn't be an effective use of resources, because 99% of tests would just come back as negative, we have less than 1% of the population infected, any possible positive results would likely come from people who live in hot spots or from someone who works in an industry which possible exposes them to the virus.

It would be more effective to target people with a higher probability of being exposed to the virus. I see a lot of people in my area wearing masks and people are washing their fruit and veggies with soap but we have like zero infections in the whole LGA, taking a random sample of people in this LGA would be a waste of test kits, people getting paranoid here is probably doing their health more harm than good elevating their stress levels like they have been. If you are not in a hotspot, i think just keeping your distance from other people is a safe enough precaution.




The likely result would be that they are all negative. Mitcham has 16k people, is part of the greater city of Whitehorse of 176k people and there are 4 known cases in Whitehorse, or 0.00023%, it is hard to determine the source of their infection from such as small pool.

I think you would need to see substantial human-to-human transmission before you could hope to get some meaningful data from completely random testing.



I think while we have a limited number of testing kits and can only process so many so fast with the labs we have, the testing needs to be used where we believe we have the capacity to find asymptomatic people who might start a human-to-human transmission chain. People who work at airports, the police exposed to the quarantine of people, all hospital staff should be regularly screened, etc. Random testing in hot spots where the number of cases are increasing and it is not due to returned travellers then it is important to track down those who could be spreading it.

Actually you are quite wrong. Random Sampling is a Statistical approach and is a very simple way of obtaining data on population trends, in this case to what extent covid-19 has infiltrated the general population. It is simply untrue to state that less than 1% of the population has been infected. How would you know unless you had completed a statistical analysis? You can't know that.

I used Mitcham as an example, simply because I live here. If you had read my post properly, you would see that I stated random sampling of all communities.

The basis behind my suggestion is essentially to find out what level of unreported contractions of covid-19 there are in the general community. No-one knows that, but if the brakes are to be released and communities begin to mingle again, then if there is 1%, 5%, 30% or whatever the number of people may be who are carrying the virus, it will be crucial to know this information before any brake is released.

Some form of Statistical analysis of any situation like this, is the basis on which decisions are made. It may be that testing of sewerage will be deemed to be the most efficient way of determining the level of spread, although that would not be an appropriate approach in country areas where septic tanks are in use.

 

[gokangas]

Hey gk, is it any better if he corrects a policy on the same day!?



Golfers who had hoped to tee off this weekend had better think again as the game remains officially banned in Victoria. There was a glimmer of hope for desperate golfers after the Department of Health and Human Services advised that golf was not prohibited, and could be played if care was taken.

But in an embarrassing departmental blunder, the advice was wrong after a misunderstanding of a government staffer. It comes as Golf Australia today changed its advice to golf clubs. It had been recommending clubs close but today advised they could open with care.

“Acknowledging the long challenge that lies ahead of all Australians during this pandemic, we have been encouraged to see golf played in comparative safety in five states and one territory in recent weeks as we all adopt social distancing necessities,” it said in a statement.

“Under strict and specific safety protocols – enforced by state and territory guidelines as well as individual club rules – Golf Australia is now satisfied that golf can be played at minimal risk. Having worked collaboratively with our clubs and other stakeholders, we are now comfortable to alter our position and encourage courses to open and for people to play.”

Premier Daniel Andrews has repeatedly urged Victorians to leave the clubs at home. “I’d love to be playing golf. We all would. But I don’t need to play golf, and me playing golf is not worth someone’s life,” he said this morning.

But in what appeared to be an undermining of his position Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services wrongly advised there was nothing stopping golfers hitting the course. Responding to questions about the state of play, a department staffer advised “golf is not specifically prohibited”. The unidentified staffer, from the COVID-19 Directions Team, said while golf clubs should be encouraging people to stay home, there was nothing stopping play. But golfers had to maintain physical distancing from other people, and only meet with one other person if they are from another household.

Under the government’s tough stay at home restrictions Victorians can leave home for food and supplies, medical care, caregiving, work or study, or basic exercise. “Club members should consider whether golfing is essential exercise,” the DHHS email advised. “In addition, the recommendation for the public is to remain within their immediate neighbourhood to exercise and to only travel out of their neighbourhood if necessary. “Accordingly, golf clubs should be encouraging people to golf locally.”

DHHS advised golf clubs to ensure any shared equipment was thoroughly sanitised, and provide hand sanitiser on the course. It also emphasised people should be staying at home. “The Andrews Government is directing all Victorians to stay at home to help limit the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). If you can stay home, you must stay home,” the email said.

Victoria’s golf ban has been the subject of anger among keen golfers, with the sport still allowed to be played in other states across the country. AFL great Sam Newman, 74, this week staged a one-man protest at Parliament House over Mr Andrew’s tough stance. “You give me a legitimate reason why golfers can’t socially distance, not touch one another, walk around a golf course, obey the strict rules,” he said. “It is nonsense, there is everyone out on the street jogging, spitting, vomiting. It’s extraordinary. I saw people kicking a football on Olympic Park yesterday, it’s nonsense.”

Shadow sport minister David Hodgett said “most Victorians just want to do the right thing, but draw the line when it comes to limiting healthy activities that pose little risk.” “This is just one of a number of examples of conflicting advice and inconsistency of message between the Premier and Victoria’s Chief Health Officer.”

The Premier has been contacted for comment.

Add to that the cemetery debacle earlier in the week and I have missed another one or two. Bad comms just don't stop with this government. I'm not questioning the end results as I think too many people are looking for loopholes but getting your messages right is basic PR.

 

[Horace]

Following on from my previous post it is possible to introduce a method called "blocking" into any Random Sampling. For instance it may be deemed desirable to test a particular demographic. Because the virus is most potent in older persons, the criteria may be to sample all adults aged over 65, in each each area. That would provide data as to what if any level of protection has been achieved (herd immunity) in that demographic.

Or it might be "lets test all adults over the age of 18 and under the age of 40" say, being largely a very healthy demographic (hopefully) to see if they are in fact carriers. This Age demographic might be one that has decided, "I'm young and fit, I won't die if I get it so, I'm going to continue doing all the things I always do". I'm not saying there is a large level of unreported contraction, but if you don't test, you don't know and any people carrying it unwittingly is a risk to other people. We need to know that and assess to assess the risks.

We've dodged a bullet hee in Australia. The next steps have to be at least as good as the first steps, or that bullet may come our way big time in the next wave.

 

[mouncey2franklin]

Phone tracking is already happening. I have been on a jury panel where the dude was convicted on his phone movements. This was in 2015.

So why do they need people to install this app then?

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

NT is 0 again.

 

[Firestarter]

So who were these dumb ****s applauding Sweden for keeping everything open such that everyone could catch the corona and magically become immune to it?

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Sweden’s actually doing well with herd immunity

Sweden records 17 coronavirus deaths - lowest rise in a fortnight

The Scandinavian country has seen fall in both cases and deaths over the weekend, however the trend in figures suggests a this is more likely down to a delay in reporting during the weekend.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Low testing data made them look better.

Redirect Notice

www.google.com.au

More concerning is the fatality rate in the country.

In neighbouring Norway and Finland, the fatality rate is 2.2 per cent.

In Sweden it is 10.6 per cent, nearly five times higher.

 

[Val Keating]

Low testing data made them look better.

Redirect Notice

www.google.com.au

More concerning is the fatality rate in the country.

In neighbouring Norway and Finland, the fatality rate is 2.2 per cent.

In Sweden it is 10.6 per cent, nearly five times higher.

Spose we won’t know for sure till it’s completely played out and we can compare fatalities per capita.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Spose we won’t know for sure till it’s completely played out and we can compare fatalities per capita.

...........and then hand out trophies to the winners.

Viral infection factors are incredibly complex mate, and it's flawed logic to assign points to this or that politician based upon outcomes. This stuff is several levels of complexity beyond those clowns.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Spose we won’t know for sure till it’s completely played out and we can compare fatalities per capita.

Sure, I was more pointing out that Sweden has became an international joke because of their response.

 

[Tas]

Actually you are quite wrong. Random Sampling is a Statistical approach and is a very simple way of obtaining data on population trends, in this case to what extent covid-19 has infiltrated the general population. It is simply untrue to state that less than 1% of the population has been infected. How would you know unless you had completed a statistical analysis? You can't know that.

Mate, we are only testing people with corona virus-like symptoms and only managed to score +47 cases from 11,527 tests yesterday, that is 0.41%, if you would take a random sample of any population that is going to plummet like a rock. The few hits we do have are likely from people in hotspots or high risk occuptions.

I used Mitcham as an example, simply because I live here. If you had read my post properly, you would see that I stated random sampling of all communities.

It was a good example, because there are **** all infections there and they probably contracted it from their place of work. If you are going to random sample people who are not exposed to elevated risk in areas which have no infections, the result is going to be negative. The better use of resources would be to ensure those who at risk of catching it are identified and prevented from spreading it to their communities.

The basis behind my suggestion is essentially to find out what level of unreported contractions of covid-19 there are in the general community. No-one knows that, but if the brakes are to be released and communities begin to mingle again, then if there is 1%, 5%, 30% or whatever the number of people may be who are carrying the virus, it will be crucial to know this information before any brake is released.

I understand that, but we don't have the resources for it. Ideally, it would be good to test everyone simultaneously if they have the virus currently and if they had the virus in the past. But, we don't have the test kits to do that. What you suggest should be done in hot spots, where there is likely a fair bit of undiscovered transmission.

Some form of Statistical analysis of any situation like this, is the basis on which decisions are made. It may be that testing of sewerage will be deemed to be the most efficient way of determining the level of spread, although that would not be an appropriate approach in country areas where septic tanks are in use.

No country has done this, no country has the resources to do this. It is the only reason I am saying it is a waste. I am sure a lot of people had the virus, didn't know about it, and only had mild symptoms and since the lock down have stopped spreading it. But we don't have the resources to do more than what we are doing atm.

 

[Horace]

Mate, we are only testing people with corona virus-like symptoms and only managed to score +47 cases from 11,527 tests yesterday, that is 0.41%, if you would take a random sample of any population that is going to plummet like a rock. The few hits we do have are likely from people in hotspots or high risk occuptions.



It was a good example, because there are fu** all infections there and they probably contracted it from their place of work. If you are going to random sample people who are not exposed to elevated risk in areas which have no infections, the result is going to be negative. The better use of resources would be to ensure those who at risk of catching it are identified and prevented from spreading it to their communities.



I understand that, but we don't have the resources for it. Ideally, it would be good to test everyone simultaneously if they have the virus currently and if they had the virus in the past. But, we don't have the test kits to do that. What you suggest should be done in hot spots, where there is likely a fair bit of undiscovered transmission.



No country has done this, no country has the resources to do this. It is the only reason I am saying it is a waste. I am sure a lot of people had the virus, didn't know about it, and only had mild symptoms and since the lock down have stopped spreading it. But we don't have the resources to do more than what we are doing atm.

And you have studied Theory of Statistics? Yes?

The bolded bit reveals the danger. We need zero cases, before it can be completely safe to ease restrictions. Testing people who think they might have the virus, shows two things.

Firstly there are still new cases emerging albeit at a low level. So the virus is contained but not eradicated.

Secondly, testing 11527 who think they might have it, does not tell us anything about those people who have shown no or very mild symptoms and do not realise they have the virus. It is those people who pose an unwitting risk to other, when restrictions are lifted. It is these people who we need to find out if they exist and we know about and we can only find that out properly by doing some sampling.

Saying we do not have enough testing capacity, so therefore we will just re-open on the basis of we are seeing very low numbers from those who present for testing, then hoping for the best, has no scientific basis whatsoever.

Anyway, I can't be bothered arguing with you any further, because it seems that you know all about the value of Statistical analysis.

 

[Val Keating]

Sure, I was more pointing out that Sweden has became an international joke because of their response.

It might be morbid but I’m finding the different strategies interesting.

 

[Val Keating]

...........and then hand out trophies to the winners.

Viral infection factors are incredibly complex mate, and it's flawed logic to assign points to this or that politician based upon outcomes. This stuff is several levels of complexity beyond those clowns.

I get that. The world isn’t run by scientists though.

 

[LuvtheKangas]

It might be morbid but I’m finding the different strategies interesting.

I am, too, in the sense that we have at least one example of the herd immunity approach to compare with. Herd immunity always looked more risky and the early indications from Sweden and, to a lesser extent, UK, tend to suggest flatten-the-curve was the proper strategic choice.

If we didn't have such comparison, I think we'd all be second guessing the current policy. This might lead to "opening up" too early, with serious consequences - 2nd and 3rd waves ripping through.

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