Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trevor Kilpatrick, Professor, Neurologist and Clinical Director, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health

Scientists are becoming more and more concerned with the emergence of a syndrome termed “long COVID”, where a significant percentage of sufferers of COVID-19 experience long-lasting symptoms.

Studies suggest symptoms remain for approximately 5–24% of confirmed COVID cases, at least three to four months after infection.

The risk of long COVID is no longer thought to be directly linked with either age or the initial severity of the COVID illness. So younger people, and people with initially mild COVID, can still develop long-COVID symptoms.

Some long-COVID symptoms begin quickly and persist, whereas others appear well after the initial infection has passed.

Symptoms include extreme fatigue and ongoing breathing complications.

What particularly concerns us as neuroscientists is that many long COVID sufferers report difficulties with attention and planning — known as “brain fog”.

So how does COVID affect the brain? Here’s what we know so far.

How does the virus get to our brains?

There’s evidence connecting respiratory viruses, including influenza, with brain dysfunction. In records of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, reports abound of dementia, cognitive decline, and difficulties with movement and sleep.

Evidence from the SARS outbreak in 2002 and the MERS outbreak in 2012 suggest these infections caused roughly 15-20% of recovered people to experience depression, anxiety, memory difficulties and fatigue.

There’s no conclusive evidence the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID, can penetrate the blood brain barrier, which usually protects the brain from large and dangerous blood-borne molecules entering from the bloodstream.

But there’s data suggesting it may “hitchhike” into the brain by way of nerves that connect our noses to our brains.

Researchers suspect this because in many infected adults, the genetic material of the virus was found in the part of the nose that initiates the process of smell — coinciding with the loss of smell experienced by people with COVID.

How does COVID damage the brain?

These nasal sensory cells connect to an area of the brain known as the “limbic system”, which is involved in emotion, learning and memory.

In a UK-based study released as a pre-print online in June, researchers compared brain images taken of people before and after exposure to COVID. They showed parts of the limbic system had decreased in size compared to people not infected. This could signal a future vulnerability to brain diseases and may play a role in the emergence of long-COVID symptoms.

COVID could also indirectly affect the brain. The virus can damage blood vessels and cause either bleeding or blockages resulting in the disruption of blood, oxygen, or nutrient supply to the brain, particularly to areas responsible for problem solving.

The virus also activates the immune system, and in some people, this triggers the production of toxic molecules which can reduce brain function.

Although research on this is still emerging, the effects of COVID on nerves that control gut function should also be considered. This may impact digestion and the health and composition of gut bacteria, which are known to influence the function of the brain.

The virus could also compromise the function of the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland, often known as the “master gland”, regulates hormone production. This includes cortisol, which governs our response to stress. When cortisol is deficient, this may contribute to long-term fatigue.

This was a recognised phenomenon in patients who were diagnosed with SARS, and in a disturbing parallel with COVID, people’s symptoms continued for up to one year after infection.

Given the already significant contribution of brain disorders to the global burden of disability, the potential impact of long COVID on public health is enormous.

There are major unanswered questions about long COVID which require investigating, including how the disease takes hold, what the risk factors might be and the range of outcomes, as well as the best way to treat it.

It’s crucial we begin to understand what causes the wide variation in symptoms. This could be many factors, including the viral strain, severity of the infection, the effect of pre-existing disease, age and vaccination status, or even the physical and psychological supports provided from the start of the disease.

While there are many questions about long COVID, there’s certainty about one thing: we need to continue doing everything we can to prevent escalating COVID cases, including getting vaccinated as soon as you’re eligible.

The Florey Institute’s Sarah Handcock was also a co-author of this article.

Steven Petrou is an equity holder and paid consultant of Praxis Precision Medicine, though the company is not currently doing any work that relates to COVID-19. He receives funding from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund and Praxis Precision Medicines.

Trevor Kilpatrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How does COVID affect the brain? Two neuroscientists explain – https://theconversation.com/how-does-covid-affect-the-brain-two-neuroscientists-explain-164857

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Harvey, Curator of Arachnology at the Western Australian Museum, Adjunct Professor, The University of Western Australia

After a century of scientific confusion, we can now officially add five new species to Australia’s long list of trapdoor spiders — secretive, burrowing relatives of tarantulas.

It all started in 1918, when a species known as Euoplos variabilis, was first described. Since then, this species has been considered widespread throughout south-eastern Queensland.

However, in new research, fellow arachnologists from the Queensland Museum studied the physical appearance and DNA of these trapdoor spiders. They revealed this “widespread” species is actually several.

Many trapdoor spider species are short-range endemics, meaning they only occur in one small area. This makes them especially vulnerable to threats such as habitat destruction and degradation, which is why the discovery and description of these new species from Queensland is so important — they can now be protected from future threats.

Meet Australia’s trapdoor spiders

To many people, Australia’s spider diversity is a source of fear. To arachnologists like myself, it’s a goldmine.

Weird and wonderful new species are everywhere. While new discoveries are relatively common, it’s likely most Australian spider species are still yet to be named by science.

Trapdoor spiders live in burrows that usually have a hinged door at the entrance that the spider constructs using silk, soil or other material from the surrounding area. Their burrows can be camouflaged, but to a trained eye they’re easily found on the soil embankments beside walking tracks in eastern Australian rainforests.

In the past few years, I’ve been part of a team studying the spiny trapdoor spiders — a group of relatively large (up to about seven centimetres long, including legs) but highly secretive spiders found throughout Australia. They belong to an ancient group called the Mygalomorphae that, alongside tarantulas, includes the infamous Australian funnel-web spiders.

Like other trapdoor spiders, adult male and female spiny trapdoor spiders look shockingly different. When males reach adulthood, their physical appearance changes: their legs get longer and thinner, and their first appendages (called “pedipalps”) develop into structures used for mating. In contrast, adult females remain short-legged and robust.

Male trapdoor spiders undergo this dramatic change because as adults they must leave their burrow and search for females to breed.

Their long legs presumably help them run faster and further in search of females, and also allow them to keep the vulnerable parts of their body out of harm’s way once they meet the (usually larger) female, who isn’t always happy to see them.

The mystery of the trapdoor spider from Mount Tamborine

This striking differences in appearance between male and female spiny trapdoor spiders (“sexual dimorphism”) was at the heart of the mystery regarding the true identity of Euoplos variabilis.

When the species was first described in 1918, it was based only on female spiders, which were red-brown, large and lived in the rainforest of Mount Tamborine, just south of Brisbane.

In 1985, a male spider, also from Mount Tamborine, was finally linked to the original females. Matching male and female trapdoor spiders of the same species can be difficult because they look so different.

This all changed when the Queensland Museum team began researching the spiny trapdoor spiders of eastern Australia in 2015. When they looked in the museum’s natural history collection, it seemed like males of the Mount Tamborine trapdoor spider were widespread, spanning Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast.

Read more:
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But strangely, they found females from different locations looked different.

While females from the Mount Tamborine rainforest were large and red-brown, those from the lowlands of north Brisbane were small and tan. And in the rainforest of the D’Aguilar Range, north of Brisbane, the females were even bigger, with a bright orange carapace and red legs.

Could these really all be the same species?

This mystery was solved in two steps

First, in 2018, the museum’s arachnologists discovered the seemingly widespread males were actually members of a completely different group of trapdoor spiders, which also occurs in eastern Australia. In other words, there had been a male/female mismatch!

Then, by collecting fresh trapdoor spiders around south-east Queensland and studying their DNA, they discovered the Mount Tamborine trapdoor spider actually doesn’t occur in Brisbane at all. In fact, it’s found only in the mountain ranges bordering New South Wales, with Mount Tamborine being its the most northerly location.

Surprisingly, the female spiders found in Brisbane, the D’Aguilar range, and in various other areas, turned out to be several completely different species, new to science.

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These species can be distinguished by subtle differences in size and colour, and by differences in their DNA. The different species seem to be adapted to different habitats, at different elevations.

So, alongside Euoplos variabilis, the original Mount Tamborine trapdoor spider, the new confirmed species are:

• Euoplos raveni and Euoplos schmidti, both from the lowland forests of the Brisbane Valley, south of the Brisbane River

• Euoplos regalis from the upland rainforest of the D’Aguilar Range

• Euoplos jayneae from the the lowland forests of the Sunshine Coast hinterlands

• Euoplos booloumba from the upland rainforest of the Conondales Range

These five new species put the total number of known spiny trapdoor spider species to 258.

What happens now?

And so, the mystery was solved. Another small fraction of Australia’s beautiful biodiversity is known to science and can be preserved. But the story isn’t over just yet.

To properly conserve these species, we need to understand more about how they live. This is why the research team and I are undertaking a long-term study on one of these new species, Euoplos grandis from the Darling Downs. We hope to learn the intricacies of their lives and to track whether populations are declining from threats such as habitat destruction.

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We’re also continuing our mission to discover and describe new species of trapdoor spider, not just from Queensland, but from all around Australia.

The story of the Mount Tamborine trapdoor spider exemplifies the type of detective work Australian scientists undertake on all types of animal groups. But when it comes to invertebrates, we’ve barely scratched the surface, with new species of bugs, spiders, worms and more waiting to be discovered.

Working on discovering these invertebrates comes with a sense of urgency. These species need a name and formal protection, before it’s too late.

Jeremy Wilson and Michael Rix from Queensland Museum were co-authors on this article

Mark Harvey has received ARC and ABRS grants dealing with trapdoor spiders.

– ref. Here are 5 new species of Australian trapdoor spider. It took scientists a century to tell them apart – https://theconversation.com/here-are-5-new-species-of-australian-trapdoor-spider-it-took-scientists-a-century-to-tell-them-apart-165327

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Healey, PhD Student, School of Education, Curtin University

Fiction authors are pretty good at writing sentences with striking images, worded just the right way.

We might suppose the images are striking because the author has a striking imagination. But the words seem just right because the author also has a large repertoire of grammar.

Read more:
Writing needs to be taught and practised. Australian schools are dropping the focus too early

As writing teachers, we often neglect one of these skills in favour of the other. If we inspire students to write creatively at length but don’t teach them how to use the necessary grammatical structures, they struggle to phrase their ideas well. If we teach students about grammar in isolation, they tend not to apply it to their stories.

But research shows it’s possible to teach grammar as a way to strengthen students’ writing.

My research with year 5 students examined one method of teaching grammar for writing. We can teach students how to imagine the scene they are creating, and then teach them which grammatical features help turn their imagination into text.

Read more:
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I found five effective ways to teach the link between imagination and grammar.

1. Set up the imaginative tripod

Most of the stories students brought to me lacked a clear sense of perspective. I taught students to imagine their scene like a film director – they had to decide exactly where their camera tripod should be set up to film their scene. Placing it above, close, far away from or besides the character creates different images and effects.

Then I showed them how careful use of adverbs, verbs and prepositions create this perspective in writing.

This is done in Philip Pullman’s novel, Northern Lights, to place you right beside the character in the room.

“The only light in here came from the fireplace”

Read more:
Why does grammar matter?

2. Zoom in on the details

Young writers often need help adding detail to their stories. A film director might zoom right in on a character’s hand pulling the trigger on a gun to intensify the action of shooting. A writer does the same. I taught students to imagine significant details up close, which helped them select specific nouns to place in the subject position of the sentence.

In Aquila, by Andrew Norriss, specific nouns of body parts are the actors in the sentence.

“As his feet searched for a foothold, his fingers gripped the grass.”

3. Track the movement

It is common for students to write about movement in rather static terms, such as “she ran home”. In a film, a director might choose to follow the movement by panning the camera, using a dolly, or filming multiple shots to allow us to experience the full path of movement.

I taught students to imagine watching the movement in their stories through a series of windows – first, second, third – and choose which parts they wanted to include. This helped them choose which verbs and prepositional phrases to use.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien, we watch Bill the pony galloping off through three windows, each with a prepositional phrase.

“Bill the pony gave a wild neigh of fear, and turned tail and dashed away along the lakeside into the darkness.”

I also taught students to describe how much space an object takes up using the same movement grammar, such as stretched along and rose from.

In The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, we pan across the perimeter of the cemetery.

“Spike-topped iron railings ran around part of the cemetery, a high brick wall around the rest of it.”

4. Focus the attention

When we read a novel, there is always something standing out in our attention: a thing, a description, a feeling, an action. I taught students to think about which part of their scene stands out in their mind, and then use “attention-seeking” grammar to focus on it.

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One way to make things stand out is to use grammar that deviates from conventional use, like placing adjectives after nouns. Another way is to use repeated grammatical structures.

In Tolkien’s The Return of the King we get both of these at the same time to contrast the physical states of the orc and Sam.

“But the orc was in its own haunts, nimble and well-fed. Sam was a stranger, hungry and weary.”

5. Convey the energy of action

Many of the students wanted to create action scenes in their stories, which they did using the previous strategies. However, they lacked the energy felt in an action-packed novel. I showed them a sentence like this one from The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands.

“A musket ball tore at my hair as it punched into the window frame behind me, sending out a shower of splinters.”

The students could see how energy transfers across the clauses, like dominoes, from noun to noun. In this case, the energy starts with the musket ball, and transfers to hair, window frame and finally the shower of splinters, carried by the action verbs.

I asked the students to imagine how a chain of action might appear in their stories and select the appropriate nouns and verbs to do the job.

Brett Healey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 5 ways to teach the link between grammar and imagination for better creative writing – https://theconversation.com/5-ways-to-teach-the-link-between-grammar-and-imagination-for-better-creative-writing-165310

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

Casino operator Crown Resorts must be desperate or think we’re dumb.

Last week, before the royal commission into its right to hold a casino licence in Victoria, Crown resorted to one of the oldest, most discredited, tricks in the book. It used its workers as shields.

“More than 20,000 people work across Crown’s resorts. Over 11,600 of those work in Melbourne. The vast majority of them were of course not complicit in the misconduct,” its lawyer Michael Borsky told the commission.

Revoking Crown’s licence would sentence Crown’s employees to “enormous disruption and possibly financial hardship” at a time when many were already “living through great uncertainty and hardship”.

And not only Crown’s employees. Among Crown’s shareholders were “tens of thousands of small shareholders and, indeed, superannuation funds”.

Removing Crown’s licence would not only endanger Crown’s workers, it would have “a significant impact on the Victorian tourism industry”.

Crown provided 10% of Melbourne’s hotel rooms. Before COVID-19 hit, it contributed A$1.2 billion per year to Victoria’s economy.

It’s a logically flawed defence of the kind I first heard from Alan Bond’s Bond Corporation in the late 1980s, several years before he was imprisoned for fraud.

Trying to fend off an attempt to have his breweries placed in receivership, the company said Bond had 20,000 employees. They might not “have a job to go to on Tuesday”.

The logical flaw was the suggestion that if Bond didn’t own the breweries, the breweries wouldn’t exist.

The beers made by those breweries — Tooheys, Swan and XXXX — are still being made today.

Similarly, if Crown loses its casino licence, its 10% of Melbourne hotel rooms will still be there, most likely run by someone else. Its casino (or one like it) will also still be there, also run by someone else.

Clive Palmer tried it as well

The shameless use of this illogical argument reached its peak early last decade during the battle over Labor’s proposed resource super profits tax.

Despite its name, the tax was designed as a profit-sharing arrangement. The government would be on the hook for 40% of the cost of each project and would take 40% of the profit.

If a project was profitable for a mining company, then 60% of the project would also be profitable, meaning the tax ought to make no difference to its willingness to invest.

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Yet mining magnates such as Clive Palmer and Andrew Forrest threatened to abandon Australia and take their money elsewhere, to Africa or to China.

Their threats were no more a threat to Australian mining than Alan Bond’s was to Australian brewing.

If Forrest and Palmer had walked away (or even BHP and Rio Tinto, which talked along similar lines), someone else would have walked in.

The arrangement might not be to their liking, but it would be to the liking of someone else prepared to take the profit in their place.

Crown, as Royal Commissioner Ray Finkelstein pointed out on August 3, is profitable. Its casino operation is very profitable: “maybe on the decline a little bit, but very profitable”.

“The way industry works is somebody will always step in, so I don’t treat 12,000 employees [as] at risk. ” Finkelstein said.

“They might change their employer, but they are not at risk of losing their jobs.

Nor were suppliers or tourists at risk.

“When we have a profitable operating business, there will be an operator there out in the world, a suitable one.”

A line that used to work — on television

That Crown thought it could spin this line might have something to do with the experience of its largest shareholder, from whom Crown is now distancing itself.

James Packer used to own Channel Nine (as in an earlier era did Alan Bond).

For most of its life, Australia’s television owners have played chicken with the bodies meant to be policing them — the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal and then the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Each body was given enormous power: the power to suspend or cancel a licence, but with a catch. It lacked lesser powers.

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If it suspended or cancelled an operator’s licence, the station would go off the air (at least for a while). The authority would be deluged with complaints.

Packer, Bond and the other owners could use their viewers as human shields.

Time after time (11 times in five years) the authority found Nine had breached the industry code of practice. Time after time it failed to invoke the ultimate sanction.

In a 2005 report for the authority, Professor Ian Ramsay said this meant that in effect it had “less enforcement powers” than other authorities.

Crown’s workers don’t place it beyond the law

Blessedly, in 2006 (as Packer was selling out of Nine) the government acted on Ramsay’s report. The authority can now issue fines and seek enforceable undertakings, without fear of blow-back.

For Finkelstein to accept that if Crown’s licence was revoked its workers or the tourist industry would suffer would be to accept that, like the television industry was for many decades, Crown is beyond the practical reach of the law.

He is giving every indication he thinks no such thing.

Peter Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Casino operator Crown plays an old business trick: using workers as human shields – https://theconversation.com/casino-operator-crown-plays-an-old-business-trick-using-workers-as-human-shields-165815

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shannon Sandford, PhD Candidate, Flinders University

Images have acted as crucial diagnostic tools since the late 20th century. Sophisticated technologies, such as X-Rays and MRIs, offer doctors a precise “picture” of illness.

But autobiographical comics about illness, known as “graphic medicine”, provide a different picture.

These comics capture what it’s like to be sick, undergo treatment or take on caring responsibilities. They visualise physical, cognitive and emotional symptoms that are difficult to communicate. They inject a human element into medicalised spaces, pushing back against data-driven, objective notions of the human condition.

These comics are found in print, online and on social media. One of the most famous examples is Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half. Beginning as a daily blog in 2009, it has since become a phenomenon.

Brosh’s early posts — featuring hilarious anecdotes of early childhood misadventures — quickly attracted a dedicated readership. But in 2013, the two-part series revealing her ongoing struggle with severe depression went viral: Depression Part Two received over 1.5 million views in a single day.

An underground movement

The phrase “graphic medicine” was coined by comics artist and physician Ian Williams in 2007. Broadly referring to the intersection of comics and healthcare, the beginnings of the movement date back almost 50 years.

Across America between 1963 and 1975, artists and publishers of the Underground Comix movement produced small-press comics challenging contemporary taboos.

The first autobiographical comic from the underground, Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (1972) , was also a formative work of graphic medicine.

Following a young man living with undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder, Binky Brown’s symptoms manifest as religious hallucinations and psycho-sexual fixations. Green revealed deep, shameful moments through a semi-autobiographical narrator.

His ability to visualise a private, interior illness had a profound effect on the future of comics as literature.

One artist inspired by Green was Art Spiegelman, who would go on to write the Pulitzer prize winning memoir Maus (1986).

Art and health

Today, graphic medicine continues the underground tradition by exposing the silence around certain illnesses and sparking a new wave of publications both in print and online.

Brian Fies’ Mom’s Cancer (2004) chronicled his mother’s metastatic lung cancer in serial instalments: a poignant glimpse into the course of cancer treatment and its effect on both patients and their families.

Mom’s Cancer resonated with readers who saw themselves reflected in its images, anticipating the growing interest in stories about illness, disability and suffering — and a growing number of artists who wanted to share these stories.

In Marbles: Mania, Depression, and Michelangelo, and Me (2012), Ellen Forney explores her bipolar diagnosis by analysing the lives of other “tortured artists”. Julia Wertz’s The Infinite Wait and Other Stories (2012) looks at systemic lupus through a series of black-and-white graphic novellas.

Sarah Leavitt’s Tangles: A Story of Alzheimer’s, My Mother, and Me (2010) contemplates the uneasy role-reversal of caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s through a collection of notes and sketches spanning six years.

The experiences of medical professionals are also part of this genre.

Williams’ own graphic novel, The Bad Doctor (2014), depicts obstacles experienced by a general practitioner working in a small, rural town. In Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 (2017), M.K. Czerwiec combines her memories of working in a HIV/AIDS unit at the height of the AIDS crisis with oral histories from patients, families, staff and volunteers.

In my research, I have found graphic medicine points to intense cultural demand for stories of illness that are embodied, visual and subjective. New trends suggest these stories appear increasingly within the fluid and interconnected spaces of the internet, mapping new engagements with illness by collapsing the boundaries between authors and readers.

Far from the underground, these personal narratives traverse digital platforms and broadcast to vast communities.

They bring us even closer to the realities of living with illness.

Laying emotions bare

The inclination to draw one’s self online has shifted from blogs like Hyperbole and Mom’s Cancer onto social media, where illness is embedded into how we represent our daily lives.

Alec MacDonald’s Instagram account, @alecwithpen emerged from a desire to regain control from chronic anxiety and depression. Like Brosh, MacDonald’s self-deprecating humour communicates an underlying struggle with mental health to over 270,000 followers.

In a cartoonish style, MacDonald uses metaphors to make his imaginings visible: childhood anxiety takes the shape of a giant, purple amorphous blob prone to swallowing him up; his black eye stands for parts of himself that shut down from mental illness and trauma.

The immediacy and accessibility of the internet – with its relatively low threshold to publication – means stories of illness circulate as never before.

Throughout 2020 and into 2021, we have been routinely confronted with images of the pandemic: infographics of infection hot spots, photographs of mask wearing, medical illustrations, government advertisements and vaccine selfies. Throughout it all, COVID-19 comics from doctors, caregivers, patients and artists online gave voice to the humans in the story.

These works lay bare the vulnerabilities associated with experiencing, treating and witnessing illness, proving the power of drawing in capturing events that might not otherwise be possible to describe or understand.

Shannon Sandford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Graphic medicine’: how autobiographical comics artists are changing our understanding of illness – https://theconversation.com/graphic-medicine-how-autobiographical-comics-artists-are-changing-our-understanding-of-illness-164789

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan now includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this episode, politics + society editor Amanda Dunn and Michelle discuss the House of Representatives’ slapdown of controversial Nationals MP George Christensen after his attack on COVID-19 lockdowns and mask-wearing.

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They also canvass Scott Morrison’s initial response to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

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Additional audio

Gaena, Blue Dot Sessions, from Free Music Archive.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Podcast with Michelle Grattan: A reprimand for Christensen and Morrison on climate – https://theconversation.com/podcast-with-michelle-grattan-a-reprimand-for-christensen-and-morrison-on-climate-165904

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

Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has dissociated himself from the views of his maverick backbencher George Christensen, who on Tuesday flatly rejected measures to contain COVID and played down the seriousness of the disease.

“I don’t agree with him,” Joyce said. “Just because someone has a view, it doesn’t mean it’s my view”. Joyce is personally close to Christensen.

Joyce drew on the experience of his father, who he said had been very involved in the eradication of brucellosis and bovine tuberculosis in northern NSW.

This had been done by large scale vaccination, quarantine, prosecution of people who did not comply with measures, and explanation, Joyce told The Conversation.

“I’m not going to step away from growing up having to deal with those things at an agricultural level. This is how you deal with diseases,” he said.

In a speech delivered just before question time, Christensen asked rhetorically, “how many more freedoms will we lose due to fear of a virus, which is a survivability rate of 997 out of a 1000?”

He said masks didn’t work and lockdowns didn’t work.

“Domestic vaccine passports are a form of discrimination,” he said.

“Nobody should be restricted from everyday life because of their medical choices, especially when vaccinated people can still catch and spread COVID-19.”

“Our posturing politicians, many over there [on the Labor benches], the sensationalist media elite and the dictatorial medical bureaucrats need to recognise these facts and stop spreading fear.

“COVID-19 is going to be with us forever, just like the flu and just like the flu,we will have to live with it, not in constant fear of it. Some people will catch it. Some people will tragically die from it.

“That’s inevitable and we have to accept it. What we should never accept is a systematic removal of our freedoms based on a zero risk health advice from a bunch of unelected medical bureaucrats. Open society back up. Restore our freedoms. End this madness.”

During question time Anthony Albanese, in a neat tactical strike, moved a motion calling on all MPs to “refrain from making ill-informed comments at a time when the pandemic represents a serious threat to the health of Australians”.

Albanese suggested Christensen was able to wag “the National party dog” because Joyce was “quite happy” to let him.

Morrison was in an awkward corner. The government’s usual instinct would be to move to shut Albanese down. But that would have it effectively backing Christensen.

By the same token Morrison did not want to risk giving Christensen the big whack he deserved.

Christensen is a man who enjoys making threats, even if he doesn’t carry them out, and he is not running at the election so has nothing to lose. If he “walked” the government would lose its one seat majority. It has already lost its majority on the floor of the House – when Craig Kelly, another recalcitrant on matters-COVID, defected from the Liberals to the crossbench. .

So the government let the Albanese motion proceed and in his reply to the opposition leader, the PM waved just the smallest of reproving feathers in Christensen’s direction.

After going through what had been done in the pandemic, Morrison said the government “will not support those statements, Mr Speaker, where there is misinformation that is out and about in the community, whether it’s posted, Mr Speaker, on Facebook, or it’s posted in social media, or it’s written in articles or made statements. Whether in this chamber, Mr Speaker, or anywhere else.”

But he wasn’t going to “engage in a partisan debate on this. I am not, Mr Speaker, because what I know is Australians aren’t interested in the politics of COVID.”

Queensland Liberal Warren Entsch wasn’t reluctant to go in hard against Christensen. He told the ABC: “That is the sort of nonsense that I see in protests outside my office from time to time for those with conspiracy theories”. In the parliament “it was resoundingly rejected right across the whole political spectrum – when the motion was put up it was supported, there was not a single dissenter”.

Federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher repeatedly refused to be drawn when pressed on the ACT on Christensen’s views. But NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean didn’t hold back, saying on the ABC that Christensen “is as qualified to talk about health policy as he is to perform brain surgery”.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. View from The Hill: Barnaby Joyce repudiates Christensen’s COVID misinformation – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-barnaby-joyce-repudiates-christensens-covid-misinformation-165889

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University

I remember the acute frustration of watching one of the US news feeds on September 11, 2001 — 20 years ago next month.

With the stricken twin towers smoking away in the background, the news anchors described the heroic rescue mission going on behind them, continuing for several excruciating moments after one tower had simply ceased to exist — a fact terrifyingly obvious to viewers.

“It’s gone” I yelled at the TV helplessly, “there is no rescue!”.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

The other building would soon follow as the full horror went from unimaginable to undeniable in a single morning.

Many Australians feel a similar frustration – this time chronic – at the refusal of their government to “turn around” to face what’s clear to everyone else, a galloping climate emergency which portends death, suffering and species loss on a planetary scale.

Yet, as the evidence has accumulated, and the new IPCC report reinforces it, Australia has carved out a name for itself as a global laggard — grouped with denialist authoritarian states like Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia.

And it has done so by re-interpreting the global climate evidence as just another domestic political argument – an opportunity for creating winners and losers and profiting from the electoral dividends yielded.

The 2050 pantomime

Ever wonder why an Australian political class steeped in short-termism is so animated about 2050 — a date way beyond the horizons of those currently in power?

Partly it is because if an economy is to genuinely commit to emitting net-zero carbon by 2050, the hard work of adjustment needs to commence immediately. But mostly it is that 2050 has become a useful distraction from the here-and-now.

And it is on this faux battleground that Prime Minister Scott Morrison has excelled in restricting not just his own rhetorical manoeuvrings, but increasingly, those of his opponents. Indeed, Morrison has achieved a remarkable double by simultaneously reducing 2050 to mere symbol, while also framing it as the only battleground on which the climate contest can be fought.

This way, he either wins, or he doesn’t lose, because the stakes are rendered so distant and so low as to not affect voting preferences appreciably.

From waving a lump of coal to Glasgow

Since appearing at the National Press Club in February 2021, the man who once brandished a lump of coal in parliament has moved to assure voters he now wants Australia to get to net-zero “as soon as possible, and preferably by 2050”.

Read more:
Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns

Though intentionally vague, this putative hardening from merely “as soon as possible” was treated as progress by many in the press gallery, which is arguably too aware of Morrison’s partyroom arithmetic and thus overly inclined to see the climate challenge as his rather than the country’s.

(This is this same commentariat, by the way, that gave Morrison an unequalled level of authority inside the partyroom following his “miracle” election victory in 2019.)

Since that February address, most observers have assumed Morrison would find a way to get his government to the 2050 commitment ahead of the Glasgow COP26 summit in November. That would mean strong-arming climate-sceptic Liberals, as well as the much harder task of wrangling the Nationals.

The Joyce factor

But if anything, that task has steepened in recent months with the election of Barnaby Joyce as Nationals leader and deputy prime minister.

As Joyce (speaking in the third person) told the Australian Financial Review in July:

The likelihood of Joyce getting endorsement from his party room to agree to net zero is zero.

And if Joyce was to come back to the party room and said ‘I had a really interesting conversation, I’ve just agreed to net zero’, then his prospects of getting out of that room as a leader would be zero.

That such unvarnished self-interest flies as a legitimate policy argument says everything about the vapid quality of the climate change debate in Australia.

Labor’s retreat

In truth, Morrison is comfortable keeping the argument on 2050 anyway, knowing the date is as abstract and intangible to many voters as the dangerous build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide is visible to the naked eye.

And why not? Labor has already retreated from its last election pledge of a 45% cut by 2030, hounded into meekness by Morrison’s 2019 scare campaign alleging runaway job losses and lower economic growth from Labor’s rapid adjustment.

Labor’s new policy will be unveiled closer to the election, but it is not expected to be as ambitious, even though since 2019, the rest of the developed world has embraced targets at or beyond this scale.

In a sign a milder policy is in the offing, Labor insiders plead the previous 45%-by-2030 policy had been set in the middle of the last decade and that commencing that reduction from 2022 is unrealistic. Yet, the first IPCC report for seven years warns the 1.5℃ warming threshold will now be reached as early as 2040, which probably means Labor should, in fact, propose to go harder.

There’s no sign of the government going harder either. Asked on Tuesday if Australia would set out more ambition in light of the IPCC warning, Morrison said,

we need more performance, we need more technology, and no one will be matching our ambition for a technology-driven solution.

It was an answer perfectly consistent with his past mantra of “technology, not taxes”.

Thus, it was also an answer that was perfectly inconsistent with the facts set out by the world scientific community. Facts to which Australia is yet to turn its full face.

Mark Kenny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. With the release of a terrifying IPCC report, Australia must face its wilful political blindness on climate – https://theconversation.com/with-the-release-of-a-terrifying-ipcc-report-australia-must-face-its-wilful-political-blindness-on-climate-165868

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Archa Fox, Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow, The University of Western Australia

Australia’s medical regulator has provisionally approved another COVID-19 vaccine, Moderna, for use in Australia.

One million doses of Moderna are due in the second half of September and three million doses a month will begin to arrive from October.

Read more:
Australia’s vaccines boosted with provisional approval for Moderna

Like Pfizer, Moderna is an mRNA vaccine. So how does it work, and what are the similarities and differences with Pfizer?

Remind me, how do mRNA vaccines work?

mRNA is a temporary genetic instruction that tells our cells to make a particular protein. It consists of a central portion with the genetic code for the protein and shorter portions either side that are important for the “readability” of the code.

The mRNA is wrapped in an oily coat that helps it enter our cells. The mRNA gets broken down quite quickly after it is delivered and used.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were designed with the same goals and principles: to make an mRNA (genetic instruction) for the spike protein found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19).

Body cells near the vaccine injection site will make the spike protein, display it on their surface and trigger the immune system to learn how to fight the actual virus if it encounters it.

Do Pfizer and Moderna work any differently?

The vaccines are remarkably similar overall, with just a few technical differences. The two mRNAs are based on the same chemistry and produce the same spike protein variant.

But the mRNA sequences differ in two ways: the exact “wording” of the genetic code for the spike protein; and the shorter portions outside the actual genetic code that determine its “readability”.

The two companies also use different oily coatings in their formulations.

How many doses for Moderna? And how far apart?

Despite their similarities, the Moderna doses have more than three times the amount of mRNA material (100 micrograms), compared to Pfizer (30 micrograms).

The dose spacing is also diffent: three weeks apart for Pfizer and four weeks for Moderna.

These differences may be due to those small technical differences highlighted above.

Alternatively, given the great urgency of developing and trialling the vaccines, it’s also plausible both manufacturers ran out of time to fully test different formulations and timelines, and simply went with the amounts and spacing that produced the desired results.

How effective is Moderna at preventing COVID-19?

Large phase 3 clinical trials showed the Moderna vaccine was 94% effective at preventing severe disease, and Pfizer was 95% effective.

Read more:
What is the Moderna COVID vaccine? Does it work, and is it safe?

Newer studies based on real-world data of millions of vaccinated people in many countries have shown Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are:

• 80-90% effective at preventing asymptomatic infection
• 90% effective at preventing symptomatic infection
• 95% effective at preventing hospitalisation.

The Moderna vaccine has been approved for emergency use in many countries including the United States, many European Union countries, Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel and India, among others.

Several studies, only some of which have been peer-reviewed, indicate both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are highly effective against the Delta variant, although there is a slight reduction compared to the original viral strain.

Are there any side effects?

Both vaccines have some side effects common to most vaccines, including some soreness at the injection site, fatigue and headaches.

There is an association, but not a causal link between a slight increase in incidence of myocarditis (inflammation of heart muslce) and pericarditis (inflammation of the lining of the heart) with both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

These conditions are more common in young men and are generally treatable and not fatal; most patients make a swift recovery.

Read more:
The benefits of a COVID vaccine far outweigh the small risk of treatable heart inflammation

For both Moderna and Pfizer vaccines the rates of anaphylaxis (extreme allergic reaction) are similar, and extremely low (two to four cases per million).

How long does the immunity last?

Moderna recently announced no change in efficacy six months after participants received their COVID-19 vaccines, with a 93% protection against severe disease after six months, compared to 94% reported in the clinical trial.

Pfizer has reported similar data, with protection sitting at 84% after six months.

No longer term effectiveness studies have been possible, as the wide-scale vaccine rollout only commenced at the end of 2020.

What about storage and transport?

Moderna requires a -50°C to -15°C range during transport and long-term storage (until the expiration date is reached) and this can be achieved with standard freezers.

In contrast, the Pfizer vaccine needs to be transported and stored at temperatures below -60°C, needing dry ice and ultra-cold freezers. Then, undiluted Pfizer vaccine can be stored in a regular freezer (between -25°C and -15°C) for up to two weeks, or in a fridge (between 2°C and 8°C) for up to four weeks.

How much Moderna is coming to Australia?

Moderna is approved for use in adults aged 18 and over. Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is currently reviewing an application from Moderna to approve the vaccine’s use in children aged 12 and over.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says planning is underway for Moderna vaccines to be rolled out through approved pharmacies and other providers from September, after the government receives advice from its immunisation advisory group ATAGI.

Ten million Moderna doses will arrive during 2021: one million in the second half of September and nine million doses due by December.

That compares with plans to roll out four million Pfizer doses in September, ten million in November and six million in December.

Next year, 15 million Moderna doses are due to arrive; these will be reserved as booster shots. A further 60 million Pfizer doses will also be available in 2022.

It’s likely Australians in eligible groups will be offered either Moderna or Pfizer and given their similarities, it really doesn’t matter which one you have – they’re both very effective.

Read more:
Can the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines affect my genetic code?

Archa Fox receives funding from the NHMRC and ARC. She is a member of the Australian and New Zealand RNA Production Consortium.

Thomas Preiss receives funding from NHMRC and ARC. He is a member of the Australian and New Zealand RNA Production Consortium.

– ref. What do I need to know about the Moderna vaccine? And how does it compare with Pfizer? – https://theconversation.com/what-do-i-need-to-know-about-the-moderna-vaccine-and-how-does-it-compare-with-pfizer-165537

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John P. de New, Professorial Fellow (Professor of Economics), The University of Melbourne

The COVID-19 Delta variant has changed the vaccination game in Australia.

With outbreaks resulting in a prolonged lockdown for Sydney as well as shorter periods for other states, the proportion of Australians vaccinated has steadily increased while vaccine hesitancy has fallen.

The latest survey data collected by the Melbourne Institute show vaccine hesitancy had fallen to 21.5% of the adult population at the end of July 2021, compared with 33% at the end of May 2021.

But how much further can it fall?

Our data suggests there are qualitatively different types of vaccine hesitancy. The decline in vaccine hesitancy we have seen thus far is more about those who had just been “taking their time” rather than being steadfastly uncommitted.

Worryingly, our analyses suggest there remains a significant proportion of the population whose resistance to vaccination will be hard to shift, regardless of the incentive.

Our latest data indicates 11.8% of adult Australians are not willing to be vaccinated and a further 9.7% are unsure.

This data is derived from the Taking the Pulse of the Nation survey, a nationally representative survey of 1,200 Australians over the age of 18 every fortnight. The Melbourne Institute has been running this survey since March 2020 to track Australians’ attitudes towards the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among those aged 50 and older, 18% are steadfastly uncommitted to getting vaccinated — 10% being unwilling, while 8% say they are unsure.

Among those aged 18 to 49, the uncommitted rise almost to 28.8% — 14.1% being unwilling and 14.7% unsure.

Medical experts generally agree a vaccination rate of at least 80% among those aged 12 and above is needed to attain the herd immunity sufficient to stop larger outbreaks. The national cabinet has set a 70% vaccination rate to leave lockdowns largely behind, and a 80% rate to relax border restrictions and other measures.

Our results on the proportion of the population unwilling and unsure about vaccination suggest a struggle to reach these targets.

Read more:
VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Closing the Gap, National Cabinet, and an 80% vaccination rate

Cash incentives not very effective

There may be few easy “nudges” to sway the uncommitted.

Of those who are unwilling or are unsure about vaccination, our survey shows no more than 6% of those aged 50 and older and no more than 16% of those aged 18 to 49 say they can be budged by an incentive such as a cash payment.

The chart below shows the responses of our 18-49-year-old survey participants about hypothetical cash incentives of $25, $50 and $100 for getting vaccinated immediately.

Slightly more of the participants were willing to accept the $100 payment over the smaller cash amounts. This suggests a few more people might be swayed by a much larger incentive, such as the $300 payment proposed by the federal Opposition. But our analysis suggests there is unlikely to be substantially more people willing to vaccinate.

Read more:
Paying Australians $300 to get vaccinated would be value for money

What about non-financial incentives?

If cash payments work only for a small proportion, what about other incentives?

One option is a vaccine passport to normality — allowing those that have been vaccinated to enjoy everyday activities such as dining in a restaurant, attending a concert or travelling.

The Europeans have done this with the EU Digital COVID Certificate, which provides proof the holder has been vaccinated, tested negative to COVID-19 or had it and recovered.

The national cabinet’s four-stage plan hints at this once the 70% vaccination rate is achieved, with points including easing restrictions and reducing quarantine arrangements for vaccinated residents.

But this may not increase vaccination rates by more than a few percentage points. The chart below shows less than 28% of those who are unwilling/unsure would submit to getting vaccinated even if the unvaccinated were banned from certain activities.

Breaking out the sticks

This steadfast hesitancy implies that debates about marketing campaigns and possible “carrots” are likely to give way to discussing “sticks” that do more than merely increase or prolong the nuisance factor for the unvaccinated.

Stronger legally binding restrictions could include outright vaccination requirements for work, school, day care and movement within society. In principle, this is nothing new: children are required as a matter of course to be vaccinated to enrol in schools.

However, heavy-handed mandatory vaccination policies are likely to be contested by some, simply due to being forced, driving those “on the fence” into the steadfast “anti-vax” camp, and possibly exacerbating the problem despite the good intention.

Read more:
Cash or freedoms: what will work in the race to get Australia vaccinated against COVID-19?

The federal government’s position is against mandatory vaccinations.

But the unanimous national cabinet plan to open the country up substantially at 70%-80% vaccination rates and not deal with future outbreaks by locking down means the unvaccinated must still contend with one of the largest sticks — indeed a “spiked club”.

Once we open up, the unvaccinated will be at much higher risk of illness, long-term medical consequences and even death. They will bear these consequences as individuals, without the special consideration or support that has been offered by governments previously.

It is crucial everyone understand this: if you are not vaccinated, the stick you should fear most, will be wielded by the virus itself.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Our survey results show incentives aren’t enough to reach a 80% vaccination rate – https://theconversation.com/our-survey-results-show-incentives-arent-enough-to-reach-a-80-vaccination-rate-165728

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sue Thomson, Deputy CEO (Research), Australian Council for Educational Research

One-on-one online tutoring for disadvantaged students has proved highly effective in helping them overcome their struggles with literacy and numeracy. The Smith Family, the national children’s education charity, recently completed a small pilot of the program, Catch-Up Learning, for students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. Most made above-expected progress in assessments of their literacy and numeracy by the end of the program.

About 100 children who participated in the program had one-on-one tutoring, with a qualified teacher, up to three times a week for 20 weeks. Being online, the tutoring could be done in the child’s home at a time that suited the family.

The participants were students in years 4, 5, 7 or 8 who were struggling with literacy and numeracy skills. One in five were of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds. Two in five had a health and disability issue.

Read more:
One quarter of Australian 11-12 year olds don’t have the literacy and numeracy skills they need

The program was informed by strong evidence from analysis by the UK’s Education Endowment Foundation that one-on-one tutoring with a trained teacher is very effective in helping learners catch up. It’s particularly helpful for younger learners who are behind their peers in primary school, and for reading and maths skills.

What did the program achieve?

Program attendance was high, including over the summer holidays – an extraordinary achievement given how prized those holidays are! Students were highly engaged and many increased their love of learning over the course of the program. This contributed to the strong improvements in literacy and numeracy they achieved.

Students were assessed before and after the program. Skills growth was measured, taking into account the length of time the program ran.

The results were highly promising: 86% of students made above-expected progress in literacy or numeracy. Two in five achieved above-expected progress in both subjects. By the end of the program, six in ten students had achieved literacy levels equivalent to or stronger than their year-level peers.

Insights from the tutors confirm a range of positive changes for students. One tutor of a year 5 student said:

“[He] is excited to tell me how well he did in a particular lesson […] His attitude toward learning has improved so much as he learnt more during
the sessions and became confident in school as a result.”

Another said of their year 4 student:

“I was astonished at how quickly they made gains in literacy […] their reading galloped from struggling with basic texts to being able to read nine out of 10 words.”

Catch-Up Learning confirms what parents and teachers across Australia know – with the right support at the right time, all children can develop a love of learning and in turn develop key literacy and numeracy skills. The Smith Family will use the evaluation to refine the program and move to a second stage pilot with more students.

It is also hoped these findings resonate with education departments and schools during times when students are unable to attend school.

Read more:
Victoria and NSW are funding extra tutors to help struggling students. Here’s what parents need to know about the schemes

The program is not, however, a panacea for all the educational challenges faced by many students experiencing financial disadvantage. Participants were on average three years behind their peers in numeracy at the start of the program. Unsurprisingly, despite their significant progress over the 20 weeks, they didn’t make up this large gap. There is more to be done.

Why does this skills gap matter?

In our technology-rich 21st century, strong literacy and numeracy skills are prerequisites for Australians to find a job, access services, participate in e-commerce and keep connected.

Read more:
Yes, adult literacy should be improved. But governments can make their messages easier to read right now

Unfortunately, research shows a clear and persistent relationship in Australia between socioeconomic background and students’ educational outcomes.
Foundations for success in literacy and numeracy are laid early on.

Childhood maths skills are predictive of later learning and achievement. Children who enjoy reading, read more. This, in turn, helps them to become strong readers. The converse is also true – poor readers lose motivation, tend to read less, and this leads them to falling further behind.

Data from international assessments show significant numbers of Australian children are not meeting important literacy and numeracy benchmarks. In the latest Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS), less than half (48%) of Australia’s year 4 students from low socioeconomic backgrounds achieved or exceeded the national proficiency standard in numeracy, compared to 82% of those from high socioeconomic backgrounds.

Similarly, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) shows 57% of year 4 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students met the national proficiency standard, compared to 83% of non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Read more:
1 in 4 Australian year 8s have teachers unqualified in maths — this hits disadvantaged schools even harder

These gaps have persisted despite the efforts of students, parents, teachers and schools over many years. They’re also pre-COVID gaps, with concerns that remote learning may have widened them. These children are in danger of not being able to participate economically and socially in our community.

Australia must invest in catching up

We can and must do better. These skills gaps aren’t inevitable.

The Catch-Up Learning program confirms international evidence of the value of tutoring for helping children who are behind in literacy and numeracy. But through its innovations – using online technology so tutoring takes place in the student’s home, with their carer’s engagement a key component – it has gone further. These innovations contributed to the outcomes achieved.

So Catch-Up Learning is helping to build the evidence base of how young Australians can be supported to achieve educationally. Australia should seize the opportunity to build on this work.

Sue Thomson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘I was astonished at how quickly they made gains’: online tutoring helps struggling students catch up – https://theconversation.com/i-was-astonished-at-how-quickly-they-made-gains-online-tutoring-helps-struggling-students-catch-up-165821

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University

As the appointed hour for tonight’s census approaches, the question on many lips is: will it go smoothly, or will it be a repeat of the infamous 2016 #Censusfail?

Australians may remember the chaotic 40-hour shutdown suffered by the census website from 7:30pm on census night back in 2016. Fingers of blame were pointed in all directions, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suffered a heavy blow to its reputation.

A forensic audit later revealed multiple causal factors, not least of which was a series of malicious “denial of service” (DDoS) attacks. This type of attack aims to paralyse a website by bombarding it with too many requests at once.

What happened in 2016?

In essence, the online platform used in 2016 had insufficient built-in safeguards against DDoS attacks. This led to a hardware failure and the ultimate collapse of the system.

It is also possible the large number of legitimate access requests from people simply trying to complete their census contributed to the failure. The ABS later claimed the technology infrastructure was inadequate for the job at hand, despite assurances from its provider, IBM.

After the DDoS attacks, system monitors reported what appeared to be an unusually large amount of outbound traffic, which suggested confidential data were being exfiltrated. The ABS shut everything down to prevent further data loss.

It was later found that the unusual outbound traffic reading had been false. There was no loss of confidential data.

Read more:
Drowning by averages: did the ABS miscalculate the Census load?

How will 2021 be different?

The 2021 census is being coordinated by PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the largest professional services networks in the world.

Moreover, the online platform will run on Amazon Web Services, by far the largest cloud computing services provider in the world. It has certified capability at handling “protected workloads”, which means the Australian Signals Directorate has signed off on its trustworthiness to host citizens’ data.

With these choices, the ABS has minimised the risk of a 2016 repeat.

Also providing advice on creating an all-round secure digital census platform is the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Digital Transformation Agency.

To pay for all of this, the ABS was allocated A$38.3 million over three years in the 2019-20 federal budget.

Census website opened early

By opening the census website on July 28, there will be less of a traffic spike on census night itself.

From July 28, Australians began receiving letters with their login ID and password. They could log in immediately to complete their censuses.

Read more:
Census 2021 is almost here — what’s changed since #censusfail? What’s at stake in this pandemic survey?

There have been informal reports that people have had difficulty logging on because it appeared from the letter that there were spaces in the sequence of nine characters that make up the password. The password was grouped into three lots of three characters on the letter.

But if the spaces are entered, the login fails. There should be no spaces in the password entered into the census website.

What makes a website resilient?

Resilient websites are those that are better able to withstand attacks in the first place, and — if a failure caused by excessive load or a cyber attack does happen — can recover with a minimum of downtime.

It is no great mystery how to do this. It is a matter of good engineering and ample resources. Around the world, there is a growing number of businesses whose livelihood depends on having a resilient website. Providers of web services like Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure must guarantee these high levels of service, to win and keep these clients’ business.

This is the level of resilience the census platform is using.

How will we know if 2021 is a success?

2016 was Australia’s first digital census. It seems likely the lessons from that bumpy first outing have been learned.

Moreover, top-shelf service providers have been engaged, and sufficient funding secured. With the arrangements currently in place, we can expect tonight’s census to be a success.

But there can be no absolute guarantees. We live in a world in which cyber-attacks from unfriendly nation states, organised criminals, hackivists and garden-variety cyber-crooks are a daily occurrence.

The good news is that Australia’s ability to fend off this malicious disruption is improving every day.

David Tuffley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why it’s unlikely there will be another #Censusfail tonight – https://theconversation.com/why-its-unlikely-there-will-be-another-censusfail-tonight-165806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Stephenson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith University

“Do you know how many LGBTIQ+ folks live in Australia? It turns out no one does, and we’re not about to find out in the upcoming census.”

Courtney Act, an Australian drag queen and television personality, made this point on Facebook last week as part of Equality Australia’s push to have LGBTIQ+ people counted in the census.

Once again, the census is failing to accurately collect data on sex, sexual orientation and gender diversity.

The census ticks around every five years to provide a snapshot of who we are and how we are changing. It is not just about collecting statistics about where we live, who we live with, our work, lives, income and health, but it also provides crucial insights to inform the vital services that Australians need.

We cannot effectively support all of Australia if we do not count all of Australia (and it’s not the first time we’ve argued this too).

Currently, we do not understand how many people identify as LGBTIQ+, where they are, or anything about their socioeconomic status, health, relationships and more.

It is a matter of serious concern, particularly given LGBTIQ+ folk often face higher suicide and mental health concerns and worrying rates of domestic violence. LGBTIQ+ people also have unique needs when it comes to the provision of services, from health to housing and beyond.

As Amnesty International notes, the census’s lack of appropriate questions capturing LGBTIQ+ communities and experiences “will result in a service gap that constitutes discrimination of the LGBTQIA+ community”.

So, what was supposed to be asked?

In a submission to the Senate in 2019, questions around sexuality and gender identity were proposed for inclusion in the 2021 census. These were developed in consultation with LGBTIQ+ communities, and can generally be seen as best practice.

Then the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) walked away from them. Why?

The ABS voted against these new questions due to perceived public backlash – particularly after some of the technical difficulties of the 2016 #censusfail.

The decision came after assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar expressed “a preference” about not including the questions in testing, David Kalisch, the former Australian statistician, said in 2019.

This is despite the fact that in qualitative testing of census questions, those on gender and sexuality “performed well” with both target and non-target populations. These draft questions were also recommended by multiple federal departments.

And, in 2019 Senate submission documents, the ABS itself noted there are “no other suitable alternative data sources” to collect such crucial information. It also identified data on LGBTIQ+ communities as “of current national importance”.

It’s also despite the fact that the majority of Australians voted for marriage equality, and Australia has generally taken more progressive steps towards gender and sexuality inclusion in the last few years.

Read more:
Census 2021 is almost here — what’s changed since #censusfail? What’s at stake in this pandemic survey?

What’s being asked instead?

Nothing in this year’s census asks specifically about sexuality. The question on gender identity and sex has also conflates the concepts — despite international efforts to address the issue.

Although some of the questions on cohabitation and families make it possible to garner some data on people in same-sex relationships, only those who are couples and who live together are counted.

The question about sex/gender limits choices to male/female/non-binary sex. It obscures data on transgender and intersex folk and does not recognise differences in gender identity (how a person sees themselves or the social/cultural aspects of identity) and sex (a person’s anatomy or biological sex characteristics).

Further, question 37 erases the experience of some trans people entirely. It asks, “for each female, how many babies has she ever given birth to?”. This blatantly ignores the fact that many transmen (often those who have transitioned from female to male) can and have given birth.

While the census has included questions around other identity categories, including race, ethnic ancestry, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and people living with a disability, LGBTIQ+ remains overlooked — and without good reason.

How does Australia compare globally?

There’s a major gap globally in the inclusion of these data on national census questionnaires.

Much was made of the hasty withdrawal of questions relating to gender and sexuality in the 2020 US census, a move that was highly scrutinised in the political pressure cooker of the Trump administration.

In a country where federal marriage equality was achieved in 2015, millions of LGBTIQ+ Americans will now have to wait until 2025 (at least) to contribute their experiences to the US census.

In the UK, voluntary questions on sexual orientation and gender identity will be asked this year in England and Wales, and in Scotland in 2022.

Yet, in general, a 2019 report noted only a few nationally representative surveys contained questions on LGBTIQ+ identity in the OECD, and none (at that stage) included them in the census.

Why the census has failed us

Determining whom and what is counted has always been part of census history — a history that has not always been neutral or fair. In fact, the census has often ignored or marginalised various communities for socio-political reasons.

For instance, while population counts began with colonisation around 1788 and the first census (as we know it, of people in dwellings) occurred in 1828, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were only fully included in the census in 1971, almost two centuries later.

Longstanding structural racism and discrimination help explain the census’s historic incomplete data collection on First Nations people. Does the same hold true for the modern census’s approach to LGBTIQ+ communities?

Perhaps. Given there was strong evidence, arguments and testing around new questions on gender and sexuality in the census, it seems the ABS’s willful ignorance towards LGBTIQ+ people can only be justified by political conservatism and discrimination.

Read more:
It’s time to talk about gay reparations and how they can rectify past persecutions of LGBTQ people

Although LGBTIQ+ people have more reason than most to be wary of the quantitative collection of sensitive data, it still desperately needs to be collected.

Inclusion of targeted questions on gender and sexuality also requires greater assurances around data integrity — a particular concern of older members of the LGBTIQ+ community who lived through the criminalisation of homosexuality, lesbian witch hunts, surveillance and other related trauma.

Ultimately, not only is the lack of recognition distressing for many LGBTIQ+ people, it is also bad public policy. Australia needs reliable, informed data on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. Without it, the census is too risk-averse to even be accurate.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. LGBTIQ+ people are being ignored in the census again. Not only is this discriminatory, it’s bad public policy – https://theconversation.com/lgbtiq-people-are-being-ignored-in-the-census-again-not-only-is-this-discriminatory-its-bad-public-policy-165800

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danny Hills, Associate Professor, Deputy Dean, Federation University Australia

If you or a loved one is unlucky enough to be in hospital, you might think the best thing to do is rest in bed as much as possible. But while rest is important, lying or sitting in bed too much can actually make many conditions worse.

Researchers have developed mobility recommendations for some hospital settings but in practice, most patients still aren’t active enough.

To find out more, we asked 138 nurses from five Australian states about the challenges they face trying to to get patients moving more, and what changes would help. We also did some in-depth interviews with a sample of nurses involved in the study.

Our results, published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing, showed there is much we can do. Managers and team leaders have an important role in empowering nurses because our study found nurses do not always feel able to reduce sedentary behaviour in their patients.

Read more:
For older people and those with chronic health conditions, staying active at home is extra important – here’s how

The dangers of sedentary behaviour in hospital

Lying or sitting too much while in hospital can lead to deconditioning (such as loss of strength, joint function and mobility), pressure injuries, blood clots, infections, prolonged hospital stays and unplanned hospital re-admissions.

In rehabilitation settings, where a person is recovering from conditions such as stroke, amputation or arthritis, older adults spend as little as 5% of the day
upright.

In acute settings — where a patient in hospital may require surgery or treatments to repair a fracture, remove a tumour or relieve nerve pain — it can be much worse. Older adults spend a median of just 3% of their day standing or walking.

These are staggering figures but the good news is even small increases in activity and movement can help prevent the rapid loss of muscle mass and strength that comes from lying down or sitting too long in hospital.

Our study found nurses have a key role in supporting patients’ mobility and in reducing their sedentary behaviour.

What are the barriers?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, nurses in this study told us workload and lack of time to encourage reduced sedentary behaviour were significant barriers.

However, they also told us there was a perception among family and sometimes patients themselves that they needed to rest and that older people had earned the right to sit back and relax.

This was especially the case when people were unwell or had complex needs. As one nurse said:

For example, ‘Dad’s in his 80s, does he need to do this?’ It is a common mindset of the family of an older person.

So how much exercise should you get while in hospital? There’s no “one size fits all” answer. For some patients, it might just mean getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom, getting dressed or moving around a room. For others, it might mean walking around hospital hallways or doing more specialised movement programs such as My Therapy.

What would help?

Nurses told us that help from family in getting patients up and moving would be a huge bonus.

Families can also help by providing really comfortable shoes and clothing. We know patients are less likely to participate if they are not comfortable.

Another said:

We involved family members at mealtimes [by walking to] the lounge and it has improved nutritional intake by bringing in [special] food and contributing to the social aspects. One brought Italian food and they loved it.

Some patients, however, have only family members or visitors who are, themselves, older and unable to assist the patient with walking. Or, a patient may have no visitors at all.

Working closely with other members of the care team yields results, with one saying:

Going to a team meeting is good […] they say to the patient, this is what we are aiming for, do you agree that you will sit up for lunch every day […] it’s a team effort.

Another told us:

I like to read the physio notes every day and then just have an idea what their actual functional goals and actual functional levels are like. Encouraging people to achieve those tiny little goals like ‘oh, we walked to the toilet’, ‘oh, we brushed our teeth at the sink’.

One nurse spoke of the value of interventions aimed at getting patients more active, such as the UK’s End PJ Paralysis program.

[…] although not very well promoted, [it] was a great help. Many resources went
into it. With our model of care, there was a social aspect that was a great success, they started friendship groups, lots of activities, we had the Melbourne Cup down in the lounge, and they watched the tennis together. It’s been so positive. We used to really encourage them to go just once, now they want to go all the time. But some nurses still need to learn it’s not about wheeling people down there.

In other words, it’s about walking, not wheeling.

A nurse leader said:

It’s staggering how much time they [patients] spend alone. There’s a potential connection here. Isolation and boredom is one thing. If we tackle the boredom, we tackle the sedentary behaviour, there is a link, and we will solve the social isolation. Enabling nurses to be the coach for getting people up, and there’s definitely an educational aspect.

Creative and sustainable solutions

Our study shows that reducing sedentary behaviour in hospitals is often complex and there are important roles for nurse leaders and organisations in working together on creative and sustainable solutions.

As influential British doctor, Richard Asher, put it in his oft-quoted poem about the danger of sedentary behaviour in hospitals:

Teach us to live that we may dread;

unnecessary time in bed.

Get people up and we may save;

patients from an early grave.

Read more:
Sitting for too long could increase your risk of dying – even if you exercise

Breanne Kunstler is a practising physiotherapist and co-lead of the Physiotherapists for Physical Activity group, which advises the Australian Physiotherapy Association on physical activity matters.

Christina Ekegren is co-lead of the Physiotherapists for Physical Activity group, which advises the Australian Physiotherapy Association on physical activity matters. She has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Nicole Freene is a physiotherapy academic-clinician and founding member and cardiorespiratory lead of the Physiotherapists for Physical Activity group. She has received funding from the Medical Research Future Fund.

Virginia Plummer was a past staff member at Peninsula Health where some of the data was collected.

Danny Hills and Tracy Robinson do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Bed rest in hospital can be bad for you. Here’s what nurses say would help get patients moving – https://theconversation.com/bed-rest-in-hospital-can-be-bad-for-you-heres-what-nurses-say-would-help-get-patients-moving-165664

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Trauer, Associate Professor, Monash University

During the pandemic, infectious disease modelling has come to prominence as never before. A plethora of models have been used to guide policy.

The models use computer programs to predict, for example, how COVID outbreaks develop and which public health measures are most likely to contain them, under different future scenarios.

Among the big questions modellers are trying to answer currently is what should Sydney’s strategy be for addressing its current Delta outbreak, to allow release from lockdown while minimising COVID-related deaths.

Different groups of researchers give different predictions. And it’s easy to be bewildered, especially if you’re in lockdown and looking for answers.

Why do answers vary?

At their best, infectious disease models should provide a way of integrating all the available information relevant to the problem at hand. This includes the characteristics of the virus circulating, the scope of the epidemic, the history of the outbreak to date, and evidence from clinical trials and other research.

We can then use this to challenge our own ideas about what the best policy response should be and develop a high-level strategy for the future.

Many of the mathematical models that have informed COVID policy across the world have been “mechanistic”. They explicitly represent the population in which the virus is transmitting and so simulate the process of susceptible people becoming infected with the virus through exposure to others.

Although many other mathematical techniques have been used during the pandemic, this approach has the advantage of being able project the outcomes of a wide range of policy responses.

Read more:
Scientific modelling is steering our response to coronavirus. But what is scientific modelling?

This approach also has several limitations. One of the most important is that tiny changes in what you feed into the model can have a huge effect on the output.

Another important consideration is that future projections inevitably represent the expected outcomes under a particular set of policy choices, which are impossible for modellers to predict.

In short, infectious disease epidemics are difficult to predict because their dynamics are volatile and dependent on the policies we choose to implement.

Let’s look at the Sydney predictions

Several groups have modelled Sydney’s lockdown recently and have shared their results with the public. These include groups at the Burnet Institute and at the universities of Sydney and Melbourne.

The Burnet model

The Burnet Institute simulates individuals and their characteristics and behaviours (an agent-based model). It can mimic the social networks through which individuals interact in specific settings, fundamental to how the epidemic spreads.

This approach is particularly well-suited to considering interventions that affect groups of people interacting. These include closing specific venues or activities, such as restaurants, gyms, schools or sporting events.

Read more:
A tougher 4-week lockdown could save Sydney months of stay-at-home orders, our modelling shows

This model, released July 12, predicted a more stringent lockdown (blue line in the chart above; something like Melbourne’s stage 4 lockdown in 2020) should be enough to drive case numbers in Sydney back down towards low levels (less than five new local cases per day) over several weeks. This would lead to elimination of the virus, allowing lockdown to lift.

University of Sydney model

The University of Sydney model is also an agent-based model, similar in several ways to the Burnet model. It builds on previous work on modelling influenza in which the researchers constructed a detailed representation of the Australian population using census data.

Along with their COVID status, the age, gender, residence and workplace of individuals is simulated, along with their commuting patterns. Various interventions are simulated, including isolating contacts of cases in quarantine, and social distancing.

The Sydney model found that unless interactions between people are reduced substantially for several weeks, the epidemic is unlikely to decline rapidly.

University of Melbourne model

The University of Melbourne model represents people or groups of people as agents who move in two-dimensional space, potentially becoming infected as susceptible agents interact with infected ones.

Because discrete individuals are represented, models like this can be used to define when the last case has recovered and elimination has been achieved.

This model generally had more optimistic findings for Sydney than the other two, with most model runs showing the epidemic dying away within two months if current restrictions or tighter are sustained. Unfortunately, case numbers already seem to be escalating beyond these predictions.

The similarities

Despite some differences in findings, we can take the following messages from these models:

• if there had been no lockdown or if lockdowns were released now, a devastating epidemic would result

• the public health response (including lockdown) is having a major effect in driving down transmission

• with the current response and level of restrictions, at best it will take months to bring the epidemic fully under control

• if restrictions are tightened considerably for at least one to two months, case numbers may decline to the point that elimination could be targeted.

Take-home message

The epidemic in Sydney is at a crossroads, with the only two feasible choices being to go hard towards elimination (as supported by all modelling groups) or to maintain manageable case numbers until vaccination begins to take effect. Current policy choices in NSW appear to prefer the latter.

The next task for modellers should be to simulate this chosen pathway and the length of lockdown it would imply.

Read more:
We can’t rely solely on arbitrary vaccination levels to end lockdowns. Here are 7 ways to fix Sydney’s outbreak

The Epidemiological Modelling Unit at the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (led by James Trauer) has received funding for COVID-19 research from the NHMRC, the MRFF, the World Health Organization and the Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services (now the Victorian Department of Health), including to produce epidemic projections during Victoria’s second wave in 2020.

– ref. When will Sydney’s lockdown end? Well, it depends who you ask – https://theconversation.com/when-will-sydneys-lockdown-end-well-it-depends-who-you-ask-165459

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nina Lansbury Hall, Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland

Torres Strait Islander peoples intend to live on their traditional country long-term. Living on the northernmost islands of Queensland allows these “saltwater people” to maintain their cultural responsibilities, identity and kinship connections.

Caring for country and keeping these connections can also bring health benefits. However, climate change increases the risks of negative health impacts.

There is escalating outrage about these and other climate impacts on health by Traditional Owners and by medical personnel. Both groups are calling for urgent climate action.

Our research team includes two Badu Island men who are public health researchers, an infectious diseases doctor, and two environmental health researchers. We reviewed the evidence about climate-sensitive infectious diseases in the region.

Read more:
Monday’s IPCC report is a really big deal for climate change. So what is it? And why should we trust it?

“If our connection to these lands disappears, our Indigenous culture disappears”

Mr Kabay Tamu is one of eight of Torres Strait Islanders who sought action against the Australian government through the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee in 2019. They assert Australia’s responses to reduce climate change-causing emissions or to develop adaptation measures are inadequate, and constitute human rights violations.

Mr Tamu said in his speech:

Our islands have been continuously inhabited by Indigenous people for tens of thousands of years, but the climate crisis is endangering all of this. Rising seas caused by man-made climate change are threatening homes, swamping burial grounds and washing away sacred cultural sites […] We, as a people, are connected to these islands through our cultural practices and traditions. If our connection to these lands disappears, our Indigenous culture disappears.

Research provides further evidence of human-induced climate change impacts in the Torres Strait Islands. Cyclones are projected to become more intense. Drought conditions in this region have affected the security of water supply, requiring the installation of mobile desalination plants. Changes to temperature and rainfall have affected the range and extent of mosquito species that are vectors for dengue virus.

“Ensure our population is as healthy as possible for climate change”

An emergency call for increased attention to climate change and health impacts on Torres Strait Islander peoples was made in 2019 by 22 medical professionals working in the Queensland government’s Torres and Cape Health and Hospital Service region. They stated:

[In the Torres Strait], climate change is a health emergency. We [medical officers] are concerned about the immediate effects of heat stress and extreme weather events as well as the long-term effects […] Vulnerable populations are disproportionately affected by climate change and unabated climate change will only steepen this social health gradient […] Proper investment […] is required to ensure our population is as healthy as possible for climate change

20% of Queensland’s diagnoses in only 0.5% of the state’s population

In our research, we sought to identify climate-sensitive infectious diseases that are currently or speculated to increase occurrence in the Torres Strait Islands. We compiled case data of infectious diseases with proven, potential and speculative climate sensitivity.

We found there are five climate-sensitive infectious diseases present in the region: tuberculosis, dengue, Ross River virus, melioidosis (a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection) and nontuberculous mycobacterial infection.

These are recorded at a greater proportion than anticipated for the population size. The Torres Strait Islands have 0.52% of Queensland’s population but over 20% of Queensland’s melioidosis cases, 2.4% of tuberculosis cases and 2.1% of dengue cases.

Tuberculosis occurrence can rise with humidity, rainfall and temperature – factors exacerbated by climate change. Mosquitoes carrying dengue and Ross River viruses thrive with increases in temperature, rainfall, humidity and solar radiation. Increased cyclones, intense rainfall and flooding change soil conditions and elevate risk of life-threatening melioidosis. These same conditions can increase disease with nontuberculous mycobacteria.

The Torres Strait Islander population already experiences a higher burden of chronic disease than the general Australian population. This raises the risk of negative health outcomes from these climate-sensitive infections even further.

Read more:
‘Although we didn’t produce these problems, we suffer them’: 3 ways you can help in NAIDOC’s call to Heal Country

Torres Strait Islander voices must be privileged in climate change responses

The Torres Strait region is a part of Australia where the environmental and health impacts of climate change are being felt keenly. Torres Strait Islander voices need to be heard loudly and centrally to self-determine responses to protect their health and homeland in the present and future.

Of course, localised efforts will not be sufficient in isolation. Actions to mitigate the causes of climate change and adapt to the impacts must occur in parallel nationally and globally. The Torres Strait Islands are the canary in the climate change coalmine.

Nina Lansbury Hall is a Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Assessment Report 6 and receives travel funding to attend from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She previously received funding from Queensland Health to evalaute a safe water program in the Torres Strait.

Andrew Redmond, Condy Canuto, Francis Nona, and Samuel Barnes do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Torres Strait Islanders face more than their fair share of health impacts from climate change – https://theconversation.com/torres-strait-islanders-face-more-than-their-fair-share-of-health-impacts-from-climate-change-165388

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeana Kriewaldt, Senior Lecturer, Geography and Sustainability Education, The University of Melbourne

With Greater Sydney in extended lockdown and south-east Queensland and Victoria plunged back into lockdown, remote schooling is part of life for many students in Australia. Teachers make valiant efforts to maintain excellent schooling and, without doubt, technology can help – for those who have it. But students are missing out on “shoulder-to-shoulder” learning moments.

Read more:
How creative use of technology may have helped save schooling during the pandemic

Picture a typical day in the classroom. The teacher gathers the class, explains a new idea and sets the students to work in small groups on the day’s task. She moves around the room, stopping at each group.

The teacher is making mental notes on each student’s progress. She leans in to engage with some students, asking questions and acknowledging their work. Other times she chooses not to speak with the students and moves on.

Small moments with big impacts

These “shoulder-to-shoulder” moments may appear insignificant or random. But research has shown otherwise. Teachers are making deliberate decisions in the moment, based on their observations of students’ progress, whether to speak with the students and what to say.

The Japanese have termed these moments kikan-shido, meaning between-desk instruction.

In kikan-shido, the teacher is keenly observing students’ learning as she moves between desks scanning their work. This helps her decide when to connect with students. Depending on the students’ needs, she may be guiding them through questions or instructions, or redirecting to prod or extend students’ learning, or simply offering encouragement. Snippets of the talk are social – building teacher-student relationships that foster learning.

If she observes that students are on track, the teacher may choose not to connect to give students space to think and work through the work themselves. These rapid exchanges take place within minutes or less – with one eye on the student and another on the rest of the class. In this way, the teacher is able to provide timely interventions that meet the needs and rate of progress of individual students.

Read more:
To learn at home, kids need more than just teaching materials. Their brain must also adapt to the context

Kikan-shido is a widely recognised teaching activity across different countries and cultures, although the characteristics differ. In Japan, teachers often use kikan-shido moments to select student work examples for subsequent whole-class discussion.

Kikan-shido moments also provide instantaneous feedback for the teacher about their instruction. In Hong Kong, teachers may stop to instruct the whole class when they observe certain errors during their walkabouts. In this way, teachers are fine-tuning their instruction to better meet students’ learning needs.

It’s very hard to replace these moments online

These powerful adaptive kikan-shido moments are difficult to reproduce or replace during remote schooling, which can take varying forms. For some children it may mean working on printed packs of materials sent home from school. Many others have some screen instruction with their teachers.

For some students, household members may be trying to recreate shoulder-to-shoulder moments at home but mostly without the specialised knowledge and experience that the teacher offers. For others, learning from home might mean learning alone.

Read more:
Schooling in lockdown isn’t home schooling – but we can learn from the real thing

Even when teachers are onscreen with students, it’s more challenging for teachers to observe individual students’ work, check their understanding and adapt their instructions on the fly to cater to individual students.

In the past year, research has focused on evaluating the impacts of remote learning on student outcomes including learning losses, social emotional impacts and accessibility, and on teacher well-being. It’s time to focus on the impacts of teaching between-desk instruction, which influences not only learning but also relationships between teachers and students.

Teachers lift learning through powerful kikan-shido moments – swiftly monitoring pupil progress, responding to individuals’ queries, and stretching their progress by tailoring challenging questions. And, more than this, shoulder-to-shoulder moments perform another essential function by sustaining the human connections that build belonging and well-being.

Read more:
Is learning more important than well-being? Teachers told us how COVID highlighted ethical dilemmas at school

How can you help your child during remote schooling?

Here are some suggestions for parents:

1. take a positive approach to learning at home by encouraging their efforts

2. ask what they are working on and check if they understand the task

3. offer help – but not too much! – when you are confident you can

4. encourage your child to keep in touch with their teachers and classmates

5. recognise that teachers and their schools are giving their best, and work in partnership with them.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Let’s face it — children miss valuable ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ learning moments during remote schooling – https://theconversation.com/lets-face-it-children-miss-valuable-shoulder-to-shoulder-learning-moments-during-remote-schooling-165536

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Hurd, Head of Department, International Business, Strategy & Entrepreneurship, Auckland University of Technology

The revelations last week of toxic workplace behaviour and a “boys’ club” culture at MediaWorks raise questions about organisational policies and processes that go well beyond a single company.

The Mediaworks review by Maria Dew QC identified instances of bullying, sexism, harassment, inappropriate relationships and use of illegal drugs. Her report’s 32 recommendations will now inform a culture change plan at the company.

The case provides a warning and an example for other organisations looking to improve their own cultures. But it also underlines how pervasive and resistant to change these problems can be — as our own research has shown.

We analysed three years of reflections by tertiary human resources (HR) students who had just completed a training session on sexual harassment processes and responses. While all felt they better understood definitions of sexual harassment and bullying after the course, they also felt there was a lack of consequences for the harassers, and that victims often lose everything.

More concerning, the students almost unanimously said they would be unlikely to raise the matter if they witnessed an act of harassment. Many also felt they would find it difficult to speak up about or improve inadequate HR policies or processes they might find at future employers.

They felt to do so would be a “black mark” on their own career development. While many “hoped” they would speak out, they were unsure how they would act in reality. Those who had experienced sexual harassment themselves reflected on how “difficult it is to make a complaint”.

HR is part of the culture

This last observation is important. Not unlike the findings in the recent Christchurch Girls High School survey, close to half of the HR students reported instances of either experiencing or witnessing an act of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Most reported they would likely “remain silent and just leave” if faced with instances of harassment in their future professional lives. Simply put, as other research has also shown, we found sexual harassment was experienced as a “normal” and complex part of working within a corporate environment.

Read more:
Depression, burnout, insomnia, headaches: how a toxic and sexist workplace culture can affect your health

This is not a criticism of HR students, who will no doubt move on to become ethical, high-performing professionals. In fact, their responses mirror those we see across employee groups.

But our study is unique — most research has focused on managerial or employee experiences of sexual harassment, whereas ours involves practitioners who play a critical role in harassment policy design and implementation, as well as in developing work cultures intolerant of harassment.

To see such responses in a group that is often blamed for organisational failure by high-profile inquiries suggests we first need to acknowledge that HR people themselves are working within a wider culture that can inhibit meaningful change.

Why workers don’t speak up

The responses in our research reflect the expectations of a corporate culture these future leaders are already well versed in — that to speak up means potentially sacrificing your own professional progression, or risking being seen as someone who “can’t take a joke”.

Many people will understand this dilemma, which is not limited to speaking up about harassment and bullying. Those who speak up against racism and discrimination based on sexual orientation or disability face similar issues.

If even those charged with developing processes to support positive work cultures are not confident in speaking up, how do organisations do better? This is surely an issue of critical importance to all New Zealand organisations, given recent reports suggesting the problem is widespread and certainly not limited to high-profile cases.

Read more:
Women don’t speak up over workplace harassment because no one hears them if they do

As the Mediaworks report showed, solutions have to go beyond fixing the support processes for employees who have experienced harassment, and involve confronting the largely invisible drivers of toxic organisational culture.

These are not easily captured in a traditional “organisational values” statement. The idea of “culture” extends to the language, behaviours and micro-interactions we have with one another every day.

Our research participants reported their own experiences of needing to “adapt to the crass behaviour” and the difficulty in stepping outside taken-for-granted norms: “You can’t put up a force field.”

Leaders need to be honest

Given this, perhaps recommendations around processes and training programs specific to sexual harassment are not enough. Instead, the key might lie in seeing this behaviour as part of wider cultural behaviours that, on their own, might not immediately raise alarm bells.

Studies have shown that any form of disrespectful behaviour – such as refusing to help, spreading rumours, subtle undermining, or even leadership behaviour such as “shoulder tapping” for preferential treatment – can lead to a culture that supports toxic power structures and where harassment and bullying become risks.

Read more:
The real cost of workplace sexual harassment to businesses

Many of these behaviours are seen as a “normal” part of office politics, easy to dismiss or difficult to see. More importantly, they can be hard for leaders to admit to — we all want to lead organisations with strong, positive organisational cultures.

But having clear, candid and honest discussions with colleagues around the leadership table about the invisible culture will open a dialogue and create the potential for change.

Importantly, it takes a willingness by leaders to be brave enough to take an honest look in the cultural “mirror” and be open to what is revealed.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. MediaWorks and NZ’s problem with toxic work cultures — why HR can’t fix everything – https://theconversation.com/mediaworks-and-nzs-problem-with-toxic-work-cultures-why-hr-cant-fix-everything-165741

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Kelly, Lecturer in Drama, School of Creative Practice and member of the ‘Creative Practice for Social Impact’ Research Group, Queensland University of Technology

The play Don’s Party premiered on August 11 1971 at Carlton’s Pram Factory, home to the radical theatre ensemble, the Australian Performing Arts Group.

Established four years earlier in 1967, the group would nurture some of the most passionate Australian voices of a generation, including Max Gillies, John Romeril, Kerry Walker, Geoffrey Milne and Jenny Kemp.

Until this point, there was very little original Australian theatre. With the exception of Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1955), Australian stages were dominated by scripts imported from the UK and America.

This new generation was interested in creating a muscular, fiercely nationalistic form of theatre preoccupied with “staging the nation”.

Hot off the back of The Removalists at La Mama, Don’s Party was the fifth play by the young, engineering-student-turned playwright David Williamson.

Read more:
Where Australia’s great theatre artists trod the boards: 50 years of Melbourne’s La Mama theatre

Williamson’s hallmark satiric naturalism sat outside the collective’s experimental and confrontational aesthetic and there was some early resistance to programming the play.

But the explosive zeitgeist energy of Don’s Party and — as described by Graeme Blundell, who played Simon — the “gasp of recognition” from audiences couldn’t be ignored.

A forensic look at Australia

Don’s Party is a slice-of-life satire, set at an Australian barbecue hosted by 30-something couple Don and Kath on election night 1969. When the opposition Labour Party takes an early lead, all the couples at the party are elated — except for the “ring-ins”, Liberal voting couple Simon and Jody.

As the election win slides away, the evening slowly descends into despair.

The long, beery night, with guests milling in front of the television and wandering in and out of the lounge room, is laced with the unfinished sexual encounters, fist fights and drunken accusations that fuel the plot.

Williamson’s forensic characterisation nailed the social construction of party affiliation at the end of the 1960s. A new generation of left wing, middle class voters were challenging the puritanical and conservative culture of Australian politics. Williamson and many of his collaborators were born just at the beginning of what would become known as the Baby Boomers, and the play captured the fears and dreams of their audience.

It’s not all politics. The comedy also comes from the permissive wife-swapping social milieu of the Australian middle classes in the late 1960s. Free love, swearing that would make your ears hurt, and detailed discussion of excretion were the hallmarks of the swinging Australian suburban sophisticate.

(In 2005, Williamson observed this period of wife-swapping only lasted a few years, finishing “as soon as women realised that this was as oppressive as what had proceeded it”.)

The play’s reception was electric. In a few short years it would go on productions at Jane Street Theatre in Sydney (1972); in the newly created Melbourne Theatre Company (1973); and the Royal Court in London (1976), cementing Williamson’s international critical reputation.

Don’s Party signalled Williamson’s future as our most prolific playwright and king of the Australian middle-class, mainstream drama.

Read more:
The Great Australian Plays: Williamson, Hibberd and the better angels of our country’s nature

The brutality of film

The real imprint of the play on Australian culture came from its adaptation into film in 1976 by director Bruce Beresford and producer Philip Adams, the pioneers of 1970s ocker Ozploitation films.

Although Williamson wrote the screen adaptation, the film has a much more brutal tone. In a documentary, actor Susan Binney — who played “nymphette” university student Susan — says she still “shudders” when she recalls the filming of the pool scene where she was forcibly undressed and thrown into the pool by Don, Mal, Mack and Cooley.

Binney wasn’t warned she would be thrown into the pool during rehearsals, as the sexist machismo of the story bled over into real life.

Williamson has also shared his disquiet about that scene and some of the other additions to the film that brought the off-stage bedroom of the original play into graphic cinematic world.

Yet this bleed of 1970s ocker film genre into the more nuanced, gendered satire of Williamson’s script gave Don’s Party its enduring cultural impact. In its 50 years, the play has seen multiple remounts, a 2011 sequel Don Parties On (where the same friends gather on the night of the 2008 federal election) and pop culture tributes.

A capsule of Australian theatre — and Australia

Contemporary theatre director Sam Strong notes how Williamson’s “enduring power is to speak directly to Australian audiences.”

This year, the film was released on Netflix and Amazon Prime. A re-watch proves how fresh the work still is as a time capsule of the Boomer generation preparing to bring Australia into a globalised world, and a reminder of the often futile experience of the hapless Labour voter in barracking for what, in electoral terms, has been a long-term losing team.

Indeed, when I contemplate drinking my moderately-priced chardonnay on what is likely to be another sweaty election night eve sometime across the next eight months, I am haunted by the fear of enduring another Don’s Party.

Kathryn Kelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Don’s Party at 50: an achingly real portrayal of the hapless Australian middle-class voter – https://theconversation.com/dons-party-at-50-an-achingly-real-portrayal-of-the-hapless-australian-middle-class-voter-165609

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

The Moderna vaccine has been provisionally approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for use in Australia, with one million doses due in the second half of September, which will go to pharmacies.

Three million doses are then scheduled to arrive in each of October, November, and December, with 15 million booster doses in the first half of next year.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said Moderna, an mRNA vaccine, was expected to be available for eligible people from next month, after final advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI). Moderna has been approved for people 18 and over.

The TGA is also considering Moderna for children, with the head of the TGA Dr John Skerritt saying a decision on its suitability for those 12 and over is expected within the next three to four weeks.

Skerritt said very recently Europe had recommended Moderna’s use for children over 12.

“We made the decision in conjunction with the company to do the adults first because that enabled us to reach a decision earlier, which can then start the whole process of access to the vaccine in Australia earlier. The data on the teenagers does look good,” he said.

Skerritt said even after six months, Moderna was 93% effective against infection, 98% against severe disease and 100% against death. Two doses are required, 28 days apart.

The Moderna announcement came as NSW recorded 283 new locally acquired cases.

Skerritt also said the TGA was working with industry on the wider availability of rapid antigen tests.

“These tests are not the gold standard PCR tests,” he said, but they were a useful adjunct. “Clearly there are a range of things that have to be resolved, such as collection and recording of data.”

The Australian Industry Group’s CEO, Innes Willox, said it was urgent that rapid testing be fully approved as soon as possible.

“Results are very close to lab based tests, almost instantaneous and from the employer’s perspective that means they can be used in some high risk operations at the beginning of a shift or in operations every week or so,” Willox said.

Willox also called on the government “to extend the same indemnity to employers who vaccinate their willing workers at the workplace as is enjoyed by doctors, pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies.

“A medical practitioner who comes to a workplace to give the vaccine would have an indemnity. The employer does not have that same indemnity but should be given it to cover any unexpected circumstances.”

He stressed indemnity had nothing to do with mandating vaccinations.

Morrison, who took another knock in the latest Newspoll in his personal ratings and for his handling of COVID, said the Delta variant has changed everything. “It’s changed all of the rules and it means we’ve had to change with it to keep Australians safe. And, that means, right now, we are going through one of the toughest parts of this COVID pandemic,” he said.

“I know Australians are frustrated. I know they’re sick of it. I know they’re angry. And I know they want it to stop and for life to get back to where they knew it. But, what we have to do now is recognise the reality of the challenge we have in front of us. None of us likes it.”

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Australia’s vaccines boosted with provisional approval for Moderna – https://theconversation.com/australias-vaccines-boosted-with-provisional-approval-for-moderna-165820

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle H Lim, Senior Lecturer and Clinical Psychologist, Swinburne University of Technology

Millions of Australians are currently living under lockdowns in an effort to curb the rapid spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19.

While lockdowns and other social distancing restrictions are important strategies to protect Australians’ physical health during the pandemic, it’s no secret they take a significant toll on mental health.

As well as financial stressors, including the loss of work, prolonged or frequent lockdowns can affect mental health by disrupting social routines. This puts people in lockdown at risk of loneliness.

So with lockdowns and social restrictions likely to be a part of life in Australia until a significant majority of us are fully vaccinated, it’s timely to think about what we can do to look out for people who may be vulnerable.

Lockdowns and loneliness

Lockdowns reduce our opportunities to connect with loved ones in person, and slow our ability to develop or foster new connections. Many families are also divided across borders — both domestic and international — with little certainty as to when they’ll be able to reunite.

We collected data from the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, examining loneliness levels in relation to the severity of social restrictions during the first six months of the pandemic.

Although our research is yet to be published, we found, somewhat unsurprisingly, that as social restrictions eased, loneliness levels also dropped significantly.

While it’s normal to feel lonely from time to time, some people are at higher risk of problematic levels of loneliness. We found being aged 18-25, being unemployed, and living alone were among the factors that predicted higher levels of loneliness.

Why should we care about loneliness?

For some people, experiencing persistent or distressing levels of loneliness can lead to poor health. In part, this may be because loneliness creates a physiological stress response.

Researchers from Denmark found loneliness increases a person’s chance of developing heart disease by 20%, and type 2 diabetes by 90% within a five-year period.

While people with a mental health disorder are more likely to report being lonely, it goes the other way too. Loneliness predicts more severe depression, social anxiety and paranoia.

Read more:
It’s hard to admit we’re lonely, even to ourselves. Here are the signs and how to manage them

There’s increasing recognition that feeling lonely also costs businesses. Loneliness has been estimated to set UK employers back up to £2.53 billion per year, owing to factors such as higher staff turnover, lower job satisfaction and lower productivity.

The adoption of remote working practices beyond the immediate crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic will further limit our ability to form or keep those small, informal but important moments to connect with colleagues.

How can we help those who may be at risk?

Loneliness is a personal and distressing experience that can be complex to resolve.

But for people who are lonely, feeling meaningfully connected to others can help. Here are four steps we can all take to help people who may be experiencing loneliness.

1. Listen out

People who are lonely may not readily or explicitly complain about their loneliness due to fear of judgement or stigma.

If they do reach out, a person who is lonely may ask to connect in an indirect or non-urgent way. This can be because people who feel lonely don’t want to burden others. For example, “when you have time, let’s catch up” may appear non-urgent, but it’s important to respond to these requests.

2. Check in and share

Living in a lockdown is stressful, but it’s a shared experience. It presents us with opportunities to show kindness to people we may not know well. A simple “hello” can go a long way for many.

Asking others how they are can become part and parcel of our conversations with each other. Indeed, checking in — even with people who we may not know well, such as co-workers, neighbours, or the barista at the local coffee shop — is becoming the new normal.

Where appropriate, more often than not, sharing our lockdown experiences can create an opportunity to bond with and support each other.

Read more:
Are the kids alright? Social isolation can take a toll, but play can help

3. Ask the right questions

If someone shares they are feeling lonely, asking “is there anything I can do to help?” facilitates the conversation and lets others know you are there without judgement.

Don’t assume what works for you will work for someone else. Ask them “what do you think could help you?”

Being proactive

Since the pandemic began, many Australians have discovered different ways to keep in touch beyond the zoom call. These include things like writing stories and letters, leaving care packages, and exercising with a friend (while socially distanced and with masks).

Millions of Australians are living with multiple sources of stress right now. But it’s not impossible to show emotional support and care to people around us while still sticking to social distancing rules.

Employers must also take proactive steps to keep workers engaged with each other and to the organisation.

Read more:
Lonely in lockdown? You’re not alone. 1 in 2 Australians feel more lonely since coronavirus

So long as lockdowns are used as a strategy against the virus, there will be a social cost to our well-being. But that only makes it more important than ever that we make the effort to stay meaningfully connected to others.

Michelle H Lim is the Chairperson and Scientific Chair of Ending Loneliness Together, a not-for-profit national organisation. She is also the Co-Director of the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection. She has received research funding from Barbara Dicker Brain Sciences Foundation and Nextdoor Inc.

– ref. Lockdowns make people lonely. Here are 3 steps we can take now to help each other – https://theconversation.com/lockdowns-make-people-lonely-here-are-3-steps-we-can-take-now-to-help-each-other-165256

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Renwick, Professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has delivered a sobering update on how much the Earth has warmed and how the climate system is responding.

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) is the most comprehensive yet. It shows Earth is now 1.09℃ warmer than it was in the 1850s, and that each incremental increase in warming will bring more extreme weather events.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

For the first time, the assessment also includes a regional breakdown of observed and projected changes.

It shows that while the Australian continent has warmed faster than the global average, at 1.4℃ since 1850, New Zealand’s climate has been changing in line with global trends over the last century.

The average temperature has gone up by 1.1℃ and sea levels have risen about 20cm. The wetter western parts of the country have become even wetter, with more heavy rainfall events, while the drier regions in the east and in Northland have become drier.

Projections for the future continue this theme, becoming wetter in the west, while the eastern regions and the far north continue to dry, especially in winter and spring.

Irreversible changes

The change in rainfall is associated with an overall increase in the strength of the westerly winds across the country, along with an increase in high pressures and settled weather over the far north as the atmospheric band known as the “subtropical high pressure region” is moving south, closer towards the pole.

The overall average warming brings an increase in hot days around the country and more frequent marine heatwaves, with warmer sea surface temperatures over the Tasman Sea and around New Zealand.

The AR6 shows that some of the changes have now become irreversible, at least on time scales of hundreds or even thousands of years.

Across the globe, glaciers will keep retreating as the climate warms. New Zealand’s glaciers will also continue to melt and recede and could disappear right up their valleys if warming reaches 2℃ or more.

Read more:
Rising seas and melting glaciers: these changes are now irreversible, but we have to act to slow them down

The seas will also continue to rise, but how much and how quickly also depends on the amount of warming the world experiences. Even if we manage to cap warming at around 1.5°C, New Zealand will experience up to half a metre of sea level rise by the end of this century.

A changing water cycle

The latest assessment report takes a storyline approach and dedicates each chapter to a specific element of Earth’s climate system. I was an author for a chapter on the water cycle.

Water is vital for life, and changes in water availability have serious implications worldwide. Overall, we see that the water cycle is becoming more intense, that is, a warming atmosphere leads to both more precipitation over land and higher evaporation.

The magnitude and frequency of floods and droughts are increasing in many parts of the world. There is not enough published literature on such trends in New Zealand specifically, but we do know that climate change has made individual floods and droughts more intense in this country.

It is clear that all aspects of the water cycle are affected by warming, including rain and snowfall, glacier mass, groundwater storage, river flows and the oceans.

One clear signal is that variability and extremes in precipitation are increasing, above the rate of the global average. Unless we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions rapidly, we will see even more substantial changes in the water cycle worldwide, including the loss of glaciers and the river flows they feed, more intense precipitation, more extreme rainfall events and associated river floods, but also more intense droughts and an increased risk of wildfires.

As the climate warms, storm tracks are moving towards the poles in many regions, notably across the southern hemisphere. At the same time, the high-pressure regions in the subtropics are expanding poleward. The net effects for New Zealand are that the west and south will see increased precipitation in winter and spring, while the north and east will see reductions.

Abrupt changes

We now have a much better understanding of how aerosols (air pollution) affect the water cycle, especially for tropical monsoons and tropical rainfall generally. An increase in aerosols has generally offset the effect of warming in recent decades.

One proposed technique for managing climate change is known as solar radiation modification. It involves blocking out sunlight by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere.

But recent research shows this could drive abrupt changes in the water cycle and affect different regions in potentially disruptive ways. For example, continued Amazon deforestation, combined with a warming climate, could tip the Amazon ecosystem into a dry state during the 21st century.

Climate change has never been more obvious or better understood. Nor has the urgency of action been clearer, if we are to avoid the really catastrophic consequences. Reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions must by a priority, from now.

James Renwick receives funding from the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. He is a Commissioner at the NZ Climate Change Commission and is a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report.

– ref. The global water cycle has become more intense, and that makes New Zealand’s wet regions wetter, and dry ones drier – https://theconversation.com/the-global-water-cycle-has-become-more-intense-and-that-makes-new-zealands-wet-regions-wetter-and-dry-ones-drier-165797

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Golledge, Professor of Glaciology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

After three years of writing and two weeks of virtual negotiations to approve the final wording, the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that changes are happening in Earth’s climate across every continent and every ocean.

My contribution was as one of 15 lead authors to a chapter about the oceans, the world’s icescapes and sea level change — and this is where we are now observing changes that have become irreversible over centuries, and even millennia.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

Overall, the world is now 1.09℃ warmer than it was during the period between 1850 and 1900. The assessment shows the ocean surface has warmed slightly less, by about 0.9℃ as a global average, than the land surface since 1850, but about two-thirds of the ocean warming has taken place during the last 50 years.

We concluded that it is virtually certain the heat content of the ocean will continue to increase for the rest of the current century, and will likely continue until at least 2300, even under low-emissions scenarios.

We also concluded that carbon dioxide emissions are the main driver of acidification in the open ocean and that this has been increasing faster than any time in at least 26,000 years.

We can also say with high confidence that oxygen levels have dropped in many ocean regions since the mid-20th century and that marine heatwaves have doubled in frequency since 1980, also becoming longer and more intense.

Past greenhouse gas emissions, since 1750, mean we are now committed to future ocean warming throughout this century. The rate of change depends on our future emissions, but the process itself is now irreversible on centennial to
millennial time scales.

Ice loss in Antarctica

All this heat is bad news for the area I work in: Antarctica. With a warming ocean, the Antarctic ice sheet is left vulnerable to melting because so much of it rests on bedrock below sea level.

As the ocean warms and the ice sheet melts, sea level goes up around the world. We have very high confidence that the ice lost from West Antarctica in recent decades has exceeded any gain in mass from snowfall. We are also confident this loss has largely been due to increased melting of ice below sea level, driven by warming ocean water.

This melting has allowed the acceleration and thinning of grounded ice further inland — and this is what contributes to sea level rise. On the other side of the world, the Greenland ice sheet has also been losing mass over recent decades, but in Greenland this is principally due to warmer air, rather than warming ocean water.

Read more:
If warming exceeds 2°C, Antarctica’s melting ice sheets could raise seas 20 metres in coming centuries

It is virtually certain that the melting of the two great ice sheets, in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as the many thousands of glaciers around the world, will continue to raise sea levels globally for the rest of the current century.

By 2100, we project global mean sea level to be between 0.4m (for the lowest emission scenario, in which CO₂ emissions would have to drop to net zero by 2050) and 0.8m (for the highest emissions scenario) above the 1995–2014 average. How high the seas rise this century clearly depends on how much and how quickly we manage to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The time to act is now

There are processes at play which we still cannot fully capture in computer models, mostly because they take place over periods of time longer than we have direct (satellite-based) observations for. In Antarctica, some of these uncertain processes could greatly accelerate the loss of ice, and potentially add one metre to the projected sea level by 2100.

Whether or not this worst-case scenario plays out or not remains uncertain, but what is increasingly beyond doubt is that global mean sea level will continue to rise for centuries to come. The magnitude of this depends very much on the extent to which we are able, collectively, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions right now.

The scientific updates in our AR6 chapter are in line with those from previous assessments. That’s encouraging, because every assessment report brings in new authors with different expertise. The fact the scientific conclusions remain consistent reflects the overwhelming agreement within the global scientific community.

For our chapter, we have assessed 1500 research papers, but across the entire AR6, over 14,000 publications were considered, with an emphasis on recent research that hasn’t been assessed in previous IPCC reports.

The report has been scrutinised carefully at every stage of its evolution, attracting nearly 80,000 individual review comments from experts all over the world. Every single comment had to be addressed by the author team, with written responses provided and any changes to the text carefully noted and tracked.

What changes with each assessment is the clarity of the trends we are observing, and the increasing urgency with which we must act. While some aspects of AR6 are new, the underlying message remains the same. The longer we wait, the more devastating the consequences.

Nick Golledge received funding from the Ministry for the Environment to support his contribution to the IPCC process.

– ref. Rising seas and melting glaciers: these changes are now irreversible, but we have to act to slow them down – https://theconversation.com/rising-seas-and-melting-glaciers-these-changes-are-now-irreversible-but-we-have-to-act-to-slow-them-down-165527

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Grose, Climate projections scientist, CSIRO

Australia is experiencing widespread, rapid climate change not seen for thousands of years and may warm by 4℃ or more this century, according to a highly anticipated report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The assessment, released on Monday, also warns of unprecedented increases in climate extremes such as bushfires, floods and drought. But it says deep, rapid emissions cuts could spare Australia, and the world, from the most severe warming and associated harms.

The report is the sixth produced by the IPCC since it was founded in 1988 and provides more regional information than any previous version. This gives us a clearer picture of how climate change will play out in Australia specifically.

It confirms the effects of human-caused climate change have well and truly arrived in Australia. This includes in the region of the East Australia Current, where the ocean is warming at a rate more than four times the global average.

We are climate scientists with expertise across historical climate change, climate projections, climate impacts and the carbon budget. We have been part of the international effort to produce the IPCC report over the past three years.

The report finds even under a moderate emissions scenario, the global effects of climate change will worsen significantly over the coming years and decades. Every fraction of a degree of global warming increases the likelihood and severity of many extremes. That means every effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions matters.

Australia is, without question, warming

Australia has warmed by about 1.4℃ since 1910. The IPCC assessment concludes the extent of warming in both Australia and globally are impossible to explain without accounting for the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activities.

The report introduces the concept of Climate Impact-Drivers (CIDs): 30 climate averages, extremes and events that create climate impacts. These include heat, cold, drought and flood.

The report confirms global warming is driving a significant increase in the intensity and frequency of extremely hot temperatures in Australia, as well as a decrease in almost all cold extremes. The IPCC noted with high confidence that recent extreme heat events in Australia were made more likely or more severe due to human influence.

These events include:

• the Australian summer of 2012–13, also known as the Angry Summer, when more than 70% of Australia experienced extreme temperatures

• the Brisbane heatwave in 2014

• extreme heat preceding the 2018 Queensland fires

• the heat leading into the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20.

The IPCC report notes very high confidence in further warming and heat extremes through the 21st century – the extent of which depends on global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

If global average warming is limited to 1.5℃ this century, Australia would warm to between 1.4℃ to 1.8℃. If global average warming reaches 4℃ this century, Australia would warm to between 3.9℃ and 4.8℃ .

The IPCC says as the planet warms, future heatwaves in Australia – and globally – will be hotter and last longer. Conversely, cold extremes will be both less intense and frequent.

Hotter temperatures, combined with reduced rainfall, will make parts of Australia more arid. A drying climate can lead to reduced river flows, drier soils, mass tree deaths, crop damage, bushfires and drought.

The southwest of Western Australia remains a globally notable hotspot for drying attributable to human influence. The IPCC says this drying is projected to continue as emissions rise and the climate warms. In southern and eastern Australia, drying in winter and spring is also likely to continue. This phenomenon is depicted in the graphic below.

Climate extremes on the rise

Heat and drying are not the only climate extremes set to hit Australia in the coming decades. The report also notes:

• observed and projected increases in Australia’s dangerous fire weather

• a projected increase in heavy and extreme rainfall in most places in Australia, particularly in the north

• a projected increase in river flood risk almost everywhere in Australia.

Under a warmer climate, extreme rainfall in a single hour or day can become more intense or more frequent, even in areas where the average rainfall declines.

For the first time, the IPCC report provides regional projections of coastal hazards due to sea level rise, changing coastal storms and coastal erosion – changes highly relevant to beach-loving Australia.

This century, for example, sandy shorelines in places such as eastern Australia are projected to retreat by more than 100 metres, under moderate or high emissions pathways.

Hotter, more acidic oceans

The IPCC report says globally, climate change means oceans are becoming more acidic and losing oxygen. Ocean currents are becoming more variable and salinity patterns – the parts of the ocean that are saltiest and less salty – are changing.

It also means sea levels are rising and the oceans are becoming warmer. This is leading to an increase in marine heatwaves such as those which have contributed to mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in recent decades.

Notably, the region of the East Australia Current which runs south along the continent’s east coast is warming at a rate more than four times the global average.

The phenomenon is playing out in all regions with so-called “western boundary currents” – fast, narrow ocean currents found in all major ocean gyres. This pronounced warming is affecting marine ecosystems and aquaculture and is projected to continue.

Read more:
We just spent two weeks surveying the Great Barrier Reef. What we saw was an utter tragedy

Where to from here?

Like all regions of the world, Australia is already feeling the effects of a changing climate.

The IPCC confirms there is no going back from some changes in the climate system. However, the consequences can be slowed, and some effects stopped, through strong, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions.

And now is the time to start adapting to climate change at a large scale, through serious planning and on-ground action.

To find out more about how climate change will affect Australia, the latest IPCC report includes an Interactive Atlas. Use it to explore past trends and future projections for different emissions scenarios, and for the world at different levels of global warming.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

Michael Grose receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub

Dr Joelle Gergis has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past. She currently receives funding from the Australian National University. The Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources provided travel funding to support her participation in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

Pep Canadell receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub

Roshanka Ranasinghe is employed at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education/Deltares, Delft, The Netherlands

– ref. Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-has-already-hit-australia-unless-we-act-now-a-hotter-drier-and-more-dangerous-future-awaits-ipcc-warns-165396

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Grose, Climate projections scientist, CSIRO

Of all the troubling news in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report out on Monday, one warning will surely generate the most headlines: under all scenarios examined, Earth is likely to reach the crucial 1.5℃ warming limit in the early 2030s.

As the report makes clear, global warming of 1.5℃, and then 2℃, will be exceeded this century unless we make deep cuts to CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades.

Climate change and its consequences are already being felt. Beyond 1.5℃, the situation is likely to rapidly deteriorate.

We are among the climate scientists who contributed to the latest IPCC report, including on the question of 1.5C℃ warming. Here, we go beyond the headlines to explain how the 1.5℃ rise is measured – and why maintaining the lowest global warming possible is what really matters.

‘The most important goal’

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations agreed to hold global warming to well below 2℃, and preferably limit it to 1.5℃, compared to pre-industrial levels.

The first global stocktake of that agreement will be held in 2023, to assess the world’s progress towards achieving its goals. That’s one of the reasons global warming levels are being so keenly watched right now.

The IPCC’s latest findings say 1.5℃ warming will be reached or exceeded in the early 2030s in all emissions scenarios considered – except the highest emissions scenario, for which the crossing could occur even earlier.

But not all hope is lost. In the very low emissions scenario considered in the report – known officially as “SSP1-1.9” – Earth reaches 1.5℃ warming for a few decades, but drops back below it by the end of the century.

This point is important. It’s still possible for Earth to keep below 1.5℃ global warming this century, if we rapidly cut emissions to net-zero. All other scenarios lead to further global warming once 1.5℃ is reached.

However, if maintaining 1.5℃ is not possible, the next goal should be to limit global warming to 1.6℃, then 1.7℃ and so on. Limiting warming to the lowest possible level is the most important goal. Every bit of warming we avoid will reduce the climate risks we face.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

How 1.5℃ warming is measured

The declaration that Earth has reached 1.5℃ warming since the pre-industrial era will not be made after a single year, or a single location, passes that threshold.

The warming is measured as a global average over 20 years, to account for natural variability in the system.

Before global average temperatures officially reach 1.5℃ warming, we can expect quite a few years will exceed that limit. In fact, global temperatures exceeded 1.5℃ warming during individual months at the peak of the 2015-16 El Niño.

The industrial era – and associated greenhouse gas emissions – started in the 1700s. But there is almost no observed climate data on land outside Europe before the mid-19th century.

So, the period of 1850-1900 is used to approximate pre-industrial conditions. The IPCC estimates there was a likely temperature change of between -0.1 to +0.3℃ for the century or so before this where climate data is lacking.

According to the latest IPCC findings, Earth’s average temperature in the last decade was 1.09℃ warmer than the pre-industrial baseline. Obviously, this goes most of the way to 1.5℃ of warming. The IPCC says this warming is unequivocally the result of human influence.

The new science

Several innovations have helped inform the IPCC’s latest assessment. For the first time, the IPCC’s estimate of future global temperature change is based on three factors.

First are projections using new scenarios “Shared Socio-economic Pathways” or SSPs. Each pathway refers to different trajectories the world’s society and economy could take, and the emissions that would result.

A range of climate models – the result of much global scientific effort – is used to simulate climate change in response to each pathway.

Second, climate models are verified against observed climate data. Climate models are essential tools, but should always be used carefully. This grounding in observations was particularly needed with the latest round of climate models, to bring their results in line with other types of evidence.

Read more:
Yes, a few climate models give unexpected predictions – but the technology remains a powerful tool

Third, the IPCC used an assessment of “climate sensititivty” – how sensitive Earth’s temperature is to a doubling of global CO₂ concentrations. The IPCC’s assessment of the evidence puts climate sensitivity at likely between 2.5℃ and 4℃, with low-likelihood possibilities of less than 2℃ or more than 5℃.

If humanity is lucky, and actual climate sensitivity is in the lowest plausible range, Earth may not reach the 1.5℃ warming limit under the lowest emissions scenarios (but still will under the medium or high ones). If we are unlucky and climate sensitivity is in the high range, the need to quickly reach net-zero emissions becomes even greater.

The following diagram from the latest IPCC report shows the estimated timeframe for reaching various global warming levels, under different Shared Socio-economic Pathways and climate sensitivity values.

Where does this leave us?

The latest IPCC findings confirm Earth will be in the ballpark of 1.5℃ warming in the early 2030s. What happens after that depends on the decisions we make today.

With deep and sustained reductions in CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades, we could keep warming around the 1.5℃ mark and then bring it below that threshold by the end of the century.

The IPCC findings are worrying, but should not be a distraction from our global climate efforts. Staying below 1.5℃ warming is important. But maintaining the lowest global warming we can – whether or not we exceed the 1.5℃ goal – is what really matters.

To explore climate change in Australia and around the world at 1.5℃ and higher global warming levels, see the IPCC’s Interactive Atlas.

Read more:
Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns

Michael Grose receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub

Malte Meinshausen is Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. He also works as Scientific Director at Climate Resource. Malte Meinshausen receives funding from various government and other research grants, including from the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

Pep Canadell receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth and Climate Systems Hub

Zebedee Nicholls receives funding from One Earth, a philanthropic organisation working to accelerate collective action to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5°C. He is also a co-founder of Climate Resource, which connects governments and businesses with the latest climate science.

– ref. IPCC says Earth will reach temperature rise of about 1.5℃ in around a decade. But limiting any global warming is what matters most – https://theconversation.com/ipcc-says-earth-will-reach-temperature-rise-of-about-1-5-in-around-a-decade-but-limiting-any-global-warming-is-what-matters-most-165397

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pep Canadell, Chief research scientist, Climate Science Centre, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; and Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO

Earth has warmed 1.09℃ since pre-industrial times and many changes such as sea-level rise and glacier melt are now virtually irreversible, according to the most sobering report yet by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report also found escape from human-caused climate change is no longer possible. Climate change is now affecting every continent, region and ocean on Earth, and every facet of the weather.

The long-awaited report is the sixth assessment of its kind since the panel was formed in 1988. It will give world leaders the most timely, accurate information about climate change ahead of a crucial international summit in Glasgow, Scotland in November.

The IPCC is the peak climate science body of the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization. It is the global authority on the state of Earth’s climate and how human activities affect it. We are authors of the latest IPCC report and have drawn from the work of thousands of scientists from around the world to produce this new assessment.

Sadly, there is hardly any good news in the 3,900 pages of text released today. But there is still time to avert the worst damage, if humanity chooses to.

It’s unequivocal: humans are warming the planet

For the first time, the IPCC states unequivocally — leaving absolutely no room for doubt – humans are responsible for the observed warming of the atmosphere, lands and oceans.

The IPCC finds Earth’s global surface temperature warmed 1.09℃ between 1850-1900 and the last decade. This is 0.29℃ warmer than in the previous IPCC report in 2013. (It should be noted that 0.1℃ of the increase is due to data improvements.)

Read more:
Monday’s IPCC report is a really big deal for climate change. So what is it? And why should we trust it?

The IPCC recognises the role of natural changes to the Earth’s climate. However, it finds 1.07℃ of the 1.09℃ warming is due to greenhouse gases associated with human activities. In other words, pretty much all global warming is due to humans.

Global surface temperature has warmed faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2,000 years, with the warming also reaching ocean depths below 2,000 metres.

The IPCC says human activities have also affected global precipitation (rain and snow). Since 1950, total global precipitation has increased, but while some regions have become wetter, others have become drier.

The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased over most land areas. This is because the warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture — about 7% more for each additional degree of temperature — which makes wet seasons and rainfall events wetter.

Higher concentrations of CO₂, growing faster

Present-day global concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) are higher and rising faster than at any time in at least the past two million years.

The speed at which atmospheric CO₂ has increased since the industrial revolution (1750) is at least ten times faster than at any other time during the last 800,000 years, and between four and five times faster than during the last 56 million years.

About 85% of CO₂ emissions are from burning fossil fuels. The remaining 15% are generated from land use change, such as deforestation and degradation.

Read more:
More livestock, more carbon dioxide, less ice: the world’s climate change progress since 2019 is (mostly) bad news

Concentrations of other greenhouse gases are not doing any better. Both methane and nitrous oxide, the second and third biggest contributors to global warming after CO₂, have also increased more quickly.

Methane emissions from human activities largely come from livestock and the fossil fuel industry. Nitrous oxide emissions largely come from the use of nitrogen fertiliser on crops.

Extreme weather on the rise

Hot extremes, heatwaves and heavy rain have also become more frequent and intense across most land regions since 1950, the IPCC confirms.

The report highlights that some recently observed hot extremes, such as the Australian summer of 2012–2013, would have been extremely unlikely without human influence on the climate.

Human influence has also been detected for the first time in compounded extreme events. For example, incidences of heatwaves, droughts and fire weather happening at the same time are now more frequent. These compound events have been seen in Australia, Southern Europe, Northern Eurasia, parts of the Americas and African tropical forests.

Oceans: hotter, higher and more acidic

Oceans absorb 91% of the energy from the increased atmospheric greenhouse gases. This has led to ocean warming and more marine heatwaves, particularly over the past 15 years.

Marine heatwaves cause the mass death of marine life, such as from coral bleaching events. They also cause algal blooms and shifts in the composition of species. Even if the world restricts warming to 1.5-2℃, as is consistent with the Paris Agreement, marine heatwaves will become four times more frequent by the end of the century.

Read more:
Watching a coral reef die as climate change devastates one of the most pristine tropical island areas on Earth

Melting ice sheets and glaciers, along with the expansion of the ocean as it warms, have led to a global mean sea level increase of 0.2 metres between 1901 and 2018. But, importantly, the speed sea level is rising is accelerating: 1.3 millimetres per year during 1901-1971, 1.9mm per year during 1971-2006, and 3.7mm per year during 2006-2018.

Ocean acidification, caused by the uptake of CO₂, has occurred over all oceans and is reaching depths beyond 2,000m in the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic.

Many changes are already irreversible

The IPCC says if Earth’s climate was stabilised soon, some climate change-induced damage could not be reversed within centuries, or even millennia. For example, global warming of 2℃ this century will lead to average global sea level rise of between two and six metres over 2,000 years, and much more for higher emission scenarios.

Globally, glaciers have been synchronously retreating since 1950 and are projected to continue to melt for decades after the global temperature is stabilised. Meanwhile the acidification of the deep ocean will remain for thousands of years after CO₂ emissions cease.

Read more:
We mapped the world’s frozen peatlands – what we found was very worrying

The report does not identify any possible abrupt changes that would lead to an acceleration of global warming during this century – but does not rule out such possibilities.

The prospect of permafrost (frozen soils) in Alaska, Canada, and Russia crossing a tipping point has been widely discussed. The concern is that as frozen ground thaws, large amounts of carbon accumulated over thousands of years from dead plants and animals could be released as they decompose.

The report does not identify any globally significant abrupt change in these regions over this century, based on currently available evidence. However, it projects permafrost areas will release about 66 billion tonnes of CO₂ for each additional degree of warming. These emissions are irreversible during this century under all warming scenarios.

How we can stabilise the climate

Earth’s surface temperature will continue to increase until at least 2050 under all emissions scenarios considered in the report. The assessment shows Earth could well exceed the 1.5℃ warming limit by early 2030s.

If we reduce emissions sufficiently, there is only a 50% chance global temperature rise will stay around 1.5℃ (including a temporary overshoot of up to 0.1℃). To get Earth back to below 1.5℃ warming, CO₂ would need to be removed from the atmosphere using negative emissions technologies or nature-based solutions.

Global warming stays below 2℃ during this century only under scenarios where CO₂ emissions reach net-zero around or after 2050.

Read more:
We’ve made progress to curb global emissions. But it’s a fraction of what’s needed

The IPCC analysed future climate projections from dozens of climate models, produced by more than 50 modelling centres around the world. It showed global average surface temperature rises between 1-1.8℃ and 3.3-5.7℃ this century above pre-industrial levels for the lowest and highest emission scenarios, respectively. The exact increase the world experiences will depend on how much more greenhouse gases are emitted.

The report states, with high certainty, that to stabilise the climate, CO₂ emissions must reach net zero, and other greenhouse gas emissions must decline significantly.

We also know, for a given temperature target, there’s a finite amount of carbon we can emit before reaching net zero emissions. To have a 50:50 chance of halting warming at around 1.5℃, this quantity is about 500 billion tonnes of CO₂.

At current levels of CO₂ emissions this “carbon budget” would be used up within 12 years. Exhausting the budget will take longer if emissions begin to decline.

The IPCC’s latest findings are alarming. But no physical or environmental impediments exist to hold warming to well below 2℃ and limit it to around 1.5℃ – the globally agreed goals of the Paris Agreement. Humanity, however, must choose to act.

Pep Canadell receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program – Earth and Climate Systems Hub

Dr Joelle Gergis has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past. She currently receives funding from the Australian National University. The Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources provided travel funding to support her participation in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

Malte Meinshausen is Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. He also works as Scientific Director at Climate Resource. Malte Meinshausen receives funding from various government and other research grants, including from the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

Mark Hemer receives funding from the Australian Government National Environmental Science Program – Earth Systems and Climate Change (NESP-1) and Climate Systems (NESP-2) Hubs.

Michael Grose does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/this-is-the-most-sobering-report-card-yet-on-climate-change-and-earths-future-heres-what-you-need-to-know-165395

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Schubert, Pharmacist and PhD Candidate, University of Sydney

Australia currently has drugs that treat the symptoms of COVID, and drugs which have been repurposed from other diseases. Now the government has placed an early order for a new drug, sotrovimab, which works on COVID-19 virus particles in the body.

The federal government has bought 7,700 doses of sotrovimab (pronounced so-tro-ve-mab), with an initial delivery due some time this year.

But the COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce says the clinical trial results are too preliminary for the drug to enter routine use here. The taskforce says until further evidence shows sotrovimab is effective, it should only be given to patients as part of a human clinical trial.

Read more:
To ensure supply of the top 3 drugs used to treat COVID-19, it’s time to boost domestic medicine manufacturing

What type of drug is it?

Sotrovimab is a newly developed monoclonal antibody-based medicine. This means it stops the action of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Antibodies are a type of protein in the immune system. Antibodies can recognise and attach to another type of protein called an antigen.

When an antibody attaches to the antigen, it triggers a series of reactions, which can be used to treat an associated disease.

Monoclonal antibody drugs are already established in modern medicine and are used to treat diseases such as arthritis and cancer.

Another monoclonal antibody drug called tocilizumab is used to treat some of the inflammatory symptoms associated with COVID-19.

How does sotrovimab treat COVID?

Sotrovimab works by binding to the spike protein on the outside of the COVID-19 virus. This is the same spike protein the body’s immune system is trained to recognise with the Pfizer COVID vaccine.

By binding to the spike protein, sotrovimab can block the virus from attaching to and entering human cells. This stops the virus replicating in the body.

How is sotrovimab given and what are the side effects?

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved sotrovimab for emergency use as an intravenous injection to treat COVID-19 patients at high risk of progressing to severe disease.

Sotrovimab can be given as soon as someone receives a positive test result or within ten days of getting COVID-19 symptoms.

Read more:
What monoclonal antibodies are – and why we need them as well as a vaccine

The most common side effects with sotrovimab are rash and diarrhoea. Patients also need to be closely monitored for severe allergic reactions after the injection.

What have clinical trials shown so far?

In May 2021, pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline released data from a clinical trial. It compared sotrovimab to a placebo in 583 at-risk COVID-19 patients to see whether it prevented the disease progressing to the extent that the patient needed to be hospitalised or died.

In the sotrovimab group (of 291 people), three patients saw their disease progress, compared to 21 in the placebo group (of 292 people). This amounts to an 85% reduction of disease progression in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.

Has it been approved by medical regulators?

In May, both the US and European drug regulators authorised sotrovimab to be used in adults and children aged over 12 with mild to moderate COVID-19, but who are at a high risk of progression to severe COVID-19. This includes people aged over 65, and those with certain medical conditions such as heart disease, obesity, asthma, and diabetes.

Australia’s regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), has received an application from GlaxoSmithKline to provisionally register the drug here in Australia, however its use remains limited to research settings.

So what does that mean for Australia?

Yesterday federal health minister Greg Hunt announced the government had purchased 7,700 dose of sotrovimab, based on the recommendation of its Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group.

The intention is to have the drug ready for use once approved by the TGA.

But the COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, which creates clinical guidelines for the treatment of people with COVID-19 in Australia, has concerns about “the impact of sotrovimab on patient-relevant outcomes in the treatment of COVID-19” and the potential harms of unproven treatment.

It says sotrovimab should not be used outside randomised human clinical trials that have the appropriate ethical approval:

Trials are needed in special populations, including children and adolescents, pregnant and breastfeeding women, older people living with frailty and those receiving palliative care. Until further evidence is available, do not use sotrovimab for the treatment of COVID-19 in these populations unless they are eligible to be enrolled in trials.

As such, sotrovimab can only enter mainstream use in Australia when the full results of the phase 3 clinical trials are known. That data will be important for the TGA to determine whether the drug works, and whether it’s better than the current treatments.

Read more:
Stopping, blocking and dampening – how Aussie drugs in the pipeline could treat COVID-19

Elise Schubert is a registered pharmacist at Royal North Shore Hospital, and a PhD Candidate receiving scholarship from the University of Sydney and Canngea Pty Ltd.

Dr. Lifeng Kang is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, School of Pharmacy. He received research funding from Australian and Singaporean research agencies, 3M Singapore, P&G Singapore, and some SMEs from Australia, UK, China and USA. He is the scientific advisor for Skinetrate Pty Ltd and Nusmetics Pty Ltd. He is a member of the following research societies: Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association, Skin Research Society Singapore, Australasian Society of Dermatology Research, and an executive member of Transdermal Society in World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies.

Associate Professor Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and a member of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association. Nial is science director of the medicinal cannabis company Canngea Pty Ltd, a board member of the Australian Medicinal Cannabis Association, and a Standards Australia committee member for sunscreen agents.

– ref. What is sotrovimab, the COVID drug the government has bought before being approved for use in Australia? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-sotrovimab-the-covid-drug-the-government-has-bought-before-being-approved-for-use-in-australia-165802

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Haswell, Professor of Practice in Environmental Wellbeing, Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services), University of Sydney

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been repeatedly harmed by policies and decisions that drive systematic dispossession, disempowerment, overincarceration and poverty.

Janine Mohamad and Zoe Staines and colleagues highlighted the breadth of cultural determinants of health that were unaddressed in the government’s Closing the Gap package. They provided examples of “how government policies continue to create damage that must later be healed”.

Many Traditional Owners of Northern Territory’s Beetaloo region view the Beetaloo cooperative drilling program this way — as more harm coming to their Country, water and people.

The Beetaloo is first of five major gas basin developments advanced in the prime minister’s A$6 billion plan for a “gas-led recovery” from the economic hit of COVID. The plan, currently under examination by a Senate inquiry, would vastly expand unconventional oil and gas production using hydraulic fracturing (fracking), adding enormously to Australia’s greenhouse emissions.

As climate change is already causing harm globally, this has been intensely criticised by Australian energy experts, doctors and international bodies.

The outcome of the Senate inquiry will significantly influence progression of gas mining in basins across Aboriginal Lands, impacting communities and Homelands.

The Commonwealth government can’t seem to wait to “unlock” the Beetaloo – pledging A$50 million in fracking grants in the NT, including A$21 million in taxpayers’ money to Empire Energy, to expedite exploration.

There are many serious health concerns associated with opening up remote parts of Northern Territory to the oil and gas industry, including the largely ignored links with sexual and physical violence experienced by Indigenous women and children in North America.

Read more:
Remote Indigenous Australia’s ecological economies give us something to build on

The health harms of unconventional gas mining

For over ten years, the authors here (along with our colleague David Shearman) have been translating research to government decision-makers and community groups.

Our research has been communicated extensively to the NT government in [multiple written submissions], oral presentations, letters, and to the NT chapter of the Royal Australian College of Physicians.

This painstaking documentation details rapidly growing evidence of many environmental, climate, health and wellbeing losses associated with gas mining.

Our most recent submission to the Beetaloo Senate inquiry described international evidence of serious health harms including:

• heart failure
• heart attacks
• asthma
• severe birth defects
• psycho-social and mental health loss.

These unwelcome messages were ignored in the NT fracking inquiry report and the subsequent Strategic Regional Environmental and Baseline Assessment (SREBA) framework.

As remote Aboriginal Territorians already experience much higher burdens from these conditions, it follows the Beetaloo region would experience even more health loss if exposed to the hazards of gas mining.

These hazards include ozone and tiny particles in inhaled air and many chemicals capable of disrupting people’s endocrine systems in both the air and water.

Besides direct physical health impacts, the industry has an enormous environmental and social injustice footprint.

The expanse and intensity of mature shale gas mining operations, once allowed to proceed, are rarely foreseen. Remote areas are rapidly industrialised with airstrips, roads, wellpads, pipelines, gas processing and water treatment plants and pumping stations.

Many experts question the capacity, cost and commitment to procedural justice required to effectively monitor regulatory compliance through decades of mine expansion, production and well decommissioning.

Read more:
Fracking can cause social stress in nearby areas: new research

Risks to vulnerable communities

There is little research on the impacts of shale gas mining on Indigenous people specifically. As a result, affected Indigenous communities have had to raise their own voices about their experiences and concerns.

In 2015, a coalition of Native American and women’s organisations requested intervention by the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for protection against “the epidemic of sexual violence brought on by extreme fossil fuel extraction in the Great Lakes and Great Plains region” in North America.

They described vast “man camps” of temporary labour becoming “lawless hubs of violence and human trafficking”.

In 2019, the Canadian National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls quoted Melina Laboucan Massimo of the Lubicon Cree First Nation:

The industrial system of resource extraction in Canada is predicated on systems of power and domination. This system is based on the raping and pillaging of Mother Earth as well as violence against women.

A recurrent theme in the current Beetaloo inquiry has been whether potential health risks experienced elsewhere would be likely occur here if the project in the Beetaloo Basin proceeds.

In response, we highlight the combination of circumstances accompanying oil and gas developments that heighten the vulnerability of any community. We also urge recognition of the specific, compounding factors faced by the people who live in the Beetaloo. These include:

• historical genocide, violence and transgenerational trauma
• the geographical vastness of gas mining potential across remote and under-serviced areas
• the characteristics of this work and enormous influx of workers
• the socioeconomic disparities and lack of voice among First Nations peoples
• police protection and duty of care to Aboriginal people as victims of crime
• and the criminal justice system itself

Construction and drilling workers — most being male fly-in, fly-out contractors — will build and service these facilities. Research shows these workers are separated from their families and have well-paid but stressful, sometimes dangerous jobs.

Recent reports of alleged sexual violence against female mine workers in Western Australia causes concern for the well being of women and children in remote areas.

We see no assurance to date that concerns raised here are being taken seriously, and hope this Senate committee is listening to all the incredible Aboriginal people from remote Beetaloo communities that are standing up and speaking out.

We need to respect their calls to protect their communities and Country, and address the potential damage that awaits unless we take action. As we know from history, as important as they are, reparations do not heal deep wounds, especially those easily foreseen.

Melissa Haswell is affiliated with Doctors for the Environment Australia, Climate and Health Alliance and the Public Health Association Australia.

Megan Williams receives funding from the Medical Research Futures Fund, National Health and Medical Research Council, National Indigenous Australians Agency, Australian Government Department of Health and NSW Aboriginal Land Council. She is affiliated with Croakey Health Media and Deadly Connections.

Francis Nona does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Beetaloo drilling program brings potential health and social issues for Aboriginal communities in remote NT – https://theconversation.com/the-beetaloo-drilling-program-brings-potential-health-and-social-issues-for-aboriginal-communities-in-remote-nt-165392

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Hicks, PhD / Dr. iur. candidate, The University of Melbourne

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant huge restrictions on Australians’ ability to travel both within Australia and overseas. But until now, Australian citizens ordinarily resident in other countries have been able to return to Australia and then leave without requiring additional permission.

However, last week, the federal government quietly removed that exemption. This is designed to deter Australians from coming home in the first place, thereby reducing demand on quarantine places. It will come into effect on Wednesday August 11.

Read more:
There’s a ban on leaving Australia under COVID-19. Who can get an exemption to go overseas? And how?

It follows lobbying from state premiers (who have to quarantine people) to limit the movement of fly-in fly-out workers.

This means Australians who live abroad and return to Australia (even if it is to see family) will not automatically be able to leave again unless they meet narrow grounds for an exemption. They will need to prove they have an “established and settled” home overseas, via documents like a residency permit, tenancy agreement, letter from an employer or utility bills. This is not necessarily straightforward, particularly as lives, jobs and visas continued to be disrupted by the pandemic.

Is this latest move legal? Are there any grounds to challenge this?

The Biosecurity Act

The government’s power to ban people from leaving Australia comes from the Biosecurity Act. In an emergency, section 477(1) gives the health minister sweeping powers to prevent and control the entry of diseases into Australia.

Since COVID began, Health Minister Greg Hunt has issued determinations to stop Australian citizens and residents from leaving without permission, to ban them from travelling on from the New Zealand “travel bubble” to another country, and to ban people from returning to Australia from India during the second wave. If people breach these rules, they can be subject to penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to $66,000, or both.

By contrast to other legislative instruments, these determinations by the health minister cannot be “disallowed” (or overturned) by federal parliament.

This means parliament can’t block the health minister’s decision to stop Australians who live abroad from leaving without permission.

What about constitutional rights?

Australia is one of the only liberal democracies in the world without a bill of rights.

In countries such as Germany, Slovenia, and Spain, citizens and residents have been able to challenge COVID restrictions in courts by arguing they breach their constitutional rights. Courts then consider whether a restriction is a proportionate way of controlling the virus.

Read more:
Why the latest travel caps look like an arbitrary restriction on Australians’ right to come home

There is a strong argument the new restriction for Australians is disproportionate. This is because its objective — managing the entry of COVID by deterring demand for quarantine places — is already achieved via caps on the number of people who can enter Australia. There are also other means of managing risk that would place a lesser burden on rights to leave and return to Australia, such as tailoring restrictions to vaccination status.

Reducing demand for already regulated spaces, as the new restriction does, is really about reducing political pressure on government to expand quarantine systems.

What does the India experience tell us?

Because Australia doesn’t have a bill of rights, citizens can’t challenge the proportionality of Hunt’s determinations.

This was clear in the challenge to the ban on citizens returning from India, where the Biosecurity Act was described by counsel for the Commonwealth as a “legislative bulldozer” — knocking over any other statutory protections or common law rights that people might have. The ban was found to be legal.

Read more:
The crisis in India is a terrifying example of why we need a better way to get Australians home

The minister does need to consider whether there are less intrusive ways of controlling the entry of COVID when making a determination. But the challenge to the India ban shows courts will allow a great deal of discretion to the health minister in making that call. As long as there is a basis for the minister to make that call — such as health advice — courts will not look too deeply into the premises underlying that advice or its proportionality.

Commonwealth power

One argument against stopping Australians who ordinarily live abroad from leaving is the Commonwealth must have a power explicitly listed in the Constitution to make a law about this.

The federal government is likely relying on the Constitution’s quarantine power to stop Australians from leaving. The explanatory statement tabled in parliament last Thursday makes clear the Commonwealth is removing the exemption on people who ordinarily live abroad to reduce demand on quarantine places.

There is an argument stopping people from leaving doesn’t have enough of a connection to the Commonwealth’s power over quarantine. Given the broad approach courts have taken to emergency powers during the pandemic, a court may nonetheless find restrictions on people leaving is incidental to managing quarantine.

International human rights law

What about Australian citizens’ rights under international law?

Under international law, everyone must be free to leave any country, including their own. In exceptional and very limited circumstances, this right may be restricted – for instance, if it is necessary to protect public health. However, the restrictions must be clearly set out in domestic law, consistent with other human rights (including the right to family life), and “the least intrusive” way of achieving the desired aim.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has been very plain.

The application of restrictions in any individual case must be based on clear legal grounds and meet the test of necessity and the requirements of proportionality.

In other words, a “one size fits all approach” will not cut it.

The current restrictions do not take into consideration vaccination status, nor the fact a cohort of Australian citizens have their permanent home abroad.

Particularly when considered in conjunction with the barriers the government has already put in place that limit these Australians’ right to return home, this additional exit requirement truly seems like overreach.

Liz Hicks receives funding from an Australian Commonwealth Government Research Training Program stipend. She is also a member of the Australian Greens Victoria, although her views do not reflect party policy.

Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Regina Jefferies is affiliated with the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law.

– ref. The federal government just made it even harder for Australians overseas to come home. Is this legal? Or reasonable? – https://theconversation.com/the-federal-government-just-made-it-even-harder-for-australians-overseas-to-come-home-is-this-legal-or-reasonable-165744