Author Topic: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?  (Read 675329 times)

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3550 on: August 13, 2020, 12:15:55 AM »

I'm ever an optimist, which is probably why I'm not as good a lawyer as I could be. But it makes the rest of life much more pleasant.

You can compartmentalise your cynicism, as I do. I'm hopeful about people, and cynical about governments and other large organisations.

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Stage 4 is largely punitive for those office professionals and department store workers who are now stuck at home for no particular reason, but I actually support the curfew.

The curfew has no effect on spread, and is unnecessarily authoritarian. Along with the other nonsense, it leads to abuses by police.

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As for aged care, I think everyone who could have gotten infected has gotten infected, haven't they?

Not at all. There are 745 such facilities in Victoria. There are 13 aged care facilities with infection clusters, with a total of over 1,000 people infected, a bit under half staff and more than half residents. The state government persists in having covid+ residents remain in the residence until they need hospitalisation, coupled with the 2-5 day test return time and 7-21 day contact tracing time, this maximises the chances of spread within each facility and through the households of the staff. Of course, they've also stopped swapping staff around between facilities so that minimises one infection vector, but it all started from family contacts - the sort of families who have someone working in aged care also often have someone working in security, or a meatworks, or warehousing - working class, minimum wage, part-time casual jobs.

Thus Sutton's statement on July 25th,

"The very places where we are seeing outbreaks, the very places where we are seeing transmission, are the places that would remain open if we went to a stage four. We shouldn't pretend that a really broad shutdown of industry will address where we are seeing the transmission."

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The aged care number isn't important for assessing lockdown anyway, as Andrews has said he'll focus on community transmission. [...] Politicians are ruled by sentiment. Right now when there are a lot of aged care residents dying, and we've had high case numbers, no one wants to ask the obvious, and crucial, question of when we can stop haemorrhaging money via the lockdowns.
These two statements contradict each-other. We're still seeing ~60 cases a day from aged care, which means 6-12 deaths a day 7-14 days from now. Even if he wanted to open up, all the newspaper spreads with pictures and life stories of those who've died, the empty funerals some journalist photographed, will be on the news.

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But give it two weeks, when unemployment mounts, and money gets tight, and we're having 50 cases a day only, and the tide will start turning.

We're not going to have 50 cases a day in two weeks, it'll be 100-200. Think October.

Money won't be tight until October - for someone who's been living on a part-time casual wage, $1,500 a fortnight is often a raise, and for someone who's been living on $565 a fortnight dole, $1,100 is awesome - and anyway, neither party cares what people on the dole think.

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As for what happens over Christmas, the best case scenario would be heavy enforcement of, and fines/jail time for, religious services and extended family gatherings to prevent a "third wave". But I agree with you that it's going to be a tough political sell.
If Andrews puts people in prison for celebrating Christmas he won't be Premier at the end of January. If he merely fines them then I give him 50-50 chances. Unless people are dropping dead in the streets I just can't see it happening.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3551 on: August 13, 2020, 02:42:31 AM »
Kyle, I think you make some good points about the problematic intersection of politics and populism.

But perhaps the government could try a shift in rhetoric? So far we've gone pretty light on families. Maybe an advertising jingle - "Visiting grandma for Christmas might kill her. Do the right thing, stay home." I'd be happy for the punitive curfew to be extended just to deter family visits of that sort. Or we could just have different rules for different suburbs / occupations depending on what the demographic data shows. I think the populace will be able to moderate expectations regarding extended family visits if we get the messaging right. For example mask use went from 10% to 100% in a matter of days despite not being popular initially.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3552 on: August 13, 2020, 03:51:41 AM »
perhaps the government could try a shift in rhetoric? So far we've gone pretty light on families. Maybe an advertising jingle - "Visiting grandma for Christmas might kill her. Do the right thing, stay home."
Given that state and federal government incompetence are causing grandmas in their hundreds to die alone in nursing homes, I'm not sure that'd be persuasive. As well, by then it'll have been going for 9 months, and December will mark the 11th month out of 12 in 2020 in a state of emergency and/or disaster. I suspect the rhetoric will be wearing thin.

I don't think it's possible for them to shift rhetoric. They just instinctively go for the moral finger wagging and threats. As an example, think of the Myki fare evasion campaigns.
 
"to avoid a fine, touch on"
"fare evasion is stealing, $207 fine"
"now you see him, now you don't" (image of ticket inspector half in ordinary clothing and half in uniform)
"if you're worried about being caught freeloading, you should be, you will be caught, you will be fined" (this one was in all caps, white on black background)


The tone is always we will get you, you bastard! Always. That's just the way Australian governments talk to the people - and this is not peculiar to either of the major parties, it's just Australian. It is not co-operative and encouraging. As I've said, deep down they think they're wardens in charge of convicts, or maybe squatters flogging convict workers and shooting blackfellahs.


Which is why we go on about being "larrikins", the same way they named their country the United States and went on to have a civil war, and why any Democratic People's Republic isn't. We're actually quite authoritarian.


But authoritarian or not, once the bank balance starts draining, the tolerance for loneliness, boredom, misery and death will reduce considerably. I hate to lay the hopes for our freedom in the hands of ScoMo and the LNP of all people, and their (lol) financial prudence - but there it is.


deborah

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3553 on: August 13, 2020, 01:36:04 PM »

scottish

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3554 on: August 13, 2020, 03:29:09 PM »
perhaps the government could try a shift in rhetoric? So far we've gone pretty light on families. Maybe an advertising jingle - "Visiting grandma for Christmas might kill her. Do the right thing, stay home."
Given that state and federal government incompetence are causing grandmas in their hundreds to die alone in nursing homes, I'm not sure that'd be persuasive. As well, by then it'll have been going for 9 months, and December will mark the 11th month out of 12 in 2020 in a state of emergency and/or disaster. I suspect the rhetoric will be wearing thin.

I don't think it's possible for them to shift rhetoric. They just instinctively go for the moral finger wagging and threats. As an example, think of the Myki fare evasion campaigns.
 
"to avoid a fine, touch on"
"fare evasion is stealing, $207 fine"
"now you see him, now you don't" (image of ticket inspector half in ordinary clothing and half in uniform)
"if you're worried about being caught freeloading, you should be, you will be caught, you will be fined" (this one was in all caps, white on black background)


The tone is always we will get you, you bastard! Always. That's just the way Australian governments talk to the people - and this is not peculiar to either of the major parties, it's just Australian. It is not co-operative and encouraging. As I've said, deep down they think they're wardens in charge of convicts, or maybe squatters flogging convict workers and shooting blackfellahs.


Which is why we go on about being "larrikins", the same way they named their country the United States and went on to have a civil war, and why any Democratic People's Republic isn't. We're actually quite authoritarian.


But authoritarian or not, once the bank balance starts draining, the tolerance for loneliness, boredom, misery and death will reduce considerably. I hate to lay the hopes for our freedom in the hands of ScoMo and the LNP of all people, and their (lol) financial prudence - but there it is.

You Aussie's barely had a first wave with less than 1000 cases per million population.   What's got everyone so excited that you need a curfew and a really strict lockdown?

Identify the cause of the outbreak and fix it.   Contact trace everyone involved to stop the spread.    Get back to normal.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3555 on: August 13, 2020, 03:58:15 PM »
It's pretty difficult because here in Australia we are not economic rationalists like in the U.S.

There is a lot of popular support for the lockdown and the prevailing attitude is that job losses can be filled in with free money from the government and that can be paid off by rich people's taxes later on.

There has been a bit of news about a spike in domestic violence and in calls to our depression hotline but no one seems keen to do the cost/benefit analysis in that sense.

Australians are generally not anti-government like Americans are - as Kyle said, we are a sheeplike people.

I don't mind the curfew and strict lockdown because I think it's worth tolerating for 6 weeks and then getting it over with. I think people will realise after this period is done that most of the really strict measures (especially the job lock-out) are not sustainable and that if these 6 weeks don't fix things we may just have to accept a certain level of infection and death going forward.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3556 on: August 13, 2020, 04:54:12 PM »
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/patient-zero-for-victoria-s-second-wave-was-not-a-security-guard-20200813-p55li3.html

Interesting article stating that leaked emails indicate that the source of the Victorian second wave was a hotel employee who caught it from a returned traveller and who then spread to five security guards who then spread it to their families. Their families all lived in the north and western suburbs of Melbourne, which is why that area was locked down first, but the community spread was too much to contain.

Perhaps for the next pandemic, we can have more nuanced lockdown rules. E.g., immediate family members of anyone who works in a high risk industry are subject to stricter lockdown rules than family members where all members work from home.

Before you say that this sort of scheme would be too hard to implement, our stage 4 lockdown already has a variety of that, where work rights and childcare rights are decided by individual permit. No one except essential workers is allowed to travel outside for work, and that's decided via permit.

Edit - the other thought I had is that how did these security guards do such an amazing job of seeding the 2nd wave? Did they all go home and immediately cough on their 10 family members or something? They cannot be blamed for contracting the virus, but they knew they were in an extremely high risk occupation (they were guarding known positive patients) and so you'd think they and their family would take precautions to prevent spread. Just dumb.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2020, 05:01:37 PM by Bloop Bloop »

the_fixer

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3557 on: August 13, 2020, 06:53:33 PM »
I have officially changed my FIRE plans.

I am moving to Australia and becoming a security guard as it sounds like they get all of the hot action. I find it amazing that they have so much sex, I mean here in the US security guards get laughed at and no action but apparently it truly is an upside down world in the land of AUS and they are sex machines.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

AnnaGrowsAMustache

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3558 on: August 13, 2020, 06:59:25 PM »
perhaps the government could try a shift in rhetoric? So far we've gone pretty light on families. Maybe an advertising jingle - "Visiting grandma for Christmas might kill her. Do the right thing, stay home."
Given that state and federal government incompetence are causing grandmas in their hundreds to die alone in nursing homes, I'm not sure that'd be persuasive. As well, by then it'll have been going for 9 months, and December will mark the 11th month out of 12 in 2020 in a state of emergency and/or disaster. I suspect the rhetoric will be wearing thin.

I don't think it's possible for them to shift rhetoric. They just instinctively go for the moral finger wagging and threats. As an example, think of the Myki fare evasion campaigns.
 
"to avoid a fine, touch on"
"fare evasion is stealing, $207 fine"
"now you see him, now you don't" (image of ticket inspector half in ordinary clothing and half in uniform)
"if you're worried about being caught freeloading, you should be, you will be caught, you will be fined" (this one was in all caps, white on black background)


The tone is always we will get you, you bastard! Always. That's just the way Australian governments talk to the people - and this is not peculiar to either of the major parties, it's just Australian. It is not co-operative and encouraging. As I've said, deep down they think they're wardens in charge of convicts, or maybe squatters flogging convict workers and shooting blackfellahs.


Which is why we go on about being "larrikins", the same way they named their country the United States and went on to have a civil war, and why any Democratic People's Republic isn't. We're actually quite authoritarian.


But authoritarian or not, once the bank balance starts draining, the tolerance for loneliness, boredom, misery and death will reduce considerably. I hate to lay the hopes for our freedom in the hands of ScoMo and the LNP of all people, and their (lol) financial prudence - but there it is.

You Aussie's barely had a first wave with less than 1000 cases per million population.   What's got everyone so excited that you need a curfew and a really strict lockdown?

Identify the cause of the outbreak and fix it.   Contact trace everyone involved to stop the spread.    Get back to normal.

The lockdown is to prevent spread while the contact tracing is happening. One infected person can result in hundreds of infections in a couple of days. Contact tracing can't possibly work that fast. The lockdown allows the time required to ring fence the outbreak. I imagine the curfew is really just to make the authorities job easier. What's go everyone so excited is the shit show going on in other countries. The point is really to prevent that. Don't know why this is all news to you.

scottish

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3559 on: August 14, 2020, 03:21:22 PM »
It's pretty difficult because here in Australia we are not economic rationalists like in the U.S.

There is a lot of popular support for the lockdown and the prevailing attitude is that job losses can be filled in with free money from the government and that can be paid off by rich people's taxes later on.

There has been a bit of news about a spike in domestic violence and in calls to our depression hotline but no one seems keen to do the cost/benefit analysis in that sense.

Australians are generally not anti-government like Americans are - as Kyle said, we are a sheeplike people.

I don't mind the curfew and strict lockdown because I think it's worth tolerating for 6 weeks and then getting it over with. I think people will realise after this period is done that most of the really strict measures (especially the job lock-out) are not sustainable and that if these 6 weeks don't fix things we may just have to accept a certain level of infection and death going forward.

Yeah, but it'll just pop up again somewhere else.   Instead of shutting everything down, you guys should get really good a whack a mole and get back to something close to normal.  (with apologies to moles who are harmless little creatures)    I think/hope that's what Canadian governments are trying to do.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3560 on: August 14, 2020, 08:20:15 PM »
Quote
Professor Brett Sutton has shed some light on how restrictions could be rolled-back across Victoria when the state’s COVID-19 numbers are under control.

The Chief Health Officer said based on the data, restrictions would be eased in areas that are not contributing to virus spread.

The psychological and health benefits of easing certain restrictions would be considered, he said, as the restrictions are “profoundly challenging” for single parents or people living alone.

But as large family gatherings had driven transmission earlier in the pandemic, Professor Sutton said would be a “balancing act” to allow people to visit each other’s homes, and it would be unlikely that groups of 10 would be allowed at residences straight away.

The bolded is music to my ears.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3561 on: August 14, 2020, 11:01:20 PM »
It's pretty difficult because here in Australia we are not economic rationalists like in the U.S.

There is a lot of popular support for the lockdown and the prevailing attitude is that job losses can be filled in with free money from the government and that can be paid off by rich people's taxes later on.

There has been a bit of news about a spike in domestic violence and in calls to our depression hotline but no one seems keen to do the cost/benefit analysis in that sense.

Australians are generally not anti-government like Americans are - as Kyle said, we are a sheeplike people.

I don't mind the curfew and strict lockdown because I think it's worth tolerating for 6 weeks and then getting it over with. I think people will realise after this period is done that most of the really strict measures (especially the job lock-out) are not sustainable and that if these 6 weeks don't fix things we may just have to accept a certain level of infection and death going forward.
The “solution”, if there is one, needs to take into account the local culture.  What works for Australia may well not work in the US. I’m thinking that the first lockdown in the US with the exception of some real hotspots like NYC or Detroit didn’t work out so well. We wrecked our economy to not much benefit and got widespread COVID anyway.

alsoknownasDean

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3562 on: August 14, 2020, 11:10:52 PM »
The bolded is music to my ears.

Yeah I'm hoping that my area has significantly fewer cases to the point where this is can occur, but I'm in the northern suburbs, so we'll see.

Crossed fingers that I can visit my family in regional VIC by the end of September.

If the R value is actually getting to 0.6 then cases are likely to be under 50 per day by the time the current lockdown ends.

Gin1984

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3563 on: August 15, 2020, 07:32:18 AM »
Why would the US lag the others, when they’ve been busy cornering the market?

Something like 30% of people in the US have said they won't get the vaccine even if it's free. And it won't be. Plus we have no way to mass distribute a vaccine like this.  A huge portion of the country has no consistent access to medical care.

The US can't even get people to vaccinate for things that are proven to be safe. This is something new and rushed.

What makes you think that a covid vaccine won't be free to people who choose to get it?

Because healthcare in the US is never free.  There is NOTHING in our health system right now that everyone can access free.  Why would we think this will be? It might be covered by insurance, but that depends on you having insurance.

Right now, Rite Aid is offering free Covid-19 tests. When they are available, schools and employers will probably offer free vaccinations. People who don't work or attend school will probably be able to get a free covid vaccination at places like Rite Aid, CVS, etc. Obviously, nothing is actually free. Someone will be paying for it, i.e., US taxpayers, but I doubt that any individual in the US will have to pay out of pocket for a Covid-19 vaccination.

I don't live near a rite-aid, so I would not be able to access this free test.  I had to get covid testing and had to pay for a doctor's appt for it. The test was fully covered by my insurance.
My employer offers "free" flu shots- but only if you have their insurance, then they waive the copay. If you have insurance through elsewhere, you can't get a "free" flu shot, you have to pay your copay.  Our grocery stores, CVS, Walgreens, all charge for flu vaccines (though typically insurance covers it- but if you don't have insurance...), none are "free".

Who is covering the rite-aid tests if you don't have insurance? Is rite aid paying for this? Do they have a government grant? 
I have a number of friends who are without insurance due to job loss, ineligibility for an exchange in our state, and inability to pay for COBRA (which is insanity)- who would cover this vaccine for them?

My state uses the federal exchange. When I retired I went on an ACA plan since I lost my employer sponsored health insurance (even though I could've continued it on cobra). What state exchange doesn't consider loss of coverage due to termination of employment a qualifying event?  That seems harsh.
Also under the ACA, all insurance is required to cover the flu shot as preventive therefore under all insurances your flu shot should be free aka no copy.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3564 on: August 15, 2020, 08:26:01 PM »
Being The Australian they overstate things, but there's a lot of truth in this article.

Quote
Perhaps the announcements, if they must continue, could give us real information: “There have been 637 new cases today, but happily 480 were young people who had no symptoms and didn’t know they’d been infected. Oh, and only two of today’s cases were serious enough to need to go to hospital.”

Maybe for context they could dilute their irresponsible scaremongering by including details of the other 450 people who die in Australia each day, including the victims of lockdown: the suicides and those who, too frightened to visit a doctor or hospital, are dying avoidable deaths through lack of screening and treatment (Britain anticipates as many as 35,000 extra deaths in the next year from cancer sufferers presenting late with correspondingly advanced tumours); and the people tumbling into despair, depression and other mental and physical illnesses.

Perhaps the premier could hand over to the state’s treasurer, who would read out the number added daily to the jobless lists, the businesses forced into bankruptcy, the mortgages foreclosed.

Then someone from social services could talk about the growth in homelessness, the “huge increase” in domestic violence reported by victim support groups, the marriage breakdowns.

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3565 on: August 15, 2020, 08:52:13 PM »
Being The Australian they overstate things, but there's a lot of truth in this article.

Quote
Perhaps the announcements, if they must continue, could give us real information: “There have been 637 new cases today, but happily 480 were young people who had no symptoms and didn’t know they’d been infected. Oh, and only two of today’s cases were serious enough to need to go to hospital.”

Maybe for context they could dilute their irresponsible scaremongering by including details of the other 450 people who die in Australia each day, including the victims of lockdown: the suicides and those who, too frightened to visit a doctor or hospital, are dying avoidable deaths through lack of screening and treatment (Britain anticipates as many as 35,000 extra deaths in the next year from cancer sufferers presenting late with correspondingly advanced tumours); and the people tumbling into despair, depression and other mental and physical illnesses.

Perhaps the premier could hand over to the state’s treasurer, who would read out the number added daily to the jobless lists, the businesses forced into bankruptcy, the mortgages foreclosed.

Then someone from social services could talk about the growth in homelessness, the “huge increase” in domestic violence reported by victim support groups, the marriage breakdowns.

Now that we know the IFR is actually not as high as the top half of the error bars in early March and that severe complications are not extremely common, there might be somewhat of a sunk-cost fallacy associated with lockdown measures: politicians will highlight the benefits of avoided Covid deaths but ignore the costs in other forms of morbidity associated with the extraordinary measures. The more-brazen and the lower-trust countries that couldn't control their populations as much are lucky that herd immunity thresholds could be as low as 20% and that those thresholds are already massively impacting the rate of new infections in many of the harder-hit areas. It's clear everyone was guessing 5 months ago and, through some path-dependency and other random factors, some countries made different guesses than others. I'm sure that a detailed post-mortem will indicate almost no government deserves any sort of victory lap and that humanity needs a more dynamic approach with better data-integration to handle future biological threats.

marty998

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3566 on: August 15, 2020, 08:59:57 PM »
Being The Australian they overstate things, but there's a lot of truth in this article.

Quote
Perhaps the announcements, if they must continue, could give us real information: “There have been 637 new cases today, but happily 480 were young people who had no symptoms and didn’t know they’d been infected. Oh, and only two of today’s cases were serious enough to need to go to hospital.”

Maybe for context they could dilute their irresponsible scaremongering by including details of the other 450 people who die in Australia each day, including the victims of lockdown: the suicides and those who, too frightened to visit a doctor or hospital, are dying avoidable deaths through lack of screening and treatment (Britain anticipates as many as 35,000 extra deaths in the next year from cancer sufferers presenting late with correspondingly advanced tumours); and the people tumbling into despair, depression and other mental and physical illnesses.

Perhaps the premier could hand over to the state’s treasurer, who would read out the number added daily to the jobless lists, the businesses forced into bankruptcy, the mortgages foreclosed.

Then someone from social services could talk about the growth in homelessness, the “huge increase” in domestic violence reported by victim support groups, the marriage breakdowns.


It’s a violation of various privacy acts to disclose personal medical information. For a news agency who is railing against the government for infringing on people’s rights, it is curious they want the government to further violate citizens rights.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3567 on: August 15, 2020, 09:33:42 PM »
You can disclose personal details in aggregate. Hell, every time there's 10 deaths they'll say stuff like "5 were men in their 70s, 2 were women in their 70s, 2 were women in their 80s and 1 was a man in his 90s" so it's perfectly fine to give data out about age, comorbidities etc

I do think that more information is always a good thing especially as it allows us to assess the QALY equation

A vaccine is imminent (the gov't has signed 2 non-disclosure agreements and that almost always bodes something material in the works) and it may well be that in the end, in hindsight, we learn from our errors and do a lot better with the next pandemic / zombie / alien invasion etc

marty998

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3568 on: August 15, 2020, 09:43:57 PM »

I do think that more information is always a good thing especially as it allows us to assess the QALY equation

Judging by this quote the government is doing everyone a favour not releasing it so that Armchair Experts do not assess QALYs with limited information.

At its most basic you’d probably assess the 50 year old as worth more than the 60 year old. If that’s all the info that is released.

What would not be published is that the 50 year old is a criminal, and the 60 year old is a primary carer for a grandchild.

It obviously gets much more complicated than that in reality, and the nuance is lost.


Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3569 on: August 15, 2020, 10:08:00 PM »
Well, I don't know that I'd judge QALY based on whether someone is a criminal or a primary carer or whatever. But it would be good to know comorbidity info at least.

And it would be good also to have suburb-by-suburb breakdowns so we can better understand and assess things like:

- Currently xx% of cases are to do with aged care clusters in NW Melbourne. The remaining xx% cases of community/family transmission are predominantly located in X, Y and Z areas
- The most covid-free zones in Melb are x, y, and z
- The most covid-dense zones are x, y, and z
- If the following areas can stay <50 active cases then they will likely head to stage 3 by September: ...
- The following areas are tracking poorly due to extended family/community transmission and need to do more in order to thaw by September: ....

Yeah, I know the government doesn't trust its citizens to use info wisely so they'll never disseminate it, but in a perfect society we'd know the score, a lot better than we do now. We really should have suburbs competing with neighbouring suburbs to outdo each other in terms of compliance, lack of community spread, etc

alsoknownasDean

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3570 on: August 15, 2020, 10:12:00 PM »
Well, I don't know that I'd judge QALY based on whether someone is a criminal or a primary carer or whatever. But it would be good to know comorbidity info at least.

And it would be good also to have suburb-by-suburb breakdowns so we can better understand and assess things like:

Like this data?

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiODBmMmE3NWQtZWNlNC00OWRkLTk1NjYtMjM2YTY1MjI2NzdjIiwidCI6ImMwZTA2MDFmLTBmYWMtNDQ5Yy05Yzg4LWExMDRjNGViOWYyOCJ9
« Last Edit: August 15, 2020, 10:13:39 PM by alsoknownasDean »

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3571 on: August 16, 2020, 01:00:32 AM »
It’s a violation of various privacy acts to disclose personal medical information.
No more than is already disclosed about covid+ people. Obviously if you talk about small numbers and specific places, then people can figure things out. "A 49yo trainer who works at ACE gym in Clayton South -" yeah there's only one of us so... :)

I don't really believe in QALY and similar measures. Obviously I feel differently personally, but across a whole state or country, I believe the life of my healthy 9yo son should be given neither more nor less weight than the life of 92yo diabetic demented corpulent Gladys in the nursing home. So I'm interested in weighing it up: action A causes X deaths, action B causes Y deaths, whether A>B or A<B determines whether we pursue action A or B.

It's certainly worth doing something which might kill 1,000 people if it saves another 2,000 lives, but reverse the numbers and we come to a different conclusion. For this we need numbers.

I'd be content to keep statistics statewide and weekly, even monthly, and in fact I'd be happy if we just reported "excess deaths from any cause". For example, we know that March and April saw 815 excess deaths in Victoria. Voluntary behaviours changed starting about March 1st, and government lockdowns March 23rd, with all of April having some sort of lockdown statewide. We know that covid deaths were 19 in March and April, and so 796 extra deaths occurred because of lockdown measures, both voluntary and state-imposed.

Thus, if lockdown measures saved 796 people from dying from covid in March and April, we're better off. At time of this writing, Australia has suffered 379 deaths and 23,035 cases overall; we have extensive testing and even in May it was assumed this led to capturing 85% of the infections, we've really taken off on testing then especially in Victoria so it'd be higher still now. Anyway this leads to a death rate of 1.64% in Australia. To get 796 more deaths from covid in Victoria in March and April we would have had to have 796/0.0164 = 48,000 infections, more or less. 800 infections a day, basically.

Is it reasonable to assume that some or all of the voluntary lockdown measures in the first part of March, and the mandated lockdown measures in the second part of March and all of April, prevented 800 infections a day? I think yes, it is. Note: this does not mean all the measures were necessary, it may be that some of them did nothing. If I have a cut and put on a bandaid and a tinfoil hat and stop bleeding, I should not necessarily conclude that tinfoil hats are useful - one or both of the two are useful, we need more than that single piece of data to decide. But we do know that something that was done in March and April made a difference.


For more recent months we don't have the data. As the linked article notes, Australia is unusually bad and slow at reporting and collating this data at a national level. We need to get better at that, because decisions must be informed decisions.


But we already have some other data. For example, other states did not have the same excess deaths we did. Victoria with one-quarter the country's population had one-half the excess deaths. What is different about Victoria? Well, we had the harshest lockdowns, and for the longest. And we've also since had the strongest resurgence of cases.


What else do we know? Well, until the second surge of cases, NZ and Victoria had very similar case and fatality rates. So the March-June data is that stage 4 (NZ version) vs stage 3 (Vic version) doesn't do much. Closing takeaways and Bunnings etc makes no difference. Thus, we can argue about stage 3 in Victoria, but the stage 4 we've been subjected to is punitive merely. Stage 4 is the tinfoil hat stage.


We also know that NZ has had another little bump in cases. Elimination appears to be impossible even for a relatively isolated island nation, so it'll certainly be impossible for the rest of us.


We also have data from Sweden, which has not had excess deaths since the start of July. I would note too that many of the deaths they had were avoidable. They deliberately denied medical care to the elderly because they wanted to keep hospitals free for an expected wave of younger patients who never came. Anticipatory triage. Indeed, they are even engaging in "active euthanasia", killing people against their will.


I would hope that if Australia adopted a Swedish approach to this, we would take some parts, but not others. We would not deny medical care to anyone if we had free hospital beds, and we certainly should not deliberately kill them against their will.


Like the young woman who is thinking about sex with a married man and really deserves to know he's married before she decides, our choices should be informed choices.

frugalnacho

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3572 on: August 17, 2020, 09:19:33 AM »
So 5M+ cases and 170k+ deaths in the USA and this thread is almost 100% about australia

Jouer

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3573 on: August 17, 2020, 11:11:55 AM »
It's pretty difficult because here in Australia we are not economic rationalists like in the U.S.

There is a lot of popular support for the lockdown and the prevailing attitude is that job losses can be filled in with free money from the government and that can be paid off by rich people's taxes later on.

There has been a bit of news about a spike in domestic violence and in calls to our depression hotline but no one seems keen to do the cost/benefit analysis in that sense.

Australians are generally not anti-government like Americans are - as Kyle said, we are a sheeplike people.

I don't mind the curfew and strict lockdown because I think it's worth tolerating for 6 weeks and then getting it over with. I think people will realise after this period is done that most of the really strict measures (especially the job lock-out) are not sustainable and that if these 6 weeks don't fix things we may just have to accept a certain level of infection and death going forward.
The “solution”, if there is one, needs to take into account the local culture.  What works for Australia may well not work in the US. I’m thinking that the first lockdown in the US with the exception of some real hotspots like NYC or Detroit didn’t work out so well. We wrecked our economy to not much benefit and got widespread COVID anyway.

Of course the problem in USA is you didn't really lock down enough or for long enough in many regions. Further, the messaging from gov't wasn't consistent or strong enough. You'd be over the worst of it months ago (at least first wave) if you watched how other countries handled things....but that's not the American Way. And so here you are with way too many deaths AND a hit to the economy.

the_fixer

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3574 on: August 17, 2020, 11:53:32 AM »
So 5M+ cases and 170k+ deaths in the USA and this thread is almost 100% about australia
Honestly I have given up discussing it with anyone, too many off the wall people (locally) with conspiracy theories, political biases or just flat out denial so I just mind my own business and take care of my family.

We tried having a discussion with my father in law yesterday about skipping going back to driving school busses (he is 75 years old with high risk conditions) as his area is pretty bad and he just went into a rant about how things will suddenly change after the election and that Nancy Pelosi, the media and the Democratic states are just making a big deal out of it to win the election and we just need to watch right after the elections Anthony Fauci will change his tune... mumble mumble mumble all of the Democrats just want us to lock everything down and kill the businesses and turn this country into a welfare state where everyone gets everything for free... mumble mumble mumble.

Today was his first day back driving the school buses full of grade and middle school age kids.


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mrs sideways

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3575 on: August 17, 2020, 03:11:26 PM »
Honestly I have given up discussing it with anyone, too many off the wall people (locally) with conspiracy theories, political biases or just flat out denial so I just mind my own business and take care of my family.

We tried having a discussion with my father in law yesterday about skipping going back to driving school busses (he is 75 years old with high risk conditions) as his area is pretty bad and he just went into a rant about how things will suddenly change after the election and that Nancy Pelosi, the media and the Democratic states are just making a big deal out of it to win the election and we just need to watch right after the elections Anthony Fauci will change his tune... mumble mumble mumble all of the Democrats just want us to lock everything down and kill the businesses and turn this country into a welfare state where everyone gets everything for free... mumble mumble mumble.

Today was his first day back driving the school buses full of grade and middle school age kids.

Jesus that's depressing. Best wishes for your family.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3576 on: August 17, 2020, 04:00:04 PM »
Genomic sequencing indicates 99%+ of our second wave cases came from a literal handful of security guards who contracted the disease from infected returning travellers.

It seems the guards were improperly trained and given poor advice about wearing PPE.

There will be evidence given at the inquiry today about how these guards managed to super-spread it to so many people in the community, so quickly. The typical sick person might infect 0, or 1, or 2 of their family members. In such a case you can, via contact tracing, keep a lid on the infections. This is what's been happening in all other states in Australia. E.g. New South Wales has had persistent low level infections and occasional breakouts but they've been able to contact trace without a general lockdown. In Victoria's case for one reason or another the small seed pool unleashed absolute hell. It will be really good to see what went wrong.

I'm still convinced the best way out of lockdown is to open up suburbs one at a time based on community transmission with a 5km travel radius still in place.

Travis

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3577 on: August 17, 2020, 05:38:40 PM »
So 5M+ cases and 170k+ deaths in the USA and this thread is almost 100% about australia

It's not like much has changed in the US as far as what governments are doing and how people are dealing with it.

If you want some depressing COVID news from closer to home I could screenshot you conversations I've been having with friends at various Army bases that are doing a shit job of enforcing PPE and quarantine.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3578 on: August 17, 2020, 06:35:34 PM »
Well, I don't know that I'd judge QALY based on whether someone is a criminal or a primary carer or whatever. But it would be good to know comorbidity info at least.

And it would be good also to have suburb-by-suburb breakdowns so we can better understand and assess things like:

Like this data?

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiODBmMmE3NWQtZWNlNC00OWRkLTk1NjYtMjM2YTY1MjI2NzdjIiwidCI6ImMwZTA2MDFmLTBmYWMtNDQ5Yy05Yzg4LWExMDRjNGViOWYyOCJ9

Thanks, I just looked at the drill down suburb numbers.

Truganina has 400+ active cases right now. It's in the west of Melbourne. Some of the residential suburbs in the east of Melbourne have 0-2 active cases right now. I can understand the whole city being locked down for 2-3 weeks for numbers to stabilise. But we really should be setting up a rolling thaw that starts with the eastern suburbs where there are a lot fewer cases and then slowly goes west. Sort of like the reverse of what we did with this lockdown, when it started first in the NW suburbs.

I'm surprised the geographical issue isn't being talked about, more. Frankly, there are a lot of uncomfortable social issues that seem to be getting swept under the rug:
- The disparity between suburbs in covid cases
- The role of religious celebrations in causing, or exacerbating, the second wave

We may hear more from today's enquiry. I think it's important we call a spade a spade.

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3579 on: August 17, 2020, 07:22:51 PM »
Mental Health, Substance Use, and Suicidal Ideation During the COVID-19 Pandemic 


U.S. adults reported considerably elevated adverse mental health conditions associated with COVID-19. Younger adults, racial/ethnic minorities, essential workers, and unpaid adult caregivers reported having experienced disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, increased substance use, and elevated suicidal ideation.

It's as I stated before, the poor/disadvantaged/marginalized/younger adults with less resources are getting hit the hardest. Supporting mandatory mass lockdowns is a selfish privilege of the entitled who can comfortably "shelter" in their work-from-home middle-class bubbles enabled by Amazon Prime and Uber. Apparently, the poor, marginalized, and younger generations don't matter as much as the wealthy.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2020, 07:26:39 PM by HBFIRE »

Kris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3580 on: August 17, 2020, 07:33:02 PM »
Mental Health, Substance Use, and Suicidal Ideation During the COVID-19 Pandemic 


U.S. adults reported considerably elevated adverse mental health conditions associated with COVID-19. Younger adults, racial/ethnic minorities, essential workers, and unpaid adult caregivers reported having experienced disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, increased substance use, and elevated suicidal ideation.

It's as I stated before, the poor/disadvantaged/marginalized/younger adults with less resources are getting hit the hardest. Supporting mandatory mass lockdowns is a selfish privilege of the entitled who can comfortably "shelter" in their work-from-home middle-class bubbles enabled by Amazon Prime and Uber. Apparently, the poor, marginalized, and younger generations don't matter as much as the wealthy.

Not to Republicans, anyway. Democrats have been trying to increase financial assistance and health care access to those populations since the beginning, but their efforts have been blocked.

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3581 on: August 17, 2020, 08:07:32 PM »


Not to Republicans, anyway. Democrats have been trying to increase financial assistance and health care access to those populations since the beginning, but their efforts have been blocked.

I don't think the point I'm making above is political, but this is definitely not the case.  Both sides have been pushing for relief bills, it's just that one side is trying to also mix in additional bills simultaneously. 

Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3582 on: August 17, 2020, 08:28:28 PM »
Unfortunately the enquiry has shed little light.

We now know that genomic sequencing suggests that 90% of all second wave cases can be linked to a single outbreak at a quarantine hotel where 1 staff member and 2 security guards (contractors) caught the virus from an overseas returning family.

But due to "privacy concerns" we're not being told how exactly the 3 infected spread the virus so widely. At least one of them must have been a super-spreader.

I'm sure someone knows, but the government department responsible (Department of Health and Human Services) is trying to stifle that knowledge from disseminating. Would it kill them to simply say "two security guards passed it onto their families at a religious celebration"? That is the rumour. Or if the rumour is false, by all means refute it.

Kris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3583 on: August 17, 2020, 08:53:53 PM »


Not to Republicans, anyway. Democrats have been trying to increase financial assistance and health care access to those populations since the beginning, but their efforts have been blocked.

I don't think the point I'm making above is political, but this is definitely not the case.  Both sides have been pushing for relief bills, it's just that one side is trying to also mix in additional bills simultaneously.

The point you were making was political, given your blame on “lockdowns” and therefore those who propose them. And this response is partisan and slanted, as well.

HBFIRE

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3584 on: August 17, 2020, 09:18:17 PM »


The point you were making was political, given your blame on “lockdowns” and therefore those who propose them. And this response is partisan and slanted, as well.

I don't consider the issue of lockdowns versus no lockdowns as a political one -- it shouldn't be at least.  I know it's been turned into a partisan issue and that's part of the problem.  This is why I avoided mentioning political positions.  One should be able to have an opinion on either side of this issue regardless of political affiliation.  For what it's worth, I lean more libertarian.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2020, 09:21:06 PM by HBFIRE »

Kris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3585 on: August 17, 2020, 10:55:10 PM »


The point you were making was political, given your blame on “lockdowns” and therefore those who propose them. And this response is partisan and slanted, as well.

I don't consider the issue of lockdowns versus no lockdowns as a political one -- it shouldn't be at least.  I know it's been turned into a partisan issue and that's part of the problem.  This is why I avoided mentioning political positions.  One should be able to have an opinion on either side of this issue regardless of political affiliation.  For what it's worth, I lean more libertarian.

Yes, well. Libertarian “both-sides-ism” is what I sensed from your second comment.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3586 on: August 18, 2020, 12:35:55 AM »

Of course the problem in USA is you didn't really lock down enough or for long enough in many regions. Further, the messaging from gov't wasn't consistent or strong enough. You'd be over the worst of it months ago (at least first wave) if you watched how other countries handled things....but that's not the American Way. And so here you are with way too many deaths AND a hit to the economy.
I respectfully disagree. With perfect 20/20 hindsight of course, the problem as I see it was an early over-reaction in most places in the US which undermined credibility. This combined with a completely inept response at the National and most states level that’s continuing on with an utter failure to consider American culture in crafting a response. Americans just don’t do obedience well. And once it became a political issue, we were pretty much screwed.

COVID has gone from being a problem in the US to being a dilemma. A lot of armchair warriors are suggesting all sorts of plans that will fail for lack of observance. There is no solution that will actually work that I’ve seen. So WYSIWYG.


Bloop Bloop

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3587 on: August 18, 2020, 01:02:47 AM »
The thing is though, Americans have continued to enjoy a lot of civic liberties which those in Asia and Australasia have given up.

I can't see many Americans agreeing to a 5km (3 mile) travel radius restriction, a complete ban on leaving home to do any work, or a curfew starting at 8pm. That's the Melbourne response. The US values its freedoms too much. I can definitely see that point of view, too, and empathise with it.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3588 on: August 18, 2020, 04:45:24 AM »
Of interest, this guy has plotted our cases in Victoria. As you can see from the graph, given the two week lag between measures brought in or lifted and a change in new cases, stage 3 plus masks brought numbers down; stage 4 has not yet shown any difference.

He also estimates that the measures have saved 1,133 lives.

https://tao.asvo.org.au/covidanalytics/static/staging/plot_new_cases.html

The ABC using ABS statistics tells us that the lockdown is killing about 400 people a month. And so over the 3 months of the graph showing 1,133 lives saved from covid, we will have 1,200 deaths from untreated diabetes and dementia, etc.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/coronavirus-australia-excess-deaths-data-analysis/12321162

That's an awful lot of running just to stay still.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2020, 04:55:30 AM by Kyle Schuant »

Paper Chaser

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3589 on: August 18, 2020, 04:48:36 AM »
Related to American willingness to fall in line or give everybody the finger, many contact tracing workers are (predictably) reporting uncooperative people in more than half of their cases:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/08/14/902271822/13-states-make-contact-tracing-data-public-heres-what-they-re-learning


deborah

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3590 on: August 18, 2020, 05:26:18 AM »
Of interest, this guy has plotted our cases in Victoria. As you can see from the graph, given the two week lag between measures brought in or lifted and a change in new cases, stage 3 plus masks brought numbers down; stage 4 has not yet shown any difference.

He also estimates that the measures have saved 1,133 lives.

https://tao.asvo.org.au/covidanalytics/static/staging/plot_new_cases.html

The ABC using ABS statistics tells us that the lockdown is killing about 400 people a month. And so over the 3 months of the graph showing 1,133 lives saved from covid, we will have 1,200 deaths from untreated diabetes and dementia, etc.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/coronavirus-australia-excess-deaths-data-analysis/12321162

That's an awful lot of running just to stay still.
The ABC graphs for Australia are quite interesting. The abnormal deaths before covid19 occurred in the states and territories where there were high levels of smoke at that time of the year. I’d be surprised if the ABC graphs weren’t showing the fire/smoke/abnormally high temperature excess deaths. Although it wasn’t reported, NT had more fires than usual as well as the eastern states. Since 80% of Namadgi National Park was burnt, and it’s about 80% of the ACT, and the ACT was getting the highest air pollution levels in the world when the nearby NSW fires were burning, the higher levels of unexpected deaths there than in other jurisdictions are also consistent.

From the covid19 graph you give, I would say the stage 4 lockdown has been effective, and that appears to be the conclusion he’s drawn. What aren’t I seeing?
« Last Edit: August 18, 2020, 05:31:52 AM by deborah »

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3591 on: August 18, 2020, 06:03:58 AM »
There were indeed excess deaths due to bushfire smoke in Australia, a parliamentary enquiry was told it was about 400 people in all - in January and February. So it precedes covid/lockdown effects.

Someone infected today will take 4-7 days to show symptoms, another 1-3 days to get tested, and 1-3 days (up to 10) to get results. Thus the standard has become that any new restriction introduced, or any restriction lifted, it'll take us 14 days to see if it had any effect on case numbers. So if something is introduced today August 18th, it's not going to help someone who was infected last week.

Looking at the graph, take the measures and shift them two weeks to the right, and you can see which had what effects.

In the first surge of cases, quarantining international arrivals had the single biggest effect, and after that stage 2 restrictions - no big wedding, football games, etc. Stopping people going to playgrounds or cafes etc had no effect, because the caseload was so small - if even 1% were infected (which would be 64,000 people in Victoria) that'd mean a few visiting a McDs each day and possibly passing it on, but it was more like 1 in 10,000, so the restrictions after stage 2 did nothing.

In the second surge of cases, the numbers of people infected and out in the community were higher, and so tighter restrictions such as closing cafes could have an effect. And that's why we see that stage 3 and wearing masks caused the cases to drop. Stage 4's effects, if any, will be shown in the next week or so.

However, the caveat to both stages 3 and 4 in this case is that the cases were mostly confined to a few workplaces. The ABC link below gives a nice graphic of the clusters.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704?nw=0

They're in healthcare, aged care, meatworks and warehousing, and a little bit in schools. Apart from closing the schools, the general restrictions of stages 3 and 4 didn't affect these places at all. However, some targeted measures such as PPE for abattoir workers and reducing staffing in meatworks and warehousing, along with restricting aged care staff to working at one facility, have slowed things down.

That said, the virus is simply burning though victims - if you shut down a workplace with 60 out of the 100 people infected and make them isolate themselves, you only expect at most another 200 or so cases from it - the other 40 staff, and the households of all 100. So it may not be stages 3 and 4 at all, it may simply be that we're identifying where there are outbreaks and containing them.

Long-term, that's what we need to do: get good at containing outbreaks. Doing what Taiwan etc did from day one: test, treat, track and trace. This is a useful thing whether we have lockdowns or not, because that way old Gladys might die, but Maeve doesn't. Currently they're both dying. But they're not dying because someone goes for doughnuts at 9pm or cycles for 65 minutes rather than 60.

But just looking at the graph, what you should get from it is that stage 3 gave us a decline in cases. Now, stage 4 may give us a more rapid decline, but I doubt it because it doesn't affect the places where the infections are actually happening. Which is why CHO Sutton rejected it on July 25th. Unfortunately, a politician is in charge, not Sutton.


deborah

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3592 on: August 18, 2020, 06:08:55 AM »
I was tested, and got results the same day. My mother is in Victoria, and she got tested and had results the same day too. There’s also testing of contacts. As a result, I would be pretty surprised if it was taking as long as 14 days before measures were having an impact. There ARE stories about results taking a while, but the media tend to highlight outliers.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2020, 06:11:35 AM by deborah »

ReadySetMillionaire

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3593 on: August 18, 2020, 06:52:00 AM »


Not to Republicans, anyway. Democrats have been trying to increase financial assistance and health care access to those populations since the beginning, but their efforts have been blocked.

I don't think the point I'm making above is political, but this is definitely not the case.  Both sides have been pushing for relief bills, it's just that one side is trying to also mix in additional bills simultaneously.

The problem has become political because, statistically speaking, Democrats have been unable to acknowledge the basic facts about the virus, while Republicans have not listened to the expert's advice.

So on the left, Democrats want over-draconian policies because they do not understand how the virus works and who it affects.  On the right, we have people who won't even do the basics.

So we are stuck in an endless tug-of-war where nobody can agree on anything.

https://www.franklintempletonnordic.com/investor/article?contentPath=html/ftthinks/common/cio-views/on-my-mind-they-blinded-us-from-science.html

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3594 on: August 18, 2020, 07:28:13 AM »
I would be pretty surprised if it was taking as long as 14 days before measures were having an impact.
You can be surprised, but that's the fact, it's the measure used internationally and here. It's also the reason for the 14 days of quarantine - if you were infected even a moment before you entered quarantined, if you were ever going to show symptoms it'd be by 14 days.

https://www.health.gov.au/news/australian-health-protection-principal-committee-ahppc-coronavirus-covid-19-statements-on-14-may-2020

In principle you might be asymptomatic but still contagious after 14 days, and this is the reason that more recently if the person refuses a test they stay in quarantine/isolation for another 10 days to allow any infection to be cleared from their system.

Thus, any measures introduced or removed will take 14 days to show an effect on daily case numbers, if any. Stage 3 and masks have got us the numbers we have today. Stage 4 may or may not make a difference.

The most comparable restrictions as seen in NZ (they banned takeaway, we allow it, they allowed a single home visitor, we don't, etc) to our stage 4 gave them the same infection and death rate as we saw over the same period with our stage 3 restrictions earlier in the year. If measures beyond our stage 3 made no difference to NZ then, I don't see why they'd make a difference to us now.

Again, that's the advice from the experts involved (as opposed to the academic commentary experts, or random idiots like me). It takes 14 days. Which means stage 3 and masks worked, and stage 4 has not yet had a chance to show any effect. I doubt it will, but I also doubt anyone prominent will admit that. "I took an aspirin and wore a tinfoil hat, and my headache is gone. You can't prove the tinfoil hat didn't work!" And that's really been a problem whenever we've introduced or removed measures: we did a whole bunch of things at once or close together, and we didn't wait long enough to see if they'd have an effect or not.

GuitarStv

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3595 on: August 18, 2020, 07:33:48 AM »


Not to Republicans, anyway. Democrats have been trying to increase financial assistance and health care access to those populations since the beginning, but their efforts have been blocked.

I don't think the point I'm making above is political, but this is definitely not the case.  Both sides have been pushing for relief bills, it's just that one side is trying to also mix in additional bills simultaneously.

The problem has become political because, statistically speaking, Democrats have been unable to acknowledge the basic facts about the virus, while Republicans have not listened to the expert's advice.

So on the left, Democrats want over-draconian policies because they do not understand how the virus works and who it affects.  On the right, we have people who won't even do the basics.

So we are stuck in an endless tug-of-war where nobody can agree on anything.

https://www.franklintempletonnordic.com/investor/article?contentPath=html/ftthinks/common/cio-views/on-my-mind-they-blinded-us-from-science.html

Interesting.  Can you describe what you see as the unacknowledged basic facts about the virus, and over-draconian policies that the Democrats are attempting?

former player

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3596 on: August 18, 2020, 07:40:02 AM »
I would be pretty surprised if it was taking as long as 14 days before measures were having an impact.
You can be surprised, but that's the fact, it's the measure used internationally and here. It's also the reason for the 14 days of quarantine - if you were infected even a moment before you entered quarantined, if you were ever going to show symptoms it'd be by 14 days.

https://www.health.gov.au/news/australian-health-protection-principal-committee-ahppc-coronavirus-covid-19-statements-on-14-may-2020

In principle you might be asymptomatic but still contagious after 14 days, and this is the reason that more recently if the person refuses a test they stay in quarantine/isolation for another 10 days to allow any infection to be cleared from their system.

Thus, any measures introduced or removed will take 14 days to show an effect on daily case numbers, if any. Stage 3 and masks have got us the numbers we have today. Stage 4 may or may not make a difference.

The most comparable restrictions as seen in NZ (they banned takeaway, we allow it, they allowed a single home visitor, we don't, etc) to our stage 4 gave them the same infection and death rate as we saw over the same period with our stage 3 restrictions earlier in the year. If measures beyond our stage 3 made no difference to NZ then, I don't see why they'd make a difference to us now.

Again, that's the advice from the experts involved (as opposed to the academic commentary experts, or random idiots like me). It takes 14 days. Which means stage 3 and masks worked, and stage 4 has not yet had a chance to show any effect. I doubt it will, but I also doubt anyone prominent will admit that. "I took an aspirin and wore a tinfoil hat, and my headache is gone. You can't prove the tinfoil hat didn't work!" And that's really been a problem whenever we've introduced or removed measures: we did a whole bunch of things at once or close together, and we didn't wait long enough to see if they'd have an effect or not.
There is a difference between something having an impact (the point deborah was making) and something being demonstrated to have an impact (the point you were making).  The differential between the two works both ways: things get worse before it can be demonstrated that they are getting worse and things get better before they can be demonstrated to be getting better.

It helps a discussion if a point based on one modality is not given an attempt at an answer based on a different modality.

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3597 on: August 18, 2020, 07:50:33 AM »


Not to Republicans, anyway. Democrats have been trying to increase financial assistance and health care access to those populations since the beginning, but their efforts have been blocked.

I don't think the point I'm making above is political, but this is definitely not the case.  Both sides have been pushing for relief bills, it's just that one side is trying to also mix in additional bills simultaneously.

The problem has become political because, statistically speaking, Democrats have been unable to acknowledge the basic facts about the virus, while Republicans have not listened to the expert's advice.

So on the left, Democrats want over-draconian policies because they do not understand how the virus works and who it affects.  On the right, we have people who won't even do the basics.

So we are stuck in an endless tug-of-war where nobody can agree on anything.

https://www.franklintempletonnordic.com/investor/article?contentPath=html/ftthinks/common/cio-views/on-my-mind-they-blinded-us-from-science.html


I'm curious: which facts about the virus do you think the Democrats do not understand?

I'd prefer peer-reviewed sources from actual clinicians, epidemiologists, and/or biomed scientists rather than an opinion blog from the CIO of a financial company whose entire academic and professional career has been in the field of economics.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3598 on: August 18, 2020, 11:46:59 AM »


I'm curious: which facts about the virus do you think the Democrats do not understand?

I'd prefer peer-reviewed sources from actual clinicians, epidemiologists, and/or biomed scientists rather than an opinion blog from the CIO of a financial company whose entire academic and professional career has been in the field of economics.

LOL. I think you answered your own question with your preference for clinicians, epidemiologists and biomed scientists. All of those scientists have an important role BUT you also need to other scientists such as economists, sociologists, psychologists, and possibly anthropologists to figure out how to approach the issue. The proferred solution used by other countries of long term lockdowns haven’t worked in the US and aren’t going to. We can wish all we want that people will abide by them, but they won’t. So given a disobedient population that distrusts many experts and often detests their political leadership, how do you fight a pandemic? The medical field can’t really answer that question because a lot of the underlying issues are outside of their technical expertise.

OtherJen

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Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?
« Reply #3599 on: August 18, 2020, 12:07:09 PM »


I'm curious: which facts about the virus do you think the Democrats do not understand?

I'd prefer peer-reviewed sources from actual clinicians, epidemiologists, and/or biomed scientists rather than an opinion blog from the CIO of a financial company whose entire academic and professional career has been in the field of economics.

LOL. I think you answered your own question with your preference for clinicians, epidemiologists and biomed scientists. All of those scientists have an important role BUT you also need to other scientists such as economists, sociologists, psychologists, and possibly anthropologists to figure out how to approach the issue. The proferred solution used by other countries of long term lockdowns haven’t worked in the US and aren’t going to. We can wish all we want that people will abide by them, but they won’t. So given a disobedient population that distrusts many experts and often detests their political leadership, how do you fight a pandemic? The medical field can’t really answer that question because a lot of the underlying issues are outside of their technical expertise.

The poster specifically said "about the virus," not the socioeconomic issues related to the virus. Neither of you have answered my question sufficiently.