Replies to post #344059 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

The Chinese experience

.. this is a further excerpt from .. "The Covid-19 exit strategy: when will Australia know the coronavirus battle is over?"

Whew, lol, i would HAVE to own a mobile if i lived in China.

Wuhan, the original centre of the virus, has begun to lift the restrictions on movement after 76 days of near-total lockdown. Movement is now allowed out of the city to the wider Hubei province and beyond.

At its peak, Wuhan’s lockdown was extreme: images of doors being welded shut to lock people in their homes shocked the world.

Authoritarian regimes are less concerned about curtailing their citizens’ civil liberties and human rights. Liberal democracies find such measures harder to implement: their populations will not tolerate such extreme impositions.

“We’re not going to go and cut and paste measures from other places, which have completely different societies. I mean, in China they were welding people’s doors shut,” Morrison told reporters bluntly. “That might be OK with them, but … we have different ways of doing things in Australia.”


Travellers line up outside Hankou railway station in Wuhan after travel restrictions were lifted. Photograph: Aly Song/Reuters

China has been condemned, queried and praised for its response to Covid-19: lauded for its swift and effective lockdown measures; questioned over the veracity of its infection reporting and suppression of information; and excoriated for its failure to adequately warn the world in the initial stages of outbreak and silencing doctors who tried to raise the alarm.

But, even as restrictions ease across the world’s most populous nation, freedom there post-Covid is scarcely unrestrained.

China’s Health Code app has been downloaded by 700 million people. It is mandatory in some Covid-19-affected areas, such as Wuhan, for even the most fundamental freedoms – to enter a supermarket, catch a taxi, ride the subway or see a doctor.

Users must first fill in their personal details, including their national ID number, where they live and whether they have been in contact with confirmed cases of the virus. The app then gives them a colour-coded rating: green means they are free to travel; yellow mandates seven days quarantine, and red requires 14 days.

The app also quietly collects – and shares with police – a user’s location and travel data.

The “freedom” provided by this technological development has not been universally welcomed.

“I thought the days when humans are ruled by machines and algorithms won’t happen for at least another 50 years, one blogger on Zhihu wrote. “This coronavirus epidemic has suddenly brought it on early.”

Human Rights Watch described the Health Code app as “automated tyranny” .. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/01/china-fighting-covid-19-automated-tyranny .

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/the-covid-19-exit-strategy-when-will-australia-know-the-coronavirus-battle-is-over

[fuagf]

HAPPY EASTER SUNDAY, folks. -Trump advisers doubt swift reopening as WHO official says virus will 'stalk human race'

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"The Covid-19 exit strategy: when will Australia know the coronavirus battle is over?
[...]
The risk of relaxing too early
There is danger in complacency. Singapore, for weeks the darling of international comparison, the exemplar of how best to suppress the Covid-19 pandemic, has since seen a dramatic spike in the number of infections – a 60% jump in new daily infections .. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-singapore/singapore-reports-120-new-coronavirus-cases-in-record-daily-jump-idUSKBN21N0G6 – and has announced a further tightening of restrictions.
P - It will now close all schools and most workplaces – only essential services such as supermarkets and banks will stay open – for a full month. It has instituted jail terms for breaching stay-at-home orders, and banned visitors and transits through the country."
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Fauci warns of resurgence if restrictions dropped too soon

US reputation hits rock-bottom over Trump’s virus response
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/12/us-global-reputation-rock-bottom-donald-trump-coronavirus

Richard Luscombe, Edward Helmore and Martin Pengelly

Mon 13 Apr 2020 02.59 AEST
Last modified on Mon 13 Apr 2020 03.21 AEST


Trump coronavirus task force press briefing at the White House on 10 April. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Senior US public health officials have pushed back on Donald Trump’s eagerness to reopen the country quickly, as a senior World Health Organization (WHO) figure warned that Covid-19 “is going to be a virus that stalks the human race for quite a long to come”.

According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/apr/08/coronavirus-map-of-the-us-latest-cases-state-by-state , by Sunday lunchtime more than 530,000 Covid-19 cases had been confirmed in the US and close to 21,000 deaths, making the US the country with the most cases and the most fatalities.

In New York .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/new-york , the worst-hit state by far, Governor Andrew Cuomo reported 758 more deaths on Saturday, raising the toll to 9,385, more than three times the state’s death toll from the 9/11 attacks.

Cuomo reported signs of progress including a flattening number of hospitalisations but said the daily death rate, also flat but high, was “terrible news”.

“That’s the one number I look forward to seeing drop,” he said.

On Saturday night, Trump said a decision to open up the economy was one he alone [ASSHOLE] would make, and would be “the biggest” of his presidency. He has targeted 1 May as the date when the country may begin a return to normalcy, and in a tweet on Sunday morning ..

A very good sign is that empty hospital beds are becoming more and more prevalent. We deployed 418 Doctors, Nurses and Respiratory Therapists from the hospital ship Comfort and the Javits Convention Center to hospitals in NYC & State. Have more bed capacity than was needed. Good!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2020

.. cited a drop in hospitalisations as “a very good sign”.

But Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, stressed any such move should come only when it was safe and as a gradual process. He also warned of the danger of a resurgence of Covid-19 cases later in the year if things reopened too soon.

“If you just say, ‘OK, it’s whatever, 1 May, click, turn the switch on,’ obviously, if you do it in an all-or-none way, there’s an extraordinary risk of there being a rebound,” he told CNN’s State of the Union. “That could be a real problem. And everybody knows that.

“When one starts to relax some of those restrictions, we know that there will be people who will be getting infected. That is just reality. The critical issue is to be able to, in real time, identify, isolate and contact trace.

“Obviously, New York, [which] is going through a terrible ordeal, is going to be very different from Arkansas, and very different maybe from some places on the west coast, like Washington state, which have been successfully able to prevent that big spike. I think it’s going to have to be something that is not one size fits all.”

Fauci was backed by Dr Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug administration (FDA).

“The primary issue here is the safety and the welfare of the American people. That has to come first,” Hahn told NBC’s Meet the Press, noting he had not felt political pressure on any decision. “Testing is one component of the response to the outbreak, in addition to the mitigation effort … so all hands on deck to try to get more diagnostic tests in.”

WHO special envoy Dr David Nabarro made a grim prediction.

“We think it is going to be a virus that stalks the human race for quite a long time to come until we can all have a vaccine that will protect us and that there will be small outbreaks that will emerge sporadically and they will break through our defences,” he said, also on NBC.

[INSERT: Zardiw, Why We Still Need To Test Widely For Coronavirus
By Kaleigh Rogers Mar. 18, 2020, at 12:00 PM
This article is not dated and won't be until there is a tried and true vaccine for COVID-19.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=154874435

Trump has been highly critical of the WHO .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-who.html , in comments some have seen as scapegoating .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/world-health-organization-coronavirus-donald-trump .. to deflect from the failures of his own administration.

“The WHO works on behalf of all the governments in the world and it operates within mandates that are given to it,” Nabarro said. “We know there will be many things found to have perhaps not been done as well as they could have been, and we’re anticipating there’ll be lots of examinations afterwards. Right now, we have to move forward.”

Trump’s Sunday tweet appeared to indicate he was still keen to reopen the country sooner than later, having told Fox News on Saturday night he would seek advice from “very smart people”. Last week, Trump announced he would establish a bipartisan “Opening Our Country Council”.

“A lot of very smart people, a lot of professionals, doctors and business leaders are a lot of things that go into a decision like that,” he said. “And it’s going to be based on a lot of facts and a lot of instinct also. Whether we like it or not, there is a certain instinct to it.”

[Duh. Donald, How many business bankruptcies did you have?? Remind us again.]

Among governors of hard-hit states, instincts tend towards caution. Phil Murphy of New Jersey told CNN 2,183 “blessed souls” had died in his state and repeated to CBS’s Face the Nation: “If we start to get back on our feet too soon … we could be throwing gasoline on the fire.”

Trump’s Fox phone-in came ahead of another tweet ..

So now the Fake News @nytimes is tracing the CoronaVirus origins back to Europe, NOT China. This is a first! I wonder what the Failing New York Times got for this one? Are there any NAMED sources? They were recently thrown out of China like dogs, and obviously want back in. Sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2020

.. in which he attacked the New York Times, which on Saturday reported .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html .. that the White House failed to act on several explicit security agency warnings in January about the potential for coronavirus to spread to the US.

[TRUMP: You can't tell the truth! How many times do I have to tell you! There is no truth which reflects badly on me!!]

Trump conflated reports on the outbreak and mis-represented Times reporting which said researchers think most Covid-19 cases in New York came from Europe – not that the virus had originated there.

“So now the Fake News is tracing the CoronaVirus origins back to Europe, NOT China,” Trump wrote. “This is a first! I wonder what the Failing New York Times got for this one? Are there any NAMED sources?”

[ASSHOLE]

On Wednesday, for example, The Times .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html .. quoted Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who co-wrote a study awaiting peer review, as saying: “The majority [of New York cases] is clearly European [in origin].”

Trump also claimed the Times was “recently thrown out of China like dogs, and obviously want back in. Sad!”

Times journalists were among Americans expelled by the Chinese government .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/media/china-expels-american-journalists.html .. in response to the Trump administration limiting the numbers of Chinese citizens who can work for Chinese news organisations in the US.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/12/trump-fauci-hahn-reopening-who-virus-stalk-human-race

See also:

Report: Trump Privately Asks Why Government Can't Just Let COVID 'Wash Over' The Country
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=154956315


https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=154957160

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Two hospitals closed. About 5000 people have been forced into quarantine in
northwest Tasmania as health authorities battle a COVID-19 outbreak at two hospitals.
https://www.standard.net.au/story/6720241/tas-virus-outbreak-quarantines-thousands/?cs=7

Two Australian clusters being jumped on. NW Tasmania and South Australia.

COVID-19 concerns for SA airport staff
April 13 2020 - 11:24AM


About 750 Qantas staff are in quarantine after a cluster of coronavirus cases at Adelaide airport.

The Transport Workers Union has called for a full investigation into how Qantas
handled an outbreak of coronavirus cases among its staff at Adelaide Airport.

About 750 Qantas staff at the airport will self-quarantine for two weeks amid
concerns COVID-19 has spread from baggage handlers to other workers.

The airline cluster stands at 34, including 18 baggage handlers,
13 of their close contacts and three other Qantas staff.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6720239/covid-19-concerns-for-sa-airport-staff/?cs=14231

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Australians told restrictions must stay even as new virus infections slow

"The Covid-19 exit strategy: when will Australia know the coronavirus battle is over?"

Colin Packham April 20, 2020 / 10:35 AM / Updated 19 hours ago

4 Min Read

SYDNEY (Reuters) - More than 150 Australian economists on Monday warned the government against easing social distancing rules aimed at halting the spread of the new coronavirus even as the rate of infections slowed to a multi-week low.

IMAGE
The Sydney Opera House and city centre skyline are seen as the spread of the coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) continues in Sydney, Australia, April 20, 2020. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Australia has so far avoided the high numbers of coronavirus casualties reported around the world after closing its borders and imposing restrictions on public movement.

While the measures have slowed the growth in new infections to fewer than 40 new cases a day, the restrictions are expected to push unemployment to a 16-year high of about 10%.

Australia has now recorded 6,617 cases of coronavirus and 71 deaths since the first case in late January.

With growing calls to ease the restrictions, leading Australian economists issued an open letter to call on the government to prioritise containing the spread of coronavirus.

“We cannot have a functioning economy unless we first comprehensively address the public health crisis,” the group of 157 economists from Australian universities wrote.

Australia’s government and central bank have said they will inject A$320 billion ($203 billion) into the country’s economy to try and cushion the economic blow.

RESTRICTIONS TO REMAIN

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week said there would no easing of Australia’s restrictions for at least four weeks, [ .. late May .. ] and several state premiers on Monday urged the public to keep to the social distancing rules.

“We’ve all made massive sacrifices, given a lot. We can’t give back all the gains made because of sense of frustration gets the better of us,” Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters in Melbourne.

Any significant easing of the current limitations would not occur until Australia had increased testing capacity, strengthened contact tracing and readied local responses for further outbreaks, Andrews said.

Central to the government’s strategy is a controversial new mobile phone app that will track users’ movements to allow contact tracing in the event of an outbreak of coronavirus.

The government said it will need at least 40% of the country’s population to be signed up to make it effective.

ERADICATION POSSIBLE?

Australia’s three most populated states on Monday recorded just seven new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, stoking hopes that Canberra could even eradicate the virus.

While praising Australia’s efforts, experts say eradication is unlikely.

“You have to look at New Zealand and Taiwan. Both have been very successful in containing the virus but there are still cases popping up,” Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Canberra Hospital, told Reuters.

“Australia hasn’t taken the same hard-line approach to New Zealand so eradication is very unlikely.”

The government may ease some minor restrictions when the national Cabinet meets on Tuesday.

Slideshow (3 Images)

Morrison said last week the Cabinet would consider ending a ban on elective surgeries, and the Australia’s main medical association on Monday said recent deliveries of protection equipment would mean some procedures could restart.

“We’ve been so successful so far that that’s given us the opportunity now to plan a sensible, safe, graduated return into the low-risk procedures which provide clinical benefit to patients,” Tony Bartone, the head of Australian Medical Association told Channel 7.

Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Lincoln Feast

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia/australians-told-restrictions-must-stay-even-as-new-virus-infections-slow-idUSKBN222019

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Coronavirus is changing how schools run in Australia. Here's what happens for term two

"The Covid-19 exit strategy: when will Australia know the coronavirus battle is over?"

By Peta Fuller

Updated Wed at 11:06pm


Photo: More children will be homeschooled in term 2. (ABC Midwest and Wheatbelt: Samille Mitchell)

Related Story: Term two starts tomorrow in Victoria but this principal has no idea how many students will turn up
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-14/victorian-schools-prepare-for-term-two-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/12144840

Related Story: Queensland schools to open for vulnerable children and those of essential workers, others to learn online
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-13/coronavirus-queensland-schools-announcement-term-two/12141380

Related Story: Five things you need to know about homeschooling and coronavirus
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-26/how-to-survive-homeschooling-in-coronavirus-era/12085770

Coronavirus flipped the start of the school year on its head. From March, some states began closing
down in-school education and sending kids to kitchen tables to start learning from home.

Now term two is on its way (and has already started if you're in Victoria), and it's raising a lot of questions about what's next.

So where do the states stand on returning to school? Can you send your child on a random day? And what about out-of-school care?

Here's what parents need to know going into term two.

Who is an 'essential' worker?

First up, this is a phrase that's come up a lot, particularly from the Prime Minister.

And in some states it's a criteria for who can physically send their kids to school, so parents are asking: Do I count?

But as Scott Morrison says: "If you have a job in this economy, then that's an essential job .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-25/scott-morrison-alll-restrictions/12087112 ."

[INSERT: It should be noted that while heavy fines have been levied for some caught in violation of stay at home rules there has never been a total lockdown in Australia. For example, buses and trains, though virtually empty for weeks, are still running. All stores selling food, corner stores, hardware stores, home renovation, barbershops, butchers, and others, have been open throughout.]

So what does that mean when it comes to schooling?

Mr Morrison told Channel 7 this week: "We have always said if you can't provide a suitable learning environment for your child at home, and in most cases that's because people have to go to work … then no child can or should be turned away at schools or childcare centres."

And Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan says it's something all premiers and territory leaders have agreed to — keeping schools open for parents who physically have to go out to work (as well as for vulnerable kids).

This means those able to work from home will have to find ways to supervise their children's learning hours.

He had this message for those essential workers:

"Please do not feel guilty about sending your students to school. You are playing
a vital role in helping our economy, in helping our society get through this."

Victoria is the first state facing the back-to-school test, with classes starting on Wednesday. But Premier Daniel Andrews says there won't be a cut-and-dry list of who can and can't send their kids to school.

"We want to be as flexible as possible and acknowledge that everyone's circumstances are different," he said.

"Many of us when we think about the word 'essential worker' might have a very narrow frame when it came to that ... I put it to you that people who are stacking shelves, running checkouts, driving trucks, public transport, cleaning hospitals, all the way through to critical care, are critical roles and we're thankful for the work they're doing."

But there's a bit of variation in the plan to deliver schooling for each state and territory. Let's break that down.
Coronavirus update: Follow the latest news in our daily wrap.

Is there anywhere that's going back to the physical classroom?

Essential worker or not, there are some places where parents can, or even should, send their kids off to school.

The Northern Territory says all students are expected back on school grounds from April 20.

"Unless your school contacts you directly with alternative arrangements, you should plan for your child to physically attend school," Education Minister Selena Uibo said.

There can still be exceptions if needed, but parents must have told their child's school they'll be learning from home.


Photo: Some students will be back in the classroom this term. (Supplied: Dyslexia Mid North Coast)

In South Australia, the choice to keep children home or send them to school is with the parents.

But teachers there used pupil-free days earlier this month to work on flexible learning options, a Department for Education spokesman said.

That's so teachers can meet the needs of students learning either in the classroom or from home next term (which starts on April 27).

The advice from the state's Chief Public Health Officer remains that schools, preschools, early childhood services and out-of-school care should remain open.

Where is online learning largely here to stay (for now)?

In Victoria, where kids returned to school on Wednesday .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-14/victorian-schools-prepare-for-term-two-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/12144840 , the message is that all children who can learn from home must learn from home.

"I want to confirm for you — if you can have your kids educated at home, that's exactly what you must do," Daniel Andrews said.

There are three main exceptions: children with parents who can't work from home (those essential workers), vulnerable students and some end-of-schooling students.

The last one allows for small groups of VCE and VCAL students to go to schools for short periods to tackle something they really can't get done at home.

This will last for all of term two, according to the State Government, and be reviewed at the end.

For Queensland, the first five weeks of term two are going online .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-13/coronavirus-queensland-schools-announcement-term-two/12141380 .

Teachers will be at school delivering online and in-person classes. Those who are in class will be the children of essential workers, the vulnerable, and children in designated Indigenous communities.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says they'll review how the system is working on May 15 and decide by May 25 if the balance is right.

"It is very difficult, but these are not normal times," she said.

Tasmania has also moved to home learning for next term. Again, schools there will remain open for anyone who cannot supervise their children, which includes parents with work commitments.

In the ACT, children should stay home to learn if they can, with remote teaching to run from the start of term two.

But not all ACT schools will be open for supervision if parents are essential workers and need that help. The exact schools haven't been selected yet.

Who is still deciding?

Some states have a bit longer to make the final call.

In New South Wales, the Department of Education says it is "carefully considering all options" and the decision will be made alongside health authorities.

But the Department has told schools to plan for distance learning in term two, which starts on April 27.

"No child in NSW will be turned away from school. While schools remain open, parents are encouraged to keep their children at home if possible," a spokeswoman said.

By the end of term one, 95 per cent of students in the state were learning from home.

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What the experts are saying about coronavirus:

New Zealand's policy of going hard and going early against COVID-19 stopped a wave of devastation
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-20/new-zealand-level-four-restrictions-compared-with-australia/12164798

The push is on to bring industry back home, for government to begin looking after its own citizens rather than signing up for a global agenda
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-20/how-could-coronavirus-affect-the-global-economy/12163198
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Western Australia has a similar timeline to NSW and is still deciding on its longer-term model.

In March, the state's Education Minister Sue Ellery said that model would probably be a mixture .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-26/wa-coronavirus-schools-changes-what-you-need-to-know/12093056 .

"I think it will be a combination of physical attendance at schools — maybe some schools, maybe all schools — plus a combination of distanced education which will be hard copy packs and online," she said.

Can I send my child on a random day if needed?

If your work needs you to go in, then you would be classed as an essential worker (according to the PM), so yes.

The broad policy is no-one should be turned away if their parent works or they're a vulnerable child.

So that would include parents who have to work part-time.

That's unless you're in the Northern Territory, where students should show up to school regardless.

And students who are physically at school are supposed to be doing the same work they would at home, so their education shouldn't be interrupted.

What about out-of-hours school care?

Again, this depends on your state and school.

In Queensland, out-of-hours centres can keep running where there is demand, but authorities recommend checking with your provider.

In the ACT, before- and after-school care will be available. But that will be at the same schools the territory opens up for on-site teaching — so not every location will be running.

Video: Dr Norman Swan looks at when, or if, life might return to normal (7.30)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-20/dr-norman-swan-looks-at-when,-or-if,-life-might/12167016

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-15/coronavirus-changes-to-school-in-term-two-across-australia/12146764