Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[jakeseven7]

But even one of the modellers of the exit from lockdown plan admits the modelling is not exact.


"You can’t argue with this sort of data," the Premier said. "You can’t argue with science."

Of course you can. Particularly science of this kind.

Melbourne University epidemiologist Tony Blakely, one of the co-authors of the government modelling Andrews cited, describes his work as highly stochastic. This means that, although it can statistically analyse the probability of something happening, it isn’t predictive.

It is also inexact.

Andrews extends lockdown on a best guess

In charting Victoria's path out of COVID-19 restrictions, the Premier has largely ignored voices from the business world.

www.theage.com.au

And on Sky news he said this-
University of Melbourne Epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, who did the modelling, said the model could be beaten. “If we do our contact tracing better than we did three months ago, the contact tracers may be able to hold the case count without it going up again as badly as our model suggests,” Professor Blakely said.

Epidemiologists ‘sceptical’ of Andrews’ modelling

Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell says many epidemiologists are sceptical of the University of Melbourne modelling that underpins the Victorian government’s COVID-19 response.

www.skynews.com.au

He also went on to say if Victoria got it's act together on infection control in it's hospitals and aged care facilities things wouldn't be as bad.Pretty devastating criticism coming from an epidemiologist.

Then on Twitter another epidemiologist and infectious disease physician.

Peter Collignon
@CollignonPeter
·
21h

Victoria seems to have ongoing issue with finalising contact tracing and identifying in timely fashion (within 48hrs) close contacts of those infected or where people acquired their infection from. This relatively poor contact tracing will make Steps out of lockdown difficult.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1302751992683536384

This issue will be alleviated as they’ve put an entirely new contact tracing system in week / two weeks ago which is great news and should speed things up significantly. They will need this to manage as people movement starts opening up.

 

[Must...Fly!]

How can you have a gigantic machinery of government and state that "almost all" positive cases are reached within 24 hours despite daily case loads in the 40s-60s region, and somehow imply this as acceptable?

If elimination is the goal of course

 

[Bundy Bear]

55 and 8 new deaths
Regarding returning travelers has any of them died, I know that if you have places like Darwin and Cairns hospitals looking after returning travels can they look after those cases if any have coronavirus

 

[Lynda2475]

Regarding returning travelers has any of them died,

Ruby Princess (returning travellers) had many deaths. And given the bulk of cases in the first wave were overseas acquired, i would expect bulk of deaths up til mid June would have been in overseas acquired cases with the exception being NewMarch House.

60% of all oversead arrivals have been via Sydney, I'm sure if an overseas arrival in Cairnes condition deteriorated they would medivac to Brisbane if needed. All capital city hospitals (even Darwin) should have intensive care resources. Given how low the hospitalisations have been everywhere except Vic, I don't think any ever really came close to capacity or the point where they couldn't treat the few cases that occurred.

 

[p--and--t]

But even one of the modellers of the exit from lockdown plan admits the modelling is not exact.


"You can’t argue with this sort of data," the Premier said. "You can’t argue with science."

Of course you can. Particularly science of this kind.

Melbourne University epidemiologist Tony Blakely, one of the co-authors of the government modelling Andrews cited, describes his work as highly stochastic. This means that, although it can statistically analyse the probability of something happening, it isn’t predictive.

It is also inexact.

Andrews extends lockdown on a best guess

In charting Victoria's path out of COVID-19 restrictions, the Premier has largely ignored voices from the business world.

www.theage.com.au

And on Sky news he said this-
University of Melbourne Epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, who did the modelling, said the model could be beaten. “If we do our contact tracing better than we did three months ago, the contact tracers may be able to hold the case count without it going up again as badly as our model suggests,” Professor Blakely said.

Epidemiologists ‘sceptical’ of Andrews’ modelling

Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell says many epidemiologists are sceptical of the University of Melbourne modelling that underpins the Victorian government’s COVID-19 response.

www.skynews.com.au

He also went on to say if Victoria got it's act together on infection control in it's hospitals and aged care facilities things wouldn't be as bad.Pretty devastating criticism coming from an epidemiologist.

Then on Twitter another epidemiologist and infectious disease physician.

Peter Collignon
@CollignonPeter
·
21h

Victoria seems to have ongoing issue with finalising contact tracing and identifying in timely fashion (within 48hrs) close contacts of those infected or where people acquired their infection from. This relatively poor contact tracing will make Steps out of lockdown difficult.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1302751992683536384

More talking heads. The more you have the more different views you will get, especially if they didn't get to make or be part of the decision.

The infection specialist at Sydney Uni uni yesterday said in an interview the plan looked good and was necessary to stop a third wave and get to where the other states are at.

Today will see another round of talking heads and they will say whatever comes into their head this morning to get some media attention.

I don't think anybody in their right mind thinks the modelling is anything more than some scenarios of what could happen and how it plays out will be the result of a number of known and unknown factors that are actually out of the control of anyone but a higher being if you believe in such stuff.

The numbers are not coming down fast enough, he was pushed into a corner to publish a plan, he published a plan.

Like every plan produced on anything, new roadway new airport new building there will be as many detractors as supporters.

We had people coming out of the wood work, screaming for months on end that Federation Square design was a desecration on the city and they would do everything in their power to stop it being built. Its now (when not in lockdown) one of the most popular and sought after places in the city and a source of pride for many Victorians. As is human nature there will still be a cohort of detractors.

YMMV

 

[MEL_Traveller]

More talking heads. The more you have the more different views you will get, especially if they didn't get to make or be part of the decision.

...

We had people coming out of the work. screaming for months on end that Federation Square design was a desecration on the city and they would do everything in their power to stop it being built. Its now (when not in lockdown) one of the most popular and sought after places in the city and a source of pride for many Victorians. As is human nature there will still be a cohort of detractors.

YMMV

Talking heads... it reminds me of kids who lose 'heads or tails'... then they want 'best of three'. They lose that and they want 'best of five'

We have a Chief Health Officer. The government takes their advice.

#FederationSqaure... eyesore!!!

 

[tgh]

Be careful what you wish for.. arguably Vic has just had it's first wave and the the other states are still waiting.

France second wave...

 

[tgh]

and to be fair.. the death rate is quite amazing.

 

[andye]

Ruby Princess (returning travellers) had many deaths. And given he bulk of cases int he first wave were overseas acquired, i would expect bulk of deaths up til mid June would have been in overseas acquired cases with the exception being NewMarch House.

60% of all oversea arrivals have been via Sydney, I'm sure if an overseas arrival in Cairnes condition deteriorated they would medivac to Brisbane if needed. All capital city hospitals (even Darwin) should have intensive care resources. Given how low the hospitalisations have been everywhere except Vic, dont think any every really came close to capacity.

I don't work in Queensland but would have thought the Cairns Base Hospital ICU could handle a ventilated Covid patient as long as they didn't need ECMO

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Regarding returning travelers has any of them died

According to Wikipedia, 762 deaths as at yesterday’s reporting
- at least 562 are residents of aged care
- at least 29 are passengers or crew on cruise ships

I’m guessing you are asking about deaths in the second wave.

Since 1 July, there have been 3 deaths in NSW (1 linked to Crossroads, 1 linked to funeral, 1 with no details provided as to whether from a cluster or not).

Based on what I can gather:
WA recorded its last Covid (9th) death on 3 May
SA recorded its last Covid (4th) death on 11 April
Qld Recorded its last Covid (6th) death on 18 April
Tas recorded its last Covid (13th) death on 30 April
ACT recorded its last Covid (3rd) death on 15 April
NT no deaths

Edit: Vic announced suspension of international flights on about 14 July.

 

[RooFlyer]

Nothing is locked in,

As I posted and linked to above, the Vic CMO has said the Stage 2 date IS a hard date. Won’t be moved. They may change their mind .

 

[Lynda2475]

ABC News Reports:

Nine new cases in NSW

Health authorities in NSW have confirmed nine new coronavirus infections in the 24 hours to 8.00pm yesterday.

Three of those are returned travellers in hotel quarantine and five are locally acquired and linked to known cases or clusters.

The source of one case, from south-eastern Sydney, remains under investigation.

A total of 12,494 tests were completed in the reporting period.


More details form SMH.com.au:

There have been three new cases linked to Concord Hospital: two additional healthcare workers and the visitor to the emergency department, which we reported yesterday.

It brings the size of the outbreak across Concord and Liverpool hospitals – after a health professional worked at both facilities while infectious last week – to seven. That figure includes six healthcare workers and one visitor.

Two of today's cases are linked to the Sydney CBD cluster. One of these cases is a household contact of a previous case and the other is a student at Kincoppal-Rose Bay School in Sydney's east, where two students linked to the cluster have previously tested positive.

The student is a boarder and the school's boarding operations have been suspended with students self-isolating at home with their families or in a facility, NSW Health's Dr Jeremy McAnulty said.

The remaining three cases were returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

The total number of cases in NSW since the start of the pandemic is now 3937, after a previously reported case in a student at Lidcombe Public School was identified as a false positive.

There were 12,494 tests carried out yesterday, up from 10,129 in the previous 24 hours.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Abc Covid live blog

No new cases in regional Victoria today

• 1,696 active cases in Victoria
• 82 active cases in regional local government areas, including 25 in Colac, 16 in greater Geelong, two in greater Bendigo, and one in Ballarat

Premier Andrews said that today, there were "no new cases in regional Victoria across the board".

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Qld - 1 new case, who is in quarantine.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

We forgot to note yesterday - daily new cases across Australia was below 50 - first time since 28 June I Think

 

[p--and--t]

Talking heads... it reminds me of kids who lose 'heads or tails'... then they want 'best of three'. They lose that and they want 'best of five'

Post of the day. Love it. I will toast you with a home made cappuccino in isolation at home.

 

[Lynda2475]

SMH.com.au reports:

NSW Health issues alerts for northern Sydney gym, netball association
By Mary Ward

NSW Health has issued alerts for a northern Sydney gym, after a person who later tested positive for coronavirus attended while infectious.

Anyone who attended Plus Fitness gym at Epping on Saturday from 9am to 10.15am has been directed to get tested immediately and self-isolate for 14 days even if their test is negative.

A number of other alerts have been issued for venues in the surrounding area and in Sydney's inner-west. People who were at these locations at these times should be on alert for even the mildest respiratory symptoms – such as a scratchy throat or a runny nose – and get tested immediately if they develop:

• Charles St Kitchen at Putney on Saturday between 10.45am and 11.30am
• Eastwood Ryde Netball Association at Meadowbank Park in West Ryde on Saturday between 12.15pm and 1.30pm (some people who attended at this time were identified as close contacts and have been contacted directly to instead get tested immediately and isolate for 14 days)
• Missing Spoon cafe at Wahroonga on Saturday between 4.45pm and 5.30pm
• Croydon Park pharmac_ at Croydon Park on Thursday between 1pm and 2pm.

 

[dajop]

He is not convinced that the Royal commission is the place to work out problems in the pandemic response.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has also bought into the issues of the pandemic in aged care as though they are a stand-alone problem, and applied the inquisitorial style of interrogation of our prosecutorial/adversarial legal system to civil servants;

[RANT]Politicians just love a royal commission, or judicial inquiry. There are a number of books that have been published about the failure of adversarial type legal system inquiries to get to the heart of problems, and that they are more about assigning (and/or deflecting) blame.

Aviation investigations are done by experts - experts on running investigations and experts in the subject matter. Not by judges and lawyers. The latter mainly come in when it comes to who will pay compensation to the victims, but they often don't have a big role in identifying rectifications and improvements.

It astounds me, particularly with the likes of the Victorian quarantine inquiry that it will take months to get a conclusion. Professional incident investigators should be able to get into root causes and come up with preliminary findings within weeks not months - that will benefit all of Australia, not just Vic. Same with aged care, Ruby Princess etc. To be cynical they are all about deflecting blame and delaying until after the crisis passes, than making meaningful improvements. [/RANT]

 

[p--and--t]

[RANT]Politicians just love a royal commission, or judicial inquiry. There are a number of books that have been published about the failure of adversarial type legal system inquiries to get to the heart of problems, and that they are more about assigning (and/or deflecting) blame.

Aviation investigations are done by experts - experts on running investigations and experts in the subject matter. Not by judges and lawyers. The latter mainly come in when it comes to who will pay compensation to the victims, but they often don't have a big role in identifying rectifications and improvements.

It astounds me, particularly with the likes of the Victorian quarantine inquiry that it will take months to get a conclusion. Professional incident investigators should be able to get into root causes and come up with preliminary findings within weeks not months - that will benefit all of Australia, not just Vic. Same with aged care, Ruby Princess etc. To be cynical they are all about deflecting blame and delaying until after the crisis passes, than making meaningful improvements. [/RANT]

One could argue, that as we have a wide range of talking heads on TV every hour of every day pontificating and claiming to be "the expert" on pandemics and not one of them can agree with one other sentence with one other person claiming the exact same credentials, would we ever get an agreed answer before the pandemic had finally petered out and killed all the vulnerable and decimated the economy. Airline incident investigations sometimes take 1.5-3 years and still have disagreements, sometimes lack of adequate conclusions at the end, sometimes an allegation of inappropriate biases in a manufacturers favour.

Ostensibly we have an independent judge with experience of years of listening to QCs pontificating with a whole lot of BS & conspiracy theories interspersed with a few facts here and there and the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff and diligently record the facts as examined without allegiance to politics or company et al

[BTW: I love playing devil's advocate to generate a response, part of my training to be a project manager and challenge responses from vendors]

[Next we can debate the perception or not of the Independence of judges from their personal biases ]

 

[Flying mermaid]

Be careful what you wish for.. arguably Vic has just had it's first wave and the the other states are still waiting.

France second wave...

View attachment 227077

Maybe, maybe not. I think Australia’s contact tracing and suppression is at a different level to Europe’s. This was a interesting article

NSW had the ingredients for a second wave, but two key differences changed everything

NSW has been described as the "gold standard" of living with coronavirus. This is how authorities have managed to keep business open, and infections low in Australia's most populous state.

www.abc.net.au