Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Gearing, Journalist, author, broadcaster, Queensland University of Technology

I’m trying to work out what to do before I end up in a body bag but that seems unavoidable right now.

This was one of the first replies this month to my research questionnaire on domestic violence. The participant is a young lawyer in regional Australia who has escaped a coercively controlling relationship, during which she received several murder threats and survived two murder attempts.

In the next six months, as coronavirus lock-down regulations bite, she is more terrified of her ex than of COVID-19. This is because she is required to hand over their child weekly to him in order to comply with Family Court orders.

Read more: ‘Cabin fever’: Australia must prepare for the social and psychological impacts of a coronavirus lockdown

There is no longitudinal research on what happens when families are required by government regulation to stay at home for six months, because it has not happened in living memory.

Victims and their children who live with the perpetrator will be at constant risk.

Victims who have escaped but who have children with the perpetrator, are reporting perpetrators are using COVID-19 as an extra weapon in their arsenal, fearing that the family law system will be hard-pressed to protect them.

Every other person I have surveyed in the past four weeks has reported living in fear of their life – a fear exacerbated enormously under coronavirus isolation regulations. Coercive control generates this fear in victims.

Living with constant threat

Following the publication of my article on Hannah Clarke and her children in The Guardian last month, a dozen women have already contacted me indicating they believe they are at imminent risk of being murdered.

Using the UK Home Office’s definition of coercive control – which is a crime in the UK – I have constructed a questionnaire to determine the degree of coercion being exerted on a person. (Coercive control is not a crime in Australia.)

Read more: Coercive control is a key part of domestic violence. So why isn’t it a crime across Australia?

I have also used the eight stages of intimate partner homicide to assess the level of risk of homicide.

The dozen women I have interviewed so far liken their situation to domestic terrorism, in which they are hostages who will spend the next six months trying to protect themselves and their children.

The women report previous threats to kill them by strangulation, shooting or burning. Several have already survived murder attempts by partners or former partners.

In a sinister early finding, one man has disclosed the method by which he plans to commit the murder, including how he intends to escape culpability.

Where the police come in

The usual timeline for research leading to findings and then to forming the basis for evidence-based policy will be far too slow to prevent domestic violence deaths in the COVID-19 crisis.

The danger levels already assessed are so high that I am asking them to forward a copy of their completed questionnaires directly to the relevant police commissioner, police minister and shadow minister in their state.

Federal government responses to COVID-19 have broken all previous expectations for government intervention in order to save lives.

Further intervention could be implemented now to protect families in isolation. The need for safe housing for domestic violence victims who escape has never been more urgent.

Waiting for the evidence of a spike in intimate partner deaths and the deaths of children – especially now that we could copy UK legislation to criminalise coercive control – could be at the cost of too many lives.

How governments can help

A possible solution is for people who own a second home that is standing empty to make them available via police for emergency safe houses, with subsidised rental.

Early indicators are that one consequence is a “pressure-cooker” effect that is already being observed as a 40% spike in the number of counsellors who are reporting increased demand for help.

Read more: Is your mental health deteriorating during the coronavirus pandemic? Here’s what to look out for

Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded on March 29 with a promise of A$150million in the form of support for telephone counselling services who address domestic violence, including to 1800 Respect and Mensline.

Forensic criminologist Jane Monckton-Smith, who analysed 372 cases of intimate partner homicide, found that 100% of the relationships involved coercive control by the murderer of their eventual victim.

In many cases, the first physical violence was the murder itself, as exemplified in the murder of Hannah Clarke and her children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4, and Trey, 3 in Brisbane on February 19 this year.

The offender, Rohan Baxter, had controlled his wife – who she could see, what she could wear and every other aspect of her life – for ten years. But it was only when she finally left that Baxter began being physically violent. Within months he killed her and all of their children, and himself.

Monckton-Smith has also identified an eight-stage pattern in intimate partner homicides. They always begin with coercive control.

This finding could potentially save lives in Australia if they are applied to our policing methods, our child safety departments and our family law system.

The eight stages begin with a pre-relationship history of abuse by the perpetrator. The second stage is a new relationship that becomes serious very quickly. In stage three, the perpetrator dominates the victim using coercive control.

Stage four is the first signal of danger – this is when there is a trigger that threatens the perpetrator’s control – for example, the relationship ends or the perpetrator gets into financial difficulty.

The final four stages may occur over months but sometimes they develop rapidly – within days or even hours.

This is why police should be far more focused on the history of relationships and the degree of coercive control within a relationship than with physical violence.

Stage five is an escalation in the intensity or frequency of the partner’s control tactics, such as by stalking or threatening suicide.

Stage six begins when the perpetrator’s thinking changes and he or she decides either to move on to another relationship or to take revenge by injuring or killing.

Stage seven is a red flag that could be detected via electronic surveillance in a similar way to the methods being used by counter-terrorism police. Potential domestic terrorists could be detected searching online for particular key words or for weapons.

Stage eight is the homicide itself.

Where to from here?

In my preliminary questionnaire with women who have escaped abusive relationships, all of the participants so far have disclosed a variety of murder threats and/or murder attempts.

In several cases, the women stayed in the relationship despite the murder threats in order to protect their children. But it was the murder attempts that finally precipitated them to leave with the children.

All the women were subsequently pursued by the perpetrator via the Family Court and were granted access, thus enabling the perpetrator to maintain contact with their intended victim.

Under the coronavirus regime, leaving violent relationships is likely to become far more difficult and dangerous.

The prime minister has acknowledged that for many families, home is not a safe place and more needs to be done to counter the threat.

The problem for all of the women surveyed so far is that current policing that focuses on an incident-based response primarily to physical assaults misses the main driver of intimate partner homicide.

The quiet revolutions in response to the medical and economic threats of COVID-19 at federal level, indicate a similarly determined and focused response to domestic abuse might yield a solution.

The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

– ref. Coronavirus and ‘domestic terrorism’: how to stop family violence under lockdown – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-and-domestic-terrorism-how-to-stop-family-violence-under-lockdown-135056

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marissa Parrott, Reproductive Biologist, Wildlife Conservation & Science, Zoos Victoria, and Honorary Research Associate, BioSciences, University of Melbourne

Tree kangaroos are so unusual that when Europeans first encountered them in Australia in 1872, they were sceptical. Who would believe a kangaroo could climb a tree?

But the recent birth of Chimbu – a Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo at Healesville Sanctuary – gives us the chance to watch one of these unique, and very rare, creatures grow up.

Read more: In the remote Cambodian jungles, we made sure rare Siamese crocodiles would have enough food

The Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo is a threatened species found in forests in the Central Cordillera mountain ranges of Papua New Guinea, from sea level to high in the clouds.

Chimbu’s birth in September is the latest success of a complex web of international conservation. Zoos and other organisations around the world transfer and match tree-kangaroos to avoid inbreeding and sustain a genetically healthy captive population.

A climbing kangaroo? That’s roo-diculous!

Europeans in New Guinea first described tree kangaroos in 1828. While there have been plenty of disagreements about who is related to whom, we now know there are 14 distinct species.

Early explorers considered the very idea of a climbing roo ridiculous, but these animals are specially adapted to life in the trees. They likely all evolved from a terrestrial ancestor earlier in the Pliocene, 5.3 million to 2.5 million years ago.

Tree kangaroos have much longer forelimbs than their ground-dwelling cousins and their claws are much larger and strongly curved. This provides much stronger grip when climbing trees and gripping smaller branches.

They still have large strong hind limbs, but their feet are shorter, broader and have a long curved claw on each toe.

Read more: This extinct kangaroo had a branch-crunching bite to rival today’s giant pandas

The pad of the hindfoot is single, large and with prominent grooves, all of which enhance the animal’s grip when climbing and walking in the canopy. The tails of tree kangaroos aren’t capable of grasping things like a monkey’s, but they’re long and often held out behind the animal for balance.

But perhaps one of the most obvious differences between tree kangaroos and their terrestrial cousins is their adorably small bear-like ears.

Threatened with extinction

Two species of tree kangaroos are found in the forests of northeast Australia and 12 species in the jungles of New Guinea. All species of tree kangaroos are threatened with extinction in New Guinea, although much about these animals is unknown.

Traditionally hunted for food, hassled by dogs and threatened by the destruction of their forest habitat, the soft thud of tree roo feet among the trees is falling silent.

But conservation work in their natural habitat and through a globally managed tree kangaroo captive breeding program is helping not only the species, but the people who live alongside them.

Baby Chimbu – a new hope

Chimbu was born in Victoria, but is really an international fellow. His mother Mani came from the National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra, and his father Bagam arriving from Kreffeld Zoo in Germany.

Mani and Bagam were paired based on the recommendation of scientists and managers who maintain a studbook of Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos around the world.

These gorgeous animals are generally chocolate brown on the back, shading to pale brown or cream on the face and belly, and often with a single or double narrow pale stripe down the back.

Read more: ‘Give us a sniff, love’: giving marsupials scents from suitors helps breeding programs

Their beautiful striped tails are one of their most noticeable features. And while the current population size is unknown, this tree kangaroo is thought to be declining due to hunting for food, local trading for cultural purposes, and habitat destruction through local deforestation and shifting cultivation.

Managing tree kangaroos around the globe

The captive population of Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos in our region is coordinated by the Australasian Zoos and Aquarium Association.

The plan is to maintain long-term healthy populations that are genetically diverse, stable and show natural behaviours to ensure the animals are thriving in their zoo homes.

In turn, the regional program is part of a global species management plan coordinated by the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

A key feature of these regional/global management programs is to avoid any inbreeding. Detailed histories of all animals in the population are closely managed, and suitable breeding pairs are identified by specialist zoo keepers called “Studbook Keepers”.

This is why Chimbu was born from a long-distance romance and travel by his parents.

Your cuppa can help

Supporting wildlife conservation in the wild and with local communities is the driving force for zoos globally.

Although the Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos are officially endangered, we don’t know much about them in the wild. Right now, the Wildlife Conservation Society is working out how many are in the wild and where, so scientists can develop a detailed conservation program.

Cousins of the Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo, such as the Matschie’s tree kangaroo, are more well-known and already have conservation programs in place.

Read more: Yes, kangaroos are endangered – but not the species you think

To help save Matschie’s tree kangaroo, community programs have emerged to address the economic conditions fuelling their over-hunting. Zoos Victoria has partnered with the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program to sell coffee grown by Papua New Guinean villagers. This helps create sustainable alternative income and fund conservation.

Income from coffee sales generates much greater access to healthcare and education, major hurdles in these remote villages. Money from sale of the coffee beans is the only regular income into these villages.

So if you do decide to visit Chimbu at the Healesville Sanctuary (in person or virtually) remember you can also buy some coffee to help his wild cousins.

This article is co-authored by Chris Banks, Manager International Conservation, Zoos Victoria, who has worked with tree kangaroo and community conservation for over 20 years

– ref. Meet Chimbu, the blue-eyed, bear-eared tree kangaroo. Your cuppa can help save his species – https://theconversation.com/meet-chimbu-the-blue-eyed-bear-eared-tree-kangaroo-your-cuppa-can-help-save-his-species-135033

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland

With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a great deal of anxiety, we might come to think people are irrational, selfish or downright crazy. We see people showing up to public venues en masse or clearing supermarket shelves of toilet paper.

Experts are often ignored. We hear inconsistent information and arguments filled with fallacious reasoning being accepted by a seemingly large number people.

The answer for the kind of panicked flurry in reasoning may lie in a field of critical thinking called vice epistemology. This theory argues our thinking habits and intellectual character traits cause poor reasoning.

These thinking habits are developed over a lifetime. When these habits are poorly developed, we can end up with intellectual vices. The more we think viciously (as a vice), the harder it is for us to effectively inquire and seek truth.

Vice epistemology points to many thinking vices and sins that cause problems for inquiry. I have chosen seven that show up regularly in the literature:

1. Sin of gullibility

I heard coronavirus particles can stay in the air for up to five days!

Researchers found SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, remains infectious in airborne droplets for at least three hours.

But all sorts of claims are being touted by people and we’re all guilty of having believed someone who isn’t an expert or simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Gullibility as a thinking sin means that we lack the ability to determine the credibility of information.

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

Relevant expertise and experience are essential qualities when we’re listening to someone’s own argument. But with something like COVID-19, it’s also important we look at the type of expertise someone has. A GP might be able to tell us how we get the infection – but they wouldn’t count as an expert in infectious disease epidemiology (the way an infectious disease spreads across a population).

2. Sin of cynicism

I’d better stock up on toilet paper before everyone else buys it.

In many ways, cynicism is the opposite of gullibility. It is being overly suspicious of others in their arguments and actions.

If you’ve suddenly become suspicious of your neighbours and what they might do when supermarket stocks are limited, that’s a cynical way to think.

If we think the worst interpretation of arguments and events is correct, we can’t inquire and problem-solve effectively.

3. Sin of pride

I know what’s best for my family!

Pride is an intellectual sin (though it’s more popular as a spiritual one). In this particular case, it is the habit of not admitting to ourselves or to others that we don’t know the answer. Or perhaps that we don’t understand the issue.

We obstruct a genuine search for truth if we are dogmatic in our self-belief.

It’s effective reasoning to take what the evidence and experts say and then apply it specifically to our individual needs. But we have gone astray in our thinking if we contradict those who know more than us and are unwilling to admit our own limitations.

4. Sin of closed-mindedness

I won’t accept that.

Closed-mindedness means we’re not willing to see things from different perspectives or accept new information. It’s a serious intellectual vice as it directly interferes with our ability to adjust our beliefs according to new information.

Worse still, being close-minded to new ideas and information means it’s even more challenging to learn and grow – we’d be closed minded to the idea that we’re closed minded.

5. Sin of prejudice

I’ve stopped buying Chinese food – just in case.

Prejudiced thinking is an intellectual vice we often start developing early in life. Children can be incredibly prejudiced in small ways – such as being unwilling to try new foods because they already somehow know they’re gross.

Read more: Coronavirus fears can trigger anti-Chinese prejudice. Here’s how schools can help

As a character flaw, it means we often substitute preconceived notions for actual thinking.

6. Sin of negligence

SARS was more deadly than COVID-19 and that wasn’t that big a deal

Creating a poor analogy like this one is not a substitute for thoughtful research and considered analysis.

Still, it is difficult to explore every single topic with thorough evaluation. There’s so much information out there at the moment it can be a real chore to investigate every claim we hear.

But if we’re not willing to check the facts, we’re being negligent in our thinking.

7. Sin of wishful thinking

This will all be over in a week or two and it’ll be business as usual.

Our capacity to believe in ourselves, our hard work, our friends and culture can often blind us to hard truths.

It’s perfectly fine to aim for a certain outcome but we need to recognise it doesn’t matter how much we hope for it – our desire doesn’t affect the likelihood of it happening.

Read more: Thinking about thinking helps kids learn. How can we teach critical thinking?

A pandemic like COVID-19 shows our way of life is fragile and can change at any moment. Wishful thinking ignores the stark realities and can set us up for disappointment.

So, what can we do about it?

There are some questions we can ask ourselves to help improve our intellectual character traits:

What would change my mind?

It’s a red flag for sin of pride if nothing will change your mind.

What is the strongest argument the other side has?

We often hold each piece of the truth in our own perspective. It’s worth keeping in mind that unless there’s wanton cruelty involved, chances are differing arguments will have some good points.

What groups would gain or lose the most if we keep thinking this way?

Sometimes we fail to consider the practical outcomes of our thoughts for people who aren’t like us. We’ve seen in the last few weeks that the people who have a lot to lose (such as casual workers) matter when it comes to the way we respond to the pandemic.

It’s worth taking a moment to consider their perspectives.

How much do you actually know about an issue? Who is an expert?

The experts always have something to say. If they agree on it, it’s a good indication we should believe them. If there isn’t general consensus, we should be dubious of one-sided claims to truth.

And remember the person’s actual expertise – it’s too easy to mistake a political leader or famous person with an expert.

In challenging days like these, we may be able to help ensure a better outcome for everyone if we start by asking ourselves a few simple questions.

– ref. How not to fall for coronavirus BS: avoid the 7 deadly sins of thought – https://theconversation.com/how-not-to-fall-for-coronavirus-bs-avoid-the-7-deadly-sins-of-thought-133069

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warwick Smith, Research economist, University of Melbourne

Understandably, given we are in a crisis, the government has baulked at including superannuation contributions in the A$140 billion worth of $1,500 per fortnight wage top-ups it will be directing to six million Australians.

As the JobKeeper fact sheet puts it:

It will be up to the employer if they want to pay superannuation on any additional wage paid because of the JobKeeper Payment.

This is in the middle of a treasury led Retirement Income Review that is considering, among other things, whether the current 9.5% of salary contribution should be increased to 10% and then to 10.5% and then in a series of annual steps to 12% by 2025.

In considering the idea (it is actually leglislated – if the government decided not to go ahead it would need to unleglislate it) it helps to go back to basiscs.

The blinding power of money

The trouble with money is most people are so busy looking at it they are blind to what’s going on in the real economy – by which I mean the production and distribution of goods and services.

Our current material standard of living depends almost entirely on our current ability to produce goods and services (assuming for a moment imports are funded by exports).

Similarly, our standard of living in 2050 will depend almost entirely on our capacity to produce goods at that time. This means it has little to do with how much money is in our superannuation accounts.

Part of the justification for superannuation is to get us more resources in retirement, and it will for those who have big super balances, but it won’t do much to change the total amount of resources available at the time.

The limits to saving

Often it’s put another way. We are told baby boomers need to fund themselves in retirement, instead of relying on pensions paid for by those who are still in the workforce.

But imagine a perfect scenario where every retired baby boomer has $1 million in super, freeing those still working from the tax burden of funding the pension.

When the boomers are using their super to buy services and goods, who are they going to take them away from?

You guessed it, those still working.

They’ll be giving up resources to support the retirement of boomers, whoever supplies the cash.

In the main, saving can’t create resources

If there was no superannuation and the government instead taxed current workers in order to fund retiree consumption, the real cost to workers would be the same. That cost is the provision of goods and services to retired people instead of workers.

Individuals can indeed save for the future by foregoing some goods and services today in order to have more of them later. Financial planners refer to it as consumption smoothing.

But an entire society can’t save for the future through consumption smoothing.

If Australia as a whole consumes fewer goods and services in one year, it is likely to reduce rather than increase its future wealth because it is fully utilised labour and capital that drives investment and productivity.

Read more: 5 questions about superannuation the government’s new inquiry will need to ask

That’s what lies at the core of misunderstandings about the superannuation system. Foreign investment aside, it can’t allow an entire society to save for the future to support itself in retirement.

It can skew the distribution of resources in future years, away from those of working age and those with low super balances towards those with (tax concession subsidised) high super balances.

Boosting productivity can help

If our goal is an adequate and sustainable income in retirement for all Australians, our main priority ought to be ensuring that those remaining in the workforce are productive enough to support themselves, their children, those without work and those who have retired.

In other words, if you’re worried about the economic impact of our ageing population on our material standard of living (and there are reasons not to be worried) you would want our focus to be on productivity, rather than retirement savings.

Read more: Myth busted. Boosting super would cost the budget more than it saved on age pensions

To the extent retirement savings are used for productivity enhancing investment, that’s good. The reality is much of our retirement savings are funnelled relatively unthinkingly into an already bloated financial system where they expand speculative bubbles.

Elsewhere I’ve referred to it as Australia’s first compulsory Ponzi scheme.

Like most important economic questions, the best retirement income system is not, at its core, solely an economic question, it is also a moral and political question about distribution and inequality.

So, with that in mind, here’s what my personal moral (plus economic) analysis tells me would be the best retirement income system.

We could give the money back, slowly

The best way would be to get rid of compulsory superannuation, give all the money back to account holders (slowly to avoid too much inflation), mandate a 9.5% pay rise in its place and redirect the tens of billions of dollars we currently spend on superannuation tax concessions toward rent assistance, a higher Newstart allowance and a higher pension.

With retired renters better looked after, a moderate (say 20%) increase in the pension, and continued indexation of the pension to wages, no retired Australian would be living in poverty.

It’d be sustainable so long as we ensured sufficient worker productivity, primarily through full employment, appropriate infrastructure investment and well-supported education, training and research.

There, problem solved.

– ref. The coronavirus response calls into question the future of super – https://theconversation.com/the-coronavirus-response-calls-into-question-the-future-of-super-133906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larisa Labzin, Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland

With much of society now effectively in lockdown, how will we know when it’s safe to resume something like normality?

It will largely depend on being able to say who is safe from contracting the coronavirus, officially named SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease called COVID-19, and who still needs to stay out of harm’s way. A blood test to detect who has antibodies against the virus would be a crucial aid.

An antibody test – which would identify those whose immune systems have already encountered the virus, as opposed to current tests that reveal the presence of the virus itself – will be an important part of efforts to track the true extent of the outbreak.

This is because the antibody test will be able to determine whether someone has been infected with virus, even if they haven’t shown symptoms.

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

When we get infected with the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), one of the ways our immune system fights the virus is by making antibodies. These small molecules bind specifically to SARS-CoV-2 (and not other viruses or bacteria), and combat the infection, mainly by preventing the virus from entering our cells.

Even after we’ve cleared a particular virus infection, these antibodies stay in our bloodstream, ready to protect us if we encounter the same virus again. This is the principle behind vaccination.

Because antibodies are specific to a particular virus, that means if we can detect SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in someone’s blood, we know that person has already been infected with the coronavirus.

Scientists in the United States and Europe have already developed specific antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2. Laboratory tests show that only antibodies from SARS-CoV-2 patients will bind to SARS-CoV-2 (and not to the 2003 SARS virus, for example). This tells us the test is specific.

Testing times

Antibody tests are different from the current testing kits used at COVID-19 clinics, which reveal the presence of the virus itself (by detecting its genetic material), rather than our antibodies against it.

That is useful for determining whether someone is currently infected, but cannot spot people who have already fought off the virus. In contrast, the antibody tests won’t be able to detect if someone is newly infected with SARS-CoV-2, as it takes our immune system a week or more to make antibodies. So we still need to do the existing tests to accurately diagnose a current infection.

Many companies have developed rapid test kits for detecting anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The UK is already rolling out 3.5 million antibody tests, while Australia has ordered 1.5 million antibody tests to determine whether patients showing symptoms of fever and cough are infected.

What still needs to be tested is how specific those kits are. It’s vital that these antibody test kits are only able to detect antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, and not other coronaviruses or even viruses of other types. Otherwise, people might think they are protected against SARS-CoV-2 when in fact they aren’t.

Additionally, because the onset of symptoms may appear within 2-14 days after exposure, a person might test negative to the antibody test but actually be infected. So we really still need to use the two tests together to accurately diagnose patients with COVID-19.

A new test developed by NSW Health Pathology will also be able to determine whether the antibodies in the blood are able to kill the virus. These kinds of tests will help clinicians and scientists measure exactly how soon after infection we develop antibodies, what levels are needed to be protective, and how long these antibodies stay in our body.

This will also help scientists track the spread of the virus and know if someone is going to be immune to reinfection with SARS-CoV-2.

Rapid response

These antibody tests have been developed much more rapidly than vaccines, which are still many months away. This is because the antibody tests are done outside the body, using just a small blood sample, perhaps just a pinprick.

In contrast, a vaccine needs to be injected into the body, so it has to be tested for safety as well as effectiveness.

For a vaccine, we first need to understand how the immune response to the virus itself works, because essentially a vaccine is trying to trick the immune system into thinking it’s seen the virus before so it makes protective antibodies. Then, we need to thoroughly test any candidate vaccine to ensure it doesn’t make people ill. This means we probably won’t see any vaccines for at least 12 months.

The new antibody tests will also help guide vaccine development. By measuring antibody levels in infected and recovered patients, we’ll have a much better idea of the levels of protective antibodies a vaccine needs to elicit.

Read more: Coronavirus vaccine: here are the steps it will need to go through during development

While we wait for a vaccine, the new antibody tests will give scientists, doctors and public health officials much more information about who gets infected, who has already been infected and recovered, and how protected we are against reinfection.

But there is still a long way to go before we can test people’s blood for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and confidently say it is safe for people to go back to work or into the community without getting sick.

Ultimately it is up to our community leaders and public health officials to decide when it is safe for us to resume normal life.

– ref. Antibody tests: to get a grip on coronavirus, we need to know who’s already had it – https://theconversation.com/antibody-tests-to-get-a-grip-on-coronavirus-we-need-to-know-whos-already-had-it-134547

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Richardson, Senior Research Fellow, UNSW

People in Western Australia may soon see more than birds in the sky, as the state’s police force has announced plans to deploy drones to enforce social distancing. The drones will visit parks, beaches and cafe strips, ensuring people comply with the most recent round of gathering rules.

As COVID-19 restrictions tighten around the world, governments are harnessing the potential of drones. From delivering medical supplies, to helping keep people indoors – drones can do a lot in a pandemic.

Since the outbreak began, China has used drones to deliver medical supplies and food, disinfect villages, and even provide lighting to build a hospital in Wuhan in nine days. Drone medical deliveries have cut transit times, reduced the strain on health personnel and enabled contactless handovers, reducing the risk of infection.

It’s clear drones are helping combat COVID-19, as governments use them to control and monitor.

But these measures may be difficult to rollback once the pandemic passes. And safeguards will be needed to prevent unwanted surveillance in the future.

Read more: Aerial threat: why drone hacking could be bad news for the military

Drone use: clever, quirky and sometimes concerning

With cities on lockdown, drones have shown uncanny images of emptied urban landscapes from Wuhan and metros across the globe.

Social distancing has inspired some quirky uses by individuals, including walking the dog and asking for a date.

But the main game has been about control. China is using drones to enforce quarantine rules and deter gatherings that violate social distancing rules.

One viral video showed a drone scolding an elderly woman for not wearing a mask. In some cases, traffic police and municipal officials used drones fitted with speakers to order people home and break up mahjong games.

Flying at high altitudes, drones can help police and other officials monitor large areas to identify those violating restrictions. Similar tactics are being used in Madrid and Nice, with talk of deployment in many other places.

A defence for the ‘good drone’?

There are huge advantages in sending drones into disaster zones such as bushfires, or remote landscapes for search and rescue. Pilots can safely stream crucial vision from a drone’s optical and thermal cameras.

Read more: Drones help track wildfires, count wildlife and map plants

But while “good drones” can be valuable in disaster, they have been criticised for giving drone warfare an ethical veneer by association with humanitarian work. Some have even argued that using drones at all risks tainting relief work, because militaries have played a major role in developing drone technologies that are also responsible for humanitarian tragedies.

Like all technologies, the question with drones should be about how they are used. For instance, inspecting the breached nuclear reactor at Fukushima with drones is sensible. But embedding systems of control that can be turned against civilians is its own disaster in the making.

Normalising surveillance

With high definition and infrared images streamed to command stations, China’s drones may be able to use facial recognition to identify specific individuals using its Social Credit System, and fine them for indiscretions.

Read more: Hundreds of Chinese citizens told me what they thought about the controversial social credit system

This level of social control may be appealing in a pandemic that could cost millions of lives. But it could also have chilling effects on social and political life.

Surveillance tools typically work best for social control when people know they are being watched. Even in liberal societies, people might think twice about joining climate or racial justice protests if they know they’ll be recorded by a drone overhead.

Feeling like you’re constantly being watched can can create a kind of atmospheric anxiety, particularly for marginalised groups that are already closely monitored because of their religion or welfare status.

Putting more drones in the sky raises concerns about trust, privacy, data protection and ownership. In a crisis, those questions are often ignored. This was clear after 9/11, when the world learnt the lessons of surveillance systems and draconian national security laws.

The impact would hit home

Police in the west are already deploying drones for various purposes, including at sporting events in Australia. Our defence force is buying Reaper MQ-9B drones because they are cleared for use in civilian airspace.

We might be fine with delivery drones in Canberra, or disaster drones ferrying urgent medical supplies, but how would we feel if they were indistinguishable from drones piloted by police, the military or private security companies?

A team at the University of South Australia is currently designing a “pandemic” drone to detect virus symptoms such as fever and coughing from a distance. Valuable as that is now, this tool could easily be used to intrusively manage the public’s health after the crisis is over.

It can be difficult to see the long term impacts of choices made in an emergency. But now is the best time for policymakers to set limits on how drones an be used in public space.

They need to write sunset clauses into new laws so that surveillance and control systems are rolled back once the pandemic eases, and create accountability mechanisms to ensure oversight.

– ref. ‘Pandemic drones’: useful for enforcing social distancing, or for creating a police state? – https://theconversation.com/pandemic-drones-useful-for-enforcing-social-distancing-or-for-creating-a-police-state-134667

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

Private hospitals will be on the frontline in the coronavirus battle, under an arrangement with the federal government that makes available the sector’s more than 30,000 beds and 105,000 workforce, including more than 57,000 nursing staff.

The government will offer agreements to Australia’s 657 private and not-for-profit hospitals “to ensure their viability, in return for maintenance and capacity” during the COVID-19 crisis.

The agreement makes available more resources to meet the virus crisis, preserves the private hospital workforce, and is designed to allow a speedy resumption of non-elective surgery and other normal activity when the crisis has passed.

The states will complete “private hospital COVID-19 partnership agreements”, with the Commonwealth paying half the cost.

“In an unprecedented move, private hospitals, including both overnight and day hospitals, will integrate with state and territory health systems in the COVID-19 response,” the government said in a Tuesday statement.

These hospitals “will be required to make infrastructure, essential equipment (including ventilators), supplies (including personal protective equipment), workforce and additional resources fully available to the state and territory hospital system or the Australian government”.

Private hospitals will support the COVID-19 response through:

• Hospital services for public patients – both positive and negative for COVID 19

• Category 1 (urgent) elective surgery

• Use of wards and theatres to expand ICU capacity

• Accommodation for quarantine and isolation cases where necessary, and safety procedures and training are in place, including:

  • Cruise and flight COVID-19 passengers
  • Quarantine of vulnerable members of the community
  • Isolation of infected vulnerable COVID-19 patients.

The cost of the move is estimated at $1.3 billion.

Last week the government announced a ban on non-urgent elective surgery. While this freed up beds and staff, it would also strip the hospitals of core income and threaten the collapse of some hospitals with government action.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the agreement dramatically expanded the capacity of the Australian hospitals system to deal with COVID-19, at the same time as the curve of new cases showed early signs of being flattened.

The private hospitals “are available as an extension now of the public hospital system in Australia. So, whilst we’re not taking ownership, we have struck a partnership, where in return for the state agreements and the commonwealth guarantee, they will be fully integrated within the public hospital system”.

Hunt said the $1.3 billion estimated cost was not capped. “If more is required, more will be provided. If it turns out that it’s not that expensive, then those funds will be available for other activities. That takes our total additional investment to over $5.4 billion within the health sector.”

In a letter to private hospital providers, Hunt stressed: “A fundamental principle of this agreement is that it contributes towards to your ongoing viability, not profits or loan/debt repayments”.

The Commonwealth deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth said intense efforts were being made to ramp up rapidly the number of ventilators.

He said there were some 2,200 ventilated intensive care beds in Australia. Currently just over 20 were being used for COVID-19 patients.

With immediate expansion, including repurposing and use of the private sector, this could be increased to 4,400.

“Our target capacity for ventilated intensive care beds in Australia currently stands at 7,500.

“We are working around the clock to procure ventilators,” he said. “Locally, we will have 500 intensive care ventilators fabricated by ResMed, backed up by 5,000 non-invasive ventilators, with full delivery expected by the end of April.”

The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association welcomed the “ground-breaking agreement” with private hospitals for ensuring both the best use of resources and the stability of the health system for the future.

The Australian tally of cases as of early Tuesday was 4359, with 19 deaths; 230,000 tests had been completed.

– ref. Federal government gets private hospital resources for COVID-19 fight in exchange for funding support – https://theconversation.com/federal-government-gets-private-hospital-resources-for-covid-19-fight-in-exchange-for-funding-support-135207

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Richardson, Senior Research Fellow, UNSW

People in Western Australia may soon see more than birds in the sky, as the state’s police force has announced plans to deploy drones to enforce social distancing. The drones will visit parks, beaches and cafe strips, ensuring people comply with the most recent round of gathering rules.

As COVID-19 restrictions tighten around the world, governments are harnessing the potential of drones. From delivering medical supplies, to helping keep people indoors – drones can do a lot in a pandemic.

Since the outbreak began, China has used drones to deliver medical supplies and food, disinfect villages, and even provide lighting to build a hospital in Wuhan in nine days. Drone medical deliveries have cut transit times, reduced the strain on health personnel and enabled contactless handovers, reducing the risk of infection.

It’s clear drones are helping combat COVID-19, as governments use them to control and monitor.

But these measures may be difficult to rollback once the pandemic passes. And safeguards will be needed to prevent unwanted surveillance in the future.

Read more: Aerial threat: why drone hacking could be bad news for the military

Drone use: clever, quirky and sometimes concerning

With cities on lockdown, drones have shown uncanny images of emptied urban landscapes from Wuhan and metros across the globe.

Social distancing has inspired some quirky uses by individuals, including walking the dog and asking for a date.

But the main game has been about control. China is using drones to enforce quarantine rules and deter gatherings that violate social distancing rules.

One viral video showed a drone scolding an elderly woman for not wearing a mask. In some cases, traffic police and municipal officials used drones fitted with speakers to order people home and break up mahjong games.

Flying at high altitudes, drones can help police and other officials monitor large areas to identify those violating restrictions. Similar tactics are being used in Madrid and Nice, with talk of deployment in many other places.

A defence for the ‘good drone’?

There are huge advantages in sending drones into disaster zones such as bushfires, or remote landscapes for search and rescue. Pilots can safely stream crucial vision from a drone’s optical and thermal cameras.

Read more: Drones help track wildfires, count wildlife and map plants

But while “good drones” can be valuable in disaster, they have been criticised for giving drone warfare an ethical veneer by association with humanitarian work. Some have even argued that using drones at all risks tainting relief work, because militaries have played a major role in developing drone technologies that are also responsible for humanitarian tragedies.

Like all technologies, the question with drones should be about how they are used. For instance, inspecting the breached nuclear reactor at Fukushima with drones is sensible. But embedding systems of control that can be turned against civilians is its own disaster in the making.

Normalising surveillance

With high definition and infrared images streamed to command stations, China’s drones may be able to use facial recognition to identify specific individuals using its Social Credit System, and fine them for indiscretions.

Read more: Hundreds of Chinese citizens told me what they thought about the controversial social credit system

This level of social control may be appealing in a pandemic that could cost millions of lives. But it could also have chilling effects on social and political life.

Surveillance tools typically work best for social control when people know they are being watched. Even in liberal societies, people might think twice about joining climate or racial justice protests if they know they’ll be recorded by a drone overhead.

Feeling like you’re constantly being watched can can create a kind of atmospheric anxiety, particularly for marginalised groups that are already closely monitored because of their religion or welfare status.

Putting more drones in the sky raises concerns about trust, privacy, data protection and ownership. In a crisis, those questions are often ignored. This was clear after 9/11, when the world learnt the lessons of surveillance systems and draconian national security laws.

The impact would hit home

Police in the west are already deploying drones for various purposes, including at sporting events in Australia. Our defence force is buying Reaper MQ-9B drones because they are cleared for use in civilian airspace.

We might be fine with delivery drones in Canberra, or disaster drones ferrying urgent medical supplies, but how would we feel if they were indistinguishable from drones piloted by police, the military or private security companies?

A team at the University of South Australia is currently designing a “pandemic” drone to detect virus symptoms such as fever and coughing from a distance. Valuable as that is now, this tool could easily be used to intrusively manage the public’s health after the crisis is over.

It can be difficult to see the long term impacts of choices made in an emergency. But now is the best time for policymakers to set limits on how drones an be used in public space.

They need to write sunset clauses into new laws so that surveillance and control systems are rolled back once the pandemic eases, and create accountability mechanisms to ensure oversight.

– ref. ‘Pandemic drones’: useful for enforcing social distancing, or just for creating a police state? – https://theconversation.com/pandemic-drones-useful-for-enforcing-social-distancing-or-just-for-creating-a-police-state-134667

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca English, Lecturer in Education, Queensland University of Technology

“How to home school” has been trending on Google for the past few weeks as more and more children stay home from school because of COVID-19.

So, what is homeschooling and is this what parents whose children are learning from home are now doing?

What is home education?

Home education is one of the world’s fastest growing educational movements.

In its broadest sense, home education can be understood as any form of education that occurs outside of a physical school. It includes the 20,000 or so students registered for home education in Australia, as well as distance education students – who are enrolled in a school but learn remotely.

There are a wide variety of home education approaches and they lie on a spectrum. Highly structured approaches that mirror school, with a detailed curriculum and lots of book work, lie at one end. Most people can imagine what that looks like because it’s not that different from traditional schooling.

At the other end is unschooling, where children choose the direction of their learning. In this approach, there may be no formal written work.

Read more: Homeschooling is on the rise in Australia. Who is doing it and why?

With unschooling, the choice is as much of a lifestyle as an education. Parents act as facilitators of their child’s learning, sourcing and providing access to resources and then getting out of the way. Research suggests unschoolers are more likely to be satisfied with their education and have an intrinsic motivation to learn.

Most home educating families’ approaches fall somewhere in between and use a mix of parent-directed and child-directed learning.

What are the legal requirements of home educators?

Each state and territory in Australia has its own laws and requirements around home education. In essence, parents need to apply to register their children. Some states such as the Northern Territory require you to follow any Australian approved curriculum (such as the Australian Curriculum, Montessori or Steiner).

Others, including Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and the ACT, stipulate you just need to cover key learning areas such as English, Maths, Science, Arts, Technology, Health, Humanities or Languages.

In New South Wales, parents need to follow the NSW Syllabus, which is based on, but not the same as, the Australian Curriculum.

Regardless of where they are located, parents indicate their intention to home educate by completing a form from their state’s education department. They then need to develop a plan of their approach, and to show their plan will meet the child’s individual learning needs.

Age levels and year levels are less important in home education – children’s work is targeted to where they are up to not their age.

Parents can buy a pre-packaged curriculum and resources or they can develop their own. They can use tutors and group classes, as well as activities like scouts and sporting teams, and everyday hands-on activities as a part of their learning. If they need to, parents can adapt to better meet their child’s needs.

At the end of the registration period, most states and territories require parents to report on their child’s progress.

Are we all homeschoolers now?

To some extent, when it comes to educating your child at home, this situation is unique – in other respects it’s not.

Many homeschooling families have brought their child home to learn because of a crisis, such as related to bullying, health, or a disability.

But families in this new wave of accidental home educators don’t have to register their children with their state or territory education department. The child’s enrolment is maintained with their school.

Read more: Trying to homeschool because of coronavirus? Here are 5 tips to help your child learn

And, in most cases, the schools are sending work home. Reports on the ground suggest this is working well for many families.

But some parents are reporting difficulties implementing what they’re being asked to do at home. This is particularly so when they’re balancing their child’s education with their own work requirements, or where the schoolwork is worksheet heavy.

If this is your situation, you are not alone and schools are trying their best to make this work. Hopefully, with more time, things will run more smoothly.

What new homeschoolers can learn from the old

Many long established home education families work from home as well, so they empathise with parents’ new found juggle of work and schooling. There’s some things schools and parents can learn from how home educators manage things.

Think about other ways of learning apart from book work. Some children thrive on book work, but others need more hands on tasks. If your child is struggling, talk their teacher and see if he or she is open to you covering the content in a different way.

For example, an alternative to doing fractions through worksheets might be cooking a meal. Cooking allows you to introduce other concepts such as addition and mass (mathematics), following a procedural text (literacy), discussing your experience of learning to cook (humanities and social science), nutrition (health), and even the science of molecular gastronomy. And everyone gets fed.

Read more: Kids at home because of coronavirus? Here are 4 ways to keep them happy (without resorting to Netflix)

That’s something else to keep in mind – kids can sometimes help their parents with the things they need to do. Whether that’s cooking or helping you set up the technology for an online work meeting. Home educating families are used to seeing the learning happening in everyday activities, and doing so can help parents feel less stressed about what their child is missing out on.

If you’re struggling with working out how to do this, there’s support in home education social media groups, where experienced home educators are providing support to parents (and teachers).

Keep in mind, much of this situation is new to home educators too. They’re not used to being at home so much either – much of their learning is normally in the community.

But organisations and groups are doing what they can to link families to the outside world. People are providing online storytime, and zoos, wildlife parks, museums and galleries are freely available online.

– ref. What is homeschooling? And should I be doing that with my kid during the coronavirus lockdown? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-homeschooling-and-should-i-be-doing-that-with-my-kid-during-the-coronavirus-lockdown-135027

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland

With the raft of social distancing measures in place to control the spread of coronavirus, you may be spending more time with your partner than ever before.

If you’re both working from home, and with nowhere to go out to in the evenings, there’s a chance you might start to get on each other’s nerves. Perhaps it’s happening already.

This is normal, particularly given the increased stress we’re all feeling right now. But since we could be in this predicament for a while yet, it’s worth taking steps to ensure we get through this period with our relationships intact. We might even be able to come out stronger.

Read more: ‘Cabin fever’: Australia must prepare for the social and psychological impacts of a coronavirus lockdown

Steering clear of the Four Horsemen

American psychology researcher John Gottman proposed certain behaviours, or the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, lead to the dissolution of romantic relationships.

The first horseman is criticism. This behaviour is defined as an attack on your partner’s character, as distinct from offering a critique or voicing a specific complaint.

Particularly at a time like this, you might be keeping track of your partner’s flaws but not saying anything so as to avoid conflict. But bottled up, anger and frustration will turn to resentment, which you may express by criticising your partner.

Psychologists explain criticism includes inflexible “always” and “never” statements such as “you always have to have the last word” or “you never listen”.

The second horseman is contempt. This behaviour is defined as an insult to your partner. People might do this verbally using sarcasm, or simply by rolling their eyes.

An example is when your partner is talking to you and you say “here we go again” without mindfully listening to what they are trying to say.

Read more: The science of romance – can we predict a breakup?

The third horseman is defensiveness. This behaviour is defined as a counterattack, most often in response to perceived criticism. People use this as a strategy to protect themselves when they are feeling victimised. They assign their partner responsibility for causing them pain.

You might be exhibiting defensiveness if you’re constantly feeling criticised, misunderstood and blamed by your partner without cause, and have an “I am right and they are wrong” attitude.

The fourth horseman is stonewalling. This behaviour is defined by elaborate manoeuvres to avoid interacting with a partner. People who stonewall will often stop communicating with their partner, with the exception of negative non-verbal gestures.

Turn this crisis into an opportunity

People deal with stressful situations by rationalising the best way to protect themselves. This might mean pushing your partner away using the four horsemen.

Gottman estimated these behaviours are 90% accurate in predicting relationship dissolution if not addressed. In his research, couples exhibiting all four horsemen who divorced did so on average 5.6 years after marriage.

A lack of relationship skills – that’s not being open to finding solutions and not admitting any fault for relationship breakdown – is another key contributor to relationship dissolution. So it’s important to do your best to work on your relationship at this time.

As well as making an effort to avoid the four horsemen, here are some other tips for how you and your partner can emerge from this crisis with your relationship intact – if not improved:

• monitor the balance between positive and negative interactions with your partner. Aim for a ratio of 5:1

• own your feelings: use “I” statements to voice your needs as opposed to “you” statements to explain what your partner needs to do or change

• listen to your partner’s feelings and validate their response to this crisis as being OK. Don’t become defensive and attack your partner for how they feel or act

• reassure your partner of their safety. Have a conversation about what safety means to both of you and how you plan to keep yourselves and other members the household safe. This might also include an exercise of discerning facts from myths around the current crisis

• make a new routine with your partner to fit around working at home and family commitments at home. This routine needs to include quality couple time (don’t be afraid to touch, be intimate with and have sex with your partner if you’re both healthy)

• this new routine also needs to include time apart. Give each other time to work on individual hobbies and take it in turns looking after the kids or other family members at home

• make plans with your partner for after the crisis is over. It’s important to accept the reality, but also acknowledge this is not permanent. Planning can help keep you positive and motivated to stay safe

• use this time to practise healthier habits such as eating well, sleeping, exercising, practising mindfulness and learning a new skill. These things improve mental well-being and if done together, can help build intimacy.

Read more: Coronavirus and sex: Dos and don’ts during social distancing

– ref. The coronavirus lockdown could test your relationship. Here’s how to keep it intact (and even improve it) – https://theconversation.com/the-coronavirus-lockdown-could-test-your-relationship-heres-how-to-keep-it-intact-and-even-improve-it-134532

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney

The pathogens mosquitoes spread by sucking our blood cause over half a million deaths each year and hundreds of millions of cases of severe illness.

But there is no scientific evidence to suggest mosquitoes are transmitting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

There is much more to learn about the coronavirus but based on current understandings, it’s highly unlikely a mosquito will pick up the virus by biting an infected person, let alone be able to pass it on.

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

Yes, mosquitoes can transmit other viruses

Female mosquitoes need the nutrition contained in blood to help develop their eggs. Viruses take advantage of this biological requirement of mosquitoes to move from host to host.

But for a mosquito to become infected, it first needs to bite an infected animal, such as a bird or kangaroo, or a person.

Mosquitoes can transmit a number of viruses, including dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, Zika and Ross River virus. They can also transmit malaria, which is caused by a parasite.

But they can’t transmit many other viruses, including HIV and Ebola.

For HIV, mosquitoes themselves don’t become infected. It’s actually unlikely a mosquito will pick up the virus when it bites an infected person due to the low concentrations of the HIV circulating in their blood.

For Ebola, even when scientists inject the virus into mosquitoes, they don’t become infected. One study collected tens of thousands of insects during an Ebola outbreak but found no virus.

No, not coronavirus

The new coronavirus is mostly spread via droplets produced when we sneeze or cough, and by touching contaminated surfaces.

Although coronavirus has been found in blood samples from infected people, there’s no evidence it can spread via mosquitoes.

Read more: Feel like you’re a mozzie magnet? It’s true – mosquitoes prefer to bite some people over others

Even if a mosquito did pick up a high enough dose of the virus in a blood meal, there is no evidence the virus would be able to infect the mosquito itself.

And if the mosquito isn’t infected, it won’t be able to transmit it to the next person she bites.

Why some viruses and not others?

It’s easy to think of mosquitoes as tiny flying dirty syringes transferring droplets of infected blood from person to person. The reality is far more complex.

When a mosquito bites and sucks up some blood that contains a virus, the virus quickly ends up in the gut of the insect.

From there, the virus needs to infect the cells lining the gut and “escape” to infect the rest of the body of the mosquito, spreading to the legs, wings, and head.

The virus then has to infect the salivary glands before being passed on by the mosquito when it next bites.

This process can take a few days to over a week.

But time isn’t the only barrier. The virus also has to negotiate getting out of the gut, getting through the body, and then into the saliva. Each step in the process can be an impenetrable barrier for the virus.

This may be straightforward for viruses that have adapted to this process but for others, the virus will perish in the gut or be excreted.

Read more: Explainer: what are antibodies and why are viruses like dengue worse the second time?

– ref. Can mosquitoes spread coronavirus? – https://theconversation.com/can-mosquitoes-spread-coronavirus-134898

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Rose, Research fellow, Australian National University

One aspect of the COVID-19 crisis that has so far escaped widespread public attention in Australia is its potential impact on our food security.

We haven’t seen supermarket shortages of fruit and vegetables like toilet paper and pasta because, being perishable, they are not easily stockpiled and therefore less prone to demand-side spikes.

Read more: When the coronavirus gets tough, the tough get stockpiling

But being perishable also makes them more susceptible to supply-side shocks, such as we’re seeing with higher prices now for the likes of broccoli due to the impact of drought and bushfires.

The major variable in whether the coronavirus crisis will hurt fruit, vegetable an nut supplies (and prices) depends on how they are picked while the nation’s border remains closed to the foreign seasonal workers on which Australian farmers depend.

Foreign muscles, Australian fruit

Rural Australia’s dependence on the muscles of tens of thousands of backpackers and workers on temporary working visas is sometime minimised by official statistics.

More than one-third of peak seasonal jobs on horticultural farms are filled by overseas workers, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

But anyone in direct contact with the industry knows most direct harvest labour in Australia is done by foreigners.

Official statistics about agricultural workers are rubbery. The Australian Bureau of Statistics, for example, can only estimate the total number of workers at between 240,000 and 408,000.

The vagueness is due to three reason. First, the data is based on a single month (in this case August 2016) and picking work is seasonal, with less workers employed in winter. Second, workers move around, so double-counting can occur. Third, overseas workers and contract workers provided by labour hire companies are not included in labour force surveys.

What immigration data tells us, however, is that in 2017-18 about 31,000 backpackers did at least 88 days of farm work to be eligible to extend their visas for a year. (There are no numbers for the number of backpackers working on farms for other reasons.)

A further 8,500 workers from Pacific Island nations and Timor-Leste worked on farms for up to six months on visas issued under Australia’s Seasonal Worker Programme. This increased to about 12,000 in 2018-19.

Domestic restrictions

The indefinite closure of Australia’s borders non-resident foreign nationals jeopardises this supply of farm workers.

The question is whether the spike in domestic unemployment will see Australian workers (and other foreign workers) displaced from other sectors flocking to rural areas to take up those jobs.

Possible complications are travel restrictions, with states closing borders and city dwellers being told to stay away from Australia’s country towns, and the Australian government’s income assistance measures.

As migration researcher Henry Sherrell notes of the job seeker allowance being doubled to A$550 a week, “that’s a pretty decent week if you’re on picking piece rates”.

Read more: Australia’s $130 billion JobKeeper payment: what the experts think

“In theory, Australians laid off in the many sectors now facing recession could head for the countryside and start picking fruit,” he argues in an article co-authored with Stephen Howes, an economics professor at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

In practice, it is just not going to happen. The work is difficult, and farms often geographically isolated. It would take years not months to change the reality that farm work is just not in the choice set of most Australians – who, after all, live in one of the most urbanised and richest countries in the world.

An exemption for seasonal workers

Allowing backpackers and seasonal workers in Australia to extend their visas is an obvious first step. On top of any measures to encourage foreign workers to stay, the longer term may require make an exception to the ban on their entering the country.

The entry of seasonal workers from the Pacific and Timor-Leste already requires medical checks before they travel. Exempting those with seasonal work visas from our closed border policy would not be unreasonable. Canada, which runs a similar guest worker program, has already done so.

With Australian help, workers could be tested for COVID-19 before they fly. On arrival here they would be quarantined for 14 days like everyone else.

The government would need to step in and pay for suitable accommodation, catering and medical services. It would also need to ensure arrangements so workers can get home. But there are there a number of benefits to justify the cost.

Read more: How migrant workers are critical to the future of Australia’s agricultural industry

It contributes not only to Australia’s food security but also its national interest, maintaining and deepening its bonds with its island neighbours.

If there is a silver lining to the current grim situation, it may be that it could serve to make real the rhetoric that our relationship with the Pacific (and Timor-Leste) is one defined by partnership, in which we help ourselves through helping each other.

– ref. Why closing our borders to foreign workers could see fruit and vegetable prices spike – https://theconversation.com/why-closing-our-borders-to-foreign-workers-could-see-fruit-and-vegetable-prices-spike-134919

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Cassells, Associate Professor, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Curtin University

The A$130 billion $1,500-per-fortnight JobKeeper payment will benefit six million Australians for six months, with payments expected from May 1.

Eligible businesses include not-for-profits and businesses with turnovers of less than $1 billion per year whose turnover is down 30%. Businesses with turnovers of more than $1 billion per year need to have lost 50% of turnover.

Eligible workers include full-time and part-time employees and sole traders as well as permanent visa holders and several other visa categories.

Workers don’t apply on their own behalf. They go to their employers, who will apply to the Tax Office.

Read more: The key to the success of the $130 billion wage subsidy is retrospective paid work

But casual workers are eligible only if they have been with their employer for 12 months or more.

Our calculations suggest about 950,000 casual workers will be ineligible, because they have been with their most recent employer for less than 12 months, something common among casual workers.

Most are employed in the accommodation and food services, retail trade, and health care and social assistance industries. More than half are women.

Casual workers employed less than 12 months with current employer

Eligible employers will receive $1,500 per fortnight (before tax) for each eligible employee regardless of whether that employee is paid more or less than this and regardless of whether the employee is full or part-time.

Workers that are paid less than $1,500 per fortnight will receive the full $1,500 per fortnight regardless of their pay.

Most part-time workers will take home more under the $750 Job Keeper payment than they were receiving in wages from their employer.

Is it good policy?

At a projected cost of $130 billion over the next half year, it is an extraordinary commitment from the government, and a huge statement of intent to support businesses and workers.

It will help many businesses stay afloat and help many workers stay attached to their employers as we move through the crisis.

But the model adopted raises a number of questions:

1. Is it fair to full and part-time workers?

It will give a part-time worker on 15 hours per week about the same weekly wage as a full-time worker on a 35 hour week.

Employers might try to re-organise hours of work to make it fairer, but some workers might want fewer hours and others more. Regardless, many will end up with the same pay.

A capped wage subsidy model would deliver support more efficiently, but may be harder to administer and police. Every worker and every employer knows that they will get $1,500 per fortnight. Anything outside this amount will raise alarm bells.

2. How will it interact with other payments?

Many part time workers who are combining work with caring for others and/or studying also receive family payments and other means-tested government payments.

For many, the $1,500 per fortnight will cut their other payments while at the same time increasing the demands their employers for hours, where those employers are able to continue to operate.

3. What about multiple job holders?

There are currently more than one million workers in Australia who hold more than a single job. The rules state they are eligible for the JobKeeper payment in respect of only one of those jobs.

They will have to choose which job to keep their attachment to. The employers who miss out will miss out on the wage support.

4. Will it actually keep people in work?

A key aim of the JobKeeper payment is to keep people in jobs. It will certainly offer an incentive for workers to stay attached to their employer and in work, whatever form it takes.

But, some might judge their overall welfare to be better served if they receive a combination of the enhanced JobSeeker payment (formerly Newstart) and other benefits and might not seek JobKeeper.

5. Will it keep businesses afloat?

The benefit for eligible employers is that their wages will largely be covered. But this might not be enough to keep them operating if their other costs become too large. This will especially be the case for firms for which Labour is a small share of costs.

This is where other elements of the government’s support package will come into play to keep businesses afloat including those announced on March 12.

6. Will businesses change in order to become eligible?

Behavioural responses are inevitable. JobKeeper creates incentives for firms to force down turnover to get access to the payments

And it might induce firms to pay their workers the flat $1,500 per fortnight even if they can afford to pay and would ordinarily pay more – not the best outcome.

Read more: Australia’s $130 billion JobKeeper payment: what the experts think

– ref. JobKeeper payment: how will it work, who will miss out and how to get it? – https://theconversation.com/jobkeeper-payment-how-will-it-work-who-will-miss-out-and-how-to-get-it-135189

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Portolan, PhD student, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

When Tinder issued an in-app public service announcement regarding COVID-19 on March 3 we all had a little laugh as a panoply of memes and gags hit the internet.

Two weeks later the laughter has subsided, but the curiosity continues. How will singles mingle in the time of Corona?

We are entering unprecedented dating territory.

Luckily, dating apps have already taken the “face-to-face” out of many first meetings. A study conducted by YouGov and Galaxy in 2019 indicated 52% of Australian singles had used a dating app to make a romantic connection.

Usage was particularly high for single Aussies between 25 and 34, with 60% having used a dating app to make a romantic connection.

But while these people first made the connection online, for many (if not most), the connection eventually moved to real-life. So what now with social distancing?

We still want to connect …

People are still opening their dating apps.

Between March 5 and 10, OkCupid reported a 7% increase in new conversations, and at the time of writing, ten out of the top 100 apps on the iTunes store were dating apps.

During the second week of March, active users on Bumble rose by 8%. As American cities go into lockdown, apps are reporting increased numbers of messaging: on Bumble from March 12–22, Seattle saw a 23% increase in sent messages, New York City 23% and San Francisco 26%.

In a time of spatial distancing, dating apps present a solution – to boredom, for connection – and also a risk. What responsibilities do dating apps have in relation to hook-ups and meet-ups and social distancing, if any?

Dating apps continue to serve public service announcements in-app, as well as encouraging people to use their chat and video functionalities to continue exploring potential relationships.

Social media points to another interesting trend: people are changing their interaction patterns in dating apps, or dating app discussions are becoming corona-centric.

There has been a 188% increase mentions of coronavirus on OkCupid profiles in March. Indian Tinder users described a rise in longer Tinder conversations. Which made many question if COVID-19 marked the return of Jane-Austen-like-courtships?

In the Jane Austen romance world, a protracted courtship might involve a spate of love letters. Today, it’s video chats and direct messages.

To match this new phenomena, dating apps are pushing to keep the majority of the relationship in-app.

While many dating apps already had video-chat functionalities, some have tweaked the interface to make it more relevant to the current climate, re-branding video-chats as “virtual dates”.

… but with no touching

In this new world, we’re all navigating how romantic intimacy can exist without physical contact.

With the prospect of months of self-isolation how will we navigate sex? After all, not everyone has a sexual partner readily available.

A notice about sex and coronavirus from the New York City Department of Health went viral last weekend. It included the statement “You are your safest sex partner”.

The tables are suddenly turned: online hook-ups were previously framed as less wholesome than face-to-face ones. Yet in 2020 they are perceived as safer.

Simultaneously, we are seeing a steady rise in sex toy sales: sales are up 13% in the UK, 71% in Italy, and a whopping 135% in Canada. Australian sex toy brand Vush is reporting their sales are up 350%.

Connection is sought after in times of uncertainty, risk and crisis. But COVID-19 makes the navigation of these intimacies certainly difficult. We are in the middle of a historical re-jigging of our understanding of romance, intimacy and sex.

It’s safe to say the negotiation of intimacy has been irrevocably changed – even if it is only for the short while.

– ref. The safest sex you’ll never have: how coronavirus is changing online dating – https://theconversation.com/the-safest-sex-youll-never-have-how-coronavirus-is-changing-online-dating-134382

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Gibbons, Professor, Australian National University

As we witnessed last summer, the number of houses destroyed during bushfires in Australia has not been stemmed by advances in weather forecasting, building design and the increased use of large water-bombing aircraft.

At the latest count, more than 3,500 homes were destroyed the summer just gone, which makes this the most destructive bushfire season in Australia’s history.

The principal reason for the continually high rate of destruction is that so many homes are being built close to bushland. An estimated 85% of all houses destroyed in bushfires in Australia are within 100m of the bush.

It follows that clearing vegetation around houses is at the forefront of advice provided by fire authorities to homeowners in bushfire-prone areas.

A home without trees and shrubs around it is the safest option during a bushfire. But realistically, many people will want to retain some vegetation. And there are ways to do this sensibly.

Is clearing bushland the solution?

Research shows houses close to bushland are more effectively protected by clearing trees and shrubs within approximately 40m of the home.

There are laws in most states and territories, such as New South Wales’ 10/50 Vegetation Clearing Scheme, that permit this to some extent.

But if all homeowners in bushfire-prone areas exercised their right to clear trees and shrubs, places such as the Blue Mountains, Perth Hills, Mount Lofty Ranges, Dandenongs and our coastal towns like Mallacoota, Margaret River and Batemans Bay would be vastly different in character.

Read more: How a bushfire can destroy a home

Residents and tourists are attracted to these areas for the aesthetics, privacy, wildlife and shade native trees and shrubs provide.

A study of rural-residential areas north of Melbourne found property values were higher where there was a considerable cover of native vegetation. We not only like our native bush, we are prepared to pay for it.

Because many people value trees and shrubs around their homes, it is not realistic to expect uniformly low fuel loads within bushfire-prone parts of Australia.

Can we have our cake and eat it?

We analysed data collected before and after the 2009 Black Saturday Fires, in which 2,133 houses were destroyed.

We found that the extent of “greenness” of vegetation surrounding homes had a bearing on whether the structure withstood fire.

Greenness refers to the extent to which plants are actively growing. Houses with trees and shrubs within 40m were slightly less likely to be destroyed if the vegetation had relatively high values of “greenness”, as compared to houses surrounded by vegetation with low greenness value.

This makes sense because greener vegetation, typically with higher moisture content, has lower flammability, requires more energy to ignite and therefore can reduce the intensity of a fire.

Read more: Australian building codes don’t expect houses to be fire-proof – and that’s by design

Thus, watering your garden through summer, if this is feasible, or choosing plants with high moisture content (such as succulents) may reduce the bushfire risk compared with the same amount of vegetation with a lower moisture content.

We also found the risk to houses during bushfire was slightly less where trees and shrubs within 40m were not continuous, but instead arranged as discrete patches separated by a ground layer with low fuel hazard, such as mown grass.

As trees and shrubs become less continuous the heat transfer between patches becomes less efficient and the intensity of the fire is likely to decline.

Provided bushfires in your area come from a predictable direction, retaining more trees and shrubs downwind of this direction from your house poses less risk than the same cover of trees and shrubs retained upwind from your house.

This makes sense because burning embers, which are the main cause of house losses during bushfires, travel in the direction of the wind.

You can’t eliminate risk from bushfires

We must emphasise that while these strategies can strike a balance between retaining trees and shrubs and preparing for bushfires, they will not guarantee your home will survive a bushfire – especially in severe fire weather.

So in addition to vegetation management, other strategies – such as building design, adequate insurance and evacuating early to a safer place – should be considered in every household’s bushfire planning.

Read more: 12 simple ways you can reduce bushfire risk to older homes

– ref. If you’re worried about bushfires but want to keep your leafy garden, follow these tips – https://theconversation.com/if-youre-worried-about-bushfires-but-want-to-keep-your-leafy-garden-follow-these-tips-130876

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Menzies, Principal Research Fellow, Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith University

Crises pose particular challenges for democratic leaders. They are expected to make critical decisions in times of uncertainty and rapidly develop effective plans to lead us out of the crisis. Normally, we are more interested in constraining our leaders through the checks and balances of accountability. But in times of crisis, we look to our leaders to lead. Finding the right balance between accountability and rapid decision-making remains a challenge during an era of reduced trust in political leaders.

In Australia, the establishment of the national cabinet has undertaken this crisis leadership role.

The national cabinet comprises the prime minister and all state and territory premiers and chief ministers. Basically, it is COAG by another name.

Read more: ‘Where no counsel is, the people fall’: why parliaments should keep functioning during the coronavirus crisis

Though called a cabinet, the national cabinet is technically an intergovernmental forum. The conventions and rules of cabinet, such as cabinet solidarity and the secrecy provisions, do not apply to the national cabinet.

Its power is that which the leaders of all Australian jurisdictions bring to negotiate on behalf of their people, and to implement the decisions reached. This model is called executive federalism.

Advantages of executive federalism in a time of crisis

In a crisis, decision-making automatically shifts upwards with the expectation that leaders will work together to find a way through the crisis. The National Cabinet meets these expectations in several ways.

Timeliness and risk

Response time is critical, and with the national cabinet meeting multiple times a week, issues can be addressed as they emerge. Risk is reduced by bringing together technical and political experts.

The national cabinet is supported by the chief medical officers, who meet as the Australian Health Protection and Principles Committee (AHPPC). They pull together the modelling, research and data that form the basis of decisions made by the national cabinet.

Read more: View from The Hill: A contest of credible views should be seen as useful in a national crisis

The national cabinet is the mechanism to bring together information and intelligence sharing, and the capacity to pool and test ideas before locking in coordination and jurisdictional capacity.

Because of the frequency of meetings, decisions are expected and made. The consideration of different jurisdictional viewpoints and expertise puts rigour and contestability into the decision-making and strengthens the outcome.

Clarity and coherence

In a time of national crisis, agreement on a plan of action and then rapid and effective implementation is crucial. The national cabinet brings that focus. By putting aside their “politics as usual” squabbles the leaders demonstrate their desire for agreement and unity and communicate that firmness of purpose to the community at large.

Though the search for unity can be overborne by local circumstances. Some states moved earlier to introduce restrictions and shutdowns outside of the national cabinet. Though criticised for breaking ranks, the premiers were reacting to the different circumstances and anxiety within their jurisdiction. They decided to trade off the perception of a loss of unity against the need to create local responses for local circumstances.

Dual democracy

The national cabinet helps reconcile the dual allegiances citizens have to the national government and their state or territory government. People are looking for a coherent national approach through the crisis, but they do not want to see their individual jurisdiction to be disadvantaged compared to the rest of the country. At the national cabinet, the smaller states have equal representation, whereas in parliament their representation is proportionate to their population size.

Is it anti-democratic?

Executive federalism forums such as the national cabinet can be criticised for being undemocratic and unaccountable, with the role of the parliament marginalised. However, these forums are undertaking different roles. The national cabinet deals with negotiation and compromise between states, which recognise difference and diversity. The parliament is about majority will.

The connection has not been lost with parliament, which is suspended not pro-rogued, and will be brought back to pass legislation from decisions made by the national cabinet.

Once the COVID-19 crisis has passed, the full democratic accountability processes can scrutinise the decisions taken. This includes parliamentary committee investigations and royal commissions. The checks and balances of the democratic constraints on our leaders will reassert themselves.

– ref. Explainer: what is the national cabinet and is it democratic? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-national-cabinet-and-is-it-democratic-135036

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Mortimer, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Queensland University of Technology

The Morrison government keeps using the word “essential” to describe employees, public gatherings, services and businesses that are still allowed and not restricted as it tries to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

But what is essential, and who gets to decide?

By its very definition, essential means “something necessary, indispensable, or unavoidable”.

Read more: Australia’s $130 billion JobKeeper payment: what the experts think

When it comes to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are no recent precedents for governments. There is no pre-determined list in place on what is an essential service. Instead, “essential” appears a moving beast that is constantly evolving and that can be confusing.

Confused messages

On March 22 the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews called for “a shutdown of all non-essential activity” within 48 hours. Supermarkets, banks and pharmacies were some of the things he said were essential but he did not provide an exhaustive list of what was considered an essential service.

Naturally confusion reigned. For example, in the rural Victorian town of Ballan, some stores closed while others remained open.

We’ve now seen a number of retailers decide to voluntarily shutter stores for the safety of their workers and the public, considering their businesses “non-essential”.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a meeting of the national cabinet had agreed to a raft of new restrictions, such as limiting “shopping for what you need, food and other essential supplies”.

But he also described his wife’s recent purchase of a number of jigsaw puzzles for the family as “absolutely essential”. While toy and hobby retailers may find comfort in this statement, in reality such businesses may not be considered “essential”.

Guns and pastries, essential?

There are differences too overseas in what people consider essential as part of any COVID-19 restrictions.

Is the United States, it’s recommended employees of gun stores and gun manufacturers should be seen as “essential” workers, according to a memo from the Department of Homeland Security.

While in Europe, “necessities” are said to include Belgian Fries, French Baguettes and Dutch Cannabis. In France, it’s also shops specialising in pastries, wine and cheese reportedly declared essential businesses.

In Ireland, reports say the government there has issued a detailed list of what it considers “essential workers”. As for essential retailers, they include pharmacies, fuel stations and pet stores, but not opticians, motor repair and bicycle repair outlets.

The essential essentials

Here in Australia there is broad agreement supermarkets, service stations, allied health (pharmacy, chiropractic, physiotherapy, psychology, dental) and banks are essential business and services.

Similarly freight, logistics and home delivery are also considered essential. Australia Post says posties and delivery drivers continue but some posts offices are temporarily closed.

Some bottle shops can stay open but many are now imposing restrictions on how much people can buy.

The government has moved to progressively add more business, services and activities to its “non-essential services” list.

This includes cafés, food courts, pubs, licensed clubs (sports clubs), bars, beauty and personal care services, entertainment venues, leisure and recreation (gyms, theme parks), galleries, museums and libraries.

Some of these entities do have exceptions. A café can remain open for take-away only. A hairdresser or barber can trade if they comply with the one person per four square-metre rule.

Others remain convoluted, such as outdoor and indoor markets (farmers markets), which are a decision for each state and territory.

In and out of work

In reality, no worker should ever be considered, or consider themselves, as “non-essential”.

But due to how the restrictions have been broadly applied, some workers in one industry may now find themselves out of a job, while others in that same industry remain fully employed.

Read more: $1,500 a fortnight JobKeeper wage subsidy in massive $130 billion program

Take for example chefs. Due to bans on restaurants and licensed clubs, chefs there are being stood down, but chefs inside hotels can continue to cook and provide room service meals.

A barista in a café can still be gainfully employed, as long as they only make take-away coffee, but a barista inside a licensed sports club, is unfortunately stood down.

Further restrictions and essentials

While we have seen many businesses reduce their operations and several retailers voluntarily close their doors, many are standing by waiting for further announcements to potentially close all “non-essential” services.

What should the government consider before deciding what is and isn’t regarded as essential?

Read more: In the time of coronavirus, donating blood is more essential than ever

Some decisions are easy: we need health workers, police, fire fighters and other emergency services workers, and we need those who maintain services to the public such as food supply, clean water, sewerage and so on.

But we also need those services required to keep these people functioning. The military describe this as tooth to tail ratio: the number of people required to keep any soldier on the battlefield (estimated up to three for every soldier).

In the civilian context this includes those responsible for the supply of consumables, personal protection equipment, transport, power, fuel, computer systems, and someone to look after their families while they do the heavy lifting.

– ref. What actually are ‘essential services’ and who decides? – https://theconversation.com/what-actually-are-essential-services-and-who-decides-135029

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aude Bernard, Lecturer, Queensland Centre for Population Research, The University of Queensland

Australians are among the most mobile populations in the world. More than 40% of us change address every five years, about twice the global average. Yet the level of internal migration – moving within Australia – has gone down over the past four decades.

The proportion of Australians changing state of residence fell by 20% between 1981 and 2016, particularly after 1991. Their movement between regions within states – between, say, Brisbane and Mackay – dropped by a whopping 25%.

The decline in migration is a feature of a number of advanced economies, including the United States. Policymakers have been concerned this trend heralds a less flexible economy where workers do not move to regions with jobs. If that’s the case, it could prolong recessions and reduce growth.

So why are Australians moving less? Several factors might help explain it.

Australia is getting older

Population ageing is one of the main explanations because older people move less than young people. It’s enough to account for 20-30% of the decline in internal migration in Australia.

However, the increase in the share of mobile groups – such as renters, tertiary-educated people and recently arrived immigrants – has fully compensated the downward effect of population ageing. This means the net effect on migration levels of changes in the composition of the Australian population is close to null.

So the decline is not the result of overall changes in population composition. It is the result of deeper behavioural changes. People in their 20s, 30s and 40s are simply moving less today than in the past.

Working arrangements have changed

Information and communication technology and the changes in working arrangements brought by the internet are often thought to have contributed to lower migration levels. But, the proportion of individuals who telework remains small. Only 5% of the Australian workforce worked from home at the 2016 census.

Perhaps more significant is the increase in dual-income households. They now account for two-thirds of couples compared with 56% in 2001. Because these couples find it more challenging to jointly relocate than traditional male-breadwinner families, this shift explains about 10% of the decline in interstate migration in Australia.

Despite these transformations, the mix of reasons for moving hasn’t changed over the past 15 years. Australians still move mainly for family and work reasons.

So, what is going on?

Place attachment plays a part

In the United States, this downward trend has been linked to “rootedness”, the idea that individuals have become more attached their families and communities and are therefore less inclined to relocate.

Such concepts are difficult to measure and quantify. Yet a 2019 study showed that Australians with strong place attachment and social networks are less likely to migrate, particularly over long distances. But it is not clear how place attachment has changed over time and whether it has contributed to the decline in internal migration.

Young people are staying put

We know young people are moving less than they used to. In 2017, 56% of Australians below the age of 30 were still living at home compared with 47% in 2001. Explanations for this trend include increasing housing costs and delayed union formation.

The consequences not only bring down current migration levels but also in the future. This is because migration is self-reinforcing: having moved in the past increases the chances of moving again. So, young adults who are staying put now are less likely to move later because they have not been exposed early in life to the challenges of relocating.

This means the level of migration in Australia is likely to remain low, but this downward trend may level off as we have seen in the United States.

Is this new low a problem?

There is no evidence Australians are less willing to relocate for their jobs, so this downward trend should not have major impacts on the economy.

What is more concerning is some groups have been affected more than others, particularly those in part-time work and in low-paid sectors such as retail and trade. These workers are less mobile than in the past and their share in the workforce has increased.

Individuals with limited resources face greater difficulties in being mobile, particularly when faced with rising housing costs and stagnant wages. We need to ensure Australia does not evolve toward a two-tier migration system, in which some can afford to move and others are “trapped”. This could, in the long term, reinforce socio-economic inequalities.

– ref. Australians are moving home less. Why? And does it matter? – https://theconversation.com/australians-are-moving-home-less-why-and-does-it-matter-133767

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Stubbs, Senior Lecturer, School of Creative Industries, University of South Australia

Being in isolation might be a great time to try something new. In this series, we get the basics on hobbies and activities to start while you’re spending more time at home.

While many are cancelling treks to Nepal, putting dreams of Venice on hold and wondering what we can substitute for a tropical beach escape, it is worth remembering we’re not the first who have had to rethink the notion of travel.

There is a precedent for thinking about journeys in a more imaginative sense: travel and the near-at-hand.

Vertical travel and travel writing – where we immerse in the spaces around us in greater detail, peeling back layers of history, botany and culture – goes back to the late 18th Century in Turin and a man named Xavier de Maistre.

De Maistre wrote A Journey Around My Room while imprisoned in his bedroom for six weeks after he was caught fighting a duel in the north Italian city in 1790.

Rather than sulk through his imprisonment, he decided to challenge the popularity of imperialist travel writing and he wrote a travel book about the contents of his bedroom. De Maistre observed his surroundings, detaching and looking with new eyes to give the reader an alternative perspective on what travel could mean:

What a comfort this new mode will be to the sick; they need not fear bleak winds or change of weather. And what a thing, too, it will be for cowards; they will be safe from pitfalls and quagmires. Thousands who hitherto did not dare, others who were not able, and others to whom it never occurred to think of such a thing as going on a journey, will make up their minds to follow my example.

De Maistre’s room became a place with latitude and topography.

He immersed in the scenes of the paintings on his walls and saw his bed as a vehicle for imaginative transportation alongside his dog, Rose, his trusted travel companion. De Maistre was so taken by the journey that he subsequently wrote A Nocturnal Expedition Around My Room to “revisit the country which I had formerly so delightfully travelled through”.

Writing of a microcosm

There were many inspired by this new style. Heinrich Seidel refocused his apartment into a microcosm where each item had a history and an interconnected story. Similarly, Alphonse Karr produced two volumes and 700 pages focused solely on his garden where he lived in Montmartre with his pet monkey Emmanuel.

In Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854), the author lived alone and in seclusion in a log cabin at Walden Pond; George Orwell meticulously captured the intricate details of weather, vegetable production and an egg count in his domestic diary from the early 1940s.

Read more: Why philosophy is an ideal travel companion for adventurous minds

This notion of rethinking space and valuing the mundane as an ethical and creative choice acts as a counter to the assumed importance of distance with many travel(ling) writers of the era.

This has not diminished in the modern era.

In Isolarion: A Different Oxford Journey (2007), James Attlee extends the notion of close travel or “home-touring” as he walks along a solitary Oxford street.

A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (2009) sees Alain de Botton at a desk in the departure hall of London Heathrow’s Terminal 5, confined for the duration of his stay, to understand the airport both as a destination in itself and as a location with a distinct culture.

Meg Watson’s essay Another life in Paris for The Saturday Paper focuses on her experience inhabiting another person’s space as an Airbnb guest in Paris:

On my first night in Canelle’s bed, I watch Midnight in Paris and drink rosé from one of her stained teacups. In a classic display of unabashed French nonchalance, the bedroom door is nothing but a clear panel of glass.

Within the intimacy of the apartment, Watson shows the reader a closer and more nuanced perspective of Paris. Simultaneously, the voyeurism of this approach also allows the reader to appreciate the sameness of many travel experiences.

Tips for your own close travel

Look intimately

Take a closer look at the items around your house.

Especially if you have things from previous travels, take the time to reflect on the item’s journey, write its story, or look through the photos of that period– it might even involve some research of your own, discovering what the pattern on your Moroccan mirror means, or the significance of the Easter Island statues on your bookshelf.

Smell deeply

Stroll through your garden. Take a closer look at all the plants, the soil and the trees. Look closer again.

By sifting through my own soil I discovered shards of 100-year-old-bricks which prompted my journey towards a better understanding of the history of my state.

Remember the outside world

Look out your window. Just as many have in Wuhan, Barcelona and Rome, conversations with new encounters, impromptu music performances and shared meals and experiences (even over a fence or across a road) are much of what we search for in conventional travel.

This new dimension can bring surprising togetherness.

– ref. Great first time to try: travel writing from the home – https://theconversation.com/great-first-time-to-try-travel-writing-from-the-home-134664

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Armstrong, Executive Director, Climate and Health Alliance, Occasional Lecturer, School of Public Health and Human Biosciences, La Trobe University

The COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the world is a crisis of our own making.

That’s the message from infectious disease and environmental health experts, and from those in planetary health – an emerging field connecting human health, civilisation and the natural systems on which they depend.

They might sound unrelated, but the COVID-19 crisis and the climate and biodiversity crises are deeply connected.

Each arises from our seeming unwillingness to respect the interdependence between ourselves, other animal species and the natural world more generally.

Read more: A major scorecard gives the health of Australia’s environment less than 1 out of 10

To put this into perspective, the vast majority (three out of every four) of new infectious diseases in people come from animals – from wildlife and from the livestock we keep in ever-larger numbers.

To understand and effectively respond to COVID-19, and other novel infectious diseases we’ll likely encounter in the future, policymakers need to acknowledge and respond with “planetary consciousness”. This means taking a holistic view of public health that includes the health of the natural environment.

Risking animal-borne diseases

Biodiversity (all biological diversity from genes, to species, to ecosystems) is declining faster than at any time in human history.

We clear forests and remove habitat, bringing wild animals closer to human settlements. And we hunt and sell wildlife, often endangered, increasing the risk of disease transmission from animals to humans.

The list of diseases that have jumped from animals to humans (“zoonotic diseases”) includes HIV, Ebola, Zika, Hendra, SARS, MERS and bird flu.

Like its precursor SARS, COVID-19 is thought to have originated in bats and subsequently transmitted to humans via another animal host, possibly at a wet market trading live animals.

Ebola virus emerged in central Africa when land use changes and altered climatic conditions forced bats and chimpanzees together around concentrated areas of food resources. And Hendra virus is associated with urbanisation of fruit bats following habitat loss. Such changes are occurring worldwide.

What’s more, human-caused climate change is making this worse. Along with habitat loss, shifting climate zones are causing wildlife to migrate to new places, where they interact with other species they haven’t previously encountered. This increases the risk of new diseases emerging.

COVID-19 is just the latest new infectious disease arising from our collision with nature.

Read more: Here’s what the coronavirus pandemic can teach us about tackling climate change

Due to its ability to spread at an alarming pace, as well as its relatively high mortality rate, it’s the sort of pandemic experts have been warning will arise from environmental degradation.

We saw this in 2018, for instance, when disease ecologist Dr Peter Daszak, a contributor to the World Health Organisation Register of Priority Diseases, coined the term “Disease X”. This described a then-unknown pathogen predicted to originate in animals and cause a “serious international epidemic”. COVID-19, says Daszak, is Disease X.

Climate change makes us vulnerable

But climate change is undermining human health globally in other profound ways. It’s a risk multiplier, exacerbating our vulnerability to a range of health threats.

Earlier this year, all eyes were on the extensive, life-threatening bushfires and the resulting blanket of smoke pollution. This exposed more than half of the Australian population to health harm for many weeks, and led to the deaths of more than 400 people.

For infectious diseases such as COVID-19, air pollution creates another risk. This new virus causes a respiratory illness and, as with SARS, exposure to air pollution worsens our vulnerability.

Particles of air pollution also act as transport for pathogens, contributing to the spread of viruses and infectious disease across large distances.

A wake-up call

It might be clear to readers here that human health depends on healthy ecosystems. But this is rarely considered in policy decisions on projects that affect natural ecosystems – such as land clearing, major energy or transport infrastructure projects and industrial-scale farming.

Read more: The community-led movement creating hope in the time of coronavirus

The current COVID-19 pandemic is yet another warning shot of the consequences of ignoring these connections.

If we are to constrain the emergence of new infections and future pandemics, we simply must cease our exploitation and degradation of the natural world, and urgently cut our carbon emissions.

Controlling the pandemic appropriately focuses on mobilising human and financial resources to provide health care for patients and prevent human to human transmission.

But it’s important we also invest in tackling the underlying causes of the problem through biodiversity conservation and stabilising the climate. This will help avoid the transmission of diseases from animals to humans in the first place.

Read more: 222 scientists say cascading crises are the biggest threat to the well-being of future generations

The health, social and economic consequences of COVID-19 should act as a wake-up call for all governments to take stock, carefully consider the evidence, and ensure post COVID-19 responses reverse our war on nature. Because – as pioneering 20th century conservationist Rachel Carson argued – a war on nature is ultimately a war against ourselves.

– ref. Coronavirus is a wake-up call: our war with the environment is leading to pandemics – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-a-wake-up-call-our-war-with-the-environment-is-leading-to-pandemics-135023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dana M Bergstrom, Principal Research Scientist, University of Wollongong

While the world rightfully focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic, the planet is still warming. This summer’s Antarctic weather, as elsewhere in the world, was unprecedented in the observed record.

Our research, published today in Global Change Biology, describes the recent heatwave in Antarctica. Beginning in late spring east of the Antarctic Peninsula, it circumnavigated the continent over the next four months. Some of our team spent the summer in Antarctica observing these temperatures and the effect on natural systems, witnessing the heatwave first-hand.

Antarctica may be isolated from the rest of the continents by the Southern Ocean, but has worldwide impacts. It drives the global ocean conveyor belt, a constant system of deep-ocean circulation which transfers oceanic heat around the planet, and its melting ice sheet adds to global sea level rise.

Antarctica represents the simple, extreme end of conditions for life. It can be seen as a ‘canary in the mine’, demonstrating patterns of change we can expect to see elsewhere.

A heatwave in the coldest place on Earth

Most of Antarctica is ice-covered, but there are small ice-free oases, predominantly on the coast. Collectively 0.44% of the continent, these unique areas are important biodiversity hotspots for penguins and other seabirds, mosses, lichens, lakes, ponds and associated invertebrates.

This summer, Casey Research Station, in the Windmill Islands oasis, experienced its first recorded heat wave. For three days, minimum temperatures exceeded zero and daily maximums were all above 7.5°C. On January 24, its highest maximum of 9.2°C was recorded, almost 7°C above Casey’s 30-year mean for the month.

Read more: Scientists looked at sea levels 125,000 years in the past. The results are terrifying

The arrival of warm, moist air during this weather event brought rain to Davis Research Station in the normally frigid, ice-free desert of the Vestfold Hills. The warm conditions triggered extensive meltwater pools and surface streams on local glaciers. These, together with melting snowbanks, contributed to high-flowing rivers and flooding lakes.

By February, most heat was concentrated in the Antarctic Peninsula at the northernmost part of the continent. A new Antarctic maximum temperature of 18.4°C was recorded on February 6 at Argentina’s Esperanza research station on the Peninsula – almost 1°C above the previous record. Three days later this was eclipsed when 20.75°C was reported at Brazil’s Marambio station, on Seymour Island east of the Peninsula.

What caused the heatwave?

The pace of warming from global climate change has been generally slower in East Antarctica compared with West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula. This is in part due to the ozone hole, which has occurred in spring over Antarctica since the late 1970s.

The hole has tended to strengthen jet stream winds over the Southern Ocean promoting a generally more ‘positive’ state of the Southern Annular Mode in summer. This means the Southern Ocean’s westerly wind belt has tended to stay close to Antarctica at that time of year creating a seasonal ‘shield’, reducing the transfer of warm air from the Earth’s temperate regions to Antarctica.

Read more: The air above Antarctica is suddenly getting warmer – here’s what it means for Australia

But during the spring of 2019 a strong warming of the stratosphere over Antarctica significantly reduced the size of the ozone hole. This helped to support a more ‘negative’ state of the Southern Annular Mode and weakened the shield.

Other factors in late 2019 may have also helped to warm Antarctica. The Indian Ocean Dipole was in a strong ‘positive’ state due to a late retreat of the Indian monsoon. This meant that water in the western Indian Ocean was warmer than normal. Air rising from this and other warm ocean patches in the Pacific Ocean provided energy sources that altered the path of weather systems and helped to disturb and warm the stratosphere.

Is a warming Antarctica good or bad?

Localised flooding appeared to benefit some Vestfold Hills’ moss banks which were previously very drought-stressed. Prior to the flood event, most mosses were grey and moribund, but one month later many moss shoots were green.

Given the generally cold conditions of Antarctica, the warmth may have benefited the flora (mosses, lichens and two vascular plants), and microbes and invertebrates, but only where liquid water formed. Areas in the Vestfold Hills away from the flooding became more drought-stressed over the summer.

High temperatures may have caused heat stress in some organisms. Antarctic mosses and lichens are often dark in colour, allowing sunlight to be absorbed to create warm microclimates. This is a great strategy when temperatures are just above freezing, but heat stress can occur once 10°C is exceeded.

On King George Island, near the Antarctic Peninsula, our measurements showed that in January 2019 moss surface temperatures only exceeded 14°C for 3% of the time, but in 2020 this increased fourfold (to 12% of the time).

Based on our experience from previous anomalous hot Antarctic summers, we can expect many biological impacts, positive and negative, in coming years. The most recent event highlights the connectedness of our climate systems: from the surface to the stratosphere, and from the monsoon tropics to the southernmost continent.

Under climate change, extreme events are predicted to increase in frequency and severity, and Antarctica is not immune.

Read more: The ozone hole leaves a lasting impression on southern climate

– ref. Anatomy of a heatwave: how Antarctica recorded a 20.75°C day last month – https://theconversation.com/anatomy-of-a-heatwave-how-antarctica-recorded-a-20-75-c-day-last-month-134550

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Weaving, Senior Lecturer, School of Creative Industries, University of Newcastle

Images of the latest coronavirus have become instantly recognisable, often vibrantly coloured and floating in an opaque background. In most representations, the shape of the virus is the same – a spherical particle with spikes, resembling an alien invader.

But there’s little consensus about the colour: images of the virus come in red, orange, blue, yellow, steely or soft green, white with red spikes, red with blue spikes and many colours in between.

In their depictions of the virus, designers, illustrators and communicators are making some highly creative and evocative decisions.

Colour, light and fear

For some, the lack of consensus about the appearance of viruses confirms fears and increases anxiety. On March 8 2020, the director-general of the World Health Organisation warned of the “infodemic” of misinformation about the coronavirus, urging communicators to use “facts not fear” to battle the flood of rumours and myths.

The confusion about the colour of coronavirus starts with the failure to understand the nature of colour in the sub-microscopic world.

Our perception of colour is dependent on the presence of light. White light from the sun is a combination of all the wavelengths of visible light – from violet at one end of the spectrum to red at the other.

When white light hits an object, we see its colour thanks to the light that is reflected by that object towards our eyes. Raspberries and rubies appear red because they absorb most light but reflect the red wavelength.

But as objects become smaller, light is no longer an effective tool for seeing. Viruses are so small that, until the 1930s, one of their scientifically recognised properties was their invisibility. Looking for them with a microscope using light is like trying to find an ant in a football stadium at night using a large searchlight: the scale difference between object and tool is too great.

It wasn’t until the development of the electron microscope in the 1930s that researchers could “see” a virus. By using electrons, which are vastly smaller than light particles, it became possible to identify the shapes, structures and textures of viruses. But as no light is involved in this form of seeing, there is no colour. Images of viruses reveal a monochrome world of grey. Like electrons, atoms and quarks, viruses exist in a realm where colour has no meaning.

Vivid imagery

Grey images of unfamiliar blobs don’t make for persuasive or emotive media content.

Research into the representation of the Ebola virus outbreak in 1995 revealed the image of choice was not the worm-like virus but teams of Western medical experts working in African villages in hermetically sealed suits. The early visual representation of the AIDS virus focused on the emaciated bodies of those with the resulting disease, often younger men.

With symptoms similar to the common cold and initial death rates highest amongst the elderly, the coronavirus pandemic provides no such dramatic visual material. To fill this void, the vivid range of colourful images of the coronavirus have strong appeal.

Many images come from stock photo suppliers, typically photorealistic artists’ impressions rather than images from electron microscopes.

The Public Health Library of the US government’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC) provides one such illustration, created to reveal the morphology of the coronavirus. It’s an off-white sphere with yellow protein particles attached and red spikes emerging from the surface, creating the distinctive “corona” or crown. All of these colour choices are creative decisions.

Biologist David Goodsell takes artistic interpretation a step further, using watercolour painting to depict viruses at the cellular level.

One of the complicating challenges for virus visualisation is the emergence of so-called “colour” images from electron microscopes. Using a methodology that was originally described as “painting,” scientists are able to add colour to structures in the grey-scale world of imaging to help distinguish the details of cellular micro-architecture. Yet even here, the choice of colour is arbitrary, as shown in a number of coloured images of the coronavirus made available on Flickr by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In these, the virus has been variously coloured yellow, orange, magenta and blue.

Embracing grey

Whilst these images look aesthetically striking, the arbitrary nature of their colouring does little to solve WHO’s concerns about the insecurity that comes with unclear facts about viruses and disease.

One solution would be to embrace the colourless sub-microscopic world that viruses inhabit and accept their greyness.

This has some distinct advantages: firstly, it fits the science that colour can’t be attributed where light doesn’t reach. Secondly, it renders images of the virus less threatening: without their red spikes or green bodies they seem less like hostile invaders from a science fiction fantasy. And the idea of greyness also fits the scientific notion that viruses are suspended somewhere between the dead and the living.

Stripping the coronavirus of the distracting vibrancy of vivid colour – and seeing it consistently as an inert grey particle – could help reduce community fear and better allow us to continue the enormous collective task of managing its biological and social impact.

– ref. Scary red or icky green? We can’t say what colour coronavirus is and dressing it up might feed fears – https://theconversation.com/scary-red-or-icky-green-we-cant-say-what-colour-coronavirus-is-and-dressing-it-up-might-feed-fears-134380

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Omar Mubin, Senior Lecturer in human-centred computing & human-computer interaction, Western Sydney University

The Australian government has launched an app offering up-to-date advice and information on the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Coronavirus Australia app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, was released alongside a new WhatsApp messaging feature.

As this pandemic unfolds, the public’s ability to quickly access reliable information will be of paramount importance. Let’s take a look at whether this latest digital initiative hits the nail on the head.

Read more: 9 ways to talk to people who spread coronavirus myths

What are the features?

The app provides eight distinct features for people seeking information on COVID-19:

• Symptom checker directs users to a diagnostic tool from the Department of Health, that gives advice based on a user’s situation.

• Register isolation is an optional feature that requests certain personal details from users in self-isolation, including access to their location, their name, phone number, age, gender, isolation start date and the number of residents in their household.

• The current status feature provides a visual (map) and text-based breakdown of the number of confirmed cases per state.

• The advice section elaborates on several important topics related to COVID-19, including social distancing, travel, self-isolation, getting tested and accessing financial assistance.

• The resources section offers information targeted at individuals and groups including employers, and industry bodies such as the airline industry, hotel industry, cruise industry and aged care organisations.

• The news and media section displays relevant news articles and videos released by the government.

• The contact section, accessible through the left-hand menu, directs users to helpline numbers.

• Settings allows users to enable push-notifications and read the app’s privacy policy.

Missed opportunities

While the Coronavirus Australia app is certainly a great start, we’ve identified some features that could make it even more effective with future updates.

In terms of content, the app seems to miss an opportunity to provide positive reinforcement during a terrible crisis. For instance, as time progresses it could highlight improvements in the national effort to flatten the curve of the coronavirus.

Read more: How to flatten the curve of coronavirus, a mathematician explains

The app’s tone is neutral, but it could have used more persuasive language and prompts, especially in regards to self-isolation and social distancing measures – which continue to be at the forefront of national discussions. And crucial points such as state-specifc restrictions are currently hidden in the advice section. Important information should be emphasised.

Also, certain language in the app’s text, such as the term “pneumonia”, may not be widely recognised. These terms could be defined using Tooltips. This widget displays text descriptions when users hold their cursor or finger over an object on the screen.

The current status section provides a static visual map that repeats information in the written text. While this map is informative, it cannot be interacted with or zoomed into for more area-specific data.

In terms of design, the app is mainly black and white. Using a range of colours and alerts could help categorise information, and draw the user’s attention to important aspects.

Another simple update would be to include the logos of all the state governments and departments that contributed to the app’s content. While the current federal government logo is enough to establish authenticity, research suggests having endorsements from additional bodies improves credibility.

The app doesn’t support languages other than English. This is significant as news reports suggest thousands of overseas visitors have been trapped in Australia as a result of COVID-19. These people will be as desperate for information as the rest of us.

More considerations

Rather than having all the necessary information available in the Coronavirus Australia app itself, many links redirect users to the government’s Department of Health website. For some, this may seem like the app is simply a landing page for the department’s website.

Also, while the logging of those who are isolating is an excellent feature, it relies on honest self-reporting. This can’t be guaranteed. If authorities wish to analyse or use the collected data to enforce social-isolation measures, then identification such as a drivers license or passport will be needed to prevent fake reporting.

Misleading reports could also be avoided by prompting users to enter the specific address they are self-isolating at (including details such as hotel name and room number), rather than simply using GPS location data as the app currently does.

In terms of potential advances in the app’s features, one option would involve using a user’s location to detect if they are away from home for longer than a specific advised time. The app could then send subtle prompts to remind the user to return to self-isolation.

A summary of the government’s latest restrictions, sorted by states and territories, would also be helpful, as would a section debunking common myths associated with COVID-19.

Read more: Explainer: what is contact tracing and how does it help limit the coronavirus spread?

Despite the small margins for improvement, the Coronavirus Australia app indicates the government has made an effort to provide quick and helpful information at a highly uncertain time. As this pandemic evolves, further incremental updates would certainly enhance its user experience.

– ref. The government’s coronavirus mobile app is a solid effort, but it could do even better – https://theconversation.com/the-governments-coronavirus-mobile-app-is-a-solid-effort-but-it-could-do-even-better-135030

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Omar Mubin, Senior Lecturer in human-centred computing & human-computer interaction, Western Sydney University

The Australian government has launched an app offering up-to-date advice and information on the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Coronavirus Australia app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, was released alongside a new WhatsApp messaging feature.

As this pandemic unfolds, the public’s ability to quickly access reliable information will be of paramount importance. Let’s take a look at whether this latest digital initiative hits the nail on the head.

Read more: 9 ways to talk to people who spread coronavirus myths

What are the features?

The app provides eight distinct features for people seeking information on COVID-19:

• Symptom checker directs users to a diagnostic tool from the Department of Health, that gives advice based on a user’s situation.

• Register isolation is an optional feature that requests certain personal details from users in self-isolation, including access to their location, their name, phone number, age, gender, isolation start date and the number of residents in their household.

• The current status feature provides a visual (map) and text-based breakdown of the number of confirmed cases per state.

• The advice section elaborates on several important topics related to COVID-19, including social distancing, travel, self-isolation, getting tested and accessing financial assistance.

• The resources section offers information targeted at individuals and groups including employers, and industry bodies such as the airline industry, hotel industry, cruise industry and aged care organisations.

• The news and media section displays relevant news articles and videos released by the government.

• The contact section, accessible through the left-hand menu, directs users to helpline numbers.

• Settings allows users to enable push-notifications and read the app’s privacy policy.

Missed opportunities

While the Coronavirus Australia app is certainly a great start, we’ve identified some features that could make it even more effective with future updates.

In terms of content, the app seems to miss an opportunity to provide positive reinforcement during a terrible crisis. For instance, as time progresses it could highlight improvements in the national effort to flatten the curve of the coronavirus.

Read more: How to flatten the curve of coronavirus, a mathematician explains

The app’s tone is neutral, but it could have used more persuasive language and prompts, especially in regards to self-isolation and social distancing measures – which continue to be at the forefront of national discussions. And crucial points such as state-specifc restrictions are currently hidden in the advice section. Important information should be emphasised.

Also, certain language in the app’s text, such as the term “pneumonia”, may not be widely recognised. These terms could be defined using Tooltips. This widget displays text descriptions when users hold their cursor or finger over an object on the screen.

The current status section provides a static visual map that repeats information in the written text. While this map is informative, it cannot be interacted with or zoomed into for more area-specific data.

In terms of design, the app is mainly black and white. Using a range of colours and alerts could help categorise information, and draw the user’s attention to important aspects.

Another simple update would be to include the logos of all the state governments and departments that contributed to the app’s content. While the current federal government logo is enough to establish authenticity, research suggests having endorsements from additional bodies improves credibility.

The app doesn’t support languages other than English. This is significant as news reports suggest thousands of overseas visitors have been trapped in Australia as a result of COVID-19. These people will be as desperate for information as the rest of us.

More considerations

Rather than having all the necessary information available in the Coronavirus Australia app itself, many links redirect users to the government’s Department of Health website. For some, this may seem like the app is simply a landing page for the department’s website.

Also, while the logging of those who are isolating is an excellent feature, it relies on honest self-reporting. This can’t be guaranteed. If authorities wish to analyse or use the collected data to enforce social-isolation measures, then identification such as a drivers license or passport will be needed to prevent fake reporting.

Misleading reports could also be avoided by prompting users to enter the specific address they are self-isolating at (including details such as hotel name and room number), rather than simply using GPS location data as the app currently does.

In terms of potential advances in the app’s features, one option would involve using a user’s location to detect if they are away from home for longer than a specific advised time. The app could then send subtle prompts to remind the user to return to self-isolation.

A summary of the government’s latest restrictions, sorted by states and territories, would also be helpful, as would a section debunking common myths associated with COVID-19.

Read more: Explainer: what is contact tracing and how does it help limit the coronavirus spread?

Despite the small margins for improvement, the Coronavirus Australia app indicates the government has made an effort to provide quick and helpful information at a highly uncertain time. As this pandemic evolves, further incremental updates would certainly enhance its user experience.

– ref. The government’s coronavirus mobile app is a solid effort, but it could do even more – https://theconversation.com/the-governments-coronavirus-mobile-app-is-a-solid-effort-but-it-could-do-even-more-135030

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Thorpe, Professor in Sociology of Sport and Physical Culture, University of Waikato

During New Zealand’s four-week lockdown, all sporting facilities, back-country walking trails and parks are closed to stop the spread of coronavirus and avoid injuries.

But New Zealanders have high participation rates in outdoor sports and for many people, outdoor recreation activities are part of their coping strategy during times of high stress. Connecting with the natural environment is an important contributor to their sense of identity, community and belonging.

My research into the benefits of informal sports and outdoor recreation during war and conflict and following disasters such as the Christchurch earthquakes has clear parallels with the challenges New Zealanders face during lockdown. This work shows the importance of outdoor activities for people’s resilience, as well as the creative strategies they will deploy as they attempt to rebuild a sense of routine in their lives.

Read more: The importance of sports in recovery from trauma: lessons from and for Christchurch

Clearing up mixed messages about outdoor exercise

At the start of the lockdown period, the government’s messages about outdoor activities were mixed. While the prime minister has encouraged people to simply “stay home” and not leave the neighbourhood when exercising, the Ministry of Health COVID-19 website clearly states:

As long as you are not unwell, you can leave your house to:

• access essential services, like buying groceries, or going to a bank or pharmacy
• go to work if you work for an essential service
• go for a walk, or exercise and enjoy nature.

If you do leave your house, you must keep a 2 metre distance from other people at all times. Police may be monitoring people and asking questions of people who are out and about during the Alert Level 4 lockdown to check what they are doing.

The message that people should enjoy outdoor activities within walking distance from their homes highlights the considerable inequities in access to outdoor recreation. Not everyone is lucky enough to live within walking distance from the beach or a bush reserve. Such inequities will be felt over the coming weeks.

The initial confusion has divided outdoor sports communities. An online poll by Surfing New Zealand revealed that 58% of surfers believe surfing should be acceptable with social distancing. Many continue to surf despite a ban on using the ocean for recreational purposes.

Some local communities are taking it upon themselves to police such activities. In the name of community protection, threats of verbal, physical or symbolic violence are being posted across digital forums. Many are reporting those breaching Level 4 restrictions to police.

Read more: How to stay fit and active at home during the coronavirus self-isolation

While the debate continues to rage in some lifestyle sport communities, the majority of New Zealanders have shown they’re committed to broader public health goals over their individual needs and desires, and most have been doing the right thing on social distancing.

Several national and local sport organisations – including Fish and Game, the Mountain Safety Council, Coastguard, and NZ Water Safety – have issued statements strongly discouraging hiking, hunting, mountain biking and other outdoor and ocean pursuits.

By now, the government message has become much more consistent, encouraging people not to drive for anything other than essential needs and not to enter the ocean for recreational activities.

Outdoor recreation boosts recovery and resilience

The benefits of sport and physical activity for physical health and mental well-being are well documented. Research also illustrates the value of sport, physical activity and play for resilience during times of high risk or ongoing stress, and the restorative value for those who have experienced traumatic events.

Evidence further points to the value of outdoor recreation and participation in nature for supporting mental health during times of stress and trauma.

For Christchurch residents, favourite sporting spaces were destroyed during the earthquake of February 22, 2011. Participants in my research identified a range of physical, psychological and social benefits of informal outdoor activities, including weight maintenance, stress and anxiety reduction, higher resilience, and a stronger sense of connectedness and belonging.

According to researchers, a disruption of a person’s attachment to a place, caused by events such as war or natural disaster, can result in identity discontinuity and feelings of loss and mourning.

After the 2011 earthquakes, many Christchurch residents expressed sadness at the loss of heritage buildings and frequently visited places. For some, their deepest feelings of loss where associated with places of active recreation they had used over years of regular participation. In the current lockdown, many New Zealanders will also feel a sense of loss and longing for the sporting and fitness spaces that are so important to them.

Getting back to routines

Research shows it is common for people to try to minimise the effects of a major disruption to everyday routines by trying to restore familiar spaces, routines and timings.

My case studies from the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes and overseas (New Orleans, Gaza, Afghanistan) have revealed that people were creative in engaging in their sporting activities and this helped them cope with uncertainties and higher stress.

Some Christchurch residents re-appropriated earthquake-damaged spaces. Rather than accepting closures, many worked together to find new ways to access safe spaces for participation. In so doing, these new locations became “therapeutic landscapes”, providing much needed psychological relief, escapism and connection to the physical environment.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and New Zealand’s lockdown, the conditions are very different – but the psychological challenges and strategies for resilience may be similar.

Already, we are seeing creative strategies to retain active recreation activities. Some are converting their garages and modifying outdoor spaces for fitness workouts and training circuits. Others are setting up backyard parkour routes for their children.

Following the Christchurch earthquakes, surfers were separated from the ocean for nine months. The current forced time away from the outdoors will likely create renewed appreciation for the special places that give us a sense of identity and connection.

– ref. The challenges and benefits of outdoor recreation during NZ’s coronavirus lockdown – https://theconversation.com/the-challenges-and-benefits-of-outdoor-recreation-during-nzs-coronavirus-lockdown-134892

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hamilton, Visiting Scholar, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The A$130 billion payment will be benefit six million of Australia’s 13 million employees through their employers.

It will ensure each employee kept on in a business that has lost custom gets at least $1,500 per fortnight for six months. But the devil is in the detail.

We asked three experts to pick the package apart.

Steven Hamilton

Visiting Scholar, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

This is a welcome move by the government that will keep many businesses afloat and connected to their employees, which are critical to a speedy recovery. It is commendable that the government reversed course so quickly given rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.

You can’t shut down the economy for months without providing massive support to businesses and workers. At A$130 billion, this package alone is worth 12% of the economy over the next six months. Along with the measures already announced, it takes our fiscal support to a similar scale as recently legislated in the United States.

Targeting only businesses experiencing a revenue loss limits profiteering. Those currently doing well won’t get unneeded support. It applies to all full-time, part-time, and long-term casual employees, as well as the self-employed, and it forces all participating firms to pay workers at least the $1,500 per fortnight subsidy.

Read more: The key to the success of the $130 billion wage subsidy is retrospective paid work

It could have several unintended consequences. It might encourage firms to limit sales to push revenue down below the turnover threshold.

For example, for Qantas the subsidy would be almost $600 million, but to receive it, its revenue will need to fall to 50% below where it was this time last year. That might discourage it from reopening routes, which would slow the recovery.

The scheme will also make it harder for businesses desperately in need of staff (such as supermarkets) to hire new workers from currently struggling businesses.

To do so, they would need to entice workers to move from what might be suddenly better-paid jobs (everyone benefiting from the scheme must receive at least $1,500 per fortngiht) to less well paid ones.

Read more: Modelling suggests going early and going hard will save lives and help the economy

And the choice to subsidise the largest businesses in Australia is questionable.

The major banks are excluded, but every other large company with at least a 50% reduction in revenue is included. Specific, targeted measures for the worst-affected industries might have been a better approach.

David Peetz

Professor of Employment Relations, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University

Dangers often associated with wage subsidy schemes — like wasting money on jobs that would have been created anyway, or substituting one type of worker for another — aren’t much of a concern when a wage subsidy is introduced in an environment in which revenue and employment is diving.

Making the scheme temporary, and restricting it to firms facing a 30% drop in revenue (50% for big businesses) greatly reduces this danger.

That said, the scheme will mainly target workers at or near the minimum wage. That’s because the payment is set close to the minimum wage.

In effect, firms can hire or keep on minimum-wage workers for free.

For workers on average full-time adult earnings, which are about twice the minimum wage, the subsidy is nowhere near as big. Many are still likely to lose their jobs, as we have already seen.

And the scheme introduces strange incentives. The same payment is received for a part-time worker as for a full-time worker on any wage. (The weekend leak that part-timers would be excluded seems to have been a furphy.)

Many part-timers’ wages will be less than the subsidy. But the employer still has to pay them the $750 per week. The payroll is simpler the fewer employees are on it, so the employer might give one part-timer the bulk of the hours and retrench the others.

Read more: New OECD estimates suggest a 22% hit to Australia’s economy

Many part-timers are casuals, though, and they aren’t covered unless they are “long term” casuals (seemingly a contradiction in terms).

This means many casuals can expect to be sacked in favour of workers who can be put into “free” $750 per week jobs.

Meanwhile, the superannuation guarantee no longer applies to wages covered by the jobseeker payment, including wages the employer would have paid anyway. That’s something that could lead to all sorts of legal complexities in the future.

Anthony Forsyth

Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT University

My comments focus on the government’s claim that its JobKeeper payment is more generous and broader than the UK’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Australia’s scheme is definitely broader, with the aim of providing support to up to six million Australians over coming months.

Eligibility will depend on a business suffering at least 30% reduced turnover or 50% for businesses with more than $1 billion turnover.

It enables employees to receive income support payments where they have been stood down, or already made redundant where the business wants to rehire the employee with Jobkeeper payment support. In the UK, only “furloughed” employees (stood down) are eligible for payments.

Read more: Coronavirus: how UK job retention plan borrows from collectivist Europe

But the UK scheme provides payments to those on “zero hours contracts” (akin to casuals). Where hours have varied, payments are based on last year’s average.

However in Australia, casuals can only claim Jobkeeper payment where they have been employed for at least 12 months. Many casual workers will be ineligible given the high turnover in hard-hit sectors such as accommodation, cafés and food services.

Casual teaching contracts in universities are often for less than a year.

As for generosity, Australia’s Jobkeeper payment of around A$3,000 per month is far lower than the UK’s, which is £2,500 per month, worth more than A$5,000.

Australia’s payment is 70% of the median wage. The government’s claim that employees in retail and hospitality will get the median wage in those industries simply reinforces their low-paid status to begin with.

The government specifically mentioned that New Zealanders working in Australia would be able to access the JobKeeper payment along with some other categories of visa holders.

Read more: Delivery workers are now essential. They deserve the rights of other employees

But the Victorian Trades Hall’s Migrant Workers Centre believes this will leave 1.1 million temporary migrant workers outside the scheme and needing assistance.

Another gap is the hundreds of thousands of workers in the gig economy.

We are relying more than ever on food delivery riders and drivers. Many are incorrectly categorised as self-employed contractors. JobKeeper will cover self-employed individuals but they must be able to show at least 30% decline in their turnover.

Most gig workers will not have the business systems set up to demonstrate this, as they are in reality employees who have had supposed “contractor” status imposed on them by the platforms they provide services for.

– ref. Australia’s $130 billion JobKeeper payment: what the experts think – https://theconversation.com/australias-130-billion-jobkeeper-payment-what-the-experts-think-135043

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The secret sauce in the government’s A$130 billion JobKeeper payment is that it will be retrospective, in the best possible way.

It’ll not only go to employers who have suffered losses and had employees on their books tonight, March 30, but to employers who have suffered losses and had workers on their books as far back as March 1.

This means that employers who have sacked (“let go”) of workers at any time in the past month can travel back in time, pay them as if they hadn’t been sacked, and nab the A$1,500 per employee per fortnight payment.

As the official fact sheet puts it, “the JobKeeper Payment will support employers to maintain their connection to their employees”.

This retrospective connection will add new meaning to the term “revision” when the March unemployment numbers are released.

Not only will the March numbers be liable to being revised a month later as is normal in the light of extra information, but many Australians who were unemployed in March will retrospectively turn out not to have been unemployed.

They will have been retrospectively in paid work.

Read more: Modelling suggests going early and going hard will save lives and help the economy

(And if they have applied for the Centrelink payment of Newstart plus $550 per fortnight, they’ll have to un-apply to avoid what the prime minister referred to as “double counting” rather than the more loaded “double dipping”.)

It gets better. If you have been part-time, or for some other reason on less than $1,500 per fortnight, “your employer must pay you, at a minimum, $1,500 per fortnight, before tax”.

This means you’ll get a pay rise, for the six months the scheme lasts.

If you’ve been let go and then retrospectively un-sacked, you are also guaranteed to get at least $1,500 per fortnight, which in that case might be less than you were being paid, but will be more than the $1,115 you would have got on Newstart (which has been renamed JobSeeker Payment).

If you remain employed, and are on more than $1,500 per fortnight, the employer will have to pay you your full regular wage. Employers won’t be able to cut it to $1,500 per fortnight.

Read more: Which jobs are most at risk from the coronavirus shutdown? 

To get it, most employers will have to have suffered a 30% decline in their turnover relative to a comparable period a year ago. Big employers (turnover of $1 billion or more) will have to have suffered a 50% decline. Big banks won’t be eligible.

Self-employed Australians will also be eligible where they have suffered or expect to suffer a 30% decline in turnover. Among these will be musicians and performers out of work because large gatherings have been cancelled.

Half the Australian workforce

The payment isn’t perfect. It will only be paid in respect of wages from March 30, and the money won’t be handed over until the start of May – the Tax Office systems can’t work any faster – but it will provide more support than almost anyone expected.

It’s scope is apparent when you consider the size of Australia’s workforce.

Before the coronavirus hit in February, 13 million of Australia’s 25 million residents were in jobs. This payment will go to six million of them.

Read more: Coronavirus supplement: your guide to the Australian payments that will go to the extra million on welfare

Without putting too fine a point on it, for the next six months, the government will be the paymaster to almost half the Australian workforce.

Announcing the payment, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said unprecedented times called for unprecedented action. He said the payment was more generous than New Zealand’s, broader than Britain’s, and more comprehensive than Canada’s, claims about which there is dispute.

But for Australia, it is completely without precedent.

– ref. The key to the success of the $130 billion wage subsidy is retrospective paid work – https://theconversation.com/the-key-to-the-success-of-the-130-billion-wage-subsidy-is-retrospective-paid-work-135042

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michaela Pascoe, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Exercise and Mental Health, Victoria University

Medicare-subsidised psychology and psychiatry sessions, as well as GP visits, can now take place via phone and video calls – if clinicians agree not to charge patients out-of-pocket costs for the consult.

The changes are part of a A$1.1 billion coronavirus health funding package, announced yesterday, which includes A$74 million for mental health support services, including Kids Helpline, Beyond Blue and Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia.

Read more: All Australians will be able to access telehealth under new $1.1 billion coronavirus program

Before the pandemic, one in five Australians experienced mental ill-health every year.

But the uncertainty and instability around coronavirus has the potential to exacerbate existing anxiety and depression and contribute to the onset of new mental health problems.

So what are some of the signs your mental health might be declining during the pandemic? And what can you do about it?

What are the signs of anxiety and depression?

Mental illness results in physical changes as well changes in thinking, feelings and behaviours.

Anxiety

Common physical signs for anxiety include increased heartbeat or butterflies in the stomach.

People might think they’re unable to cope, and may feel scared, restless, or stressed out.

Behavioural signs might include avoiding people or withdrawing, or being agitated, aggressive or using substances.

Even in the absence of a mental illness, many people will experience some of these symptoms during the pandemic.

Depression

Common physical changes for depression might be changes in sleep, appetite or energy.

Emotional effects might include changes in mood, motivation or enjoyment. People might have difficulty concentrating, or experience hopeless or critical thoughts, such as “nothing will get better.”

Behavioural signs might include withdrawing from people or activities, substance use or poorer performance at work or school.

Again, many people who don’t have clinical depression will experience some of these symptoms during the pandemic. You might be feeling stressed, worried, fearful, or ruminate over negative thoughts.

These thoughts and feelings can be difficult to manage, but are normal and common in the short term. But if symptoms last consistently for more than a couple of weeks, it’s important to get help.

Read more: Coronavirus is stressful. Here are some ways to cope with the anxiety

What steps can you take to improve your mental health?

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine highlights six areas for us to invest in to promote or improve our mental health: sleep, nutrition, social connectedness, physical activity/exercise, stress management and avoiding risky substance use.

1. Sleep

Lack of sleep, or poor quality sleep, can contribute to poorer mental health.

Keeping to your usual sleep routine even when your daily life has been disrupted is helpful. Aim to get seven to nine hours of sleep a night.

2. Nutrition

The food we eat can have a direct impact on our mental health. Try to eat a well-balanced diet rich in vegetables and nutrients.

Where possible, avoid processed food, and those high in saturated fat and refined carbohydrates, which have been linked to poorer mental health.

3. Social connectedness

Being connected to others is important for our mental and physical well-being and can protect against anxiety and depression.

Despite the physical barriers, it’s important to find alternate ways to maintain your connections with family, friends and the community during this difficult time.

Read more: Can’t sleep and feeling anxious about coronavirus? You’re not alone

4. Exercise

Physical activity decreases anxiety, stress and depression and can be used as part of a treatment plan for people with mental illness.

Regular exercise also improves the function of your immune system and decreases inflammation.

You might need to find different ways of exercising, such as running, walking or tuning into an online class, but try to make physical activity an enjoyable and rewarding part of your daily routine while at home.

Scheduling physical activity at the end of your “work day” can help to separate work from your personal life when working from home.

Read more: How to stay fit and active at home during the coronavirus self-isolation

5. Stress management

It’s important to be able to recognise when you’re stressed. You might have feelings of panic, a racing heart or butterflies in the stomach, for example. And then find ways to reduce this stress.

Mindfulness practices such as meditation, for example, can decrease stress and improve mental health. There are a number of breathing exercises that can also help to manage stress.

Spending time outdoors has also been shown to reduce stress. So consider spending time in your backyard, on your balcony or deck, or if possible, take a greener route when accessing essential services.

Talking about your experiences and concerns with a trusted person can also protect your mental health.

6. Avoiding risky substance use

While it might be tempting to reach for alcohol or other drugs while you’re self-isolating, keep in mind they can trigger mental health problems, or make them worse.

The draft alcohol guidelines recommend Australians drink no more than ten standard drinks a week, and no more than four a day.

Read more: Cap your alcohol at 10 drinks a week: new draft guidelines

People who drink more than four standard drinks per day experience more psychological distress than those who do not.

Where to get help

A good place to start is with Beyond Blue, which offers online discussion forums.

If you feel you need additional support, you can make an appointment with your GP and discuss getting a referral to a psychologist or psychiatrist, as well as telehealth and bulk billing options.

If you need immediate support and are in crisis, go to the emergency department of your local hospital, contact your local crisis assessment and treatment team (CATT) or psychiatric emergency team (PET), or call 000.

Other agencies that can help in a crisis are:

• Lifeline telephone counselling, 13 11 14 (24 hours)
• Suicide Call Back Service, 1300 659 467 (24 hours)
• Kids Helpline, 1800 55 1800 (24 hours).

– ref. Is your mental health deteriorating during the coronavirus pandemic? Here’s what to look out for – https://theconversation.com/is-your-mental-health-deteriorating-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-heres-what-to-look-out-for-134827

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Sedger, Senior Lecturer, Head of the Viruses and Cytokine Biology group in the School of Life Science, University of Technology Sydney

While many scientists are working on developing a coronavirus vaccine, others are busy testing antiviral drugs.

Vaccines are generally only effective when administered prior to infection, but antiviral agents are important because they can treat people who already have COVID-19.

Here’s an overview of antiviral drugs scientists are investigating for coronavirus.

Read more: How does coronavirus kill?

Targeting the copy cats

How do antiviral drugs work? First, it’s important to understand the genome of animals and plants is composed of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), but viral genomes can also be comprised of ribonucleic acid (RNA). This is the case for SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus – the virus that causes COVID-19.

In order to replicate, an RNA virus needs to make more copies of its RNA genome. This means antiviral drugs which block the copying of RNA genomes can potentially help treat COVID-19 patients. These drugs are known as RNA-polymerase inhibitors.

Read more: Here’s why the WHO says a coronavirus vaccine is 18 months away

These types of drugs have successfully cured people of chronic hepatitis C – another RNA virus infection.

But not all viral RNA polymerases are the same, so the drugs that work for hepatitis C virus will not necessarily work for human coronaviruses.

Favilavir is an RNA polymerase inhibitor drug scientists are currently trialling against coronavirus.

Stopping the virus in its tracks

Another successful antiviral drug strategy is to use non-functional “analogues”, or inauthentic copies of the basic building blocks of the viral RNA genome. The presence of these analogues in the viral genome blocks the viral polymerase, meaning the virus cannot make another copy of its RNA. Acyclovir, ribavirin and azidothymidine (AZT) are examples of these drugs.

Unfortunately, this coronavirus is a bit tricky, because it “proofreads” the authenticity of its RNA genome. As such, it identifies the analogues as being inauthentic and removes them. This stops certain antiviral drugs like ribavirin from being effective.

Fortunately, the coronavirus’ proofreading powers don’t block a similar drug, remdesivir. So remdesivir potently halts coronavirus replication and represents a promising drug option for COVID-19 patients.

Remdesivir is also effective against other RNA viruses including Ebola virus and the coronaviruses SARS and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS).

Scientists are currently assessing remdesivir in clinical trials in the United States and China. Time will tell if remdesivir is effective for COVID-19 patients. But doctors are already considering how the drug is best administered for optimal results and whether it should be used in combination with other drugs or as a single agent.

Read more: COVID-19 treatment might already exist in old drugs – we’re using pieces of the coronavirus itself to find them

Other proven antiviral drugs

Many RNA viruses produce a single “multi-protein” that’s later broken down into individual proteins via enzymes called “proteases”. Any molecules that inhibit these proteases have potential as antiviral drugs. Viral protease inhibitor drugs have been highly effective in treating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus.

Lopinavir and ritonavir are a combination protease-inhibitor drug (Kaletra) that can inhibit coronaviruses in human cells. Kaletra has already been used to treat a patient with COVID-19 in South Korea, but a larger trial found its effects were unconvincing. The reasons for these discrepancies are currently unclear and more research is obviously needed.

With any antiviral drug, the sooner it’s administered once a patient is infected, the better the outcome. This is because viruses replicate quickly, producing tens to hundreds of new infectious viruses.

Weathering the cytokine storm

In respiratory infections caused by influenza or SARS-CoV-2 viruses, clinically serious infection involves what’s called a “cytokine storm”. Here, a strong immune response results in the production of high levels of inflammatory mediators: cytokines and chemokines.

These molecules recruit inflammatory cells to the site of the virus infection, for example, the lungs of patients with COVID-19. These cytokines and cells then fight the virus infection, but their presence also partly obstructs the air sacs where oxygen exchange occurs.

Researchers are now considering add-on therapies that partly limit the inflammatory response by blocking the effects of certain cytokines and chemokines. These add-on therapies include antibody-based drugs, such as tocilizumab that blocks the interleukin-6 cytokine receptor or leronlimab that blocks the chemokine receptor CCR5. When cytokine receptors and chemokine receptors are blocked then it matters less that there are high levels of cytokines or chemokines, because their effects are significantly minimised.

The good news is antibody-based drugs have minimal side effects, and have proved effective for many human chronic inflammatory diseases. Expanding these drugs for use in COVID-19 patients is therefore an attractive possibility. Although this would require caution for careful dosing, and these drugs would need to be co-administered together with an antiviral drug.

Anti-malarial drugs

Chloroquine, a well-known anti-malarial drug, has also gained attention. One study tested it together with a broad-spectrum antibiotic azithromycin. While some COVID-19 patients in this small study recovered, other patients died (despite chloroquine treatment), and some patients ceased treatment for a variety of reasons – including the severity of their symptoms.

Nevertheless, people are interested in how chloroquine and azithromycin might work for coronavirus. Chloroquine exhibits antiviral activity and is currently used to treat autoimmune diseases because it also has anti-inflammatory properties. Azithromycin is an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, but it, too, exhibits antiviral activity, including against rhinovirus that causes the common cold. Chloroquine might need to be given early after infection to be most effective against coronavirus.

Read more: Could chloroquine treat coronavirus? 5 questions answered about a promising, problematic and unproven use for an antimalarial drug

The World Health Organisation has announced a global clinical trial program testing possible COVID-19 treatments, including remdesivir, lopinavir/ritonavir, chloroquine, and certain antiviral cytokines.

The escalating number of coronavirus patients worldwide means alongside vaccine development, the focus must remain squarely on finding effective antiviral drugs that can treat those already seriously ill from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

– ref. In the fight against coronavirus, antivirals are as important as a vaccine. Here’s where the science is up to – https://theconversation.com/in-the-fight-against-coronavirus-antivirals-are-as-important-as-a-vaccine-heres-where-the-science-is-up-to-133926

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

The Morrison government will provide a flat $1,500 a fortnight JobKeeper payment per employee for businesses to retain or rehire nearly six million workers, in a massive $130 billion six-month wage subsidy scheme to limit the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus.

Describing the initiative as “unprecedented action” for “unprecedented times”, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said this was a “uniquely Australian” solution to keep enterprises and their workers connected through to “the other side” of the crisis.

He said no Australian government had never made such a decision “and I hope and pray they never have to again.”

The payment, made through the tax system, applies for workers of large, medium and small enterprises, and not-for-profits. It will start flowing from May 1, but will be backdated to March 30.

Workers who have already lost their jobs will be eligible if they were on the enterprise’s books on March 1.

It will be a flat rate for all those eligible, who include full-time, part-time, and casual workers (provided they have been on with their employer for a year). Self-employed individuals will also be eligible.

The payment is about 70% of the national median wage. For workers in the accommodation, hospitality and retail sectors – sectors hardest hit by the crisis – it will equate to a full median replacement wage.

To be eligible, enterprises with an annual turnover of less than $1 billion must have lost at least 30% of their revenue after March 1 over a minimum of a month-long period.

For businesses with turnovers of more than $1 billion the reduction in revenue has to be at least 50%.

Where workers have already lost their jobs, they can be rehired by their employer, provided they were attached to the enterprise on March 1.

This will mean some people who have applied for a Centrelink payment will reconnect with their firm and will move to the JobKeeper payment.

Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced the scheme at 4 pm and almost 8000 businesses had registered by 5 pm.

The $1,500 a fortnight will be paid whether the employee is working [in the case of an enterprise still operating] or not [if the business is not trading].

The JobKeeper payment would mean that where a business continue operating, the employer would have first $1,500 a fortnight of the worker’s wage subsidised by the government.

The $130 billion JobKeeper scheme is the third tranche of emergency assistance the government has unveiled since March 12.

“This is about keeping the connection between the employer and the employee and keeping people in their jobs even though the business they work for may go into hibernation and close down for six months,” Morrison said.

“We will give millions of eligible businesses and their workers a lifeline to not only get through this crisis, but bounce back together on the other side,” he said.

The latest initiative brings the total support made available in the crisis $320 billion, including $95 billion assistance from the Reserve Bank. The total amounts to the equivalent of 16.4% of GDP.

Frydenberg said Australia was “about the go through one of the toughest times in its history”. The government had doubled the welfare safety net and now had gone even further, he said.

The government is also temporarily liberalising access to income support. The JobSeeker payment has been subject to a partner income test of about $48,000. This is being temporarily relaxed so an eligible person can receive the JobSeeker payment and the associated new Coronavirus supplement of $550 a fortnight provided their partner earns less than $79,762 a year

In other coronavirus developments on Monday, Victoria announced it had moved to “stage 3” of the response to the crisis, with the two-person restriction on gatherings to become legally enforceable.

The two-person rule was announced by Morrison on Sunday but it was left up to the states to decide whether to make it enforceable.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said: “If you are having friends over for dinner or friends over for drinks that are not members of your household, then you are breaking the law”.

“You face an on-the-spot fine of more than $1,600”.

NSW is also announced it will enforce the rule.

Queensland, which has closed its border, is toughening border controls.

Federal Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly flagged modelling the government is using in its response will be made available later this week. Morrison has faced pressure for the modelling’s release.

Kelly told a news conference he had asked his staff “to organise a meeting later this week where the modelling and the epidemiology and the public health response will be unlocked, and people will be able to ask questions about that.

“I think we have been quite open with components of the modelling, but I respect that there is a large number of ways that modelling can be done, and so we need to be more transparent, and we will be.”

– ref. $1500 a fortnight JobKeeper wage subsidy in massive $130 billion program – https://theconversation.com/1500-a-fortnight-jobkeeper-wage-subsidy-in-massive-130-billion-program-135049

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Irving, Adjunct Professor, University of Technology Sydney

Blood is like milk, not toilet paper. You can’t just buy a lot of it and save it for later – you need to have a regular, fresh supply for patients who need it.

At the moment, fewer Australians are donating blood than usual. To a degree, we can understand why.

But blood donation is an essential health service, even during the coronavirus pandemic.

Read more: How coronavirus is upsetting the blood supply chain

Donor centres have implemented new measures to ensure the safety of staff, donors and patients receiving transfusions during this time.

If you’re healthy, there’s a good chance you’ll be eligible to donate.

Why do we need more donors now?

We need blood and plasma products every day to support cancer patients, new mums and babies, people with immune deficiencies or blood diseases, and people who need surgery or have suffered trauma.

We’re currently seeing an increase in cancellations and people rescheduling their appointments. Around 900 donors are cancelling appointments each day, up from 800 earlier this month.

There are a number of reasons fewer people are giving blood than usual.

At the start of 2020, we saw a strong response from donors who came forward as a way to help with the nation’s bushfire response. We’ve seen this response to major events before and we know it can affect the supply chain down the track. Because these donors need to wait 12 weeks before they can donate blood again, there are fewer people available to give blood right now.

Read more: Coronavirus: are people with blood group A really at higher risk of catching COVID-19?

Relating to coronavirus specifically, as people follow advice to stay home except for essential activities, they may be less inclined to donate blood.

And if the virus spreads to more people, fewer people may be eligible to donate because of new restrictions to keep our patients, staff, and donor centres safe.

Based on our forecasts for demand from Australian health providers, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood needs an additional 7,000 donors to make appointments to donate blood through to Easter Monday to prevent a shortage.

Who can donate?

Australia currently has around 500,000 blood donors, but millions of others may be eligible to donate.

Normally, if you’re aged between 18 and 76, weigh over 50kg and are healthy and well, you may be eligible. However, in keeping with government advice we encourage those aged 70 and over to postpone their donation during this period. There are other eligibility criteria which remain in place to ensure our patients and donors are safe from the risks we already understand.

Notably, there’s no evidence coronavirus or other respiratory viruses can be transmitted by blood transfusion.

But to be on the safe side, Lifeblood’s strict screening process means people who are unwell can’t donate.

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

During the pandemic, Lifeblood has introduced new rules to protect the safety of staff, donors and patients, in line with recent recommendations from the World Health Organisation:

• anyone who has returned from overseas is unable to donate for 28 days after their return

• people who have been in close contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 will have to wait 28 days before donating

• people who have been confirmed as having COVID-19 will not be able to donate until they are cleared by their doctor plus undergo an additional recovery period.

• people with mild cold-like symptoms will be unable to donate until they are fully recovered.

Am I allowed to travel to a donor centre, and is it safe?

As many states in Australia have limited non-essential activities, it’s important to understand blood and plasma donation is vital, and travel and venue restrictions don’t prevent people from giving blood.

Donor centres are strictly regulated spaces, monitored regularly by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. There’s a specific code that sets out requirements for staff, premises, collection procedures, quality control and testing, among other things.

Staff adhere to strict sanitation protocols including wearing gloves, wiping down surfaces after every donation and using single use sterile collection kits for every donation.

In addition to the usual hygiene practices and new restrictions to who can donate, Lifeblood is implementing further measures to help protect donors and staff, including:

• increased disinfecting of frequently used items

• providing additional hand sanitiser for donors to use

• additional daily disinfection of all areas in our centres including the donation floor, refreshment areas, reception and more

• restricting non-donating visitors to our centres (so only staff and donors are allowed in)

• providing public health information consistent with the latest official coronavirus advice in every centre

• implementing social distancing in our centres wherever possible, ensuring all donors are at least 1.5 metres away from all other donors.

Read more: Australia’s ethnic face is changing, and so are our blood types

We’re appealing to anyone who has an appointment booked and who feels well to keep it.

If you’re a blood donor and haven’t made your next appointment, you can help by booking one in the next few weeks.

If you’re a blood donor who gave more than month ago, you may be able to donate plasma now.

And if you’ve never donated before, now is a great time to become a donor and help us maintain the nation’s blood supplies.

You can make an appointment online or call 13 14 95.

– ref. In the time of coronavirus, donating blood is more essential than ever – https://theconversation.com/in-the-time-of-coronavirus-donating-blood-is-more-essential-than-ever-134541

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mahmoud Elkhodr, Lecturer in Information and Communication Technologies, CQUniversity Australia

Australian universities have responded in a number of ways to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. These include delaying enrolments, moving semester breaks forward, abolishing late payment fees and moving courses online.

Engaging students in online content is easier said than done. Research shows results can improve with the use of techniques such as shortening content and making it more focused, and establishing rapport between the lecturer and students.

Students’ views on online learning can be mixed. Some research shows they can find online simulations such as in physics and engineering to be efficient, but say completing many online modules takes too long.

If you’ve found yourself having to study your university course online, here are some ways to ensure you’re ready for your virtual experience.

1. Laptop and software

It goes without saying that, to learn online, you need a laptop or a desktop PC with a reliable internet connection. You will need this to participate in the virtual class, for writing essays and other assignments, and navigating your university’s learning management system – such as Moodle or Blackboard.

Connecting your phone’s earphones to your computer is perhaps the cheapest alternative to a speaker and microphone.

You might see advertisements for a webcam with a fancy 4K definition. While this will provide a high quality video, you are unlikely to need this to participate in your online class. A high resolution camera uses a lot of data and requires a high speed internet connection.

So it’s advisable to use a webcam with no more than 720p resolution to reduce the amount of bandwidth you use (to use less of your data). Most laptops’ webcams have a resolution of 720p.

You can check the resolution of your webcam here.

If you do not have access to a computer at home, you can check with your university library about borrowing a laptop. Many universities loan laptops as part of their student services. But this may be as hard as getting your hands on a roll of a toilet paper. So put your request in early.

Read more: Universities need to train lecturers in online delivery, or they risk students dropping out

If you need access to a specific software, such as the Microsoft Office package, you should also check with your university library if it provides a free login for students to use the software. All Australian university and school students have free access to the Microsoft Office package, but there may be others your university has signed up to.

2. Make sure you know how much data you’re using

Most Australian universities are running their virtual classes via Zoom video conferencing software. By now you would have received instructions on how to download and set up your Zoom account.

But it’s important to know how much data you will need and whether your internet speed is enough.

A typical one hour 720p video call would use almost 540MB of data download (data received) and the same for upload (data you sent). This means, on average, total data use per hour may be more than 1GB.

Read more: Say what? How to improve virtual catch-ups, book groups and wine nights

Netflix, in comparison, uses 1GB per hour for standard definition, and 3GB per hour for HD streaming.

Assuming you are enrolled in four units this semester, you may need to attend up to eight hours of lectures and eight hours of tutorials per week. This brings your consumption to a rough average of 16GB per week. You will also need to account for browsing and other general use.

Below are some extra tips for improving the quality of your video call.

3. Set yourself up with a university VPN

Many universities provide staff and students with a Virtual Private Network (VPN), to access the university’s services when off campus.

If you are overseas, this may be essential. A VPN gives students and staff secure access to the university network. When you install the university VPN client on your computer, it will create a kind of a secure, private “tunnel” so the data exchanged between your computer and the university network won’t be seen by other internet users.

Read more: Explainer: what is a virtual private network (VPN)?

Some universities have set up a VPN specifically to help students in China impacted by the COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Regardless of your location, accessing university services (e-learnning platform such as Moodle, Blackboard, special software and journals) via VPN will simplify many of the security and access control policies enforced by your university such as dual and two- factor authentication.

Accessing the university library website via VPN will also give you free access to many paid research databases. As with any networking resource, if multiple students are accessing it at the same time, there is a chance of congestion.

For information on how to set up a VPN connection on your computer, consult your university library or IT support department.

4. Abide by some basic etiquette rules

A final point to remember is though you are attending classes from home, this doesn’t mean you should behave as if at home. An online classroom is a professional environment.

There are some basic etiquette rules for online learning, which include:

• be on time for class. Try to login five minutes before so you can make sure your audio, video and other features are set up

• wear the kind of clothes you would wear to class. Just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean you can be in bed while Zooming in

• mute your microphone when others are speaking

• try to reduce your movements when your camera is turned on

• don’t assume people will remember your name and introduce yourself when you speak

• don’t shout over, or interrupt, others who are speaking.

– ref. Studying a uni course online? Here are 4 tips to get yourself tech ready – https://theconversation.com/studying-a-uni-course-online-here-are-4-tips-to-get-yourself-tech-ready-134549