Lol not gonna bother arguing with a conspiracy theorist.  I got a grandfather who I haven't seen since early April because of people flouting the rules.  So fuck you

You have a grandfather you haven't seen since April because of the Andrews government. Abusing me doesn't change that

Yes andrews is at fault for fuckwits ignoring the rules.  Gotcha.  

First of all, in April Victoria was one of the most compliant states. So to say recent non compliance has resulted in you not seeing a loved one for 4 months is just venting. Which is understandable given what people are going through

Secondly, to understand a virus you have to understand the host. And anybody who thinks the host of this virus can be put behind lock and key for extended periods at a time is kidding themselves. Especially since we already had an 11 week lockdown

People need a life balance. It is called being human. The conditions created in Victoria are unlivable for some. You may call it "fuckwits breaking the rules" but wanting to escape mental breakdown, famine, hardship, domestic abuse, unemployment, boredom, starved of social contact etc... is being human

Dont kid yourself into thinking the handful of articles you read by the sensationalist media is the norm. The vast majority, I would estimate upwards of 90%, have done the right thing. But a one sized fits all approach doesnt work. Its all well and good for those people who still have a house or a job or live with others to throw abuse at people who have less but try putting yourself in other people's shoes

NSW have gotten results because even though they have had more outbreaks than Victoria and been the virus epicenter they have at the very least understood people's fundamental need to live from day to day so their policy has been about striking a balance. For Victoria many people have been unemployed and in lockdown for what will be 17 weeks for regional Victoria and 20-21 weeks for Melbourne - at a minimum

Lockdown isnt a vaccine. More rules and restrictions doesnt mean better results. This notion of "people just have to put themselves through hell for 6 weeks and it will be over until the next time" is not a viable approach. Maybe try understanding why people are doing the "wrong thing"

Gotcha. A person who isn't an expert knows more than experts . 

You have literally witnessed a handful of cases explode into 400-500 cases a day but are willing to trust that these people know what they are doing because they have a piece of paper stating what they are qualified to do

If being an "expert" was as black and white as you are painting it there would have been a single nationwide approach with quicker results. The fact we have seen every decision maker in Australia take a different approach should tell you that the answer to this isnt at the back of a text book

Somewhere in the world there is somebody with the required qualifications that has expressed my opinion. I am simply stating theirs

Gotcha.  You know more than experts Gotcha 

I can't find a reliable textbook source for your statement so I have dismissed it

Gotcha.  You're an expert with qualifications.  Gotcha 

Even Murdoch media has reported that The Australian's report of those simulations was incorrect.

https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/victoria-coronavirus-peak-in-daily-covid19-cases-still-to-come/news-story/ef5386c256d41188dab8975d08a7a0e1

I can't agree that we wouldn't see more cases without a lockdown. If we were all going to work and seeing each other I am sure the virus would spread much more. I'm not an epidemiologist and I don't have a link to a source, but I think it's pretty obvious.

I also can't leave your comment about people not being able to leave a house due to domestic abuse or mental health unchallenged as there are exemptions for this.

This virus doesnt need public space to spread. It requires human to human contact. Whether that is at work, or mates visiting each other at home, as long as people are in contact with each other the virus will spread

Having 75% of people in Melbourne limited to compassionate household visits doesn't stop the virus from spreading. In fact what we definitively know is that shared living spaces is the biggest source of spread for this virus. If one of your housemates catches it, you'll catch it. It really is that simple. And all it takes is one compassionate visit

Even Carlito, who has spent the best part of today abusing everybody else, has admitted to visiting an elderly relative 3-4 weeks into the initial lockdown in April. People are going to make decisions based on their own needs, standards or what they see as important. And the collective of this is what we see reported in the daily figures

We have seen the worst figures this country has had to offer in a stage 3 lockdown. Equally we saw NSW drive down concerning outbreaks at the same initial scale as Victoria down without any major infringements on people's way of life. Lockdown is not a guaranteed cure

There is a difference between "tough" and "must be done". A few weeks ago Andrews said he wouldn't punish the regional areas who have done everything right. Now he has gone back on that. We have also seen this ridiculous rule that if somebody walks down an isolated rural road with their dog they will be fined $200 unless they are wearing a mask - imposed right across the state. Blanket policy seldom works. If people can't see a link between what they are being asked to do and what is happening then you end up with non compliance

The escaping domestic violence issue / mental health issue isn't black and white. Some people can't walk away from abusive partners or have limited options. Some people may not even realise they are a victim. Its not exactly something you can announce "I'm going for a walk" "But we arent allowed to leave the house" "It's fine. You're an abuse c**t so I'm allowed to". They were also only 2 examples of things I mentioned

Let me say this. I have done every single thing I am supposed to throughout the course of this virus. I have not broken a single rule and have not advocated non compliance. But that doesnt mean I agree with the rules, support the rule makers, or am immediately critical of what is obviously people who have built up immunity towards a lockdown that went on for too long. Victoria went and did its own thing and have paid the price

As for your point above about mathematical models, I am talking about since March, and the ones provided by the Victorian government (such as the announcement masks are successful on July 31). Not the ones provided by other people

The whole point of limiting movement and contact is so spread can be traced and the growth can be controlled. Don’t why that is so controversial.

One of the most controversial debates during the initial COVID response was contact tracing vs testing everybody

If somebody contracts the virus and you test their immediate circle, then you'll uncover those (with or without symptoms) most likely to have it. If however you test random people, it doesnt say anything about where the virus is or how its spreading

I read on the ABC feed this guy who didnt have any symptoms or didnt have any reason to think he had the virus. He wanted to get tested to "do his bit" but didnt want to self isolate for 14 days afterwards because he didnt think he was at risk. And all of this would have been at the expense of somebody at the back of a long queue turned away, or Victoria's ability to process the backlog of vials faster

NSW, once again, have proven you dont need total lockdown to effectively contact trace. Where as in Victoria, despite having much much more tests than every other state, let a small number of cases grow with no idea where it was or how it was spreading. Even today, well within the lockdown stage 3 at the time the tests were taken, there are over 100 tests with no known source

The point is good contact tracing comes from the testing strategy, not total shut down. Because Victoria is no closer to unraveling this mess than they were when it started

Its controversial to those like bluebird because they see it as their freedom being taken away from them and its like living in martial law. Which is ironic since I havent heard the police and army having a coup for that to happen. 

Shutdown is to stop the bleeding. The virus grows exponentially if unchecked. Having a shutdown from stage 3 then stage 4 was undertaken but Victoria was still recording ~500 case a day. It's a massive inconvenience (honestly, no one wants to do this) but people just need to suck it up for 1-2 months and then remain vigilant afterwards. There is no testing strategy once things get out of hand. NSW are lucky because the numbers are still ~15 a day, so you can effectively trace.

This isnt about total lockdown vs no lockdown. This is about what are the minimum rules required to get this to work and what are the trade offs

I'll give an example using football. You have the 90% people who are football fans. And the 10% of people who are casual. If you go aggressively trying to attract the 10% AFL / NRL fans with gimmicks etc... then you alienate the 90%. You can't have both so its about deciding which is more important

Its the same with this virus. Going aggressively at stranger to stranger transmission forces people into their households where we know over 90% of the transmission is. They are opposite approaches. You said it yourself that lockdown had no impact. The measures introduced in Victoria drove the numbers upwards, not downwards

For this virus to continue to grow exponentially then aged care homes need to start magically appearing in exponential numbers. Its like saying if 50% off tickets gets 15k at Hindmarsh instead of 7.5k, then logically 25% off will see 30k at Hindmarsh. When we see communal spread like we are seeing in Victoria then there will come a natural point where the numbers will plateau. For this virus to grow exponentially it needs to hit new areas and those areas need to have the same problems. This can be resolved by minimising / stopping travel between towns, not starving the economy within those towns

Victoria needs to be careful that it isnt creating problems where we currently dont have problems by shifting people's social habits. It would be smarter to try to target 4 or 5 key areas to keep 90% of the virus in check than to just throw the whole state into lockdown and pretend it is some kind of magical cure

Your analogy fails because the 90% would quickly become casual if you aren't acting quickly enough. Pretty sure 90% of the 90% understand this. The numbers in Victoria are starting to plateau now but last week they were still growing, so there is definitely room for the virus to still grow in Victoria.

If 90% results in 10% community transmission then driving down the 90% will drive down the 10% and the virus will eventually disappear. As long as the stranger to stranger re transmission is less than 1 there isnt a problem. And with social distancing policies in place there is no reason for it to be higher

If we simply target the 10% while the 90% grows then we end up with, well, what is happening in Victoria right now

I think it was only the last day or so that our R has been less than 1 (nationally). 

The total, yes. Let me explain with simple figures

In the initial virus outbreak there was 50% transmission from known to known, which resulted in 30% transmission from known to unknown (Community Transmission)

In simple terms: If 18 people from overseas came back with the virus, 9 people known to them would contract the virus, resulting in 3 strangers getting the virus. Because the stranger to stranger transmission is 30% then the next step in the chain is 1 and eventually it dies out (or stays at low and manageable numbers)

Even in Victoria we see similar where you have 100 cases with an unknown source, but on a day where there are 400 to 500 cases. So effectively community transmission is a side effect of the known transmission. One is literally a driver of the other. But without the overseas cases as a significant offset then the community transmission becomes 25% of total cases instead of 10%

The driver of the 'r' number occurs in the 9 in my example. When there was exponential growth in the known to known transmission the r number was high. As it has started to plateau we have seen the r number decrease. But whether the total r number is above 1 or below 1, it isnt an indicator of how much of this virus is spreading through the community and whether there is concerning exponential growth in community transmission

The community transmission figure has still made up the minority of cases because we have social distancing in place. There are measures in place right across Australia designed to minimise outbreaks in the community even without lockdown. If you ever see a higher community transmission figure then it points to a failure in social distancing policy

And this is basically what I have been trying to say above

If Victoria has policies that limit household to household movement then you'll see a drop in the "known" figure (which leads to a drop in the unknown figure)
If Victoria has policies that limit community movement then you see a drop in the "unknown" figure (but the known figure runs rampant resulting in a higher unknown figure)

They are opposite approaches and the only way to have both is to limit all movement which just leads to non compliance

Given that the known transmission is a driver of the unknown it makes more sense to target household movement and encourage people to meet up in public and sterile places than to do the opposite which is what Victoria did at the end of May. And this is what I mean when I say we target the "90%" instead of the "10%"

This part is where your argument doesn't stack up in my view. Of course there weren't as many stranger-to-stranger infections once we started restrictions, but if we didn't act there would have been many more, as has been the case in the US and Brazil.

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge, but I realised yesterday that the ABC's health reporter Norman Swan is the father of Jonathan Swan, who is currently the talk of the town after his Trump interview.

I did read that after that interview went viral but had no idea like you.  In fact I'd never even heard of Axios.  Who are they actua;y?

I'd never heard of them before this either. Seem to be an independent news organisation. Going off his wiki Swan has broken a few pretty big stories over there with them.

Swan also faced criticism due to him when in Oz not taking our politicians to task 

if you lock down too early , herd immunity will only happen at later date.
jut let it run its course and shield the vulnerable 

How is Sweden doing with that approach? 

Stranger to stranger infections are limited by social distancing and public gathering policies

USA has issues with population density and Brazil has issues with compliance. Neither were applicable

The only time we have ever seen an exponential increase in community transmission (independent of an increasing household to household number) was before social distancing was mandated and several analysts of early data have argued we didnt even need a stage 3 lockdown because the numbers were already regressing at that point

People have a social need. Family are visiting family, friends are visiting friends, work mates are visiting work mates. Policy needs to control this behavior, not eradicate it. Victoria needs to focus on "this is how you do x", not "you are no longer allowed to do x"

There comes a point where too many rules and restrictions have an adverse effect and actually drive the numbers upwards. Thats the part some people don't seem to understand

We tried to "shield" the vulnerable and they're currently dying at an alarming rate.

-PB