Covid 19

tillmanr · September 5, 2021

We had our own successful businessman, PM Turnbull.

I think he had a good chance of success but the BS side of politics killed that stone dead. PS I don’t like him.

Edited September 5, 2021 by tillmanr
Added text

skippydiesel · September 5, 2021

6 minutes ago, Marty_d said:

There's a problem with the line of thinking that a businessman would make a good political leader. I refer you to the USA, 2016-2020...

Is a businessman a Con Man ???

Marty_d · September 5, 2021

4 minutes ago, tillmanr said:

We had our own successful businessman, PM Turnbull.

True, and from pretty much all sides he was a bit of a disappointment. Too progressive for the conservatives, but hamstrung from actually being progressive - so useless to progressives.

Jabiru7252 · September 5, 2021

We are lucky. In South Africa they have people in Parliament who cannot even read and write!!!

cscotthendry · September 5, 2021

12 hours ago, Marty_d said:

There's a problem with the line of thinking that a businessman would make a good political leader. I refer you to the USA, 2016-2020...

True enough. We have a doctrine of separation of judiciary and state, and a doctrine of separation of church and state. We need separation of business and state.

And BTW, in Trumpistan, the separation of church and state was sorely tested. If I were POTUS Biden, there are a lot of churches that would lose their tax exempt status for politicking from the pulpit.

turboplanner · September 5, 2021

Not picking on you ESH but its telling that here we are in Australia, punching way beyond our GDP weight and even further ahead in this pandemic, running a Covid response policy close to the best in the world, drawing comments from diverse area like Japan, UK and USA that "That's what we should have done" and conducting a political spit session on a thread that should be sharing the latest on the Covid situation and how that will affect our return to flying.

Markdun · September 6, 2021

Here is some data....might help when comparing proposed policies for Australia like get population vaccinated and let it rip, or as ScuMo said in Parliament last week, ‘yes, people may die but you can go to their funeral and to church’.
UK daily death rate is now tracking around 1.6 deaths per million per day and many of these deaths are of vaccinated people (last I read on this it was just over 50% vaccinated). And this is after they have had Covid kill the most vulnerable. That means if we follow this approach....vaccinate, ‘freedoms’ and open up borders sans quarantine etc we can expect 40 deaths per day or around 15,000 deaths per year. This is still roughly in accord to my previous ‘back of the envelope’ estimate and is consistent or less than estimates of some expert epidemiologists. It is of-course much more than annual flu deaths, road deaths, or estimates by experts like Doherty which were based on low incidence of infection with ongoing TTIQ (track, trace, isolate, quarantine) and lockdowns.
Second graph is vaccination rates.

I haven’t included a graph of daily infections...but that graph does show infection rates doing the usual up and down waves, including in vaccinated populations. The big difference in vaccinated populations is that the death rates and hospitalisations are greatly reduced, but death rates and hospitalisations remain significant nevertheless.

I agree fully with previous comments about us having to change our behaviour, like fly-ins to private airstrips, avoiding mass transportation (trains, large passenger planes, quarantine and negative Covid tests for international travel...as many European countries now do) ongoing into the future....ie. no back to the way it used to be.

Covid with climate change is making it all very depressing....it feels very much like Neville Shute’s ‘On the beach’, with us here in Oz just waiting for the inevitable environmental disaster to roll on down from the north. And we also appear saddled with a completely incompetent government which is becoming less democratic by the second. I feel for my children and grandchildren.

skippydiesel · September 6, 2021

5 hours ago, cscotthendry said:

True enough. We have a doctrine of separation of judiciary and state, and a doctrine of separation of church and state. We need separation of business and state.

And BTW, in Trumpistan, the separation of church and state was sorely tested. If I were POTUS Biden, there are a lot of churches that would lose their tax exempt status for politicking from the pulpit.

In Au, reality would seem to be at odds with the doctrine.

I agree with your "separation of business and state" it would seem all sides of politics avoids any commitment on this (vested interest) - look at all the polies employed in post retirement jobs closely related to their political portfolio.

The religious clubs seem to have the ear of Government in a whole range of policies. Wasn't some bishop creature elevated to Governor General a few gears back - stepped down after sex scandal revelation.

Polies "see the light" as every election approaches, with photo opportunities galore, singing their little hearts out or on the steps having a tete a tete with the robed one - its sickening.

It about time we changed the tax law around charities & religious sects, schools, etc - I suggest, for all profits/assets, same levels of taxation as business - moneys spent in recognised good works tax free.

Markdun · September 6, 2021

59 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

all profits/assets, same levels of taxation as business - moneys spent in recognised good works tax free.

I was with you all the way till this Skip. The ‘not-for-profit’ gambling dens/so-called football clubs, Catholic club, Labor club, in the A.C.T. get tax free on the basis of them spending dollars on community programs of ‘their choosing’. So it ends up being a mates’ rotting of who gets funding. Sure there are lots of deserving community grants made, but those aren’t necessarily the priorities I, or even the broader community (in the form of an elected parliament) would make. Why can’t I then decide to spend money that would otherwise go to public funds via tax to my pet priorities, eg. I don’t want my tax money going to subsidise mining companies, agriculture or the military. I say make em all pay tax and have our elected representatives decide the priorities through appropriations laws....of-course this fails when ministers don’t comply with laws on spending public money (like McKenzie) or when parliament abrogates their responsibility by purporting to delegate to the finance minister the power to shift funds from one appropriation to another. (I say ‘purport’ because in my view that provision of the FMA is invalid as an impermissible delegation because under the Cth Constitution only parliament can make an appropriation, not the executive.)

poteroo · September 6, 2021

The general public is being fed a diet of the 'silver bullet' is coming with vaccinations.....have faith! I'm amazed to hear/read the simplistic approaches being proposed. There is no silver bullet.

With biological management, there is rarely one single solution:many inputs are needed, and in a responsive, integrated approach. If each of the inputs is 80% efficacious, but several are employed - it creates a robust, 95+% reduction of disease. The best examples in plant disease involve the use of several management tools, including resistance genes, quarantine, prophylactic chemistry, crop rotations, and good agronomy.

happy days,

skippydiesel · September 6, 2021

2 hours ago, Markdun said:

I was with you all the way till this Skip. The ‘not-for-profit’ gambling dens/so-called football clubs, Catholic club, Labor club, in the A.C.T. get tax free on the basis of them spending dollars on community programs of ‘their choosing’. So it ends up being a mates’ rotting of who gets funding. Sure there are lots of deserving community grants made, but those aren’t necessarily the priorities I, or even the broader community (in the form of an elected parliament) would make. Why can’t I then decide to spend money that would otherwise go to public funds via tax to my pet priorities, eg. I don’t want my tax money going to subsidise mining companies, agriculture or the military. I say make em all pay tax and have our elected representatives decide the priorities through appropriations laws....of-course this fails when ministers don’t comply with laws on spending public money (like McKenzie) or when parliament abrogates their responsibility by purporting to delegate to the finance minister the power to shift funds from one appropriation to another. (I say ‘purport’ because in my view that provision of the FMA is invalid as an impermissible delegation because under the Cth Constitution only parliament can make an appropriation, not the executive.)

Hi Mark,

Club in my context is all activates /organisations currently enjoying tax free/ or tax reduced status on the basis of being a charity, religious organisations of every "strip" (including affiliated schools, clubs of every description) etc - This "loop hole" has passed its used by date by decades & should be closed.

I am all for organisations doing good works & supporting them by not taxing the money/resources that goes directly to the poor/needy/oppressed/marginalised/etc BUT moneys & assets over and above this, must be taxed appropriately, on par with every other business.

I dont se much chance of this happening any time soon, with the ability of the religious lobby to get to the legislators (such is our secular state).

I am at a loss as to how you would prevent a charity from directing its efforts in the way that they want and am not sure that this is actually a desirable direction to take ie If the religious raise the money for the support of the faithful, that will benefit from thet support, who are we to cry foul? (even if we think the money might be better spent elsewhere). Perhaps supporting certain activates might be proscribed eg terrorist groups, misogynistic men's clubs, cults, etc

Edited September 6, 2021 by skippydiesel

danny_galaga · September 6, 2021

8 hours ago, Markdun said:

Here is some data....might help when comparing proposed policies for Australia like get population vaccinated and let it rip, or as ScuMo said in Parliament last week, ‘yes, people may die but you can go to their funeral and to church’.
UK daily death rate is now tracking around 1.6 deaths per million per day and many of these deaths are of vaccinated people (last I read on this it was just over 50% vaccinated). And this is after they have had Covid kill the most vulnerable. That means if we follow this approach....vaccinate, ‘freedoms’ and open up borders sans quarantine etc we can expect 40 deaths per day or around 15,000 deaths per year. This is still roughly in accord to my previous ‘back of the envelope’ estimate and is consistent or less than estimates of some expert epidemiologists. It is of-course much more than annual flu deaths, road deaths, or estimates by experts like Doherty which were based on low incidence of infection with ongoing TTIQ (track, trace, isolate, quarantine) and lockdowns.
Second graph is vaccination rates.

I haven’t included a graph of daily infections...but that graph does show infection rates doing the usual up and down waves, including in vaccinated populations. The big difference in vaccinated populations is that the death rates and hospitalisations are greatly reduced, but death rates and hospitalisations remain significant nevertheless.

I agree fully with previous comments about us having to change our behaviour, like fly-ins to private airstrips, avoiding mass transportation (trains, large passenger planes, quarantine and negative Covid tests for international travel...as many European countries now do) ongoing into the future....ie. no back to the way it used to be.

Covid with climate change is making it all very depressing....it feels very much like Neville Shute’s ‘On the beach’, with us here in Oz just waiting for the inevitable environmental disaster to roll on down from the north. And we also appear saddled with a completely incompetent government which is becoming less democratic by the second. I feel for my children and grandchildren.

sorry to be lazy but where is the info on the deaths of vaccinated people? The last data i was reading about (The Economist I think) was from the US where virtually no one who was vaccinated was being hospitalised. In Israel it may be on the rise again but that may be due to the fact they were way early on vaccinations and really are the first to be due a booster.

Markdun · September 6, 2021

This is not what I read earlier but nevertheless it says much the same.

https://theconversation.com/most-covid-deaths-in-england-now-are-in-the-vaccinated-heres-why-that-shouldnt-alarm-you-163671

I’m not sure where they get the twenty fold reduction in hospitalisation (of vaccinated people) as the tested efficacy of the AZ vaccine is a tad over 90% and this correlates pretty well with the ten fold reduction in deaths that countries like the UK are experiencing (& which is a compelling individual benefit from vaccinating). But it becomes very muddy and complicated once you start breaking the data down by age cohorts.

Regarding Israel and lesser extent the UK, keep in mind the testing and measurement of vaccine efficacy is NOT immunity to Covid infection but avoiding hospitalisation or death as a consequence of infection. Infection (& transmission) of Covid by vaccinated people is still very much a thing. Earlier research indicated infection and transmission was reduced by 50%, but this has effectively been wiped out by the increased R0 of the Delta variant AND the behaviour of vaccinated people....ie. ‘I’m vaccinated so I can go to the nightclub, travel and shop’. I don’t think it’s the waning effect of the vaccine yet....but I could be wrong on that....lots of vested commercial interests wanting booster shots for rich developed countries!

jackc · September 6, 2021

59 minutes ago, Markdun said:

This is not what I read earlier but nevertheless it says much the same.

https://theconversation.com/most-covid-deaths-in-england-now-are-in-the-vaccinated-heres-why-that-shouldnt-alarm-you-163671

I’m not sure where they get the twenty fold reduction in hospitalisation (of vaccinated people) as the tested efficacy of the AZ vaccine is a tad over 90% and this correlates pretty well with the ten fold reduction in deaths that countries like the UK are experiencing (& which is a compelling individual benefit from vaccinating). But it becomes very muddy and complicated once you start breaking the data down by age cohorts.

Regarding Israel and lesser extent the UK, keep in mind the testing and measurement of vaccine efficacy is NOT immunity to Covid infection but avoiding hospitalisation or death as a consequence of infection. Infection (& transmission) of Covid by vaccinated people is still very much a thing. Earlier research indicated infection and transmission was reduced by 50%, but this has effectively been wiped out by the increased R0 of the Delta variant AND the behaviour of vaccinated people....ie. ‘I’m vaccinated so I can go to the nightclub, travel and shop’. I don’t think it’s the waning effect of the vaccine yet....but I could be wrong on that....lots of vested commercial interests wanting booster shots for rich developed countries!

It’s ALL about the money……honey 🙂

Markdun · September 6, 2021

Jack I don’t disagree. Some countries have tightened up their borders and quarantine so they can have a longer period, better managed, not so desperate vaccination program, buy vaccines at a lower price and reduce demand so more is available to poorer and more afflicted countries....like NZ, Taiwan, South Korea. Other governments have squandered their country’s geographic isolation, deliberately sabotaged their borders & quarantine, thought nothing about bidding up the price of vaccines (hey, because it’s the public’s’ money not mine who cares what the price is’) and reduced the amount of vaccines available to poorer nations...oh that’s us, Australia. It’s not just commercial and money, it’s also plain bad and selfish governments. I used to think Morrison just had no moral compass. I no longer have that view. He has a moral compass, not ‘amoral’, but immoral and decidedly evil.

turboplanner · September 6, 2021

8 hours ago, Markdun said:

Jack I don’t disagree. Some countries have tightened up their borders and quarantine so they can have a longer period, better managed, not so desperate vaccination program, buy vaccines at a lower price and reduce demand so more is available to poorer and more afflicted countries....like NZ, Taiwan, South Korea. Other governments have squandered their country’s geographic isolation, deliberately sabotaged their borders & quarantine, thought nothing about bidding up the price of vaccines (hey, because it’s the public’s’ money not mine who cares what the price is’) and reduced the amount of vaccines available to poorer nations...oh that’s us, Australia. It’s not just commercial and money, it’s also plain bad and selfish governments. I used to think Morrison just had no moral compass. I no longer have that view. He has a moral compass, not ‘amoral’, but immoral and decidedly evil.

It take me three months to prepare and send a Commonwealth Government Tender. Four months if its a Defence Tender, and a lot of people are involved.

In one case, reasonably similar to the uninvented Covid-19 vaccine task, 200 of us showed up in Townsville for a briefing by about 30 people where there was a requirement to invent a vehicle type to replace another type which had failed in combat overseas. After the briefing we all flew to Melbourne for another analysis of the task by Departmental Staff. The Prime Minister of the day was nowehere to be seen. About three years later a different Prime Minister was driving the first newly invented vehicle off the production line.

That's the way it works, that's how Australia has such reliable continuity.

In the Malcolm Fraser government era, there was a very clear voter mandate on his election that certain out of control unions had to be stopped. Tony Street was the Minister given the task. There was a very smooth slowing down and braking of the Unions back to normal. It was only on Street's retirement that he told us what a "fascinating" job politics was. Bob Hawke, then President of the ACTU and President of the Labor had been working out of Liberal Tony Street's office and they'd jointly achieved the result.

I posted this a week or so ago:

Total cost of the [Vaccine] Agreements - $8 billion.

On top of this:

1. Australia is spending $350 million supporting vaccine research and development.

2.Australia has supplied vaccines to Papua New Guinea and Pacific Islands.

Source: www.health.gov.au

And there was a list of all the agreements, most signed off by the Department of Health before the vaccines had been invented.

For anyone sucked up into the fantasy world where an evil Prime Minister of Australia, acting with the benefit of hindsight has stolen vaccines off poor countries and manipulated our population out of the divine path, would probably, if they had the time to waste, obtain under FoI copies of every RFT (Request for Tender), every piece of thousands of pieces of correspondence, every dollar involved, every country involved and every date involved in every decision made, and the names of all the people who made those decisions, because those records are always required to be kept, and are always overseen by other Departments.

Markdun · September 6, 2021

Turbo, not only do you misrepresent what I said, the information you provide is not inconsistent with my assertion. Australia has helped PNG, but it has done the bare minimum. Other than extract vaccines from the WHO’s Covax program for poor countries, what have we done....very very little. The issue about vaccine availability is both price and supply on a global scale. Rich countries queue jumping (the queue of need) with dollars both drives the price up and directs supplies (which are scarce) away from those in most need AND has and is contributing to thousands of deaths. You used the word ‘stealing’; I didn’t, but morally I think it is much the same. Because Morrison spectacularly failed quarantine, vaccination has become a disorderly mad race for us. And yes Morrison did fail quarantine spectacularly. He even boasted that at 98% effectiveness quarantine was good......and this is with thousands of inwards travellers each week. This would be like saying aircraft safety is OK when there is a crash and burn of one in every fifty flights. At an effectiveness of 98% quarantine (a federal constitutional responsibility) was designed to fail (but I doubt anyone in government or the Dept of Home Affairs actually even thought about it).

I have had a lot of experience in government both in Australia and NZ and been on first name terms with PMs and Ministers....most of whom’s political persuasions I disagreed with. I can’t recall any I’d refer to as evil...most were idealistic and doing what they thought best for their country, state or territory. However, I do consider Morrison extremely evil. What person with a scintilla of compassion or moral fibre would suggest that a policy to open the country up for international travel and reduce other public health measures (except vaccination) will result in increased deaths of loved ones, but that’s OK because you can go to their funerals and to church? And to boot he tries to moral wash his evilness with his religion. Morrison’s evilness extends beyond the moral. His prime ministership is increasingly fracturing not only the federation but also democracy and the rule of law. This is a PM who accepts his ministers spending our money contrary to parliament’s legislation. This is not just the rorts programs, but also Robo Debt. They knew Robodebt was unlawful, but they did it anyway and are continuing with it. Rex Patrick won his FOI case, but has the government handed over the documents or appealed the decision? No, they are just refusing to comply with the law. There are, or were, many good people in the Liberal Party who are now despairing in how it’s been taken over by the reactionary right that has a veneer of acceptability and civility, but isn’t.

turboplanner · September 6, 2021

Noted but rejected.

I can play Public Servant too.

danny_galaga · September 7, 2021

15 hours ago, Markdun said:

This is not what I read earlier but nevertheless it says much the same.

https://theconversation.com/most-covid-deaths-in-england-now-are-in-the-vaccinated-heres-why-that-shouldnt-alarm-you-163671

I’m not sure where they get the twenty fold reduction in hospitalisation (of vaccinated people) as the tested efficacy of the AZ vaccine is a tad over 90% and this correlates pretty well with the ten fold reduction in deaths that countries like the UK are experiencing (& which is a compelling individual benefit from vaccinating). But it becomes very muddy and complicated once you start breaking the data down by age cohorts.

Regarding Israel and lesser extent the UK, keep in mind the testing and measurement of vaccine efficacy is NOT immunity to Covid infection but avoiding hospitalisation or death as a consequence of infection. Infection (& transmission) of Covid by vaccinated people is still very much a thing. Earlier research indicated infection and transmission was reduced by 50%, but this has effectively been wiped out by the increased R0 of the Delta variant AND the behaviour of vaccinated people....ie. ‘I’m vaccinated so I can go to the nightclub, travel and shop’. I don’t think it’s the waning effect of the vaccine yet....but I could be wrong on that....lots of vested commercial interests wanting booster shots for rich developed countries!

Oh. Ha. Yes I see. I misunderstood your sentiment. We have an anti vaxxer conspiracy theorist at work, and so much spurious 'Alan Jones' logic spews out of his mouth I geta little wary. Yes of course the more people are vaccinated, the closer to one hundred per cent of COVID deaths will have been vaccinated. Simple maths 🙂

onetrack · September 7, 2021

The greatest failing of the current Federal Liberal Govt, and one which generates the most anger amongst all the people I deal with and talk to, is the way the Govt handed out mega-millions to businesses in the form of Jobkeeper, with no requirement to submit any applications showing real need for the funding - and whereby a very large proportion of this money was totally unwarranted, and it went straight to senior executives and shareholders pockets, in the form of sharply increased salaries and profits.

A few businesses did the right thing and returned the Jobkeeper funding when it was very obvious it wasn't needed - a few more were pressured to return it - but a lot who didn't need it, refused outright to return it.

Meantimes, every cent that goes to individuals in dire need, is scrutinised, penny-pinched, asset-tested, and individuals are required to prove they're virtually bankrupt before the Govt releases a few miserable dollars to them for pure survival purposes. And God help anyone who gets overpaid from taxpayers funds, as an individual.

Of the all reasons people will vote this Federal Govt out at the next election, this Jobkeeper unfairness will be at the front of many peoples minds, as they put pen to ballot paper.

Edited September 7, 2021 by onetrack