NPR’s Hidden Brain podcast last week devoted an episode to the folly of hindsight bias and the assumption we make that if there’s a bad outcome, then the processes that led up to it must have been flawed.
Hidden Brain cited the horrific example of police officer Joseph Gray, a drunk driver in Brooklyn who ran a red light and accidentally killed a 23-year-old pregnant mother of two and her unborn child. Gray was sentenced to 15 years jail for his crimes, which many felt appropriate given the horrific ramifications of his actions.
Gray’s real crime was driving while intoxicated, something that happens all too frequently. Had Gray been pulled over a block before the accident occurred, no one would have died and he would have potentially lost his licence for six months. Instead, it was both drunkenness and bad luck which led to the tragic fatalities.
The Victorian hotel quarantine outbreak, which triggered a second COVID spike and its more-than 700 deaths is in the same category.
The main criticism of the Victorian government is that it chose to use private security guards rather than defence force personnel to supervise hotel quarantine. The guards then contracted the virus from returning travellers and it ran rampant through the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
The problem with this narrative is that other states, including “gold standard” NSW and WA, used private security guards who also breached basic rules. Moreover, security guards make far more sense than the dystopian scenario of heavily armed soldiers patrolling an Australian city like a scene out of The Handmaid’s Tale.
We blame Dan Andrews for the private guards because that is what led up to the disaster. But it wasn’t the real mistake. The three big errors the Victorian government has made were less obvious.
The first real mistake was Victoria’s inept, highly centralised, pen-and-paper-based contact tracing capabilities. Andrews stands accused of reducing the size of Victoria’s contact tracing team (a claim he has denied) while the virus was multiplying in late May and early June.
In June, when contact tracing should have been in full swing, Victoria had a team of only 56 people using no technology. Several months earlier, NSW had wisely scaled up its digitised and localised contract tracing to more than 150.
The second mistake Victoria made was quarantining all travellers in commercial hotels. As we discussed last week, Australia and New Zealand are virtually alone in forcing hotel quarantine. Instead, we could have used basic devices like ankle tags to make sure returning travellers were properly quarantining at home and forcing only those who tested positive on arrival into state-run facilities.
The sheer volume of people being quarantined led to the mass hiring (and non-existent training) of guards. Had there only been one or two hotels used with a small team of trained guards, it’s highly unlikely that there would have been a second wave.
The third error? Failing to properly account for all the costs of lockdown on society. Andrews was far too cautious in May. While NSW was quick to reopen its schools, it took Andrews six more weeks to fully reopen (before Victoria slipped into its horrific second wave).
Andrews then cherry-picked his medical experts to justify his overly-cautious approach in August and September, allowing him to allege medical justification for the harsh lockdown. In August, Andrews based his stage four lockdown on the advice of Tony Blakely, who a few weeks earlier had released a research paper which recommended a hard, six-week lockdown to try to achieve “elimination”.
When Blakely turned against Andrews in September, Andrews suddenly stopped relying on Blakely’s advice and turned to the Burnet Institute, which in July claimed Victoria’s lockdown would save 18,000 lives. (The Burnet Institute has been part of a group of bodies to receive millions of dollars in COVID-19 funding from the Victorian government.)
While epidemiologists criticise the seemingly endless lockdown, Andrews persists, petrified of the political consequences of a third wave. Meanwhile, a Melbourne doctor this week warned that she was “treating between 15 and 20 mental health conditions each day, compared with about five a day last year”.
The Andrews government woefully mishandled its COVID-19 response which has led to almost 800 deaths. But it was an incompetent public health response, a lack of common sense and a paranoid political will to survive that were the problems — not private security guards.
While I don’t disagree with most of this commentary, it relates to decisions made after the pandemic took hold. The public service apparatus which proved inadequate to the task had been through decades of “efficiency dividends”, and outsourcing both of core functions, and of responsibility. Ministers have been progressively insulated from their departments by political advisors, and depend on consultants for expertise which ought to be within their departments. We should not be surprised that the system was woefully unprepared, and before the next crisis hits us, it is the system which needs reform and resourcing.
I agree. There’s been far too much emphasis on blaming people, ‘witch-hunting’ in effect, and partisan criticism of the government instead of examining the systemic defects of the privatising-outsourcing-sub-contracting mindset which today permeates every public service and municipal council in the country, no matter who’s in government.
Adam, I agree with your first three points, but there’s a root cause behind them all, and that’s the culture of managerialism and the devaluation of expertise in the Victorian public service, particularly health. This began under Jeff Kennett in a massive upheaval that destabilised health care, but it’s continued under successive ALP and Liberal Governments.
The ex-Minister was a lawyer by training, she has had no health training, could you imagine the Attorney-General’s Department being headed by a chef or a travel-agent? It just wouldn’t happen. Treasury is rarely headed by an economist, but the Minister has senior officials that have the required expertise to give him or her informed advice. Senior health bureaucrats are MBAs or B Ec graduates, in the main, with no direct health education. People like Brett Sutton, prior to the pandemic, could give as much advice as he wanted, but that advice would be filtered by layers of uninformed before it eve got to the Minister. Hence the antiquated contact tracing capacity in Victoria.
The centralised nature of the health bureaucracy has also worked against a nimble response, all decisions are made in Collins Street, often with no local input, and still marginalises important local resources like local GPs (who, remember were attacked by Jenny Mikakos early in the pandemic).
Your issue about modelling misses the point somewhat. All modelling is incorrect, some is less incorrect than others. Modelling is a dynamic process, constantly changing, sometimes some models are better predictors than others, depending on the assumptions used and the available data, so changing models is not unusual.
As a psychiatrist, mu own experience is that there has been a large demand on mental health resources, we can deal with that (with resources), we can’t bring back the dead. I support the current response.
Remember, an effective public health response always feels like an over-reaction
As long as you are not personally the person with serious mental issues bought on by this tragic mismanagement, it’s all ok isn’t it? Just like if you don’t know personally one of the 800 people who died than it’s also all ok. Right?
I have mental health problems that certainly haven’t been improved by lockdowns. My wife is on immuno-suppresive medication and would be at high risk if she got Covid.
I would rather be in therapy than a widower.
This is a small excerpt of something I’ve had sent off to ‘awaiting for approval’;
“Of the patients who hadn’t had a stroke or brain-bleed, 59 percent “presented with altered mental status [that] fulfilled the clinical case definitions for psychiatric diagnoses as classified by the notifying psychiatrist or neuropsychiatrist,” and 92 percent of those “were new diagnoses.”
These included “new-onset psychosis” (43 percent), “neurocognitive (dementia-like) syndrome” (26 percent), and an “affective [mood-distorting] disorder” (17 percent).
Of the patients with an “altered mental status,” 49 percent were younger than 60 and 51 percent were over 60…..”
Those are some of the people who became infected, and were the leftovers after 62 % of symptomatic COVID patients had presented with a “cerebrovascular (blood vessels of the brain) event” i.e. those that hadn’t had a stroke or brain bleed.
Source? Lancet.
People like Schwab assume they know a lot more than they do. That’s dangerous.
Interesting. Does the research have a title that can be either searched on google or on Lancet?
I would like to to run a regression on age and blood group; ACE2 would be ideal (but I am not expecting it).
The conclusion could be generalized to a fair percentage of the subscribers. I think it is known as something like “dog and tail” David.
If they’d ‘release the hounds’ from ‘awaiting for approval’, Erasmus, you’d have at least the clues to chase down what you’re after.
Barked at ’em about this latest farce around 7 hours ago, and nuttin’ back.
Mentioned I was quoting the likes of Lancet, ‘Brain’, NYT’s (quoting prima facie qualified practitioners), and bupkis in response.
Here ya go, another excerpt, just as a punt that it might slip by the gatekeepers;
“As colleges started pulling their athletes back onto campus late this summer, Ohio State University found 26 students—football, soccer, lacrosse, basketball and track—who tested positive for COVID.
Fourteen never had any symptoms and a dozen had “mild” symptoms. None had been so sick they required hospitalization or even oxygen or drug support. All believed they had fully recovered, some as many as 53 days out from their positive test.
Out of an abundance of caution—and some curiosity—the university asked those 26 elite athletes to pop themselves into an MRI machine so they could check out their hearts.
Fully 15 percent of them had ongoing “signs of inflammation to the heart muscle” (myocarditis).
Over at Penn State, the teams’ doctor said of the Big Ten athletes who’d tested positive for COVID that “30 to roughly 35 percent of their heart muscles” showed evidence of myocarditis. “[W]e really just don’t know what to do with it right now,” he added.”
Key mention from Doc?
‘We really just don’t know…’.
Neither do I and, sure as hell, neither does Schwab.
ha ha. Caused me to giggle like a school girl. Bloody interesting case studies. I wonder if the
myocarditis was a function of epithelial cell or (more likely) a cytokine storm.
I suppose I could ask Schawb or the other scientist, Napier-Raman, but I think I will contact the references.
Given that a vaccine for a virus *is* a subset of the virus the prospect of a side-effect free vaccine is not promising(!) – and hence some possible censorship. I did wonder at Oxford returning to the drawing board so quickly: otherwise the mistakes are beneficial. Ted Jenner did not have to concern himself with ethics committees.
I refuted a claim by Griselda Lammington earlier today on raw first order stats, prior to reading your post, but I may have to jot her a line on the pathology (or Schawb can do so) as to receptor attachments of corona viruses towards the end of this new month.
My Covid19 model, that commenced life as 50 lines of Python code, is spinning out of control.
From a position of bog standard lay ignorance, Erasmus, I’d lean cytokine storm(s) – it struck me the first time I heard the term (which was around March, to do with thuh VIRUS!!), that the word “storm” was probably relevant. Recent performances in recovering from storms, of whatever nature, but particularly the ones borne of nature, were likely a clue.
On the vaccine question, it’s interesting to compare ‘templates’. The Oxford version – which has been given the nod to resume trials – everywhere bar the USofA, stumbled after a few detections of inflammation in spinal fluids. Only indications, of course, but caution warranted.
Otherwise, the Limeys are looking likely to run aground for using the live virus vaccine template – and asking for volunteers to have a jab of something they are very, very unwilling to explain.
Interestingly, the Russians are quietly confident they have the right template (incl not ‘live’ virus), and a very solid prospect of ‘winning the race’.
A very long history of dealing with diseases starting in the lungs, and big fans of the TB vaccine. They were one of the first to try booster shots as both a treatment for COVID, and as a layer of protection for health workers from COVID. Since then, various other nations have launched similar efforts, incl a trial in Sth Oz with health workers – results pending. And, of further interest, is the fact that some trial vaccine protocols include the TB vaccine in the jab regime.
On ‘The Whisperer’, he was the first to stand up the effectiveness of using the blood plasma of recovered virus infectees, cos of the anitbodies, to treat later sufferers – to documented positive effect – 1930’s, maybe ’40’s, when he did that.
While I’m here, and on the subject of ‘expertise’, a quote from an American in a discussion about which people know what about the basics of high end science, particularly the science of making ‘hi tech stuff’;
“Russians as “notoriously strong in math, physics and rigorous design work.” People would pay top dollar for legitimate translations of Russian Math and Engineering books. It is just a completely different approach.”
It certainly seems to be, given their rockets. As much as the Yanks love to sanction Russians, they still buy their rockets to get ’em into space – ask Elon Musk.
Ever heard of Andrei Martynov?
> Ever heard of Andrei Martynov?
Who has not heard of him? He is a major international strategist whom, I understand, the major committees of the PRC take rather seriously.
In fact a fair wack of his material has (I could argue) influenced developments in the Indian Ocean (at the cost to India) by the PRC.
“Russians as “notoriously strong in math, physics and rigorous design work.”
Agreed. There are two countries that I like and could live very easily. One is France and the other is Russia. I have a few Russian friends and some are teachers/directors at high schools and universities.
The education system in Russia is not too different to that of the PRC or Singapore, HK, Taiwan and Japan for that matter. There is a LOT of rote learning in the early years so as to obtain a body of knowledge from which to examine points of view. The Western system, over the last 35 years,
encourages students to express opinions upon no basis whatsoever; in other words : to rant.
There are quite a few Russians teaching physics (in the main) in the PRC. There were two Russian teachers at an Experimental School where I happened to be some years ago in the PRC. The medium as English for the (English/UK A-Level syllabus).
About 20 years ago, there was a tap on the door of the apartment of a friend. A fifteen year old high school student, armed with text, exercise book, calculator and a few pens etc. asked my friend (a chemistry teacher) for help with a problem. It wasn’t her first visit; in fact Irina tended to tutor the entire block of flats in science.
At the end of it all, I took a look at the problem and it concerned a question on isomerism (highly relevant to toxins or, for that matter, fake chocolate)! Monash or Melbourne would treat this subject with their higher-end 1st year students but it would be a 2nd year topic at places such as RMIT, Deakin etc.
VCE would be about 3 years (at least 2 years) below the Russian high school standard and it is even higher in countries such as Estonia. Lee Kuan Yew’s “white trash” quip of 40 years ago is actually quite real.
I have taught STEM stuff in Australia, NZ, the PRC and Russia and the systems are chalk and cheese. Not so long ago, a subscriber attempted the conjecture that the citizens in the PRC would not know up from down. I can’t say but I doubt if
the guy has ever been out of his State but the knowledge base didn’t seem to extend beyond that of a newspaper.
It is also rather sad. There is extensive under-employment in Russia; astro physicists selling cameras etc. Yet, the penny dropped for Obama at the end of the G20 in Brisbane in 2014.
There has been only ONE ‘Friendship Medal” awarded by the PRC and that was given to Putin by Xi. The event occupied the entire front page of the China Daily. I will never forget it.
The commercial and political phobia that Trump has is, I’m sure, quite real in regard to a Sino-Russian nexus over the next decade. It doesn’t stop with the sanctions; there is the Syrian thing (I was living there just prior to to it blowing up) but such is another topic.
As for the yanks, their management isn’t too bad but for technical expertise (just look at the photos of the development or programming teams at Microsoft, Google or Intel etc.) have been “buying off the shelf” for decades. It is what the visa stuff is all about currently.
Interesting you should mention Microsoft, Erasmus.
This is a comment posted by an American in response to a piece by the fella I regard as having few peers in ‘foreign correspondence'(he used to write for the Grauniad but, you know, he had to go;
“The operating system for the Russian Elbrus 8 chip (derived from the Sparc chip) is also a derivative of Debian and in at least some of the government ministries I believe that Russia got rid of Microsoft Windows some years ago. Russia is also building 5G in the Far East using Huawei technology, and so that integration with China will doubtless go further pretty quickly.
When I visited the Computing Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences in November 1993, they had a graphical user interface that was as good as Windows that could run on Intel 286 chips, whereas Windows required a 386 chip as a minimum in those far-off days. They did not have the application programmes but then Windows did not have much of MS Office either in those days. Self-evidently their programming was much more efficient than Microspft could manage. One private company that was trading with China then had developed its own sopphisticated database using the APL programming language, which the USA had thought was their ‘ace in the hole’ until they discovered in late 1992 that Russia had been using it for some years. The ASCII equivalent programme J was also in use, including for neural networking at that time, and a simplified kind of neural networking (adaptive learning network) was already in use for nuclear safety. AI, anyone?”
Below a piece by Pepe Escobar, at thesaker.is’, 29/9 and headed;
“China deploys Sun Tzu to prevail in the Chip War”
They have (‘deployed’) and will (‘prevail’).
Why?
“The key is carbon nanotubes, many decades all tech, but only fairly recently so important to the semiconductor industry and, now, to China and Russia as they break from the US domination and hegemony.
Also, interestingly, from Pepe himself;
“Some of the best tech brainpower in South Korea happens to be Russian.
Also a question – ‘”what happens if Samsung changes operating system, and sides?
For mine; ‘Game over’.
It’s coming.
> Interesting you should mention Microsoft, Erasmus.
Kinda a long story but I would offer a technical hand when Microsoft established itself in Australia. The “office” was in Frenches Forrest (if I recall) and the “boardroom” was the kitchen (the board-table being the kitchen table) of the first (female) CEO in Australia in 1988. In addition to some office stuff such as Multiplan the main staples where the Macro Assembler (for Intel processors), Fortran, Pascal and “C” in that order. Then QuickC turned up which was a US$100 version of the main “C” product; having learned something from a product known as Turbo Pascal (no linking – the entire shebang was pulled into RAM).
At that time, I was sent a photo of the “C” programming team; there was not a Caucasian face to be seen. From the auto-bios, all were on green cards with less than two years residency.
Adding to what you wrote, the average subscriber might be inclined to search “Supercomputing in China” on W.pedia. The operating system, in all cases, is a variant of Red Hat Linux and is capable of competing with a “Cray”; top end USA product.
Years ago, while at a restaurant with a group of programmers in Bangalore I mentioned the opportunity that India has for developing its own
business operating system. The replies were interesting and had a bit to do with overcoming initial corruption in the first place.
In similar circumstances, although the group comprised some Party members, I made a similar remark in Hangzhou (a large Ali-Baba node). The reaction, this time, was expressionless but a grin could be ascertained on each straight face (as might be the reaction to a 9 year old having stated the obvious).
> was as good as Windows that could run on Intel 286 chips
There was a wide variation of “white box” 286 product. The top end was HP and Compaq and that stuff (especially with a \87 chip – for floating point – i.e. mathematical – operations installed onto the board) could run Windows to the advent of W95. Maxing out the memory to 2M (quaint now) did assist matter too.
As an aside, IBM put a limit of 640k addressable RAM by a programmer into their PCs. Other competing product (e.g. Sirius) could address
896k on the same 8086/8 processor but, in the day, one was never fired for buying IBM. Amadal (mainframes) knocked IBM off its perch by playing the same game but we won’t digress.
> Also a question – ‘”what happens if Samsung
> changes operating system, and sides?
Shinzo Abe bailed out at the zenith of his career. Suga Yoshihide would have to be rather gutsy to accept a game of which the PRC is in 100% command. Headlines from parochial rags such as “Has China the right to dictate to the world” prove the point. Apparently, according to such and similar headlines, the USA *did* have the right to dictate to the world. [There exists even a trace at Crikey].
Domestically (for Russia and Asia generally) there is a very large industry of [I will use the translated Vietnamese street jargon – since I’m here] “windows facilitators” or “windows donors”. For about A$12 a version of W10 (with bodgy but functional key) can be installed – because the arithmetic on the key -i.e. the intended result – has been exploited (hacked if one prefers).
The “sales” are organised, quite openly, using social media. In fact the practice amounts to a major revenue source for students. Yet governance in Asia, including Singapore, is by decree. I fully anticipate a domestic version of a common operating system to be distributed within the next three to five years that will likely be based upon Linux or BSD. The Mac O/S (Mojave or Catalina or whatever) is nothing more than tweaked (free – no cost) BSD. If Mac can manage it then anyone in Asia (or Russia) can manage it. As an aside, if memory serves, BSD made its appearance at Berkeley in 1974 (or 73); someone else can look it up.
Addressing your question, believe it or not, there is a very great Trump following in S.Korea. Each Saturday in Seoul there is a major pro Trump parade complete with prizes for the best impersonated “Trumps” and some are very good indeed. My bet is that Samsung will have a dollar each way until the yanks throw Samsung out of the American market for being a “traitor”.
What is utterly imbecilic about the entire affair *is* that no one has the guts for a war (over the Silk and Belt or the South China Sea) but a sizeable majority (even in Oz) concur with the Trump/Biden perspective and NOT with a perspective of co-operation. Another opportunity to enter the “big time” passes Australia by.
Erasmus I read your comments with interest and by no means discount your obvious erudition. With respect to your comments regarding comparative mortality rates I might point out that the overwhelming number of road deaths result from the poor choices of an individual, while a great many cancer deaths might also be said to result from poor choices (over a longer time frame than car crashes) by an individual. Covid-19 infection, by comparison, might be perceived to be a more random hazard, which might go some way to explaining the great social efforts directed at containing it…
David Thompson clearly has an informative list of subs from which he obtains information. We will see where his latest references lead (I am fascinated) so you may not have to produce your “mounting evidence” at all; but let’s consider a few aspects.
Not everyone who uses the road is reckless (although how I made it to age 25 without dying, and without a major conviction, is the 8th wonder).
Similarly for cancers; many (quite a large percentage) are bad luck or from drawing the short straw. Take a look at the p53 gene (TP53)
sometime. The gene is a type of tumour suppressor although it was considered an oncogene some decades ago! Heavy smokers with p53 are (broadly) “off the hook”. Similarly, those without a trace of the gene could (with emphasis) develop a cancer tomorrow; or today.
Those whom report good health (no symptoms from anything) are seldom put through an MRI machine yet, according to David’s info, myocarditis was recorded in 15% of subjects (4/26) after almost two months post ‘recovery’ and an exercise at Penn State reports twice that incidence.
The new info doesn’t contradict what I submitted. Death by covid-19 for those under (say) 35 is negligible and tolerable under age 50. The percentages grow rapidly (see the two tables) post age 70.
The contribution of the new info is that what was considered to be roughly the gross death rate of 2% that percentage could be applied to that group of (elderly) patients were were not going to recover.
Full recovery, thus, in raw terms, was be deemed to be 96% or close to it. From to studies, reported by David, it seems that the recovery could be [98 – (35 to 15)]% which is still quite high – but does alter the picture.
The next step is to randomly test [that is the hard part] a large number of persons, over an equally large age range, who report good health and put them through an MRI as ‘controls’. Yes, there will be some chisellers who knowing that they suspect an ailment will be interested to, at no cost to themselves, ascertain confirmation but all data has white and black noise.
If 15% of the controls are strutting about with a significant but undetected ailment then one might conclude that such is the state of the population. Time will tell.
As to various approaches, Griselda, I don’t foresee repeated lock-downs being either politically or economically viable and some countries have declared that subsequent lock-downs will not be considered. Closing schools is ineffectual; especially if the students are to be in contact with grandparents.
Sweden is appearing more rational by the day. Eight hundred deaths in Victoria from a population of 6.3 million (85%+ of Australia’s total) is not a big deal
considering ALL economic (not just accounting) costs.
The “hope” six months ago was that it might be a three month wonder. It is becoming obvious, even to the likes of Andrews, that we will be contending with the virus (AS it MUTATES) for a while.
Having written the foregoing, I can live with anything; including Schawb being PM.
The same can be said for the Excel model I am currently using. Started of as a few macros/vba code and now is becoming a monster as variables are added. My background is Operational Research and data analysis, mostly airline related capacity v passenger load v profitability modelling as well as other financial/banking analysis, but I’m having a bit of fun with this model.
PS A light went off in my brain last week when my model predicted no passengers = no profit.
I am not doing anything “flash” Nota; what I have is a basic (SAR : susceptible, infected, removed) model that one would encounter in “upper end” epidemiology.
Given B(t) as the transmission rate with respect to time (wrt) and often expressed as a constant Ro;
e(t) as those exposed wrt time and an infection parameter as sigma or sigma(t) if we want the parameter as a function of time;
i(t) as infection wrt time, then with a constant gamma as a recovery rate (could be a function of time with the advent of a vaccine gamma(t) );
we have three differential equations as :
ds/dt = -B(t).s(t).i(t) where ds ;;; is the derivative of susceptibility
de/dt = B(t).s(t).i(t) – sigma.e(t) ;;; could be sigma(t).e(t) for version two
di/dt = sigma.e(t) – gamma.i(t); ;;; and similarly for gamma(t).i(t) later on.
You can see that these DEs form a matrix with the form [delta] = [A] [i(t)]
where A is a coefficient matrix and they have to be solved numerically – hence Python; or analytically with a bit of fudging.
What is spooky is that I am identifying a major global explosion somewhere between the 10 Nov to the 21 Nov; at least that is the 85% (not 95%) CI.
I don’t have any means to accurately measure the error so I won’t say any more (and I do hope that I am wrong) but we will see. It could prove
to be a double-whammy with Trump’s 2nd term (ha ha).
As to your aeroplane model, might I suggest a coefficient for freight that could have an influence upon the profit 🙂
Hopefully by next week I will have contacted some references that David Thompson provided and plug some (more) functions into the model. At least his exercise is keeping me out of bars in Hanoi.
Hmm, living in Melbourne means that the bars in Hanoi sound mighty appealing to me. I almost feel like saying “what’s a bar?”
Reducing the Ro is one thing but even with an open – slather model the deaths are much less than upper respiratory flu in a typical year; yet some advocate lock-downs. Separation is necessary but in time the situation in Melbourne and Auckland will come to be seen as an over reaction.
P.S. Ever heard of Lev Zilber a.k.a ‘The Virus Whisperer”. If not, look him up -fascinating character.
A lot of Nobels were won off ‘the Whisperer’s foundational work, and some of that work was done from inside Stalin’s Gulags.
Try starting with; “The Virology and Immunology of Cancer”, or ‘Encephalitis/ticks’.
As always, much appreciated David.
P.P.S. Just happened to have ABC Noos Telly on at the start of the Midnight bulletin.
Not coincidentally, cos they’re late, some of what is locked up ‘awaiting for approval’, particularly the ‘thematic’, was mentioned by the ABC’s London correspondent, ‘Sam’ Hawley.
To ‘conceptionalise’ that thematic – it doesn’t go away, even in people who’ve been told; ‘You’re clear’, no matter how many urgers bark to ‘open up’.
Mr Schwab’s analysis is far too facile. He also appears to assume that he is aware of Andrews’ motivations for strategies that he adopted, tweaked or abandoned without evidence – for instance, the reasons for Andrews’ approach to the Burnet Institute. While he refers to epidemiologists criticising the lockdown, he makes no reference to the highly accredited epidemiologists urging him not to reopen too soon. he makes yet another crack about the pen and paper system for contract tracing, when it has been shown time after time that at the beginning to the pandemic, all states and territories were using a similar system.
In short, I think that this article does not provide any significant insight into the reasons behind the second wave in Victoria.
Which illustrates the politics even amongst the consultants. Then the pollies cherry-pick for presuned electoral benefits.
Most people disagree with this perspective. Nothing facile about 800 dead people. Or 18,000 infections.
Missed the point again Adam. The fundamental problem is not what you say, it is that there was clearly an undercurrent of community transmission when Andrews lifted the restrictions in the face of overwhelming pressure form Morrison and the Murdoch media. In the case of schools, you clearly don’t know what you are talking about in terms of risks, so best say nothing. Do you remember how NSW said it doesn’t spread in schools? Then oops a cluster in a girls school that defied all the attempts og Berejiklian to prove it was transmitted outside schools. Suddenly, silence and a raft of new “covidsafe” rules for schools. Getting weary of your ignorance on these issues.
The reference to schools is something of a red herring. The infection rate for young people is (under 30) is sligh and the recovery is complete – for all practical purposes.
The principal statistic is hospital admission and NOT infectious. Then take a look at how age is distributed.
I fear you are a little forward with your assumptions about the impacts of the virus on people in different age groups. As the data starts to come in, there appears to be mounting evidence of serious morbidity issues for some young people whose initial case showed apparently mild symptoms. What proportion of these cases develop such symptoms, how long they last, and how severe they are only time will tell.
Thanks for the opportunity to expand upon my reply GL. I am always only too happy to provide additional detail and I always have a heap of facts to draw upon. You will find the website, ‘Statistic’ your friend.
To appease your anxiety, I have selected (“look mum : no hands”) Sweden and Australia. A survey of any country or indeed a State in the USA will yield the same profile; slightly biased for the USA on account of the melanin for a high percentage of the population.
For both countries the columns are ‘Age’ ‘deaths’ and ‘%’ of deaths of that age group to the total. The percentges are
clearly comparable keeping in mind that NO deaths have occurred in Oz under age 29
Sweden
Age deaths (%)
19 12 0.20
49 65 1.10
59 164 2.79
69 406 6.90
79 1268 21.6
80+ 3966 67.4
From Australia (30 Sept) the data is as follows. The website .health.gov advises that the D.Health has not received all data from the NNDSS but the proportions are clear.
Australia
Age deaths (%)
39 2 0.23
49 20 2.31
59 15 1.73
69 37 4.27
79 147 17.0
80+ 645 74.5
Let me know if you encounter problems reproducing the data. I can provide the (actual) links but the post will likely be embargoed for a while.
Perhaps you could cite the “mounting evidence” for me. The recovery for anyone under 40 is very high indeed;
NO post recovery issues but such is not the case post age 60 but their lives are over. The amount of money spent on geriatric medicine is obscene in terms (and most if it – easy to reproduce the evidence – in the last 6 months of life) of opportunity costs to the community.
This entire global saga is a joke GL. Do you know what the total road deaths were in Australia for last year (2019)? Answer 1,172 Currently, road deaths are at 1,135 or 97% with about 33% of the year remaining! Take a look at death by cancer in Oz, each year, for the last five years. To give you an idea, it is about 120 per day. In other words, about 10,700 people will snatch it from cancer to the end of the year (89 days).
Ergo : my original point : like the plumage of the parrot (death of the parrot sketch) : “it don’t enter into it”(!) and ditto for the under 30 brigade. QED.
Last tip : beware of down-voters on matters enquiring basic analysis because I have yet to encounter one who is remotely numerate.
It’s correct to point out that a bad outcome doesn’t necessarily suggest flawed decision making. A decision analyst would add the qualification that better decision making over time is associated with a higher frequency of good outcomes.
The rest of the article seems unrelated to this point, but if it was, in fact, a genuine effort to roll back the decision tree, I have questions:
1) Why would returned individuals who tested negative to covid-19 require ankle tags when individuals with locally acquired covid-19 did not require ankle tags?
2) Assuming there is a medical justification for returned individuals who tested negative to covid-19 to require an ankle tag, is it sufficient that they simply remain in place, or must we a) supply a roster of guards for each home quarantine location, or b) require ankle tags for all family, friends, and coworkers to ensure they either remain jointly in place, or do not visit the home quarantine location?
3) How is Andrew’s abundance of caution causally related to the second wave? The article fails to establish any link.