Quote:
Originally Posted by gary
Hi Alex,
This story just appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Take careful note of the numbers that she is projecting.
In all the wars that Australia has ever fought in, about 120,000 Australians,
mainly servicemen, have lost their lives. Based on the numbers that the
NSW Chief Medical Officer is quoting and extrapolating that to other states,
giving up on this has the potential to result in more deaths than all the war
causalities Australia has ever endured.
The story has NSW Chief Medical Officer Kerry Chant reassuring people that
the majority of people infected will have a mild illness. True enough and
statistics from overseas indicate that is about 80%. But yesterday in Italy
their death rate was over 6%.
Now the person estimating and warning that the number of infections
in NSW is not just another epidemiologist or doctor but the NSW Chief
Medical Officer. Like the Governor of the Reserve Bank, someone who,
when they make a statement has to choose their words very carefully.
So it can be interpreted to mean that the government is not about to take
hard decisive action, such as shut the borders and then go all out to
halt the limited outbreaks that have occurred thus far.
It seems to me we have a situation where the government doesn't want
to make the call and so are passing the buck to the federal medical
advisers. The medical advisers don't want to make the call in case they
are later accused of over-reacting.
Italy has got itself in the situation of being in total lockdown not because
of a run on toilet paper, not because of panic but because of lack
of vigilance and timely action. Now no one can travel out of the country
or within the country. Today they closed all shops except food outlets.
You just can't go out and enjoy yourself there. The place is totally crippled.
In cities such as Milan, the hospital and heath system is totally overloaded
beyond capacity. As one doctor reported there, it is much worse than a
bomb going off as it is continuous. And despite the social distancing
measures, on Monday alone, Italy recorded 168 deaths. It is spreading
within families.
So toilet paper, perception of people panicking and so on are the least
of our worries.
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Yup, yet just 3 months into this new virus we are hearing "It's just the Flu" and "thousands die every year from the Flu". Yet the Flu has been around many hundreds or maybe thousand of years. The only similarity I can see is you get Flu like symptoms (maybe more cold like in some). So a never before seen and very contagious virus with a very high rate of hospitalisation, with many needing ventilators that just won't be available and will likely more than challenge our health system.... and you hear it's just the Flu... WT? If that's the attitude then good luck all.
The Lancet is a good read regarding "How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19" I particularly took note of one observation "data are scarce" well, at least they recognise we are only 3 months into this.
So, who do you want on the ventilator, Mum, Dad, Nan or Pa, we MAY only have one available, that's if his Mum, Dad, Nan or Pa cark it.
And, this is not off thread as is it is titled "so, what the heck is next?" Next is here now.