The off topic thread 4.0

[SM]

This is such a poor analogy.

I guess we should all just permanently lockdown then?

 

[SM]

Everything in hindsight! Easy for those at home with no skin in the game to call for more risky approaches to containing the virus, when they will not be held accountable if those strategies fail. I don't envy the Chief Health Officers and elected officials who have to make these decisions, but probably easier to wear the consequences of people thinking you overreacted to uncertainty by keeping them at home for a few days, than an underreaction to uncertainty leading to an uncontained outbreak with extensive public health and economic impacts.

The random nature of this virus (who it infects, how infectious they are, how long they are infectious, where they work, where they shop, how big their family is, etc) means there was no way of knowing for certain at the time whether this leak would be contained, or whether it would be a repeat of the June/July outbreak. There was similar threat associated with the Sydney northern beaches cluster, worse actually given they still haven't identified the index case. Actually, I don't think people fully appreciate how much risk NSW government took on through their approach (vs the approach by SA/WA/Vic/Queensland), thankfully it worked.

Frequency of testing of hotel quarantine workers allowing far earlier detection has been a really important to controlling this and other recent leaks. In hindsight this (inadequate surveillance of hotel quarantine staff) was a bizarre and gaping blind spot in all state/territory hotel quarantine systems prior to the big Victorian outbreak mid-last year.

But WA and QLD didn't lockdown entire states so not really comparable to the VIC approach?

 

[Loonerty]

I guess we should all just permanently lockdown then?

That doesn't really address my post?

 

[Zidane98]

Everything in hindsight! Easy for those at home with no skin in the game to call for more risky approaches to containing the virus, when they will not be held accountable if those strategies fail. I don't envy the Chief Health Officers and elected officials who have to make these decisions, but probably easier to wear the consequences of people thinking you overreacted to uncertainty by keeping them at home for a few days, than an underreaction to uncertainty leading to an uncontained outbreak with extensive public health and economic impacts.

The random nature of this virus (who it infects, how infectious they are, how long they are infectious, where they work, where they shop, how big their family is, etc) means there was no way of knowing for certain at the time whether this leak would be contained, or whether it would be a repeat of the June/July outbreak. There was similar threat associated with the Sydney northern beaches cluster, worse actually given they still haven't identified the index case. Actually, I don't think people fully appreciate how much risk NSW government took on through their approach (vs the approach by SA/WA/Vic/Queensland), thankfully it worked.

Frequency of testing of hotel quarantine workers allowing far earlier detection has been a really important to controlling this and other recent leaks. In hindsight this (inadequate surveillance of hotel quarantine staff) was a bizarre and gaping blind spot in all state/territory hotel quarantine systems prior to the big Victorian outbreak mid-last year.

In this case, with no unknown sources of infection and all cases contained to isolated close contacts it is pretty clear that this lockdown was a severe overreaction. Even the experts agree:

Infectious diseases doctor says Victoria's snap lockdown was an overreaction

An infectious diseases doctor says while there may yet be more COVID-19 cases linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak, Victoria’s snap five-day lockdown was an overreaction. Infectious diseases physician from the ANU Medical School and member of the infection control expert group which advises the...

www.3aw.com.au

The mantra we have been told in the past is positive cases with a known source are not an issue. There should never be a snap lockdown again unless we have mystery coronavirus cases popping up. You can't be enacting lockdowns on the premies that someone MIGHT be infected. If that continues we will be living under the threat of lockdowns for the next few years although I doubt Andrews would be enacting these snap lockdowns if we were in an election year.

 

[Loonerty]

Member when old mate from Sydney tested positive/was waiting for a test result and decided to drive 3.5 hours to Ulladulla to use the pool? Despite Sydney being under restrictions?

 

[jd2010]

5 days ago they had isolated the close contacts of the positive case so it didn't take a crystal ball to predict that there would be a few positive cases from those close contacts. As expected with those in isolation there have been no further cases, I doubt the lockdown made a difference to that.

They saw the cases go up at a quick enough rate to think it got out of close contacts. Did they have not enough faith in their contact tracing? Perhaps. But they would not wanted to take a risk on that.

Its summer, people want to hold functions / events

Events happen year round and it is summer for 2 more weeks.

 

[jd2010]

Member when old mate from Sydney tested positive/was waiting for a test result and decided to drive 3.5 hours to Ulladulla to use the pool? Despite Sydney being under restrictions?

Its the idiots that ruin it for the few.

 

[SM]

That doesn't really address my post?

Well you're saying it's a poor analogy to compare to cars, so I was instead comparing to a 'better safe than sorry' ideology regarding lockdowns.

 

[SM]

Member when old mate from Sydney tested positive/was waiting for a test result and decided to drive 3.5 hours to Ulladulla to use the pool? Despite Sydney being under restrictions?

Isn't the fact we know about old mate proof that the system works though?

Wouldn't it be worse if we were sitting here saying "Remember when Sydney only locked down Avalon and then we got a random bunch of cases in Orange no one knows about"?

 

[Loonerty]

Well you're saying it's a poor analogy to compare to cars, so I was instead comparing to a 'better safe than sorry' ideology regarding lockdowns.

I think it's less "better safe than sorry" and more "once bitten twice shy".
If it ended up someone in Bendigo got it and was going about their business as usual, people would be slamming him for not locking down fully, I'm sure.

Regardless none of this changes the fact that the car analogy is poor.

 

[Loonerty]

Isn't the fact we know about old mate proof that the system works though?

Wouldn't it be worse if we were sitting here saying "Remember when Sydney only locked down Avalon and then we got a random bunch of cases in Orange no one knows about"?

My point being these people exist. I think it was caught when the staff looked at the guy's license. That's not gonna happen everywhere.

Also, that did happen right? Maybe not Orange but somewhere like that.

 

[Loonerty]

Oh, no they knew that one was from the Western Sydney cluster. 18 year old guy.

 

[SM]

My point being these people exist. I think it was caught when the staff looked at the guy's license. That's not gonna happen everywhere.

Also, that did happen right? Maybe not Orange but somewhere like that.

But it wasn't random. It's just like there was a case in my suburb but they knew immediately where it came from and we didn't go into lockdown. They observe close contacts of the positive case and those people go into isolation and get tested, and if they are positive, then you have a cluster then you consider lockdown of that suburb. You don't just jump immediately to locking down an entire state is all I'm saying.

The car analogy is not a poor one, the point of it is you don't immediately jump to the most extreme measure in the name of public safety, you introduce counter measures - speed limits, seat belts, air bags - and only if serious crashes are still happening you restrict those measures further - such as lowering the speed limits etc.

 

[Zidane98]

They saw the cases go up at a quick enough rate to think it got out of close contacts. Did they have not enough faith in their contact tracing? Perhaps. But they would not wanted to take a risk on that.


Events happen year round and it is summer for 2 more weeks.

It is well known that the events season in Melbourne runs mostly from the September school holidays to Easter. Yes, there is events outside that timeframe but nowhere near as many as the peak period.


Case in point I now have a few clients from the Yarra Valley that are holding out on paying debts owed to us because of the money they've lost from this 5 day lockdown. So this affects all, not just the hospitality industry.

 

[Cruyff14]

I think it's less "better safe than sorry" and more "once bitten twice shy".
If it ended up someone in Bendigo got it and was going about their business as usual, people would be slamming him for not locking down fully, I'm sure.

Regardless none of this changes the fact that the car analogy is poor.

He can't win whatever he does. People are always gonna complain.

 

[ADL9798]

In this case, with no unknown sources of infection and all cases contained to isolated close contacts it is pretty clear that this lockdown was a severe overreaction.

"No unknown sources of infection" - remember this only relates to the cases they had detected at that time. Meanwhile, these cases had been out and about at a number of sites across the city, potentially exposing large numbers of people. It's this uncertainty and the accountability for being wrong that complicates decision making and has led the vast majority of decision makers across the country to revert to a more cautious approach to these types of scenarios.

Even the experts agree:

Infectious diseases doctor says Victoria's snap lockdown was an overreaction

An infectious diseases doctor says while there may yet be more COVID-19 cases linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak, Victoria’s snap five-day lockdown was an overreaction. Infectious diseases physician from the ANU Medical School and member of the infection control expert group which advises the...

www.3aw.com.au

As he points out, this measure isn't about stopping the virus from spreading, it's about being realistic about the capacity of public health units to rapidly ramp up test/trace, and how long it might take them to isolate everyone who actually needs to be isolating.

While your contact tracers are playing catch up with the virus you have 2 choices, you can either allow people to go about their business, or you can cast a wide net to get beyond possible 2nd/3rd/4th generation transmission (maybe that's 'contacts of contacts', maybe an entire a region, maybe a city, maybe an entire state) and assume everyone within that net is infectious until the contact tracers have caught up and you've tested enough people to be confident there isn't significant undetected transmission in the community.

The mantra we have been told in the past is positive cases with a known source are not an issue. There should never be a snap lockdown again unless we have mystery coronavirus cases popping up. You can't be enacting lockdowns on the premies that someone MIGHT be infected. If that continues we will be living under the threat of lockdowns for the next few years although I doubt Andrews would be enacting these snap lockdowns if we were in an election year.

On the contrary, if it was an election year I suspect he'd be even more likely to take a cautious approach to containing the virus (as we've seen in other states).

Fortunately I suspect we'll be seeing very few (if any) of these sorts of leaks coming out of hotel quarantine this year. The data coming out of countries who have rolled out the Pfizer vaccine suggests it is highly effective at preventing transmission in addition to severe illness. This vaccine will be in the arms of every air crew and hotel quarantine worker in the country within the next few weeks, and if the data being reported overseas holds true then this 'immunity bubble' will add another significant layer of protection around that high risk cohort in the quarantine system.

 

[ADL9798]

But WA and QLD didn't lockdown entire states so not really comparable to the VIC approach?

The strategy was fundamentally the same. Cast a wide net to get beyond possible 2nd/3rd/4th generation transmission, buy the contact tracers a few extra days, and increase the likelihood you isolate everyone who needs to be isolating as early as possible.

How wide you want to cast that net depends on the information you have at the time, and your appetite for risk. As Loonerty pointed out I suspect it was probably a case of once bitten twice shy with Dan Andrews after he and his state dealt with the effects of that awful outbreak and 3 month lockdown last year.

 

[jd2010]

It is well known that the events season in Melbourne runs mostly from the September school holidays to Easter. Yes, there is events outside that timeframe but nowhere near as many as the peak period.


Case in point I now have a few clients from the Yarra Valley that are holding out on paying debts owed to us because of the money they've lost from this 5 day lockdown. So this affects all, not just the hospitality industry.

It varies not just by industry but within it too. Feb especially mid-late Feb is the quietest weeks of the summer period for many too.

December to early Jan quite often the busiest period with people on leave and more time on their hands. Sure V-Day wasn't ideal timing but with the glass half full lens the % uplift on a normal Sunday wouldn't have been as significant in other years where it falls on a Monday-Wednesday.

 

[SM]

He can't win whatever he does. People are always gonna complain.

You said this last time too, any deeper analysis behind that comment? After all as I responded, NSW did something else and no one complained, which sorta indicates a flaw in this observation.

 

[Zidane98]

The strategy was fundamentally the same. Cast a wide net to get beyond possible 2nd/3rd/4th generation transmission to buy the contact tracers a few extra days and increase the likelihood you isolate everyone who needs to be isolating as early as possible.

How wide you want to cast that net depends on the information you have at the time, and your appetite for risk. As Loonerty pointed out I suspect it was probably a case of once bitten twice shy with Dan Andrews after he and his state dealt with the effects of that awful outbreak and 3 month lockdown last year.

Why not put the entire country into Stage 4 lockdown then? How do we know one fo the contacts of the contacts didn't travel interstate. Contacts of contacts from those airports may have travelled interstate again.

If this approach is genuine the entire country should have been put into Stage 4 lockdown.

 

[Cruyff14]

You said this last time too, any deeper analysis behind that comment? After all as I responded, NSW did something else and no one complained, which sorta indicates a flaw in this observation.

Like Loonerty said, if he didn't lockdown and we got cases in country Vic, people would have lost their minds.

 

[SM]

The strategy was fundamentally the same. Cast a wide net to get beyond possible 2nd/3rd/4th generation transmission, buy the contact tracers a few extra days, and increase the likelihood you isolate everyone who needs to be isolating as early as possible.

How wide you want to cast that net depends on the information you have at the time, and your appetite for risk. As Loonerty pointed out I suspect it was probably a case of once bitten twice shy with Dan Andrews after he and his state dealt with the effects of that awful outbreak and 3 month lockdown last year.

And the information at the time was that all cases were known and identified?

I think as you're both saying this had less to do with the science behind the risk of spreading cases, and more to do with Andrews going into self-preservation mode and not wanting to have another colossal * up on his hands. Emotive policy making rather than fact based. That's basically the basis of the criticism in this case. If he'd been rational, this would have been avoided, but instead he responded emotionally.

 

[SM]

Like Loonerty said, if he didn't lockdown and we got cases in country Vic, people would have lost their minds.

Sure, and if he hadn't locked down and there hadn't been a crazy spike in cases..? You're saying people would have complained in that case too?

 

[Zidane98]

Like Loonerty said, if he didn't lockdown and we got cases in country Vic, people would have lost their minds.

The old "but what if " argument. What you are saying here is that Andrews can not be held accountable for his actions because there always will be a "what if" no matter how you look at things.

 

[jd2010]

But WA and QLD didn't lockdown entire states so not really comparable to the VIC approach?

The fact that they're 8x - 10x the size in square kms makes them also not apples and apples.