Coronavirus

[MB78]

They didn't do their job so of course some blame attaches to them. I blame all levels: the security guards, the security firms, the State government for trusting private security when they should have know about issues in the sector and the Federal Government for abrogating their responsibility for quarantine. Heck the hotel quarantines probably go right back to failures at the start like the Ruby Princess.

The only blame I give the Federal Government on this is they force the State Governments hand on making sure ADF was used to oversee this.

 

[Althom]

"Two teenagers who tested positive to coronavirus in Queensland allegedly travelled to Melbourne this month on a shoplifting mission to steal luxury handbags.

As fears rose that the 19-year-old women had triggered Queensland’s first community-transmitted cluster in months — with a sister of one of the pair also testing positive late on Wednesday — it emerged they were wanted by Victoria Police.

It is understood the pair are under investigation over an attempted theft of Bottega Veneta handbags at a high-end store in Melbourne, with suspicions they travelled interstate specifically to shoplift the goods and sell them."

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/na...r/news-story/a17f918af01acc7fd70f597d21e9c13b (paywalled)

Turns out there was a third one in the group. One of them is not co-operating with the investigation and is refusing to say where she's been. A $4k fine is manifestly inadequate.

 

[DavidSSS]

I don't blame the security firms. Security is not an essential service. The gov't chose to use them. It's on them, not the security firms.

Aged care is a different matter and you raise good points. It also points out how poorly some treat their parents at the end of life. Its not simple and its no fun getting old but It must mean families are choosing to place their parents in facilities that cut corners? How do these people live with themselves? Surely you do some research when choosing the place? And surely you visit, ask questions etc etc? A poor level of care would quickly be revealed.

Hopefully there will be some big changes in the health sector after this.

I do blame the security firms, they were contracted to do a job and they f***ed it up.

I also blame the state government for hiring them.

I also blame the federal government because we know how to quarantine people, you don't take them to a hotel in the middle of town, you take them to a quarantine station, or did we close them all?

Clusterf*** from top to bottom.

Aged care is a mess. People talk about finding a facility with better staffing, take better care etc. Good luck with that. The industry is dominated by a small number of providers. It is an oligopoly which, of course, is the most common market structure we see. Markets tend towards oligopolies despite what the theory claims. The place my mum was at seemed quite good, she had dementia and limited ability to move around but I reckon she lived longer there than she would have at home despite her protestations.

I'll redo my numbers (later) as they have probably come from daily briefings, it will mean numbers relied on are later in the day but I reckon the best source would be the DHHS website, they have numbers going back in the full report, which links off this page: https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/coronavirus Need a single source of truth.

I have only been out for shopping, cycling (on road, alone and away from others) and I am working from home. But I go out there and there are a lot of people around. I see people browsing in shops and the way they amble around the supermarket is stunning. Bit hard to socially distance when people stand around in the middle of the aisle contemplating who knows what - go shopping: you go, get what you need quickly and get out. It would be interesting to see what it is like in the city. I rode through town one day in the first lockdown and it was very quiet, but I have noticed more traffic, more people down the street etc this time around. FFS why are they not at home?

DS

 

[Ian4]

VIC
New Cases: 694 (723 with 29 reclassified)
Total Cases: 9998
Active Cases: 5385 (up 546 from yesterday).
13 deaths (105 Total).
19,921 tests (1,574,626 Total)

NSW
New Cases: 18
Total Cases: 3736
Active Cases: *188 (not yet updated from yesterday).
0 deaths (51 Total). Note: NSW Government website says 51 deaths, other sites say 49.
27,147 tests (1,436,834 Total)

 

[Ridley]

I know this is not a popular view with the Government minimisation crowd but what we are seeing is the hazards of privatisation of things that are essential services
The hotel quarantine security was outsourced and was a disaster, private aged residential care is in awful trouble but government run centres are not.
I get all the theory and what the perfect models say but they all ignore one thing which is when there is a profit motive human greed takes over and quality gets shortcut for profit. You either have public models or heavily regulate somethings imo. Aged care is a perfect example of all types of government handing it over largely to private operators because they are scared of the cost.
We have also seen issues with our public systems as well of course. Victoria has ignored the opportunities for public health reform for 15 years now whilst other states have done it. We are also seeing the complete mess that is the separation between state and federal responsibilities being exposed.
I hope we learn from this

Good post. I generally have no issue with privatisation per se and in many cases private industry can do it better and more efficient than government. Aged care is not one of this instances and should be exempt from profit making enterprises. As we have seen in the past few months there is too much at stake. As a nation we need to spend more on this sector.

Also, why have Victorian governments ignored public health reform where others have done it? We've had 11 years of Labor government in those 15 years; public service and facilities is supposed to be their mantra so I don't get why they would ignore the recommendations.

 

[Brodders17]

Good post. I generally have no issue with privatisation per se and in many cases private industry can do it better and more efficient than government. Aged care is not one of this instances and should be exempt from profit making enterprises. As we have seen in the past few months there is too much at stake. As a nation we need to spend more on this sector.

some would say everything should be left to the private sector, without any regulation.

 

[Sintiger]

Also, why have Victorian governments ignored public health reform where others have done it? We've had 11 years of Labor government in those 15 years; public service and facilities is supposed to be their mantra so I don't get why they would ignore the recommendations.

It's not that they ignore recommendations Ridley it's that they believe (or believed) the Victorian system is better. There are comments all the time on the Vic model, for instance the Grattan Institute are very vocal about it, but there are no actual official recommendations. Norman Swan has jumped on the bandwagon as well.

The Victorian model dates back to the Kennett reforms of the mid 90's and if anything the LNP is more wedded to this independent devolved model in Vic Health than Labor is.

There is evidence to back up the Vic model being better as Victoria has consistently had the best outcomes and lowest cost in the public hospital sector. However it is not suited to a pandemic as we have seen.

 

[Ridley]

It's not that they ignore recommendations Ridley it's that they believe (or believed) the Victorian system is better. There are comments all the time on the Vic model, for instance the Grattan Institute are very vocal about it, but there are no actual official recommendations. Norman Swan has jumped on the bandwagon as well.

The Victorian model dates back to the Kennett reforms of the mid 90's and if anything the LNP is more wedded to this independent devolved model in Vic Health than Labor is.

There is evidence to back up the Vic model being better as Victoria has consistently had the best outcomes and lowest cost in the public hospital sector. However it is not suited to a pandemic as we have seen.

No worries thanks for the explanation Sin. I guess reform is always easier said than done and it's taken a once in a hundred years pandemic to reveal some real serious flaws in the system.

 

[mrposhman]

Whilst everyone is looking at trends of new cases (and its fair to do that), there are other trends that are useful to review too as it paints a slightly different picture to the very high number we saw today.

I've been tracking the stats from here that shows the numbers before any reclassificatiions.

3,011,288 Coronavirus Cases and 1,432 Active in Victoria - COVID Live

Live tracking of coronavirus cases, active, tests, deaths, ICU, hospitalisations and vaccinations in Victoria

covidlive.com.au

The last 3 days have seen a decline in the number of people in ICU despite the number of hospitalised increasing. At the start of July we were at 13.3% of hospitalised patients in ICU (2 out of 15), today we are at 10.9% (34 out of 312). At the height of this outbreak we were at 30.6% both on the 11th and 13th of July, so thats clearly a good news story.

They have also been only reporting number of active cases inside aged care for 8 days, this has risen fro 12.3% of active cases on 23rd to 17.0% today. I think this suggests we have 2 clear drivers right now, aged care and everyone else. I suspect the caseload is flattening outside of aged care and inside is continuing to spike. We need to be reporting these seperately as we need to understand the impact of restrictions on the rest of the public and whether this is flattening and reducing the curve. Ie. are the restrictions doing their job outside of aged care.

If so, then we can expect that to continue to decline and then can focus fully on the aged care issue.

 

[Ridley]

Whilst everyone is looking at trends of new cases (and its fair to do that), there are other trends that are useful to review too as it paints a slightly different picture to the very high number we saw today.

I've been tracking the stats from here that shows the numbers before any reclassificatiions.

3,011,288 Coronavirus Cases and 1,432 Active in Victoria - COVID Live

Live tracking of coronavirus cases, active, tests, deaths, ICU, hospitalisations and vaccinations in Victoria

covidlive.com.au

The last 3 days have seen a decline in the number of people in ICU despite the number of hospitalised increasing. At the start of July we were at 13.3% of hospitalised patients in ICU (2 out of 15), today we are at 10.9% (34 out of 312). At the height of this outbreak we were at 30.6% both on the 11th and 13th of July, so thats clearly a good news story.

They have also been only reporting number of active cases inside aged care for 8 days, this has risen fro 12.3% of active cases on 23rd to 17.0% today. I think this suggests we have 2 clear drivers right now, aged care and everyone else. I suspect the caseload is flattening outside of aged care and inside is continuing to spike. We need to be reporting these seperately as we need to understand the impact of restrictions on the rest of the public and whether this is flattening and reducing the curve. Ie. are the restrictions doing their job outside of aged care.

If so, then we can expect that to continue to decline and then can focus fully on the aged care issue.

Good research and analysis Posh; thanks.

 

[Tigers of Old]

Whilst everyone is looking at trends of new cases (and its fair to do that), there are other trends that are useful to review too as it paints a slightly different picture to the very high number we saw today.

I've been tracking the stats from here that shows the numbers before any reclassificatiions.

3,011,288 Coronavirus Cases and 1,432 Active in Victoria - COVID Live

Live tracking of coronavirus cases, active, tests, deaths, ICU, hospitalisations and vaccinations in Victoria

covidlive.com.au

The last 3 days have seen a decline in the number of people in ICU despite the number of hospitalised increasing. At the start of July we were at 13.3% of hospitalised patients in ICU (2 out of 15), today we are at 10.9% (34 out of 312). At the height of this outbreak we were at 30.6% both on the 11th and 13th of July, so thats clearly a good news story.

They have also been only reporting number of active cases inside aged care for 8 days, this has risen fro 12.3% of active cases on 23rd to 17.0% today. I think this suggests we have 2 clear drivers right now, aged care and everyone else. I suspect the caseload is flattening outside of aged care and inside is continuing to spike. We need to be reporting these seperately as we need to understand the impact of restrictions on the rest of the public and whether this is flattening and reducing the curve. Ie. are the restrictions doing their job outside of aged care.

If so, then we can expect that to continue to decline and then can focus fully on the aged care issue.

Need you in the mainstream media instead of the drama queens driving panic/sales.

 

[Quickdraw]

I got texts from the club this afternoon saying that my wife and I can go in a ballot for tickets to the Port Adelaide game. Yippee I think. No guarantee we'll get them but we'll try.

Then.........
I get an email from the S.A. government, telling me that my approval to return to S.A. has been REVOKED!
This confused me as I arrived back home 21 days ago (and spent 14 days in isolation).
So I emailed them, explained that I've been here for weeks, done the isolation thing (and a negative Covid test) and attached their previous approval.
Great service. They replied within minutes. Unfortunately they sent the same email telling me that my approval had been REVOKED!
So I've written again (in a less agreeable tone than the first response) and repeated that I'm already here.
Now I'm (only slightly) worried that I will be "deported" back to Victoria!

I'm seriously thinking of either
Calling in to 5AA tomorrow morning and telling 'em how stuffed the government system is, or
Provoke them into "deporting" me and suing them for an abuse of human rights

And we'll still try and get tickets to Adelaide Oval

 

[DavidSSS]

Ok, so using the DHHS figures now, one source, and they seem to update these each day, updating previous days as they go, so here is what I get:

​	Daily Cases​	7 day trailing ave​
1 July 2020​	72​	​
2 July 2020​	61​	​
3 July 2020​	98​	​
4 July 2020​	68​	​
5 July 2020​	98​	​
6 July 2020​	168​	​
7 July 2020​	123​	98.29​
8 July 2020​	150​	107.14​
9 July 2020​	143​	121.14​
10 July 2020​	292​	148.86​
11 July 2020​	255​	175.57​
12 July 2020​	170​	185.86​
13 July 2020​	250​	197.57​
14 July 2020​	223​	211.86​
15 July 2020​	296​	232.71​
16 July 2020​	386​	267.43​
17 July 2020​	211​	255.86​
18 July 2020​	341​	268.14​
19 July 2020​	268​	282.14​
20 July 2020​	333​	294.00​
21 July 2020​	442​	325.29​
22 July 2020​	380​	337.29​
23 July 2020​	289​	323.43​
24 July 2020​	338​	341.57​
25 July 2020​	426​	353.71​
26 July 2020​	512​	388.57​
27 July 2020​	363​	392.86​
28 July 2020​	278​	369.43​
29 July 2020​	723​	418.43​

Hmm, cut and paste from a spreadsheet, not bad.

The DHHS figures lag a day behind, which is logical as they would be reporting the previous day's results.

And as a graph:



Certainly not a good day today, but the trailing average gives a better idea what is going on as daily fluctuations are just a bit all over the place.

Monsieur Poshman, disaggregating the numbers is very useful, often quite revealing, but I'll leave that to you thanks

We can't keep this trend going as it is clearly up, looks a lot like one of those climate graphs, except the climate graph ain't about to go down anytime soon as we're doing nothing about it.

DS

 

[MD Jazz]

I do blame the security firms, they were contracted to do a job and they f***ed it up.

I also blame the state government for hiring them.

You don't think if you were the person in Gov't that chose the firms that you would take some responsibility for how they were going to manage it? If the buck stopped with me, and I'm charged with appointing agents to manage the biggest risk to public health in history I might just want to see how they were going to manage it? Surely that formed part of the brief when putting it out there? Surely you don't just tick the check list and forget about it?

Yes the firms themselves *smile* it up, and if they over represented their ability based on lucrative govt contracts they must be held accountable. Publicly shamed. Directors fined and prosecuted to the max extent.

 

[AngryAnt]

You don't think if you were the person in Gov't that chose the firms that you would take some responsibility for how they were going to manage it? If the buck stopped with me, and I'm charged with appointing agents to manage the biggest risk to public health in history I might just want to see how they were going to manage it? Surely that formed part of the brief when putting it out there? Surely you don't just tick the check list and forget about it?

Maybe they were given a brief and protocols to follow. Sounds like they didn't follow them, which is a failure at individual and management levels of the company. I'd agree it would be a failure of government to check protocols were being followed or not. I hope we find out in the inquiry.

 

[MD Jazz]

Maybe they were given a brief and protocols to follow. Sounds like they didn't follow them, which is a failure at individual and management levels of the company. I'd agree it would be a failure of government to check protocols were being followed or not. I hope we find out in the inquiry.

Yeh, hopefully they throw the book at business owners if they haven't followed protocols - which they clearly haven't from reports so far.

 

[Brodders17]

You don't think if you were the person in Gov't that chose the firms that you would take some responsibility for how they were going to manage it? If the buck stopped with me, and I'm charged with appointing agents to manage the biggest risk to public health in history I might just want to see how they were going to manage it? Surely that formed part of the brief when putting it out there? Surely you don't just tick the check list and forget about it?

Yes the firms themselves *smile* it up, and if they over represented their ability based on lucrative govt contracts they must be held accountable. Publicly shamed. Directors fined and prosecuted to the max extent.

not defending the vic government, but it appears quarantine in every state has been a little fraught, Victoria the state that paid the price.

the other question is whether there really were multiple systematic issues (i dont tend to believe everything reported in the media- especially sensational news), or whether somebody f'kd up once and now every one is paying the price.

 

[HR]

not defending the vic government, but it appears quarantine in every state has been a little fraught, Victoria the state that paid the price.

the other question is whether there really were multiple systematic issues (i dont tend to believe everything reported in the media- especially sensational news), or whether somebody f'kd up once and now every one is paying the price.

I see that our issue in Australia has been that the "individual" has been given the responsibility to do the right thing.
We as a society generally do the right thing until we are adversely affected by its outcome.
If you know you are unlikely to get caught why bother worrying about the rule?
Individuals should not be given any choice with a virus that has caused a pandemic.
Governments should have dealt with all quarantine requirements, they should have secured hotels and secured policy and procedures to eliminate *smile* ups like what has happened in Victoria and has been lucky not to have happened in all other states and territories.

 

[AngryAnt]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1288742902512750592

 

[DavidSSS]

You don't think if you were the person in Gov't that chose the firms that you would take some responsibility for how they were going to manage it? If the buck stopped with me, and I'm charged with appointing agents to manage the biggest risk to public health in history I might just want to see how they were going to manage it? Surely that formed part of the brief when putting it out there? Surely you don't just tick the check list and forget about it?

Yes the firms themselves *smile* it up, and if they over represented their ability based on lucrative govt contracts they must be held accountable. Publicly shamed. Directors fined and prosecuted to the max extent.

You quoted my comment, which clearly stated "I also blame the state government for hiring them" and you ask if I don't think the government should take some responsibility? Did I not just say that? Of course they should take responsibility for how the firms would complete the job, I just said that. But the firms also do not get off the hook, they took the job and f***ed it up, they too have to wear the blame.

As does the level of government responsible for quarantine - the Feds. We should have facilities which can be used for quarantine, this country is free of a lot of diseases and we need to keep it that way.

DS