No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday • Hacker News Board

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#151

Post by claudeganon » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

apexalpha wrote: post #146

freddie_mercury wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Vietnam. It is neither a small island nor on a remote corner of the planet. We have a population of 95,000,000 people -- substantially more than any single country in Europe -- and share land borders China, Cambodia, and Laos as well as being within trivial sailing distance of Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Hong Kong. We have had 0 cases for over 2 months. You should stop with the "it i…

That's really great and you did far better than Europe, no doubt about it. But the borders vietnam shares with those countries are hard borders. You need a visa and pass a government controlled checkpoint when you enter. Europe (mainland) has no internal borders. There are no checkpoints, customs agents or chokepoints between countries. There's thousands of roads leading from every country into others. That, plus the…

If you have enough time to write these kinds of rebuttals on HN, you can certainly just google “Vietnam Covid Success” instead of asking others to explain it for you. Here’s one of the first links you can find by doing so:

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/06/29/na062920-vie...

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#152

Post by cletus » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #147

cletus wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian here and I recently came back from spending months in Perth (where there hasn’t been a case of community spread since April). You mention weather here but, having followed the news, is clear that the primary factor in Melbourne’s outbreak was breaches in quarantine, so much so that there was a government investigation into it. Weather seemed to have very little to do with it. There’s really no comparison w…

I don't really have a dog in the fight, but it's uncontroversial that basic quarantine breaches were what seeded the the June-October outbreak in Melbourne. Stories of "security having relationships with those in quarantine" make for titillating clickbait articles, but so far little more than rumour has been reported. We'll see what the inquiry report says, but any poor practices in quarantine would have been suffici…

My personal theory is that weather is proximate. The spread is not about population density and social patterns.

Take England. I’ve lived in London. There’s a large segment of British social life that revolves around going “down pub”. People will gather at pubs in confined spaces for long periods of time. Those seem like the perfect conditions for community spread. It comes as no surprise to me that England is in another lockdown.

Boer I’m sure weather plays a part on that. Nicer weather and people might go on holiday out do things outdoors but once the weather starts to cool? They’re back to the pub.

I suspect you’ll see patterns like this in other places.

As for your theory in cool climates, well you’re also hitting the climate barrier for high density living and high population centers.

There are outliers (eg Moscow) but generally speaking big cities aren’t in Arctic-like climates.

I don’t know Melbourne at all but o suspect there’s a predilection for pubs, bars, nightclubs and restaurants and there’ll be some relationship there between colder weather and indoor patronage.

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#153

Post by luckylion » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #125

apexalpha wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much is being made of the fact that back in August when Melbourne was reporting over 700 new cases on some days, UK and France were reporting similar new case numbers, yet we are now getting zeroes and those countries have out-of-control spread. Congrats on getting to the magic 0! I know it can seem weird that Europe didn't lock down over the summer, but here we mostly use Health care capacity, not active cases, as t…

Land borders can be closed except for a few checkpoints, which serve as the equivalent of international airports (and seaports, don't forget about those). I don't know much about Australian geography, so I had to check on a map, but it looks like it's possible to travel from Melbourne to other parts of Australia over land. Apparently some measures were taken to prevent the virus from spreading along that route. Drivi…

> Land borders can be closed except for a few checkpoints, which serve as the equivalent of international airports (and seaports, don't forget about those).

Not in continental Europe, not without involving the military.

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#154

Post by LeCow » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

Jedd wrote: post #52

yen223 wrote: post #42

Sydneysider here. Sydney hasn't seen anything remotely resembling an outbreak yet (not as bad as Melbourne's), but people are still wearing masks on trains, we are still getting tested (for free!), and businesses generally appear to be complying with covid restrictions. Life here has been relatively normal so far. I recognize that Sydney might still be due for an outbreak, but I have more faith that the chances of th…

Fellow Sydney resident. My other half is a high school teacher - she's had I think 4 cases of cough / sniffles that have required a test, with the process being free (as you say), convenient (walking distance - there are many places that offer the swab test), and fast (results back within 48 hours, usually faster, via SMS & email). I've caught a train into the office 3 times since March - public transport utilisation…

The mistake is to think it's never going to happen. It will get you eventually, could be 5 years, 10 years...but it will come.

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#155

Post by luckylion » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

rswail wrote: post #119

luckylion wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can find a new job next year and live on government benefits in the meantime The problem with that kind of thinking is it doesn't account for how the government gets money, which generally taxes on stuff being produced. If you don't produce stuff, you cannot redistribute it. There's no magic "the government takes care of it, we can all stay home forever" concept. Increased government spending now means increase…

Increased government spending now means greater national debt. Governments get money by printing it. They get revenue by taxation. They can borrow by issuing debt instruments. A recovering economy and greater economic activity leads to greater tax revenue without necessarily increasing taxation rates. This is a natural "budget stabilizer" effect that happens during recessions and expansions. Debt funding is currently…

> Increased government spending now means greater national debt. Governments get money by printing it. They get revenue by taxation. They can borrow by issuing debt instruments.

That's just a path for hyper inflation when no increased production is included. Money is a placeholder for value. If you don't create value and print money, the money doesn't magically create the stuff that gives it value.

It might not ruin a country, but I very much dislike this "whatever, the state can pay" hand-waving that just assumes the products magically appear if you just increase the money supply. There's no perpetual money machine, you can't just spend a billion as a state and generate 1.2bn in taxes, rinse & repeat.

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#156

Post by Scoundreller » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #153

yorwba wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land borders can be closed except for a few checkpoints, which serve as the equivalent of international airports (and seaports, don't forget about those). I don't know much about Australian geography, so I had to check on a map, but it looks like it's possible to travel from Melbourne to other parts of Australia over land. Apparently some measures were taken to prevent the virus from spreading along that route. Drivi…

> Land borders can be closed except for a few checkpoints, which serve as the equivalent of international airports (and seaports, don't forget about those). Not in continental Europe, not without involving the military.

I mean, France deploys its military internally all the time, lately 4000 to protect churches.

And they’ve had in-Schengen passport checks on “temporary for 1-year” bases for several years now without the EU doing too much about it.

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#157

Post by TheBlight » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #15

Melbourne resident here. We're feeling pretty relieved to be getting these results and excited to be tentatively emerging from nearly four months of fairly strict lockdown. Much is being made of the fact that back in August when Melbourne was reporting over 700 new cases on some days, UK and France were reporting similar new case numbers, yet we are now getting zeroes and those countries have out-of-control spread. A…

I don't understand. Is the plan to keep covid out of the country forever? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense at this point. Will there be a lockdown every time there's new infections?

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#158

Post by azakai » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #137

Aachen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah let's get all the young people infected, having one percent of that population die is fine right? Next, they'll surely never talk to the people at risk. Their grandparents can sit at home and be more bored to death and lonely than they usually already are and have young people, which are allowed out, to bring them food. Couldn't possibly go wrong. How do you picture different kinds of measures per risk group goi…

The IFR of Covid is closer to 0.5% than to 1%. That is something we are perfectly used to: For example, Australia had a death rate of 0.63% in 2019.[1] Of course having anyone die isn't "fine". But the death of less than 1% of the population is something we can tolerate, not some kind of disaster of unprecedented magnitude worth a lockdown causing damage we can't even foresee yet. [1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistic…

That number looks accurate, but I'm not sure it's the only thing to look at.

First, deaths aren't the only measure. For every death there are many more people that just barely survive after a hospital stay, and data suggests a significant amount of those people will have long-term problems.

Second, if the hospitals are overloaded by such people (even if most of them survive) then the IFR of Covid can rise higher than 0.5-1%.

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#159

Post by Aachen » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

_-___________-_ wrote: post #99

Aachen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah let's get all the young people infected, having one percent of that population die is fine right? Next, they'll surely never talk to the people at risk. Their grandparents can sit at home and be more bored to death and lonely than they usually already are and have young people, which are allowed out, to bring them food. Couldn't possibly go wrong. How do you picture different kinds of measures per risk group goi…

> Yeah let's get all the young people infected, having one percent of that population die is fine right? Are you really claiming with a straight face that the chance of a young person who gets infected dying is 1/100? Would love to see you try to provide a source for that...

Are we really going to split hairs over what the exact percentage is or can we talk about the point? To me it seems like crazy talk to pose something, which would cause millions of deaths, to be unbelievable not to do. I'd be much more interested in how they think this could possibly work in a safe manner than debating whether it causes 5 per thousand or 10 per thousand (a sibling comment said 0.63%, so 6.3 million among the billion young people we have). Something something straight face.

Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday

#160

Post by jonsno56 » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

TheBlight wrote: post #157

tomhoward wrote: post #15

Melbourne resident here. We're feeling pretty relieved to be getting these results and excited to be tentatively emerging from nearly four months of fairly strict lockdown. Much is being made of the fact that back in August when Melbourne was reporting over 700 new cases on some days, UK and France were reporting similar new case numbers, yet we are now getting zeroes and those countries have out-of-control spread. A…

I don't understand. Is the plan to keep covid out of the country forever? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense at this point. Will there be a lockdown every time there's new infections?

Fun fact! If there are only a handful of cases the lockdowns don’t have to last that long. And vaccines can keep COVID out of a country forever