Why are people emptying supermarket shelves? They grab not only toilet paper, milk, Panadol, paper towels, rice and spaghetti but also hand sanitisers, cans of all descriptions and more recently alcohol. (more…)
Coronavirus threatens to overwhelm the health and economies of many developing countries where a billion people subsist in a Hobbesian state of nature and life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’. (more…)
The Commonwealth has announced that it is partnering with the private hospital sector to provide additional resources for dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. (more…)
The Covid-19 crisis poses an unprecedented challenge for mass communications in Australia, and has posed new challenges for campaigns to persuade the population to change behaviour to reduce health risk (more…)
As deaths from the coronavirus pandemic climb relentlessly, it is already becoming clear that the official toll is an under-estimate and that significant numbers of deaths caused directly and indirectly by the virus are not being recorded as such.
In Vietnam up until April 3rd 2020 there have been 233 cases of COVID-19, with no deaths. Complete recovery has been observed in 85 cases. (more…)
The Spanish Flu’ pandemic of 1918-1920 bears a strong resemblance to the current pandemic. Although the actual virus causing the disease is different, the result of the infection is similar. It causes pneumonia, and people die in large numbers. It’s a health emergency and we need to act. If we don’t survive this, the economy is irrelevant.
Doomsayers are society’s detestables yet needed as truth-tellers. So here goes: The omens are awful. Thousands of Indonesians are threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic through denial and indecision. Responses have been too few, too late and too uncoordinated.
The growth in COVID-19 cases in Australia appears to have slowed across all states, through a combination of tighter border control and spatial distancing.
The losses in this time of COVID19 crisis are very real. Loss of life is worst beyond comparison. (more…)
The irony is that a pandemic has been brought into India by people who can afford plane tickets, but while they will buy private health services, the virus will devastate the poor who they infect and who have little access to health care. (more…)
Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, about London’s “Great Plague” of 1665, makes us resign to the fact that we learn nothing from history. (more…)
Are we about to face the era of a ‘new eugenics’ movement or is it simply a return to the ‘old eugenics’ which we thought had disappeared shortly after the end of World War II? The health crisis may force us to decide who to prioritise and on what basis. (more…)
In sharper focus than ever this week is the danger health professionals experience in caring for seriously ill patients infected with COVID-19. (more…)
In the US, the first formal clinical trial of a drug to treat coronavirus and of a vaccine give us a good moment to reflect on the immunology of this illness. (more…)
In the eleven days since we first tried to make sense of the Federal Government’s approach to the current health crisis, little has changed in its approach. (more…)
When did the world’s media and politicians become collective versions of Lance Corporal Jones in the British comedy series Dad’s Army, screaming ‘Don’t panic! Don’t panic!’? Colour me contrarian, but since the 2003 Iraq war, my working motto has been: when you come across excitable exclamation marks, substitute sceptical question marks and you’ll be right. (more…)
The current pandemic caused by the virus COVID – 19 is affecting many countries; it is highly infectious and potentially fatal, especially for vulnerable people. Indigenous Australians are especially at risk to this infection and will need special arrangements to minimise the devastation that this virus could bring to them. How can this be best achieved? (more…)
What people in other forums are saying about public policy (more…)
The Government seems to think that it must balance the needs of the economy against the actions needed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. In fact this is not true, and Australia’s future economic capacity will fall if the virus is not defeated as quickly as possible. (more…)
While the Western world thinks staying apart is wise to avoid Covid-19 infections, Indonesians still remain together.
What do you think of when you hear the phrase “stem cell therapy”? Miracle cures for wheel chair bound paraplegics? Building new organs to replace burned out old ones? Eternal beauty and youth? Immortality? (more…)
Last week we explored why government responses to the Covid 19 crisis seemed to be tardy and we argued for an expert apolitical group to lead the response. (more…)
Australia’s summer of discontent has morphed into an autumn of fear as we bunker down to protect ourselves from coronavirus. Nature is reminding us that she is not to be trifled with, that she cannot be ignored. (more…)
As I write Boris Johnson has just locked down the UK and ordered police officers to enforce the lockdown. Almost simultaneously Donald Trump has declared that there is a “great weariness” among Americans for this social distancing business and he wants it to end in two weeks. (more…)
Despite the Prime Minister’s daily press conferences in which he fatuously tries (as is his wont) to reassure “all Australians” that they are “on the bridge to the other side” of the coronavirus pandemic, confusion and fear continue to stalk the land. (more…)
China deserves credit, not abuse for epidemic management (more…)
These are very uncertain times, but the Government seems to be playing catch-up, both with our health and the economy. In addition, there are continuing questions about the structure of the Government’s economic response and the effectiveness of some of the measures. (more…)
Only mass screenings will tell us about the dynamics of the disease (more…)