Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stan Grant, Vice Chancellors Chair Australian/Indigenous Belonging, Charles Sturt University

On a recent episode of ABC’s Q&A, Commonwealth Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly tried to add some valuable context to the national outbreak of coronavirus. Australia’s testing is higher, he said, and the rates of infection lower than almost all other countries. In his words: we are not Italy. As he spoke, a tweet appeared on the screen saying the viewer felt calmer hearing information from experts.

Presenter Hamish Macdonald could not wait for Kelly to finish speaking before interrupting to ask him about earlier predictions that up to 60% of the population would contract COVID-19. He could have asked: why are our numbers so much lower? What is Australia doing better than other countries? Will our rates remain relatively low?

But, instinctively, Macdonald went for the more alarming question.

I hesitate to criticise Q&A because it has generally been outstanding in its coverage of the coronavirus, eschewing outrage and opinion for expertise. It is performing a valuable service. But it is not immune to journalism’s more troubling instincts.

Macdonald, an accomplished and informed journalist, was doing precisely what he has been trained to do. That is the problem.

Read more: During the Great Depression, many newspapers betrayed their readers. Some are doing it again now

American political scientist W. Lance Bennett, in his study News: The Politics of Illusion, identified the “crisis cycle” of news coverage that employs drama as “a cheap, emotional device to focus on human conflict and travail”.

Bennett writes:

The media … has settled on a formula that is profitable, cheap, and easy to produce, but just not terribly helpful to the citizens who consume this news.

He quotes fellow scholars David Paletz and Robert Entman, who in their book Media Power Politics describe how journalists “graft” on drama; they “highlight or concoct conflict”.

This too often is the business model of journalism. I have spent two decades in 24/7 news, and it has changed the way we consume information. At its best, it connects the world, gives voice to the powerless and holds tyranny to account. At worst, it is confected drama, endless talking heads who feed on controversy and conflict.

As coverage of the coronavirus shows, each hour must be more alarming than the last. The language of fear is its stock in trade: catastrophe, nightmare, disaster, lockdown.

On one recent prime-time news bulletin, the deep cleaning of an infected nursing home was described as “like something out of a disaster movie”. Dreadful cliché aside, right now is real life not frightening enough?

A seasoned foreign correspondent referred to numbers of infections “soaring” in Spain. Why not simply that Spain recorded X number of new coronavirus cases? Because numbers “soaring” sounds more urgent, more alarming.

Such hyperbole lacks context and nuance. The second world war was “catastrophic”; the 2005 Asian tsunami was a “nightmare”; we can look back on the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic as a “disaster”. Thankfully, the efforts of governments, health officials and the sacrifice of a responsible public means we are not there yet, and hopefully never will be. Journalists should spare their adjectives in case they really need them.

Think too of the ubiquitous use of wartime analogies. We are told we are in a “war” against the virus; governments are on a war footing; prime ministers and presidents are now wartime leaders. Yes, this is a terrible time. Lives are being lost. But we are in a battle, not in a war.

Read more: Thanks to coronavirus, Scott Morrison will become a significant prime minister

In my 30-year journalism career I covered wars in several countries. Right now there are people homeless, their neighbourhoods bombed-out shells; there is no electricity, scant medical facilities, no schools, no work. Their governments do not pay them for wages lost. What they would give to be confined to their homes with running water, power, air conditioning, televisions, Netflix, internet. They count themselves lucky just to be alive.

News images, too, are used to provoke an emotional response. Stories about supermarkets invariably use footage of empty shelves. My local supermarket is well stocked and people behave with courtesy and calm. We are assured Australia has more than enough food, but images of empty shelves heighten the sense of siege.

As this crisis has been a stress test of our politics, economy, health systems and society, so too is it a stress test of our media. Healthy journalism is vital for a healthy democracy. A free and open media in China could have stopped the Chinese Communist Party from covering up the initial outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan last year. This worldwide pandemic might have been averted.

There is much excellent work being done in newsrooms stretched to capacity. But journalism culture carries its own virus: anxiety.

Now more then ever, the media should inform, not inflame. Less crisis and more context. Resist the worst instincts. The public needs no reminding this is serious.

People are afraid and not just of the virus: businesses will be lost, relationships broken, and mental health will suffer. Psychologists already warn of the potential for increased suicide. We don’t need media-generated anxiety.

As the tweet on Q&A read, we are calmer when we hear from experts. We need the news: we need it rigorous and unembellished. We do not need the illusion of news.

– ref. How some Australian media are failing us on coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/how-some-australian-media-are-failing-us-on-coronavirus-135550

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash University

It is understandable why the different measures introduced across Australia to contain COVID-19 have caused confusion. It does seem inexplicable that the rules – and penalties for breaching them – are different depending on where one lives.

It is also understandable that the finger-pointing between the Australian Border Force and the NSW government over the Ruby Princess debacle is regarded as a sign of weak governance arrangements caused by overlapping state and federal responsibilities for the nation’s borders.

But as understandable as these reactions might be, Australia’s response to COVID-19 is a testament to the benefits of federation, with its multiple tiers of government.

A useful division of governmental labour

The two levels of government have responded to this crisis in slightly different ways, especially initially.

It was the premiers and chief ministers who acted decisively to manage the spread of the pandemic when it first emerged. Their primary concern was to minimise further transmission of the virus, and to prevent the health system from becoming overwhelmed by the influx of infected patients.

While some of the premiers were warning that extreme measures would have to be instituted, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was still suggesting it was acceptable for people to attend sporting events ahead of a ban on mass gatherings.

For Morrison, the (very) reasonable concern has been on reducing the human costs of the virus for the economy. This has rendered the prime minister slightly less disposed to push for stringent measures that might cause further economic ruin.

Read more: Vital Signs: Scott Morrison is steering in the right direction, but we’re going to need a bigger boat

The different focuses of the two levels of government is in constant tension, but this provides a check on each other in managing their particular core (constitutional) responsibilities during the pandemic.

Moreover, it has permitted a useful division of governmental labour during this crisis. The federal government is able to concentrate on managing the economy, while the states and territories are able to prioritise managing the health of their populations and hospital systems.

And through the National Cabinet, the consultative body consisting of the prime minister, premiers and chief ministers, the country’s leaders have been able to coordinate their activities and share vital information.

Read more: Explainer: what is the national cabinet and is it democratic?

States and territories need to adapt policies for their residents

Although the social distancing measures imposed by the states and territories are different, they stem from guidelines agreed to by the National Cabinet.

Differences in their application by the state and territories can be partly explained by differences in size and demographics.

Some states are more densely populated than others, which places their residents at greater risk of community transmission. Some also have a higher proportion of older Australians and remote Indigenous populations – two communities that are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.

These differences are on top of the fact some states and territories have natural geographical features that enable them to more easily control who enters the state, for example, Tasmania and Western Australia. This enables these leaders to consider less stringent social distancing and other measures than their counterparts.

It makes good sense, therefore, that national guidelines should be adapted to meet the unique challenges of each state or territory.

Why the Ruby Princess is not a failure of federalism

It is undeniable the decision to allow the Ruby Princess passengers to disembark was disastrous, since it has been linked to hundreds of infections and upwards of 15 deaths at last count.

However, it is far from clear the incident could have been avoided if Australia had only one level of government.

The fiasco resulted from a series of poor decisions involving multiple state agencies and one federal agency. It was likely aggravated by the possibly misleading or inaccurate information provided by the cruise ship operator about the health of those on board.

Read more: Coronavirus has seriously tested our border security. Have we learned from our mistakes?

But the decision-making failure(s) that occurred here are not unique to federations. The challenge of adequately vetting information under pressure, and coordinating the overlapping responsibilities of different administrative agencies, occurs within all governments.

If anything, federations have greater capacity to reduce the intensity, frequency and scale of policy failures.

As a model of government, federations do not prevent bad policies from being implemented. Rather, they can minimise the harm caused by bad policies. A policy failure in one state, for instance, will generally only affect that particular state – not the entire country.

Importantly, leaders can learn from the policy errors made by their counterparts.

Federalism as a salve to poor leadership

Those who need further convincing about the benefits of federalism need look to the United States.

The devastation that is unfolding in the US has been amplified by the absence of competent national leadership. The Trump administration vacillates between dismissing the pandemic and arguing the economic costs of shutting down the country are graver than the loss of lives.

But amid the national decision-making vacuum, many state governors have risen to the challenge. Some have even sought alliances with other governors to coordinate regional responses to the crisis.

That federations give rise to multiple governmental leaders might seem inefficient. But this pandemic has revealed that not all leaders rise to the challenge during crises. When this occurs, having other leaders who can step into the breach can prove critical.

– ref. National and state leaders may not always agree, but this hasn’t hindered our coronavirus response – https://theconversation.com/national-and-state-leaders-may-not-always-agree-but-this-hasnt-hindered-our-coronavirus-response-136152

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heather Fraser, Associate Professor, Queensland University of Technology

In a few short months the COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a series of dramatic social, political and environmental changes. Yet the focus remains resolutely on humans, leaving animals largely out of the picture.

While it was first presumed animals constituted a risk vector for COVID-19, the World Health Organisation states “there is no evidence that a dog, cat or any pet can transmit COVID-19”.

But animals, specifically those who live in our homes, remain at risk in ways not currently considered in national policy responses. This includes the risks of abandonment, opportunistic adoption and poor outcomes post-pandemic, and domestic violence.

Read more: Hong Kong dog causes panic – but here’s why you needn’t worry about pets spreading COVID-19

What’s more, public conversation hasn’t been directed to emergency plans for “pets” and shelters – and it needs to be.

Aussies love pets

More than 60% of Australian households include an animal, with more than 29 million pets in the country. This doesn’t include the thousands of surrendered or abandoned animals languishing in animal shelters.

Considering animals can provide a raft of benefits for humans, including relieving anxiety and loneliness, it’s no wonder many people isolating at home are deciding to adopt a furry companion.

It’s heartening to see animal adoptions surging – adoption rates have almost doubled in the RSPCA in Canberra.

If you can commit to the care and well-being of animals in the long term, please consider adopting. If you want to care for animals but cannot commit to their care after the pandemic, look into fostering pets instead.

Only adopt if you’re prepared to commit

Opportunistic adoption during this pandemic comes with risks. When people return to the office after working from home, animals may feel abandoned, experience separation anxiety and begin to exhibit destructive behaviour.

People who have adopted animals only for the duration of the pandemic will likely return animals to shelters when they get back to work – another possible point of animal distress.

People may also adopt animals, only to realise after the pandemic they can no longer care for them. This echoes high abandonment rates seen after festive periods, when dogs and cats are often given as gifts.

In fact, some animal shelters such as the Canberra Street Cat Alliance say they’re screening adoptive families more closely to make sure the prospective owners recognise owning a pet is a lifelong emotional and financial commitment, rather than an impulse decision.

Read more: Routine and learning games: how to make sure your dog doesn’t get canine cabin fever

And importantly, we may see a spike in pet abandonment if the pandemic leads to a recession. This is particularly worrying for senior animals who may be relinquished due to increased costs in their care.

Pets at risk of domestic violence

Throughout the pandemic domestic violence rates have skyrocketed around the world as people in abusive households are shut in. In response, the federal government has announced increased funding for domestic violence services.

But animals are often left out of these conversations on domestic violence, despite often being victims themselves. A 2008 Victorian study found 53% of women who entered a shelter to escape from domestic violence said their pets had also been harmed.

And in Victoria’s 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence report, several victims described seeing perpetrators abuse and harm their pets, often as a weapon wielded against the human.

Read more: Fears for pets can put abused women at further risk

Studies have shown between 18-65% of domestic violence victims delay or refuse to leave abusive situations if they can’t take their pets with them, citing shared love and loyalty, as well as the human victims’ (well founded) fears of what will happen to their animals if they’re left with domestic abusers.

What needs to change

We need short and long-term responses. Right now, we need a public health campaign regarding proper treatment of pets during social distancing and illness.

Such a campaign would include clear, conclusive information about the transmission of coronavirus via pets. It would also include advice on how to exercise animals during the pandemic. And it would emphasise that like humans, animals need routine and structure when they’re shut in.

We bring animals into our homes and make them reliant on us, so we need to make plans for their care if we get sick or go to the hospital. This may include substitute or back-up carers, or provisions in wills, in the event of death.

Animals shelters, rescue networks and animal sanctuaries also need an injection of funds to help animals avoid the problems of neglect lockdowns can lead to.

Read more: Curious Kids: is it true that dogs at the pound get killed if nobody adopts them?

Post-pandemic, we need to consider how animals can be included in more policy, perhaps drawing from the work done on including animals in disaster planning in Aotearoa, New Zealand after the 2010 earthquakes.

This work suggested disaster planning should involve supporting people to have proactive plans in place for the well-being of animals, rather than reacting to a crisis.

With most of us are at home, now is the time to reflect on the treatment of animals, whether we have the capacity to adopt, and what contingency plans are in place.

– ref. Abuse and abandonment: why pets are at risk during this pandemic – https://theconversation.com/abuse-and-abandonment-why-pets-are-at-risk-during-this-pandemic-134401

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nilesh Bakshi, Lecturer, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz

Does the white roof concept really work? If so, is it suitable for New Zealand conditions?

Generally, white materials reflect more light than dark ones, and this is also true for buildings and infrastructure. The outside and roof of a building soak up the heat from the sun, but if they are made of materials and finishes in lighter or white colours, this can minimise this solar absorption.

During the warmer part of the year, this can keep the temperature inside the building cooler. This is especially important for building and construction materials such as concrete, stone and asphalt, which store and re-radiate heat.

Read more: Climate explained: which countries are likely to meet their Paris Agreement targets

A New Zealand study tested near-identical buildings in Auckland with either a red or white roof. It found that even in Auckland’s temperate climate, white roofs reduced the need for air conditioning during hotter periods, without reducing comfort during cooler seasons.

The study also identified several large-scale white-roof installations, including at Auckland International Airport, shopping centres and commercial buildings, but the effect was less clear.

This research suggests that there is potential for white-roof installations to significantly reduce the amount of energy needed to cool buildings. This would in turn reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also help us to adapt to rising temperatures.

It is difficult to quantify the impact for New Zealand’s housing stock because existing studies are mostly limited to larger commercial buildings. But research carried out so far suggests white roofs could be a viable approach to minimising the heat taken up by buildings during hotter parts of the year.

Cooling cities

White roofs can also help reduce the temperature of whole cities. Many city centres include large buildings made of concrete or other materials that collect and store solar heat during the day. In a phenomenon known as the “urban heat island” effect, city centres can often be several degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside.

When cities are hotter, they use more energy for cooling. This usually results in more greenhouse gas emissions, due in part to the energy consumed, and contributes further to climate change.

New Zealand is different because our land mass has a maximum width of 400 kilometres. This means that unlike many urban islands on the African, Asian or American continents, New Zealand’s city centres benefit from the cooling effects of being near the ocean.

Read more: Climate explained: why some people still think climate change isn’t real

There are many international studies showing white roofs are effective in mitigating the urban heat island effect in densely populated cities. But there is little evidence that using white roofs in New Zealand cities could result in significant energy reductions.

A growing number of studies suggest making the surfaces of buildings and infrastructure more light reflecting could significantly lower extreme temperatures, particularly during heat waves, not just in cities but in rural areas as well. A recent study shows strategic replacement of dark surfaces with white could lower heatwave maximum temperatures by 2℃ or more, in a range of locations.

But studies have also identified some practical limitations and potential side effects, including the possibility of reduced evaporation and rainfall in urban areas in drier climates.

In conclusion, white roofs could be a good idea for New Zealand to keep homes and cities slightly cooler. As temperatures continue to rise, this could reduce the energy needed for cooling. We should consider this option more often, particularly for commercial-scale buildings made of heat-retaining materials in larger cities.

– ref. Climate explained: how white roofs help to reflect the sun’s heat – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-how-white-roofs-help-to-reflect-the-suns-heat-128918

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

What to do about the schools is set to return centre stage when the national cabinet later this week discusses the next steps in managing the coronavirus – specifically, the first stages of the way to “the other side”.

Scott Morrison, who has always wanted kids at school and insisted schools must stay open for working parents needing them and for vulnerable children, is pushing hard to get as many students back on site as possible.

The national cabinet is due to canvass schools on Thursday, including protections for teachers’ health if more children attend.

The NSW Teachers Federation has said the return should be in stages, starting with Year 12 and kindergarten.

The schools debate is especially interesting not just because of its intrinsic importance, but given its multiple stakeholders – parents, schools themselves, the teachers union, premiers, federal government. It has involved a good deal of pushing and shoving.

Initially, many anxious parents simply wanted to keep their children home, and insisted on doing so. They weren’t reassured by the official health advice that the virus presented a low risk for children and therefore they were safe at school (for vulnerable children, being removed from school presents its own danger).

The teachers’ union was concerned about the safety of teachers, some of whom are older and therefore in a higher risk category.

State premiers Daniel Andrews and Gladys Berejiklian wanted to have only a minimum of children in their schools.

Meanwhile many non-government schools made arrangements for online learning. This produced a sharp response from the federal government: last week Education Minister Dan Tehan told independent schools they faced funding cuts if they didn’t provide for those children who needed to be on site.

In the first round of the schools debate, states and territories simply went their own way, effectively ignoring Morrison’s preference.

As schools move into the second term, learning online is in full swing in most of the country.

Victoria, for example, has said this will be its model as term two starts this week. Queensland has announced that apart from children of essential workers and vulnerable children, students will learn online for the first five weeks of the term (taking it to May 22).

But Morrison is making schools a priority as talk turns to unlocking restrictions. He is (rightly) cautious about lifting many bans that would reduce social distancing but he believes children should be in the vanguard of the march to the “other side”.

He wants a consistent approach across the country. He points out that in South Australia, for example, school attendance has been much higher than in NSW and Victoria.

Morrison advances two arguments – education and the economy.

Children should not lose a year of their education, he said again on Tuesday.

“If online and distance learning was a better way of delivering education, then that’s what we’d do all the time. We wouldn’t have schools, we wouldn’t have all of that infrastructure,” he told Sky.

“We need to get kids back into school, and that’s increasingly being recognised around the world – the French President [Emmanuel Macron] has made similar comments today.” (Macron is particularly concerned about inequality – disadvantaged students who lack digital tools and parental help.)

Key to Morrison’s stand is his economic take. “Getting kids back into school will also free up, I think, more opportunities in our economy, to get to more economic activity going,” he said.

While many businesses have shut down, no doubt quite a few – especially small businesses, whether sole operators or with a few staff – are on the edge. With their children back at school, these owners and staff might find it easier to continue.

Certainly many parents who’ve been forced to work from home – which requires its own adjustments – are feeling the acute strain of juggling their job and supervising their school-age children.

Australia’s apparent success in containing the virus has contributed to a change in the attitude of parents, as has their experience in having to actually deal with home-bound children.

They might have been anxious to remove their kids at first but now – with the health advice still giving an unwavering green light – many are likely be more than willing to hand their stir-crazy offspring back into the care of teaching professionals.

State governments can expect pressure from parents that’s very different compared with just weeks ago.

– ref. View from The Hill – So you wanted to spend more time with the kids? – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-so-you-wanted-to-spend-more-time-with-the-kids-136280

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Jones, Research Fellow, Centre for Inflammatory Disease Monash Health, Monash University

Immunocompromised is a broad term reflecting the fact someone’s immune system isn’t as strong and balanced as it should be.

Because immunocompromised people’s immune systems are defective or ineffective, they’re unable to stop invasion and colonisation by foreign intruders, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.

An under-performing immune response leaves people susceptible to infection, but the severe symptoms in some people are actually caused by a huge immune response sweeping over the whole body.

The reasons for this are varied, and can be complex and intertwined.

Read more: Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

What causes compromised immune systems?

Primary immunodeficiencies arise when someone is born with a condition that directly affects their immune system. These illnesses are rare and usually diagnosed early in life. They include common variable immunodeficiency, severe combined immunodeficiency and X-linked agammaglobulinaemia.

Secondary immunodeficiencies are more common and arise as a consequence of outside factors. Exposure to environmental toxins including some pesticides, heavy metals, petrochemicals and air pollutants such as cigarette smoke can reduce the effectiveness of the immune system, particularly at the surface of the lung.

Read more: Smoking increases your coronavirus risk. There’s never been a better time to quit

Poor nutrition and drug and alcohol abuse can also impair immunity, as can some illnesses, medications, age and even pregnancy.

Illness and injury

Some illnesses and injuries can cause someone to be immunodeficient. These are also classified as secondary immunodeficiencies.

This includes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) as a consequence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, severe burns, and not having a functional spleen. This organ is crucial for blood filtration and coordinating the immune response.

Cancers of the bone marrow and white blood cells, such as leukemia and lymphoma, can also cause immunodeficiency.

Bone marrow and white blood cells usually fight infections. The treatment for these cancers is commonly to wipe out all white blood cells using chemotherapy. This incapacitates the immune system even more.

Early information about COVID-19 in a small number of cancer patients in China suggests they have a higher risk of contracting coronavirus and developing severe disease.

Medications

Like chemotherapy, other medications can bring about an immunocompromised state. These drugs are called immunosuppressants.

People who receive organ transplants are one group who need to take immunosuppressants. This dampens their immune system so it cannot react against and reject the donor’s transplant.

People with autoimmune diseases, which cause the immune system to attack the body’s own cells and tissues, also use these medications. Between 2% and 7% of the population have an autoimmune disease, such as multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and Sjögren’s syndrome, to name a few.

Read more: What is rheumatoid arthritis, the condition tennis champion Caroline Wozniacki lives with?

It’s too soon to know the impact of immunosuppressants on COVID-19, but anecdotal evidence is coming through from affected regions.

In Northern Italy, for example, two kidney transplant recipients were treated for COVID-19. Hospital doctors quickly switched their usual broad immunosuppressive medications to drugs that more specifically suppress the parts of the immune system that appear to go haywire in this infection. One patient recovered, the other did not.

Steroids are the most commonly used immunosuppressants – 1-2% of the population in developed countries take them, and the rate is far higher in developing countries where access to more sophisticated medicines is limited.

Clinical trials are currently underway to assess whether steroids might actually protect people against the severe immune response linked to severe illness in COVID-19.

But until the results are clear, steroid use is not recommended to treat COVID-19.

Age

Age is a key element to consider when thinking about our immune system and its ability to work optimally.

A newborn will have no mature immune system to protect his or her body against invaders. In this context, breastmilk will be a precious source of antibodies to help fight viruses.

On the other side, older people are also considered immunocompromised, as they have an ageing, weakened immune system, not fit enough to start and win a fight. As a consequence, elderly people are more susceptible to contracting symptomatic coronavirus infection.

COVID-19 can become severe when older people have underlying health issues that weaken the organs which are strained by the coronavirus infection, such as the heart and lungs.

Pregnancy

Pregnancy weakens women’s immune systems.

Through our evolution, we have developed a necessary state of immunosuppression during pregnancy. This is because within the pregnant mother’s body is an organism with parts that look foreign to the mother, encoded by the DNA from the other biological parent.

Read more: Coronavirus while pregnant or giving birth: here’s what you need to know

Natural suppression of the immune system during pregnancy stops the mother’s immune system from mounting a response against the baby.

The early information we have on the severity of COVID-19 in pregnancy is encouraging, although it’s still too early to know the full story.

So what does the research say so far?

There are a few early reports emerging from heavily hit areas on how COVID-19 differs in prevalence and severity among immunocompromised people.

The world has been primed to worry about these people contracting COVID-19 because they’re more susceptible to severe illness when infected with the range of viruses that usually cause respiratory illness, including common colds.

However, because the severe illness in COVID-19 is actually a result of excessive immune responses, immunocompromised people don’t seem to be presenting with more severe disease than the general population.

It’s worth exploring each case, though, and reviewing our understanding as the evidence emerges.

So far in a key hospital in Bergamo, in the red zone of the Italian COVID-19 outbreak, none of the immunocompromised patients who tested positive for coronavirus developed a severe disease.

Meanwhile, a 47-year-old woman from Wuhan who was taking steroids to suppress her autoimmune disease lupus, contracted the coronavirus and didn’t fall ill. But her compromised immune system couldn’t efficiently clear the virus and she spread it to her father and sister before testing positive.

While this gives hope that immunocompromised people may not be in such dire straits as we had predicted, they may fly under the radar, picking up the virus and spreading it while remaining asymptomatic.

Immunocompromised individuals may also be at risk of losing out to coronavirus through indirect competition for treatment and the medications that allow them to lead relatively normal lives.

Read more: How does coronavirus kill?

– ref. What does it mean to be immunocompromised? And why does this increase your risk of coronavirus? – https://theconversation.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-immunocompromised-and-why-does-this-increase-your-risk-of-coronavirus-135200

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University

While we most commonly associate COVID-19 with fever and cough, gastrointestinal symptoms including diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal pain are not unheard of in people who contract coronavirus.

This is likely because SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is found in the gut as well as the respiratory tract.

Importantly, the gut’s involvement in coronavirus illness points to the possibility COVID-19 could spread through faeces.

At this stage we don’t know for certain whether or not that occurs – but we can take precautions anyway.

Read more: How can I treat myself if I’ve got – or think I’ve got – coronavirus?

Coronavirus and the gut

SARS-CoV-2 gains entry into human cells by latching onto protein receptors called ACE2, which are found on certain cells’ surfaces.

Around 2% of the cells lining the respiratory tract have ACE2 receptors, while they’re also found in the cells lining the blood vessels.

But the greatest numbers of ACE2 receptors are actually found in the cells lining the gut. Around 30% of cells lining the last part of the small intestine (called the ileum) contain ACE2 receptors.

Clinicians have detected coronavirus in tissue taken from the lining of the gut (oesophagus, stomach, small bowel and rectum) through routine procedures such as endoscopy and colonoscopy, where we use cameras to look inside the body. They found abundant ACE2 receptors in those tissue samples.

While some researchers have proposed alternative explanations, it’s likely people with COVID-19 experience gastrointestinal symptoms because the virus directly attacks the gut tissue through ACE2 receptors.

How common are gastrointestinal symptoms?

Data from 55,000 COVID-19 cases in China has shown the most common gastrointestinal symptom, diarrhoea, occurs in only 3.7% of those affected.

But there’s emerging evidence gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhoea may actually be more common, particularly among patients who develop more serious disease.

In one study of 204 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at three different hospitals in the Hubei province in China, almost 20% of patients had at least one gastrointestinal symptom (diarrhoea, vomiting or abdominal pain).

Read more: Your poo is (mostly) alive. Here’s what’s in it

The researchers found gastrointestinal symptoms became more severe as the COVID-19 illness worsened. And patients with gastrointestinal symptoms were less likely to recover than those without gastrointestinal symptoms.

The reason for this is not clear but one possibility is patients with a higher density of virus, or viral load, are more likely to have coronavirus wreak havoc in their gut.

Coronavirus in our poo

The presence of coronavirus in the gut and the gastrointestinal symptoms associated with COVID-19 suggest coronavirus could be spread via faecal-oral transmission. This is when virus in the stool of one person ends up being swallowed by another person.

A recent study from China found just over half of 73 hospitalised patients with COVID-19 had virus in their faeces. Many of them did not have gastrointestinal symptoms.

While testing stool samples may not be an efficient way to diagnose COVID-19 in individuals – it’s normally slower than testing samples from the respiratory tract – researchers are looking at poo to detect population outbreaks of coronavirus.

More than a dozen research groups worldwide are collaborating on a project analysing wastewater for the presence of coronavirus in target populations.

But just because the virus is found in faeces, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily infectious when shed from the stool. We need more research to ascertain whether this is the case.

Read more: There’s no evidence the new coronavirus spreads through the air – but it’s still possible

The virus seems to last longer in faeces

One study in China followed 74 COVID-19 patients in hospital by taking throat swabs and faecal samples daily or every second day.

The researchers found in over half of patients, their faecal samples remained positive for coronavirus for an average of just over 11 days after their throat swabs tested negative. Coronavirus was still detected in one patient’s faeces 33 days after their throat swab had turned negative.

This suggests the virus is still actively reproducing in the patient’s gastrointestinal tract long after the virus has cleared from the respiratory tract.

So if coronavirus can transmit via the faecal-oral route, we’ll want to know about it.

In order to prove coronavirus can transmit via the faecal-oral route we’d need to see larger cohort studies.

These studies would include gathering more information on how well the coronavirus survives in the gut, how it causes gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhoea and how the virus survives in faeces at different temperatures.

Researchers have found live coronavirus in faecal cultures grown in the lab, but this was only in two patients, so other research teams will need to reliably confirm the presence of infectious virus in faeces.

Take precautions anyway

In one study, researchers collected samples from the bathroom of a COVID-19 positive patient with no diarrhoea. Samples from the surface of the toilet bowl, sink and door handle returned positive for the presence of the coronavirus.

So effective handwashing, particularly after using the toilet, is critical.

We know coronavirus can survive for up to three days on plastic and stainless-steel surfaces. So it’s sensible to regularly disinfect surfaces that will be touched when using shared toilets including doorknobs, door handles, taps, support rails and toilet control handles.

Read more: We know how long coronavirus survives on surfaces. Here’s what it means for handling money, food and more

Finally, flush the toilet with the lid closed. This is particularly important for public toilets in communities where there is sustained transmission of coronavirus.

Flushing a toilet creates a phenomenon known as toilet plume where up to 145,000 aerosolised droplets can be released and suspended in the air for hours.

Scientists believe the infectious viral gastroenteritis caused by norovirus can be transmitted in aerosol form through toilet plumes. Coronavirus may be able to do the same. Closing the lid when flushing can prevent around 80% of these infectious droplets from escaping into the air.

– ref. We don’t know for sure if coronavirus can spread through poo, but it’s possible – https://theconversation.com/we-dont-know-for-sure-if-coronavirus-can-spread-through-poo-but-its-possible-135305

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lorana Bartels, Professor and Program Leader of Criminology, Australian National University

Last week, Health Minister Greg Hunt issued a stark warning that the deliberate transmission of COVID-19 could be punishable by a lifetime prison sentence.

Hunt said he sought legal advice from the attorney-general’s department, which said such an action was an offence under the general criminal laws in every state and territory.

The most serious of these offences may carry maximum penalties up to imprisonment for life, if somebody was to take a step which led to the death of a healthcare worker. If it were a deliberate transmission.

He also said it was against the law to

cause someone else to fear that they are having transmitted to them the virus, for example by coughing on them.

Hunt was responding to reports of people abusing healthcare staff and police by coughing and spitting on them.

NSW has also now introduced a A$5,000 on-the-spot fine for spitting or coughing on frontline workers, while intentionally spitting or coughing on police officers could result in six months in jail.

We understand these are extreme times, but governments should not rush to announcements that transmitting COVID-19 could be subject to criminal prosecution, especially with the risk of a life sentence.

Read more: Pandemic policing needs to be done with the public’s trust, not confusion

What are the issues with a law like this?

In general, the passage and enforcement of all laws must be tested for “necessity”. This implies two things: the measure corresponds to a pressing social need and is proportionate to the legitimate aim being pursued.

There is also a distinction between public health and public order laws. The current emergency laws provide exceptional powers to require certain behaviours to protect public health, not to combat public disorder, which is dealt with under general criminal laws.

The danger of adding to general criminal laws in a crisis is the potential over-criminalisation of the general public.

There have been some reports of public disorder during the current pandemic, but as yet, there is no evidence of widespread deliberate and intentional transmission of COVID-19.

The application of the law in cases like this is also uncertain and unclear. For example, what do Hunt’s words, “take a step” and “deliberate”, mean in this context? How would it be proved that coughing on someone led to the death of a healthcare worker?

Read more: Coronavirus: extra police powers risk undermining public trust

First, it would be difficult to identify a specific individual as the source of a possible infection, particularly since the virus can remain on surfaces for several days. 

Then there is the question of intent. As a matter of law, it is not merely proof of deliberate (rather than accidental) conduct that creates criminal liability, but also someone’s state of mind at the time of the action and whether it is in the public interest to prosecute.

This is a much more complex issue in public health cases.

In 2013, a circus acrobat, Godfrey Zaburoni, was jailed for deliberately infecting his girlfriend with HIV through unprotected sex. But his conviction was quashed by the High Court, which stated

a person’s awareness of the risk that his or her conduct may result in harm does not … support the inference that the person intended to produce the harm.

There is a very fine distinction between deliberately infecting someone with a disease – particularly where the chance of infection is low (as it is with HIV) – and taking a risk that could infect someone.

Moreover, assaulting or spitting at public health workers is already a crime under existing laws, and doing so during a health emergency can be taken into account on sentence. So, Hunt’s announcement has no practical effect beyond mere rhetoric.

The threat of prosecuting people for deliberately transmitting the virus may also add to people’s fears during an uncertain time. For instance, people could be worried about the legal implications of coughing near a healthcare worker and delay getting medical help as a result.

In addition, large on-the-spot fines could also disproportionately affect certain segments of society, such as the poor or homeless.

The need to decriminalise transmission of viruses

Advocates in other countries are seeking to decriminalise the transmission, exposure or non-disclosure of viruses like HIV, arguing such laws can be unfairly or unevenly applied.

In the United Kingdom, a hairdresser, Daryll Rowe, was sentenced to life in prison two years ago for intending to infect or attempting to infect 10 men with HIV.

In the trial, the prosecution relied on the number of his sexual partners, his deception about his HIV status, the finding of tampered condoms and the vile text messages he sent after sexual encounters to prove its case that he intentionally infected the other men.

But there was also evidence that he was otherwise trying to control his infectiousness through alternative remedies and, notably, that he had limited contact with sexual partners rather than relationships, meaning there was less regular contact and less chance of transmission.

As a result, he was convicted of intentional infection, even though there was evidence he was otherwise trying to avoid this.

Read more: Daryll Rowe guilty – but is criminal law the right way to stop the spread of HIV?

The criminal law in both the UK and Australia does not provide a defence where others voluntarily assume risk. This could put all promiscuous people at risk of conviction in cases like this, even though such actions themselves are not crimes.

The same theory could apply to COVID-19. Anyone who does not maintain appropriate social distancing could be at risk of conviction under these laws and subject to an overly harsh punishment.

We need a public health, not criminal law, approach

Public health emergencies may bring criminal sanctions for non-compliance of restrictions like social distancing and quarantining – but even here, some have expressed concern about the scope and enforcement of the new laws.

Already, the pandemic is placing significant strain on police, courts and prisons. 

Governments should allocate adequate resources to protect healthcare workers, rather than promoting the application of extreme laws that will be difficult to prove and waste resources attempting to do so when the current emergency laws are more than sufficient.

– ref. Transmitting COVID-19 to another person could send you to prison for life. Here’s why this is worrisome – https://theconversation.com/transmitting-covid-19-to-another-person-could-send-you-to-prison-for-life-heres-why-this-is-worrisome-135957

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Billie Bonevski, Women in Science Chair, University of Newcastle

If you’re a smoker, there’s really never been a better time to quit. Coronavirus affects your lungs, causing flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat and fatigue. In the most serious cases, sufferers struggle to breathe at all and can die of respiratory failure.

The World Health Organisation recommends people quit smoking as it makes them more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.

Here’s what we know about smoking and COVID-19 risk – and how you can boost your chances of quitting while under lockdown.

Read more: It’s safest to avoid e-cigarettes altogether – unless vaping is helping you quit smoking

Smoking and COVID-19 risk

Early data from China suggests smoking history is one factor that the risk of poor outcomes in COVID-19 patients.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, smoking is a leading risk factor for chronic disease and death.

Smokers are more susceptible to developing heart disease, which so far seems to be the highest risk factor for the COVID-19 death rate. The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford reports that smoking seemed to be a factor associated with poor survival in Italy, where 24% of people smoke.

We know that immunosuppressed people are at higher risk if they get COVID-19 and cigarette smoke is an immunosuppressant.

And the hand-to-mouth action of smoking makes smokers vulnerable to COVID-19 as they are touching their mouth and face more often.

We don’t yet know if recent ex-smokers are at higher risk of COVID-19 than people who have never smoked. Given the lungs heal rapidly after quitting smoking, being an ex-smoker is likely to decrease your chances of complications due to COVID-19.

Reduce your COVID-19 risks today by quitting

The benefits of quitting smoking are almost immediate. Within 24 hours of quitting, the body starts to recover and repair. Lung function improves and respiratory symptoms become less severe.

You might not notice the changes immediately, but they will become obvious within months of quitting. And the improvements are sustained with long-term abstinence.

Tiny hairs in your lungs and airways (called cilia) get better at clearing mucus and debris. You’ll start to notice you’re breathing more easily.

Symptoms of chronic bronchitis, such as chronic cough, mucus production and wheeze, decrease rapidly. Among people with asthma, lung function improves within a few months of quitting and treatments are more effective.

Respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia also decrease with quitting.

Read more: Smoking at record low in Australia, but the grim harvest of preventable heart disease continues

People should seek behavioural counselling support to work through motivations to quit, strategies for dealing with triggers, and distraction techniques.

And you can get behavioural support from your doctor or a psychologist via telephone Quitlines in your state or territory or online.

Several studies suggest that some people quit smoking without assistance. If you feel you need extra help, talk to your doctor about nicotine gum, patches, inhalators, lozenges or prescription medications. If you can’t get in to see a GP, you can try a telehealth consultation or consider over-the-counter products.

Quitting while in lockdown

Physical distancing and lockdown measures may make it more challenging to get the support you need to quit smoking – but not impossible.

If financial stress is undermining your attempts to stop smoking, calculate how much money you can save by quitting (and whatever you do, don’t share cigarettes with someone else). Financial support is available if COVID-19 has affected your income.

Social support, even during lockdown, is crucial. Why not organise a group of friends also wanting to quit and support each other via Houseparty, Zoom or Skype?

Pandemic or no pandemic, smoking poses an enormous risk to your health – and hurts your finances, too.

Any effort you put in now to reduce your smoking or stub it out altogether will reduce your risk if you do get COVID-19, help you live longer and enjoy a higher quality of life. We wish you the very best of luck with it.

– ref. Smoking increases your coronavirus risk. There’s never been a better time to quit – https://theconversation.com/smoking-increases-your-coronavirus-risk-theres-never-been-a-better-time-to-quit-135294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Baker, Professor of Housing Research, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Adelaide

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating major challenges for our residential rental system. The lockdown of businesses has meant an almost overnight loss of jobs or reduced hours for many Australian workers. Many tenants are struggling to pay their rent.

While the release of a government package to help residential renters has been mooted for weeks, the only concrete outcome so far has been a halt on evictions and some progress in individual states and territories. The rapid sequence of events has left renters – that’s about one in three Australian households – and landlords in uncharted territory; they must renegotiate their terms.

We asked stakeholders from across the rental market – landlords, tenants, advocacy groups, housing researchers – for ideas on what ethical landlords might do in these highly uncertain circumstances. We discuss some of these ideas later in this article.

Read more: Rents can and should be reduced or suspended for the coronavirus pandemic

Landlords are taking a hit too

But, first, it’s important to remember it isn’t just renters who are struggling. Some landlords are too. For many of Australia’s more than 1 million “mum and dad” landlords, COVID-19 has dealt a blow to their relatively safe bricks-and-mortar investment.

On the other hand, landlords may have access to mortgage holidays and low interest rates. Some are also calling for relief on rates and other costs associated with their investment properties so they can better support their tenants.

At the coalface, responses from landlords, letting agents and property managers have reportedly varied widely. The official position of the Real Estate Institute of Australia is that a “a moratorium on evictions during these challenging times is the correct thing to be doing”. However, there have been widespread reports of threatened evictions, suggestions renters draw on super or use savings to pay rent, or that rent reductions will only come in the form of deferred loans.

Pulling together in a crisis

Australians have rallied together in this crisis – checking up on older neighbors, for instance, or delivering groceries or home-baked bread to isolated friends and relatives. This is grassroots stuff, which has largely happened separately from, and in advance of, formal government responses. People see COVID-19 as a shared challenge, and there is a lot of goodwill.

In this environment, while landlords are rightly concerned to protect their investment and keep paying their mortgages, many also have a competing concern to help out their tenants.

Read more: As coronavirus hits holiday lettings, a shift to longer rentals could help many of us

The problem is, in such a dispersed system of ownership, there is no template for how they might help, and no library of what other landlords are doing, so each mum and dad investor is responding in different ways. Anecdotal evidence suggests some letting agents have been contacting landlords for direction on how to respond to requests for rent reductions and gauging attitudes to eviction.

An added complication is that many of the responses that aim to help out tenants may be counter to the best interests of letting agents, who receive a percentage of rental income.

4 ways landlords can help

Here are some ideas in response to our questions of rental stakeholders:

1. Talk directly with tenants if you can, or at least ask to be included in the conversation.

2. Everyone will have different pressures. Work out what position you are in. Find out what concessions your bank may be offering, what inflexible costs (such as council rates) you have, what landlord insurance covers you for, and how much of the pain you are prepared to share – and for how long. Ask your tenants to do the same. This will form a good, and hopefully fair, basis on which to compromise.

3. Use letting agents who reflect your values as a landlord. You may wish to have a chat to your agent and ask that they notify you if tenants are having trouble. Some landlords have gone further and requested that all communication between agent and renter is cleared by them first.

4. Share success stories. One of the motivations for this article was the lack of information for mum and dad investors who are trying to be good landlords. Options to offer tenants as part of negotiations might include rent reductions, or deferred rent, but there aren’t many examples of what other landlords have done out there.

It would be helpful if landlords shared the solutions they have developed, what worked and what didn’t. Even though every case will be different, having positive case studies available for other landlords to emulate will be valuable.

The full extent of COVID-19 and its effect on employment, housing and the economy just isn’t known. And neither is the full detail of what government assistance may be provided – or the implications for landlords, tenants and agents.

Read more: Rushed coronavirus tenancy laws raise as many questions as they answer

Impacts are affecting everyone

It’s worth remembering that we’re all in this together. Everyone in the rental system – tenants, landlords and agents – will feel the effects of the pandemic.

Many households have already been tipped into post-COVID unemployment, many landlords will also have lost their jobs, many agents are overwhelmed by trying to keep businesses afloat while quickly mediating temporary solutions. And many want to do the right thing – tenants and landlords alike.

Everyone is waiting to know the shape and impact of any government response. Although it is difficult to adequately plan long-term responses to hardship, individual landlords can do a lot in advance of government help, and in addition to it.

– ref. 4 ways to be a good landlord in a time of coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/4-ways-to-be-a-good-landlord-in-a-time-of-coronavirus-136040

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management, University of South Australia

Stranded cruise ships have become a symbol of the COVID-19 pandemic. Passengers and crew are desperate to get off but the ports to which they’ve headed don’t want them.

It is no exaggeration to suggest this crisis could spell the end of the line for a industry already on the nose for its its social, health and and environmental problems.

Indeed the same business model at the root of those problems is the cause of its current crisis, in which ship operators have been accused of gross or even criminal negligence.

That model has to do with flags of convenience.

Flags of convenience mean ships operate in waters far from their “home” ports. Most are registered in Caribbean tax havens. Operating outside clear jurisdictions, wages are low and working conditions poor.

That so many ships have become floating coronavirus incubators also indicates poor health and safety protocols. An emergency plan for an infectious outbreak on a ship seems an obvious thing to have. Yet reports suggest improvised responses.

Now, with ports and entire nations ordering cruise ships away, flags of convenience have become an existential threat to crew, and the industry.

Ships ordered away

The industry’s reputational crisis is demonstrated no better than in Australia, where 24 of the nation’s 61 confirmed COVID-19 deaths so far have come from cruise ships.

All 20 cruise ships still in Australian waters were ordered to leave last week, with Australian Border Force commissioner Michael Outram citing concerns the number of cases among crew would be “a big strain on the Australian health system”.

Read more: Explainer: what are Australia’s obligations to cruise ships off its coast under international law?

Just one ship, the Ruby Princess. is linked to 18 deaths (and about 700 infections – roughly 10% of Australia’s total cases).

Deaths have also come from the Artenia, Voyager of the Seas, Celebrity Solistice and Ovation of the Seas.

The Ruby Princess was allowed to dock in Sydney on March 19. About 2,700 passengers disembarked without being tested, because New South Wales authorities believed there was low risk.

Police are now investigating possible criminal charges against the operator, Princess Cruises, for misleading authorities about the situation. (The ship has since been allowed to dock at Port Kembla, south of Sydney, with a fifth of more than 1,000 crew quarantined aboard showing virus-like symptoms).

There are also calls for a criminal negligence investigation of the operator of the Artania, in a weeks-long stand-off in Western Australian waters.

Most of the ship’s passengers were allowed to disembark and get charter flights home to Europe. But more than 400 people, mostly crew, remain on board, and the state government fears the number of coronavirus cases would overwhelm local hospitals.

“We’d like you to leave, we don’t want you in our port,” said West Australian premier Mark McGowan.

But where are they, and tens of thousands of crew workers on hundreds of other cruise ships around the world, to go?

Coronavirus update: follow the latest news in our weekly wrap.

Caribbean tax shelters

Consider the Artenia. The ship is owned by British cruise line P&O, chartered to a German company, operates out of Frankfurt and is registered in the Bahamas.

The Ruby Princess operates out of Australia but is registered in Bermuda. Its owner, Princess Cruises, is headquartered in California but also incorporated in Bermuda.

Most cruise ships are registered in a country different to ownership or operation. More than two-thirds (by tonnage) fly the flags of just three nations – the Bahamas, Panama and Bermuda.

Flags of convenience make the cruise ship industry one of the world’s least regulated, with owners and operators able to skirt more stringent workplace, health, safety and environmental rules.

For crew, particularly those in “lower level” service jobs, pay and conditions are poor. Many accept such conditions to earn money for their families. Hidden from view, even passengers can be oblivious to their conditions.

Incorporations of convenience

Both P&O and Princess Cruises are subsidiaries of the world’s biggest cruise company, Carnival Corporation, whose combined fleet of about 300 ships carries almost half the world’s cruising passengers

Carnival Corporation is headquartered in Miami, as are the second and third biggest cruise corporations, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian. But Carnival is incorporated in Panama, Norwegian in Bermuda, and Royal Caribbean in Liberia.

Now these “incorporations of convenience” threaten their survival. Their revenue has been cut to zero. The US government is offering no assistance because they’re foreign companies and their employees are spread across the world. Other governments are unlikely to do more.

Industry analysts say the big cruise operators have enough reserves to last six months. After that, if they don’t secure funding, they face going out of business.

Sailing into the sunset

If that happens, many will not mourn the loss.

Long before this crisis, the cruise ship industry was on the nose for its social and environment problems.

It has contributed to overtourism in places like Barcelona, Reykjavik, Dubrovnik and Venice. Its environmental record is appalling. Just last year Carnival paid $US20 million (A$28 million) to settle a US court case over it allowing its ships to dump rubbish in the ocean – something for which it has a previous criminal conviction.

Read more: The travel industry has sparked a backlash against tourists by stressing quantity over quality

Now the industry’s carefully honed image of cruise ships offering the right balance between fun and security looks sunk.

Whatever remains after this crisis will need a complete overhaul.

– ref. This could be the end of the line for cruise ships – https://theconversation.com/this-could-be-the-end-of-the-line-for-cruise-ships-135937

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tobias R. Keller, Visiting Postdoc, Queensland University of Technology

Even before the coronavirus arrived to turn life upside down and trigger a global infodemic, social media platforms were under growing pressure to curb the spread of misinformation.

Last year, Facebook cofounder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg called for new rules to address “harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability”.

Now, amid a rapidly evolving pandemic, when more people than ever are using social media for news and information, it is more crucial than ever that people can trust this content.

Read more: Social media companies are taking steps to tamp down coronavirus misinformation – but they can do more

Digital platforms are now taking more steps to tackle misinformation about COVID-19 on their services. In a joint statement, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube have pledged to work together to combat misinformation.

Facebook has traditionally taken a less proactive approach to countering misinformation. A commitment to protecting free expression has led the platform to allow misinformation in political advertising.

More recently, however, Facebook’s spam filter inadvertently marked legitimate news information about COVID-19 as spam. While Facebook has since fixed the mistake, this incident demonstrated the limitations of automated moderation tools.

In a step in the right direction, Facebook is allowing national ministries of health and reliable organisations to advertise accurate information on COVID-19 free of charge. Twitter, which prohibits political advertising, is allowing links to the Australian Department of Health and World Health Organization websites.

Twitter has also announced a suite of changes to its rules, including updates to how it defines harm so as to address content that goes against authoritative public health information, and an increase in its use of machine learning and automation technologies to detect and remove potentially abusive and manipulative content.

Previous attempts unsuccessful

Unfortunately, Twitter has been unsuccessful in its recent attempts to tackle misinformation (or, more accurately, disinformation – incorrect information posted deliberately with an intent to obfuscate).

The platform has begun to label doctored videos and photos as “manipulated media”. The crucial first test of this initiative was a widely circulated altered video of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in which part of a sentence was edited out to make it sound as if he was forecasting President Donald Trump’s re-election.

It took Twitter 18 hours to label the video, by which time it had already received 5 million views and 21,000 retweets.

The label appeared below the video (rather than in a more prominent place), and was only visible to the roughly 757,000 accounts who followed the video’s original poster, White House social media director Dan Scavino. Users who saw the content via reweets from the White House (21 million followers) or President Donald Trump (76 million followers), did not see the label.

Labelling misinformation doesn’t work

There are four key reasons why Twitter’s (and other platforms’) attempts to label misinformation were ineffective.

First, social media platforms tend to use automated algorithms for these tasks, because they scale well. But labelling manipulated tweets requires human labour; algorithms cannot decipher complex human interactions. Will social media platforms invest in human labour to solve this issue? The odds are long.

Second, tweets can be shared millions of times before being labelled. Even if removed, they can easily be edited and then reposted to avoid algorithmic detection.

Third, and more fundamentally, labels may even be counterproductive, serving only to pique the audience’s interest. Conversely, labels may actually amplify misinformation rather than curtailing it.

Finally, the creators of deceptive content can deny their content was an attempt to obfuscate, and claim unfair censorship, knowing that they will find a sympathetic audience within the hyper-partisan arena of social media.

So how can we beat misinformation?

The situation might seem impossible, but there are some practical strategies that the media, social media platforms, and the public can use.

First, unless the misinformation has already reached a wide audience, avoid drawing extra attention to it. Why give it more oxygen than it deserves?

Second, if misinformation has reached the point at which it requires debunking, be sure to stress the facts rather than simply fanning the flames. Refer to experts and trusted sources, and use the “truth sandwich”, in which you state the truth, and then the misinformation, and finally restate the truth again.

Third, social media platforms should be more willing to remove or restrict unreliable content. This might include disabling likes, shares and retweets for particular posts, and banning users who repeatedly misinform others.

For example, Twitter recently removed coronavirus misinformation posted by Rudy Guilani and Charlie Kirk; the Infowars app was removed from Google’s app store; and probably with the highest impact, Facebook, Twitter, and Google’s YouTube removed corona misinformation from Brasil’s president Jair Bolsonaro.

Read more: Meet ‘Sara’, ‘Sharon’ and ‘Mel’: why people spreading coronavirus anxiety on Twitter might actually be bots

Finally, all of us, as social media users, have a crucial role to play in combating misinformation. Before sharing something, think carefully about where it came from. Verify the source and its evidence, double-check with independent other sources, and report suspicious content to the platform directly. Now, more than ever, we need information we can trust.

– ref. Why is it so hard to stop COVID-19 misinformation spreading on social media? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-stop-covid-19-misinformation-spreading-on-social-media-134396

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Celestine Wong, Consultant Dermatologist, Monash Health

Washing your hands is one of the crucial ways we can all help limit the spread of COVID-19.

Regularly and thoroughly washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, or using an alcohol-based hand sanitiser, are key steps to reducing the risk.

But with all this hand washing, it’s easy to get dry skin or for existing skin conditions to flare up.

Read more: Yes, washing our hands really can help curb the spread of coronavirus

What’s happening to our skin?

The top layer of our skin (the stratum corneum) is our skin’s key protective layer. But frequent hand washing with repetitive exposure to water, soap and skin cleansers will disrupt this layer.

Over time, this leads to dry skin, further disruption of the skin barrier and inflammation.

This eventually results in hand dermatitis, or more specifically, irritant contact dermatitis.

Who’s more likely to have problems?

Irritant contact dermatitis is more common in people who perform “wet work” as they wash and dry their hands many times a day.

They include health-care workers (doctors, nurses, personal care assistants), hairdressers, food handlers, kitchen staff and cleaners. They may also be exposed to irritating skin cleansers and detergents.

But now handwashing is becoming more frequent during the COVID-19 pandemic, there may be more affected people outside these occupations.

People with eczema, asthma and hay fever are also at higher risk of developing irritant contact dermatitis or experiencing a flare of underlying eczema.

Read more: Common skin rashes and what to do about them

How do I prevent hand dermatitis?

1. Soap, soap alternative or hand sanitiser?

People with eczema or who have had contact dermatitis before will have more easily irritated skin. While they can still use hand sanitisers, it’s recommended they wash with gentler soap-free washes rather than normal soap.

Soap-free washes contain non-soap-based synthetic detergents (syndets). Syndets have a nearly identical cleansing action as soap, but with the benefit of having the same pH as the skin. This means they’re less likely to remove the oils from the outer layer of the skin and are less irritating.

Soaps have a high pH and are quite alkaline. This disrupts the outer layer of the skin, allowing the soap to penetrate deeper into the skin, thus causing more skin irritation and itching.

Other people who don’t have eczema or a history of contact dermatitis should just use soap. Liquid soaps usually contain fragrances and preservatives, which can cause another type of dermatitis (allergic contact dermatitis), so opt for a plain, unperfumed bar soap.

2. Dry your hands thoroughly

Dry your hands thoroughly, including the webs of your fingers and under your rings to reduce dermatitis caused by trapped water. Skin irritation and breakdown can occur when there is excessive moisture, soap residues and water trapped between the skin and underneath rings.

Read more: Coronavirus and handwashing: research shows proper hand drying is also vital

3. Use non-fragranced moisturiser regularly

Moisturisers come in different formulations. While lotions are light in consistency and convenient to use during the day, they will require more frequent applications. Creams and ointments have thicker and oilier texture, are effective for dry hands and are best used overnight.

Fragrances can cause allergic contact dermatitis and are best avoided, where possible.

4. Use alcohol-based hand sanitiser (if you can get hold of it)

Alcohol-based hand sanitiser will reduce your skin’s contact with water, and so lower your risk of dermatitis.

Research in health-care workers shows hand sanitisers cause less contact dermatitis than washing with soap and water.

Sometimes people wrongly believe that when hand sanitiser stings on a paper cut, this means that they are allergic. But this is an irritant reaction and though uncomfortable, it’s safe to keep using it.

Which sanitiser? This usually comes down to personal preference (and what you can get hold of).

5. Use gloves

Use protective gloves when doing household chores, such as washing the dishes or when gardening.

Use cotton gloves when doing dry work, such as sweeping or dusting, to protect your hands and minimise the need to wash them.

At night, moisturise your hands than wear cotton gloves. This acts like an intensive hand mask and works wonders for very dry skin. It ensures the moisturiser stays on your hands and increases its penetration into your skin.

What if my hands are already damaged, dry or cracking?

1. Act early

Treat hand dermatitis as soon as it occurs, otherwise it will get worse.

2. Apply petroleum jelly

If you think you’ve lost your nail cuticle (the protective barrier between the nail and nail fold), water will be able to seep into the nail fold, causing swelling and dermatitis.

Use petroleum jelly, such as Vaseline, as a sealant to prevent further water damage. Petroleum jelly can also be used on skin cracks for the same reason.

3. Seek medical help

If there are any red, dry and itchy areas, indicating active dermatitis, seek help from your GP or dermatologist.

They can start you on a short burst of an ointment that contains corticosteroids until the rash subsides.

Prescription ointments are likely to be more effective than over-the-counter creams because of their higher potency.

But you could start with buying 1% hydrocortisone ointment, not cream, from the chemist.

Read more: What can you use a telehealth consult for and when should you physically visit your GP?

Sometimes dermatitis can become infected with skin bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus. Seek medical advice if you experience symptoms such as persistent soreness or pain.

You should also seek medical help if you have severe hand dermatitis not responding to home treatments.

Most GPs and dermatologists are moving to or have started using telehealth so you can consult them using a video call, minimising face-to-face appointments.

– ref. My skin’s dry with all this hand washing. What can I do? – https://theconversation.com/my-skins-dry-with-all-this-hand-washing-what-can-i-do-134146

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Quentin Grafton, Director of the Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The rains have finally arrived in the Northern Murray Darling Basin. Hopefully, this drought-easing water will flow all the way down to the parched communities and degraded habitats of the lower Darling.

How much water goes downstream, however, does not just depend on how much it has rained.

It also greatly depends on how much is extracted and consumed upstream, and the rules and enforcement around these water extractions.

Simplistic or knee-jerk responses to water insecurity, such as banning irrigation for “thirsty crops” such as cotton, will not fix the water woes of the basin.

The harder and longer path is to deliver real water reform as was agreed to by all governments in the 2004 National Water Initiative and that includes transparent water planning enshrined in law.

Read more: The sweet relief of rain after bushfires threatens disaster for our rivers

Basin cotton irrigators extract about five Sydney Harbours’ worth a year

Irrigation accounts for about 70% of all surface water extracted in the basin.

Australia’s water accounts tell us that in 2017-18, basin cotton irrigators extracted some 2,500 billion litres (about five Sydney Harbours’ worth) or equivalent to about 35% of all the water extracted for irrigation.

Most of this water was extracted in the Northern Basin (covering southern Queensland and northern New South Wales). But increasingly cotton is becoming a preferred crop in the Southern Basin (southern NSW to South Australia).

Overall, the area of land in cotton and the water extracted for cotton increased by 4% in 2017-18 relative to 2016-17.

Cotton is a thirsty crop. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics cotton uses, on average, more than 7 million litres (or about three Olympic-sized swimming pools) per hectare.

At a global scale, the volume of water extracted by cotton irrigators to produce one kilogram of cotton fabric averages more than 3,000 litres.

Increased water efficiency: good news for some, bad news for others

Concerns over how much water cotton uses, and the high price of water in the basin, has incentivised cotton farmers to increase their cotton yield (in tonnes) per million litres of water extracted.

This has been achieved with improved genetics, management and more high-tech irrigation methods. According to Cotton Australia, much less water (only 19%) is flowing back into streams and groundwater from water applied to cotton fields than two decades ago, when the return flows were 43% of the water applied.

Increased irrigation efficiency is good news for cotton irrigators, especially those that received some of the A$4 billion in public money already spent to increase irrigation efficiency in the basin. But it is bad news for downstream irrigators, communities and the environment.

This is because a much greater proportion of the water extracted by cotton farmers now gets consumed as evapo-transpiration, and thus is unavailable for anyone or anything else.

We need to change the rules of the game

Given these cotton facts, would banning the growing of cotton in Australia increase the water available? No – because the problem is not cotton irrigation per se, but rather the “rules of the game” of the who, how, and when water is extracted. These water sharing rules are determined at a state level in what are called Water Sharing Plans.

Proper water planning is the only way to ensure a fair deal, deliver on the intent of the 2012 Basin Plan and keep levels of water extraction at sustainable levels.

Water sharing plans are supposed to be consistent with the 2012 Basin Plan. But NSW has, so far, failed to provide its plans for auditing by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, missing the key July 1, 2019 deadline.

Following an expose of alleged water theft in July 2017, the NSW government created a specialised agency, the Natural Resources Access Regulator, that has greatly helped water monitoring and compliance in NSW. Despite its best efforts, there is still inadequate metering in the Northern Basin. And across the basin as a whole, most groundwater extractions are not properly monitored.

The actual rules about how much water can be extracted are substantially influenced by some irrigators in the consultation process before plans are implemented.

Such influence has resulted in some water sharing plans favouring upstream irrigators at the expense of downstream communities, such as Walgett and Wilcannia. These towns have been left high and dry despite the fact NSW law gives priority to town water supplies over other water uses.

According to the NSW Natural Resources Commission, the current Barwon-Darling Water Sharing Plan “effectively prioritises upstream water users” and also does not provide protection for environmental water from extraction.

The Natural Resources Commission also observed that extraction permitted under the plan:

has affected those communities and landholders reliant on the river for domestic and stock water supplies, town water supply, community and social needs.

A consultant’s report from 2019, written for the NSW government, also found no evidence in the Barwon-Darling water planning processes of reporting on performance indicators such as changes in stream flow regimes, ecological values of key water sources or water utility (for town supply) access requirements.

Sadly, the problem of poor water planning is not exclusive to the Barwon-Darling, but exists in other basin catchments in NSW, and beyond.

Holding governments responsible

Any effective solution to the water emergency in the basin must, therefore, hold governments responsible for their water plans and decisions. This requires that a “who, what, how and when” of water be made transparent through an independent water auditing, monitoring and compliance process.

Simplistic responses to water insecurity, such as banning irrigation for cotton, will not fix the water woes of the basin. The harder and longer path is to deliver real water reform as was agreed to by all governments in the 2004 National Water Initiative and that included transparent water planning enshrined in law.

Read more: Fish kills and undrinkable water: here’s what to expect for the Murray Darling this summer

Three things that would make a difference

As a nation we must hold decisionmakers accountable so the rules of the game do not favour the big end of town at the expense, and even the existence, of towns.

We also need to:

1. stop wasting billions on irrigation subsidies that reduce flows to streams and rivers
2. monitor, measure and audit what is happening to the water extracted and in streams
3. actually deliver on the key objects of the federal Water Act and state water acts.

Enforcing the law of the land would ensure those who have the legal right to get the water first (such as town water supplies) are prioritised in the implementation of water sharing plans. It would mean state water plans are audited and actually deliver environmentally sustainable levels of water extraction.

– ref. While towns run dry, cotton extracts 5 Sydney Harbours’ worth of Murray Darling water a year. It’s time to reset the balance – https://theconversation.com/while-towns-run-dry-cotton-extracts-5-sydney-harbours-worth-of-murray-darling-water-a-year-its-time-to-reset-the-balance-133342

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Linden, Sessional Lecturer, PhD (Management) Candidate, School of Management, RMIT University

The economic heart attack induced by COVID-19 has revealed an ugly truth – many very large companies have too little cash to ride out sharp downturns.

Cash flow variability, and the inability to retain earnings to buffer that variability, is one of the most common reasons small businesses fail.

Because large companies have raised large amounts of cash through public offers, and take in large amounts of cash in their ordinary operations, they ought to be more resilient.

Yet even though the pandemic-inspired shutdowns are mere weeks old, many big companies such as Virgin Australia and listed childcare providers are already pleading for or receiving public guarantees and bailouts.

Other companies such as Flight Centre and Cochlear are rushing to raise extra funds though discounted share placements.

Bond and debt markets are experiencing severe problems, making it difficult for these companies to borrow.

Why are big companies so vulnerable?

Catastrophic declines in cash flow are only half the story.

The other half is the three-decade focus on maximising shareholder returns.

Companies have used four strategies to keep their share prices high and push them higher.

First, they have paid out profits to shareholders in the form of dividends, leaving them with less to build cash buffers, pay higher wages and reinvest in the business.

Reserve Bank research shows that over the past three decades dividend payouts have trended up over time to more than 80 cents of every dollar of corporate profits.

In some companies dividends payouts exceed 100% of profits.

Read more: Australia’s appetite for dividends could cannibalise economic growth

Second, the same Reserve Bank research points to the increased use of share buy-backs and dividend reinvestment plans. The former boosts share prices by shrinking the stock of shares. The latter boosts demand for that stock.

Third, to lock in these historically high dividend payout ratios, shareholders, including institutional shareholders such as superannuation funds, have demanded boards agree to dividend guarantees.

In Australia these demands for higher and higher dividends have been partly driven by dividend imputation which attaches a “refund” of company tax to dividend payments, making them even more valuable to mum and dad investors, and also to super funds, which have a heavy bias to equities.

Fourth, executives have been incentivised to make sure share prices climb higher and higher by remuneration packages that provide bonuses linked to high share prices.

Read more: Words that matter. What’s a franking credit? What’s dividend imputation? And what’s ‘retiree tax’?

Finally, companies have had to borrow heavily to cover ever increasing dividend payments and buybacks.

As Edward Altman, father of the Altman Z-score for predicting bankruptcy, observes, the vast majority of US companies are now B rated (just above junk). Thirty years ago many were A rated.

Increased borrowing is making it hard for many companies to borrow more money or to issue bonds except at junk-grade interest rates.

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the flaws of sucking liquidity out of companies to maximise shareholder returns as did the global financial crisis before it.

Directors need to consider their legal duties

Directors have a legal obligation not to trade while insolvent. Not having enough cash on hand to pay bills as and when they fall due triggers this obligation.

In times of crisis where the solvency of corporations is a live question, preferencing shareholders over creditors and employees by paying dividends or buying back shares or borrowing to pay dividends is likely to be a breach of duties because it sucks even more liquidity out of the business and increases leverage.

Both the Bank of England and New Zealand’s Reserve Bank have stopped their banks paying dividends.

On Tuesday Australia’s Prudential Regulation Authority took the unusual step of writing to banks asking them to be extremely cautious about paying dividends.

The Australian Shareholders’ Association has urged the government not to go further and issue a formal direction to banks to suspend dividend payments, saying shareholders rely on dividends to “cover their living expenses”.

Things can’t return to how they were before

When the pandemic is over and the economy recovers it will become clear that the pre-crisis rates of shareholder returns were not sustainable.

Until then, the public might be being asked to pick up the tab to save needlessly febrile companies, just as it has picked up a different sort of tab as a result of systemic misconduct in banking justified by need to keep shareholder returns high.

Post-crisis, companies should be made to wind back returns to shareholders in order to build adequate buffers, invest in their businesses and pay their workers more.

– ref. The last thing companies should be doing right now is paying dividends – https://theconversation.com/the-last-thing-companies-should-be-doing-right-now-is-paying-dividends-135928

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew M. Phelps, Professor, University of Canterbury

As COVID-19 spreads around the globe, many of us feel we have no voice, no ability to affect change. There is nothing we can really do other than try to “flatten the curve”.

Recent news coverage has noted World Health Organisation support of gaming as a way to escape from the daily reality of exponential curves and tragic news stories. This narrative reflects rapid change in how gaming is perceived.

It wasn’t long ago video games were still being blamed for school shootings and real-world violence without evidence. “Game addiction” was touted as a new classification by the WHO despite the assurances of researchers and medical practitioners. Indeed, games have long been blamed for society’s moral decline.

Now suddenly, video games have become a darling of shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders. They are a form of social engagement that allow humans to safely follow our instincts to gather together in a time of anxiety. They allow us moments of escape and a sense of agency when we feel we have none.

Gamers as loners

The historical narrative around gamers describes them as anti-social, in service to the myth of the lone teenage boy playing in a basement, perched on pizza boxes in the dark, dimly outlined by the glow of the screen.

This stereotype was never true. Games have always been social, from the first multiplayer board game in ancient Egypt to the installation of Pong! in a bar in Sunnyvale, California, to the arcades and neighbourhood gatherings of the 1980s.

During COVID-19, people aren’t playing alone – they are using games to come together. Many are sharing their Animal Crossing connect codes to unlock multiplayer modes, and gathering in massive multiplayer games on PlayStation Network (which had over 100 million monthly users before coronavirus hit) or XBOX Live.

The free game Call of Duty: Warzone One has spiked in terms of online multiplayer activity, drawing more than 15 million players online within days of its release.

The videogame industry is expected to fare better than other business sectors affected by coronavirus.

Players are finding not just an escape from the news of the pandemic or the same four walls of their home, but also social interaction, human contact, value in knowing there are others out there. It’s the reason the industry is rallying around #PlayApartTogether, a promotion organised by gaming companies on behalf of the WHO that has gained more than 4.7 billion consumer media impressions (or times online content is consumed) worldwide.

Similarly, opinion pieces are now challenging our prior notions around screen time limits for children in isolation and the virtues of living online.

We can be heroes

As an academic and a researcher, I’m tracking stories of how these lockdowns are giving us a chance to bond with family members. I’ve seen a friend connecting in new ways with his 11-year old son, because they are both at home and playing Minecraft.

Several colleagues are pursuing active research into how games are helping people cope in this time of stress and panic, how they are sharing information, and how their interaction with games is a tool for social survival.

The use of Twitch, Amazon’s live streaming service for gamers, is up 10% globally and as high as 66% in hard hit areas such as Italy. The platform is also seeing users expand into non-game activities such as cooking classes, yoga or university lectures.

Games also give us a form of agency that is somewhat different than other media. They provide us a sense of control, the ability to be a hero or save the world. They give us the ability to explore, to compete, to solve. They can engage us in epic quests, allow us to solve mystery, conquer aliens, and more.

Australian charity CheckPoint, which provides mental health resources for gamers and the gaming community, is gathering stories of online connections during social isolation. They suggest gamers create an “interactive story” on their social media timeline, reach out to gamers they’ve lost touch with or try boardgames via an online tabletop simulator.

Although no one is suggesting games can give us real-life pandemic solutions, they can simulate a pandemic and help us explore response strategies that rely on cooperation. We can temporarily inhabit an alternate universe where we save the world from outbreak scenarios. They remind us we have agency and effect, that we can continue to strategise until we come up with winning solutions, and that there are often numerous ways to win.

Longer term, games can help more young people engage in science, technology, arts or maths careers or studies, and even engage both patients and doctors in research on health and well-being in new ways. All these outcomes seem critical to our long term future in ways they didn’t just a few short weeks ago.

COVID-19 may be the turning point when the world realises playing video games is potentially a form of empowerment that brings people together to solve real world problems. It may be a critical moment where we reflect on the importance and power of play.

– ref. Gaming fosters social connection at a time of physical distance – https://theconversation.com/gaming-fosters-social-connection-at-a-time-of-physical-distance-135809

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Burridge, Lecturer in Human Geography, Macquarie University

In Australia, much of the discussion about detaining asylum seekers has focused on offshore sites on Manus, Nauru and Christmas Island.

But, as the recent ABC drama series Stateless reminds us, detention of asylum seekers within Australia has a longer history and continues today.

The Department of Home Affairs recorded 1,436 people in detention on mainland Australia at the end of February.

Read more: Stateless review: remembering a time when we were outraged

Not all are in the standard detention centres. We’ve seen a return of hotels used for detention and that’s a worrying trend, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has been told hotels are “not appropriate places of detention”.

Kept in hotel detention

The use of hotels as Alternative Places of Detention (APOD) is not a new practice. For example, the Asti Motel in Darwin was used to detain unaccompanied minors and families with children in 2010.

Hotels are being used now to detain asylum seekers, specifically at Kangaroo Point Central in Brisbane and the Mantra Bell City in suburban Melbourne.

Most of those detained in these hotels were transferred throughout 2019 – following several years of detention in Papua New Guinea and Nauru – under the now-repealed Medevac provision.

Some media have portrayed the use of hotels to detain asylum seekers as a form of luxury accommodation at taxpayers’ expense.

In Queensland, The Courier Mail adopted this tactic when it said the 45 asylum seekers detained in Brisbane were in a four-star, city hotel costing Australian taxpayers more than $410,000 a week.

No luxury for ‘guests’

But this supposed luxury accommodation is indisputably a site of detention, rather than a comfortable holiday, with untold impacts on physical and mental health.

Those detained in Brisbane and Melbourne are typically held two or more to a room, under the constant watch of security officers. They are allowed use of the hotel’s gym facilities for only a few hours a day at most.

In order to physically go outside, those held at Kangaroo Point Central or the Mantra Bell City must be transferred by bus to other immigration sites in Brisbane and Melbourne, after being subjected to body pat-downs, where they may briefly access the exercise areas.

Independent reviews of the detention situation in Australia are relatively minimal and infrequent.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman, tasked with immigration detention oversight since 2011, released its first review to the public only in February of this year.

But this report only covers its inspections from January to June 2019, at roughly the time the hotels were brought into use. It said:

During this reporting period, we continued to highlight our concern about the facilities provided in the non-medical APODs. These include shortfalls in daily access to outdoor recreation areas, dining areas also being used as multi-purpose rooms, and medical and mental health clinics that do not support the detainees’ right to private consultations.

The Australian Human Rights Commission conducts periodic reviews of detention sites. It said in its May 2019 report:

… hotels are not appropriate places of detention, given their lack of dedicated facilities and restrictions on access to open space.

It found the restrictions on the mobility of detainees was significantly greater within hotel APODs than in any mainland detention centre.

Hotels for ‘short period’ use

In response to the AHRC’s recommendation that hotels only be used in exceptional circumstances or for very short periods of detention, the Department of Home Affairs responded:

Hotels are designated as APODs, and are used as transit accommodation. Transit accommodation is generally used for detainees required to be in held detention for a short period, detainees subject to airport turnaround and detainees ready to be removed.

Those held in the hotels in Brisbane and Melbourne – many previously transferred due to severe physical and mental health issues in Manus or Nauru – have described how their health concerns have been exacerbated since arriving.

Most say they have now been detained for several months, often spending 19 hours or more per day in their rooms. That’s anything but a “short period” of detention.

Coronavirus concerns

The COVID-19 crisis has generated considerable additional concern for the hotel detainees, who have reported minimal or non-existent measures to prevent an outbreak.

A guard at Kangaroo Point Central tested positive for COVID-19 on March 18.

Visits to detainees have been suspended, as well as transfers to the Brisbane and Melbourne immigration centres for outdoor recreation time. The cramped conditions in hotel rooms, common spaces and eating areas have not been addressed. The Ombudsman has now been banned from conducting inspections.

Across the globe, calls and petitions have been made to “decarcerate” or reduce the number of people in prisons and detention centres in light of COVID-19.

Read more: How refugees succeed in visa reviews: new research reveals the factors that matter

In the UK, the Home Office released almost 300 asylum seekers from detention, roughly a quarter of the total detained.

In Australia such action has yet to be taken. Protests within the hotels and immigration detention centres, statements by lawyers and health experts, and online petitions are increasing pressure on the government to release detainees into the community.

Yet, rather than reducing the numbers, transfers are instead increasing numbers within hotels. Last week, detainees at the Brisbane immigration transit accommodation in Pinkenba (up to 204 men according to February statistics) began to be transferred to the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel.

– ref. Hotels are no ‘luxury’ place to detain people seeking asylum in Australia – https://theconversation.com/hotels-are-no-luxury-place-to-detain-people-seeking-asylum-in-australia-134544

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University

New Zealand’s general election is currently set for September 19. Under ordinary circumstances, campaigning for the election and two referenda that will take place alongside would be heating up by now, but the country is three quarters of the way through a comprehensive level 4 lockdown.

The first question is whether the election should take place at all. Misgivings are beginning to emerge, including within the coalition government, but at the moment the answer is still a qualified yes.

Regardless of the precise date, New Zealand will be one of the first liberal parliamentary democracies to go to the polls since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic – and it will be the most consequential election any of us have participated in.

Read more: Three reasons why Jacinda Ardern’s coronavirus response has been a masterclass in crisis leadership

Potential for a reverse snap election

Attempting to look five months out is a fool’s game at the best of times (which these are not), but elections are how we hold elected representatives to account. Unless the numbers of ill, hospitalised or dead New Zealanders take a sharp turn for the worse, the election is likely to go ahead.

If the numbers do worsen and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern opts to delay the election, there are several ways in which the date can be pushed back, but it would still likely have to be held this year.

New Zealand’s three-year parliamentary term is entrenched in the Electoral Act, under which the last possible election date is on December 5, unless 75% or more of all MPs vote to extend the term of the 52nd Parliament.

What ever happens, it does not take much to imagine the logistical challenges that COVID-19 is posing for electoral agencies. Contingency planning for various scenarios is already underway, focused on identifying ways in which people can vote if they can’t get to a booth.

Postal voting is one option, but online voting on any significant scale is probably not, because of privacy risks and technical challenges.

Trust in government to make the right call

Ardern’s calm, measured and reassuring leadership during the COVID-19 crisis has attracted plaudits at home and away – as it did a year ago following the Christchurch mosque attacks.

Unlike other Western countries, New Zealand has a goal to eliminate COVID-19, rather than containing it, and after almost three weeks in lockdown, the number of people who have recovered from the illness now exceeds the number of new cases each day.

Read more: As NZ goes into lockdown, authorities have new powers to make sure people obey the rules

According to a recent Colmar Brunton poll, 88% of New Zealanders trust their government to make the right decisions about COVID-19 (well above the G7 average of 59%), and 83% trust it to deal successfully with national problems.

Ardern has fronted the mainstream media more or less daily, her Facebook Live appearance in a hoodie on a sofa received more views than New Zealand has people, and her communication has been crisp, clear and consistent. Go hard and go early. Stay home and save lives. Be kind.

But this is now. Come September, when people’s memories of this phase of the crisis have dulled and they are looking for a path through the social and economic damage COVID-19 is wreaking, a different political calculus will apply.

Read more: New Zealand outstrips Australia, UK and US with $12 billion coronavirus package for business and people in isolation

The role of the state

Few may hold Ardern directly responsible for the wreckage, but she will be held to account for her administration’s response to the challenges that lie ahead.

At that point the contest becomes one of ideas. The pandemic has dragged some venerable old political issues to the surface, chief among them the relationship between state and economy.

In New Zealand, there is broad support for the speed, decisiveness and competence with which the government and its officials have acted. The language of “government failure” has largely vanished and the importance of public institutions has become clear to everyone.

So has the extent to which markets rely upon the state. Except for the truest of believers in market forces, the argument that governments should get out of the way and give the private sector free reign has become untenable. For the time being.

There is burgeoning hope that once the crisis passes we will do a lot of things differently, but a new political and economic order is not a done deal.

New political order

It may seem unlikely that swathes of voters will embrace a return to unfettered markets but it is equally improbable that many will be clamouring for a permanent highly centralised state.

Trust in government is back in fashion for the moment in New Zealand, but we simply cannot tell how widespread support for a more active state will be once the COVID-19 health crisis has waned and the country faces the economic impacts.

New Zealanders talk a good fight about egalitarianism but we are remarkably tolerant of income and wealth inequality, health disparities and homelessness. Those things and more are waiting for us on the other side of COVID-19, and while we may yet come out of this crucible with a new social contract, it will need to be fought for.

That is why the 2020 election in New Zealand matters so much. Constitutionally, New Zealanders will be choosing a House of Representatives. Really, though, we will be choosing a future, because the next government will get to chart a course not just for the next parliamentary term but for a generation.

– ref. Trust in government is high in NZ, but will it last until the country’s elections later in the year? – https://theconversation.com/trust-in-government-is-high-in-nz-but-will-it-last-until-the-countrys-elections-later-in-the-year-135840

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Health Minister Greg Hunt has said the goal of the government’s suppression policy is the “effective eradication” of the coronavirus in Australia – while at the same time casting doubt on the possibility of eliminating it.

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy also was doubtful about being able to eliminate the virus here, saying that would involve very aggressive long term border control.

Both Hunt and Murphy on Monday warned that while an exit strategy from present tough restrictions was on the minds of decision-makers (and the public), now was not the time to take the foot off the brake.

With the number of new cases low (46 over the previous 24 hours on Monday’s figures), shooting for eliminating the virus in Australia is being advocated by some experts as a realistic option.

The national cabinet’s medical advisers are preparing possible scenarios for the period ahead.

Pursuing elimination is the declared policy in New Zealand.

Writing in the Nine media, the Grattan Institute’s John Daley and Stephen Duckett (a former secretary of the federal health department) strongly argue for an elimination strategy.

“The least-bad endgame is to eliminate the virus from Australia, continue to control our borders until there is a vaccine or a cure, and restore domestic economic and social activity to “normal”, albeit keeping a close watch for new cases,“ they write.

“The leading alternative to an elimination strategy is to hold infection rates at close to one – that is, so each infected person on average infects only one other. It’s the “Goldilocks strategy” – it requires us to calibrate social distancing measures with precision. Too tight, and we inflict extra economic damage for a long time. A little too loose, and infections would again grow exponentially.“

Hunt told a Monday news conference that developing herd immunity – deliberately letting the virus spread through a large part of the community in a controlled way – “is not the government’s strategy and it’s not the medical advice.”

He said if it required 60% of the population to get the virus, that would be 15 million Australians. If the death rate were one percent, it would be “an unthinkable strategy and one we reject”.

What the government was doing, Hunt said, was “containment and suppression” with “this goal of effective eradication, but without ever being able to promise that any country could completely do that”.

The current strategy “means that we are giving ourselves the time to plan the exit”.

Murphy said: “The challenge with elimination is that nobody yet knows whether it’s possible. We don’t know to what extent there is asymptomatic transmission of this virus.

“The challenge … also with an elimination strategy is that you have to keep the most aggressive border measures in place for a very long time – potentially until you’ve got a vaccine.”

Murphy said one reason for New Zealand’s keenness to be very aggressive was its shortage of critical care beds. It had fewer of these beds as a proportion of population than Australia had.

While cautioning in general about early lifting of restrictions, Murphy said one thing the national cabinet was “quite keen to do is to get children back to school,” although he conceded some states were keener than others.

Scott Morrison has been consistently wanting to ensure schools are functioning so parents can work. It was the premiers, led by NSW and Victoria but in other states too, who wanted people to keep children home, which has become the general model, except for parents unable to do so.

Education Minister Dan Tehan last week warned independent schools they face their funding being cut if they don’t stay open for those who need them.

Murphy said: “we are working with some advice for the national cabinet on how schools can be made a safer environment to prevent transmission, if it does occur between children, and to protect teachers. So that’s one very important measure that the national cabinet is keen to get advice on.”

– ref. Coronavirus debate turns to whether Australia should embrace ‘elimination’ strategy – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-debate-turns-to-whether-australia-should-embrace-elimination-strategy-136186