Coronavirus

[Dr Zaius]

Comments on a Guardian article today. Overwhelmingly people believe that NSW has large amounts of virus that they are ignoring, that they are fudging numbers or that they were just plain lucky.

Partisanship is well and truly alive in Australia. People who believe that everything that their party does is 100% correct, and anything that the alternate party does is evil. It's ugly and it ends badly.

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I think that it goes beyond a state thing mate. These people are exhibiting Trump level denialism. They are essentially claiming NSW is putting out fake news, and no doubt they would be ecstatic at an out of control outbreak. They are all aligned to the Labor party. As someone who is politically who has no love of either of the parties, it's disturbing to see this level of partisanship in our country.

[The Nickman]

This UK strain of the virus is pretty worrying, even sitting as pretty as we are over here.

[Northern Raider]

Comments on a Guardian article today. Overwhelmingly people believe that NSW has large amounts of virus that they are ignoring, that they are fudging numbers or that they were just plain lucky.

Partisanship is well and truly alive in Australia. People who believe that everything that their party does is 100% correct, and anything that the alternate party does is evil. It's ugly and it ends badly.

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I think that it goes beyond a state thing mate. These people are exhibiting Trump level denialism. They are essentially claiming NSW is putting out fake news, and no doubt they would be ecstatic at an out of control outbreak. They are all aligned to the Labor party. As someone who is politically who has no love of either of the parties, it's disturbing to see this level of partisanship in our country.

Online comments are generally the domain of opinionated knob jockeys. Always critical and too often motivated by political alliances. Here in QLD there most stories are accompanied by right wing troll bagging the Labor government for pushing socialist agendas and without fail it's replied to by left wing trolls claiming that if the LNP was in charge we'd be in the same boat as the UK. Both equally stupid concepts with people blindly following whichever side of the political fence they sit on. Pretty hard to get bipartisanship from the general public when there's a large group permanently set on either side of the political fence.

That said I don't think its helped by certain premiers treating the pandemic like a PR campaign.

[Northern Raider]

This UK strain of the virus is pretty worrying, even sitting as pretty as we are over here.

Is it worse than the China strain?

[The Nickman]

This UK strain of the virus is pretty worrying, even sitting as pretty as we are over here.

Is it worse than the China strain?

Yup. Appears to be.

[Dr Zaius]

Comments on a Guardian article today. Overwhelmingly people believe that NSW has large amounts of virus that they are ignoring, that they are fudging numbers or that they were just plain lucky.

Partisanship is well and truly alive in Australia. People who believe that everything that their party does is 100% correct, and anything that the alternate party does is evil. It's ugly and it ends badly.

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I think that it goes beyond a state thing mate. These people are exhibiting Trump level denialism. They are essentially claiming NSW is putting out fake news, and no doubt they would be ecstatic at an out of control outbreak. They are all aligned to the Labor party. As someone who is politically who has no love of either of the parties, it's disturbing to see this level of partisanship in our country.

Online comments are generally the domain of opinionated knob jockeys. Always critical and too often motivated by political alliances. Here in QLD there most stories are accompanied by right wing troll bagging the Labor government for pushing socialist agendas and without fail it's replied to by left wing trolls claiming that if the LNP was in charge we'd be in the same boat as the UK. Both equally stupid concepts with people blindly following whichever side of the political fence they sit on. Pretty hard to get bipartisanship from the general public when there's a large group permanently set on either side of the political fence.

That said I don't think its helped by certain premiers treating the pandemic like a PR campaign.

Yup that's fair.

I just think that sensible people need to call it out, lest our political situation devolve into something akin to the American one.

[-TW-]

Comments on a Guardian article today. Overwhelmingly people believe that NSW has large amounts of virus that they are ignoring, that they are fudging numbers or that they were just plain lucky.

Partisanship is well and truly alive in Australia. People who believe that everything that their party does is 100% correct, and anything that the alternate party does is evil. It's ugly and it ends badly.

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I found it interesting it was the liberal governments that are more willing to be progressive in the sense of keeping things open as much as possible.

It was the Labor governments that were very conservative and unwilling to budge.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[The Nickman]

Comments on a Guardian article today. Overwhelmingly people believe that NSW has large amounts of virus that they are ignoring, that they are fudging numbers or that they were just plain lucky.

Partisanship is well and truly alive in Australia. People who believe that everything that their party does is 100% correct, and anything that the alternate party does is evil. It's ugly and it ends badly.

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I found it interesting it was the liberal governments that are more willing to be progressive in the sense of keeping things open as much as possible.

It was the Labor governments that were very conservative and unwilling to budge.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

That makes perfect sense to me, with right-wing being more focused on the economy and left on saving lives. The same thing is happening in America, to a much more ridiculous degree, of course.

[Seiffert82]

Yeah, that seems to be the key divide. Maintaining economic growth and civil liberties vs saving lives and preserving the hospital system.

Unfortunately election cycles (both here and overseas) seemed to have supercharged the stupidity factor of our elected representatives, so evidence based scientific advice goes out the window in many respects, irrespective of what side of the political fence they are.

[Seiffert82]

On the whole our governments have done a good job through a combination of good luck (e.g. Australia being an island) and good management (e.g. the job keeper package). However, the states also talk about implementing a suppression strategy when what they are actually trying to do is eliminate the virus. This obviously leads to travel plans etc being thrown into chaos at the drop of a hat.

I guess the end justifies the means, but it's pretty bad for those caught up in it. On the upside, it's hilarious listening to pro tennis players and cricketers crying rivers because of our quarantine requirements.

[Seiffert82]

It's also quite distressing hearing stories from the US where some people are dying of the virus in their hospital system, but still refuse to believe they have Coronavirus.

That's where the political lies and misinformation has a lot to answer for.

[Northern Raider]

Comments on a Guardian article today. Overwhelmingly people believe that NSW has large amounts of virus that they are ignoring, that they are fudging numbers or that they were just plain lucky.

Partisanship is well and truly alive in Australia. People who believe that everything that their party does is 100% correct, and anything that the alternate party does is evil. It's ugly and it ends badly.

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I found it interesting it was the liberal governments that are more willing to be progressive in the sense of keeping things open as much as possible.

It was the Labor governments that were very conservative and unwilling to budge.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

That makes perfect sense to me, with right-wing being more focused on the economy and left on saving lives. The same thing is happening in America, to a much more ridiculous degree, of course.

Seems everybody wants to paint a black and white picture. No point trying to keep the economy afloat if you end up with an overrun health system and no point "saving lives" if you end up with too many businesses going under and people out of jobs.

It's a case of getting the right balance.

[The Nickman]

Life always has been about the middle path, that's why I've always said anyone who strays too far right or left winged is **** in the head.

[greeneyed]

The differences are fundamentally ideological (though I'll mostly avoid mentioning the philosophers). On the left of the political spectrum, belief systems are based on the society or the collective being more important than the individual. Socialism was rooted in this idea, as is democratic socialism... and the ideas of collectivism influence the centre of politics too.

Liberalism, of the genuine (small l) sort, is an individualistic philosophy. It places primacy on the rights and freedoms of individuals... and that is reflected by Adam Smith in economics, who argues that individuals acting in self interest drive the best outcomes for society, for economies, for living standards. It is the basis of capitalism. It is subscribed to by people in the centre of politics and many on the right.

Conservatism is quite different to true liberal thought: it emphasises the preservation of the traditional structures of society, religion, government etc and is against rapid change. In that sense, it is the least appealing of streams of thought for me... it is simply a belief in preserving "how things are".

The Liberal Party in Australia spans both true liberals and conservatives... despite them being rather different. It is why there is such a diverse range of opinion within the Liberal Party on social issues... as small "l" liberals, recognise the rights of individuals to be different, whereas conservatives do not. On economic issues, the differences are less marked.

What we see in the USA reflects a strong streak of individualism. There is a very strong rejection of the idea that the society might be more important than what an individual wants to do. If you don't want to wear a mask and you do want to carry a gun onto the Congress floor, that's your individual right. It is a deep rooted and wide spread view in the USA that the individual is most important - though it is probably most strongly held in right wing of politics there.

In countries like Australia and New Zealand, the ideas of collectivism are probably more prevalent than in the USA. It is why restrictions on individuals in the interests of public health, in the interests of society as a whole, are much more widely accepted... and certainly most clearly accepted and advocated by the Labor Party.

The divisions in ideological thought are thankfully much less marked in Australia than the USA.

But I think it is mistake to suggest that there is not partisanship on both the left and right in Australia in relation to coronavirus. Both sides of politics are engaging in it. Both left and right are making false claims. None of them are above it. For example, we have seen the NSW Premier admonishing those on the other side of politics on border closures, while refusing to reject the musings of Craig Kelly: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/cr ... by-experts

I personally think it is worrying that the views of the far right are drifting into public policy debate on coronavirus. Anti-vaxers have a world view that is fundamentally based on individualism. You'll hear them talk about freedom to choose, the right not to do something. They put that right above the need for society to be protected from infectious disease, above public health in general. (Clearly, if there are genuine medical reasons for people not taking vaccines, the individual's needs must prevail.)

But we also see it in businesses refusing to close if there is a shut down... and we see it in those who rail against geographic restrictions on movement, against border closures. It is reflected in the ideas of individualism and capitalism... that what is good for the individual is good for the economy and therefore society. However, the only way to fight this pandemic, at the moment, is by constraining the individual freedoms, and the free operation of markets have to be constrained too, by regulation.

That said, you need sensible regulation too. And science and evidence based decisions on shut downs and border closures. Some of it has been, some of it hasn't been. But I worry when I see things like the lamb ad (as unimportant as it is in one way) railing against border closures, in simplistic fashion. Because those border closures, and geographic constraints, have done us an awful lot of good as a country - both in terms of health and economic outcomes.

[gerg]

Comments on a Guardian article today. Overwhelmingly people believe that NSW has large amounts of virus that they are ignoring, that they are fudging numbers or that they were just plain lucky.

Partisanship is well and truly alive in Australia. People who believe that everything that their party does is 100% correct, and anything that the alternate party does is evil. It's ugly and it ends badly.

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I found it interesting it was the liberal governments that are more willing to be progressive in the sense of keeping things open as much as possible.

It was the Labor governments that were very conservative and unwilling to budge.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

That makes perfect sense to me, with right-wing being more focused on the economy and left on saving lives. The same thing is happening in America, to a much more ridiculous degree, of course.

Seems everybody wants to paint a black and white picture. No point trying to keep the economy afloat if you end up with an overrun health system and no point "saving lives" if you end up with too many businesses going under and people out of jobs.

It's a case of getting the right balance.

Sure. But you can always make more money but you can't bring people back from the dead.

Sent from my SM-G570F using Tapatalk

[gangrenous]

However, the states also talk about implementing a suppression strategy when what they are actually trying to do is eliminate the virus. This obviously leads to travel plans etc being thrown into chaos at the drop of a hat.

And why wouldn’t you - the difference in life with a handful of cases versus no cases is huge. While the impact to travel plans sucks, keeping Australia at elimination is huge for the rest of the economy, lives, and quality of life.

[Northern Raider]

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I found it interesting it was the liberal governments that are more willing to be progressive in the sense of keeping things open as much as possible.

It was the Labor governments that were very conservative and unwilling to budge.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

That makes perfect sense to me, with right-wing being more focused on the economy and left on saving lives. The same thing is happening in America, to a much more ridiculous degree, of course.

Seems everybody wants to paint a black and white picture. No point trying to keep the economy afloat if you end up with an overrun health system and no point "saving lives" if you end up with too many businesses going under and people out of jobs.

It's a case of getting the right balance.

Sure. But you can always make more money but you can't bring people back from the dead.

Sent from my SM-G570F using Tapatalk

Exactly the type of black and white comment I'm talking about.

[Seiffert82]

However, the states also talk about implementing a suppression strategy when what they are actually trying to do is eliminate the virus. This obviously leads to travel plans etc being thrown into chaos at the drop of a hat.

And why wouldn’t you - the difference in life with a handful of cases versus no cases is huge. While the impact to travel plans sucks, keeping Australia at elimination is huge for the rest of the economy, lives, and quality of life.

Yep, not saying the strategy is wrong. Just pointing out that they are telling us they are doing one thing, but they are actually doing another.

They just don't want to say they are attempting elimination as it politically commits them to delivering on that objective.

[Dr Zaius]

Comments on a Guardian article today. Overwhelmingly people believe that NSW has large amounts of virus that they are ignoring, that they are fudging numbers or that they were just plain lucky.

Partisanship is well and truly alive in Australia. People who believe that everything that their party does is 100% correct, and anything that the alternate party does is evil. It's ugly and it ends badly.

That’s the unfortunate but expected result of having a global crisis managed on a state level by premiers with self interest. Each premier is defining their own local news cycle therefore creating state based belief patterns.
So far in this pandemic I’ve travelled to SA,Qld and the ACT from NSW, and it’s genuinely mind boggling the different mindsets and views on the different states.

It still blows my mind that in the biggest medical emergency of our time, Australia has not enacted a national control approach to this pandemic. The Australian lamb ad this year while obviously satirical was a strangely concerning look to the future.

I found it interesting it was the liberal governments that are more willing to be progressive in the sense of keeping things open as much as possible.

It was the Labor governments that were very conservative and unwilling to budge.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

That makes perfect sense to me, with right-wing being more focused on the economy and left on saving lives. The same thing is happening in America, to a much more ridiculous degree, of course.

Seems everybody wants to paint a black and white picture. No point trying to keep the economy afloat if you end up with an overrun health system and no point "saving lives" if you end up with too many businesses going under and people out of jobs.

It's a case of getting the right balance.

I think that most of our governments, state and federal, recognise and work in the shades of grey on this issue.

NSW are the perfect example. They are putting in place just enough restrictions to control an outbreak at the time, while keeping as much open as possible. This clearly translates to borders for them, no doubt with some degree of confidence that they can shut down any small outbreak that might transcend borders.

With the exception of borders, I think that outbreaks in other states will see the same philosophy adopted regardless of who their government is. The exceptions being if a particular transmissible strain is believed to be loose, or if contact tracing is overwhelmed.

Certainly we have seen Victoria adopt this approach both last year (with eventual lockdown) and recently with a reinforced public health unit. Queensland did last year in August with the detention centre cluster. And South Australia had a go at it until they thought that their contact tracing was overwhelmed. They quickly went back to it one they realised that they still had capacity. This is why the WA premier annoys me. He's not had to manage community transmissions outside of the original lockdown. I guarantee he is not locking down Perth for a month if his health advice is that it can be managed by tweaking restrictions and good contact tracing.

Borders are where the real politics are playing out. Most of the states have moved to sensible hotspot restrictions. Queensland only got there after an election, which proves my point. What played out in a highly populated area for political gain was unforgivable. I'm in no doubt that what WA are doing is purely election focussed also. The fallout from their shenanigans is less problematic given how isolated that state is, and relatively few daily border crossings in comparison. I think NSW need to fall in line with what SA/QLD are doing with clusters. Limiting spread between major cities is sensible. Spread into regions is far less problematic though due to ability to contain it in less populated areas. They need to come up with better ways to patrol the borders. It took a colleague to get to work today, from 10 minutes into NSW.

Health and economy go hand in hand. A large outbreak destroys the economy. All our premiers understand this. I think that they are also realising that a key to successfully managing outbreaks is getting community buy in. This is where sensible restrictions apply. If restrictions are to heavy handed or prolonged, resentment will grow, public trust will be lost and directives will not be followed when they are needed.

[Dr Zaius]

The fact that this numpty has a seat in parliament is a national embarrassment. The fact that he has not been pulled into line by the PM is a disgrace.

[gangrenous]

Craig Kelly is a disgrace

[-TW-]

Ivermectin, as is sheep drench?

The ****

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[Northern Raider]

This is rapidly becoming the Politics thread.

[Seiffert82]

Not surprising I guess. It'd surely have to be the most politically divisive topic since "the war on terror", but this time it's impacting domestic politics just as much as international relations.

[Azza]

Yep, and the sniping is now commencing between NSW, QLD and the Federal Government over Pala's demand the Federal Government extend Jobkeeper for the tourism industry, ignoring her disproportionately aggressive border policies.

[Seiffert82]

Speaking of the convergence between the topics of COVID and politics, I'm just starting to read an interesting report by Harvard University on the Comparative Covid Responses around the world (published this month). The study looks at the public health, economic and political aspects of government responses to the pandemic using case studies from 16 countries:

• Australia

• Austria

• Brazil

• China

• France

• Germany

• India

• Italy

• Japan

• Netherlands

• Singapore

• South Korea

• Sweden

• Taiwan

• United Kingdom

• United States

The study concluded that each country could be categorised into one of three political responses:
1. Control - China, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea
2. Consensus - Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Sweden
3. Chaos - Brazil, India, Italy, UK and the USA.

Among other things, they (unsurprisingly) conclude that the pandemic response just amplified preexisting conditions in economic and political systems. The virus revealed three key “preexisting conditions” that obstructed an effective policy response: (i) weak or decentralized public health infrastructure, including data collection; (ii) economic inequality; (iii) political alienation and lack of trust in government.

Anyway, the main report is about 30 pages, with about 70 pages of case study analysis. Worth a read if you have a predilection towards reports that confirm your existing biases...

https://assets.website-files.com/5fdfca ... 202020.pdf

[Northern Raider]

Yep, and the sniping is now commencing between NSW, QLD and the Federal Government over Pala's demand the Federal Government extend Jobkeeper for the tourism industry, ignoring her disproportionately aggressive border policies.

That's going to be a hard sell job for Palaszczuk. Jobkeeper timeline is well known. Border closures have massively impacted the tourism industry and those calls have been 100% on the State Government. Any attempt to deflect that back onto the Federal Government will not reflect well.

[Northern Raider]

Speaking of the convergence between the topics of COVID and politics, I'm just starting to read an interesting report by Harvard University on the Comparative Covid Responses around the world (published this month). The study looks at the public health, economic and political aspects of government responses to the pandemic using case studies from 16 countries:

• Australia

• Austria

• Brazil

• China

• France

• Germany

• India

• Italy

• Japan

• Netherlands

• Singapore

• South Korea

• Sweden

• Taiwan

• United Kingdom

• United States

The study concluded that each country could be categorised into one of three political responses:
1. Control - China, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea
2. Consensus - Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Sweden
3. Chaos - Brazil, India, Italy, UK and the USA.

Among other things, they (unsurprisingly) conclude that the pandemic response just amplified preexisting conditions in economic and political systems. The virus revealed three key “preexisting conditions” that obstructed an effective policy response: (i) weak or decentralized public health infrastructure, including data collection; (ii) economic inequality; (iii) political alienation and lack of trust in government.

Anyway, the main report is about 30 pages, with about 70 pages of case study analysis. Worth a read if you have a predilection towards reports that confirm your existing biases...

https://assets.website-files.com/5fdfca ... 202020.pdf

Despite all our quibbles about border closures and political posturing you have to admit the response in Australia has been pretty damn good at all levels. There was a wobbly wheel in Victoria for a while there but they got on top of it.

[The Nickman]

Speaking of the convergence between the topics of COVID and politics, I'm just starting to read an interesting report by Harvard University on the Comparative Covid Responses around the world (published this month). The study looks at the public health, economic and political aspects of government responses to the pandemic using case studies from 16 countries:

• Australia

• Austria

• Brazil

• China

• France

• Germany

• India

• Italy

• Japan

• Netherlands

• Singapore

• South Korea

• Sweden

• Taiwan

• United Kingdom

• United States

The study concluded that each country could be categorised into one of three political responses:
1. Control - China, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea
2. Consensus - Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Sweden
3. Chaos - Brazil, India, Italy, UK and the USA.

Among other things, they (unsurprisingly) conclude that the pandemic response just amplified preexisting conditions in economic and political systems. The virus revealed three key “preexisting conditions” that obstructed an effective policy response: (i) weak or decentralized public health infrastructure, including data collection; (ii) economic inequality; (iii) political alienation and lack of trust in government.

Anyway, the main report is about 30 pages, with about 70 pages of case study analysis. Worth a read if you have a predilection towards reports that confirm your existing biases...

https://assets.website-files.com/5fdfca ... 202020.pdf

Cheers for this Seiff, I'll have to check it out soon. Without reading the report or pre-empting anything, here is how I'd list the respective countries' responses (from best to worst):

Australia
South Korea
Taiwan
Singapore
Japan
Netherlands
Austria
China
Germany
Italy
France
India
Sweden
Brazil
United States
United Kingdom

Bear in mind this is just based on my own knowledge personally. Some countries I don't genuinely know a lot about so have just used my "gut feel". Be interesting to see how close I've gotten.

[Sterlk]

What's going on here? Isn't Craig Kelly the guy that the PM has been under pressure to condemn due to a bunch of anti-masker and/or anti-vaccine rhetoric?

Can somebody explain what he's going on about - are the things he's quoted discredited studies, or something?

[greeneyed]

Doubtless some of that has to do with poor statistics and testing. You'd have to wonder about Rwanda. Thankfully, the response in Australia has been amongst the best in the world.

[gangrenous]

What's going on here? Isn't Craig Kelly the guy that the PM has been under pressure to condemn due to a bunch of anti-masker and/or anti-vaccine rhetoric?

Can somebody explain what he's going on about - are the things he's quoted discredited studies, or something?

A snippet from Wikipedia:

“COVID-19
Kelly's views on the COVID-19 pandemic were described as "crackpot" by the head of the Australian Medical Association.[60] In summary, Kelly's position on COVID-19 is that
* Forcing children to wear masks is child abuse[61]
* The antimalarial hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, a head lice medication, should be used as prophylactics
* Vaccines cannot be trusted

Kelly advocates for hydroxychloroquine to be used in Australia to prevent COVID-19, even though the majority of research says that it does nothing and it has negative side effects. Some of his posts were removed by Facebook.[62][63] Kelly has also posted conspiracy theories about Bill Gates requiring that the world population be vaccinated.[64] “

Can read up for more information. In summary he’s a rabid right wing conservative conspiracy theorist who spouts dangerous nonsense in areas like health and climate change. He has contributed significantly to the Liberal party **** up energy policy for years.

He should not be a member of parliament, whether you vote Liberal, Labor, Greens, Independent, or Unicorn.

[Sterlk]

In which case, one has to wonder who the "real experts" he's referring to are. It'd be interesting - just like QAnon is 'interesting', but I don't have to try figure out who to know they won't be credible.

[gangrenous]

IIRC he was recently quoting one nice doctor who participated in the Capitol riot...

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/healt ... 795903759d

News.com so take that with a grain of salt.

[Northern Raider]

Doubtless some of that has to do with poor statistics and testing. You'd have to wonder about Rwanda. Thankfully, the response in Australia has been amongst the best in the world.

Surely North Korea would top the list. Zero COVID cases.