The viral spread of mis- and disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, just like the viral spread of the disease itself, has led to unprecedented media coverage. This has included a welcome return to prioritising expert knowledge.
Amid widespread criticism of the sharing of “fake news” about coronavirus, seven of the world’s most influential technology companies have banded together to prioritise the public health messages of experts. Companies such as Facebook and Google have now committed to “elevating authoritative content on our platforms and sharing critical updates in coordination with government healthcare agencies around the world”.
As the death toll from COVID-19 has climbed, the world’s technology giants have faced the same question confronting all of us: who to turn to for information, and how much trust we have in that information.
To better understand questions of public trust, the University of Melbourne’s Policy Lab last year conducted a representative survey of 1,000 Australians.
In this survey, we asked where people would turn to get information about a health problem. Respondents nominated their “local doctor” and “24-hour nurse hotline” to be among the most important sources of information.
We then asked which of the sources were the most trusted. Respondents listed their local doctor as number one, the 24-hour nurse hotline number two and the public hospital website as number three.
Given escalating attacks on experts in recent years, the survey findings reveal a rare piece of good news for evidence-based knowledge in the so-called “post-truth” age. Our findings suggest medical experts and public authorities remain the most frequently turned to, and trusted, sources of information when it comes to health.
Another Policy Lab study from 2019 arrived at the same conclusion. That peer-reviewed research found Australians were much more likely to support a health policy intervention put forward by “medical scientists” than if the same policy was put forward by “the government in Canberra”.
This finding sits well with the Australian government’s decision in March that the group of Chief Medical Officers around the country – known as the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee or AHPPC – would be “the paramount source of medical advice to the nation”.
Together with the establishment of a unique “war cabinet” called the National Cabinet, the nation’s chief medical officers are the principal source of advice to state and federal governments.
And while there may be differences of approach between experts, it is within the confines of expertise, rather than random online opinions, that debate is best had in times of medical emergencies.
Like other national studies this decade, our survey showed that Google searches and social media were among the most used sources of information. Yet, when we asked how much they trusted these sources, participants nominated Google and social media as the least trusted sources.
Social media and online discussion plays a central role in public communication about coronavirus. But they are also a source of mis- and disinformation that can ramp up public fear and – even worse – be a source of dangerous, unqualified advice. The decisions by technology companies to prioritise experts is an important step forward in a world awash with untrustworthy information.
The headline finding of our research is that most Australians turn to and trust medical experts, such as doctors, when a health concern arises. For everything that is said about the “death of expertise”, doctors and scientists appear to hold an esteemed position in society — at least when it comes to health.
There are clear policy implications that stem from this.
The first is that health seems protected from the erosion of trust that has affected other areas of society. This may be because health professionals’ objectives are easy to understand – to save lives.
Secondly, while governments and health authorities play a vital role in countering public misinformation, they no longer have the stage to themselves. This is a shift from when journalists were the main gatekeepers able to prioritise authoritative sources.
This new reality requires a delicate balancing act from our experts and leaders in which they must try to communicate risk while mitigating the harm that such information can cause when communicated in a selective way through various platforms.
Thirdly, as we are now seeing, tech companies such as Google and Facebook are realising they can no longer avoid making decisions about when to censor online information that may be harmful to its users.
This is obviously a thorny issue as censorship goes against democratic values. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has warned about the dangers of his company becoming the “arbiters of truth” in the absence of government regulations.
Yet, coronavirus has reminded all of us that how information circulates on these online platforms is now, quite literally, a matter of life or death. It is significant that the technology companies that have resisted censoring political disinformation, that arguably harms the democratic process itself, have agreed to band together to censor disinformation about coronavirus.
Those who have attacked the “establishment” and “experts”“ in recent years are the same people now looking to medical experts for advice.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, it would appear that the death of expertise has been “greatly exaggerated”.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University
Pubs, clubs and casinos have all been closed as part of the response to COVID-19. That means Australia’s 194,000 poker machines are now shut down. These venues, and their machines, are not expected to re-open anytime soon.
Further, assuming the shutdown lasts six months, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison has flagged, pokie operators will forego about A$7.5 billion in pokies revenue. That’s the amount punters would normally lose to pokies in casinos, pubs and clubs over that period.
A relief from stress and boredom
For some intermittent pokie users, this will be no big deal. For others battling a pokie addiction, the shutdown could bring a sigh of relief, limiting the opportunity to fuel a habit they know does them (and their families) significant harm.
For other high-risk gamblers, there may be a strong temptation to shift their gambling habit online. In some cases, pokie users will already have online accounts. Others may not. We can anticipate online bookies doing their best to convert such people into more regular – and lucrative – customers during the COVID-19 crisis.
There will be few situations more stressful – and at the same time boring – than what we can expect to endure over the coming months.
Access to unanticipated lump sums of money could also be a factor in driving more people to online gambling. The government will allow people to withdraw up to $20,000 from their super accounts over this and the next financial year.
For some, that could prove dangerous.
Creative new ways to induce people to bet
In the United Kingdom, some politicians are concerned the stress and anxiety of self-isolation and social distancing will induce risky online gambling. They have been imploring the government to restrict online bet sizes and impose deposit limits for betting accounts following the shutdown of offline gambling venues.
Much of this will be replicated in Australia. If online gambling does increase here, there could be long-lasting repercussions – what social justice advocate Tim Costello once called the phenomenon of “losing your house without having to leave it”.
As the Australian sporting codes shut down, events that provide the grist for the gambling mill will become harder to find. Punters may be tempted to gamble on automated casino-style games in European countries where this is permitted.
Australians can get access to offshore sites (using them is not an offence), although the Australian Communications and Media Authority has started asking ISPs to block specific sites it identifies.
Gambling markets are also now available on a multitude of national and international events. For instance, Australian bookmakers are heavily promoting horse-racing – one of few sporting events that haven’t been cancelled globally. More obscure sporting events are also being advertised, such as the Table Tennis Cup in the Ukraine.
“Return to action” markets are also being offered on major international sporting events. For instance, Australian punters are able to bet on whether the next NBA game will be played before June, July or August.
Markets are also being offered on e-sports, including the global ESL Pro League, as well as the reality TV series Survivor All Stars.
Bookmakers have even offered over/under markets on the daily temperatures in the capital cities.
Internationally, evidence suggests a shift from pokies (or other gambling venues) to online gambling does not substitute for all of the revenue lost when pokies are shut down. If there were a direct transfer, bookies would see a $7.5 billion bonanza over the next six months.
But even a small proportion of that would be a big boost to bookies’ bottom lines.
Bookies are also among our biggest media advertisers. There is nothing to suggest they won’t run ads during the crisis to try t persuade people stuck at home to open a gambling account.
This is particularly problematic given the clear evidence that young men and children are vulnerable to the appeal strategies used in gambling advertising.
What can we do about this?
There are several policy options. The federal government has been active in the regulation of online gambling in recent years, persuading the states (which license and regulate gambling operators, including online) to adopt a consumer protection framework.
It would make sense to fast-track some new measures. The Australian Bankers Association recently called for submissions on restricting the use of credit cards in online gambling.
Credit betting was prohibited by the consumer protection framework, and credit cards can’t be used in ATM or EFTPOS machines in offline gambling venues. However, credit cards are routinely used to top up online gambling accounts. It is an excellent time to introduce a prohibition on credit cards across the board.
It may also be prudent to legislate for an upper limit on deposits to gambling accounts, as advocated in the UK. This could apply to both the frequency of deposits and the amount.
A maximum bet limit amount could also be legislated during the COVID-19 crisis. Complementing this, a universal pre-commitment system that requires people to set time or monetary limits before they gamble could also be introduced. This is how gambling works in Norway, as an example.
Simply shutting down online gambling in the states going into lockdown is another real option. We know that high rates of gambling are associated with increased rates of intimate partner violence, as are disasters. Already, we are seeing an increase in intimate partner violence related to the coronavirus crisis.
Some governments may see an online gambling shutdown as a reasonable response, given other gambling venues have closed almost entirely. And the loss of revenue to the states would be modest.
Victoria, for example, will lose about $96 million per month in taxes from the pokies shutdown. Victoria’s taxes from online wagering are just $11 million per month by comparison.
One of the acts of a caring and compassionate society is to help people avoid the potential harm that an uptick in online gambling may induce.
Apart from anything else, restricting access to online gambling may also help those who seek to use the pokie shutdown to better manage their gambling. That alone would be a major benefit.
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
How would you feel if you were having a Zoom meeting with your accountant and they asked “how would you like to save more than $5,000 in income tax over the next six months?”
While probably a bit sceptical (did I hear right? Maybe this technology is faulty? What’s the catch? Surely this is too good to be true?) you might be intrigued. You might even turn up the volume to make sure you hear the next bit.
What about if they followed up with, “It’s completely legal. The Australian government will be picking up the tab as part of the stimulus packages! Plus, you can do it mostly risk-free. But you do have to rearrange your financial affairs a bit, and deal with some bureaucratic hurdles.”
What the accountant would be referring to is a generous incentive that is on offer now over the next six months.
It is linked to the decision to temporarily allow the early release of A$10,000 in super this financial year and $10,000 the next.
This means that it’s possible to voluntarily contribute $10,000 of your pre-tax income into super over the next three months, and also apply to withdraw a $10,000 lump sum from super tax-free at some point before June 30.
You still end up with $10,000 in your pocket. But if you contribute through a salary sacrifice arrangement with your employer and stay within the concessional contributions limits, your voluntary contributions will be taxed at 15% rather than your marginal personal tax rate.
When you pull out the funds from super, the withdrawal is tax free. And, you will be able to do the same thing again between July 1 and late September.
In a working paper released by the ANU’s Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, we described these kinds of situations – where people assume a different legal form in order to receive a lower marginal tax rate – as “tax arbitrage”. They are completely legal, and widespread.
Like other tax arbitrage opportunities, there are sizeable tax savings available from the pursuing of the super equivalent of the Hokey Pokey.
This chart illustrates the sums involved.
Potential tax saving in one specific scenario associated with salary sacrificing up to $10,000 into super and withdrawing it in the same financial year
Personal income tax calculations include the Low Income Tax Offset, Low and Middle Income Tax Offset and the Medicare Levy.
It applies to a very specific scenario: a working age individual who is on 9.5% compulsory super contributions, has an annual salary below $158,000, has made no previous voluntary contributions to super in 2019-20, and who elects to make a “simultaneous” (within 2019-20) pre-tax contribution to and withdrawal of the maximum possible $10,000 from super over the next three months.
It suggests that, as long as an individual in this situation has an annual income of approximately $30,000 or more, there is a prospective tax saving from rearranging his or her financial affairs over the next three months.
The tax savings can be risk-free, if that’s what you want. If you were worried about the stock market falling further and taking away your contributions to super with it, you can direct your super fund to hold all new contributions purely as cash.
In all, its not a bad return for three (or six) month’s efforts – especially as it results purely from a change in legal fiction rather than any change in underlying economic activity.
Who can do it?
As always with these kinds of arrangements, the devil is in the detail, but there is a lot we already know.
First, the arrangements are targeted at those who have been adversely impacted by the coronavirus. On or after January 1, 2020 working hours (or turnover for sole traders) have to have been fallen by at least 20%.
And it benefits those willing to embrace the bureaucratic hurdles (or outsource the embracing to their accountant). Consistent with Australia’s self-assessment tax system, the onus is on the applicant to certify that they qualify. The Tax Office will then make a determination that the funds be released by the super fund.
There appears to a fair bit of discretion left to the ATO as to what impacts from coronavirus will be considered sufficient.
One thing is that isn’t clear is what the base period for comparison is, although some examples provided by treasury compare outcomes over a month in 2020 against the average over the six months at the end of 2019.
It seems quite straightforward if your workplace has cut back your hours or the business you own has had its trade (say) halved, but it is less clear cut if you have voluntarily scaled back your hours because of childcare or if you have returned from working overseas because of the virus.
The second key condition is you need to be fortunate enough to hold on to a job providing you with taxable income (or if you are self-employed, generating pre-tax income) of up to $10,000 over the next three, and maybe six, months. The new JobKeeper wage subsidy will help.
And you need to be able to handle the “cash flow” gap – between when you start salary sacrificing income (which reduces take-home pay) and when your super fund is able to release the income to you.
But sole traders whose business is suspended and are ceasing earning income may not be able to do so. And salary sacrifice isn’t an option if you become unemployed and move on to a government welfare payment which doesn’t allow salary sacrifice.
The third key condition is you need to have enough assets in super to be able to withdraw $10,000 per quarter for the next six months. You can only make one application for an Australian Tax Office determination between now and June 30, and one application between July 1 and September 25.
What are we meant to make of it?
Taking it all together, a (probably unintended) consequence of the super changes has been to create a sizeable tax loophole for those who are relatively mildly impacted by the coronavirus, still earning taxable income, and have the financial capacity to salary sacrifice into super.
While it might initially sound like a niche opportunity, it could be of interest to a significant number of the estimated six million recipients of the JobKeeper payment.
The people who benefit will probably welcome their windfall. Some might, quite reasonably, point out that they should be expected to pay only the minimal tax legally applicable. They might even invoke the spirit of Kerry Packer.
At a system-wide level, though, this sort of tax planning is grossly unfair and leads to a tax system that is less efficient, more complex and less sustainable.
Income tax is easily the most important source of Commonwealth government revenue. Loopholes in it feed through into company tax reveune through refundable imputation (something Labor tried to wind back in the 2019 election). There is no inheritance tax. And the main consumption tax is set at a low rate, is far from comprehensive and doesn’t fund Commonwealth government spending.
We ought to worry about actions that erode the collection of personal income tax.
The policy process has moved astonishingly quickly in the past three weeks. There were always going to be mistakes, and during a recession its often wise for decision makers to not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
But equally, we must safeguard against details that are objectively bad.
Now we’ll see how the government responds to error.
Police in Papua New Guinea have arrested nine alleged illegal border crossers and quarantined them in Vanimo, reports RNZ Pacific.
The arrests came as East Sepik Governor Allan Bird called for “shoot to kill’ orders for illegal border crossers and a military control of areas along the border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, reports the PNG Post-Courier.
The newspaper The National reports three Indonesians from Papua and six vanilla sellers from PNG’s East Sepik province had crossed the border from Indonesia
They were arrested and then placed in 14 days of quarantine by the West Sepik provincial health authority.
The land border between PNG and Indonesia has been closed since late January due in an attempt to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
– Partner –
The West Sepik police commander, Chief Inspector Moses Ibsagi, said the illegal border crossers were not taking heed of the national government’s warning on the dangers of Covid-19.
Mr Ibsagi said the vanilla traders in particular, who had just returned from selling their beans in Jayapura, were more concerned about money than the lives of eight million people of PNG.
Confirmed cases in Jayapura With several confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Jayapura, and likely more unreported cases, the provincial police commander is concerned about the virus spreading via the PNG kina bank notes which the traders obtained in Jayapura.
He warned that when the money was brought back to PNG, it could circulate through buying and selling of goods or services, helping the virus to easily spread among local people.
Meanwhile, in a statement yesterday, East Sepik Governor Allan Bird called for a “shoot to kill” policy.
“I have a disturbing report that people are still crossing the border from Indonesia into my province. Even as of l[Sunday night] five people came in a speed boat and three people the previous night,” Bird said.
“I am asking if a special order can be made and our border districts be placed under military control.
“I want the military to be given shoot to kill orders. East Sepik has no hospital facilities. We are only operating out of makeshift shelters. We can’t cope.”
Bird said the East Sepik province had so far 37 people of interest and all of them had come across from Indonesia.
‘Massive infections’ “I understand Indonesians who are frightened by the massive infections on that side could be crossing the borders to run away from the disease. If that happens, we are finished.
“I have been raising concerns about this border for more than two months. Nobody listened to my concerns.
“I am raising a new threat from the border which I see coming. They could already be moving across as I speak.
“Leaders we must take this decision to save our people.”
Bird is expected to raise the same issue when Parliament meets today to introduce the Emergency Bill to give legal effect to the state-of-emergency and also to introduce a supplementary budget containing a stimulus package containing relief during the emergency period.
Prime Minister James Marape has also given assurance that the police and military presence would be beefed up along the border provinces of West Sepik and Western.
The publisher of some of New Zealand’s best known magazines has folded amid the economic fallout from the national coronavirus pandemic lockdown.
Bauer Media, which publishes The Listener, Woman’s Day, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Metro, North and South and Next, says it is no longer viable and has shut its doors today.
Chief executive Brendon Hill said the Covid-19 lockdown had stopped magazine production and put the business in an untenable position.
He said magazines depended on advertising and it was unlikely that would recover to pre-crisis levels.
Business advisory firm EY has been appointed to work on an orderly wind-down of the business, and buyers are being sought for the magazines.
– Partner –
New Zealand Bauer staff were told this morning of the closure.
Hill said local staff would get full redundancy and other entitlements.
‘Devastating blow’ “This is a devastating blow for our committed and talented team who have worked tirelessly to inform and entertain New Zealanders, through some of the country’s best-loved and most-read magazines.”
Bauer carried out an urgent review of its New Zealand operations and considered all options to keep part or all the business open, including engaging with the New Zealand government, Hill said.
“An active search is underway to find buyers for our New Zealand assets, including our many iconic titles, however, so far an alternative owner has not been found,” he said.
This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
If you havesymptomsof the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP – don’t show up at a medical centre.
So named in reference not only to Covid-19 but also article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this project aims to evaluate the pandemic’s impacts on global journalism.
It will document state censorship and deliberate disinformation, and their impact on the right to reliable news and information.
It will also make recommendations on how to defend journalism.
Within our extended primate family consisting of lemurs, monkeys, and apes, humans have the largest brains. Our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, weigh about two-thirds as much as us, yet our brains are about 3.5 times larger.
Ours are also organised differently, and take longer to grow and mature. This extended period of development leads to a particularly long childhood for humans – one that requires extra parental care and protection.
Brains consume a large amount of energy. For a species that has a small brain at birth and a large one in adulthood, growth must either occur rapidly, or over a long time, or through a combination of both.
Researchers first observed exceptionally large brains in the human fossil record from about 300,000 years ago. However, the slower rate of brain development, which is now unique to humans, began more than three million years ago in the australopithecine lineage. These two-footed hominins from Africa are thought to be ancestral to our genus, Homo.
What triggered the evolutionary brain expansion in hominins, and how this relates to human behaviour, remain hotly debated topics among palaeoanthropologists.
The Dikika child
In 2000, an Ethiopian team uncovered an astonishing find in the country’s Dikika region: the skeleton of an ancient baby with a nearly complete skull.
Dated to about 3.3 million years ago, this youngster belonged to the same genus and species as the iconic australopithecine adult female Lucy – Australopithecus afarensis.
Australopithecine skeleton (left) and reconstructions of australopithecines Lucy and the Dikika child.Institute of Human Origins & Zeray Alemseged
In a new paper published in Science Advances, we reveal that Lucy’s species shows surprising similarities and differences with both chimpanzees and humans. But in order to make these comparisons, we first needed to work out two critical details:
exactly how old was the Dikika child when it died?
how did its brain size compare to adult members of its species, such as Lucy?
X-rays to the rescue
Brains do not fossilise, but as they grow and expand during childhood, the tissues surrounding them leave their mark inside the skull.
Using three-dimensional virtual models, researchers can measure the space within the brain case as a proxy for brain size. This is accomplished through computed tomography (CT), or synchrotron X-ray imaging.
This 3D animation shows the skull of the Dikika child.
A synchrotron is a machine that accelerates electrons close to the speed of light and directs them around a large ring. By forcing electrons to travel in a circular direction with magnetic fields, extremely bright light is produced that can be filtered and adjusted for research purposes.
A benefit of this approach is that permanent impressions of brain folds on the bone can provide clues about key aspects of the brain’s organisation. Synchrotron imaging can also provide powerful insights into dental development.
The truth is in the tooth
A seldom recognised fact about humans and other primates is that our milk (baby) teeth and first molars are marked with a line formed at birth. Similar to the growth rings of a tree, cross sections of teeth also reveal daily growth lines reflecting the body’s internal rhythms during childhood.
Having access to precise records of the Dikika child’s teeth, we were able to determine how old the child was when it died. Our team’s dental experts calculated an age of 861 days, about 2.4 years.
This means the infant grew its molar teeth rapidly – similar to chimpanzees, and faster than humans. Surprisingly, however, its rate of brain development seemed to have shifted from the fast lane to the slow lane.
Extending brain growth
Virtual models of australopithecine brain cases reveal members of Lucy’s species had a chimpanzee-like brain organisation, but grew for a longer period of time.
Our estimates suggest that by 2.4 years old, australopithecine children had brains that were only about 70% as big as adults, while average chimpanzees of the same age would have completed more than 85% of their brain growth. Thus, this species may bridge the gap between the long childhoods humans enjoy today, and the shorter ones of our ape-like ancestors.
Among primates in general, different rates of growth and maturation are associated with varied strategies of caring for infants. Slowing brain development is a way to spread the energetic needs of highly dependent offspring over many years. And this can be linked to a long reliance on caregivers.
Lengthening the period of brain growth also stretches out a species’ highly impressionable learning period. Extended brain growth in Lucy’s species may have provided a basis for the subsequent evolution of the brain and social behaviour in our ancestors.
These baby steps would have been critical for the long childhood that is now often regarded as a keystone of human uniqueness.
Staying home and not socialising your dogs, most notably puppies, risks them becoming afraid of unfamiliar people and other dogs.
This, combined with a being in an urban environment for a long time, relative inactivity, and sub-optimal training activities, could set up a COVID-19 generation of dogs who aren’t equipped for urban and suburban living.
To date, there’s no evidence pets spread COVID-19.Shutterstock
That said, it’s best to touch only your own dog over the next few months and not allow others to cuddle your puppy or dog. The World Organisation of Animal Health says:
When handling and caring for animals, basic hygiene measures should always be implemented. This includes hand washing before and after being around or handling animals, their food, or supplies, as well as avoiding kissing, licking or sharing food.
When possible, people who are sick or under medical attention for COVID-19 should avoid close contact with their pets and have another member of their household care for their animals. If they must look after their pet, they should maintain good hygiene practices and wear a face mask if possible.
Social isolation for social animals
If you’re suddenly working from home a lot or in lockdown, your dog is probably over the moon.
Dogs thrive on contact with members of their social group. So, it might be hard to get work done with your dog vying for your attention.
Encourage your dog to settle with items to lick and chew, such as pigs’ ears and food-dispensing toys, but avoid giving these items in response to being pestered. Break up the day with smaller, more frequent meals and regular toilet breaks.
Give dogs chew toys to help them settle down.Shutterstock
Many dogs are accustomed to receiving daily exercise and having much of their social needs met through play with other dogs in public areas. If this is no longer an option, you may find your dog is unusually active and mischievous at home.
Now may be the time to create structure such as “play” and “quiet time” cues so your pets don’t learn to demand your attention at any time.
Puppy socialisation
Puppies’ social needs are the greatest of all. It’s critical for vaccinated puppies to be socialised with lots of different people, dogs and environments. But under social isolation, finding opportunities for these encounters may be difficult.
It’s safe for dogs to play with other dogs. So, if you go for a walk with your dogs, and they see another dog, they can be allowed to greet each other, but their contact with other humans should not be encouraged. The same principle applies to dog parks and play dates.
For puppies, looking at objects is the next best thing to touching them, and they can learn about their environment through short excursions to see traffic, pedestrians and other dogs.
It’s safe for dogs to play with other dogs, just make sure humans keep their distance from other humans.Shutterstock
From within a vehicle, puppies can observe traffic and other animals. And from the safety of their own home, they can and should be gradually exposed to various recorded sounds, such as thunder, babies crying and vacuum cleaners.
Play learning games
With the shutdown of social gatherings, pups will inevitably miss out on important socialisation opportunities. This may create the need for extra training when life returns to normal.
But while dog-training businesses may be reducing their services, many are offering online courses and training challenges through social media to help people stay engaged and on top of their dog’s training.
Canine challenges includes scent games (often called nosework), which are great enrichment for dogs.
Dogs are experts at sniffing out objects, and practising these skills with toys in the yard or on the balcony gives them an outlet for these natural abilities (and it can be lots of fun for the humans too).
Take puppies out on short excursions to expose them to new sights and sounds.Shutterstock
You’d be amazed how good they are at tracking your scent, even indoors. With the right food or toy rewards, playing hide and seek with your dog is also an opportunity to reinforce an excellent recall.
What happens if we stop working from home?
Dogs like to be with their social group at all times, and they may come to expect they’ll always be involved.
Recent research into separation-related distress (SRD) suggests this is a very complicated phenomenon with multiple possible causes. Hyper-attachment to owners and panic when left alone aren’t the only reason dogs can develop SRD. Frustration, noise sensitivity and other anxieties may also exacerbate SRD.
For puppies growing up in the COVID-19 era of free access to human owners, it’s particularly important for them to learn that separation from their owners is normal and non-threatening.
Dogs need to learn that separation from their owner is normal.Shutterstock
If you’ve got a new puppy or an at-risk dog such as those with a history of anxiety, make an effort to separate them for short periods. This may be another good reason to create a work routine while working from home: time for exercise, time for food, time for games and time to work without interruptions.
Stay active and engaged
Our canine friends may give us reasons to stay physically active while many of our usual activities have been cancelled, and they may provide comfort to us in this time of social isolation.
By keeping up with environmental enrichment, you can make sure your four-legged best friend doesn’t suffer from cabin fever. If you have a puppy or are bringing home a new dog, plan how to set them up for life post-COVID-19.
As new, stricter measures intended to limit the spread of coronavirus were announced in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, many turned to Google to work out what they meant in practice.
According to Google Trends, some of the top coronavirus searches nationally in the last day or so include “can I visit my parents coronavirus Australia?”, “can I go fishing during coronavirus?” and “can I go for a drive during coronavirus Australia?”
“Can I visit my boyfriend during coronavirus Australia?” was also a common one.
We asked three legal experts – Jarryd Bartle in Victoria, Thalia Anthony in NSW and Susan Harris Rimmer in Queensland – to help shed some light on what the new rules might mean for residents of those states.
My answers are based on the Stay at Home Directions, made by the Deputy Chief Health Officer on March 30 2020.
In Victoria, you can only visit someone outside your own household for care or compassionate reasons or for a valid activity (such as work or education). In terms of parents, they need to be someone who has “particular needs”.
This includes people who are in need because of age, infirmity, disability, illness or any other chronic health condition. It includes mental health issues and pregnancy.
This includes visits to a residential aged care facility, except in cases where they are not allowing visitors.
But generally, you should be remaining in your own home.
Failure to comply could result in an on-the-spot fine of up to $1,652 or a more serious fine of $19,800 through courts.
Failure to comply attracts a maximum penalty of imprisonment for six months or a fine of up to $11,000 (or both) plus a further $5,500 fine each day the offence continues.
The answers to these questions are relevant at April 1 2020 and may change in a matter of days. The rapid pace of change is evident by the fact that since March 16 the NSW government has issued seven orders.
Overall, in New South Wales you must stay at your own home unless you are homeless or have a reasonable excuse. Reasonable excuses include obtaining food, goods or services, travelling to necessary work or education, exercise, medical or caring reasons.
On the question of visiting parents: if your parents require care for physical or mental health reasons, then you can visit them. This includes personal care, such as delivering food or medical supplies, assisting with medication, helping them to maintain a safe home and to maintain hygiene as well as facilitating any emergency assistance.
The NSW Police Commissioner has indicated care is a broad concept that includes for the purposes of being a caring person. This might suggest police will not be policing homes to enforce this order narrowly.
Nonetheless, you may want to consider whether unnecessary visits are unnecessarily exposing your higher-risk parents to COVID-19 if you are an asymptomatic carrier.
Susan Harris Rimmer, Queensland:
On January 29 2020, under Section 362B of the Public Health Act 2005, the minister for health and minister for ambulance services made an order declaring a public health emergency for “all of Queensland” in relation to COVID-19. It lasts to May 19, 2020, and it may be further extended.
This direction prohibits citizens “from leaving their residence except for permitted purposes”. Queensland restricts gatherings of more than two people. This applies both in public and private area but exempts members of the same household.
All people must stay in their homes except for:
shopping for essentials – food and necessary supplies;
medical or health care needs, including compassionate requirements;
exercise with no more than one other person (unless from your household);
providing care or assistance to an immediate family member;
work and study (including childcare) if you can’t work or learn remotely.
attending any court of Australia or to comply with or give effect to orders of the court.
Queensland police officers will be able to issue on-the-spot fines of $1,334.50 for individuals and $6,672.50 for corporations, who breach these laws. The maximum penalties available through the courts will be 10 times those amounts.
What if home is not safe? It is not clear yet what should happen in a national or state lockdown. The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
Where should people go? Academic Amanda Gearing argues a possible solution is for people who own a second home that is standing empty to make them available via police for emergency safe houses, with subsidised rental. Or we could use empty hotels, currently being used for quarantine.
So, can you visit your parents? You must have a permitted purpose. Remember, if your parents are elderly, they are more likely to be affected by COVID-19, so be mindful you might do them more harm than good by seeing them. Keep your distance.
If your parent lives alone, you can visit them on your own and you can exercise together, practising social distancing. You can visit a terminally ill relative or attend a funeral.
You can provide assistance, care or support to an immediate member of your family. However, if they live interstate, are quarantined or in a retirement village that has gone into voluntary and pre-emptive lockdown, you will not be allowed to see them.
Queensland’s rules say a person can be accompanied by members of their household – defining “household” as “persons who ordinarily live at the same residence” but, unlike other states, also extending it to people if they have “family or kinship customs or cultural obligations have the effect of a person living across multiple residences”.
You cannot visit for a social interaction.
You can join the new Queensland Care Army and help seniors without endangering their health.
Jarryd Bartle, Victoria: You are allowed to exercise. Whether or not those activities fall within the definition of exercise as outlined in the direction is unclear.
Police have discretionary power to decide their interpretation of these measures. Daniel Andrews has said he’s not going to hamstring police, so their discretionary powers remain quite broad. It may come down to what the officer who stops you interprets as “exercise”.
My understanding is similar ambiguities exist in NSW.
Thalia Anthony, NSW: If the fishing or bushwalking is not local and you have to drive to get there, you cannot do this altogether.
If are seeking to do these activities locally, they could constitute a reasonable excuse to leave your home on the grounds of “exercise”, although this is more likely to be the case for bushwalking.
It is conceivable that fishing could be regarded as exercise where it involves strenuous activity, such as crabbing by walking through water, as opposed to sitting down on a jetty or a boat with a line (although even this has some anaerobic benefits and contributes to the classification of fishing as a “sport”).
It is more likely, nonetheless, that exercise would be regarded as an incidental rather than a characteristic feature of fishing and therefore is not allowed.
Bushwalking is more likely to be classed as exercise, notwithstanding its meditative and nature-connecting qualities. However, walking on narrow bushwalking tracks where you may encounter other people may preclude physical distancing, making the activity unlawful. Furthermore, most national parks in NSW are now closed and bushwalking would not be permitted in these areas.
Finally, if you go bushwalking, you cannot do it with more than one person unless they are in your household.
Susan Harris Rimmer, Queensland: Being Queensland, this has been addressed in some detail. The Queensland transport minister Mark Bailey says people can still use their boats in Queensland waters to fish or travel for essential reasons, but not for recreational purposes.
“If you own a boat and want to head out in the water in your local community to fish for food this weekend, you can,” Mr Bailey said.
“If you need your boat to travel locally in your community, you can still do that.
“If you want to head out on your kayak or stand up paddle board for exercise, you still can.
But no sunbathing! You can go to the beach for exercise, but cannot work out on gym equipment at beachside public parks as the facilities are listed as “non-essential” premises. Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate clarified yesterday that “you can do your exercise, you can do your push-ups, you can stretch, you can walk quickly.”
Yes, you can go bushwalking for exercise with one other person whilst practising social distancing but stay local. But all camping areas in national parks and state forests are now closed, so no long walks with camping. The Queensland Department of Environment has confirmed that day-use areas, tracks and trails are open at this stage. Social distancing rules apply.
Jarryd Bartle, Victoria: You can only go for a drive if it’s done for one of the reasons outlined in the direction.
Good reasons to leave home include to get necessary goods and services, for care and other compassionate reasons, for work and education, for exercise, in order to move, as part of shared parenting arrangements or for uniquely exempt gatherings such as weddings or funerals, or in the case of an emergency.
These are nearly identical to the reasonable excuses in NSW.
If you leave “just for a drive” without a good reason, you may be breaking the law.
Thalia Anthony, NSW: You cannot go for a drive unless there is a reasonable excuse to drive, which covers:
Obtaining food, medical supplies, goods and permitted services (not massages, beauty treatment etc) and then presumably at the most local shop to prevent cross-community cluster contamination and inhibiting cluster tracing
Work or education that cannot be done at home
Accessing Centrelink or other social services (including mental health and family violence services)
To fulfil caring responsibilities
To honour shared custody arrangements
To pick up or drop off children at childcare
To attend a wedding or funeral (assuming number limits are observed)
Moving to a new place of residence, between different places of residence or inspecting a potential new place of residence (private visits only)
Donating blood
Undertaking legal obligations (although noting that most court business has been suspended)
To avoid injury or escape harm
Emergencies and compassionate reasons
To provide pastoral care (although only for priests, ministers of religion and members of religious orders).
Susan Harris Rimmer, Queensland: Not for fun. Only leave the house and drive for one of the permitted purposes, stay local. Only two in the car.
Jarryd Bartle, Victoria: Although the directions initially stated that you could not visit your partner except for care or compassionate reasons, the Victorian Chief Health Officer has had a change of heart, announcing the rules will be changed to allow partners to stay with or meet each other.
Thalia Anthony, NSW: You cannot visit their home unless they require care (see above in relation to parents). This is consistent with the order that no one can leave their house without a reasonable excuse. But the NSW Police Commissioner has interpreted this to include the general care of a partner.
Further, you may exercise with your partner for whom you do not reside if you respect social distancing (ie no physical affection).
You may also move in with them if their residence is to become your new residence (see point 8 above).
Susan Harris Rimmer, Queensland: If they live across a state border, nope. You cannot see your partner unless it is for one of the permitted purposes such as exercise, if you live near each other, or work or study together.
You can still socialise with the family or roommates you live with, but if there are more than two people in the home, no visitors are allowed.
If someone lives alone they are allowed one social guest. That guest is allowed to leave their home to visit. If someone leaves their house for an essential reason, such as exercise, they can be joined by only one other person or the members of their household.
In Queensland, residents are allowed to leave home to provide care to an “immediate member of the person’s family”. There’s no provision for leaving to care for anyone else. This appears to rule out visiting a partner, unless married/de facto.
Here’s hoping absence makes the heart grow fonder. If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it.
Can I go for a walk around my neighbourhood or sit on a park bench?
Jarryd Bartle, Victoria: You can exercise, which would include walking. On a strict reading of the directions, you can’t just sit idly on a park bench. In general, I think the basic rule is to stay at home unless you have a very, very clear thing to do.
You cannot go outside merely for recreation any more.
Thalia Anthony, NSW: You can walk for exercise but not sit on a park bench unless you are doing it to avoid harm.
For, example you can sit on a park bench if you acquire an injury while you are walking and you do not want to aggravate that injury or if you tire from the exercise and need a rest.
Susan Harris Rimmer, Queensland: You can engage in physical exercise so long as you keep social distance of 1.5 metre and only in a group of two. But do not sit on anything, play on anything or touch anything, playgrounds, BBQ areas and outside gym equipment are now closed throughout Queensland. No sitting down.
And definitely, no sunbathing. But remember, health includes mental health. Stay connected. And good luck.
As of this week, everyone with a Medicare card is eligible for Medicare-funded telehealth. That means you can have a consultation with your GP, psychologist and other health providers via video or phone, rather than going in.
This should help with social distancing – a core weapon in our community’s fight to contain this epidemic.
Some but not all health care can safely be shifted online. But it can be difficult to know when it’s OK to skip the in-person visit. Here are some pointers to get you going.
There’s a saying in medicine that “history is 80% of diagnosis”. By “history”, we mean the things our patients tell us; fortunately, video and telephone connections convey your voices and stories well.
So for issues where doctors and patients mainly need to speak, and where the risk of serious illness is low, telehealth consults are a good option. Evidence backs this up, finding fairly satisfied doctors and patients – and sometimes even cost or time savings.
I’m most comfortable using telehealth with patients I know well, and when we are managing long-standing health issues. For example:
routine chronic disease management, especially where the condition is fairly stable – for example conditions such as diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure
writing repeat prescriptions for medicines used in long-term illnesses – like the examples above, or tablets for contraception, stomach acid or chronic pain
exploring mental health issues
discussing diet and physical activity
writing referral letters.
Some conditions can also be monitored remotely. In particular, many patients with high blood pressure can safely measure this using a machine at home. This is recommended in blood pressure guidelines, as it’s actually more reliable than clinic readings.
But home blood pressure monitoring won’t be a solution for everyone. It needs careful technique, and also enough money to buy a machine.
Some simple short-term illnesses might also be managed via telehealth, as long as the risk of anything serious going on seems low. Examples could include straightforward urinary tract or upper respiratory tract infections.
But there is a worrisome overlap in symptoms between common viral infections and the early symptoms of COVID-19. Guidelines are being written to help GPs assess, over telehealth, who needs to simply isolate, who needs testing, and who needs to go to hospital.
What you need to see a doctor for
Sometimes a physical examination is important. There are all sorts of presentations in which I might need to listen to your heart or lungs, or feel your abdomen, or take your temperature if you don’t have a thermometer at home. This is especially the case when symptoms are new.
Photographs are tricky. I can’t expect patients to be able to describe or photograph a changing skin lesion well enough for me to make decisions. (Often these are benign, but I’d hate to miss a skin cancer.)
There are procedures that can’t be done via telehealth. Excising skin lesions, taking swabs and smears, inserting long-acting contraceptive devices, giving injections – these simply don’t happen “virtually”.
Particularly important right now are flu vaccinations: while these offer no protection against coronavirus, they may stop the dangerous “double whammy” of getting influenza and coronavirus together.
You’ll need to go in for your flu shot.Shutterstock
Some routine checkups and screening tests, in low-risk people without symptoms, might simply best be put off until this pandemic settles. But it’s hard to generalise. If in doubt, ask a doctor who knows you well.
Bookings, prescriptions and blood tests
When booking an appointment, don’t simply book a face-to-face appointment out of habit. Hopefully reception staff will offer the telehealth option, but this is all new, and it can’t hurt for you to raise the idea too.
When GPs aren’t sure whether telehealth is appropriate, we can begin with a telehealth conversation, then swap to a traditional consultation if needed.
Prescriptions and blood test or imaging referrals are currently awkward via telehealth. I can mail non-urgent prescriptions and requests to patients, pharmacies or other providers.
For urgent prescriptions, we’re using a messy combination of phone calls, faxes or emails to get instructions to pharmacists quickly, and then mailing the originals.
Fingers crossed, there will soon be reforms allowing purely digital prescribing.
Just an interim measure for the pandemic?
Medicare has previously been very strict about only funding GP consultations when they happen face-to-face. The shift to funding telehealth has been forced by the coronavirus pandemic; so far the government is promising telehealth funding to late September.
Like patients, not all practices are ready for video consultations. Webcams, like facemasks and hand sanitiser, are hard to find. And we’re still learning which video services tick all the boxes for function and privacy.
Doctors, like patients, are still working out how to consult via telehealth.Shutterstock
At a better time in history, we’d confine telehealth consultations to the obviously safe consultations, and do all the other ones face-to-face. But we currently need to balance the risks of forgoing some physical examination and procedures against the risks of potential exposure to coronavirus.
Research evidence on telehealth isn’t much help, because it wasn’t done in the coronavirus era. Instead, we need to be as safe and wise as we can, and learn as we go.
I hope we’ll be able to lay the foundation for telehealth not just as an emergency measure, but as an enduring feature of general practice – complementing rather than replacing face-to-face consultations.
New Zealanders in their 20s are the age group with the biggest numbers of Covid-19 and are “the vector for transmission”, says Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Ardern has thanked NZ for its efforts, but says it is still too early to say if the level four lockdown is successfully slowing transmission.
Ardern said that if the virus was in the community – present but not yet seen – “then the worst thing we could do is be relaxed or too complacent and allow a silent spread”.
She said that if the country was not at alert level four, the Marist and Matamata clusters could have ended up much worse.
– Partner –
“By and large, given what we have done in a short space of time, I think the majority of New Zealanders are doing an amazing job, we just need to keep reminding that small proportion who perhaps aren’t taking it seriously why it is so important,” she said.
“This period of time is our chance to break the chain of transmission. The quicker we do that the sooner we can return to some semblance of normal life … it is about you and your family.”
She said the most affected age range in this country was currently those aged 20-29.
‘They are our vector’ “They are our vector for transmission, so I need everyone to take this seriously. They are the ones that pass it on.”
She said the country did not have a full picture of the extent of community transmission,
“That’s why we’ve been so focused on testing capacity, which over a period of time we’ve seen a 91 percent increase in.”
Ardern said testing stations had been set up in every community and it should be made easy as possible for people to get tested, but that testing did fall off over the weekend.
“We’ve talked to the Director-General [of Health] about what we can do to get consistency because that is two days out of seven when we really can’t afford to have testing fall away.
“We have the capacity, we have the swabs … no matter where you are you should be able to access a test.”
Ardern said 2093 tests had been done today.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says industry leaders have been asked to find infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as industry gears up again. Image: RNZ/Pool/Getty
Infrastructure projects The prime minister also said industry leaders had been asked to find infrastructure projects that were ready to start as soon as industry gears up again.
“Work is also under way to speed up consents for the development of infrastructure projects during the recovery from Covid-19 to provide jobs and stimulate our economy,” she said.
Advance payments would be made to some employers to hire staff so that work could begin as soon as possible, she said.
She said about 990 emails had been received on the first day of the food Pricewatch service and the most common complaint was the high prices of cauliflower, bread, meat, facemasks and garlic.
“We are taking these complaints seriously. We are investigating complaints that are being made.”
The process for dealing with complaints was being worked through and would allow supermarkets a chance to be involved.
The prime minister also provided a few updates on support package for Māori communities and the one for NGOs and community groups.
Finding for Whānau Ora “The funding allocated to Whānau Ora commissioning agencies has been fully paid out which has helped the agencies to coordinate 100,000 care packages, with over 11,000 delivered to date and aiming for 130,000 by the end of the week.
“The investment has also helped to facilitate priority access for testing to vulnerable whānau such as kaumātua.”
Her update follows the latest health update, in which another 61 cases brought New Zealand’s total Covid-19 infections to 708.
Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay spoke at the earlier briefing about moves to step up the testing regime in New Zealand, with broader testing criteria and two new testing centres set up by the end of next week, bringing the total to 10.
This was hoped to lift testing capacity to 5000 a day, up from 3700 currently. An average of 1843 tests were being carried out but it was hoped this would also increase.
This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
If you havesymptomsof the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP – don’t show up at a medical centre.
The coronavirus pandemic has spawned a lexicon of its own. We have had to quickly incorporate words like “self-isolation” and “social distancing” into our everyday language to navigate it.
“Essential service” is another one. In fact, it is one of the most commonly used and somewhat confusing keywords to emerge from our leaders’ press conferences. This is because it has taken on new significance and is being defined in particular ways.
So what constitutes essential news and information services?
Small newspapers closing and going digital-only
News Corporation has announced it will suspend the printing of 60 community newspapers in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia from next week. They will become digital-only products.
News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller said in a statement
the impact of COVID-19 on the community print titles came on top of the toll on media from the refusal of digital platforms to pay publishers to use their content.
The News Corp statement is one of several such announcements in recent weeks as dozens of local and community newspapers have closed across the country, from the Torres Strait to Gawler, South Australia, and many more in the US, UK and New Zealand.
This news has barely made the headlines amid the coronavirus crisis, and there has been little talk of a rescue package for newspapers that have shut their doors in these unprecedented times.
What qualifies as ‘essential’ information?
As researchers undertaking an ARC Linkage project on media innovation in partnership with Country Press Australia, our attention is now focused on understanding what qualifies as an “essential” news and information service.
We are also studying the lengths to which Australians are prepared to go to protect their media from the economic devastation stemming from the coronavirus.
If newspapers are to innovate and flourish beyond the pandemic, they need to be acknowledged and supported as an essential service.
Yet, there are mixed messages about what might be considered “essential information” platforms. For the government, essential information seems to be limited to what it tells an elite group of journalists at Canberra press conferences and what it posts on its “COVID-19 essential information” website.
At the same time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is sending mixed messages about the value of social media. On one hand, the government has launched a massive social media advertising campaign on coronavirus; on the other, he is saying platforms such as Twitter are “breeding grounds for gossip and nonsense”.
This inconsistency and confusion only adds to the uncertainty about what the government considers “essential information” channels that people should go to for reliable news.
What can be done to protect local newspapers?
What we already know is that local journalism (especially newspapers) matters to the public. And right now, local audiences need professionally produced news that is socially and geographically relevant.
On a national scale, “essential coronavirus information” is available via government websites and major news outlets.
But if you live in regional or remote Australia, you need news on the local businesses and services that have been affected by the virus and infection rates specific to your patch. Local papers also deliver stories about how friends and neighbours are coping and supporting each other.
Intervention is needed to protect these newspapers from disappearing altogether. Already, there have been calls for the government to tap into an existing $40 million innovation fund to support small and regional publishers through the crisis.
We also suggest the government should consider making newspaper subscriptions (print and digital) tax-deductible.
As small businesses, many local newspapers will be eligible for existing tax relief such as the JobKeeper allowances designed to keep their employees in work.
But our early research indicates there are other ways for governments and major companies to get behind regional and rural newspapers and deem them essential services.
Government advertising spending has dropped dramatically in the past five years across country newspapers. This had represented a major chunk of their revenue. Instead, government advertising funds are often redirected to social media with little regard or thought about the consequences in the wider media ecology.
Such communication strategies overlook the fact the local printed newspaper is still an essential service for many in local communities, particularly the elderly who are arguably most at risk from COVID-19.
Protecting these news outlets should be at the forefront of any government communication plan when there is a vital need to keep people informed and connected, and fake news and misinformation is rife.
Meanwhile, Australian media and communication academics are also sending mixed messages. They are calling for the survival of public interest journalism while taking research funding from the predatory news platforms Google and Facebook, which are widely recognised for destroying the health of news ecosystems throughout the world.
In Australia, two parliamentaryinquiries and a landmark report by the ACCC and News Corporation have all concluded that Facebook and Google are no friends to Australia’s small newspapers.
Yet strangely, these juggernauts are being positioned as saviours of local news.
Social dimension of local papers
If coronavirus has an upside, it is reminding us of the essential importance of social order and connection at both institutional and individual levels.
One of the most prominent images from the coronavirus coverage in Italy over the past few weeks has been the obituary and death notices in the Lombardy region, highlighting the continued central role the local media plays in important rituals and life events.
The newspapers under threat during the crisis connect people well beyond matters of politics and public interest.
Our research shows that, in fact, it is often the social dimension of these newspapers that matters most. They are also bridges to the local advertisers deeply affected by this crisis, such as retail shops, cafes and restaurants. This matters to people in regional communities – and it’s time we acknowledged that.
Sweden still exponential, may be a large undercount. Chart by Keith Rankin.
Analysis by Keith Rankin
I was concerned to read last night that Greta Thunberg and her father almost certainly have Covid19; however, because of very restrictive testing criteria used in Sweden, they have not been tested. And I heard yesterday, on a Radio New Zealand news bulletin, a story about how there are virtually no mobility restrictions in Sweden; former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt stated that Swedes were however staying home voluntarily to a large extent, reflecting the reserved Swedish character.
I also heard that the United Kingdom has only being reporting hospital deaths from Covid19; apparently the UK deaths in homes and rest-homes will be included in future. This reflects an undercount of British deaths from people who tested positive. Many at home deaths in Sweden, however, may never be recorded as Covid19.
I was particularly surprised and concerned that Sweden is taking a diametrically opposite approach to New Zealand. That is partly because Sweden was caught unawares, and rapidly. But it also suggests that Sweden’s authorities are happy to let the disease take its course with a likely final death toll of over 20,000 people. (I gather the Netherlands is also taking a similar approach, heading for a final death toll of 50,000.) It also suggests that the data from Sweden is subject to an even larger undercount than the UK data. (I think I trust German data. Germany appears to have tested very widely; its death toll is lower than elsewhere in Europe because of testing and tracing, much as occurred in Asia.)
In today’s chart, Italy now serves as a reference point, and its curves are flattening. Known infection incidence and death rates in Italy are still much higher than Sweden and United Kingdom; but that may be mainly due to Sweden being a week behind Italy; United Kingdom even further behind. It now appears that Sweden may have a bigger undercount than Italy. Italy is headed for a final death toll of 100,000.
Of special statistical significance for Sweden, its known cases have been on the same exponential path for the last two weeks (cases doubling weekly); and, over that same time period, its recorded Covid19 deaths have been on a consistently faster growth path, with deaths increasing 10-fold from 13 March (day 13) to 27 March (day 37).
In the meantime, United Kingdom Covid19 death numbers are approaching 10 percent of its known case numbers, a situation that Italy faced a week ago.
While I can see Sweden, Netherlands and United Kingdom recording an eventual combined total of 200,000 Covid19 deaths, I remain confident that New Zealand’s final Covid19 toll will be about 100.
The number of people going to hospital with the coronavirus is expected to rise, putting a strain on our health and aged care services and their workforce.
But questions remain about the differences in training of nursing assistants compared to regulated nurses (registered and enrolled nurses) and the tasks they are able to undertake.
An unregulated workforce
As nursing assistants are unregulated, their training and clinical practice is not controlled by professional bodies or governments.
Training is certainly recommended, but it is not compulsory, and content between training organisations can be different. Therefore, nursing assistants working in hospitals and residential aged care facilities may have completed an on-line course, a Certificate III qualification, completed one year of undergraduate nursing studies or have a nursing qualification from overseas. They may have had no training at all.
It is these last two examples, undergraduate nursing students in Australia or overseas trained nurses, that the Prime Minister Scott Morrison recommends organisations seek to recruit.
What a nursing assistant can do
Nursing assistants can work under the supervision of a registered or enrolled nurse to help provide basic nursing care such as showering, hair, skin and mouth care. They can assist with activities essential for daily living including helping people with dressing and feeding.
They may also perform simple wound dressings, transport stable patients or residents between beds or wards, and undertake nursing observations such as pulse, temperature and respiratory rates.
Using student nurses and current visa holders seems like a potential solution to a possible staffing crisis. But is it?
For student nurses, there is considerable variation in the course structure offered by universities, who each write their own curricula within the boundaries of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council.
This means not all students will have had the same clinical experience or completed the same content by a given point in their course. Therefore they may not have equivalent knowledge or skills before working as a nursing assistant.
Patients at risk?
This variation may be a problem and there is a lot of evidence that a higher number of unregulated nurses and a lower number of regulated nurses increases the risk of patient infections and other adverse events in hospitals) and the aged care sector.
For example, nursing people with an infectious disease requires scrupulous attention to detail and meticulous use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to prevent further spread.
There are correct ways to apply and remove a mask and gown. A tiny slip-up can put the wearer and others at risk of contamination.
Working as nursing assistants can provide undergraduate students with valuable clinical experience. Our recent research shows most nursing activities performed by nursing assistants are those personal care activities described above.
But we found around one-third of tasks they performed require a higher level of skill and knowledge and should therefore be performed by regulated nurses.
This may explain why the rate of adverse events increases with more unregulated nurses. With the projected increase in patients who may need intensive care, experienced qualified nurses who can work without supervision will be needed.
Can retired nurses help?
Some have recommended recruiting retired nurses to help staff intensive care units. Again, this is fraught with problems.
Working nurses are ageing – the average age is about 45 – with two out of five aged 50 and over. So most retired nurses are likely in their 60s or older.
The two age groups – the over 50s and the over 60s – are precisely those at risk of a severe response to the coronavirus, which could make staffing shortages and the demand for beds much worse.
Perhaps a more effective and sustainable solution would be to use Australian Defence Force nurses who are all regulated, presumably fit and who have been prepared to deal with emerging crises at short notice.
Australia is clearly going to need innovative ways to ease pressure on the health workforce over the coming months. If we’re going to recruit student nurses and current visa holders, we need to make sure all have been trained and assessed to the same standard.
China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play.
China played a decisive role in combating the invisible enemy. Chinese officials and academics are taking this opportunity to rescript the narrative and place China as the new world leader.
In the quest for this leadership, China seems to be playing the game of “white face” (friendly face) and “red face” (hostile face). Similar to the Western concept of good cop/bad cop, white face and red face uses seemingly opposing actions to achieve a singular goal.
The red face is Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman who suggested the virus originated in the US and was brought to Wuhan by American soldiers.
The white face is providing medical supplies to countries now battling the pandemic, gestures of goodwill described as “mask diplomacy” or “medical diplomacy”.
By understanding the context for these donations, we can understand a lot about how China embeds symbolism within its soft power diplomacy.
Guarding life
Chinese people have a long history of wearing masks as protection from disease, chemical warfare, pollution, and severe weather. As early as the 13th century, court servants would cover their noses and mouths with a silk cloth when bringing food to the emperor.
As China increasingly encountered foreign powers through Treaty Ports at the turn of the 20th century, disease control became a critical concern. Despite the long legacy of traditional medicine, China was seen as an unhygienic place by the Western occupiers of these ports.
China’s opening to the West in 1978 led to a greater awareness of hygiene. The Chinese word for hygiene weisheng (literally “guarding life”) was incorporated by health reformers in numerous applications, from wooden disposable chopsticks to toilet paper.
In China, not wearing masks in the current health crisis is seen as unhygienic, irresponsible, and even transgressive. Punitive measures are taken by authorities, with non-mask-wearers publicly shamed and humiliated on Chinese social media.
In the West, masks have been widely viewed with suspicion. The official advice from Australian health authorities is if you are not sick, don’t wear masks.
This has lead to anxiety and discontent among Chinese Australians, frustrated by what they see as bad advice. The general public attitude toward mask wearers compounds the problem as Chinese Australians are unfairly targeted with racist slurs.
At the height of the Wuhan outbreak, government, private companies and individual citizens in Japan donated thousands of masks. But more significant than the masks was the symbolism. Emblazoned on cargo boxes from the Japan Youth Development Association were Chinese characters reading “Lands apart, sky shared”, a line from an ancient Chinese poem.
A month later, the Jack Ma Foundation reciprocated with a large donation of masks to Japan, with a quote from the same poem: “Stretching before you and me are the same mountain ranges; let’s face the same wind and rain together.”
Millions of masks and thousands of testing kits are being sent overseas, coordinated and endorsed by Chinese government organisations and taking place at the government-to-government level; by the private sector through companies and charity foundations; and by individuals helping their overseas friends.
Masks, test kits, ventilators, and medical protective clothes donated by China arrive in Pakistan on March 27, 2020.Meraj Alam/EPA
Mask diplomacy is part of China’s new dual level power play: aiding to foreign countries to regain face and demonstrate its role as a responsible global power; and sharing conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus to attack the opponent.
China is being aided in this messaging by inefficiency of the US in handling the crisis. By finger pointing at the US, some say China is hoping to “distract from domestic government incompetence.”
This effort to rewrite the virus narrative through mask diplomacy is a strategic gambit to claim the moral high ground and assert international power.
Changing faces
Perhaps a clue to what is now unfolding comes from the world of theatre.
In Chinese Sichuan opera, the performer magically changes masks. A skilled performer can accomplish ten mask changes in 20 seconds. This is one of the great accomplishments of Chinese culture, part of its soft power arsenal. The term used in Chinese, bianlian (literally “changing face”), however, is also a synonym for suddenly turning hostile.
China may have dodged a bullet. But if the pandemic spirals further out of control, China will have a lot more work to do to deliver its charm offensive.
The next few months will be crucial. Much of the global leadership in this global warfare will depend on the US, with its own president appearing to change face at any moment.
Power in the age of global contagion requires more than the dual faces of white and red. The world needs healing, and so the Chinese government will need to carefully moderate its propaganda. Triumphalism over the success of its own military-style control strategies and finger pointing at others may evoke blowback in the theatre of geopolitics.
The growth in COVID-19 cases in Australia appears to have slowed across all states, through a combination of tighter border control and spatial distancing.
With the number of new cases each day growing at a slower rate, there is a chance the pandemic can be brought under control and dealt with in our existing public hospital system – even without help from the private system.
However, it’s still too early to say for sure. Although Australia is testing more people than many other countries, it is only just starting to relax its criteria and testing more people with COVID-19-like symptoms.
As testing expands, we’ll have a better idea of how the health system will cope. But here’s what we know so far.
Australia’s infection rate appears to be slowing
The number of new COVID-19 cases in Australia has flattened over the past five days.
This is not just because new arrivals have slowed with much tighter border controls, and the slump in international air travel. The number of new local infections each day is also not growing.
For most of March, the total number of cases doubled in Australia every three to four days. That rate has now slowed to doubling every six to seven days.
The chart below shows this slowing occurred in each state that has a significant number of COVID-19 cases, and consistently from March 20.
On March 16, gatherings of more than 500 people were banned and all international arrivals were required to self-isolate for 14 days.
The health system will probably cope
Slowing the growth of new cases will ease pressure on the hospital system.
If we continued to double the number of cases every three to four days, we would have hit the then-capacity of intensive care units (ICUs) of about 2,200 beds in about mid-April when the number of new cases hit 12,000 per day. Doubling or even tripling the number of ICU beds would have delayed the crunch by a week.
At the current doubling rate, of six to seven days, that crunch would hit in early May.
But the doubling rate is falling and so that crunch time will probably be pushed out even further.
The slower COVID-19 spreads, the more time we get to prepare health systems and increase the capacity of ICUs, where necessary.
Over the past week the growth pattern has slowed and shifted from the exponential doubling to a linear trend with the number of new cases in Australia increasing by about 350 per day. If this rate continues, Australia’s current ICU capacity will be able to cope.
But it is still early days. And our current testing regime may not be shedding as much light on community transmission as we need. With limited community testing, and a disease which is asymptomatic or mild for many, we don’t know how far infections have spread into the community and so we don’t know the actual number of new cases each day.
But we need to test more broadly to understand the spread
But the number of testing kits has been limited, so Australia has done “targeted” rather than “widespread” testing.
The Commonwealth government previously advised doctors to limit testing to people who develop a respiratory illness and have either returned from overseas or been in close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case in the past fortnight.
The Commonwealth government last week expanded the testing criteria to people who have fever or acute respiratory infection and are in an at-risk group (for example, a health worker) or setting (such as a geographic area with confirmed clusters of cases).
Nursing staff from St Vincent’s Hospital see local residents and backpackers at a COVID-19 testing clinic in the Bondi Pavillion on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Wednesday, April 1, 2020. The clinic has been set up as the number of cases continue to rise in the eastern suburbs.AAP
Some states have gone further. New South Wales now allows GPs to refer for testing people with COVID-19 symptoms.
Victoria has introduced randomised testing at its screening centres to get a better understanding of how the virus is spreading. This involves testing every fifth person who presents at the clinic, in addition to those who meet the testing criteria.
As overseas cases fall and our testing capability rises, all states should implement some form of randomised testing in the community.
As the testing criteria is further relaxed and picks up more cases of community transmission, we will get a better understanding of how the virus is spreading in the community. Only then can we be confident about the adequacy of our health system in the coming months.
Recently Facebook, Reddit, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube committed to removing coronavirus-related misinformation from their platforms.
COVID-19 is being described as the first major pandemic of the social media age. In troubling times, social media helps distribute vital knowledge to the masses. Unfortunately, this comes with myriad misinformation, much of which is spread through social media bots.
These fake accounts are common on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They have one goal: to spread fear and fake news.
We witnessed this in the 2016 United States presidential elections, with arson rumours in the bushfire crisis, and we’re seeing it again in relation to the coronavirus pandemic.
This figure shows the top Twitter hashtags tweeted by bots over 24 hours.Bot Sentinel
The exact scale of misinformation is difficult to measure. But its global presence can be felt through snapshots of Twitter bot involvement in COVID-19-related hashtag activity.
Bot Sentinel is a website that uses machine learning to identify potential Twitter bots, using a score and rating. According to the site, on March 26 bot accounts were responsible for 828 counts of #coronavirus, 544 counts of #COVID19 and 255 counts of #Coronavirus hashtags within 24 hours.
These hashtags respectively took the 1st, 3rd and 7th positions of all top-trolled Twitter hashtags.
It’s important to note the actual number of coronavirus-related bot tweets are likely much higher, as Bot Sentinel only recognises hashtag terms (such as #coronavirus), and wouldn’t pick up on “coronavirus”, “COVID19” or “Coronavirus”.
How are bots created?
Bots are usually managed by automated programs called bot “campaigns”, and these are controlled by human users. The actual process of creating such a campaign is relatively simple. There are several websites that teach people how to do this for “marketing” purposes. In the underground hacker economy on the dark web, such services are available for hire.
While it’s difficult to attribute bots to the humans controlling them, the purpose of bot campaigns is obvious: create social disorder by spreading misinformation. This can increase public anxiety, frustration and anger against authorities in certain situations.
A 2019 report published by researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute revealed a worrying trend in organised “social media manipulation by governments and political parties”. They reported:
Evidence of organised social media manipulation campaigns which have taken place in 70 countries, up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017. In each country, there is at least one political party or government agency using social media to shape public attitudes domestically.
The modus operandi of bots
Typically, in the context of COVID-19 messages, bots would spread misinformation through two main techniques.
The first involves content creation, wherein bots start new posts with pictures that validate or mirror existing worldwide trends. Examples include pictures of shopping baskets filled with food, or hoarders emptying supermarket shelves. This generates anxiety and confirms what people are reading from other sources.
The second technique involves content augmentation. In this, bots latch onto official government feeds and news sites to sow discord. They retweet alarming tweets or add false comments and information in a bid to stoke fear and anger among users. It’s common to see bots talking about a “frustrating event”, or some social injustice faced by their “loved ones”.
The example below shows a Twitter post from Queensland Health’s official twitter page, followed by comments from accounts named “Sharon” and “Sara” which I have identified as bot accounts. Many real users reading Sara’s post would undoubtedly feel a sense of injustice on behalf of her “mum”.
The official tweet from Queensland Health and the bots’ responses.
While we can’t be 100% certain these are bot accounts, many factors point to this very likely being the case. Our ability to accurately identify bots will get better as machine learning algorithms in programs such as Bot Sentinel improve.
How to spot a bot
To learn the characteristics of a bot, let’s take a closer look Sharon’s and Sara’s accounts.
Screenshots of the accounts of ‘Sharon’ and ‘Sara’.
Both profiles lack human uniqueness, and display some telltale signs they may be bots:
they have no followers
they only recently joined Twitter
they have no last names, and have alphanumeric handles (such as Sara89629382)
they have only tweeted a few times
their posts have one theme: spreading alarmist comments
Bot ‘Sharon’ tried to rile others up through her tweets.
they mostly follow news sites, government authorities, or human users who are highly influential in a certain subject (in this case, virology and medicine).
My investigation into Sharon revealed the bot had attempted to exacerbate anger on a news article about the federal government’s coronavirus response.
The language: “Health can’t wait. Economic (sic) can” indicates a potentially non-native English speaker.
It seems Sharon was trying to stoke the flames of public anger by calling out “bad decisions”.
Looking through Sharon’s tweets, I discovered Sharon’s friend “Mel”, another bot with its own programmed agenda.
Bot ‘Mel’ spread false information about a possible delay in COVID-19 results, and retweeted hateful messages.
What was concerning was that a human user was engaging with Mel.
An account that seemed to belong to a real Twitter user began engaging with ‘Mel’.
You can help tackle misinformation
Currently, it’s simply too hard to attribute the true source of bot-driven misinformation campaigns. This can only be achieved with the full cooperation of social media companies.
The motives of a bot campaign can range from creating mischief to exercising geopolitical control. And some researchers still can’t agree on what exactly constitutes a “bot”.
But one thing is for sure: Australia needs to develop legislation and mechanisms to detect and stop these automated culprits. Organisations running legitimate social media campaigns should dedicate time to using a bot detection tool to weed out and report fake accounts.
And as a social media user in the age of the coronavirus, you can also help by reporting suspicious accounts. The last thing we need is malicious parties making an already worrying crisis worse.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martina Doblin, Senior Research Fellow, Plant Functional Biology & Climate Change, University of Technology Sydney
As the climate warms, the land we use for growing energy-intensive crops such as wheat and corn is becoming less productive. We need to find ways to feed the earth’s growing population that isn’t so burdensome on the environment.
One potential solution is to cultivate microalgae – microscopic aquatic organisms that are packed with nutrients. Microalgae are single-celled organisms that look like tiny pills and taste a bit like grass.
They are relatively easy to cultivate and have several advantages over animal and plant protein.
1. Less environmental impact
Algae don’t require pesticides to sustain their productivity. Algae can also be grown in wastewaters (water that has been used in the home or in some industrial process), taking up nutrients and other dissolved substances into their biomass. This results in fewer contaminants being released into the environment and less pollution in our waterways.
Microalgae tastes a bit like grass.CSIRO
2. It can be grown year-round
High growth and reproduction rates mean microalgae can double their biomass in as little as one to three days, depending on the time of the year. While their growth rate is slower in winter, they are not limited to a growing season, such as plants, or a long maturation period, such as animals.
This means microalgae produce more biomass on a given area of land per year, than animals or plants.
High growth rates also mean frequent harvesting. This makes microalgal cultures more resilient to sudden or extreme weather events, where production losses may be only several days of growth rather than the entire annual crop.
Algae produce more protein than plant-based foods, including soybean and pulse legumes. While algae produce 3.5-13 tonnes of protein per hectare per year, soybean and pulse legumes produce 0.5-1.8 tonnes of protein per hectare per year.
The higher growth rate of microalgae and ability to produce their own food from the sun, means microalgal protein yields are more than 100 times greater than animal-basedproteins, including beef, eggs and dairy (0.01 – 0.23 tonnes per hectare per year).
Microalgal protein yields are much greater than animal-based proteins such as eggs, beef and dairy.Dave Hunt/AAP
4. Farms can be built anywhere
Algae production systems don’t require arable land. They comprise either open ponds or closed vessels with a light source, known as photobioreactors. The systems can be built almost anywhere, including non-productive land or in the sea.
Open ponds are shallow (between 10 and 50 cm deep), and the algae culture is gently circulated by a paddlewheel. Closed photobioreactors consist of an array of tubes or flat panels, through which algae is circulated. Both types of production systems can be modified to suit the environment.
5. It doesn’t require fresh water
Thousands of marine and estuarine microalgal species grow best in seawater rather than freshwater. This would reduce our reliance on fresh water for food production.
Widespread adoption of microalgae as a food source would reduce pressure on freshwater systems.Dean Lewin/AAP
6. It’s nutritious
Algae have long been recognised for their nutritional properties, forming a vital food source in human diets since as early as 14,000 BC. Over the last few decades, microalgae have been used in vitamin supplements and health food products, including protein bars and powders, green smoothies and Omega-3 capsules.
Microalgae contain proteins, fats, carbohydrates and other nutritional components that have wide potential application in the food industry. For example, algae have a broad array of amino acids that support human growth and development; some are comparable with the levels in egg, soy and wheat protein.
To date, microalgae have successfully been incorporated into a range of edible products to increase their nutritional value, including yoghurts, biscuits, bread and pasta. Manufacturers have been able to swap plant for algal-protein by simply introducing it as a powder into production streams.
Apart from adding nutrients, microalgae have other properties that facilitate their incorporation into foods, including emulsifying, foaming, gelation, and absorption of fat and water.
Using microalgae in emulsions allows for a decrease in the percentage of oil, showing promise for their potential use in low-fat products. When added to desserts as colouring agents, the cell structure in microalgae protects pigments from thermal degradation during processing, enabling foods to maintain their vibrancy.
7. It’s cruelty-free
Algae can be harvested by sedimentation, flotation or filtration, with not an abattoir or live exporter in sight.
Microalgae as a food source would reduce demand for meat from livestock.TREVOR COLLENS/AAP
8. It can be used in sustainable products
Microalgae are increasingly being used as sustainable components of other products, including cosmetics, nutraceuticals, industrial enzymes and bioplastics, and as a biofuel to replace fossil fuels in niche markets.
Many microalgae have high levels of palmitic acid. This acid is also the principal component of palm oil – a widely used oil in food production which drives mass deforestation and loss of animal habitat. Replacing palm oil with microalgae would reduce reliance on this unsustainable industry.
The low-tech, basic infrastructure needed for microalgal farming could provide economic opportunities for developing regions. For example, research has shown a number of African nations have suitable land, labor and climatic conditions to grow microalgae as a source of bioenergy.
Where to now?
Microalgae are being produced commercially in Australia, including at Hutt Lagoon in Western Australia, the world’s largest microalgae production plant. There, the alga Dunaliella salina is grown to produce beta-carotene, a food pigment and source of vitamin A.
Microalgae is commercially produced at Hutt Lagoon in Western Australia.Wikimedia Commons
Elsewhere in Australia, microalgae is grown to produce Spirulina, which is marketed as a health food. Researchers are developing the use of microalgae further, including as a feed supplement for beef cattle.
But the current range of microalgae products grown in Australia is limited. The nation has a suitable climate and the technology; now it needs growers and manufacturers.
Government support is required to enable the agricultural and manufacturing sectors to create algae-based products – current stimulus spending provides such an opportunity. This would not only create new jobs, but enable Australian businesses to become more resilient into the future.
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
How would you feel if you were having a Zoom meeting with your accountant and they asked “how would you like to save more than $5,000 in income tax over the next six months?”
While probably a bit sceptical (did I hear right? Maybe this technology is faulty? What’s the catch? Surely this is too good to be true?) you might be intrigued. You might even turn up the volume to make sure you hear the next bit.
What about if they followed up with, “It’s completely legal. The Australian government will be picking up the tab as part of the stimulus packages! Plus, you can do it mostly risk-free. But you do have to rearrange your financial affairs a bit, and deal with some bureaucratic hurdles.”
What the accountant would be referring to is a generous incentive that is on offer now over the next six months.
It is linked to the decision to temporarily allow the early release of A$10,000 in super this financial year and $10,000 the next.
This means that it’s possible to voluntarily contribute $10,000 of your pre-tax income into super over the next three months, and also apply to withdraw a $10,000 lump sum from super tax-free at some point before June 30.
You still end up with $10,000 in your pocket. But if you contribute through a salary sacrifice arrangement with your employer and stay within the concessional contributions limits, your voluntary contributions will be taxed at 15% rather than your marginal personal tax rate.
When you pull out the funds from super, the withdrawal is tax free. And, you will be able to do the same thing again between July 1 and late September.
In a working paper released by the ANU’s Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, we described these kinds of situations – where people assume a different legal form in order to receive a lower marginal tax rate – as “tax arbitrage”. They are completely legal, and widespread.
Like other tax arbitrage opportunities, there are sizeable tax savings available from the pursuing of the super equivalent of the Hokey Pokey.
This chart illustrates the sums involved.
Potential tax saving in one specific scenario associated with salary sacrificing up to $10,000 into super and withdrawing it in the same financial year
Personal income tax calculations include the Low Income Tax Offset, Low and Middle Income Tax Offset and the Medicare Levy.
It applies to a very specific scenario: a working age individual who is on 9.5% compulsory super contributions, has an annual salary below $158,000, has made no previous voluntary contributions to super in 2019-20, and who elects to make a “simultaneous” (within 2019-20) pre-tax contribution to and withdrawal of the maximum possible $10,000 from super over the next three months.
It suggests that, as long as an individual in this situation has an annual income of approximately $30,000 or more, there is a prospective tax saving from rearranging his or her financial affairs over the next three months.
The tax savings can be risk-free, if that’s what you want. If you were worried about the stock market falling further and taking away your contributions to super with it, you can direct your super fund to hold all new contributions purely as cash.
In all, its not a bad return for three (or six) month’s efforts – especially as it results purely from a change in legal fiction rather than any change in underlying economic activity.
Who can do it?
As always with these kinds of arrangements, the devil is in the detail, but there is a lot we already know.
First, the arrangements are targeted at those who have been adversely impacted by the coronavirus. On or after January 1, 2020 working hours (or turnover for sole traders) have to have been fallen by at least 20%.
And it benefits those willing to embrace the bureaucratic hurdles (or outsource the embracing to their accountant). Consistent with Australia’s self-assessment tax system, the onus is on the applicant to certify that they qualify. The Tax Office will then make a determination that the funds be released by the super fund.
There appears to a fair bit of discretion left to the ATO as to what impacts from coronavirus will be considered sufficient.
One thing is that isn’t clear is what the base period for comparison is, although some examples provided by treasury compare outcomes over a month in 2020 against the average over the six months at the end of 2019.
It seems quite straightforward if your workplace has cut back your hours or the business you own has had its trade (say) halved, but it is less clear cut if you have voluntarily scaled back your hours because of childcare or if you have returned from working overseas because of the virus.
The second key condition is you need to be fortunate enough to hold on to a job providing you with taxable income (or if you are self-employed, generating pre-tax income) of up to $10,000 over the next three, and maybe six, months. The new JobKeeper wage subsidy will help.
And you need to be able to handle the “cash flow” gap – between when you start salary sacrificing income (which reduces take-home pay) and when your super fund is able to release the income to you.
But sole traders whose business is suspended and are ceasing earning income may not be able to do so. And salary sacrifice isn’t an option if you become unemployed and move on to a government welfare payment which doesn’t allow salary sacrifice.
The third key condition is you need to have enough assets in super to be able to withdraw $10,000 per quarter for the next six months. You can only make one application for an Australian Tax Office determination between now and June 30, and one application between July 1 and September 25.
What are we meant to make of it?
Taking it all together, a (probably unintended) consequence of the super changes has been to create a sizeable tax loophole for those who are relatively mildly impacted by the coronavirus, still earning taxable income, and have the financial capacity to salary sacrifice into super.
While it might initially sound like a niche opportunity, it could be of interest to a significant number of the estimated six million recipients of the JobKeeper payment.
The people who benefit will probably welcome their windfall. Some might, quite reasonably, point out that they should be expected to pay only the minimal tax legally applicable. They might even invoke the spirit of Kerry Packer.
At a system-wide level, though, this sort of tax planning is grossly unfair and leads to a tax system that is less efficient, more complex and less sustainable.
Income tax is easily the most important source of Commonwealth government revenue. Loopholes in it feed through into company tax reveune through refundable imputation (something Labor tried to wind back in the 2019 election). There is no inheritance tax. And the main consumption tax is set at a low rate, is far from comprehensive and doesn’t fund Commonwealth government spending.
We ought to worry about actions that erode the collection of personal income tax.
The policy process has moved astonishingly quickly in the past three weeks. There were always going to be mistakes, and during a recession its often wise for decision-makers to not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
But equally, we must safeguard against details the objectively bad.
Now we’ll see how the government responds to error.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW
Editor’s note: this is an edited version of a paper written in late March to outline the rationale for a short, sharp lockdown. The full version is below.
The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and may have long lasting global effects.
Until a vaccine is available, we have four main measures at our disposal:
identifying every case rapidly with extensive testing, and isolating cases.
tracking and quarantine of contacts
travel restrictions
social distancing (including lockdown) to reduce contact (and therefore spread of infection) between people.
Unlike countries such as South Korea, Australia has taken a slow trickle approach of phased, targeted restrictions to reduce social contact along with continued restricted testing.
We are in a partial lockdown state now, but it has been gradual. Different restrictions have been added on a rolling basis over a few weeks now, with schools still open. This is more of a slow trickle approach than a short, sharp, instant lockdown.
So far, Australia has not contained the epidemic as well as it could have, with a recent lapse in border control with the Ruby Princess cruise ship.
A silent epidemic may be growing, driven by mild or asymptomatic infections of people who did not meet our testing criteria.
A short, sharp lockdown for two to three incubation periods
The travel bans have been the most successful and strongest element of our approach. A phased approach of gradually increasing social distancing whilst keeping schools open will have some effect, but likely not enough.
It will leave us dealing with COVID-19 for much longer, with a slow trickle of new infections that keep feeding the epidemic. What’s needed is a short, sharp lockdown for two to three incubation periods (four to six weeks), combined with scaled up testing capacity and expanded testing criteria.
This strategy, similar to South Korea’s approach, would reduce the size of the epidemic substantially, spare the health system and give us a more manageable baseline from which to best protect Australia until a vaccine is available.
Epidemic growth is exponential, leaving little time for decision making. On March 1 we had 25 cases and now, nearly at the end of March we have over 4,700 cases.
While some of these are travel-imported cases, there is likely an as-yet undetected silent epidemic. In other words, there could be widespread community transmission of infections which restrictive testing and test kit shortages are preventing us from detecting.
We are concerned about the possibility of Australia losing control of the epidemic. We may well exceed health system capacity, increase the number of cases, experience health and economic losses, and a longer time to societal recovery.
A sharp lockdown needn’t last six to 12 months
While the curve has flattened since March 24, this is likely the impact of the travel bans implemented between March 5-10 on Iran, South Korea and Italy.
It is too early yet to see an impact of social distancing, and lapses like the Ruby Princess cruise ship incident, together with lack of testing for asymptomatic high-risk people, may allow transmission to continue in the community.
Modeling shows that the greatest impact will be gained by the most comprehsnive and immediate social distancing measures (such as lockdown), combined with enhanced testing and quarantine.
The argument that such measures need to be long-term (six to 12 months) is incorrect. China has demonstrated the feasibility of a short lockdown followed by phased lifting of restrictions.
A short, sharp, complete lockdown of four to six weeks will improve Australia’s control of the epidemic, reduce case numbers more rapidly and bring us to a more manageable baseline. From there, we can start to phase in lifting of restrictions safely. Economic recovery can begin.
The slow trickle approach, especially if schools remain open, may result in continued epidemic growth, potential failure of the health system, and a far longer road to recovery.
A more comprehensive lockdown buys time
A comprehensive lock-down also buys time to scale up required testing, capacity for rapid case identification and isolation, and for thorough tracking and quarantine of contacts.
Contact tracing could be aided by novel smart phone apps, deployed with great success in South Korea.
For lockdown to be successful in a short, sharp burst, it must be accompanied by scaled up testing. We must ensure every new case can be identified rapidly during the lockdown and in the follow-up phase, when restrictions are lifted.
We need greatly expanded testing including asymptomatic, high risk people (contacts, evacuees and people in enclosed outbreaks such as cruise ships, aged care facilities, prisons). And we must allow doctors to use their clinical judgement to order a test.
It’s time to scale up our capacity to produce test kits domestically, procure them from overseas or actively ask for help from other countries that have achieved testing at scale.
Without such an improvement in the public health response capacity, the coronavirus epidemic will almost certainly bounce back when even the current lockdown restrictions are lifted.
We have examples of countries which have failed and succeeded. We should allow these examples to guide our response.
To the young and healthy, our new “social distancing” rules may look unnecessarily draconian. If you’re in a demographic that’s low risk for coronavirus, it may be difficult to see the benefit of taking personal responsibility for social distancing. You might think, “I’m unlikely to get badly sick, so why bother?”
There are two broad ways the coronavirus crisis might play out. Both make it wrong for you not to bother.
Ignoring the guidelines makes you culpable
First, suppose our health care system is overwhelmed and you didn’t follow the guidelines. You’ll be a culpable contributor to people’s deaths.
Here’s an analogy. Suppose there’s a crowd at the bottom of a cliff. You and thousands of others are at the top, next to an unfortunately placed boulder. If enough of you push the boulder, the people at the bottom will die. You push the boulder. The crowd dies. Have you done wrong?
Perhaps you were “complicit” in the deaths, in the sense that your actions implicitly condoned them. Some philosophers argue this is what’s wrong with buying clothes made in sweatshops: by doing so, you condone global labour injustice.
Whatever the best philosophical analysis, we can all agree you’ve done wrong.
Replace the boulder with an overwhelmed health care system. Replace pushing the boulder with ignoring the social distancing guidelines. If you do nothing, you’re a culpable contributor to the spread of coronavirus, and hence more people dying.
Being a free-rider is equally wrong
There’s a second way coronavirus might play out. Maybe our health care system will do okay. To achieve this, we’ll need to flatten the epidemic’s curve, with the help of large-scale social distancing.
To picture this, we need to change the analogy. Suppose a boulder is already rolling towards the cliff edge, with the same crowd at the bottom.
You sit on the sidelines drinking a martini, while others attempt to stop the boulder. You can’t be sure if enough people are acting. Yet you just sit there and watch. Again, you’ve done wrong – even if they succeed.
One way to understand your wrongdoing in this second example is that you’re a free-rider: a scab, a sponge, someone who takes advantage of other people’s willingness to help. The free-rider is like someone who relies on people’s general trustworthiness – and the fact that people, therefore, generally trust others – to get away with telling lies.
In Immanuel Kant’s terms, the free-rider’s actions aren’t “universalizable”: if everyone was a free-rider, then trust would break down.
Kant’s basic thought was that before you act, you should ask yourself: what if everyone acted in this way? His belief was we should do only what we can expect others to do. If you fail to do that, by making an exception of yourself, then you demonstrate a fundamental disrespect for others.
This is the same in both the clifftop example and the real world. If everyone drank martinis, the boulder would fall. If everyone ignores our current guidelines, thousands of Australians could die.
Why collective action is so important
So, what is the best way forward? The boulder example suggests we should look at the overall outcome caused by the group, and our part in that. We need to be collectively rational, not just individually rational.
What does this mean? In liberal societies like Australia, we’re used to being rational on an individual level. We’re used to asking: what do I want, and how can I get it? Right now, this way of thinking is leading to panic buying in supermarkets, crowds on beaches and an exponentially growing rate of coronavirus infections.
The collective approach asks: what should we aim for, what pattern of actions will allow us to get there and what’s my individual role in that pattern?
In some places, such as China, the collective pattern can be imposed from the top down, by the government. In liberal societies like Australia, we more often rely on bottom-up change, via individuals choosing to do the “right thing”.
In the clifftop example, our collective goal should be stopping the boulder. As members of the clifftop group, we must each do what we can to stop the fall.
We are accustomed to being collectively rational in other facets of life. We regularly put aside our self-interest for the good of our family, for instance. And we resent sports stars who put their own individual glory ahead of their team’s victory.
We now need to scale up that thinking to the level of our whole society. After all, nations are unified entities that can set goals for themselves and act to achieve those goals. But governments rely on us, the members of these states, to get them there.
Thinking collectively means embracing the values of solidarity, community and cooperation. These values have been only briefly implicit in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s paternalistic reprimands, but other worldleaders have emphasised them.
In the long-term, these values might bring us a more caringsociety: a society built on recognition of our human vulnerability, our inevitable dependence on one another and our responsibility to look after one another.
For now, those values mean staying home whenever you can.
Most Australians know you never end up winning on the pokies. What Australians might not know is that the odds of winning a case against a poker-machine proposal in their local neighbourhood are very poor too. My recent study shows the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) approved almost 90% of poker-machine licence applications that came before it.
Not all councils have the resources or appetite for such a battle. This is a problem for councils and communities. Their frustration about the lack of local influence on regulatory decision-making adds to their concerns about gambling harm in their community.
Even when councils oppose an application for a poker-machine venue, the applicant wins up to 80% of the time.Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock
There’s a reason councils rarely win
The question is why are these cases so hard to win? Especially when the Victorian regulatory system – under the Gambling Regulation Act 2003 and the Planning and Environment Act 1987 – specifically acknowledges the importance of local influence on the distribution of poker machines.
Regulatory and quasi-court procedures are notoriously complex and resource-demanding; this includes poker-machine regulation. However, less attention and scrutiny have been given to the assumptions and principles underpinning gambling policy and procedures. This is the source of councils’ difficulty in winning a case against poker machines.
The VCGLR approves poker machine licences if it considers the “net economic and social impact of approval will not be detrimental to the well-being of the community”. This “no net detriment test” involves a guesstimate of potential costs and benefits in relation to a proposal’s overall community impact.
The premise is that harm can be absorbed into benefits to serve the community as a whole – the majority of people. It’s a utilitarian approach to gambling policy that implies social harm can be costed. This means the nation’s joy of gambling can outweigh vulnerable people’s misery.
The design of poker machines makes playing the pokies a highly addictive form of gambling.Mick Tsikas/AAP
Essentially, the VCGLR’s task is (indirectly) to estimate “how many happy gamblers does it take to make up for suicide, bankruptcy, domestic violence?”. All these social harms have been associated with gambling.
This is crudely put, but it’s the social contract we enter into when accepting a cost-benefit approach to gambling policy.
Apart from the ethical dilemma involved here, the cost-benefit approach to assessing poker-machine applications is highly problematic for local councils.
Social harm is notoriously difficult to cost. That makes it difficult to argue and easier to dismiss. The concerns that are most important to local communities cannot effectively be tabled on the regulatory agenda.
Victoria’s regulatory system keeps the public debate focused on utility. The ethical basis of poker machines is neither addressed nor debated.
Getting better at costing gambling harm is not going to solve this problem for local councils. An assessment of utility implies the most vulnerable or disadvantaged members of a community must accept the harm burden of gambling so others can have more in the form the freedom to gamble and redistributed benefits – for example through state taxes derived from foker machine gambling.
Most of these poker machine taxes are drawn from these lower socio-economic areas. The inferior social and economic infrastructure of the disadvantaged areas where pokies tend to be concentrated adds to the injustice.
The broad distribution of poker machines and associated high levels of harm are evidence of the failure of this cost-benefit approach. Regulatory decision-making isn’t properly assessing the real cost and harm poker machines cause.
The current approach fails to give enough weight to local concerns and meaningful participation and representation. As a result, the system falls short of meeting public expectations of fair and just regulation.
If councils and communities are to get a fairer go, a different policy approach is needed. It needs to be able to better consider the impacts of poker machines on local communities and social justice more generally. It’s time to rethink the use of cost-benefit analysis as the basis for gambling policy – and social policy more broadly.
Gaming regulation across Australia currently protects a very fragile justification for poker machines as legitimate social and economic infrastructure. It serves the gambling industry and state interests better than the well-being of local communities.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, University of Melbourne
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown for India’s 1.3 billion people. With just four hours’ notice, the government instructed everyone to remain in their homes, banned public events, closed schools and colleges and shut commercial and industrial outlets across the country.
The World Health Organisation has praised Modi’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. The lockdown may also be crucial in preventing the spread of the virus.
But the recent move to prevent community transmission is having an enormous impact on those most in need in India – the hundreds of millions who live in poverty.
The Uttar Pradesh government has arranged for 1,000 buses for migrant labourers as hundreds of them started walking to their villages on foot.Stringer/EPA
Food aid from government ‘feels like a joke’
Over 90% of India’s 500 million non-agricultural workers are employed in the informal economy, for example, as construction workers, food vendors, rickshaw drivers or in sales. After the lockdown was announced, many people found their industries or operations had closed, or new rules about travel and social distancing prevented them from working.
One such individual, Anand, belongs to an adivasi, or tribal, migrant community living in a slum colony in the outskirts of Nagpur, a city in Maharashtra, central India. We met Anand (all names in the story are pseudonyms) in the context of research we have been undertaking on social transformation in contemporary India.
Since the start of the lockdown, Anand has not been allowed to work in his usual job, cutting trees. Like most others in the informal economy, he relies on his daily wages and has no employment rights, paid leave, insurance or savings.
With no regular access to clean water or even soap, Anand is concerned about COVID-19. He his even more worried about hunger.
I’m so afraid. How long will this last for? If we can’t go to work, how will we get money? And if we don’t have money, how will we eat?
Last week, the federal government announced direct cash transfers to poorer households, mainly through existing government schemes, and provided the elderly, widows and disabled people pension payments for three months in advance.
Two days later, Modi established a Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES fund) to solicit donations from companies and individuals to help those in need.
Several state governments, including Maharashtra, are engaged in similar measures, offering cash transfers and free food to the poor.
But the amounts of money and food provided through government initiatives are insufficient and sometimes delivered slowly. Many migrants are also not formally registered to receive support through existing schemes. Instead, they have to rely on NGOs or find some way to “make do” themselves.
Anand has been relying in recent days on a local NGO, which delivers a small bag of food to feed his family of six. Commenting on the tiny parcels that arrive, he said: “It feels like a joke.”
Rural communities worries about returning migrants
There are millions in similar situations across India. Yogesh is a rickshaw driver living on the outskirts of Meerut, a city in Uttar Pradesh, not far from New Delhi. He told us that when his work dries up, “even my shit stops.”
The Uttar Pradesh government has promised one-off cash transfers to its residents, but these amount to just 1,000 rupees, or roughly A$21.50, which is hardly enough to feed a family for five days.
Anand and Yogesh still had some form of shelter, but since the lockdown a large number of India’s enormous migrant worker population – many of whom receive housing through their employer – have become homeless.
In Delhi, night shelters are grossly overcrowded and thousands of people are stranded at bus and train stations. Many have begun walking home, often journeys of hundreds of kilometres, only to be forced to return to the cities.
Workers spray disinfectant inside a building compound in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.FAROOQ KHAN/EPA
These struggles are not confined to urban areas. Vandita, who we also know well through our research, lives in a remote village in the Himalayas. As a subsistence farmer, she has some stores of food and even some savings. But the lockdown scares her.
Last year’s crop stores are running dangerously low, and the spring harvest in the mountains is still some months away. Social distancing measures restrict effective agricultural work, particularly the cooperative labour groups so essential to survival in these harsh environments and for the social lives of rural women.
Disrupted supply chains is also making it increasingly difficult to find food to buy at the markets.
The sense of fear and uncertainty is already affecting people’s mental health. Vandita speaks about growing rates of depression as isolation measures disrupt the collective work and cohesion on which the social and economic life of the village depends.
If migrant labourers return from the cities, Vandita predicts her village will be “in crisis”. Like other villagers, she lacks access to decent health care. Reaching the nearest major hospital would be a journey of several days. If there was an outbreak of coronavirus in the village, it would have rapid and tragic consequences.
India has so far avoided the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, though there has been a spike of cases in recent days. The short-term security of people like Anand, Yohesh and Vandita will depend on the capacity of government to expand its distribution of support.
Public health messages about COVID-19 have been inconsistent and changed rapidly. Many have called for a unified source of expertise to guide responses to the crisis.
However, with the federal, state and local governments, as well as international bodies, offering different advice, it is no simple task to “listen to the experts”.
In uncertain situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, biomedical and public health experts contribute facts and their own judgements about risk to our collective thinking and decision making.
Alongside traditional kinds of expertise, this kind of “real time” expertise and leadership at the local scale will be invaluable in coming weeks and months.
Expert judgements don’t exist in a vacuum. They arise from specific social and political contexts. To understand them, we need to acknowledge the tacit assumptions embedded within expert knowledge claims, especially assumptions concerning how publics respond to expert advice.
In recent weeks there has been much debate about the federal governments’s decision to keep schools open, which has only been made more uncertain by disagreements between experts over the role of schools in the transmission of COVID-19.
Similarly, in the Ruby Princess “debacle”, different governments and agencies have attempted to blame each other and drawn on expert knowledge claims to justify their actions.
These examples demonstrate how expertise is entangled with questions of political judgement and anticipated societal responses.
For publics, it can be hard to distinguish between health experts working for the government and those criticising the government. Experts tend to look alike, sound alike, and “advise” alike, leaving publics to navigate the cacophony.
As recently as two months ago, during Australia’s catastrophic bushfire season, publics were seen as resourceful and resilient. That image has quickly been replaced by a characterisation as vulnerable, easily spooked, and panicking in the face of uncertainty.
However, we can understand buying food, cleaning products, face masks, toiletries, and medication for asthma and fevers as reasonable responses to questions that experts themselves are trying to address in real time. For example, medical anthropologist Christos Lynteris has argued that face mask buying sprees are a reminder we should think of epidemics “not simply as biological events but also as social processes”.
Science studies scholar Brian Wynne has said the idea of public trust in expertise is too simple. The relationship between publics and experts is complex and ambivalent, he argues, and qualified by “the experience of dependency, possible alienation, and lack of agency”.
Public responses to COVID-19 are not as simple as a mass panic, but they signal something more worrying. The public lacks confidence in public health infrastructure and its ability to contain the virus. “Toilet paper panic” is the response of a population for whom expert advice is one factor among many that affect their feelings of security and wellbeing.
For experts seeking to contribute to public decision making, researchers have empirically demonstrated the productive value of collaborative approaches. For example, sociologist Steven Epstein has documented how collaborations between researchers and broader “lay experts” during the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the 1990s played a key role in the public health response to the disease.
Engaging public expertise, even in times of crisis
But how do we achieve meaningful engagement between publics and experts? Broadening our understanding of expertise would be a start.
Likewise, efforts to translate health warnings are essential for engaging vulnerable communities. These networks of varied expertise are likely to prove invaluable when existing governance is over-stretched or breaks down.
Diverse, diffuse, and local initiatives are likely to continue during periods of chaos, with the added advantage of feeding further expertise from the ground back into the knowledge system.
The ABC’s Coronacast podcast is one such two-way channel that responds to public concerns and questions. Scientists are also seeking volunteer researchers in the effort to address COVID-19, and many viral social media threads sharing notes on patients’ experience of triage and care have been important sources of information for healthcare workers.
Attending to the dynamism and diversity of expertise does not diminish its invaluable roles in society.
Understanding that the crisis of COVID-19 is also a social one should raise questions of how our traditional reliance on expert advice relegates local expertise to the sidelines.
It is critical that we recognise how local expertise is filling the gaps in government policies and expert advice, and is likely to continue to do so in crises such as the recent bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic.
We have an opportunity to appreciate that community responses are characterised by their own expertise. We ought also to listen to those experts.
A sad story has taken place again in the PT Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mine area near Timika in West Papua on Monday with one New Zealander shot dead and seven other workers being severely wounded as reported by Asia Pacific Report yesterday.
As one of the West Papuan students studying in New Zealand at Auckland University of Technology, I would firstly like to extend my deep condolences to the family members who are directly or indirectly effected by this tragedy.
My thoughts and prayers are with you, particularly Graeme Thomas Wall’s family here in New Zealand.
The tragedy leaves all New Zealanders with a question, who are the actual shooters in this attack?
As United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), the umbrella organisation of the independence movement, states in its media advisory notice, it is impossible for anyone to get to the site that is tightly guarded by the Indonesian special security.
– Partner –
“The West Papua Army is opposed to Indonesia’s illegal occupation, not ordinary citizens. We note that today’s shooting is reported to have taken place in a highly professional manner, at over 300 metres – the likely signs of an Indonesian special forces’ operation.
“The region around the site is extremely tightly guarded by the Indonesian security forces – how could this get through them?” ULMWP asked.
Past shooting examples Also, the ULMWP gives some examples of shootings that have happened in the past, such as the killing of two Americans and one Indonesian in 2002 and the killing of a German tourist in Jayapura in 2012.
The ULMWP stated that this kind of attack has happened before in an attempt by Indonesian authorities to blame the West Papuan Liberation Army and claim that Papua is dangerous for international media and tourists.
“In 2002, as exposed by Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono and Deakin University anthropologist Eben Kirksey, the Indonesian military shot dead two Americans and one Indonesian, blaming West Papuans,” said the ULMWP.
RNZ Pacific reports that according to the local police officer, the shooting was led by a local commander of West Papua Liberation Army, Joni Botak.
Indonesia’s Ambassador to New Zealand, Tantowi Yahya, has condemned the shooting attack.
“The armed criminal group in Papua always claim they will only attack security forces. The fact shows that the majority of their victims are civilians,” he said.
“The shooting in Kuala Kencana will only add the burdens of the people and the security apparatus in Papua, who are now working hard in containing the Covid-19 epidemic.
“Our deepest condolences to the family of the victims. We stand ready to help when needed.”
My plea for the future As a response to this tragedy, I believe there will be some action taken by the Indonesian authorities. Therefore, in order to reveal the truth and to avoid this kind of incident taking place in the future, I strongly request:
First, the Indonesian government in Jakarta must allow the independent media and NGOs to enter the region and to conduct an extensive investigation to reveal who are actually the perpetrators.
Second, the central government should take a constructive dialogue approach as recommended by Papua Peace Network (Jaringan Damai Papua), and
Finally, all the media in Indonesia and foreign media that report this kind of tragedy should conduct a thorough investigations prior to publication.
Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan student on the Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies programme at Auckland University of Technology (AUT).
The number of New Zealanders testing positive for Covid-19 will continue to rise despite the strict conditions of the four-week lockdown that began last week.
The question now is how long it will take before we see numbers going down again. We can draw on the experiences of other countries such as China, which imposed a lockdown on Hubei province on January 23, 2020.
As this graph shows, the number of confirmed cases only reached a plateau at the beginning of March, suggesting that it takes a little over a month for a strict lockdown to take effect.
– Partner –
How lockdown works and patience The virus is now spreading within the community in New Zealand. Testing is focused on people who are likely to have contracted Covid-19, which means there are a lot more people with the infection in the community than the number of cases reported.
The disease spreads exponentially and, with limited testing capacity, this difference gets larger each day. This is why the lockdown conditions are so strict.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has encouraged everyone to act as if they have Covid-19 and to stay within their own “bubble” at home.
Staying at home is essential. It’s a simple but highly effective way to constrain the virus. It denies it a place to go and will help give our healthcare system a fighting chance.
Even if somebody within a home develops the illness, the virus will be limited to the group of people there and won’t be able to spread any further. By isolating individuals and confining communities, a lockdown effectively disrupts the chains of people-to-people transmission the virus needs to sustain itself.
If we delay breaking the chain of transmission, the gap between actual and reported cases will get larger.
The difference between confirmed cases at the date of onset (dark bars) and when they were diagnosed (orange bars) during the Chinese outbreak of COVID-19. Journal of American Medical Association
The graph above shows what happened in China in terms of new cases of coronavirus before and after they locked down their cities. The longer, darker bars show the number of cases at the time of onset of symptoms, and the orange bars represent cases that were found by testing people. The underlying case counts start dropping immediately after lockdown, and then the reported counts follow suit.
This means that in New Zealand, we may see the numbers surge before they drop, but based on what we’ve learned from the outbreak in China, we will bring COVID-19 infections down faster the more resolutely the lockdown continues.
This is why we should remain optimistic and patient, and do the best we can to “fast track” the drop in actual cases, which will eventually bring down reported cases as well.
I’m trying to work out what to do before I end up in a body bag but that seems unavoidable right now.
This was one of the first replies this month to my research questionnaire on domestic violence. The participant is a young lawyer in regional Australia who has escaped a coercively controlling relationship, during which she received several murder threats and survived two murder attempts.
In the next six months, as coronavirus lock-down regulations bite, she is more terrified of her ex than of COVID-19. This is because she is required to hand over their child weekly to him in order to comply with Family Court orders.
There is no longitudinal research on what happens when families are required by government regulation to stay at home for six months, because it has not happened in living memory.
Victims and their children who live with the perpetrator will be at constant risk.
Victims who have escaped but who have children with the perpetrator, are reporting perpetrators are using COVID-19 as an extra weapon in their arsenal, fearing that the family law system will be hard-pressed to protect them.
Every other person I have surveyed in the past four weeks has reported living in fear of their life – a fear exacerbated enormously under coronavirus isolation regulations. Coercive control generates this fear in victims.
Living with constant threat
Following the publication of my article on Hannah Clarke and her children in The Guardian last month, a dozen women have already contacted me indicating they believe they are at imminent risk of being murdered.
Using the UK Home Office’s definition of coercive control – which is a crime in the UK – I have constructed a questionnaire to determine the degree of coercion being exerted on a person. (Coercive control is not a crime in Australia.)
The dozen women I have interviewed so far liken their situation to domestic terrorism, in which they are hostages who will spend the next six months trying to protect themselves and their children.
The women report previous threats to kill them by strangulation, shooting or burning. Several have already survived murder attempts by partners or former partners.
In a sinister early finding, one man has disclosed the method by which he plans to commit the murder, including how he intends to escape culpability.
Where the police come in
The usual timeline for research leading to findings and then to forming the basis for evidence-based policy will be far too slow to prevent domestic violence deaths in the COVID-19 crisis.
The danger levels already assessed are so high that I am asking them to forward a copy of their completed questionnaires directly to the relevant police commissioner, police minister and shadow minister in their state.
Federal government responses to COVID-19 have broken all previous expectations for government intervention in order to save lives.
Further intervention could be implemented now to protect families in isolation. The need for safe housing for domestic violence victims who escape has never been more urgent.
Waiting for the evidence of a spike in intimate partner deaths and the deaths of children – especially now that we could copy UK legislation to criminalise coercive control – could be at the cost of too many lives.
How governments can help
A possible solution is for people who own a second home that is standing empty to make them available via police for emergency safe houses, with subsidised rental.
Early indicators are that one consequence is a “pressure-cooker” effect that is already being observed as a 40% spike in the number of counsellors who are reporting increased demand for help.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded on March 29 with a promise of A$150million in the form of support for telephone counselling services who address domestic violence, including to 1800 Respect and Mensline.
Forensic criminologist Jane Monckton-Smith, who analysed 372 cases of intimate partner homicide, found that 100% of the relationships involved coercive control by the murderer of their eventual victim.
In many cases, the first physical violence was the murder itself, as exemplified in the murder of Hannah Clarke and her children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4, and Trey, 3 in Brisbane on February 19 this year.
The offender, Rohan Baxter, had controlled his wife – who she could see, what she could wear and every other aspect of her life – for ten years. But it was only when she finally left that Baxter began being physically violent. Within months he killed her and all of their children, and himself.
Monckton-Smith has also identified an eight-stage pattern in intimate partner homicides. They always begin with coercive control.
This finding could potentially save lives in Australia if they are applied to our policing methods, our child safety departments and our family law system.
The eight stages begin with a pre-relationship history of abuse by the perpetrator. The second stage is a new relationship that becomes serious very quickly. In stage three, the perpetrator dominates the victim using coercive control.
Stage four is the first signal of danger – this is when there is a trigger that threatens the perpetrator’s control – for example, the relationship ends or the perpetrator gets into financial difficulty.
The final four stages may occur over months but sometimes they develop rapidly – within days or even hours.
This is why police should be far more focused on the history of relationships and the degree of coercive control within a relationship than with physical violence.
Stage five is an escalation in the intensity or frequency of the partner’s control tactics, such as by stalking or threatening suicide.
Stage six begins when the perpetrator’s thinking changes and he or she decides either to move on to another relationship or to take revenge by injuring or killing.
Stage seven is a red flag that could be detected via electronic surveillance in a similar way to the methods being used by counter-terrorism police. Potential domestic terrorists could be detected searching online for particular key words or for weapons.
Stage eight is the homicide itself.
Where to from here?
In my preliminary questionnaire with women who have escaped abusive relationships, all of the participants so far have disclosed a variety of murder threats and/or murder attempts.
In several cases, the women stayed in the relationship despite the murder threats in order to protect their children. But it was the murder attempts that finally precipitated them to leave with the children.
All the women were subsequently pursued by the perpetrator via the Family Court and were granted access, thus enabling the perpetrator to maintain contact with their intended victim.
Under the coronavirus regime, leaving violent relationships is likely to become far more difficult and dangerous.
The prime minister has acknowledged that for many families, home is not a safe place and more needs to be done to counter the threat.
The problem for all of the women surveyed so far is that current policing that focuses on an incident-based response primarily to physical assaults misses the main driver of intimate partner homicide.
The quiet revolutions in response to the medical and economic threats of COVID-19 at federal level, indicate a similarly determined and focused response to domestic abuse might yield a solution.
The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marissa Parrott, Reproductive Biologist, Wildlife Conservation & Science, Zoos Victoria, and Honorary Research Associate, BioSciences, University of Melbourne
Tree kangaroos are so unusual that when Europeans first encountered them in Australia in 1872, they were sceptical. Who would believe a kangaroo could climb a tree?
But the recent birth of Chimbu – a Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo at Healesville Sanctuary – gives us the chance to watch one of these unique, and very rare, creatures grow up.
The Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo is a threatened species found in forests in the Central Cordillera mountain ranges of Papua New Guinea, from sea level to high in the clouds.
Chimbu’s birth in September is the latest success of a complex web of international conservation. Zoos and other organisations around the world transfer and match tree-kangaroos to avoid inbreeding and sustain a genetically healthy captive population.
Chimbu is named after an area in Papua New Guinea where his wild cousins live.
Early explorers considered the very idea of a climbing roo ridiculous, but these animals are specially adapted to life in the trees. They likely all evolved from a terrestrial ancestor earlier in the Pliocene, 5.3 million to 2.5 million years ago.
Tree kangaroos look like marsupial bears, but can climb trees like monkeys.Healesville Sanctuary, Author provided
Tree kangaroos have much longer forelimbs than their ground-dwelling cousins and their claws are much larger and strongly curved. This provides much stronger grip when climbing trees and gripping smaller branches.
They still have large strong hind limbs, but their feet are shorter, broader and have a long curved claw on each toe.
The pad of the hindfoot is single, large and with prominent grooves, all of which enhance the animal’s grip when climbing and walking in the canopy. The tails of tree kangaroos aren’t capable of grasping things like a monkey’s, but they’re long and often held out behind the animal for balance.
But perhaps one of the most obvious differences between tree kangaroos and their terrestrial cousins is their adorably small bear-like ears.
Threatened with extinction
Two species of tree kangaroos are found in the forests of northeast Australia and 12 species in the jungles of New Guinea. All species of tree kangaroos are threatened with extinction in New Guinea, although much about these animals is unknown.
The current population size is unknown, but this species of tree kangaroo is thought to be declining in the wild.Healesville Sanctuary, Author provided
Traditionally hunted for food, hassled by dogs and threatened by the destruction of their forest habitat, the soft thud of tree roo feet among the trees is falling silent.
But conservation work in their natural habitat and through a globally managed tree kangaroo captive breeding program is helping not only the species, but the people who live alongside them.
Baby Chimbu – a new hope
Chimbu was born in Victoria, but is really an international fellow. His mother Mani came from the National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra, and his father Bagam arriving from Kreffeld Zoo in Germany.
Baby Chimbu brings hope to a species nearing extinction.Healesville Sanctuary, Author provided
Mani and Bagam were paired based on the recommendation of scientists and managers who maintain a studbook of Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos around the world.
These gorgeous animals are generally chocolate brown on the back, shading to pale brown or cream on the face and belly, and often with a single or double narrow pale stripe down the back.
Their beautiful striped tails are one of their most noticeable features. And while the current population size is unknown, this tree kangaroo is thought to be declining due to hunting for food, local trading for cultural purposes, and habitat destruction through local deforestation and shifting cultivation.
The plan is to maintain long-term healthy populations that are genetically diverse, stable and show natural behaviours to ensure the animals are thriving in their zoo homes.
Chimbu ventured out of his mum’s pouch to sample some tasty salad.Healesville Sanctuary, Author provided
A key feature of these regional/global management programs is to avoid any inbreeding. Detailed histories of all animals in the population are closely managed, and suitable breeding pairs are identified by specialist zoo keepers called “Studbook Keepers”.
This is why Chimbu was born from a long-distance romance and travel by his parents.
Your cuppa can help
Supporting wildlife conservation in the wild and with local communities is the driving force for zoos globally.
An international network of captive tree kangaroos helps conserve this species.Healesville Sanctuary, Author provided
Although the Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos are officially endangered, we don’t know much about them in the wild. Right now, the Wildlife Conservation Society is working out how many are in the wild and where, so scientists can develop a detailed conservation program.
Cousins of the Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo, such as the Matschie’s tree kangaroo, are more well-known and already have conservation programs in place.
To help save Matschie’s tree kangaroo, community programs have emerged to address the economic conditions fuelling their over-hunting. Zoos Victoria has partnered with the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program to sell coffee grown by Papua New Guinean villagers. This helps create sustainable alternative income and fund conservation.
Collecting coffee beans for YUS conservation coffee in Papua New Guinea.Ryan Hawke/Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program, Author provided
So if you do decide to visit Chimbu at the Healesville Sanctuary (in person or virtually) remember you can also buy some coffee to help his wild cousins.
This article is co-authored by Chris Banks, Manager International Conservation, Zoos Victoria, who has worked with tree kangaroo and community conservation for over 20 years
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland
With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a great deal of anxiety, we might come to think people are irrational, selfish or downright crazy. We see people showing up to public venues en masse or clearing supermarket shelves of toilet paper.
Experts are often ignored. We hear inconsistent information and arguments filled with fallacious reasoning being accepted by a seemingly large number people.
The answer for the kind of panicked flurry in reasoning may lie in a field of critical thinking called vice epistemology. This theory argues our thinking habits and intellectual character traits cause poor reasoning.
I heard coronavirus particles can stay in the air for up to five days!
Researchers found SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, remains infectious in airborne droplets for at least three hours.
But all sorts of claims are being touted by people and we’re all guilty of having believed someone who isn’t an expert or simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Gullibility as a thinking sin means that we lack the ability to determine the credibility of information.
Relevant expertise and experience are essential qualities when we’re listening to someone’s own argument. But with something like COVID-19, it’s also important we look at the type of expertise someone has. A GP might be able to tell us how we get the infection – but they wouldn’t count as an expert in infectious disease epidemiology (the way an infectious disease spreads across a population).
2. Sin of cynicism
I’d better stock up on toilet paper before everyone else buys it.
In many ways, cynicism is the opposite of gullibility. It is being overly suspicious of others in their arguments and actions.
If you’ve suddenly become suspicious of your neighbours and what they might do when supermarket stocks are limited, that’s a cynical way to think.
If we think the worst interpretation of arguments and events is correct, we can’t inquire and problem-solve effectively.
3. Sin of pride
I know what’s best for my family!
Pride is an intellectual sin (though it’s more popular as a spiritual one). In this particular case, it is the habit of not admitting to ourselves or to others that we don’t know the answer. Or perhaps that we don’t understand the issue.
We obstruct a genuine search for truth if we are dogmatic in our self-belief.
Do you think you know better than everyone else?Shutterstock
It’s effective reasoning to take what the evidence and experts say and then apply it specifically to our individual needs. But we have gone astray in our thinking if we contradict those who know more than us and are unwilling to admit our own limitations.
4. Sin of closed-mindedness
I won’t accept that.
Closed-mindedness means we’re not willing to see things from different perspectives or accept new information. It’s a serious intellectual vice as it directly interferes with our ability to adjust our beliefs according to new information.
Worse still, being close-minded to new ideas and information means it’s even more challenging to learn and grow – we’d be closed minded to the idea that we’re closed minded.
5. Sin of prejudice
I’ve stopped buying Chinese food – just in case.
Prejudiced thinking is an intellectual vice we often start developing early in life. Children can be incredibly prejudiced in small ways – such as being unwilling to try new foods because they already somehow know they’re gross.
As a character flaw, it means we often substitute preconceived notions for actual thinking.
6. Sin of negligence
SARS was more deadly than COVID-19 and that wasn’t that big a deal
Creating a poor analogy like this one is not a substitute for thoughtful research and considered analysis.
Still, it is difficult to explore every single topic with thorough evaluation. There’s so much information out there at the moment it can be a real chore to investigate every claim we hear.
But if we’re not willing to check the facts, we’re being negligent in our thinking.
7. Sin of wishful thinking
This will all be over in a week or two and it’ll be business as usual.
Our capacity to believe in ourselves, our hard work, our friends and culture can often blind us to hard truths.
It’s perfectly fine to aim for a certain outcome but we need to recognise it doesn’t matter how much we hope for it – our desire doesn’t affect the likelihood of it happening.
A pandemic like COVID-19 shows our way of life is fragile and can change at any moment. Wishful thinking ignores the stark realities and can set us up for disappointment.
So, what can we do about it?
There are some questions we can ask ourselves to help improve our intellectual character traits:
What would change my mind?
It’s a red flag for sin of pride if nothing will change your mind.
What is the strongest argument the other side has?
We often hold each piece of the truth in our own perspective. It’s worth keeping in mind that unless there’s wanton cruelty involved, chances are differing arguments will have some good points.
What groups would gain or lose the most if we keep thinking this way?
Sometimes we fail to consider the practical outcomes of our thoughts for people who aren’t like us. We’ve seen in the last few weeks that the people who have a lot to lose (such as casual workers) matter when it comes to the way we respond to the pandemic.
It’s worth taking a moment to consider their perspectives.
How much do you actually know about an issue? Who is an expert?
The experts always have something to say. If they agree on it, it’s a good indication we should believe them. If there isn’t general consensus, we should be dubious of one-sided claims to truth.
And remember the person’s actual expertise – it’s too easy to mistake a political leader or famous person with an expert.
In challenging days like these, we may be able to help ensure a better outcome for everyone if we start by asking ourselves a few simple questions.
Understandably, given we are in a crisis, the government has baulked at including superannuation contributions in the A$140 billion worth of $1,500 per fortnight wage top-ups it will be directing to six million Australians.
This is in the middle of a treasury led Retirement Income Review that is considering, among other things, whether the current 9.5% of salary contribution should be increased to 10% and then to 10.5% and then in a series of annual steps to 12% by 2025.
In considering the idea (it is actually leglislated – if the government decided not to go ahead it would need to unleglislate it) it helps to go back to basiscs.
The blinding power of money
The trouble with money is most people are so busy looking at it they are blind to what’s going on in the real economy – by which I mean the production and distribution of goods and services.
Our current material standard of living depends almost entirely on our current ability to produce goods and services (assuming for a moment imports are funded by exports).
Similarly, our standard of living in 2050 will depend almost entirely on our capacity to produce goods at that time. This means it has little to do with how much money is in our superannuation accounts.
Part of the justification for superannuation is to get us more resources in retirement, and it will for those who have big super balances, but it won’t do much to change the total amount of resources available at the time.
The limits to saving
Often it’s put another way. We are told baby boomers need to fund themselves in retirement, instead of relying on pensions paid for by those who are still in the workforce.
But imagine a perfect scenario where every retired baby boomer has $1 million in super, freeing those still working from the tax burden of funding the pension.
When the boomers are using their super to buy services and goods, who are they going to take them away from?
You guessed it, those still working.
They’ll be giving up resources to support the retirement of boomers, whoever supplies the cash.
In the main, saving can’t create resources
If there was no superannuation and the government instead taxed current workers in order to fund retiree consumption, the real cost to workers would be the same. That cost is the provision of goods and services to retired people instead of workers.
Individuals can indeed save for the future by foregoing some goods and services today in order to have more of them later. Financial planners refer to it as consumption smoothing.
But an entire society can’t save for the future through consumption smoothing.
If Australia as a whole consumes fewer goods and services in one year, it is likely to reduce rather than increase its future wealth because it is fully utilised labour and capital that drives investment and productivity.
That’s what lies at the core of misunderstandings about the superannuation system. Foreign investment aside, it can’t allow an entire society to save for the future to support itself in retirement.
It can skew the distribution of resources in future years, away from those of working age and those with low super balances towards those with (tax concession subsidised) high super balances.
Boosting productivity can help
If our goal is an adequate and sustainable income in retirement for all Australians, our main priority ought to be ensuring that those remaining in the workforce are productive enough to support themselves, their children, those without work and those who have retired.
In other words, if you’re worried about the economic impact of our ageing population on our material standard of living (and there are reasons not to be worried) you would want our focus to be on productivity, rather than retirement savings.
To the extent retirement savings are used for productivity enhancing investment, that’s good. The reality is much of our retirement savings are funnelled relatively unthinkingly into an already bloated financial system where they expand speculative bubbles.
Like most important economic questions, the best retirement income system is not, at its core, solely an economic question, it is also a moral and political question about distribution and inequality.
So, with that in mind, here’s what my personal moral (plus economic) analysis tells me would be the best retirement income system.
We could give the money back, slowly
The best way would be to get rid of compulsory superannuation, give all the money back to account holders (slowly to avoid too much inflation), mandate a 9.5% pay rise in its place and redirect the tens of billions of dollars we currently spend on superannuation tax concessions toward rent assistance, a higher Newstart allowance and a higher pension.
With retired renters better looked after, a moderate (say 20%) increase in the pension, and continued indexation of the pension to wages, no retired Australian would be living in poverty.
It’d be sustainable so long as we ensured sufficient worker productivity, primarily through full employment, appropriate infrastructure investment and well-supported education, training and research.
With much of society now effectively in lockdown, how will we know when it’s safe to resume something like normality?
It will largely depend on being able to say who is safe from contracting the coronavirus, officially named SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease called COVID-19, and who still needs to stay out of harm’s way. A blood test to detect who has antibodies against the virus would be a crucial aid.
An antibody test – which would identify those whose immune systems have already encountered the virus, as opposed to current tests that reveal the presence of the virus itself – will be an important part of efforts to track the true extent of the outbreak.
This is because the antibody test will be able to determine whether someone has been infected with virus, even if they haven’t shown symptoms.
When we get infected with the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), one of the ways our immune system fights the virus is by making antibodies. These small molecules bind specifically to SARS-CoV-2 (and not other viruses or bacteria), and combat the infection, mainly by preventing the virus from entering our cells.
Even after we’ve cleared a particular virus infection, these antibodies stay in our bloodstream, ready to protect us if we encounter the same virus again. This is the principle behind vaccination.
Because antibodies are specific to a particular virus, that means if we can detect SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in someone’s blood, we know that person has already been infected with the coronavirus.
Scientists in the United States and Europe have already developed specific antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2. Laboratory tests show that only antibodies from SARS-CoV-2 patients will bind to SARS-CoV-2 (and not to the 2003 SARS virus, for example). This tells us the test is specific.
Testing times
Antibody tests are different from the current testing kits used at COVID-19 clinics, which reveal the presence of the virus itself (by detecting its genetic material), rather than our antibodies against it.
That is useful for determining whether someone is currently infected, but cannot spot people who have already fought off the virus. In contrast, the antibody tests won’t be able to detect if someone is newly infected with SARS-CoV-2, as it takes our immune system a week or more to make antibodies. So we still need to do the existing tests to accurately diagnose a current infection.
Many companies have developed rapid test kits for detecting anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The UK is already rolling out 3.5 million antibody tests, while Australia has ordered 1.5 million antibody tests to determine whether patients showing symptoms of fever and cough are infected.
What still needs to be tested is how specific those kits are. It’s vital that these antibody test kits are only able to detect antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, and not other coronaviruses or even viruses of other types. Otherwise, people might think they are protected against SARS-CoV-2 when in fact they aren’t.
Additionally, because the onset of symptoms may appear within 2-14 days after exposure, a person might test negative to the antibody test but actually be infected. So we really still need to use the two tests together to accurately diagnose patients with COVID-19.
A new test developed by NSW Health Pathology will also be able to determine whether the antibodies in the blood are able to kill the virus. These kinds of tests will help clinicians and scientists measure exactly how soon after infection we develop antibodies, what levels are needed to be protective, and how long these antibodies stay in our body.
These antibody tests have been developed much more rapidly than vaccines, which are still many months away. This is because the antibody tests are done outside the body, using just a small blood sample, perhaps just a pinprick.
In contrast, a vaccine needs to be injected into the body, so it has to be tested for safety as well as effectiveness.
For a vaccine, we first need to understand how the immune response to the virus itself works, because essentially a vaccine is trying to trick the immune system into thinking it’s seen the virus before so it makes protective antibodies. Then, we need to thoroughly test any candidate vaccine to ensure it doesn’t make people ill. This means we probably won’t see any vaccines for at least 12 months.
The new antibody tests will also help guide vaccine development. By measuring antibody levels in infected and recovered patients, we’ll have a much better idea of the levels of protective antibodies a vaccine needs to elicit.
While we wait for a vaccine, the new antibody tests will give scientists, doctors and public health officials much more information about who gets infected, who has already been infected and recovered, and how protected we are against reinfection.
But there is still a long way to go before we can test people’s blood for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and confidently say it is safe for people to go back to work or into the community without getting sick.
Ultimately it is up to our community leaders and public health officials to decide when it is safe for us to resume normal life.
People in Western Australia may soon see more than birds in the sky, as the state’s police force has announced plans to deploy drones to enforce social distancing. The drones will visit parks, beaches and cafe strips, ensuring people comply with the most recent round of gathering rules.
As COVID-19 restrictions tighten around the world, governments are harnessing the potential of drones. From delivering medical supplies, to helping keep people indoors – drones can do a lot in a pandemic.
It’s clear drones are helping combat COVID-19, as governments use them to control and monitor.
But these measures may be difficult to rollback once the pandemic passes. And safeguards will be needed to prevent unwanted surveillance in the future.
Social distancing has inspired some quirky uses by individuals, including walking the dog and asking for a date.
But the main game has been about control. China is using drones to enforce quarantine rules and deter gatherings that violate social distancing rules.
One viral video showed a drone scolding an elderly woman for not wearing a mask. In some cases, traffic police and municipal officials used drones fitted with speakers to order people home and break up mahjong games.
Flying at high altitudes, drones can help police and other officials monitor large areas to identify those violating restrictions. Similar tactics are being used in Madrid and Nice, with talk of deployment in many other places.
A defence for the ‘good drone’?
There are huge advantages in sending drones into disaster zones such as bushfires, or remote landscapes for search and rescue. Pilots can safely stream crucial vision from a drone’s optical and thermal cameras.
Like all technologies, the question with drones should be about how they are used. For instance, inspecting the breached nuclear reactor at Fukushima with drones is sensible. But embedding systems of control that can be turned against civilians is its own disaster in the making.
Normalising surveillance
With high definition and infrared images streamed to command stations, China’s drones may be able to use facial recognition to identify specific individuals using its Social Credit System, and fine them for indiscretions.
This level of social control may be appealing in a pandemic that could cost millions of lives. But it could also have chilling effects on social and political life.
Surveillance tools typically work best for social control when people know they are being watched. Even in liberal societies, people might think twice about joining climate or racial justice protests if they know they’ll be recorded by a drone overhead.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used drones to capture scenes from the 2017 Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore.FBI / ACLU
Feeling like you’re constantly being watched can can create a kind of atmospheric anxiety, particularly for marginalised groups that are already closely monitored because of their religion or welfare status.
Putting more drones in the sky raises concerns about trust, privacy, data protection and ownership. In a crisis, those questions are often ignored. This was clear after 9/11, when the world learnt the lessons of surveillance systems and draconian national security laws.
We might be fine with delivery drones in Canberra, or disaster drones ferrying urgent medical supplies, but how would we feel if they were indistinguishable from drones piloted by police, the military or private security companies?
A team at the University of South Australia is currently designing a “pandemic” drone to detect virus symptoms such as fever and coughing from a distance. Valuable as that is now, this tool could easily be used to intrusively manage the public’s health after the crisis is over.
It can be difficult to see the long term impacts of choices made in an emergency. But now is the best time for policymakers to set limits on how drones an be used in public space.
They need to write sunset clauses into new laws so that surveillance and control systems are rolled back once the pandemic eases, and create accountability mechanisms to ensure oversight.
Private hospitals will be on the frontline in the coronavirus battle, under an arrangement with the federal government that makes available the sector’s more than 30,000 beds and 105,000 workforce, including more than 57,000 nursing staff.
The government will offer agreements to Australia’s 657 private and not-for-profit hospitals “to ensure their viability, in return for maintenance and capacity” during the COVID-19 crisis.
The agreement makes available more resources to meet the virus crisis, preserves the private hospital workforce, and is designed to allow a speedy resumption of non-elective surgery and other normal activity when the crisis has passed.
The states will complete “private hospital COVID-19 partnership agreements”, with the Commonwealth paying half the cost.
“In an unprecedented move, private hospitals, including both overnight and day hospitals, will integrate with state and territory health systems in the COVID-19 response,” the government said in a Tuesday statement.
These hospitals “will be required to make infrastructure, essential equipment (including ventilators), supplies (including personal protective equipment), workforce and additional resources fully available to the state and territory hospital system or the Australian government”.
Private hospitals will support the COVID-19 response through:
Hospital services for public patients – both positive and negative for COVID 19
Category 1 (urgent) elective surgery
Use of wards and theatres to expand ICU capacity
Accommodation for quarantine and isolation cases where necessary, and safety procedures and training are in place, including:
Cruise and flight COVID-19 passengers
Quarantine of vulnerable members of the community
Isolation of infected vulnerable COVID-19 patients.
The cost of the move is estimated at $1.3 billion.
Last week the government announced a ban on non-urgent elective surgery. While this freed up beds and staff, it would also strip the hospitals of core income and threaten the collapse of some hospitals with government action.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the agreement dramatically expanded the capacity of the Australian hospitals system to deal with COVID-19, at the same time as the curve of new cases showed early signs of being flattened.
The private hospitals “are available as an extension now of the public hospital system in Australia. So, whilst we’re not taking ownership, we have struck a partnership, where in return for the state agreements and the commonwealth guarantee, they will be fully integrated within the public hospital system”.
Hunt said the $1.3 billion estimated cost was not capped. “If more is required, more will be provided. If it turns out that it’s not that expensive, then those funds will be available for other activities. That takes our total additional investment to over $5.4 billion within the health sector.”
In a letter to private hospital providers, Hunt stressed: “A fundamental principle of this agreement is that it contributes towards to your ongoing viability, not profits or loan/debt repayments”.
The Commonwealth deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth said intense efforts were being made to ramp up rapidly the number of ventilators.
He said there were some 2,200 ventilated intensive care beds in Australia. Currently just over 20 were being used for COVID-19 patients.
With immediate expansion, including repurposing and use of the private sector, this could be increased to 4,400.
“Our target capacity for ventilated intensive care beds in Australia currently stands at 7,500.
“We are working around the clock to procure ventilators,” he said. “Locally, we will have 500 intensive care ventilators fabricated by ResMed, backed up by 5,000 non-invasive ventilators, with full delivery expected by the end of April.”
The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association welcomed the “ground-breaking agreement” with private hospitals for ensuring both the best use of resources and the stability of the health system for the future.
The Australian tally of cases as of early Tuesday was 4359, with 19 deaths; 230,000 tests had been completed.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has eased restrictions on the media industry in New Zealand during the four-week lockdown, saying it was not exempt from the financial hardship caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
It was put in place last week as New Zealand prepared to go into a level 4 alert and on lockdown. It can be extended as many times as necessary.
About the news media, Ardern said: “It is our decision that a very limited number of publications which can demonstrate they fill an un-met need, and can also show they have appropriate health and safety measures in place to minimise the transmission of Covid-19 during production and delivery, will be approved as essential.”
– Partner –
She said the country must have ongoing access to independent media sources.
This decision only relates to smaller rural newspapers and those informing non-English language communities. Other publications – including printed magazines such as key publications such as NZ Listener and Metro – will remain non-essential.
NZ Post delivery Ardern said newspaper delivery must be done by NZ Post or through supermarkets, not by the usual delivery people.
The owner of The New Zealand Herald, the country’s largest newspaper, and Newstalk ZB radio has warned staff that job losses and major changes to the company’s scope and scale are coming, as the pandemic economic crisis cuts into advertising revenue.
In an email to staff today, NZME chief executive Michael Boggs wrote that the company had suffered a swift and significant downturn as the country ramped up its measures to stop the spread of Covid-19.
The company would have to contract to continue operating, he said.
“The ongoing decline in revenue caused by the impact of COVID-19 continues to be significant,” he said.
“This is uncharted territory, and no one knows when that will change. We must now make changes to the scope and scale of our business and do so quickly. This will inevitably result in job losses.”
Civil Defence director Sarah Stuart-Black also earlier extended the national state of emergency, which gives the state extra powers during a crisis, for another seven days.
The seven-day extension means the emergency will now last until at least 12.21pm on Wednesday, April 8.
The State of Emergency is different from the four-week lockdown New Zealand is currently in. The length of the lockdown is still four weeks at this stage.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) supports Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Groups in their planning and operations.
NEMA is in charge in a State of National Emergency. CDEM says these types of emergencies are rare.
This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
If you havesymptomsof the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP – don’t show up at a medical centre.
People in Western Australia may soon see more than birds in the sky, as the state’s police force has announced plans to deploy drones to enforce social distancing. The drones will visit parks, beaches and cafe strips, ensuring people comply with the most recent round of gathering rules.
As COVID-19 restrictions tighten around the world, governments are harnessing the potential of drones. From delivering medical supplies, to helping keep people indoors – drones can do a lot in a pandemic.
It’s clear drones are helping combat COVID-19, as governments use them to control and monitor.
But these measures may be difficult to rollback once the pandemic passes. And safeguards will be needed to prevent unwanted surveillance in the future.
Social distancing has inspired some quirky uses by individuals, including walking the dog and asking for a date.
But the main game has been about control. China is using drones to enforce quarantine rules and deter gatherings that violate social distancing rules.
One viral video showed a drone scolding an elderly woman for not wearing a mask. In some cases, traffic police and municipal officials used drones fitted with speakers to order people home and break up mahjong games.
Flying at high altitudes, drones can help police and other officials monitor large areas to identify those violating restrictions. Similar tactics are being used in Madrid and Nice, with talk of deployment in many other places.
A defence for the ‘good drone’?
There are huge advantages in sending drones into disaster zones such as bushfires, or remote landscapes for search and rescue. Pilots can safely stream crucial vision from a drone’s optical and thermal cameras.
Like all technologies, the question with drones should be about how they are used. For instance, inspecting the breached nuclear reactor at Fukushima with drones is sensible. But embedding systems of control that can be turned against civilians is its own disaster in the making.
Normalising surveillance
With high definition and infrared images streamed to command stations, China’s drones may be able to use facial recognition to identify specific individuals using its Social Credit System, and fine them for indiscretions.
This level of social control may be appealing in a pandemic that could cost millions of lives. But it could also have chilling effects on social and political life.
Surveillance tools typically work best for social control when people know they are being watched. Even in liberal societies, people might think twice about joining climate or racial justice protests if they know they’ll be recorded by a drone overhead.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used drones to capture scenes from the 2017 Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore.FBI / ACLU
Feeling like you’re constantly being watched can can create a kind of atmospheric anxiety, particularly for marginalised groups that are already closely monitored because of their religion or welfare status.
Putting more drones in the sky raises concerns about trust, privacy, data protection and ownership. In a crisis, those questions are often ignored. This was clear after 9/11, when the world learnt the lessons of surveillance systems and draconian national security laws.
We might be fine with delivery drones in Canberra, or disaster drones ferrying urgent medical supplies, but how would we feel if they were indistinguishable from drones piloted by police, the military or private security companies?
A team at the University of South Australia is currently designing a “pandemic” drone to detect virus symptoms such as fever and coughing from a distance. Valuable as that is now, this tool could easily be used to intrusively manage the public’s health after the crisis is over.
It can be difficult to see the long term impacts of choices made in an emergency. But now is the best time for policymakers to set limits on how drones an be used in public space.
They need to write sunset clauses into new laws so that surveillance and control systems are rolled back once the pandemic eases, and create accountability mechanisms to ensure oversight.
“How to home school” has been trending on Google for the past few weeks as more and more children stay home from school because of COVID-19.
So, what is homeschooling and is this what parents whose children are learning from home are now doing?
What is home education?
Home education is one of the world’s fastest growing educational movements.
In its broadest sense, home education can be understood as any form of education that occurs outside of a physical school. It includes the 20,000 or so students registered for home education in Australia, as well as distance education students – who are enrolled in a school but learn remotely.
There are a wide variety of home education approaches and they lie on a spectrum. Highly structured approaches that mirror school, with a detailed curriculum and lots of book work, lie at one end. Most people can imagine what that looks like because it’s not that different from traditional schooling.
At the other end is unschooling, where children choose the direction of their learning. In this approach, there may be no formal written work.
With unschooling, the choice is as much of a lifestyle as an education. Parents act as facilitators of their child’s learning, sourcing and providing access to resources and then getting out of the way. Research suggests unschoolers are more likely to be satisfied with their education and have an intrinsic motivation to learn.
Most home educating families’ approaches fall somewhere in between and use a mix of parent-directed and child-directed learning.
What are the legal requirements of home educators?
Each state and territory in Australia has its own laws and requirements around home education. In essence, parents need to apply to register their children. Some states such as the Northern Territory require you to follow any Australian approved curriculum (such as the Australian Curriculum, Montessori or Steiner).
Others, including Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and the ACT, stipulate you just need to cover key learning areas such as English, Maths, Science, Arts, Technology, Health, Humanities or Languages.
Regardless of where they are located, parents indicate their intention to home educate by completing a form from their state’s education department. They then need to develop a plan of their approach, and to show their plan will meet the child’s individual learning needs.
Age levels and year levels are less important in home education – children’s work is targeted to where they are up to not their age.
Parents can buy a pre-packaged curriculum and resources or they can develop their own. They can use tutors and group classes, as well as activities like scouts and sporting teams, and everyday hands-on activities as a part of their learning. If they need to, parents can adapt to better meet their child’s needs.
At the end of the registration period, most states and territories require parents to report on their child’s progress.
Are we all homeschoolers now?
To some extent, when it comes to educating your child at home, this situation is unique – in other respects it’s not.
Many homeschooling families have brought their child home to learn because of a crisis, such as related to bullying, health, or a disability.
But families in this new wave of accidental home educators don’t have to register their children with their state or territory education department. The child’s enrolment is maintained with their school.
And, in most cases, the schools are sending work home. Reports on the ground suggest this is working well for many families.
But some parents are reporting difficulties implementing what they’re being asked to do at home. This is particularly so when they’re balancing their child’s education with their own work requirements, or where the schoolwork is worksheet heavy.
If this is your situation, you are not alone and schools are trying their best to make this work. Hopefully, with more time, things will run more smoothly.
What new homeschoolers can learn from the old
Many long established home education families work from home as well, so they empathise with parents’ new found juggle of work and schooling. There’s some things schools and parents can learn from how home educators manage things.
Think about other ways of learning apart from book work. Some children thrive on book work, but others need more hands on tasks. If your child is struggling, talk their teacher and see if he or she is open to you covering the content in a different way.
For example, an alternative to doing fractions through worksheets might be cooking a meal. Cooking allows you to introduce other concepts such as addition and mass (mathematics), following a procedural text (literacy), discussing your experience of learning to cook (humanities and social science), nutrition (health), and even the science of molecular gastronomy. And everyone gets fed.
That’s something else to keep in mind – kids can sometimes help their parents with the things they need to do. Whether that’s cooking or helping you set up the technology for an online work meeting. Home educating families are used to seeing the learning happening in everyday activities, and doing so can help parents feel less stressed about what their child is missing out on.
If you’re struggling with working out how to do this, there’s support in home education social media groups, where experienced home educators are providing support to parents (and teachers).
Keep in mind, much of this situation is new to home educators too. They’re not used to being at home so much either – much of their learning is normally in the community.
But organisations and groups are doing what they can to link families to the outside world. People are providing online storytime, and zoos, wildlife parks, museums and galleries are freely available online.
With the raft of social distancing measures in place to control the spread of coronavirus, you may be spending more time with your partner than ever before.
If you’re both working from home, and with nowhere to go out to in the evenings, there’s a chance you might start to get on each other’s nerves. Perhaps it’s happening already.
This is normal, particularly given the increased stress we’re all feeling right now. But since we could be in this predicament for a while yet, it’s worth taking steps to ensure we get through this period with our relationships intact. We might even be able to come out stronger.
American psychology researcher John Gottman proposed certain behaviours, or the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, lead to the dissolution of romantic relationships.
The first horseman is criticism. This behaviour is defined as an attack on your partner’s character, as distinct from offering a critique or voicing a specific complaint.
Particularly at a time like this, you might be keeping track of your partner’s flaws but not saying anything so as to avoid conflict. But bottled up, anger and frustration will turn to resentment, which you may express by criticising your partner.
Psychologists explain criticism includes inflexible “always” and “never” statements such as “you always have to have the last word” or “you never listen”.
Make sure your daily routine includes quality time spent as a couple.Shutterstock
The second horseman is contempt. This behaviour is defined as an insult to your partner. People might do this verbally using sarcasm, or simply by rolling their eyes.
An example is when your partner is talking to you and you say “here we go again” without mindfully listening to what they are trying to say.
The third horseman is defensiveness. This behaviour is defined as a counterattack, most often in response to perceived criticism. People use this as a strategy to protect themselves when they are feeling victimised. They assign their partner responsibility for causing them pain.
You might be exhibiting defensiveness if you’re constantly feeling criticised, misunderstood and blamed by your partner without cause, and have an “I am right and they are wrong” attitude.
The fourth horseman is stonewalling. This behaviour is defined by elaborate manoeuvres to avoid interacting with a partner. People who stonewall will often stop communicating with their partner, with the exception of negative non-verbal gestures.
Turn this crisis into an opportunity
People deal with stressful situations by rationalising the best way to protect themselves. This might mean pushing your partner away using the four horsemen.
Gottman estimated these behaviours are 90% accurate in predicting relationship dissolution if not addressed. In his research, couples exhibiting all four horsemen who divorced did so on average 5.6 years after marriage.
Don’t bottle things up.Shutterstock
A lack of relationship skills – that’s not being open to finding solutions and not admitting any fault for relationship breakdown – is another key contributor to relationship dissolution. So it’s important to do your best to work on your relationship at this time.
As well as making an effort to avoid the four horsemen, here are some other tips for how you and your partner can emerge from this crisis with your relationship intact – if not improved:
monitor the balance between positive and negative interactions with your partner. Aim for a ratio of 5:1
own your feelings: use “I” statements to voice your needs as opposed to “you” statements to explain what your partner needs to do or change
listen to your partner’s feelings and validate their response to this crisis as being OK. Don’t become defensive and attack your partner for how they feel or act
reassure your partner of their safety. Have a conversation about what safety means to both of you and how you plan to keep yourselves and other members the household safe. This might also include an exercise of discerning facts from myths around the current crisis
make a new routine with your partner to fit around working at home and family commitments at home. This routine needs to include quality couple time (don’t be afraid to touch, be intimate with and have sex with your partner if you’re both healthy)
this new routine also needs to include time apart. Give each other time to work on individual hobbies and take it in turns looking after the kids or other family members at home
make plans with your partner for after the crisis is over. It’s important to accept the reality, but also acknowledge this is not permanent. Planning can help keep you positive and motivated to stay safe
use this time to practise healthier habits such as eating well, sleeping, exercising, practising mindfulness and learning a new skill. These things improve mental well-being and if done together, can help build intimacy.
But there is no scientific evidence to suggest mosquitoes are transmitting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
There is much more to learn about the coronavirus but based on current understandings, it’s highly unlikely a mosquito will pick up the virus by biting an infected person, let alone be able to pass it on.
Female mosquitoes need the nutrition contained in blood to help develop their eggs. Viruses take advantage of this biological requirement of mosquitoes to move from host to host.
But for a mosquito to become infected, it first needs to bite an infected animal, such as a bird or kangaroo, or a person.
Mosquitoes can transmit a number of viruses, including dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, Zika and Ross River virus. They can also transmit malaria, which is caused by a parasite.
But they can’t transmit many other viruses, including HIV and Ebola.
You can’t catch the coronavirus, HIV or Ebola from mosquitoes, but they can transmit a number of other viruses.Holly Mandarich/Unsplash
For HIV, mosquitoes themselves don’t become infected. It’s actually unlikely a mosquito will pick up the virus when it bites an infected person due to the low concentrations of the HIV circulating in their blood.
Even if a mosquito did pick up a high enough dose of the virus in a blood meal, there is no evidence the virus would be able to infect the mosquito itself.
And if the mosquito isn’t infected, it won’t be able to transmit it to the next person she bites.
Why some viruses and not others?
It’s easy to think of mosquitoes as tiny flying dirty syringes transferring droplets of infected blood from person to person. The reality is far more complex.
When a mosquito bites and sucks up some blood that contains a virus, the virus quickly ends up in the gut of the insect.
From there, the virus needs to infect the cells lining the gut and “escape” to infect the rest of the body of the mosquito, spreading to the legs, wings, and head.
After being sucked up in blood, the virus ends up in the mosquito’s gut.Cameron Webb, Author provided (No reuse)
The virus then has to infect the salivary glands before being passed on by the mosquito when it next bites.
This process can take a few days to over a week.
But time isn’t the only barrier. The virus also has to negotiate getting out of the gut, getting through the body, and then into the saliva. Each step in the process can be an impenetrable barrier for the virus.
This may be straightforward for viruses that have adapted to this process but for others, the virus will perish in the gut or be excreted.
