It is approaching the end of July and the coronavirus crisis appears to the taking a turn for the worse not only in Australia, but across the globe including the USA, South America, India and Africa. Problems also appear to be returning in parts of Europe.

Victoria Back in Lockdown

Following the escape of the virus from a quarantine hotel in Melbourne the virus has now been found in other hotspots across the city.

On 8^th of July the lockdown restrictions were re-imposed in Melbourne. Active cases almost tripled in the first nine days of the month, to more than 930. Contact-tracers were almost overwhelmed. Restaurants and bars were closed for another six weeks.

The new wave threatened to undo Australia’s good work containing the virus. Locally acquired cases had been virtually stamped out at the beginning of June, largely because of stay-at-home rules and the quarantining hotels of the few people still allowed into the country.

In the weeks since the lockdown restrictions were re-imposed the number of new cases has varied on a daily basis, however it has always been in triple figures. Today’s number is yet another record, 723.

Real Problems in Care Homes

A major area of concern in Melbourne is the number of cases that are occurring in aged care homes.  The virus has been found in many care homes across the city.  The tragic consequence of this development is a high mortality among those who become sick.  Aged people are very vulnerable to the virus and the unfortunate reality is the many die when they contract covid-19.

The care home issue also has a political dimension.  Aged care homes are a Federal Government responsibility.  This sector also has a large number of private operators. The sector has a history of poor management and variable standards.  It is currently the subject of Royal Commission. 

Cases emerging in Sydney and Elsewhere in NSW

As things have been going ‘pear shaped’ in Victoria, cases also started to emerge in NSW, albeit and a much lower rate.

There have been numbers cases found related to specific restaurants and hotels in south western Sydney and in inner city Potts Point.  Cases have also been found in Batemans Bay on the south coast.

There is a real concern that the numbers cases in NSW will rise dramatically as they have in Victoria.

 Queensland Opens  and Closes its Borders

Earlier in the month the borders to Queensland were opened to travellers from all other states except people who have recently been in Victoria.   This resulted in a flood of people crossing the border with NSW.  Many of these people are ‘grey nomads’ who like to ‘winter’ in the ‘Sunshine State’.

Unfortunately, as a result of the increasing number of cases in NSW, the Queensland government has decided to close the border with NSW again.  This will apply from the coming Saturday.

As I write this post, reports are coming in about cases that have been detected in Brisbane.  The people concerned are three young women.

The related press report tells us that:

“The Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll has condemned the actions of two teens who returned to the state after a trip to Melbourne and Sydney and contracted COVID-19 as “deceitful, deceptive and criminal”.

 Police are considering laying further charges against one of the teenagers, who has refused to detail her movements since coming back to Brisbane. They have been fined and issued a notice to appear in court”.

It is understood that the women moved widely in Southern Brisbane while infected with the virus. People who have been to places a times where the women visited are being encouraged to be tested for coronavirus.

Cases Exploding parts of the USA

While Australia is experiencing its problems, these pale into insignificance compared to what is happening the USA.

Cases continue to surge in the southern and western states that largely missed the initial phase of the pandemic, but decided to ease restrictions before they had properly got the spread of the virus under control.  The worse hit states are Texas, Florida, Arizona and Alabama.

 Of course, these states all have Republican governors who have been listening to Trump’s calls to open up their economies.  Refer to the paragraph below regarding the ‘mathematics of the spread of the virus’.

Trump is Wearing a Mask

On the issue of masks, the most famous or infamous, ‘non’ mask wearer Donald Trump is now wearing one.

A couple of weeks ago,  Trump who has avoided wearing a mask in public even as the coronavirus pandemic spread, donned one at a military medical facility outside Washington where he was to meet with wounded soldiers and front-line health-care workers.

This is somewhat significant in the that it is seemingly a recognition on behalf of Trump that he should listen to advice from the experts.  It will also doubtless trouble his supporters, many of whom see the wearing of masks as an infringement of their ‘civil liberties’.

The Mathematics of the Spread

There was a good piece in The Economist last week on the mathematics of the spread of the virus. 

There have been investigations into why the spread of the virus the USA has occurred at the same time that it appears to have been brought under control in parts of Europe.  A key issue appears to be the fact that the virus spreads following the laws of mathematics.

“The explanation for the pattern of American infections lies in something of central importance to the spread of a virus: geometric progression, such as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. If one person infects two, two infect four and so on. Unless the rate of infection is driven down by reducing contacts, any geometric increase quickly balloons: 256, 512, 1,024.

This is the lesson of the inventor of chess, who in legend asked, as a reward, for one grain of rice on the first square and twice as many on each successive square. There was not enough rice in India to pay his reward. That is one explanation for America’s explosively rising caseload. With almost 4m infections, the country is on square 23.

Another explanation is that the starting point matters. If you begin a geometric progression at one, the tenth in the sequence is 512. If you begin at three, the tenth iteration is 1,536. American states began easing lockdowns, as it were, at three: their caseloads were three or more times higher than in Europe, in part, argues Jarbas Barbosa of the Pan-American Health Organisation, because most states never had full lockdowns.

Texas had 1,270 new cases on the day its governor said restaurants could re-open: 44 per million. In Georgia, the rate was 95 per million. Disney World reopened the day before Florida announced a record 15,000 new cases in a day. Just as incredibly, in two-thirds of states, infections were rising when governors started to ease lockdowns. By contrast, France, Spain and Italy had 13-17 new cases per million when they began to re-open their economies and numbers were falling fast”.

The above highlights the major problems with this virus.  This is its capacity to spread so easily. It is highly infectious and is it very easy to transmit  the virus from ‘person to person’.  This problem is compounded by the fact that it can be transmitted while people are asymptomatic.

Given this, it would appear that the only effective way to control the virus is to minimise the number of ‘person to person’ contacts.  Where contacts do occur, social distancing must be observed where possible.  If social distancing is not possible, other risk mitigation measures such as wearing a mask is critical.

The Suppression v Elimination Debate

Following on from the above, it is probably a good time to revisit the ‘The Suppression v Elimination Debate’

In previous posts, I talked about the approach New Zealand is taking with respect to the coronavirus.   They are going for total ‘eradication’ or ‘elimination’ of the virus.

This can be contrasted will Australia’s less rigorous approach.  Scott Morrison and other members of his government have consistently said that that the best way to combat the coronavirus is to supress it.  This will ensure that the health system is no overwhelmed and people can be cared for if they fall sick.  He and others claim that it not possible to ‘eliminate’ or ‘eradicate’ the virus.  They also claim that ‘lockdowns’ are too costly from an economic perspective.

Supporters of Morrison’s view also claim the a ‘elimination’ strategy would require Australia to completely cut itself off from the rest of the world.  They claim that this would entail, banning all international travel, including freight.

Let’s look at other countries.  New Zealand is not in lockdown. Nor is Taiwan or Vietnam.  These countries have largely returned to ‘normal’.  New Zealanders have returned to their workplaces.  They are attending Rugby games in their thousands.

The notion that the achievement of ‘elimination’ of the virus requires the complete ‘sealing off’ of borders is simple not correct.  Look at Queensland (before the recent developments), South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, the Northern Territory in Australia.  The virus has been effectively ‘eliminated’ in these states and territories.

The borders to these jurisdictions are not completely closed. Freight is moving across borders and are people with legitimate reasons to travel are able to move interstate.

The same has occurred in countries like Taiwan and New Zealand.  Their borders are not completely sealed. All that is required is proper quarantine processes and related measures like effective testing and case tracing.

My Opinion

The objective of the government policy should be the minimisation, and hopefully the elimination, of the instances of covid-19 infections. The acceptance of any level of virus in the community appears to be a flawed strategy.

As the experience in the USA has shown, the spread of the virus is so rapid it simply gets out of control and the only way to combat it is to reimpose ‘lockdown’ restrictions. The notion that there is a binary choice between a ‘health’ objective and an ‘economic’ objective is simply wrong.

Unless the virus is successfully managed from a health perspective, it is not possible to deal with its economic impacts.  The health and economic implications of the virus are intertwined.

It is now July and the coronavirus has been around for over six months.

I am still ‘stranded’ Brisbane.  This is proving to be quiet a good place to be.  There have been no ‘community’ infections in Queensland for over a month.

Developments in Victoria

The big story in Australia regarding the virus has been the outbreak that has occurred in Victoria.

On Monday the 22nd of June, the Victoria government announced that there had been a spike cases of the coronavirus in Melbourne.  

The initial advice from the medical experts was that the evidence showed that the outbreak was related to large gatherings of family members in their own houses. As the days progressed, the number of cases slowly increased. These cases were occurring in specific hotspots in the north of the city.  Two days ago, it was announced that lockdowns would be applied to certain suburbs.

It is now emerging that it appears that the cases relate to security staff that were working in the ‘quarantine’ hotels in the Melbourne CBD.  These hotels are where travellers from overseas are housed for the 14 days as they are quarantined after arriving in Australia.  The Victorian government engaged private security firms to control the movement people in and out the hotels.

 It would appear that one or more of the staff employed by these firms has become infected with the virus. They in turn have infected members of their family.  It would also appear that these transmissions took place at large family gatherings.  It is also thought that these gathering include celebrations related to Eid which is a Muslim religious event.

Media Reaction

Of course, the developments in Victoria have resulted in a lots of criticism of the government and its Premier, especially from the right wing media.  There have been a lot of comments along the lines that the ‘black lives matter’ (BLM) demonstrations were the cause of the outbreak.  There is no evidence that this is the case.

There were BLM demonstrations in every capital city in every state and territory. Melbourne is the only city to suffer a spike in coronavirus cases. There is no evidence to suggest that the behaviour of the security staff and was influenced by the demonstrations.

As I publish this post, restrictions are being place on movement in ten Melbourne postcodes which are coronavirus hotspots.  The premier has also flagged the possibility of imposing a lockdown for whole state.

The NSW government is telling residents of those ‘hotspots’ that they should not travel to NSW.  I am not sure how that can be properly enforced.  This call is also somewhat ironic given that the NSW Premier has been among the most vociferous when it comes to demanding that state borders should be opened.

Things getting out of control in the USA

On the international scene, the countries with right wing populist leaders continue to have the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths.  These are of course the USA, Brazil, Russia, the UK and India.

More than 48,000 coronavirus cases were announced across the United States last Tuesday, the most of any day of the pandemic. Officials in eight states — Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas — also announced single-day highs.

Case counts have climbed sharply in many of the states that were the first to reopen, including Florida and Texas, which recently forced bars to close again.

Reports coming out of Texas are instructive.  They are highlighting the fact that most of the cases  are occurring in younger people between the ages of 18 and 40.  These people consider themselves to be at limited, or no risk, of becoming seriously ill if they catch the virus.  

In Texas, the bar closures spurred protests at the State Capitol and the governor’s mansion.

Trumps Tulsa Rally

In hindsight it is interesting to look back a couple of weeks:

Trump’s ‘comeback’ rally went ahead in Tulsa on the 21^st of June

“Tulsa police said the protests outside the arena were largely peaceful.

Mr. Trump talked about slowing down testing for the coronavirus, echoing previous remarks that higher case numbers look bad.

He also continued to focus on testing and how case numbers have grown. “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people,” Mr. Trump said. “You’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’ ” A White House aide said that comment was meant as a joke.

Just under 6,200 people attended the rally, according to Andrew Little, a spokesman for the Tulsa Fire Department, who said he received the crowd estimate from the city’s fire marshal. He said that figure doesn’t include staff or people in private suites”.

In short, the rally was a failure.

Trump suffering in Polls

In the next week the New York Times reported on a ‘qualitative poll’ on the temperature of the electorate heading to the  upcoming November  election.

It seems that former Trump supporters have lost confidence in him on the two big issues of the day – the coronavirus and race relations and policing.

This view is being expressed both nationally and in the ‘swing’ states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina – which propelled Trump to power in 2016 despite that fact that he lost the popular vote.

It appears that on the ‘coronavirus’ issue, the voters see the need to address the ‘health’ issue over the need to address ‘impact of the coronavirus on the economy’.

On the ‘race and policing’ issue, the voters see the need to address the underlying cause of the problem over the need to ‘get tough on protestors’.

It is still 5 months to the election, but is certainly not looking good for Trump at the moment.

The UK

The UK’s handling of the virus has not been good, particularly in England.  Like Trump, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson is hell bent on getting the economy going again.  The infection rates in the UK are still high.  Notwithstanding that, the decision has been made to relax restrictions.  This will take place on the 4^th of July.

The social distancing rule has been relaxed from two metres to one metre and pubs and bars will be allowed to open.

Learning about the Virus

As the crisis progresses it seems that more is being learned about the virus and its impacts.  It seems that in some cases the virus can have long term health impacts.

It would appear that the risk of catching the virus outdoors is low.  This is because it is killed by ultraviolet light and the concentrations of the virus are lessened by wind. This appears to a reason for the absence of any evidence of the transmissions resulting from the BLM demonstrations.

However, being part of the large gathering outside does has it risks.  I was listening to a health expert being interviewed about the large gatherings on the beaches near Bournemouth on the south coast of England.  They pointed out it wasn’t being on beach that was the biggest concern.  The biggest concern was related activities. These include the use of public transport to get to and from the beach, where people bought food and drinks and toilet arrangements.  

Pubs and Bars are  Dangerous Places to Be

A piece in the New York Times has noted the following:

“Everything you love about your neighbourhood bar — the ambience, the crowds, the music, the free-flowing alcohol — makes it the ideal place to catch the coronavirus.

“Except for maybe a hospital with sick patients, I couldn’t imagine too many more risky places than a super cramped indoor bar with poor ventilation and hundreds of people,” said Dr. Asaf Bitton, executive director of Ariadne Labs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “That to me is a concern from a public health perspective.”

The piece also notes that

Studies also show that the particles we emit during talking and loud speech are potentially more infectious than the larger droplets we expel during a cough or a sneeze. Smaller particles persist in the air for longer time periods before settling, increasing the risk that someone nearby could inhale them. Smaller particles also can travel further into the respiratory tract.