Stricter rules have been announced over the weekend, with business leaders and politicians alike sticking to the “war-time” analogy.
Meanwhile, Australia’s isolation measures may be working as a third stimulus package is due to be announced today.
Factory shutdowns would be ‘virtue-signalling’
Closing Australia’s steel making factories to protect workers would be nothing but a symbolic gesture, Tony Shepherd, former Business Council of Australia president and chair of Tony Abbott’s 2014 commission of audit, has said.
Quoted in The Australian, Shepherd warned shutting down vital economic sectors without evidence of coronavirus transmission was “virtue-signalling on a scale that’s unbelievable”. He has also written a column in the Daily Telegraph urging leaders to “keep a cool head” and keep plants open.
“We want to feel like we’re all doing the right thing, but we need a fact-based approach,” he told Crikey. “It’s virtue-signalling”.
“Don’t close it down just for the sake of it — after one case, shut it down, test everyone and get it going again once that person is isolated,” he said.
“There’s a risk, of course there’s a risk … but we’re at war and you have to take some risk. Manufacturing, we need it to survive. Who is going to make ventilators without these [manufacturing] plants?”
War-time measures
As hospital workers stress about a severe shortage of personal protection, with doctors claiming they are being asked to reuse coronavirus face masks, Health Minister Greg Hunt has said the country is producing masks on a “war-time scale”.
“That’s ramping up and industry is stepping up. The army is helping with the production of those masks,” he said on ABC’s News Breakfast this morning.
Another cash splash
The “single largest measure” to support workers and the economy will be announced today, with a wage subsidy expected to provide up to $1500 a fortnight for full-time workers. Parliament will need to be recalled to legislate the package.
New rules and police patrols
Strict new advice was announced on Sunday night by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, limiting gatherings from 10 people to two. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the state will implement the rules from midnight tonight, enforced by a heavy police presence.
Morrison said shopping centres are yet to remain open to purchase essentials… you know, things like toilet paper, groceries and jigsaw puzzles. Federal public servants have also finally been given the go-ahead to work from home.
Meanwhile, all foreign investment will be subject to approval by the Federal Investment Review Board, who will assess if it is in the “national interest” to protect Australian assets.
It comes as Australia’s curve shows signs of flattening, with the rate of increase in cases falling from 25-30% a day to 13-15%.
There’s an app for that
Following weeks of mixed messages and confusion around rules and procedures, the Australian government has released an official app to provide information, press releases and updates. A WhatsApp chat has also been established to provide information on the latest coronavirus data figures and restrictions.
First-class quarantine
Thousands of travellers returning to Australia have been shuttled into five-star hotels including Melbourne’s Crown Promenade and the InterContinental and Novotel Darling Harbour in Sydney for 14 days in quarantine.
Despite the five-star accommodation, travellers have complained of living in “quarantine hell” with no fresh air, no UberEats delivery, security guards roaming the halls and no laundry service. Reportedly, there was also no sparkling water on tap and the braised pheasant was overcooked (though, to be fair, reports of toddlers and diabetics missing meals isn’t great).
But they have a pretty sweet deal compared with travellers returning from Wuhan in February. Evacuees were held on Christmas Island. WA cruise ship passengers are to be quarantined on Rottnest Island, living among the quokkas.
Urns in Wuhan tell a different story
Photos of stacks of urns in Wuhan have emerged on social media, putting the Chinese government’s official fatality rate in question. One funeral home shipped in 5000 urns across two days, with another ferrying 3500 urns.
Just over 3000 deaths have been recorded in the Hubei province as photos of life returning to normal in China flood government media sites.
Problems plague Queensland elections
Queensland’s local government and state by-elections went ahead, despite social distancing rules. Thanks to technical issues, results are yet to be finalised with more than half a million people voting via mail to avoid leaving their homes amid the pandemic.
United State’s worrying statistics
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s leading expert on infectious diseases and member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, has warned between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans will die from COVID-19.
Cases have risen dramatically around the country, with more than 137,294 confirmed cases and 2,436 deaths.
The Milan microbiologist Maria Rita Gismondo calls on the Italian government to stop communicating the daily number of „corona positives“ as these figures are „fake“ and put the population in unnecessary panic. The number of test-positives depends very much on the type and number of tests and says nothing about the state of health.
Try not publishing data and see what happens on soshul medja.
I’d agree that national cross comparisons are very often apples and pears as each country has determined different protocols for testing or more correctly not testing. Those with policy responsibility need accurate figures relevant to their National situation and populations need some idea as to what’s being done to reinforce compliance in support of policy.
John, do believe saving people is more important than saving the economy? So do i. But if you don’t save the economy the Cor19 will be a distant memory compared to the damage done to people living in a crashed economy.
Re the “Urns in Wuhan tell a different story” section. What different story does it tell, some 8,000 urns have been delivered to Wuhan, I assume that not all of these will be for victims of the Covid-19 outbreak. I also assume that like many other cultures the Chinese sometimes have more than one urn per funeral, for example someone dies and they have a partner and two adult children, it’s not impossible that their remains would be put into three urns, one for each family member. Also not everyone who died in Wuhan died from Covid-19, people die every day from all manner of things, surely it’s possible that a number of funerals/cremations for people who died of other diseases, accidents or even old age, were held up because of the lock down in Wuhan. Yes by all means lets be doubtful about China truthfulness, we have good reason to be, but lets not go full conspiracy theory over what appears to be an easily explained result of a serious disease outbreak and the major lock down to deal with it.