Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian A. Nygaard, Associate Professor in Social Economics, Swinburne University of Technology

What will be the normal way of urban living when the COVID-19 crisis passes? What aspects will remain with us and what will disappear?

The coronavirus pandemic has thrust us into a moment of rapid change. Like all change, it is difficult to predict. But lessons from history provide us with two important insights.

Read more: Cities will endure, but urban design must adapt to coronavirus risks and fears

First, temporary change sometimes has remarkably little lasting effect.

Second, what looks like a lasting effect is often the acceleration of existing trends, rather than new, crisis-caused trends.

COVID-19 impacts provide an opportunity for our cities to shift to new ways of urban living. But only if we couple this opportunity with technology and deliberate collective action will sustained and equitable change happen.

What does history tell us?

Right now, COVID-19 impacts are front of mind. In thinking ahead, we might therefore overemphasise what a crisis will do to how we live in cities. To put it simply, history shows us that the ways we organise our cities are often resistant to abrupt change – even in response to catastrophic events.

In Japan, changes to population distribution as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 had disappeared by the early 1960s.

Almost 40% of Europe’s population died during the Black Death (1347-1352). Much of Europe’s urban hierarchy nevertheless returned to its pre-plague distribution over time.

Even the collapse of the urbanised Roman civilisation had little lasting effect on the urban hierarchy in France. It did lead, though, to a resetting of the urban network in England.

The reason for this urban inertia is that momentary change often does little to change the fundamentals of our cities. It doesn’t greatly change locational advantages, built environment legacy, property rights and land ownership.

London, for instance, has experienced slum clearance, Spanish flu, wartime bombing and the introduction of greenbelts and planning over the past 100 years. However, the location of the city’s rich and poor continues to be shaped by infrastructure investments in the Victorian era. And the Roman-period road layout has strongly influenced the street layout of central London today.

At the same time, cities do of course change. In some cases dramatic events – like fires or earthquakes – are the enablers of change that is already underfoot. That is, business and policy coupling opportunity with technology and determination.

Read more: Why Hurricanes Harvey and Irma won’t lead to action on climate change

How are business practices responding to COVID-19

Businesses will not – and should not – be slow to couple opportunity, technology and determination to achieve particular outcomes.

For instance, working from home has overnight (temporarily) become endemic. Higher education institutions (temporarily setting aside the challenges for teaching) switched remarkably quickly to almost exclusively online platforms.

COVID-safe shopping has popularised some automation. Demand for “contactless” service delivery has advanced some smart and robot technology into common use.

Some have argued that well before COVID-19 the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and online platforms had catapulted us into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It’s a world of work and cities that are digitally smart, dispersed and connected.

Read more: We’re at a fork in the road: do we choose neighbourhoods to live, work and play in?

Working from home, online teaching and automation couple opportunity (as a result of COVID-19) and technology (digital communication) with longer-term trends.

Between 2001 and today, the office space per worker in many knowledge-intensive jobs shrank from 25 square metres to just 8sqm in new developments. Flexible working arrangements and casualisation across a range of sectors enable businesses to manage wage bills when wage rates cannot be reduced.

Automation also reduces business wage bills and has long been touted as a way to increase productivity. According to a 2019 McKinsey report, automation may affect 25-46% of current jobs.

The “death of the office” has long been predicted. Rumours of its death are likely exaggerated this time too.

Face-to-face interaction between workers often increases productivity in service and knowledge-based industries. Research shows face-to-face contact enhances co-operative and pro-social behaviour.

Read more: The death of the open-plan office? Not quite, but a revolution is in the air

Similarly, research suggests concentrating workers and their skills in one location (agglomeration economies) can increase much-needed labour productivity. This is required to offset the shifting labour-force balance in an ageing society.

What’s the role of public policy?

Our cities today work better for some than for others. Sustained and equitable change requires public sector action and will.

Temporary measures during the pandemic have brought home just how viable telecommuting is for some jobs and how achievable online teaching modes can be.

This will leave winners and losers. Unlike change itself, the winners and losers are often far more predictable. Women, renters, lower-income and migrant-dominated jobs are more vulnerable.

Read more: Low-paid, young women: the grim truth about who this recession is hitting hardest

What is imperative, therefore, is that governments similarly couple technology and opportunity with a vision for cities that are environmentally sustainable and socially just. This sort of urban future requires economic innovation. Change is confronting us with an opportunity and necessity to redress entrenched privilege.

History tells us critical events such as COVID-19 often do little to change the fundamentals of our cities. An important step in envisioning different urban futures is to recognise it is people, businesses, institutions and political will that collectively make change.

– ref. Why COVID-19 might not change our cities as much as we expect – https://theconversation.com/why-covid-19-might-not-change-our-cities-as-much-as-we-expect-142159

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

We’re told Australia has a progressive tax system – the more you earn, the higher the rate.

And that’s certainly the case for earnings from wages. An Australian on A$35,000 sacrifices 21 cents out of each extra dollar they earn whereas an Australian on $90,000 sacrifices 39 cents.

That’s how it’s meant to be for income from savings, but in practice it isn’t.

Fresh calculations released this morning by the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Australian National University show that low income Australians in the bottom tax bracket pay a higher marginal rate of tax on income from savings than high earners in the top tax bracket.

It is because of exemptions and special rates, and the alacrity with which high earners take advantage of them.

Super gives the most to the highest earners

The taxation of superannuation drives the results.

Super contributions are generally taxed at a flat rate of 15%. For low earners on an income tax rate of zero, 15% would constitute a considerable extra impost did the government not refund the difference with a tax offset that cuts the effective rate to zero.

High earners on the 47% marginal rate do much better. The tax rate of 15% offers substantial tax relief. For them, it is an effective rate of minus 32%.

Other tax concessions are directed at older Australians, who are often on higher incomes than younger Australians.

Highest bracket, lowest rate

Our calculation of the marginal effective annual tax rates actually paid on income from savings is published in a report entitled the taxation of savings in Australia: theory, current practice and future policy directions.

It shows that the marginal tax rate high earners pay on additional savings held over a twenty year period is 5.3% of income, on average, whereas for low earners in the bottom (zero) tax bracket it’s 12.2%.

Low earners in the second lowest tax bracket are paying 13.8%.

Marginal effective tax rates actually paid on income from savings, by bracket

The way forward: a dual income tax system

Our report proposes taxing all types of saving at the same flat low rate.

This dual income tax system (a progressive rate for wages and salaries, a flat rate for income from savings) has been used in Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark since the early 1990s. Elements of it are used in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Greece and the Netherlands.

If the rate were 10%

• all interest payments would be taxed at 10%

• all dividends, both domestic and foreign, would be taxed at a rate of 10%

• all capital gains (including owner-occupied housing) would be taxed at 10%

• superannuation contributions would be made from after-tax income and then earnings in the accounts taxed at 10%

• rent and capital gains on investment properties would be taxed at 10%

• the imputed rent from owner-occupied housing (the benefit home owners get from not having to pay rent that is taxed) would be calcuated and taxed at a rate of 10%. An alternative would be to raise the same amount through a broad-based land tax.

Read more: Housing and tax: why is reform so hard?

Our calculations suggest that if the tax were applied broadly at a rate of 6.2%, it would raise as much as is raised now from taxes on income from savings. If income from owner-occupied housing were excluded, the rate would need to be 10.2%.

But there is no particular reason for the rate to be set to generate as much from savings income as it does now. It could be set to raise more, or to raise less.

The design and implementation of a dual income tax should be considered alongside broader changes to the tax and transfer system. In particular, it should be combined with removing opportunities to re-classify income for tax minimisation purposes. We outline some of the considerations in our report.

Read more: Tax-free super is intergenerational theft

In the meantime, as steps towards a flatter fairer system of taxing income from savings, the government could consider better targeting superannuation subsidies, replacing real estate stamp duty with land tax and including the family home in the means tests for pensions and other age-related benefits.

Our current approach to taxing income from savings is a mess at best and a serious driver of intergenerational inequality at worst. Some savings tax arrangements are progressive, taxing higher incomes more heavily, and some are regressive.

We want to encourage and reward savings. But we also need to remove the crazy incentives that impel ordinary Australians to take part in distorting and costly tax planning schemes.

Our report outlines a way forward, and steps to get there.

– ref. Progressive in theory, regressive in practice: that’s how we tax income from savings – https://theconversation.com/progressive-in-theory-regressive-in-practice-thats-how-we-tax-income-from-savings-142823

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael O’Neil, Executive Director, SA Centre for Economic Studies, University of Adelaide

The government is about to make an historic decision.

The JobSeeker unemployment benefit (previously called Newstart) has scarcely increased in real terms since 1994.

In that time general living standards, as measured by real gross domestic product per capita, have almost doubled, climbing 83%.

Other benefits such as the age pension have broadly kept pace with living standards. They climb in line with wages rather than the slower-growing consumer price index.

In dollar terms the single rate is now just A$565.70 per fortnight, close to the poverty line and well below the $860.60 paid to single pensioners. Back in the early 1990s it was close to the pension.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in 2010 Newstart had fallen so low as to call into question its effectiveness in “enabling someone to look for a suitable job”.

In March, as the scale of the looming job losses from coronavirus and the responses to it became clear, the government effectively doubled JobSeeker, boosting the $565.70 single payment and other lower payments by a $550 per fortnight coronavirus supplement in an acknowledgement that unemployed people “need to meet the costs of their groceries and other bills”.

The increase took effect from April 27, but was temporary, for six months after it received royal assent, meaning it is due to expire in late September.

Read more: What’ll happen when the money’s snatched back? Our looming coronavirus support cliff

The economic statement due on Thursday will provide an opportunity for the government to cushion the blow by either extending the life of supplement or permanently lifting JobSeeker.

It’ll also provide an opportunity for it to say no, allowing JobSeeker to collapse back to where it was.

An increase suggested to the recent Senate inquiry by the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies was $80 to $120 per week, enough to restore it to where it was relation to other benefits in the early 1990s.

Some Senators wedded to low JobSeeker

But the government will need to get over its seemingly ideological premise that the unemployed are in some way responsible for their own misfortune and are usually undeserving of the support needed to meet living costs.

This sentiment on display in the dissenting report by Coalition members of the Labor and Greens dominated inquiry which recommended JobSeeker be increased.

In explaining their position in April, after the the government had temporally doubled JobSeeker, Coalition Senators Wendy Askew and Hollie Hughes, argued that a permanent increase could carry with it “disincentive effects in respect of engagement with the workforce”.

Read more: When the Coronavirus Supplement stops, JobSeeker needs to increase by $185 a week

Put plainly, they were concerned that if JobSeeker was boosted to a reasonable level (as it has been, temporarily) people mightn’t want to work.

Yet the transcript of evidence given by treasury officials at the inquiry reveals the department has never been asked to examine that question.

Asked whether the treasury had ever done any modelling of an increase in the payment now known as JobSeeker, deputy secretary Jenny Wilkinson relied “no”. Asked again: “You’ve never done that?” she replied “no”.

Others have done the analysis.

The compromise that might just stick

Deloitte Access Economics believes an increase would boost the size of the economy and boost the number of people employed by 12,000.

A compromise that might be acceptable to members of the Coalition who oppose lifting JobSeeker but support “job-ready” training programs, might be an increase in the JobSeeker allowance of, say, $80 per week, split into two.

Half of the increase would be a cash increase without conditions, the other half would be provided for accredited training.

With conditions in place to ensure participation in bona fide training, the increase could drive the skills development both employers and the unemployed want.

Read more: The government is making ‘job-ready’ degrees cheaper for students – but cutting funding to the same courses

The training that would emerge would be market-driven, responding to the post-COVID-19 needs of employers and potential employees.

The Productivity Commission has implicitly endorsed such an approach, reporting in May that there was “a manifest capacity to better allocate the $6.1 billion in government spending on vocational education and training to improve outcomes”.

JobSeeker could help, both supporting Australians who are out of work and supporting them to get back into work.

– ref. The compromise that might just boost the JobSeeker unemployment benefit – https://theconversation.com/the-compromise-that-might-just-boost-the-jobseeker-unemployment-benefit-142321

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Henderson, PhD Candidate in Literary Studies and Creative Writing, University of Canberra

Early ventures in queer young adult (YA) fiction followed certain conventions: they tended to be set in the contemporary world and their narratives focused on coming out, bullying, heartbreak or fighting for acceptance. Most unfortunately, these stories also have a long history of ending in tragedy.

There is absolutely a place for stories that address the often harsh reality of being queer in a heteronormative world. However, this history has left many adolescents (and adults!) under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella calling out for stories that break this mould.

Over the last decade, there has not only been an increase in the number of queer YA books being published (including by major publishing houses), but also a welcome and notable shift in the kinds of stories these books tell. Now, we have not just contemporary realism, but sci-fi and fantasy. Not just tales of unrequited love, but sappy romantic comedies.

Not just narratives about hardship — but narratives about hope.

Queer representation in fiction can provide education, validation and affirmation to young people and help normalise queerness — for teenagers exploring their identities, but also for readers of all ages and orientations who want to experience different perspectives or learn to be better allies.

But these hopeful queer stories are also important precisely because they are fun. Sometimes you want the catharsis of reading about a gay teenager coming out. Sometimes you want the escapism of reading about a gay teenager saving the universe, going through a magic portal or having a big mushy rom-com moment.

As well as providing entertainment, these books are giving queer teenagers stories that promise a life outside of sadness and hardship.

Want to know more? Here are five recent queer YA novels to get you started.

Babs is invisible most of the time, so she’s thrilled her classmate Iris can see her. Iris grew from a seed in their parents’ back garden and routinely hangs out with fairies and dryads, so magic is part of ordinary life as far as they’re concerned.

This is a witchy and whimsical story about the power of friendship and self-love. The novel’s magical setting provides a safe, hopeful and happy world for its trans characters, as well as a deeply dreamy reading experience.

Nasir “Nax” Hall is going to be a hot-shot space pilot … at least, that was the plan, but he’s just failed his entrance exam. When a mysterious faction attacks the academy, Nax and a group of other intergalactic wash-ups become the only ones who can save the known universe.

The Disasters is pure fun, throwing you into a high-stakes outer-space adventure at warp speed.

The rag-tag crew of diverse teenagers have a rocky beginning but develop a fire-forged bond across the novel. It’s a delightful read.

Plus-sized, pink-haired and gay, Abby figures she’s “the funny friend” in someone else’s love story and will never be the star of her own. That is, until she starts her summer internship at a vintage fashion store and meets the artsy and enigmatic Jordi Perez.

This has everything you could want from a summer romance: it’s sweet as ice cream, with equal scoops of bright and breezy comedy and heartfelt drama.

Though there are ups and downs, Abby gets her happily ever after.

Jess is the daughter of superheroes. Naturally, the best way she could rebel is to take a part-time job with the local supervillains.

Lee embraces all the secret identity shenanigans and zap-pow action scenes you could want from a superhero story, but starring a cast of queer teenagers.

This book plays with the tropes lovingly and cleverly, and is the first in a very fun series.

Felix arrives at school one day to find the lobby full of photographs of him before he transitioned.

Determined to get revenge on the anonymous “artist”, he creates a fake online personality to get dirty secrets out of his classmates … and soon finds himself embroiled in Instagram subterfuge and in the middle of a strange digital love triangle.

Callender explores some harrowing issues but I include their book on this list because it addresses harsh realities and still comes out the other side as a story about hope.

Felix Ever After speaks to the past and future of queer YA: it doesn’t shy away from the struggles queer teens can face while also offering a picture-perfect happy ending.

– ref. Queer young adult fiction isn’t all gloomy realism. Here are 5 uplifting books to get you started – https://theconversation.com/queer-young-adult-fiction-isnt-all-gloomy-realism-here-are-5-uplifting-books-to-get-you-started-141125

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

The government is set to continue a revamped and re-targeted wage subsidy when it delivers its Thursday economic statement amid massive uncertainty about the trajectory of COVID-19 in the two largest states.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann on Sunday said JobKeeper would be extended but with changes.

“There will be some adjustments to the scheme to make sure it is appropriate for the next phase,” he said.

Thursday’s statement is being framed when it is unclear whether Victoria, under a new shutdown, will get on top of its second wave – Sunday’s tally was 363 cases for the previous 24 hours and three deaths – and things are at a tipping point in NSW, with 18 new cases.

Mask-wearing in public will be compulsory from midnight Wednesday in Melbourne and in the Mitchell Shire.

The NSW government announced late Sunday there will be further restrictions on entering NSW from Victoria. There will be a strict new border zone, tightened permit conditions and stronger enforcement powers.

The doubt about where the COVID-19 situation will go from here makes projecting the economic numbers extremely difficult.

Cormann told Sky businesses particularly severely hit by the crisis would need an extra period of support so they could hang onto their workers.

Towards the end of September – when the JobKeeper program was due to finish – it would be important to reassess which businesses should still be receiving the support, he said.

“In the first six months, irrespective of what happened to your turnover after you initially qualified, you were in.

“But as we go into this new period, there is a need to reassess whether that support is still needed for specific businesses.”

The government is trying to set a determinedly upbeat tone. “The situation now is better than what we feared would be the case now,” Cormann said.

He said the aid would not be specifically targeted to Victoria, but given the circumstances more businesses there would qualify.

The government is also dealing with the future of JobSeeker which was effectively doubled for the pandemic. It is expected to be lowered but not to the old level.

Cormann said: “The current enhanced JobSeeker arrangements come to an end at the end of September. We will, the same as with JobKeeper, in a responsible fashion, seek to phase this back into a more situation as normal.”

Scott Morrison announced at the weekend the parliamentary sitting fortnight that was due to start on August 4 will be cancelled.

He said Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly had advised there would be significant risk in having parliament sit then, given increased community transmission in Victoria and the trends in NSW. Kelly had advised the risks were “unlikely to be resolved in the next month,” Morrison said.

Morrison quoted Kelly as saying, “The entry of a high-risk group of individuals could jeopardise the health situation in the ACT and place residents at unnecessary risk of infection. In addition, the health risk to members and senators and their staff from other jurisdictions is a material concern.”

The next parliamentary sitting is now scheduled for Augusts 24.

Labor’s finance spokeswoman Katy Gallagher said parliament couldn’t continue to be cancelled every time there was an outbreak.

She said in light of businesses adapting, “it is going to require parliament to do the same thing”.

Meanwhile the Senate committee examining the government’s COVID responses, which she chairs, will convene extra hearings.

– ref. Government to announce revamped wage subsidy amid huge COVID uncertainty – https://theconversation.com/government-to-announce-revamped-wage-subsidy-amid-huge-covid-uncertainty-142969

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Burke, Senior Lecturer, University of Technology Sydney

Lorna Jane recently launched an “antiviral” line of its activewear, called “LJ Shield”, generating significant backlash from medical professionals.

The popular activewear brand has now pedalled back and removed any mention of LJ Shield being antiviral from its marketing. But it still claims the product is “antibacterial”.

Labelling it antibacterial may have marginally more merit than the antiviral claims, but either way, the evidence antibacterial fabric could stop you from getting sick is pretty slim.

Read more: What is a virus? How do they spread? How do they make us sick?

How does the product ‘work’?

LJ Shield is said to be sprayed onto the fabric as a lightweight mist, and then permanently adheres to the surface of the product, acting as a shield of protection.

This coating they describe is marketed by a company called Fuze Biotech, whose website says it can reduce the growth of bacteria on fabric and surfaces by more than 99%.

There’s not a lot of detail given on how this technology works, except that it’s based on nanoparticles that can break open and kill bacterial cells. Fuze has some data on their website showing their coating can prevent bacterial growth.

A range of approaches used to coat fabrics with chemicals or metal nano-particles like silver have demonstrated antimicrobial activity in laboratory tests. But antibacterial activity in a controlled laboratory environment doesn’t always translate to antibacterial activity on our bodies.

Read more: Silver makes beautiful bling but it’s also good for keeping the bacterial bugs away

Whether it makes a difference to the likelihood of disease transmission is the important question here — and the answer, in all likelihood, is no.

One study showed bacteria from sweat can multiply on synthetic materials (although the researchers incubated the material in almost 100% humidity which is not very close to real-world conditions). Sweat and skin bacteria are a normal part of our biology and are unlikely to cause an infection anyway.

In health-care settings like hospitals, pathogenic bacteria can survive on fabrics for many days, with synthetic fabrics and humid conditions favouring their growth. But it’s not clear how much of a risk transmission via fabric is versus other modes of transmission, such as via a person’s hands.

As for whether antimicrobial materials can offer protection in this context, one randomised trial found these were not effective at reducing the numbers of bacteria on hospital scrubs.

So even in a health-care environment where the risk of infection is higher than in the community, the effectiveness of antimicrobial materials for reducing transmission remains to be confirmed.

What about viruses?

Viruses generally survive on fabric for shorter times than bacteria, with a SARS coronavirus isolate from the 2003 coronavirus outbreak found to survive less than 24 hours on cotton.

So it’s possible that if a pathogenic bacteria or virus landed on your clothes, it could survive there for one or more days. Whether that would result in an infection would depend on a number of other factors, like the infectious dose (the number of cells or viral particles needed to cause an infection) and the route of transmission (how it enters your body).

Read more: Why is it so hard to stop COVID-19 misinformation spreading on social media?

While the ability to survive on fabrics may lead to disease transmission in a hospital setting, you’re far more likely to contract a respiratory infection like COVID-19 by breathing in contaminated droplets or touching a contaminated surface.

So even if this technology was proven to prevent bacteria or viruses from growing on your clothes, it isn’t likely to have much impact on your risk of getting sick.

There’s no evidence it will work against viruses

According to a Lorna Jane spokesperson:

Our testing shows that LJ Shield is an important part of stopping the spread of both bacteria and viral infections and should be used in combination with other precautionary measures such as face masks and thorough and frequent hand washing.

So, despite removing the word “antiviral” from promotional materials, it seems Lorna Jane is still claiming this product could help prevent the spread of viral infections.

Read more: ‘Deeply worrying’: 92% of Australians don’t know the difference between viral and bacterial infections

Even if the LJ Shield fabric is antibacterial, there’s no evidence to suggest this product affects the survival of viruses, including the one that causes COVID-19. Viruses are not the same kind of organisms as bacteria, which is why antibiotics (which kill bacteria) don’t work for viral infections.

Many antimicrobial products exist on the market. The important question for me isn’t so much whether they can kill microorganisms, but whether using those products actually reduces your risk of getting sick. In many cases, the answer is no.

Lorna Jane’s LJ Shield technology is no different. Promoting this clothing as antiviral was reckless. In the age of COVID-19, it might give people a false sense of security, leading them to believe they don’t need to practise social distancing, use face masks or wash their hands. These proven methods of limiting the spread of infectious disease are far more important.

– ref. Antibacterial activewear? The claim is just as absurd as it sounds – https://theconversation.com/antibacterial-activewear-the-claim-is-just-as-absurd-as-it-sounds-142828

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Burke, Senior Lecturer, University of Technology Sydney

Lorna Jane recently launched an “antiviral” line of its activewear, called “LJ Shield”, generating significant backlash from medical professionals.

The popular activewear brand has now pedalled back and removed any mention of LJ Shield being antiviral from its marketing. But it still claims the product is “antibacterial”.

Labelling it antibacterial may have marginally more merit than the antiviral claims, but either way, the evidence antibacterial fabric could stop you from getting sick is pretty slim.

Read more: What is a virus? How do they spread? How do they make us sick?

How does the product ‘work’?

LJ Shield is said to be sprayed onto the fabric as a lightweight mist, and then permanently adheres to the surface of the product, acting as a shield of protection.

This coating they describe is marketed by a company called Fuze Biotech, whose website says it can reduce the growth of bacteria on fabric and surfaces by more than 99%.

There’s not a lot of detail given on how this technology works, except that it’s based on nanoparticles that can break open and kill bacterial cells. Fuze has some data on their website showing their coating can prevent bacterial growth.

A range of approaches used to coat fabrics with chemicals or metal nano-particles like silver have demonstrated antimicrobial activity in laboratory tests. But antibacterial activity in a controlled laboratory environment doesn’t always translate to antibacterial activity on our bodies.

Read more: Silver makes beautiful bling but it’s also good for keeping the bacterial bugs away

Whether it makes a difference to the likelihood of disease transmission is the important question here — and the answer, in all likelihood, is no.

One study showed bacteria from sweat can multiply on synthetic materials (although the researchers incubated the material in almost 100% humidity which is not very close to real-world conditions). Sweat and skin bacteria are a normal part of our biology and are unlikely to cause an infection anyway.

In health-care settings like hospitals, pathogenic bacteria can survive on fabrics for many days, with synthetic fabrics and humid conditions favouring their growth. But it’s not clear how much of a risk transmission via fabric is versus other modes of transmission, such as via a person’s hands.

As for whether antimicrobial materials can offer protection in this context, one randomised trial found these were not effective at reducing the numbers of bacteria on hospital scrubs.

So even in a health-care environment where the risk of infection is higher than in the community, the effectiveness of antimicrobial materials for reducing transmission remains to be confirmed.

What about viruses?

Viruses generally survive on fabric for shorter times than bacteria, with a SARS coronavirus isolate from the 2003 coronavirus outbreak found to survive less than 24 hours on cotton.

So it’s possible that if a pathogenic bacteria or virus landed on your clothes, it could survive there for one or more days. Whether that would result in an infection would depend on a number of other factors, like the infectious dose (the number of cells or viral particles needed to cause an infection) and the route of transmission (how it enters your body).

Read more: Why is it so hard to stop COVID-19 misinformation spreading on social media?

While the ability to survive on fabrics may lead to disease transmission in a hospital setting, you’re far more likely to contract a respiratory infection like COVID-19 by breathing in contaminated droplets or touching a contaminated surface.

So even if this technology was proven to prevent bacteria or viruses from growing on your clothes, it isn’t likely to have much impact on your risk of getting sick.

There’s no evidence it will work against viruses

According to a Lorna Jane spokesperson:

Our testing shows that LJ Shield is an important part of stopping the spread of both bacteria and viral infections and should be used in combination with other precautionary measures such as face masks and thorough and frequent hand washing.

So, despite removing the word “antiviral” from promotional materials, it seems Lorna Jane is still claiming this product could help prevent the spread of viral infections.

Read more: ‘Deeply worrying’: 92% of Australians don’t know the difference between viral and bacterial infections

Even if the LJ Shield fabric is antibacterial, there’s no evidence to suggest this product affects the survival of viruses, including the one that causes COVID-19. Viruses are not the same kind of organisms as bacteria, which is why antibiotics (which kill bacteria) don’t work for viral infections.

Many antimicrobial products exist on the market. The important question for me isn’t so much whether they can kill microorganisms, but whether using those products actually reduces your risk of getting sick. In many cases, the answer is no.

Lorna Jane’s LJ Shield technology is no different. Promoting this clothing as antiviral was reckless. In the age of COVID-19, it might give people a false sense of security, leading them to believe they don’t need to practise social distancing, use face masks or wash their hands. These proven methods of limiting the spread of infectious disease are far more important.

– ref. Anti-bacterial activewear? The claim is just as absurd as it sounds – https://theconversation.com/anti-bacterial-activewear-the-claim-is-just-as-absurd-as-it-sounds-142828

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute

Just weeks after allowing public hospitals to restart elective surgeries, the Victorian government has ordered Melbourne hospitals to defer category 3 procedures again.

Category 3 procedures include hip and knee replacements and cataract procedures. Category 3 patients are the easiest to defer because they have been assessed as not requiring treatment within three months.

Elective surgery will also be reduced to no more than 50% of usual activity across all public hospitals and 75% in private hospitals.

Whether further reductions in planned surgery will be necessary — such as limiting category 2 patients — will depend on the trajectory of the pandemic, and the extent of competing demands from other emergency patients.

Read more: The coronavirus ban on elective surgeries might show us many people can avoid going under the knife

Deferring planned procedures is not an easy decision

Although some surgery is of limited value to the patient, and some problems would be better treated in other ways, in most cases the surgery is necessary to reduce pain and enable people to go about their day-to-day lives.

But as Victoria’s second wave reaches concerning heights, the Victorian government has to make difficult decisions.

Hospital beds, including intensive care beds, are used both for planned procedures and for emergency treatment — and that includes patients infected with COVID-19.

As the number of people infected in Victoria has increased, so too has the demand for beds. To avoid a situation in which people need to be turned away by hospitals or denied effective treatment, the proper course for government is to order hospitals to reschedule lower-priority planned procedures.

Read more: 7 lessons for Australia’s health system from the coronavirus upheaval

It’s a staffing issue too

The pressure on the system is exacerbated when the number of available hospital staff falls. We’re currently seeing high numbers of COVID-19 cases among health workers, meaning they — and any fellow staff they’ve been in contact with — are having to stay home to avoid infecting others.

Victoria has mandated minimum staffing ratios so when the number of available hospital staff falls, the supply of staffed beds also falls. This double whammy of increased demand and reduced supply makes it even more important for the government to make this choice.

Read more: Rising coronavirus cases among Victorian health workers could threaten our pandemic response

This new deferral will be hard for patients whose procedures were deferred during the first wave of the pandemic. Some will have just been given a new date for their deferred surgery, but now face a further wait.

Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing how long the deferral will be. Today has seen 428 new cases recorded in Victoria, and it’s still too early in the second lockdown to assess whether we’ve been able to bring the virus under control again.

– ref. Victoria’s latest elective surgery slowdown is painful but necessary – https://theconversation.com/victorias-latest-elective-surgery-slowdown-is-painful-but-necessary-142896

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Smith, Associate Professor in Disaster and Emergency Response, School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University

Led by physicians, scientists and epidemiologists, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of the most reliable sources of knowledge during disease outbreaks. But now, with the world in desperate need of authoritative information, one of the foremost agencies for fighting infectious disease has gone conspicuously silent.

For the first time since 1946, when the CDC came to life in a cramped Atlanta office to fight malaria, the agency is not at the front line of a public health emergency.

Read more: Americans still trust doctors and scientists during a public health crisis

On April 22, CDC director Robert Redfield stood at the White House briefing room lectern and conceded that the coronavirus pandemic had “overwhelmed” the United States. Following Redfield at the podium, President Donald Trump said the CDC director had been “totally misquoted” in his warning that COVID-19 would continue to pose serious difficulties as the US moved into its winter ‘flu season in late 2020.

Invited to clarify, Redfield confirmed he had been quoted correctly in giving his opinion that there were potentially “difficult and complicated” times ahead.

Trump tried a different tack. “You may not even have corona coming back,” the president said, once again contradicting the career virologist. “Just so you understand.”

The exchange was interpreted by some pundits as confirmation that the CDC’s venerated expertise had been sidelined as the coronavirus continued to ravage the US.

In the latest development, the New York Times reported this week the CDC has even been bypassed in its data collection, with the Trump administration ordering hospitals to send COVID-19 data directly to the White House.

Diminished role

When facing previous public health emergencies the CDC was a hive of activity, holding regular press briefings and developing guidance that was followed by governments around the world. But during the greatest public health emergency in a century, it appears the CDC has been almost entirely erased by the White House as the public face of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

This diminished role is obvious to former leaders of the CDC, who say their scientific advice has never before been politicised to this extent.

As the COVID-19 crisis was unfolding, several CDC officials issued warnings, only to promptly disappear from public view. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, predicted on February 25 that the virus was not contained and would grow into a pandemic.

The stock market plunged and Messonnier was removed from future White House press briefings. Between March 9 and June 12 there was no CDC presence at White House press briefings on COVID-19.

The CDC has erred during the pandemic, most significantly in its initial efforts to develop a test for COVID-19. The testing kits proved to be faulty – a problem compounded by sluggish efforts to rectify the situation – and then by severe delays in distributing enough tests to the public.

But many public health specialists are nevertheless baffled by the CDC’s low profile as the pandemic continues to sweep the globe.

“They have been sidelined,” said Howard Koh, former US assistant secretary for health. “We need their scientific leadership right now.”

What does it mean for the world?

The CDC being bypassed in the collection of COVID-19 data is another body blow to the agency’s standing.

Hospitals have instead been ordered to send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington DC.

This will have a range of likely knock-on effects. For starters, the new database will not be available to the public, prompting inevitable questions over the accuracy and transparency of data which will now be interpreted and shared by the White House.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which issued the new order, says the change will help the White House’s coronavirus task force allocate resources. But epidemiologists and public health experts around the world fear the new system will make it harder for people outside the White House to track the pandemic or access information.

Read more: Even during the coronavirus pandemic, the role of public health workers is unrecognized

This affects all nations, because one of the CDC’s roles is to provide sound, independent public health guidance on issues such as infectious diseases, healthy living, travel health, emergency and disaster preparedness, and drug efficacy. Other jurisdictions can then adapt this information to their local context — expertise that has become even more essential during a pandemic, when uncertainty is the norm.

It is difficult to recall a previous public health emergency when political pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence.

What happens next?

Despite the inevitable challenges that come with tackling a pandemic in real time, the CDC remains the best-positioned agency – not just in the US but the entire world – to help us manage this crisis as safely as possible.

In the absence of US leadership, nations should start thinking about developing their own national centres for disease control. In Australia’s case, these discussions have been ongoing since the 1990s, stymied by cost and lack of political will.

COVID-19, and the current sidelining of the CDC, may be the impetus needed to finally dust off those plans and make them a reality.

– ref. US coronavirus data will now go straight to the White House. Here’s what this means for the world – https://theconversation.com/us-coronavirus-data-will-now-go-straight-to-the-white-house-heres-what-this-means-for-the-world-142814

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abby Wild, Research fellow, BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University

As COVID-19 cases began spreading across many multicultural communities in Melbourne last last month, Victoria’s chief health officer said it was essential for the government to properly engage with linguistically diverse communities.

From a behavioural science perspective, we know working in partnership with a target audience helps to understand what drives their behaviours and how best to communicate health messages that people respond to.

To find out how the government could better communicate with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, we embarked on a research project to ask them.

The leaders we spoke with were from the Chinese Community Council of Australia, Islamic Council of Victoria, Asian Australian Alliance, Faith Communities Council Victoria, Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia and multicultural community leaders from Monash health.

Read more: Multilingual Australia is missing out on vital COVID-19 information. No wonder local councils and businesses are stepping in

1. Involve communities in developing strategies

During last summer’s bushfires, Australia’s Islamic community mobilised to support the relief efforts, delivering truckloads of supplies to victims and cooking breakfasts for firefighters. These efforts allowed other multicultural communities to understand the severity of the crisis and also contribute.

This kind of cooperation is now being seen in the coronavirus pandemic, too. Members of various multicultural groups are working together to educate their communities about the pandemic and how they can help control the spread.

This empowers communities to be part of the solution by developing strategies together and leaning from one another. As one leader from the Islamic Council of Victoria told us,

We said to the government: use our leaders and volunteers. [COVID-19] testing is a perfect example. If you are from a CALD community and you have someone coming to your door saying ‘we want to test you’ … if that person is someone from their own community of faith, does the traditional greetings in whatever language, you already have one foot in.

Read more: Melbourne tower lockdowns unfairly target already vulnerable public housing residents

2. Tailor messages to community values

Understanding the importance of cultural context and values, and tailoring messages to align with those values, is also important when communicating with multicultural communities.

Richmond AFL player Bachar Houli, a devout Muslim and community leader, provided a powerful example of this when he shared on social media that his mother has been admitted to the ICU with COVID-19.

Houli tailored his message to the values of the Muslim community, emphasising the sanctity of life and importance of close, physical connection and family.

The Islamic Council of Victoria leader explained to us,

One of the key things for the Muslim community is the sanctity of life. Life is most precious thing; whoever it is, whatever their faith, life is precious and we must do whatever we can to protect it.

3. Use trusted messengers

Health information also needs to be delivered by trusted messengers who are acceptable and accessible to the target community.

For example, multicultural community leaders and health workers have been reaching out to their communities directly to help them access services. One such leader told us,

Community [members] believe if they go to the hospital, they will not come back because that’s what they heard from overseas … I call this mother and daughter every hour, until they go and get tested, get treatment, and now they are doing very well.

Religious leaders also have an important role to play when it comes to modelling desired behaviours. Some have done so by shifting religious ceremonies online to encourage people to stay at home.

Multicultural leaders also pointed to the importance of gender sensitivity when it comes to face-to-face interactions in some communities. An Asian Australian Alliance leader told us,

Women from South Asian communities, especially Muslim women, may not feel comfortable speaking with a man who comes to the door. As the Muslim Women’s Association has been saying: if you want to talk to them, it should be a woman.

4. Use channels that your audience can access

Each communication channel must be chosen with the individual community in mind. For example, the Chinese community engages with messages sent via WeChat. Other communities might engage better with Facebook videos or phone conversations with respected community leaders.

The Islamic Council Victoria leader told us,

One of the things that we are doing … on a weekly basis is being proactive [and] getting the chief medical officer or one of his deputies to address the community and have a Q&A session using Zoom … this has been an ongoing thing to get the message out to the wider community and anyone is able to come and participate.

These outreach strategies must not only include translating health information into many languages, but also using different communication methods, for example, having community leaders record messages to send to members of the community.

As a Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia leader explained,

The [written] translations are probably reaching 80% of the community and that 80% probably also speaks English. It’s the 20% we are trying to reach who are disconnected from SBS, social media, etc., but do listen to their community leaders.

Read more: We could have more coronavirus outbreaks in tower blocks. Here’s how lockdown should work

5. Establish a national peak body for multicultural health issues

The COVID-19 pandemic has created links across multicultural communities that have previously been unconnected. It has provided an opportunity to unite around a shared interest in community health and well-being, and to amplify community voices by coming together.

As one multicultural council leader told us,

there is a tendency for CALD communities to work within their own language or cultural group, Indians with Indians, Chinese with Chinese and so on … but during COVID, we are seeing some of these groups starting to talk to each other, and join together.

What’s lacking is a national platform to represent and support cooperative partnerships and working relationships across multicultural communities.

The creation of such a body would allow multicultural leaders to come together to share what they’ve learned and advise the national cabinet on health issues related to their communities.

If the government continues to partner with multicultural communities and adopts some of these strategies, it will certainly help ensure health-related messages are not lost in translation.

– ref. We asked multicultural communities how best to communicate COVID-19 advice. Here’s what they told us – https://theconversation.com/we-asked-multicultural-communities-how-best-to-communicate-covid-19-advice-heres-what-they-told-us-142719

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

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon is joined by Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including community transmission in Victoria and New South Wales, the prime minister’s suppression tactic to fight the virus, the release of 1,200 pages of correspondence between the royal palace and former governor-general Sir John Kerr, the government JobTrainer program, and next Thursday’s economic statement.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the palace letters, community transmission, and the JobTrainer program – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-palace-letters-community-transmission-and-the-jobtrainer-program-142905

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shaun Brooks, University Associate, University of Tasmania

Australia wants to build a 2.7-kilometre concrete runway in Antarctica, the world’s biggest natural reserve. The plan, if approved, would have the largest footprint of any project in the continent’s history.

The runway is part of an aerodrome to be constructed near Davis Station, one of Australia’s three permanent bases in Antarctica. It would be the first concrete runway on the continent.

The plan is subject to federal environmental approval. It coincides with new research published this week showing Antarctica’s wild places need better protection. Human activity across Antarctica has been extensive in the past 200 years – particularly in the coastal, ice-free areas where most biodiversity is found.

The area around Davis Station is possibly Antarctica’s most significant coastal, ice-free area. It features unique lakes, fjords, fossil sites and wildlife.

Australia has successfully operated Davis Station since 1957 with existing transport arrangements. While the development may win Australia some strategic influence in Antarctica, it’s at odds with our strong history of environmental leadership in the region.

Year-round access

The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), a federal government agency, argues the runway would allow year-round aviation access between Hobart and Antarctica.

Presently, the only Australian flights to Antarctica take place at the beginning and end of summer. Aircraft land at an aerodrome near the Casey research station, with interconnecting flights to other stations and sites on the continent. The stations are inaccessible by both air and ship in winter.

Read more: Humans are encroaching on Antarctica’s last wild places, threatening its fragile biodiversity

The AAD says year-round access to Antarctica would provide significant science benefits, including:

• better understanding sea level rise and other climate change impacts

• opportunities to study wildlife across the annual lifecycle of key species including krill, penguins, seals and seabirds

• allowing scientists to research through winter.

Leading international scientists had called for improved, environmentally responsible access to Antarctica to support 21st-century science. However, the aerodrome project is likely to reduce access for scientists to Antarctica for years, due to the need to house construction workers.

Australia: an environmental leader?

Australia has traditionally been considered an environmental leader in Antarctica. For example, in 1989 under the Hawke government, it urged the world to abandon a mining convention in favour of a new deal to ban mining on the continent.

Australia’s 20 Year Action Plan promotes “leadership in environmental stewardship in Antarctica”, pledging to “minimise the environmental impact of Australia’s activities”.

But the aerodrome proposal appears at odds with that goal. It would cover 2.2 square kilometres, increasing the total “disturbance footprint” of all nations on the continent by 40%. It would also mean Australia has the biggest footprint of any nation, overtaking the United States.

Within this footprint, environmental effects will also be intense. Construction will require more than three million cubic metres of earthworks – levelling 60 vertical metres of hills and valleys along the length of the runway. This will inevitably cause dust emissions – on the windiest continent on Earth – and the effect of this on plants and animals in Antarctica is poorly understood.

Wilson’s storm petrels that nest at the site will be displaced. Native lichens, fungi and algae will be destroyed, and irreparable damage is expected at adjacent lakes.

Weddell seals breed within 500 metres of the proposed runway site. Federal environment officials recognise the dust from construction and subsequent noise from low flying aircraft have the potential to disturb these breeding colonies.

Read more: Marine life found in ancient Antarctica ice helps solve a carbon dioxide puzzle from the ice age

The proposed area is also important breeding habitat for Adélie penguins. Eight breeding sites in the region are listed as “important bird areas”. Federal environment officials state the penguins are likely to be impacted by human disturbance, dust, and noise from construction of the runway, with particular concern for oil spills and aircraft operations.

The summer population at Davis Station will need to almost double from 120 to 250 during construction. This will require new, permanent infrastructure and increase the station’s fuel and water consumption, and sewage discharged into the environment.

The AAD has proposed measures to limit environmental damage. These include gathering baseline data (against which to measure the project’s impact), analysing potential effects on birds and marine mammals and limiting disturbance where practicable.

But full details won’t be provided until later in the assessment process. We expect Australia will implement these measures to a high standard, but they will not offset the project’s environmental damage.

Playing politics

So given the environmental concern, why is Australia so determined to build the aerodrome? We believe the answer largely lies in Antarctic politics.

Australian officials have said the project would “contribute to both our presence and influence” on the continent. Influence in Antarctica has traditionally corresponded to the strength of a nation’s scientific program, its infrastructure presence and engagement in international decision-making.

Read more: Microscopic animals are busy distributing microplastics throughout the world’s soil

Australia is a well-regarded member of the Antarctic Treaty. It was an original signatory and claims sovereignty over 42% of the continent. It also has a solid physical and scientific presence, maintaining three large year-round research stations.

But other nations are also vying for influence. China is constructing its fifth research station. New Zealand is planning a NZ$250 million upgrade to Scott Base. And on King George Island, six stations have been built within a 5km radius, each run by different nations. This presence is hard to justify on the basis of scientific interest alone.

Getting our priorities straight

We believe there are greater and more urgent opportunities for Australia to assert its leadership in Antarctica.

For example both Casey and Mawson stations – Australia’s two other permanent bases – discharge sewage into the pristine marine environment with little treatment. And outdated fuel technology at Australia’s three stations regularly causes diesel spills.

At Wilkes station, which Australia abandoned in the 1960s, thousands of tonnes of contaminants have been left behind.

Australia should fix such problems before adding more potentially damaging infrastructure. This would meet our environmental treaty obligations and show genuine Antarctic leadership.

– ref. Australia wants to build a huge concrete runway in Antarctica. Here’s why that’s a bad idea – https://theconversation.com/australia-wants-to-build-a-huge-concrete-runway-in-antarctica-heres-why-thats-a-bad-idea-139596

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meghan S. Miller, Associate Professor; Program Director AuScope Earth Imaging, Australian National University

Our responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have dramatically changed human activity all over the world. People are working from home, schools are closed in many places, travel is restricted, and in some cases only essential shops and businesses are open.

Scientists see signs of these changes wherever they look. Carbon dioxide emissions are down, air quality has improved, and there is less traffic.

The drop in activity has also been a surprising boon for earthquake scientists like us. Our sensitive instruments are detecting far less of the noise and vibration produced by humans in motion — which means we have a unique opportunity to listen in on tiny earthquakes we might never have detected otherwise.

Read more: Underground sounds: why we should listen to earthquakes

The seismic hum of humans

Seismometers are sensitive scientific instruments used to detect earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and nuclear tests, by recording the movement of the ground. They often detect mining activity and can even pick out crowds responding to football games — so-called “footyquakes”.

On top of this, everyday human activity creates a high-frequency seismic “hum” that is stronger during the day and weaker at night. This is particularly evident in urban environments, but is also observed in rural or unpopulated areas.

The decrease in this noise signature was first identified in March by Belgian scientists as lockdown measures were introduced in Europe. These early results, computer codes and data were widely shared on Twitter, sparking an enthusiastic collaboration of seismologists around the world who found this change in signal everywhere they looked.

Schoolyard sounds

In Australia, the change in human behaviour was most dramatically observed in the data recorded by the Australian Seismometers in Schools (AuSiS) network. These instruments are research-quality seismometers that are maintained by school students — our next generation of geophysicists.

The usual happy schoolyard sounds and hubbub disappeared at many schools, as they shut and most or all students stayed home. The usual hum of the children (and teachers) during the school day, observed in the movement between classrooms, and during lunchtimes or Saturday morning sports, abruptly stopped at locations such as Ulladulla High School on the south coast of New South Wales and Keysborough Secondary College in suburban Melbourne.

At other schools, such as Daramalan College in Canberra, there was only a small decrease in human noise, with the school seismometer recording people commuting to work in essential public services and government offices that continued to operate throughout the initial lockdown. The seismometer at North Rockhampton State High School in Queensland also saw less of the effect, as the students were still able to attend classes.

The level of noise recorded across Australia during lockdown compares to the Christmas week. When restrictions began easing, the signal was similar to the annual January pattern when schools are closed, most businesses are open but many people are away on holiday. As schools reopened across Australia in mid to late May, noise levels were mostly back to “normal” except for what is usually observed for Saturday morning sports.

Lockdown 2.0

However, regional differences became even more pronounced as metropolitan Melbourne reinstated stay-at-home restrictions on July 8. As a second spike of COVID-19 cases was detected in Victoria and then ramped up in late June, the level of movement began to drop again.

In the seismic noise signal from Keysborough Secondary College, we can see the school holiday quiet period becoming quieter still as further restrictions to school activity were enforced.

Read more: The Victorian earthquake didn’t do much damage … but the next one might

Earthquake detection

The low level of background noise from humans recorded in the seismic data during lockdown gives us a window of opportunity to study smaller earthquakes. Detection of small earthquakes or motion on fault lines is essential for seismic hazard assessment.

Small events are typically identified by looking at changes in amplitudes of signals, but very small events have small amplitude signals and these cannot be observed because they are drowned out by the background noise.

This time of quiescence in seismic noise due to the COVID-19 emergency provides a unique opportunity to learn more about small earthquakes occurring in previously unidentified locations.

– ref. Australian cities are quiet during lockdown. Earthquake scientists are making the most of it – https://theconversation.com/australian-cities-are-quiet-during-lockdown-earthquake-scientists-are-making-the-most-of-it-142717

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christa Lam-Cassettari, Research Fellow, MARCS Institute BabyLab, Western Sydney University

COVID-19 has seen a huge increase in video calling as we try to socially distance but still stay in touch.

This is particularly the case for grandparents and their grandchildren, who have either chosen to stay away, given the vulnerability of older people to coronavirus, or been forced apart due to lockdowns and border closures.

Read more: Video chats can ease social isolation for older adults during coronavirus pandemic

As researchers in early childhood, psychology and linguistics, we are studying how video calls fit into the lives of grandparents and their grandchildren and how we can enhance this interaction.

Our research

In a project with Western Sydney University’s BabyLab, we are surveying grandparents and parents about their experience of using video chat with children under the age of five, to capture the changes brought by COVID-19.

So far, 130 grandparents and parents from around Australia have responded.

Of those surveyed, on average, grandparents video call two to three times a week with their grandchildren, for about five to ten minutes. They mostly used FaceTime and Facebook Messenger, as apps that are already available on their phones.

‘Being part of their lives’

About 40% of grandparents surveyed began using video calls with their grandchildren for the first time during COVID-19. For all those surveyed, it was a mostly positive experience.

Grandparents say the calls allow them to stay connected with their grandchildren – with respondents talking about “being a part of their lives” and “not missing seeing them grow”.

One grandmother, who started using video chat with her granddaughter during COVID-19, said

I can see her and see her react to our voices and smile, which makes me feel good.

Another experienced user, with grandchildren overseas, also said

Because it’s so frequent – almost daily – I know their environment, it feels‚ normal. There’s no shyness, we can start a book one day and continue each day. We walk around theirs and my apartment and garden and I just feel part of their lives.

But there are challenges. Not surprisingly, the greatest challenge was maintaining children’s attention during the calls.

For some, the interaction was “artificial and detached”. As one parent said

It was more of a novelty than a way to have a genuine connection with people.

Other parents described the experience as stressful, noting the call had to be at “right time”. As one parent noted of her one-year-old daughter, “she gets overstimulated and then will not go to bed”.

Some grandparents also expressed concern that it was an additional burden for parents and efforts were abandoned

I only did it once because it was too hard to fit into their already busy day.

What does this mean for ‘screen time’?

Many parents and grandparents we surveyed have questions about what increased video-calling means for “screen time”.

Is it harmful in any way for children? And for babies under 12 months – is there any benefit? Can it genuinely help such little ones remember their grandparents?

But video calls are not simply “screen time”. Rather, they offer an important opportunity for socialisation, as young children can still mimic the information typically available in face-to-face interactions.

Read more: Stop worrying about screen ‘time’. It’s your child’s screen experience that matters

The key appears to be the instant feedback that video offers. As recent research shows, one and two year-old children can develop a social connection and learn the names of objects from someone they see and talk with via a video call.

Babies as young as four and five months prefer looking at images of faces over other toys and objects. This continues into their second year of life.

So yes, you can engage a young child through FaceTime – and it can help their development.

But how can we optimise video calls with small children?

Tips for preparing for a video call

• Place your device on a firm surface, using your cover or something similar as a tripod to free your hands for gesturing and showing objects.

• Try to keep the light source in front of you, excessive sun glare behind you leads to poor quality video.

• Minimise background noise (such as the washing machine or radio).

• Make the call part of your routine, so children come to expect and get used to calls.

• Make calls at a time of day when you can all relax – when babies are fed, changed and alert and older children are fed and not too tired.

• Before making the call, parents can share images, videos and messages describing new skills or activities since you last spoke, so grandparents have something to ask questions about and engage with.

• Prepare the child before the call to help manage their expectations. For example, ask them to pick out their favourite toy or drawing so they can show and talk about it.

• Start with shorter calls (around five minutes) and increase the length as you see fit.

Tips for keeping the call going

• For parents, consider making the video call as you do routine activities, such as cooking, sharing meals or bath-time – this can bring grandparents into the day-to-day routine and reduce the stress of finding a time to call.

• As a grandparent, try to maintain eye contact and talk about things that baby or child is paying attention to at that moment.

• Use songs and games (“pat-a-cake” and “peekaboo” are good examples) to capture babies’ attention. Musical statues is a good game to play with older children.

• Make funny faces and hand gestures, blow kisses.

• Dance, take each other on a tour of your home or garden, or try exercise moves together.

• Set aside some books to use for video calls. You can carry on reading longer books with older children each time you call.

• Try out various filters or virtual backgrounds built into your apps to make it more interesting for kids and give you something else to talk about.

Save the Children has some further information about staying in touch with grandparents.

If you are a grandparent, you can register to participate in the BabyLab survey here. Parents can register here.

Read more: Pregnant in a pandemic? If you’re stressed, there’s help

– ref. Grandparent-grandchildren video calls are vital during COVID-19. Here are simple ways to improve them – https://theconversation.com/grandparent-grandchildren-video-calls-are-vital-during-covid-19-here-are-simple-ways-to-improve-them-141534

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne

The exclusion of temporary visa workers from reimbursement under Australia’s Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG) scheme for lost wages and entitlements (annual leave etc) owed to them when their employer collapses is not just unfair.

It is inconsistent with other important government guarantee schemes, such as the Financial Claims Scheme (FCS) for bank deposits and insurance policies, where non-residents are eligible.

Read more: There’s serious talk about a “job guarantee”, but it’s not that straightforward

It is also inconsistent with the principle of non-discrimination expressed on the Fair Work Ombudsman website:

all people working in Australia, including foreign workers, are entitled to basic rights and protections in the workplace.

Lost jobs and hardship

During the current coronavirus crisis many workers have experienced the hardships of both losing their job and then discovering that unpaid wages and other entitlements have been lost due to insolvency of their employer.

Australian citizens, permanent (and some other) visa holders are entitled to claim for compensation under the FEG, albeit with limits on the amount claimed.

But temporary visa holders, such as international students working in shops or hospitality to earn enough for rent and living expenses, are not eligible to claim.

Is it right to exclude them from the Australian taxpayer support provided by the FEG? Yes, if the objective of the scheme is solely to provide compensation for Australians suffering loss.

But no if the objective is to provide compensation for failings by bosses of Australian businesses to adequately provide for the amounts owed to any employees.

All workers should be covered

There is, in my mind, a very strong case for the latter answer, and thus inclusion in the FEG of temporary visa holders.

The FEG is an alternative to other methods of making sure employers adequately provide for amounts owed to employees. These could include an explicit, premium based, insurance scheme, or requirements for employers to maintain amounts in a trust account adequate to meet unpaid entitlements.

In the absence of such direct disciplining measures on employers, which would protect all workers, the FEG is a substitute to provide such protection.

Any of these approaches work to improve the efficient operation of the labour market by removing the need for potential and current employees to assess (and worry) whether an employer will be able to meet unpaid entitlements.

Not only is that a virtual impossibility for them, but their ability to take actions to reduce exposure to potential losses is highly limited (short of quitting and demanding immediate payment).

Other protections from businesses collapsing

It is worth comparing the FEG with the Financial Claims Scheme (FCS), which protects bank depositors and insurance policy-holders (up to maximum amounts covered).

Yes, an important feature is that it provides ex-post compensation for losses from a failed institution.

But a critical feature is that it enhances the stability and efficiency of the financial sector by removing concerns of those covered about risk of failure of their financial institution.

The resulting peace of mind also reduces the risk of “[runs]” for example, where a large number of customers withdraw their deposits at the same time.

The FCS does not exclude non-residents with Australian dollar accounts, held in Australia, from its coverage. Just as Australian retail customers are generally unable to assess the financial health and risk of a bank or insurance company, so too are non-resident retail customers. Probably more so.

An important feature of the FCS is rapid access to amounts owed by a failed institution. This reduces the disruption to customers relying on access to those funds for daily living and other expenses.

Read more: Cutting taxes for the wealthy is the worst possible response to this economic crisis

The same arguments are relevant regarding coverage by the FEG. Covered workers need not worry about possible loss of unpaid entitlements if their employer fails.

Realistically, employees on temporary visas are even less likely than Australian employees to have the ability to assess risk of loss from employer insolvency. As casual or part-time employees they have less (if any) bargaining power.

The financial hardship resulting from loss of entitlements (on top of unemployment) of such relatively low-paid workers with limited access to other forms of financial support is undoubtedly severe.

Add to that the Fairwork principle of non-discrimination and the conclusion is obvious. The FEG should apply to such workers on temporary visas.

– ref. When companies go bust, temporary visa holders miss out and that’s wrong – https://theconversation.com/when-companies-go-bust-temporary-visa-holders-miss-out-and-thats-wrong-142281

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracy Clelland, Lecturer in Health Education, University of Canterbury

The hugely successful “Keep It Real Online” video aimed at getting parents to talk to their children about pornography has gone viral and been praised around the world. But my 16-year-old son asked an interesting question when he looked at the campaign website:

Why does it say talk “to” your child? Shouldn’t it be “with”?

This is why I always ask his opinion about how he makes sense of the world. As a sexuality educator for over 30 years, a university lecturer and mother of two teenage sons, it has been my privilege to listen to people’s stories of sexuality and the impact on their lives.

Some have been uplifting and some are simply heartbreaking. Either way, young people and adults generally want to reflect on the complicated, messy and often irrational nature of sex and relationships. They also want to talk about joy, pleasure, intimacy and love.

Young people want better sex and relationship education

So any discussion of pornography inevitably leads to a broader conversation – much like the one we imagine is about to take place in that viral video.

In case you haven’t watched it, two naked porn actors arrive at an ordinary home to talk to a boy who has been watching them online. The mother who answers the door is understandably surprised and a little lost for words. But in the end she tells her son they need to talk about the difference between the online and real worlds.

The video provides an excellent starting point for parents and children to have conversations about our understanding of sex, relationships and gender.

As the research continues to show, young people want better sexuality education from the adults in their lives. But what does better sexuality education look, sound and feel like to young people?

Before parents can talk with their children, they first need to reflect on how ideas about pornography are in turn shaped by broader socio-cultural values and attitudes towards young people, sex, relationships and the digital world.

Read more: Small budgets, big ideas — what a viral porn awareness campaign tells us about New Zealand advertising

Too often, parents’ anxieties about the loss of childhood innocence make them feel they need to be the expert who talks to their child about the dangers of pornography.

You might define this as a fear-based approach, and it can lead to young people having feelings of shame and guilt for being curious about sex. Very often this can be the end of the conversation.

Listening rather than explaining

It’s not easy, but parents should try not to let their own worries about pornography override their capacity to talk with, rather than to, their children about all aspects of sexuality. By doing so they will also help young people explore and develop their own critical thinking and media literacy.

My current research explores how 56 New Zealand parents understand and experience sexuality education with their children. Embarrassment and feeling unprepared continue to make it difficult for parents and young people to talk about sex, let alone porn.

If they do talk about pornography, we’re finding it is challenging to shift from being the parent who knows and explains to the one who asks open questions, listens and invites their child to share their world view.

But the fact is, as extensive research from the New Zealand Classification Office has shown, many young people have already seen pornography. The top two reasons they give are curiosity and that they found it by accident.

As adults and parents we need to remember that young people are sexual beings who are curious about sex. They often report that parental messaging doesn’t match their own feelings and experiences.

Letting young people lead the conversation

For those reasons, a conversation about pornography as a social, cultural, personal and highly complex issue can be a way into a deeper discussion.

From there we can explore what it means to navigate the bumpy roads of sex and relationships. Sexuality education by parents sometimes tries to smooth out those bumps with information and advice rather than shared discussion. Yet it’s through the emotional wrestle with social and cultural expectations that our sexual selves develop.

Read more: Is that porn your child is watching online? How do you know?

We need to allow young people to narrate their own lived experiences. At the same time, we should foster their ability to critique the wider moral landscapes in which they live.

Embrace sexuality as messy, complex, irrational, emotional and part of being human. Don’t look for the “right” answers from young people. Allow them to explore the emotional complexity and joy of sexuality. In this way, online access to pornography becomes just another intersection on their sexuality journey.

That is the beauty of the “Keep It Real Online” video – it’s humour allows us to ask young people open-ended questions. What should adults really be saying to young people? What do they think about pornography? What do they think constitutes a healthy relationship? Who is advantaged and disadvantaged by the porn industry?

Most of all, pause, breathe, don’t judge. Young people are far more insightful than adults sometimes give them credit. They are constantly watching, learning and working out how society expects them to behave.

Sometimes parents need to be open – but keep their mouths shut!

– ref. The ‘Keep It Real Online’ campaign wants parents to talk to kids about porn — but where to start? – https://theconversation.com/the-keep-it-real-online-campaign-wants-parents-to-talk-to-kids-about-porn-but-where-to-start-142469

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blair Williams, Associate Lecturer, School of Political Science and International Relations, Australian National University

Why are there so few women at the top levels of politics? This question is at the centre of the new book, Women and Leadership, co-authored by Australia’s first woman prime minister, Julia Gillard, and former Nigerian finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Using their personal experiences and interviews with an impressive group of eight women leaders – including Theresa May, Hillary Clinton, Jacinda Ardern and Christine Lagarde – Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala test various academic studies to see if their findings are reflected in reality.

Theses studies include media coverage of women’s leadership, as well as perceptions of women’s “power-seeking” and gender norms around leadership.

What results is both a sobering reminder that sexism isn’t going away anytime soon and an empowering message about women’s strength and resilience.

As an academic researching women’s political leadership, this book acts as a crucial point between scholarly studies and public debate. It also offers a fresh perspective of the many issues women in leadership face.

Here are four key messages:

1. The fashion police are everywhere

Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala find women leaders are heavily judged for their appearance. This was a problem faced by all leaders interviewed, despite their diverse experiences and locations.

However, there were still differences across the world. Clinton, a former US presidential candidate and secretary of state, was known for her pant suits – which she said helped her feel professional and “fit in”. But former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf noted how she “would have got some eyes as a woman wearing pant suits” and traditional dress worked best for her.

There can also be power in clothing. For example, New Zealand’s Ardern was seen to show compassion, empathy and solidarity when she wore a hijab after the Christchurch terrorist attack. As Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala write,

it became a symbol of love in the face of hate. There was a transcendent power in appearance.

2. Prepare to be judged for your reproductive choices

The book also explores how women leaders are judged for their reproductive choices. While fatherhood increases perceptions of male leaders as affable, relatable and conventional, public motherhood is a far more problematic experience.

Read more: How Julia Gillard forever changed Australian politics – especially for women

As the authors note, women leaders with young children are frequently asked, “who’s minding the kids?”

Seven hours after her election, Ardern was asked on national television about her plans for having children. When she had her daughter, there was intense media scrutiny about how she would juggle her leadership role and her baby. Yet male leaders, such as former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who welcome babies in office, are not questioned about who will be looking after them.

And what about women leaders who don’t have children? Gillard is intrigued by the respectful treatment of former British prime minister May’s childlessness, as she had a polar opposite experience in Australia (who could forget the frenzy sparked by her empty fruit bowl).

Gillard makes a thought-provoking point here about choice. May wanted, but was unable, to have children, while Gillard was deliberately child-free. Perhaps this was the cause of the criticism she faced. As Gillard writes,

in being seen to offend against female stereotypes, is there anything bigger than not becoming a mother by choice?

3. The situation is not getting better

The book makes the point that despite the focus on women in politics, the experience for those at the top is not necessarily improving.

As someone whose research found media reaction to May in 2016 was more gendered than for Margaret Thatcher in 1979, I wasn’t shocked to read this. However, it was still surprising to learn that Michelle Bachelet – Chile’s president from 2006-10 and 2014-18 – noticed things were worse in her second term.

Read more: Women leaders and coronavirus: look beyond stereotypes to find the secret to their success

Initially assuming the pressure of gendered expectations had improved the second time around, Bachelet realised,

it was the same or worse. I think politics is getting more complicated these days and more vicious. There is less respect. It’s more personalised now.

All leaders interviewed said they were conscious of the difficulties of finding a balance in leadership style. If they were too strong or assertive, they could be seen as “cold”, “robotic” or “bitchy”.

4. ‘Be aware, not beware’

The experiences and advice of these eight high-profile women leaders reveal how sexism is par for the course.

This message is hammered home in the final chapter, in which Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala note “Be aware, not beware”. They argue that they want to inspire women to pursue politics and leadership roles, but glossing over the challenges would be dishonest and insulting.

Summarising the insights gleaned from previous chapters, Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala offer some stand-out lessons that will aid aspiring women leaders. These include:

• expect sexism and sexist commentary relating to your appearance, family and leadership style and figure out early on how you will respond to this

• support other women, whether through network-building, mentoring, role-modelling or general solidarity

• persevere.

A reality check

Women and Leadership is, at times, a depressing reality check that feminism still has a long way to go. However, readers should not come away from this feeling hopeless or disheartened.

Rather, they can appreciate the respect the authors have given them by speaking plainly about the realities women leaders face.

Perhaps more consideration could have been given to the experiences of women in less senior positions. Do we need to hear from the success stories when we talk about the struggles of women in leadership, or could we perhaps also learn from those whose glass ceilings were just too thick?

Read more: Fiction, fact and Hillary Clinton: an American politics expert reads Rodham

While this book might be less useful for women – and men – without leadership aspirations, its general analysis of gender stereotypes and double standards still makes it a worthwhile read.

This is also problem that women cannot fix alone. Men need to do their bit, by calling out sexism and supporting women. The media must also be more active in combating sexism and misogyny.

One enduring message of this book is that progress and equality are not linear.

Sexism doesn’t just one day magically disappear. Rather, it can only be dismantled through constant pressure and the actions of those who persevere.

– ref. ‘Expect sexism’: a gender politics expert reads Julia Gillard’s Women and Leadership – https://theconversation.com/expect-sexism-a-gender-politics-expert-reads-julia-gillards-women-and-leadership-142725

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology, University of Melbourne

Psychiatric classifications catalogue the many forms of mental ill-health. They define what counts as a disorder and who counts as disordered, drawing the boundary between psychological normality and abnormality.

In the past century that boundary has shifted radically. Successive classifications have added new disorders and revised old ones. Diagnoses have increased rapidly as new forms of human misery have been identified.

The wider psychiatric classifications cast their net, the more people qualify for diagnoses and the more treatment is considered necessary.

These changes may have mixed blessings. Broadening definitions of mental illness allow us to address mental health problems that were previously neglected. Mental illness may come to seem more commonplace and thereby less stigmatised.

However, inflating definitions may also lead to over-diagnosis, over-medication, and bogus epidemics. Many writers worry broad definitions of mental illness lead ordinary problems of living to be pathologised and medicalised.

But is this “diagnostic inflation” actually occurring?

Read more: Explainer: what is the DSM and how are mental disorders diagnosed?

Diagnostic inflation

These concerns often target the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The “DSM” is the American Psychiatric Association’s influential classification manual of mental health problems. Since its revolutionary third edition in 1980, each major DSM revision has been challenged over diagnostic inflation.

Some writers argue the DSM over-diagnoses depression and anxiety disorders, misrepresenting many normal responses to adversity as mental illnesses. Others suggest it has diluted what counts as a traumatic event for the purpose of diagnosing PTSD. Eyebrows have been raised by some researchers over new diagnoses such as internet addiction and mathematics disorder.

These criticisms reached fever pitch when the latest version (DSM-5) was launched in 2013. Leading the charge was distinguished American psychiatrist Allen Frances who led the Task Force that developed the previous edition. Frances criticised the new edition for creating “diagnostic hyperinflation” that would make mental illness ubiquitous.

For example, the latest version removed the rule that a recently bereaved person could not be diagnosed with depression. It listed new disorders representing relatively mild cognitive declines and bodily complaints. It introduced a disorder of binge eating and another for frequent temper outbursts in children.

In response to shifts such as these, Frances led a campaign to “save normality” from psychiatry’s territorial expansion.

But is it a myth?

It seems obvious the DSM has steadily inflated psychiatric diagnoses. But we decided to test this assumption in our recently published research — with surprising results.

We scoured the research for studies in which consecutive editions of the manual were used to diagnose the same group of people on a single occasion. These were 1980’s DSM-III, 1987’s DSM-III-R, 1994’s DSM-IV, and 2013’s DSM-5. For instance, a study might use DSM-III and DSM-III-R criteria to diagnose schizophrenia in a sample of inpatients.

We found more than 100 studies comparing rates of diagnosis of at least one mental disorder across a pair of editions. In all, 123 disorders could be compared based on 476 study findings. For each comparison, we evaluated diagnostic inflation by dividing the rate of diagnosis in the later edition by the rate in the earlier one — the “relative rate”.

For example, if 15% of a group of people received a certain diagnosis by DSM-5’s criteria and only 10% received it by DSM-IV’s, the relative rate would be 1.5. This would indicate diagnostic inflation. If the percentages were reversed, the relative rate would be 0.67, indicating deflation. A relative rate of 1.0 would show stability.

We found no consistent evidence of diagnostic inflation. Relative rates for each new edition were 1.11 (DSM-III-R), 0.95 (DSM-IV) and 1.01 (DSM-5). None of these differed reliably from 1.0 or from one another. The average relative rate overall was exactly 1.0, indicating an absence of diagnostic inflation from DSM-III to DSM-5.

Although there was no pattern of inflation across the board, we found a few specific disorders have inflated. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism both inflated significantly from DSM-III to DSM-III-R, as did several eating disorders and Generalised Anxiety Disorder from DSM-IV to DSM-5. However, a similar number of disorders significantly deflated so fewer people could be diagnosed with them, including autism from DSM-IV to DSM-5.

Normality may not need saving after all

These findings call into question the widespread view the DSM has created runaway diagnostic inflation. No consistent trend toward diagnostic expansion has occurred, nor has any DSM revision been singularly prone to bloat. Normality may not need saving after all.

Worries about growing over-diagnosis or over-medication should focus on particular disorders for which diagnostic inflation can be demonstrated, rather than seeing these as rampant and systemic.

Our findings restore some confidence that the DSM’s process of diagnostic revision does not necessarily make psychiatric diagnosis more expansive.

Also, they suggest supposed epidemics of depression, anxiety, ADHD or autism must be evaluated sceptically. If steep increases in diagnoses occur for disorders whose criteria have not inflated, there may be cause for alarm. If such increases occur for inflating disorders, they may simply be caused by lowered diagnostic thresholds that create a “new abnormal”.

Read more: Depression: it’s a word we use a lot, but what exactly is it?

Two kinds of diagnostic expansion

Our finding that rules for diagnosing mental disorders have not consistently become less stringent might seem to encourage complacency about diagnostic expansion. Not so fast! Diagnostic expansion can also occur through the addition of new disorders.

As we have written in relation to “concept creep”, ideas can broaden in two directions: downward to encompass milder phenomena than they did previously, and outward to encompass new kinds of phenomena.

Our study finds little evidence for the “vertical” sort of creep, but the “horizontal” sort has surely occurred. New DSM editions have always identified new ways of being mentally ill, and some of the rhetorical heat generated by DSM-5’s critics was directed at new diagnoses.

The fact that psychiatric classifications continue to evolve should not surprise us, and nor should the fact they sometimes expand. Such changes are not unique to the mental health field either. As Allen Frances has drily observed, “modern medicine is making such rapid advances, soon none of us will be well.”

Our findings suggest that although new ways of being mentally unwell may continue to be discovered, the old ways have tended to stay the same.

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

– ref. Is psychiatry shrinking what’s considered normal? – https://theconversation.com/is-psychiatry-shrinking-whats-considered-normal-142477

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Pilcher, Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

In April, the federal government put in place an emergency relief package to support families and operators in the early childhood education and care sector, as many people pulled their children out of childcare.

The government provided centres with around 50% of their revenue based on enrolment numbers between February 17 and March 2, on the basis parents weren’t charged any fees. Services were also able to access JobKeeper for eligible employees.

This package came to an end on Monday. Parents will now resume paying fees and the government will resume paying the childcare subsidy.

There is additional flexibility for parents in metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell shire – the Victorian areas under stage 3 restrictions – where services can temporarily waive fees for parents if children are not attending care.

There will also be a transition period across the country. JobKeeper payments will cease and be replaced by a transition payment for services — 25% of their February revenue.

But going back to pre-COVID-19 settings — even with modifications — is risky. Australia’s existing childcare subsidy system is not fit-for-purpose in the context of COVID-19.

Our analysis shows many families who have lost income or jobs will be worse off when the subsidy system restarts. Many parents have relied on fee-free childcare to keep children engaged in early learning and maintain stability throughout the crisis.

A survey conducted in May found 42% of families were experiencing income loss. Of these, nearly two-thirds would need to reduce childcare days or remove their child altogether from early learning once parent fees were reintroduced.

Our analysis shows the government should increase the childcare subsidy for families on low to medium incomes — either temporarily or permanently. This would involve increasing the highest subsidy rate from 85% to 95%.

Families on a combined income under $173,163 would benefit, with those on the lowest incomes benefiting most.

The high costs of childcare

Before COVID-19 hit, early childhood education and care in Australia was already bordering on unaffordable. Fees absorb nearly one-fifth of many families’ household incomes.

Even after government subsidies, many parents pay more to have a child in early learning than they would to send a child to a private primary school.

So far, the government has announced several small changes to the pre-COVID arrangements once fees resume.

There will be a temporary easing of the activity test for 12 weeks from July 13. This means families working and studying less can access more hours of subsidised childcare. But they’ll still need to pay at least 15% of childcare fees.

The additional childcare subsidy also provides temporary free childcare to families experiencing significant financial hardship. But it is unclear who will be eligible, and current data shows that processing times can be lengthy.

The additional childcare subsidy provides temporary free childcare and remains available for families experiencing temporary financial hardship.

While these measures will help some families, they are unlikely to be enough to counter the unprecedented economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Vast numbers will be faced with a decision on whether they can afford to keep their child engaged in early education and care.

And we know children removed from early learning, or with only intermittent access to it, face disruption to their routine, and possibly developmental and educational delays.

So, what are the options?

Some have argued for an overhaul of the childcare system to make childcare permanently free. One of the main barriers to this is cost. Estimates suggest this would cost in excess of A$24 billion per year, compared with the current cost of around $8 billion per year.

Others have pushed for a temporary extension of fee-free care, arguing it would support women and families financially and reduce risks for women in unsafe home situations.

Another option is a universal entitlement of up to 20 hours of free care per week, to ensure access for all children, while allowing parents to pay for additional hours above the entitlement. This policy recognises children’s right to early learning, and would be more straightforward than our current complex arrangements.

We argue an equitable and cost-effective option is to increase the subsidy for families on a combined income of A$68,163 from 85% to 95%, tapering to 50% for families with a combined income of $173,163.

The Grattan Institute estimates increasing the highest rate of the childcare subsidy to 95% would cost an additional A$5 billion per year.

Our analysis shows this could save low-income families close to half of their current childcare fees, making it easier for struggling families to keep their children engaged in early learning.

This would provide a triple dividend by supporting children’s access to early learning, putting more money back into family budgets and supporting economic recovery.

Beyond 2020, an ambitious and fair reform agenda aimed at improving educational outcomes and reducing inequality should consider a range of policy options.

But for now, increasing subsidy rates for low to medium income families is the best way to support access for children, parents’ workforce participation and economic recovery — as well as ensure the sector’s survival.

It’s a small investment to remove some of the pressure on Australian families, and our youngest children, at this very challenging time.

– ref. Increasing the childcare subsidy will help struggling families — and the economy – https://theconversation.com/increasing-the-childcare-subsidy-will-help-struggling-families-and-the-economy-142557

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phoebe Macrossan, Associate Lecturer/Sessional Academic, Queensland University of Technology

While many teen films fade away never to be heard of again, Clueless, a loose adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, has remained in the cultural consciousness since its 1995 release. Maybe it’s the catchy soundtrack, or familiar story about social comeuppance, or the endurance of the teen film as a genre. Most likely it’s a combination of many factors.

Austen’s Emma Woodhouse is transformed into Cher Horowitz (played by the then relatively unknown Alicia Silverstone), a Beverly Hills teenager, who — like her matchmaker predecessor — considers herself the centre of her social circle.

As in Emma, our clueless protagonist meddles in her friends’ lives, attempting to transform Tai (a modern day facsimile of orphaned and penniless Harriet Smith, played by Brittany Murphy) into a worldly and fashionable “catch” for the suitor of Cher’s choosing – the dashingly handsome Elton (in a rework of the original Mr Elton, played by Jeremy Sisto).

Read more: Friday essay: Jane Austen’s Emma at 200

Austen’s books have an enduring appeal for filmmakers – with varying levels of fidelity to their source material.

Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) borrows from Pride and Prejudice (as does 2004’s Bride and Prejudice and 2016’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies); Whit Stilman’s Metropolitan (1990) adapts Mansfield Park; Ang Lee described Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) as “Sense and Sensibility with martial arts.” Austen’s life and books also inspired Becoming Jane (2007) and Austenland (2013).

Clueless has engendered a cult following since its release, leading to a number of spin-offs including books, comics, a television series (1996-1999) and even a 2018 jukebox musical written by the film’s writer-director Amy Heckerling.

Clueless was a labour of love for Heckerling. She worked on the script for years, as producers came and left and studios signed on and then abandoned the project. By the 1990s, Heckerling was an established director who had critical and commercial success with Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985) and Look Who’s Talking (1989).

One of only a few female directors working for major studios at the time, she had established herself as as strong voice in the teen film realm. As journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner has written: “She was a woman who was somehow able to join a fraternity and thrive in it.” Eventually produced by Paramount, Clueless became the surprise sleeper hit of 1995.

Re-shaping the times

Clueless is a film out-of-time in many ways. Fashion, language, music and story are all taken from other eras and remixed to create a unique aesthetic.

In a nod to its literary roots, Clueless plays with language in interesting and memorable ways. The endlessly quotable movie had its teenage characters communicate with exaggerated affect.

At times, Cher seems to have her own language that requires translation. A “full on Monet” refers to someone who “from far away, it’s okay, but from up close, it’s a mess”.

A “Baldwin” is a cute guy, in reference to the famous and famously handsome Baldwin brothers.

Not only do the characters talk with an ironic knowingness, the characters comment knowingly on how they use language. Not long after we are introduced to Tai, she says to Cher, “You guys talk like grown ups”. Cher replies, “Oh this is a really good school.” One of the self-improvement tasks that Cher assigns Tai is to learn a new word every day. Her first word is “sporadically.”

The costumes are also aspirational. Clueless did not reflect the fashion of its time but re-shaped it. While we may think of Cher’s yellow plaid ensemble, organza shirt, white Calvin Klein mini and red Alaïa (“like a totally important designer”) dress as iconic 1990s fashion, in the early 90s high-school students were wearing grungey flannel and loose-fitting jeans, which did not fit Heckerling’s ideal aesthetic.

Costume designer Mona May brought together vintage styles, designer dresses and thrift shop finds to create Cher’s iconic style, which fused 1920s over-the-knee socks with 60s mod mini skirts and chic 90s figure-hugging designer dresses.

Cher’s iconic fashion still informs runways and street style, with today’s teens recreating these iconic looks.

Willow Smith paid homage to Cher in Cosmopolitan, Iggy Azalea casts herself as Cher in the music video for Fancy and Ariana Grande channelled her inner Cher for her 2019 world tour.

With its mansions, designer dresses and fancy cars, Cher’s world is a fantasy for most viewers. Heckerling said: “I wanted that feel of a fantasy that you would like to live in.”

Similarly, Austen’s Emma has been criticised for ignoring the political and economic realities of 1815, including widespread poverty and war. At the same time, economic survival is at the centre of Austen’s Emma: Harriet must marry or risk becoming a spinster like Miss Bates; Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax keep their engagement secret to avoid familial financial fallout; and Mr Elton improves his station by marrying the garish Miss Augusta Hawkins, just as Elton winds up with the irritating Amber (played by Elisa Donovan) in Clueless.

Read more: Friday essay: the revolutionary vision of Jane Austen

Nineties angst

Clueless’s soundtrack forms a key part of its success and popularity, but it also adds to the film’s sardonic humour, irony and character development.

An eclectic mix of 1990s American pop punk, hip hop and rock, along with covers of hits from the 1970s and 1980s, the music establishes the milieu and expresses characters’ internal emotions.

The film’s opening titles feature Californian punk rock band The Muffs’ cover of Kids in America over a montage of Cher and her friends driving through Beverly Hills in her jeep, shopping on Rodeo Drive, lounging by the pool, and talking and eating at the mall; all images of her extreme wealth, privilege and carefree teen life.

This is ironically undercut by Cher’s narration: “I actually have a way normal life for a teenage girl”.

David Bowie’s 1980 hit Fashion plays while she picks out an outfit on her computer and selects it from her motorised revolving wardrobe. The songs add to the ironic nature of the film’s commentary on Cher’s obliviousness to her own wealth and privilege.

Cher’s carefree feminised lifestyle is also mirrored in the lyrics of 1990s pop hits sung by women (I’m Just a Girl, Shoop, Supermodel), just as these pop hits are a reflection of her. Meanwhile her dopey love interest and ex-step-brother Josh (Paul Rudd) listens to — in Cher’s words — “the maudlin music of the university station” when he comes home from college.

Teen films often use the romantic comedy genre trope of two leads who start out either hating each other or from different worlds: different schools, friendship groups, sports teams, or social and class stratas. It’s jock vs. nerd, popular vs. unpopular, rich vs. poor.

The pleasure in watching their eventual romantic union comes from their compromise for each other, or their ability to break the strict social hierarchies of high-school and come together.

Of course, this trope far predates the teen film: it’s as much Shakespeare as it is Jane Austen.

In Clueless, musical taste forms a key part of distinguishing not just Cher from Josh, but the whole cast of girls from the boys. When the gang go to a party, they listen to Coolio’s Rollin’ with My Homies; Elton sings along to The Cranberries’ Away while driving Cher home; Tai and Cher watch Travis (Breckin Meyer) perform at a skating competition to The Beastie Boys’ Mullet Head.

Two songs bring the whole gang together: Where’d You Go? and Someday I Suppose, performed by ska punk band the Mighty Mighty Bosstones during a college party. Cher and Josh’s relationship begins to soften at this point, as everyone gets into the dancing — girls and boys together, at last.

The soundtrack also adds an ironic note to Cher’s eventual pivot towards Josh. To the sounds of 1990s pop singer Jewel singing a cover of All By Myself, Cher walks around Rodeo Drive feeling sorry for herself. When she realises she is in love with Josh, a fountain comically erupts behind her.

Tracking the teen girl film

The teen film has been around since the classical Hollywood era, largely defined by its youthful intended audience and subjects, rather than any consistent style or aesthetic. While Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney films of the 1930s may be considered forebearers of the teen film, the “teenager” is a relatively modern phenomenon, emerging post-World War II.

The post-war economic boom, the introduction of compulsory high school education in the US and the availability and affordability of cars lead to the increased visibility, mobility and financial independence of “teens” in the 1950s and 60s. The decline of the Hollywood studio system in the 1950s produced a spate of films where young people were central, catering for this newly identified “teenage” market.

These movies often incorporate elements of other genres. The “first” teen film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), incorporates romance and drama tropes, telling the story of Jim Stark (James Dean) a rebellious teen who moves to a new town, starts at a new school, upsets the local gang and falls in love with Judy (Natalie Wood).

By the 1980s, teens had become a recognisable audience and were ripe for exploitation and capitalisation, particularly in the newly created multiplex cinemas. In the 1980s, middle-class US teens had disposable money and ample leisure time, which made them an ideal market segment.

The teen film – specifically the female-focused teen film – really came into prominence in with the John Hughes’ films starring Molly Ringwald: Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985) and Pretty in Pink (1986).

While these films had questionable sexual and gender politics reflective of their era (which Ringwald has addressed) they focused on teenage girls’ feelings with sincerity and humour in equal measure.

Clueless sits within this lineage but also starts a more ironic, knowing trend that lovingly pokes fun at both its characters and the genre conventions itself – much like Austen did.

This irony and knowingness are perhaps what makes Clueless so enduring. There is a depth to the writing that allows the viewer to laugh both with and at the characters. This can be attributed to Heckerling’s respect for them and their problems. As Paul Rudd said: “One of the things that I think is very clear in her work […] is just how much she loves young people and doesn’t talk down to them.”

Films like Legally Blonde (2001), Mean Girls (2004) and Easy A (2010) use irony and knowingness in their tone and humour and have become stand-out cult successes like Clueless.

These films stand in contrast to more sentimental and romantic teen girl films, such as The Spectacular Now (2013) and The Edge of Seventeen (2016), or the epic and earnest science fiction adaptations of young adult novels, such as Twilight (2008-2012) and The Hunger Games (2012-2015).

Read more: Serious themes for young adults sets The Hunger Games apart

Yet, the ironic teen rom-com hasn’t been lost. The teen-focused dramedy television series Sex Education (2019-2020) and indie film Booksmart (2019) have touched on the same sardonic humour.

But unlike Sex Education or Booksmart, Clueless was made by an established bankable director and supported by the marketing apparatus of a major US studio – Paramount.

In contrast, Booksmart was a much smaller film made by first-time director Olivia Wilde, produced by niche indie studio Annapurna Pictures and debuted at South by Southwest before its wider theatrical release.

25 years on, even as Heckerling was a “a pioneer as a female director”, her place as a woman working in the major studios is still an anomaly.

While Clueless’s winning combination of writing, cast, music and humour is yet to be matched, there is room for a Clueless of the 2020s.

But could Clueless ever be replaced in our hearts? As if!

– ref. Friday Essay: Clueless at 25 — like, a totally important teen film – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-clueless-at-25-like-a-totally-important-teen-film-140749

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Teigan Cremona, Research Associate, Charles Darwin University

Most Australians are familiar with the cute, nectar-loving sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps), a marsupial denizen of forests in eastern and northern Australia.

However, our new study shows the sugar glider is actually three genetically and physically distinct species: Petaurus breviceps and two new species, Krefft’s glider (Petaurus notatus) and the savanna glider (Petaurus ariel).

This discovery has meant the distribution of the sugar glider has substantially reduced, and it’s now limited only to coastal regions in southeastern Australia. The devastating bushfires last summer hit this part of Australia hard.

Read more: Summer bushfires: how are the plant and animal survivors 6 months on? We mapped their recovery

Our new species from northern Australia, the savanna glider, is particularly at risk, living in a region that’s suffering ongoing small mammal declines. We must urgently assess the conservation status of both the sugar glider and savanna glider before they’re lost.

Nature’s BASE-jumpers

Our discovery of new Australian mammal species is rare and exciting. That’s because while Australia is filled with hidden and undiscovered animal and plant diversity, our mammal fauna is considered relatively well known, with more than 99% of all species scientifically described.

Perhaps Australia’s most graceful mammals, species of the genus Petaurus (meaning “rope-dancer”) have the unique ability to expand the skin between wrist and ankle to glide from tree to tree – they are nature’s BASE-jumpers. It’s believed these gliding capabilities evolved as a way to adapt to the open forests of Australia.

The palm-sized sugar glider, named after its insatiable appetite for all things sweet, is the most widely known member of the genus and is commonly kept and bred in captivity around the world.

From the Aussie outback to London’s Natural History Museum

An investigation into sugar glider genetics a decade ago highlighted two divergent groups within the species, suggesting sugar gliders may represent more than one species.

In that study, scientists also unexpectedly found that one glider from Melville Island in the Northern Territory was genetically distinct from sugar gliders. Instead, this Melville Island glider showed a close relationship with two larger existing species, the squirrel glider (Petaurus norfolcensis) and mahogany glider (Petaurus gracilis).

Prompted by this unusual finding, we investigated the mysterious glider’s identity.

From some of the most remote areas of outback Australia to our vast national museum collections, and ultimately the hallowed halls of London’s Natural History Museum, we captured, measured and compared every glider we could find to evaluate their relationships.

Indigenous knowledge of the savanna glider Petaurus ariel and the contributions of local Aboriginal people were also invaluable to our investigation.

The savanna glider is culturally significant and valued across multiple language groups in northern Australia and we are grateful to the Traditional Owners for sharing their knowledge of the species and its habitat.

In the end, we assessed more than 300 live and preserved specimens and established three species where once there was one.

Meet the new gliders

The savanna glider lives in the woodland savannas of northern Australia and looks a bit like a squirrel glider with a more pointed nose, but much smaller. The remaining two species look similar to each other and may overlap in some areas of southeastern Australia.

Krefft’s glider has a clearly defined dorsal stripe and fluffy tail. It is widespread in eastern Australia and has been introduced to Tasmania.

The sugar glider, with a less-defined dorsal stripe, is apparently restricted to forests east of the Great Dividing Range, extending from southeast Queensland to around the border of New South Wales and Victoria.

What does this mean for sugar gliders?

Despite ongoing debate about the role of taxonomy (the science of classifying species) in conservation, it is clear from our work that species definitions provide an essential foundation for effective conservation.

When considered as one species, sugar gliders were widespread, abundant and officially classified as “least concern”.

The distinction of these three species has resulted in a substantially smaller distribution for the sugar glider, making the species vulnerable to large scale habitat destruction, such as the recent bushfires.

And sadly, the bushfires have incinerated a large proportion of the sugar glider’s updated range. Given they are tree hollow users and require a diverse habitat with a variety of foods, the bushfires have most likely had a devastating effect on this much-loved species.

Read more: Click through the tragic stories of 119 species still struggling after Black Summer in this interactive (and how to help)

The savanna glider is disappearing

Our work has shown urgent intervention is needed to save this important plant pollinator and icon of the Australian bush.

The savanna glider in particular is facing its own conservation concerns in the ongoing northern Australian small mammal declines. Tree-dwelling mammals are among those worst affected there, and it appears the savanna glider is no exception.

An earlier study of ours showed the species has undergone a 35% range reduction over the last 30 years, and is slowly disappearing from the inland areas it once inhabited. It’s likely feral cats, changed fire regimes and feral herbivores have played a significant role in the savanna glider’s vanishing range.

It would be a tragedy if this species is lost to the world just as it was discovered, especially with Australia’s appalling track record of human-induced mammal extinctions.

Read more: Scientists and national park managers are failing northern Australia’s vanishing mammals

More scientific work is urgently needed. We must define the distinct ecology of each species and determine their distribution in more detail.

This will enable us to effectively assess the conservation status of each species and determine what management efforts are required to ensure their protection as they face an uncertain future.

– ref. A rare discovery: we found the sugar glider is actually three species, but one is disappearing fast – https://theconversation.com/a-rare-discovery-we-found-the-sugar-glider-is-actually-three-species-but-one-is-disappearing-fast-142807

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcus Luigi Spiller, Associate Professor of Urban Planning (honorary), University of Melbourne

The Grattan Institute’s call to “abandon” plans for any high-speed rail network in Australia fails to look at the wider benefits such a project can bring by way of more productive economies and more sustainable towns and cities.

The study authors argue the development of any bullet train network linking Brisbane to Melbourne via Sydney and Canberra is “unsuitable for Australia”.

Read more: Look beyond a silver bullet train for stimulus

But what their argument neglects is that a project like high-speed rail has a unique capacity to reshape cities and population settlement patterns in positive ways.

A question of cost

The institute’s study says the idea of high-speed rail is an unwanted distraction in policy-making for the nation’s transport future. Its case relies on a review of the high-speed rail experience in Europe, Japan and China.

All of these nations, it says, have vastly different distributions of towns and major cities to that in Australia, which has extremely long distances between a few large cities.

The study also critiques a 2013 Commonwealth analysis that found a A$130 billion high-speed rail project linking Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne would generate a benefit-cost ratio of 2.3 to 1. So every A$1 invested in a high-speed rail network would generate A$2.30 in benefits such as travel time savings, avoided vehicle operating costs and reduced road congestion.

But the Grattan study authors say that figure is based on a “cherry-picked” discount rate of 4%. This is economics jargon for the minimum return that the community would expect from the investment of its collective resources in any project.

The Grattan study also says the 2013 cost-benefit analysis did not allow for cost over-runs. Nor did it consider the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the enormous quantities of concrete and steel needed to build the infrastructure.

Read more: High-speed rail on Australia’s east coast would increase emissions for up to 36 years

So why are some people, including the federal Labor Party, still so enamoured with the idea of high-speed rail when others would have it binned?

Some projects reshape cities

Not all transport infrastructure projects are equal when it comes to cost-benefit analysis. Some investments have a transformative effect on population settlement patterns – they shape cities and regions.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Melbourne Underground Rail Loop are classic examples of city-shaping projects. Each altered travel times between different parts of the metropolis, which then shifted the location preferences of households and businesses. This led to a substantially different city structure compared to what might otherwise have developed.

Other projects, the vast majority of government transport outlays, merely follow or service the pattern of settlement established by the city-shaping investments. These “follower” projects include the local arterial roads and tramways that circulate people and goods within cities.

The Commonwealth’s official guidelines for major project evaluation recognise this distinction.

New ways of living, learning, working and playing become possible with city-shaping projects. By comparison, the procession of follower projects simply perpetuates settlement patterns and economic structures.

This is the claim and appeal of high-speed rail. Advocates argue such an investment would divert a significant proportion of urban growth from the far-flung suburbs of metropolitan areas to new regional locations. That’s because these regions will then have similar travel times into core city labour markets.

In these regional locations, households would enjoy greater housing choice and affordability, more walkability and better access to open space. They could even have better access to a range of community facilities than their metro suburban counterparts.

Read more: We can halve train travel times between our cities by moving to faster rail

Advocates also argue businesses in the big cities and intervening regional areas will be able to connect with each other at lower cost and source the skills they need more efficiently. This would boost productivity.

Consider all the benefits

The 2013 analysis took into account issues such as congestion, emissions (from travel) and transport accidents. But it did not attempt to quantify and monetise the effects of high-speed rail shaping cities and regions.

Arguably, the most important set of benefits from this investment were left out of the economic evaluation, simply because they are difficult to measure.

Modelling how the supply chains of businesses might change under the influence of city-shaping projects, or how the housing preferences of people might shift, is undoubtedly challenging. But being difficult to measure makes these impacts no less real.

Despite this limitation on the scope of benefits, the 2013 study said the high-speed rail project would return a benefit-cost ratio of 1.1 at a 7% discount rate, which the Grattan study says is the usual test applied to transport projects.

Read more: Smart money: a better way for Australia to select big transport infrastructure projects

Grattan says the project barely scrapes in at this higher discount rate and implies many other projects would offer ratios greater than 1:1 and should be preferred. These would typically be smaller, follower projects that address local congestion problems.

But a project achieving a 1.1 benefit-cost ratio means Australia would still be better off undertaking the project compared to a business-as-usual case.

If the transformative effects of high-speed rail include more compact and walkable cities with less car dependency and greater productivity, then such a network has good reason to keep its grip on the Australian imagination.

– ref. Don’t abandon plans for high-speed rail in Australia – just look at all the benefits – https://theconversation.com/dont-abandon-plans-for-high-speed-rail-in-australia-just-look-at-all-the-benefits-139563

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

As a second COVID-19 lockdown looms in New South Wales, there is much discussion about the economic costs of doing so.

But since the start of this pandemic there has been profound confusion in many quarters about the economic cost of the virus compared to the economic cost of lockdowns.

It should come as no surprise that having a highly contagious virus with a significant fatality rate running through the community is bad for the economy.

People are afraid to congregate in public or catch public transport or taxis. People don’t want to spend much money when they have debts to pay and their job might be at risk.

This leads to what I have called a “self-lockdown”. No matter what the government mandates, people cut back on economic activity.

Of course, government-coordinated lockdowns entail an extra short-term cost to the economy. Closing pubs and restaurants means those businesses, for a time, have zero revenue.

Read more: Vital Signs: The evidence that lockdowns work may not be gold standard, but it’s good

But how much of the reduction in economic activity is due to the virus, and how much to government lockdowns?

It is crucial to understand this. Because it is the incremental cost of the lockdowns that represents the investment we make in the economy of the future by getting the virus under control. If we think the cost of lockdowns is higher than it really is, we won’t enact them in cases where on balance we should.

Evidence from the United States

The best evidence to date on this matter comes from a remarkable paper circulated in June by University of Chicago economists Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson.

To analyse the causal effect of government policy on the US economy during the initial spread of COVID-19, they used mobile phone data to measure foot traffic at 2.25 million individual businesses across 110 industries in the US.

To estimate what proportion of lower foot traffic was due to self-lockdown rather than government-imposed lockdown, they looked at differences between businesses with customer “commuting zones” spanning state or county jurisdictions with different legal restrictions. As they put it:

This leverages two related types of variation: businesses in border-spanning commuting zones where jurisdictions impose shelter-in-place orders at different times (e.g., northern Illinois when Illinois placed a sheltering order on March 20th while Wisconsin waited until the following week), and businesses in commuting zones where a jurisdiction never imposed an order (e.g., the Quad Cities area, where the Illinois towns of Moline and Rock Island faced stay-at-home orders but bordering Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, did not).

Goolsbee and Syverson found total consumer traffic fell by 60 percentage points, but legal restrictions accounted for just 7 percentage points of this. That is, it caused less than 12% of the total effect.

Breaking down the data further, they show fear of infection largely drove individual decisions to reduce activity.

In fact, foot traffic “started dropping before the legal orders were in place; was highly influenced by the number of COVID deaths reported in the county; and showed a clear shift by consumers away from busier, more crowded stores toward smaller, less busy stores in the same industry”.

Strikingly, US states that decided to repeal shutdown orders witnessed recoveries of a similar, symmetric size. This is further evidence of the modest incremental impact of lockdowns relative to the larger impact of the virus itself.

Lessons for Australia

We need to stop thinking about lockdowns as representing the total economic hit we take from COVID-19. The virus itself is hugely damaging. Lockdowns add to that, but come with an important benefit – getting the virus under control.

Early in the pandemic, the Australian Treasury estimated Australia’s GDP would fall 10-12% in the June quarter.

Since Treasurer Josh Frydenberg cited this estimate in his National Press Club address on May 5, many have used it to calculate the the cost of a national lockdown at A$4 billion a week.

That is, Australia’s GDP is about A$2 trillion annually, so a 10% contraction is $200 billion a year, or about $4 billion a week.

But is this really the cost of the lockdown? How much of the estimated 10% drop in GDP for the June quarter is due to the virus and self-lockdown, not government lockdowns?

Read more: The costs of the shutdown are overestimated — they’re outweighed by its $1 trillion benefit

If the Goolsbee-Syverson numbers translate to Australia, then the lockdown cost is closer to A$450 million a week.

That’s still a lot, but a six-week nationwide investment of $2.7 billion to get the virus under control and boost consumer and business confidence was money well spent.

Berejiklian’s dilemma

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said she doesn’t want to enact a second lockdown because of the hit to economy.

If the current outbreak can be dealt with through rapid contract tracing, testing and isolation, this may be wise.

Read more: Vital Signs: We’re testing 50,000 Australians a day for COVID-19. Should it be 6.5 million?

But if the number of daily cases gets beyond a manageable point, a lockdown might be the only way to stop the spread of the virus.

The best evidence to date shows we cannot have a well-functioning economy with COVID-19 running rampant. That leads to a very costly self-lockdown, regardless of what the government does.

– ref. Vital Signs: government lockdown costs may be exaggerated over COVID-19’s direct economic impact – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-government-lockdown-costs-may-be-exaggerated-over-covid-19s-direct-economic-impact-142710

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

In the midst of our present crisis, this week’s release of the Palace letters has taken us back to the debate about another crisis, massive at the time and of lasting significance but rather put into perspective by COVID-19.

For many younger people, the extraordinary events of November 11 1975 would hold absolutely no interest. They might know who Gough Whitlam was, but John Kerr?

For a lot of those who remember that dramatic day, however, it was like no other in modern politics.

The Palace letters have reignited the argument about Kerr’s action in dismissing Whitlam, and what really happened behind the scenes.

The correspondence between the then governor-general and the Queen’s private secretary Martin Charteris gives an intimate running insight into the building drama, and Kerr’s thinking, including his desire to inundate the Palace with material amid his concern it might be too much. Charteris assures him: “The Queen is absorbing it with interest and is very grateful to you for taking so much trouble to keep her informed”.

In his letters Charteris steers between careful formality, reassurance to a man under pressure, and some chatty commentary. He tells Kerr he was relieved Whitlam had abandoned his idea of asking the governor-general to assent to the appropriation bills if they were rejected. “From your point of view this would have been a real bouncer and not at all easy to play!”

Read more: ‘Palace letters’ show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government

These fascinating documents have provided grist for protagonists on both sides of the dismissal debate.

Kerr’s defenders point to his November 11 letter reporting he hadn’t informed the Queen he was about to sack Whitlam. “I was of the opinion that it was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance.”

Those who argue the Palace interfered highlight the correspondence before the dismissal, in which Kerr and Charteris canvass options and the constitution.

Charteris told Kerr the governor-general’s reserve powers did exist, despite claims to the contrary, but “it is only at the very end when there is demonstrably no other course that they should be used.” After the dismissal, a major criticism of Kerr was that he acted too early.

The Palace, which resisted the letters being made public, entered the debate after their release, saying they confirmed neither the Queen nor the Royal Household “had any part to play in Kerr’s decision to dismiss Whitlam.”

The letters won’t close the old argument – the question is whether they’ll give any new life to the debate about an Australian republic. Anthony Albanese seized the occasion to say Kerr’s action “to put himself above the Australian people” reinforced “the need for us to have an Australian head of state … the need for us to stand on our own two feet”.

By now, Australia should have been a republic for two decades. We had the chance in the 1999 referendum, and we blew it. The yes vote was defeated by several factors – including divisions among pro-republic Liberals, the cunning of then prime minister John Howard, and the conservatism of Australians when asked to change the constitution.

Since them the difficulties have increased and may be insurmountable. There are multiple reasons why change could be even harder second time round (even after the Queen’s reign ends).

The issue probably resonates less than in the 1990s. It would be caught up in the culture wars, which have become deeper and more destructive in recent years.

Read more: The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the ‘palace letters’ may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal

Most important, it would be near impossible to get a model that was both safe and saleable.

The 1999 model was for a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of federal parliament. There was no attempt to codify the powers of the president, despite the governor-general’s “reserve powers” being at the core of the 1975 crisis.

These days, the public would almost certainly want the president directly elected. But that would carry risks. It could lead to competitive tension between a popular president and an unpopular prime minister.

The powers of a popularly-elected president would need to be clearly spelled out (codified). As Malcolm Turnbull writes in his book A Bigger Picture, “Nobody would seriously contemplate leaving the powers of a directly elected president in the undefined, and thus potentially uncertain, world of convention”.

One compromise some suggest would be to remove the circumstances that caused the 1975 crisis by taking away the Senate’s power to block supply. Good luck with that.

Many politicians and constitutional experts would be uncomfortable with a direct-elect model.

Controversy over the model would translate into a divided electorate. And when it comes to referendums, division is certainty deadly.

Look at what’s been happening with the attempt to put recognition of Indigenous people into the constitution. You’d think this should be relatively easy. It’s anything but.

Under cover of the pandemic, the government has abandoned minister Ken Wyatt’s ambition for a referendum this term. But there wasn’t enough agreement anyway.

The challenge of finding acceptable wording for recognition is formidable (just as devising an acceptable republican model is fraught). And a referendum for Indigenous recognition, like one for a republic, would bog down in the culture wars.

Despite the problems, the optimists would think we could achieve both changes. The pessimists would doubt either is attainable in the foreseeable future.

Read more: ‘Palace letters’ reveal the palace’s fingerprints on the dismissal of the Whitlam government

It’s an academic question admittedly, but it is worth asking ourselves which of these constitutional changes would be of more significance to our identity as a nation.

Those who’d nominate moving to a republic would start with the obvious – we should have an Australian head of state.

They’d also say becoming a republic would boost Australia’s image in our region, although one suspects this point is weaker than previously – we’re less defined in our neighbourhood by our British ties these days.

Those who’d prefer the limited political capital to be spent on Indigenous recognition would emphasise how overdue this is, and how symbolically important.

While the flow-on effects shouldn’t be over-estimated – the Apology didn’t work miracles – recognition could help generate goodwill and co-operation needed for tangible improvements in the lives of disadvantaged Indigenous people.

Recognition of First Australians would be a gesture of reconciliation as well as a statement of our values as a nation.

To my mind, it is a higher priority than the republic.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Palace letters make great reading but leave a republic as far away as ever – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-palace-letters-make-great-reading-but-leave-a-republic-as-far-away-as-ever-142837

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexis Vassiley, PhD candidate, School of Management, Curtin University

Monash University will reportedly cut 277 jobs by the end of the year, due to projecting a more than A$300 million financial shortfall caused by COVID-19. It comes after the vice chancellor of another Group of Eight university, UNSW, Ian Jacobs, announced on Wednesday the university would cut 493 jobs.

These announcements are the latest in a long line of cuts to university workers’ pay, conditions and job losses across the country in recent months. In May, Universities Australia projected 21,000 job losses in the next six months, with more to go after that. The group’s modelling shows Australia’s universities could lose $16 billion in revenue between now and 2023, largely due to the loss of international student enrolments.

University staff have borne the brunt of this funding crisis. The government has not increased funding for the higher education sector, and excluded public universities from the JobKeeper scheme.

University after university has sacked casual staff – which make up up to 70% of teaching staff at some universities — and declined to extend the contracts of fixed-term staff. While the cuts at UNSW include full time staff, in April, around one-third of casuals at the university had reported having lost work.

La Trobe and RMIT university had let go of hundreds of casual “non-essential” staff in the same month.

Casual jobs lost run into the thousands nationwide, but the full extent of losses is unknown. Casual staff are flexible labour, so reliable statistics are not kept. An idea of the scale can be garnered by La Trobe vice chancellor John Dewar’s statement A$7 million had been saved at his institution by cutting casual jobs.

Read more: Why is the Australian government letting universities suffer?

What about the union deal?

The context for industrial relations in universities is the National Tertiary Education Union’s (NTEU) National Jobs Protection Framework — an agreement negotiated between the NTEU national leadership and a representative group of four university vice chancellors in March this year.

The premise of the deal was ask some staff to take wage cuts and pay freezes in return for saving some jobs.

Category A universities could implement cuts of up to 10%. Category B universities – those most affected by revenue reduction – could cut some staff’s pay by up to 15%. Category C comprises the small number of universities hardly affected financially by COVID-19, who would not make changes. Clauses requiring consultation before major restructures in existing enterprise agreements would be severely weakened. Union officials estimated 90% of universities would fall into Category A or B.

This controversial plan sparked a civil war in the union, and was withdrawn on May 26, having been released less than two weeks earlier.

Staff meetings, including branch committees and members’ meetings, in around 15 universities voted against the concessions in the framework. In the end only four (Charles Sturt, Monash, UWA and La Trobe universities) — out of Australia’s 39 vice chancellors signed up to it.

Critics of this strategy argued offering reductions to hard-won pay and conditions showed weakness from the union and would only lead to further attacks on conditions by the universities. They said the wage cuts were unnecessary, and pointed to the vague nature of the job protections. Instead they advocated a political and industrial campaign by the union to defend members’ pay and conditions and demand the government fully fund the industry.

Read more: More than 70% of academics at some universities are casuals. They’re losing work and are cut out of JobKeeper

Since then, agreements based on, or similar to the union’s framework, have gone through on a number of campuses, supported by the NTEU leadership.

La Trobe University’s amended enterprise agreement allows for pay reductions of up 15%. This is $174 per fortnight for those on the median full-time wage of $65,000. Shortly after the all-staff vote and despite 239 voluntary redundancies, La Trobe announced it was looking at 215-415 forced redundancies later in the year.

This indicates there is no guarantee that voting to support cuts to wages and conditions will prevent job losses.

Staff don’t have to pay for crisis

At the University of Western Australia, a combination of compulsory taking of unpaid leave and pay cuts means staff will have almost 10% less in their pockets. Monash University, the Western Sydney University and the University of Tasmania have also seen union-management schemes which reduce staff pay. And, as we have seen, Monash will be slashing jobs anyway. Although vice chancellor Margaret Gardner says they have managed to save 190 of them.

Hundreds of job losses have also been announced at Central Queensland University, Southern Cross University and Deakin University. The picture is bleak. But it is by rejecting the notion only staff pay and conditions are the flexible factors in the equation —and being prepared to campaign against university administrations and governments on this basis — that the sector can be improved for staff, students and the public.

Read more: The government is making ‘job-ready’ degrees cheaper for students – but cutting funding to the same courses

Universities have financial resources — property, bequests and philanthropic funds and access to lines of credit — they can access rather than forcing staff to sacrifice pay and conditions, or lose their jobs. The notion of public education as a public good must be re-asserted, especially in the face of the government’s unfavourable stance towards universities.

By staff rejecting concessions on pay and conditions, fighting for every job, and organising towards industrial action in next year’s bargaining round, they can start to put pressure on universities to treat them better, and the government to increase funding.

Kaye Broadbent was a casual academic at Central Queensland University until she lost her job in a recent round of cuts. She co-authored this article.

– ref. Universities are cutting hundreds of jobs – they, and the government, can do better – https://theconversation.com/universities-are-cutting-hundreds-of-jobs-they-and-the-government-can-do-better-142824

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

Jane Halton, who formerly headed the federal health and finance departments, is chair of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness.

CEPI, founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is at the forefront of the international search for a COVID-19 vaccine.

She is also a member of the Morrison government’s National COVID-19 Coordination Commission, which liaises with business and advises government on how to mitigate the economic and social impacts of the pandemic.

Currently she’s undertaking a nationwide review of the hotel quarantine system.

Halton, who when in the public service took part in a government pandemic rehearsal, says Australia was relatively ready. But she says that inevitably, when there’s a review in the wake of COVID-19, there’ll be a lot to learn from this experience. “Just like we’ve learnt from H1N1…just like we’ve learned from SARS.

“But in the short term, the systems stood up capacity really quickly, which is great.”

On the reality of vaccine being developed, while it might not be soon, Halton is relatively optimistic.

“Look, there are lots of experts who are both optimistic and pessimistic.”

“The experts that I work with, they are probably what I would describe as moderately optimistic. Now, they sort of have to be because they’re working on this and they are spending huge hours every day, every week in this race. And so they have to think that there’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But there’s a pretty significant number of scientists who do think it’s possible.”

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Jane Halton on the risk of ‘vaccine nationalism’ – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-jane-halton-on-the-risk-of-vaccine-nationalism-142830

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nigel McMillan, Program Director, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Menzies Health Institute, Griffith University

How is the world going to go back to the days when we could grab a coffee, see a movie, or attend a concert or footy game with anyone?

Opinion suggests there are two options: an effective vaccine, or herd immunity via at least 60-80% of people becoming infected. Either one of these options requires that people become immune to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

An important new study released online this week could have a large bearing on how our future looks in 2021 and beyond.

It suggests our immunity to SARS-CoV-2 does not last very long at all — as little as two months for some people. If this is the case, it means a potential vaccine might require regular boosters, and herd immunity might not be viable at all.

Read more: Lockdown, relax, repeat: how cities across the globe are going back to coronavirus restrictions

Immunity dwindles quickly

Antibodies are an important part of our immune system that mainly work by physically binding to virus particles and stopping them infecting cells. They can attach to infected cells to induce cell death in some cases.

We also have T cells, another part of the immune system that is much better at recognising and killing virus-infected cells. But for COVID-19, antibodies are important in the lungs because T cells aren’t good at getting to airways where the virus first invades.

The newly released research, from Katie Doores and her team at Kings College London, looked at how long the antibody response lasted in people who had COVID-19. It has been submitted to a journal but hasn’t been peer-reviewed, so it must be treated with some caution.

Of the 65 patients studied, 63 produced antibody responses. The important measurements in the study relate to how good the response is. This is measured in the lab by putting patients’ blood serum together with infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus and seeing whether the virus can infect cells in a lab dish. This is called a “neutralisation assay”, and here the results were good.

Around 60% of people produced a very potent neutralisation response that stopped virus growing in the lab cells.

Finally, the researchers measured how long the antibody response lasted. This is the most important data. Unfortunately, antibodies levels began falling after day 20 and only 17% of patients retained a potent level at day 57. Some patients completely lost their antibodies after two months.

This suggests our immune response to SARS-CoV-2 may be lost much faster than we might have hoped, and people might thereafter be susceptible to reinfection with the virus.

Read more: Eradication, elimination, suppression: let’s understand what they mean before debating Australia’s course

One vaccine might not be enough

It therefore follows that COVID-19 vaccines may not be as effective as we hope. The fact antibody levels reduce over time is normal, but this typically happens much more slowly. Antibody responses against the mumps, measles and chickenpox viruses last for more than 50 years. A tetanus vaccination wanes more quickly but still lasts 5-10 years before a booster is needed.

So why is this happening? It comes down to the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus itself. The four normal strains of coronaviruses that cause common colds in humans also fail to prompt a long-lasting immune response, with most people losing antibodies completely after 6-12 months. Coronaviruses in general seems to be particularly good at not being well recognised by our immune system. Indeed, a feature of common cold coronaviruses is that people get reinfected by them all the time.

SARS, another coronavirus which caused a pandemic in 2003, seems to produce a slightly longer antibody response, lasting up to three years. It’s still a long way short of a lifetime, but it perhaps helps explain why the virus disappeared in 2003.

Herd immunity might be in trouble

So herd immunity may not be the solution some think. This is because if immunity is short-lived, we will be in an ongoing cycle of endless reinfection. For herd immunity to be effective we need a high percentage (perhaps more than 60%) of people to be immune at any one time to disrupt chains of transmission. This can’t happen if a lot of reinfection is occurring.

The hope is vaccines will give much stronger and longer lasting immune responses to the virus than getting and recovering from COVID-19 itself. Indeed, the first vaccine candidates from Pfizer and Moderna, reported in early July, show very strong immune responses.

However, these studies only reported out to 14 and 57 days, respectively, after vaccinations were completed. They don’t tell us whether there is a long-lived response that we would need for a vaccine to be truly protective. Phase 3 trials designed to measure this are due to report in December 2020, so watch this space.

While we wait, we should reflect on the fact that although the results of the Kings College study are in one sense disappointing news, this knowledge adds to the truly remarkable scientific progress we have made in understanding a virus that only emerged in December 2019.

This article is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

– ref. Immunity to COVID-19 may not last. This threatens a vaccine and herd immunity – https://theconversation.com/immunity-to-covid-19-may-not-last-this-threatens-a-vaccine-and-herd-immunity-142556

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kobi Leins, Senior Research Fellow in Digital Ethics, University of Melbourne

The list of US figures whose Twitter accounts were hijacked by scammers on Wednesday US time reads like a Who’s Who of the tech and celebrity worlds: Tesla boss Elon Musk, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former president Barack Obama, current Democratic nominee Joe Biden, celebrities Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, billionaires Warren Buffett and Mike Bloomberg, the corporate accounts of Apple and Uber, and more besides.

The point of the hack? To lure followers into sending US$1,000 in Bitcoin, with the classic scammer’s false promise of sending back twice as as much.

After a preliminary investigation, Twitter said it believed the incident was “a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools”.

The details are still far from clear, but it seems likely someone with administrative rights may have granted the hackers access, perhaps inadvertently, despite the presence of two-factor authentication on the accounts – widely considered the gold standard of online security. It appears insiders may have been involved, although the story is still unfolding.

The use of the niche currency Bitcoin limited the number of potential victims, but also makes the hackers’ loot impossible to trace. Ironically enough, Bitcoin is a currency designed for a post-trust world, and the anonymity of its transactions makes the hackers even harder to track down.

Whom do we trust?

This is not the first time we have seen the complex and profound impact social media can have. In 2013, hackers gained access to @AP, the official Twitter account of the respected Associated Press news agency, and tweeted:

Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is Injured.

The stock market dived by US$136.5 billion almost immediately but bounced back within six minutes, illustrating the interconnected systems that move so quickly a human cannot intervene – algorithms read the headlines and the stock market collapsed, albeit fleetingly.

By shorting stocks, whoever hacked AP’s Twitter account stood to make enormous profits from the temporary stock market tank. We do not know what the financial benefits, if any, to the hackers in 2013 were.

Read more: Why the AP hack is likely to happen again

This week’s Twitter hack definitely had financial motives. The Bitcoin scammers in this recent hack netted more than US$50,000.

More sinister still, however, are the implications for democracy if a similar hack were carried out with political motives.

What if a reliable source, such as a national newspaper’s official account, tweets that a presidential candidate has committed a crime, or is seriously ill, on the eve of an election? What if false information about international armed attacks is shared from a supposedly reliable source such as a government defence department? The impacts of such events would be profound, and go far beyond financial loss.

This is the inherent danger of our growing reliance on social media platforms as authoritative sources of information. As media institutions decline in size, funding and impact, the public increasingly relies on social media platforms for news.

The Bitcoin scam is a reminder that any social media platform can be hacked, tampered with, or used to spread false information. Even gold-standard technical systems can be outwitted, perhaps by exploiting human vulnerabilities. A disgruntled employee, a careless password selection, or even a device used in a public space can pose grave risks.

Who’s in charge?

The question of who polices the vast power accrued by social media platforms is a crucial one. Twitter’s reaction to the hack – temporarily shutting down all accounts verified with the “blue tick” that connotes public interest – raised the ire of high-profile users (and prompted mirth among those not bestowed with Twitter’s mark of legitimacy). But the underlying question is: who decides what is censored or shut down, and under what circumstances? And should companies do this themselves, or do they need a regulatory framework to ensure fairness and transparency?

Broader questions have already been raised about when Twitter, Facebook or other social media platforms should or should not censor content. Facebook was heavily criticised for not removing oppressive posts about Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, and what the United Nations referred to as a genocide ensued. Twitter much later suspended some accounts that had been inciting violence, with some criticism.

Read more: Instead of showing leadership, Twitter pays lip service to the dangers of deep fakes

What is the responsibility of such platforms, and who should govern them, as we become more heavily reliant on social media for our news? As the platforms’ power and influence continue to grow, we need rigorous frameworks to hold them accountable.

Last month, the Australian government pledged a A$1.3 billion funding increase and an extra 500 staff for the Australian Signals Directorate, to boost its ability to defend Australia from attacks. Australia’s forthcoming 2020 Cyber Security Strategy will hopefully also include strategies to proactively improve cyber security and digital literacy.

In an idea world, social media giants would regulate themselves. But here in the real world, the stakes are too high to let the platforms police themselves.

– ref. The Twitter hack targeted the rich and famous. But we all lose if trusted accounts can be hijacked – https://theconversation.com/the-twitter-hack-targeted-the-rich-and-famous-but-we-all-lose-if-trusted-accounts-can-be-hijacked-142819

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nic Geard, Senior Lecturer, School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne; Senior Research Fellow, Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne

Throughout the second half of May and into June, almost all COVID-19 cases in New South Wales were arrivals from overseas. Only ten locally acquired cases were recorded in the seven weeks before July 6, when a case related to importation from Victoria was notified.

That changed in early July, with the emergence of a cluster of local transmission centred on the Crossroads Hotel in southwestern Sydney. Evidently seeded from Victoria, this cluster had grown to include at least 40 linked cases by July 16.

Can Sydney expect a second wave of infections similar to the one that drove Melburnians back into lockdown?

How similar is this outbreak to the situation in Melbourne?

Melbourne has been dealing with a series of localised outbreaks over the past three months. By mid-June there were several separate clusters with no obvious links to one another. But genomic analysis suggests many of these may be linked to quarantine breaches at the Stamford Plaza hotel.

The absence of clear links between these clusters suggests there may have already been considerable undetected community transmission. Despite increased testing in affected suburbs, the growth in cases with no identifiable source has posed challenges for contact tracers.

Read more: Victoria’s coronavirus contact tracers are already under the pump. What happens next?

By contrast, Sydney’s outbreak is currently focused around a single location, with most newly detected cases linked back to the Crossroads Hotel. This suggests there may still be an opportunity to contain this outbreak before it spreads further.

However, the possibility of further undetected outbreaks either having already been seeded from Victoria or occurring in the future can’t be ruled out. NSW must remain on high alert.

How can Sydney’s outbreak be contained?

Genomic evidence suggesting the Crossroads Hotel cluster is linked to Victorian cases is reassuring. The alternative – an unknown source – would imply there is undetected community transmission in Sydney.

However, the location of the outbreak at a hotel, and the large number of people potentially exposed, is concerning. Two of the latest infections were contracted at a nearby gym visited by an infectious person, highlighting that transmission from this cluster is ongoing.

After infection, it can take several days to develop symptoms of COVID-19, and some infected people show only mild or no symptoms. These people are at risk of seeding further outbreaks if they continue to move about and interact. Several other venues, including the Star Casino, have been identified as potential sites of transmission. The geographic dispersion of hotel patrons also makes contact tracing more difficult.

What can NSW learn from Victoria’s experience?

We know from earlier outbreaks, such as the Cedar Meats cluster in Melbourne, that COVID-19 can be brought under control. However, that outbreak happened when there were still significant restrictions on movement and gathering sizes.

The current outbreak in NSW is occurring after a period of relative complacency, and against a background of increased social interactions and relaxed restrictions.

In Victoria, restrictions were reintroduced in response to the current outbreak. Initially these “stay at home” directions applied to selected postcodes, but were subsequently extended to the whole of metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire.

As the cases detected now are a result of infections up to two weeks ago, it is still too early to see the full effect of these restrictions. The rate of new cases does appear to be plateauing amid ongoing high levels of testing. However, the government has not ruled out limiting movement even further.

Lockdown is hard, and can have adverse effects on mental and physical health, on people’s livelihoods, and on the prospects of businesses that have only recently reopened.

There is also the question of whether people will comply with prolonged or repeated restrictions.

Read more: Coronavirus spike: why getting people to follow restrictions is harder the second time around

Mobility data shows that levels of compliance with social distancing waned as the first wave was brought under control, even before restrictions were formally eased. It is hard to tell whether this was driven mainly by a reduced perception of risk by the public, or by a growing weariness of isolation and social distancing.

It has become apparent that some aspects of Victoria’s response could have been improved. Communication with culturally and linguistically diverse populations is important, to ensure everyone understands what they are being asked to do and why. It is vital people are supported to self-isolate, get tested, and stay away from work, and Victoria has recently introduced a Worker Support Payment for this purpose.

What’s next for NSW?

The main question facing Sydney is whether it will be necessary to return to lockdown as Melbourne has done, or whether a less disruptive solution will prove sufficient.

The success of many states and territories in maintaining very low case numbers has prompted suggestions Australia should pursue an elimination strategy. But this will almost certainly require more widespread lockdowns.

Read more: Eradication, elimination, suppression: let’s understand what they mean before debating Australia’s course

NSW has ruled out a return to lockdown but has left the door open for increasing restrictions to continue suppressing the virus.

Melbourne’s experience shows how quickly a handful of cases can turn into a challenging scenario, and highlights the importance of acting quickly and decisively. It also shows that despite the best intentions of less severe or wide-ranging lockdowns, they are not always enough.

– ref. Sydney’s second wave: can it avoid a Melbourne-style lockdown? – https://theconversation.com/sydneys-second-wave-can-it-avoid-a-melbourne-style-lockdown-142652

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Webb, Dean, Graduate Research, University of Canberra

This remarkable novel opens and closes in the voice of Albert Gondiwindi, the recently deceased grandfather of one of the main characters, August.

Albert was born, he says in the first sentence, on Country known as Ngurambang; and he explains how to pronounce the word. “Ngu-ram-bang. If you say it right it hits the back of your mouth and you should taste the blood in your words”.

Throughout the novel, his voice keeps re-emerging as he steadily builds a body of Wiradjuri words, and the memories that ground their definitions.

His is one of three main stories that weave their way through Tara June Winch’s The Yield, this year’s Miles Franklin winner. A second story is that of Albert’s granddaughter, August, who comes home for his funeral. August has been living in England for ten years with her “terrible inheritance” (the elements of which unpack across the novel); she provides a key point of focalisation.

Read more: Trauma, resilience, sex and art: your guide to the 2020 Miles Franklin shortlist

The third story comes out of history, and is presented in the form of notes, reports and letters written by the Reverend Ferdinand Greenleaf, who positions himself as the defender of what he terms “the decent Natives whom I have lived amongst”, residents of the Mission he established in 1880 “to ameliorate the condition of the Native tribes”.

While Greenleaf does take a stand against the brutality of the police and townspeople, his compassion is predicated on paternalism, rather than respect. Consequently, his “contributions” play a role in the colonisation of the region, and in Albert’s life.

Albert was born, as he says, on Ngurambang, but he started life in a temporary fringe area called Tent Town before he “and all the other kids were taken away”, stolen from family and culture.

The violent history of the region is salted throughout the novel: cloaked, in Rev Greenleaf’s writings; expressed vividly in Poppy Albert’s stories; painfully in August’s memories and contemporary experiences and shamefully in the names of local places.

There is the ironically named Prosperous Mission; it stands near the town of Massacre Plains, close to Poisoned Waterhole Creek. The town itself is reached by way of the Broken Highway; the sick and dying of the region find themselves in Broken Hospital and Broken Hospice.

The deployment of such names contains a bitter truth, because although these are fictional places, there are locations right across Australia that unblushingly retain the evidence of racism and genocide. It is writers like Winch, and artists like Julie Gough, who draw attention to this practice and to the history that lies behind it.

Read more: Julie Gough’s ‘Tense Past’ reminds us how the brutalities of colonial settlement are still felt today

History seldom remains tidily in the past, as so many writers have observed; and Poppy Albert too makes it clear: “there are a thousand battles being fought every day because people couldn’t forget something that happened before they were born”. And also, arguably, because what happened before we were born continues to have consequences.

The processes of colonisation that began in the 18th century; the impact of what led to the establishment (and naming) of Massacre Plains; the building of the mission and farm – all combine to shape and (attempt to) limit August’s life, and that of her family.

And these she must experience again when she returns to Australia, to the continuing absence of her disappeared sister Jedda, to Eddie – ex-schoolfriend and scion of Prosperous Farm – and to the testing family relationships she had left behind. Once back, she finds herself involved not just in piecing together her past, but also in a battle to protect her grandmother’s home, and the remnants of the beloved and deeply damaged river, from the depredations of Rinepalm mining company.

That battle itself highlights the very different communities cohabiting. For the urban protesters, it is about the broad problem of environmental destruction. For cousin Joey, it is about resistance to the original act of invasion. (“They want to take land that wasn’t theirs to take, land was given that wasn’t theirs to give!”)

And for August, it seems to offer a point of resolution: “As they walked August thought that grief’s stint was ending. She whispered to Jedda and to Poppy: I am here”.

I won’t say any more about the story; it is, after all, not mine to tell. But I will say that it is a powerful and a deeply moving book. While it is unstinting in its critical gaze at sociopolitical disasters, it also shows the forms resistance can take.

Albert’s dictionary is part of this resistance: it is in language that culture and memory and ways of seeing and thinking function, and survive. Albert’s work to recover language, to set out words and definitions, provides a memorial to those who were steamrollered by history, and a reminder that “we are here still”.

– ref. The Yield wins the Miles Franklin: a powerful story of violence and forms of resistance – https://theconversation.com/the-yield-wins-the-miles-franklin-a-powerful-story-of-violence-and-forms-of-resistance-142284

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, La Trobe University

Stories are emerging of Victorians who have followed advice and sought a COVID-19 test, only to find they’re still waiting to hear results more than five days later.

The scale of testing underway in Victoria — and Australia’s testing rates are among the highest in the world — means it’s likely this will happen from time to time. It’s unclear if this is happening to many people or to just a handful.

Nevertheless, it’s evidently happening to some people and we can piece together some information about what may be contributing to this problem, and what you can do if it happens to you.

Read more: Eradication, elimination, suppression: let’s understand what they mean before debating Australia’s course

What to do if it happens to you in Victoria

Firstly, if you are showing symptoms and still waiting on results of a test, it’s important you do not go out. Of course, that will grow increasingly difficult the longer you wait for a test result but self-isolating while awaiting test results is a crucial part of the pandemic management strategy.

Victorian health minister Jenny Mikakos said on Twitter results are usually available within 1-3 days or “sometimes longer” and referred people to a health department fact sheet.

The factsheet says:

Victorian and interstate labs are working around the clock to process all the tests, but with so many coming in every day, sometimes it takes a little longer to confirm the results.

It lists phone numbers to try if you haven’t got your result within the expected time frame.

The factsheet doesn’t say what to do if you did the test using a home testing kit but the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services later tweeted to say:

Of course, if all else fails it might be simplest just to go and get another test.

Read more: Australia’s coronavirus testing rates are some of the best in the world – compare our stats using this interactive

Why might this be happening?

Again, we must acknowledge the enormous scale of the testing program underway in Victoria.

On Wednesday alone, 28,607 tests were undertaken in Victoria, and the total number of tests undertaken since January 1 is now at 1,225,999, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said in his Thursday press briefing.

Widespread testing is one of the best things we can do to control the spread of coronavirus, and these numbers are very impressive.

Many of these tests will be processed at laboratories in other states, as it is not possible for Victorian labs to test so many samples on their own.

A health department factsheet dated June 25, 2020 said:

Laboratories in Victoria, with surge staff capacity, can process 18,000 tests a day, noting that turn-around times are adversely affected when there is sustained testing above 14,000 tests per day.

New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania have agreed to provide surge lab capacity of over 4,000 tests a day. Private laboratories can also provide surge capacity of around 13,500 tests a day through their interstate operations. This will allow for at least 25,000 Victorian tests to be processed a day. There are currently sufficient test kits to meet this level of demand.

In addition, private pathology providers can draw on interstate supply chains. Safeguards, including repeat testing, will manage the risk of false positive tests.

So if you’ve got a test but haven’t heard back, it’s possible the delay is caused by test samples needing to be taken to interstate labs (which adds time) and the huge scale of testing underway.

It’s also possible there may have been some other problem with the test, so make sure you double check at the testing centre.

Who should get tested and why testing is important?

The Victorian health department says on its website:

Testing is currently available for people with the following symptoms, however mild: fever, chills or sweats, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, runny nose, and loss of sense of smell or taste. The test takes around a minute and involves a swab from the back of your throat and nose.

The less invasive saliva test may also be available for some people in certain places and circumstances, the department has said.

Despite any difficulties you may be experiencing in getting tested or in getting your results, it’s vital to understand how critical getting tested is to protecting the community from this coronavirus. By being tested you are helping limit the spread of COVID-19. You are potentially helping save lives.

– ref. Got a COVID-19 test in Victoria and still haven’t got your results? Here’s what may be happening — and what to do – https://theconversation.com/got-a-covid-19-test-in-victoria-and-still-havent-got-your-results-heres-what-may-be-happening-and-what-to-do-142821