Preparing for COVID-19

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ian said:
I second that. For me, 8 hrs of sleep every night, regular vitamin D (I had low levels when last checked), regular exercise, eating/drinking healthier than usual. I feel for healthcare workers, who need such self care more than anyone. I hope you have the time for adequate sleep.
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Thanks, but if Northern Italy and Hubei are anything to go by, I often won't.
 
For the record I'm in the best shape of my life. I was 6' 205lbs, now I'm 168lbs. (Lost the weight over 3 months). OCD can be a powerful tool
 
Nemo said:
...they essentially said that there is currently very little risk in Australia but they will let us know when there is.
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labor of love said:
I’ve worked that shift at work many times lol
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Yeah, but it's on a whole other level for the the poor guys in the healthcare system. It's like when chefs see a large group of walk-in's coming on an already busy night, but it's an order of magnitude bigger, spread out over weeks/months... and it's death instead of dinner.
I don't blame Nemo for voicing his concerns. Looking into the near future for him and his colleagues, things are about to go crazy. The scenes below have already happened in a few countries in the last month, and others can learn from their experience to avoid it. But too many governments are not taking the preventative measures seriously, and are instead waiting to react to a sudden surge in cases - which is at this point inevitable.

wuhanhospital-1024x594.jpg

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Nemo said:
I'm also in Australia and I work in healthcare.

I'm very concerned that the Federal Government's advice is vastly inadequate to nip this in the bud. I just watched the federal Minister for Health and the federal Chief Medical Officer interviewed on TV. My take is that they essentially said that there is currently very little risk in Australia but they will let us know when there is. I feel as though they are being a bit blasé. The Chief Medical Officer actually said that it's still OK to go to the movies and to shake hands. I shake my head.

Australia has ~250 known cases today, the vast majority of which have had overseas travel or direct Covid contact. However, testing in Australia has been heavily restricted to:
1) People returning from China, South Korea and Iran who have gone on to develop symptoms
2) Direct contacts of known cases who have gone on to develop symptoms.
So there has been no way to detect community spread. It's like we are shining a torch on the highest risk group but the status rest of the population can't be seen, so we have no warning when community spread takes off, as it inevitably will (or has). There is most likely an iceberg of community spread which is still under the radar. The first we will know of it is when large numbers of people die.

It's likely that there is already or very soon will be significant under the radar community spread of the disease. If you wait until there are widespread deaths or even widespread recognised cases before you institute a lockdown, you have missed the boat:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

I have cancelled 2 education meetings in the last week. I'm highly exposed in my area of healthcare so I have isolated myself from my family. We have pulled our children out of school.

Even if there is not yet widespread community transmission, a travel ban to a few countries is currently inadequate. The virus is spreading worldwide. In fact China and South Korea have almost controlled community spread with stringent social distancing and may at this stage be safer than many countries which are not banned. Our Home Affairs minister recently returned from the USA and developed Covid19 a few days later.

I will be amazed if a lockdown doesn't occur at some stage. Earlier is much much much much much better. For health outcomes and for how quickly the economy will recover. Every day counts. You cannot allow your hospitals to become overwhelmed or many people (including many heath care professionals) will die.

I suspect that this disease will be a massive hit to the economy. I'd be very surprised and relieved if there is not a recession. $17B will be a drop in the ocean if the disease becomes widespread.

I'm pretty worried that the tsunami will hit soon. It looks to me like the water is receding into the ocean. I am certainly not as blazé as our Department of Health appears to be. Nor are many of my colleagues.
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I agree. I was trying to be as neutral as possible. Given the available information, Australia's expertise and her close links with infected countries, I believe the response has been lethargic. Not abjectly terrible... but far from fulfilling our potential.

Nemo said:
I will be amazed if a lockdown doesn't occur at some stage.
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I wonder about this. I don't believe a lockdown will occur.... At least we'd need to settle on what this definition means. Our capital cities are too sprawling. In a 'city' like Sydney, what boarders are there to lock down? The Sydney basin is bigger than the Netherlands - you can't really shutdown parts of it. The extent of the government to restrict freedom of movement in open democracies also tends to be lower than in authoritarian type governments.

If you mean a situation where the government chooses to suspend schools and makes its current advice on public gatherings binding (e.g closures of museums, libraries, concerts, events), then sure... I think it will happen.

Nemo said:
I suspect that this disease will be a massive hit to the economy. I'd be very surprised and relieved if there is not a recession. $17B will be a drop in the ocean if the disease becomes widespread.
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Absolutely... I dropped hints of political commentary in my previous post. Australia's economy was circling the drain anyway... before the bush fires and before the pandemic. Real household disposable income per capita has been standing still for a decade. This is a consequence of policy not bad luck (bush fires & pandemic). So yes... Australia is in a weak position to weather this storm. It will hurt - it already has hurt our super...
 
Oh!.....

.... And when we all have to work from home... I am glad we setup the critical, future-proofing infrastructure to do so. Pouring $51B AUD onto the 'mixed technology' NBN dumpster fire was great. Without it, I doubt we could have reached that lofty goal of 50th fastest internet in the world.
 
Luftmensch said:
I wonder about this. I don't believe a lockdown will occur.... At least we'd need to settle on what this definition means. Our capital cities are too sprawling. In a 'city' like Sydney, what boarders are there to lock down? The Sydney basin is bigger than the Netherlands - you can't really shutdown parts of it. The extent of the government to restrict freedom of movement in open democracies also tends to be lower than in authoritarian type governments.

If you mean a situation where the government chooses to suspend schools and makes its current advice on public gatherings binding (e.g closures of museums, libraries, concerts, events), then sure... I think it will happen.

Absolutely... I dropped hints of political commentary in my previous post. Australia's economy was circling the drain anyway... before the bush fires and before the pandemic. Real household disposable income per capita has been standing still for a decade. This is a consequence of policy not bad luck (bush fires & pandemic). So yes... Australia is in a weak position to weather this storm. It will hurt - it already has hurt our super...
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The Australian Federal Government actually has very draconian quarantine laws available to it. Using them will probably be politically unpopular right up until the point that lots of people die. Or maybe when you can't have your elective surgery because the hospitals are snowed under with Covid. Or your emergency surgery. Or maybe even your caesarian section...

They may restrict travel between places. However, what seems more effective (and what I was really getting at) seems to social distancing measures and I believe that the laws also provide an enforcement mechanism for that. This includes things like shutting down schools, cinemas, restaurants, etc but also enforcing things like minimum distances between people in public places, which is one of the things that they are doing in Italy right now.

I don't know if it lets them weld doors closed, though.

Unless you want your super in the next few years, I reckon it will recover. What we really need is at the end of all this for confidence to pick up quickly again so that we don't have high unemployment which causes more uncertainty which impairs investment, which causes more unemployment... in a kind of vicious cycle.
 
Nemo said:
Australia has ~250 known cases today
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And yesterday, it was 200, so we are currently looking at a 1.25 growth rate. Meaning that, if this rate stays the same, we'll have 1,200 infections a week from now, and 5,600 two weeks from now.
 
Michi said:
And yesterday, it was 200, so we are currently looking at a 1.25 growth rate. Meaning that, if this rate stays the same, we'll have 1,200 infections a week from now, and 5,600 two weeks from now.
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That's assuming that we know about all of the cases. If there are in fact 2500 infections in Aus at the moment, does that mean that we are lookimg at 12,000 in a week and 56,000 in 2 weeks?
 
Michi said:
Toilet paper is your friend, man!

You can use it for its normal purpose, no problem. In addition:
  • Getting cold? Mound it into a pile, put a match to it, and warm yourself.
  • If you are still cold when going to sleep, wrap yourself in TP and stay warm.
  • Need to remove some make-up? TP is your friend!
  • Need to remove some nail polish? A bit of TP and acetone will fix it in a jiffy.
  • Got a spill of something on the floor? Not a problem, a bit of TP will clean it up right away.
  • Got the sneezes? TP will catch your snot and, on top of that, save everyone around you from catching coronavirus, too.
  • Hungry? TP, a bit of hot water and a bit of salt and pepper, and you got yourself a filling meal.
And, beyond all that, TP is biodegradable and environmentally friendly. So, the more you use, the more you are doing to help save the planet. (Ideally, every single person in the world would use at least a ton of toilet paper every year; it would solve all our environmental problems, with so many people doing so much to save the planet…)

So, as you can see, when the apocalypse comes, the very first thing you want to do is stock up on is toilet paper.

It's only logical, isn't it?
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Well i'll be damned, that is one hell of a Sales Pitch...
 
I am a few hours late to the news - but today the government pulled out a bigger stick. Entries in Australia are required to self quarantine for 14 days and mass gatherings (above 500) are banned. Previously, violating quarantine advice had no consequences. Now it appears penalties can be applied for ignoring the requirement - but the extent of these penalties/powers is opaque. It is up to the states and territories.

Nemo said:
They may restrict travel between places. However, what seems more effective (and what I was really getting at) seems to social distancing measures and I believe that the laws also provide an enforcement mechanism for that. This includes things like shutting down schools, cinemas, restaurants, etc but also enforcing things like minimum distances between people in public places, which is one of the things that they are doing in Italy right now.
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Absolutely... and the new mandatory quarantine is difficult to enforce. It is still relying on good faith actors. I'd prefer to see more travel bans (e.g. America). Shutting down non-essential parts of the economy like entertainment seems like a no-brainer - that should have happened earlier. I think shutting down schools is a difficult one. I am mixed. Best leave it to the experts! Apparently they are still comfortable with it.


Nemo said:
I don't know if it lets them weld doors closed, though.
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I doubt it:

https://theconversation.com/explain...ntine-people-in-a-coronavirus-outbreak-132877
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...lian-government-have-to-respond-to-the-threat
https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-ahmppi.htm

It looks like the laws are based around compelling people to act in response to public health requirements - if people refuse, power exists to detain them. There are also powers to declare an area a 'health zone' which would place requirements on people entering/exiting the zone. While having such emergency powers is reasonable, it is fair to have concern over what independent oversight is applied when compelling people to act.

I originally equated 'lockdown' with the 'weld the doors shut' scenario. I do think an Italy (now France & Spain) style lock down could be applied to a city like Sydney. But it is worth understanding what that is... people can still go to work (if their work is open) and go to the shops/pharmacy. In my mind 'shut down' is more appropriate... but perhaps I am being too nit-picky about language! :p
 
Guys australia si big. Why don't you go camping somewhere where you are completely isolated for like 3 weeks. Think of it as your early vacation with the family. Get some canned food some supplies and just chill in the nature. Our ancestors survived in woods and caves with primitive gear. If this is getting out of hand why don't we go back to nature?
P.s. Don't forget your knives at home or the radio :)
 
Luftmensch said:
the extent of these penalties/powers is opaque. It is up to the states and territories.
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AUD 13,000 in Queensland.
Luftmensch said:
Apparently they are still comfortable with it.
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Have a look at the video with Norman Swan I posted earlier. They shouldn't be comfortable with it.

Neither should we be comfortable with the advice from our health minister (this morning, no less) that it's still OK to go to the gym. Sure thing: I lie down on a bench to push up my bar bells, sweating all over the place and, 30 seconds after I'm done, the next person comes along, lies down on that same bench, and does the same thing. Definitely no problem at all here that anyone could spot :(

The response in Australia is permanently two weeks behind the actual state of affairs. Because that is how long it takes for a change to propagate through the delay of incubation period and infection of the next generation of people. Any action we take now takes two weeks to show any effect. And our government insists that "we will take additional measures once the numbers warrant it." Except that the numbers they use are permanently behind by two weeks. Two days ago, our prime minister assured everyone that it was perfectly OK to go to the footy. Into a stadium with 40,000 people in it. Good job, man!

By the time we see the numbers change, we need to think about not those numbers, but what those numbers will be two weeks from now, and take measures to deal with the numbers as they will be in two weeks' time. But we are not doing that.
 
Codered said:
Why don't you go camping somewhere where you are completely isolated for like 3 weeks.
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Because, in most places, that's called "squatting". There are also other minor technicalities, such as having enough water in the outback, and that grandma's wheelchair doesn't work so well when navigating rocky ravines. Never mind the insulin that her husband needs due to his diabetes…
 
Not that anyone's asking, but I can tell you all from experience that a bunch of cotton tea towels or similar can pretty effectively be cut into strips/squares and used as TP, bagged, then run through the washing machine for re-use.
 
tgfencer said:
Not that anyone's asking, but I can tell you all from experience that a bunch of cotton tea towels or similar can pretty effectively be cut into strips/squares and used as TP, bagged, then run through the washing machine for re-use.
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Yup. It's the same thing as washing nappies. There might even be some parents left these days who know what that means. Not that I'm holding my breath…
 
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