Living through a global pandemic over the past year has seen all of us expanding our vocabularies. We now understand terms like PPE, social distancing and contact tracing.
But just when perhaps we thought we had a handle on most of the terminology, we’re faced with another set of new words: mutation, variant and strain.
So, what do they mean?
The genetic material of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, is called ribonucleic acid (RNA). To replicate, and therefore establish infection, SARS-CoV-2 RNA must hijack a host cell and use the cell’s machinery to duplicate itself.
Errors often occur during the process of duplicating the viral RNA. This results in viruses that are similar but not exact copies of the original virus. These errors in the viral RNA are called mutations, and viruses with these mutations are called variants. Variants could differ by a single or many mutations.
Not all mutations have the same effect. To understand this better, we need to understand the basics of our genetic code (DNA for humans; RNA for SARS-CoV-2). This code is like a blueprint on which all organisms are built. When a mutation occurs at a single point, it won’t necessarily change any of the building blocks (called amino acids). In this case, it won’t change how the organism (human or virus) is built.
On occasion though, these single mutations occur in a part of the virus RNA that causes a change in a particular building block. In some cases, there could be many mutations that together alter the building block.
A variant is a referred to as a strain when it shows distinct physical properties. Put simply, a strain is a variant that is built differently, and so behaves differently, to its parent virus. These behavioural differences can be subtle or obvious.
For example, these differences could involve a variant binding to a different cell receptor, or binding more strongly to a receptor, or replicating more quickly, or transmitting more efficiently, and so on.
Essentially, all strains are variants, but not all variants are strains.
Viruses with mutations become variants. If the variant displays different physical properties to the original virus, we call it a new strain.Lara Herrero, created using BioRender, Author provided
Common variants (which are also strains)
Three of the most common SARS-CoV-2 variants are what we’ve come to know as the UK variant (B.1.1.7), the South African variant (B.1.351) and the Brazilian variant (P.1). Each contains several different mutations.
Let’s look at the UK variant as an example. This variant has a large number of mutations in the spike protein, which aids the virus in its effort to invade human cells.
The increased transmission of the UK variant is believed to be associated with a mutation called N501Y, which allows SARS-CoV-2 to bind more readily to the human receptor ACE2, the entry point for SARS-CoV-2 to a wide range of human cells.
The UK variant has recently been picked up in Australia.Erik Anderson/AAP
This variant is now widespread in more than 70 countries, and has recently been detected in Australia.
While we commonly call it the “UK variant” (which it is), it’s also a strain because it displays different behaviours to the parental strain.
We’ve got lots more to learn
There is some confusion around how best to use these terms. Given all strains are variants (but not all variants are strains), it makes sense the term variant is more common. But when the science shows these variants behave differently, it would be more accurate to call them strains.
The big question everyone is asking at the moment is how the new variants and strains will affect the efficacy of our COVID vaccines.
The scientific community is uncovering more information about emerging mutations, variants and strains all the time, and leading vaccine developers are testing and evaluating the efficacy of their vaccines in this light.
Some recently licensed vaccines appear to protect well against the UK variant but recent data from Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and Oxford/AstraZeneca indicates possible reduced protection against the South African variant.
Health authorities in South Africa recently paused their rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for this reason. However, its too early to tell what impact, if any, this will have on Australia’s vaccine plans.
The vaccine rollout in Australia will assess all information as it comes to light and ensure optimal available protection for the population.
In the lead-up to this year’s United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, the Morrison government is inching towards adopting a net-zero emissions target for 2050. If Prime Minister Scott Morrison can resist internal party pressure to exempt some sectors from the commitment, the target would be welcome.
It would also bring Australia into line with its international peers. More than 120 other governments have made similar pledges, including China, the European Union and the United States.
However, Morrison is reportedly considering not making the target legally binding. In that case, it would not need assent from parliament and Coalition backbenchers averse to climate action could not vote against it.
But if that happens, the commitment is likely to be meaningless. As recent political history shows, emissions reduction targets must be enshrined in law if we’re to have any hope of reaching them.
Binding emissions targets are needed to make a dent in climate change.Charlie Reidel/AP
The value of a good law
A well-designed climate law can achieve two main goals: ensuring Australia meets and beats its emissions targets, and that those targets are consistent with the best available science.
In 2012, the Gillard Labor government passed a comprehensive climate law known as the Clean Energy Act. The legislation underpinned Labor’s carbon price scheme, which was famously repealed by the Abbott government in 2014. The law was unusual in setting a fixed carbon price rather than an emissions target, but over time the policy would have met the goals set out above.
The laws were only in place for a few years, but quickly began working to bring down emissions. This is because businesses, in particular the electricity sector, faced mandatory financial costs if they failed to comply.
When the law was abolished, Australia also lost much of the institutional infrastructure needed to drive emissions down. For example, the Climate Change Authority – while surviving the Abbott government’s effort to scrap it – lost its central role in advising on carbon budgets and emissions targets.
Australia now has no national mechanism to put a legally binding cap on emissions. Instead, we have a hodgepodge of voluntary schemes and incentive mechanisms. These include the Climate Solutions Fund (formerly the Emissions Reduction Fund), under which the government pays polluters to cut their emissions, and the Technology Investment Roadmap.
The Emissions Reduction Fund has had modest impact. But as Australian National University environmental economist Frank Jotzo has noted, it’s “vastly less effective and efficient” than the carbon pricing mechanism it replaced.
Without a legally binding target, climate action becomes voluntary. The federal government cannot compel industry and others to reduce their emissions, and itself is not held to account.
As the Australian experience over the past 15 years has shown, the lack of a legal imperative means climate policy goes nowhere. Arguments about emissions reduction become mired in internal party bickering and parliamentary paralysis, and vested fossil fuel interests continue to profit while damaging the planet.
Emissions reduction, if not set into law, can get bogged down in internal party politics.Sam Mooy/AAP
Steggall on the right track
Independent Warringah MP Zali Steggall recently stepped into the climate policy vacuum. Her Climate Change Bill, currently the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, is supported by both the business sector and environment groups.
Both Steggall’s bill and the Gillard government’s legislation draw inspiration from the UK Climate Change Act. That law passed in 2008 with bipartisan support, and has done much to decarbonise Britain’s economy.
The UK’s CO₂ emissions reportedly fell by 2.9% in 2019. Over the decade to 2020, as the economy grew by one-fifth, emissions fell by 29%.
Key features of both the UK legislation and Steggall’s bill include:
a legally binding, economy-wide, 2050 net zero emissions target
an independent expert body to advise the government on emissions targets and emissions budgets
a requirement for the government to set five-year emissions “budgets” and adopt emissions-reduction plans to meet them.
This approach is not policy-prescriptive. Unlike the Gillard government’s law, it does not mandate the adoption of an emissions trading scheme. Instead, the government determines how to stay within the carbon budget.
Nonetheless, such a law imposes a legal obligation on the government to follow it.
And even if it did hit the target – a 26% emissions reduction between 2005 and 2030 – the goal is widely regarded as inadequate. Most recently, an expert panel last week concluded a target of 50% below 2005 levels would be consistent with limiting global warming to well below 2℃ this century.
As for the target of net-zero by 2050, the Labor opposition says government projections show it will take Australia 146 years to reach that goal.
Australia’s Emissions Projections, December 2020.Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.
Clearly, Australia is off track, and legally binding targets are needed.
National legislation exists to tackle other environmental and pollution issues. For example, laws have successfully reduced ozone-depleting substances and synthetic greenhouse gases.
This shows the value of mandatory regulation, set in law, to address a global pollution challenge.
Learn from the past
Under the Paris Agreement, Australia must scale up emissions-reduction targets every five years. Unless our national commitment is backed by legislation, it will not be seen as credible in the eyes of the international community.
While states and territories such as Victoria and the ACT have enacted strong climate change laws, this is no substitute for a national approach.
In Australia and internationally, climate lawmaking has been going on for more than a decade. The evidence is clear: well designed, binding climate laws do effectively tackle the climate crisis. Anything less may well turn out be an empty promise.
It’s not often centre-left economists disagree with each other – let alone get into a stoush. But it’s what happened over the last week.
On February 5 former US Treasury Secretary and National Economic Council Chair Larry Summers published an opinion piece suggesting the Biden administration’s US$1.9 trillion bill might be “too big”.
MIT economics professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard backed Summers on twitter, saying
I am known as a dove [one who supports low interest rates and generous government assistance] I believe that the absolute priority is to protect people and firms affected by COVID. Still, I agree with Summers. The $1.9 trillion program could overheat the economy so badly as to be counterproductive. Protection can be achieved with less.
This all caused a good deal of consternation within the Biden administration, and led the current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to push back hard, saying “we are in a huge hole with respect to the job market”.
Former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee backed Yellen and Biden, saying
further delay in approving a larger relief program would be a mistake. That ‘wait and see’ approach has proved to be deeply wrong since the pandemic began. The issue is what I have called the No. 1 rule of virus economics: If you want to help the economy, you have to stop the virus.
So who’s right?
The case for restraint
Biden’s plan is big.STEFANI REYNOLDS/EPA
The core of Summers’ argument is that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the economy is running $50 billion a month below it’s potential, an output gap that will decline to $20 billion a month over the course of the year.
The improvement is in part because of a $900 billion package approved in December under the Trump administration.
Summers points out the Biden administration’s extra $1.9 trillion package would be three times larger than the projected shortfall in output.
As a result, it would “set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the dollar and financial stability”.
As well, a package so large might preclude the future spending on infrastructure and productivity-enhancing measures that will be needed to overcome the sluggish growth (“secular stagnation”) identified by Summers before COVID-19.
The case for bold action
Those who support the Biden plan argue it isn’t a traditional stimulus package of the kind Obama enacted in 2009 to get the economy out of recession. COVID is more like a natural disaster.
The spending package is akin to disaster relief, and it’s unwise to skimp on disaster relief.
That said, about a quarter the $1.9 trillion will be spent on sending $1,400 cheques to individuals, on top of the $600 cheques sent as part of the earlier package. That part looks more like a traditional stimulus measure than disaster relief.
So, who’s right?
The central controversy is whether the output gap is large enough to accommodate the Biden spending without undue inflationary pressure.
Financial journalist Matt Yglesias has looked to the markets for an answer.
He points out that
because the government sells both regular bonds and inflation-protected bonds, if you look at the difference between the interest rate on a regular bond and the interest rate on an inflation-protected bond, you get a market estimate of how much inflation is expected in the future
The resulting graph shows inflation expectation has moved back into the Federal Reserve’s target window of 2-3%.
What this means depends on what the market thinks will happen to the package.
If it thinks the full package will be enacted, it looks like an endorsement. The package should be enough to get inflation back to the target, but not enough to accelerate it beyond that.
But if it thinks only a fraction will be enacted – maybe half or two-thirds – but what turns out to be enacted is the full package, it might mean the market expects inflation to run out of control, just as Summers and Blanchard suggest.
So the markets provides clues, but no answer. It will give us a better steer when we are certain how much of the package will become a reality.
For now, it’s hard to tell who’s right: Summers and Blanchard, or the Biden administration.
Given that the US Federal Reserve would put the brakes on inflation if it did start to take off, it’s probably wisest to back Biden and run the risk of spending too big rather than too small.
Ask anyone the identity of the world’s most famed turtles, and the answer is likely to be those legendary heroes in a half-shell, the Teenage Mutant Ninjas. Since first appearing in comic book form in 1984, the pizza-eating, nunchuk-wielding characters have shown the world the tougher side of turtles.
Part of the appeal of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is that, as animals, they seem to be playing against type. Turtles in the modern day are usually considered placid animals, an image exemplified by the easygoing surfer-turtle, Crush, in Finding Nemo.
To humans, the dawdling turtle is generally perceived as non-threatening. (An important exception here is made for the turtle with an accomplice. The Greek poet Aeschylus is said to have been killed by a tortoise dropped from the sky by an eagle). Indeed, the turtle’s “gentle” image may partially explain the animal’s enduring popularity with children.
Rather than being a recent anomaly, the image of the turtle warrior is common to many ancient and modern cultures. Indeed, the first known depiction of a turtle warrior is found in ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), in some of the world’s oldest known literature.
Dexterous flippers and shells as shields
The fictional ninja turtle draws on the creature’s many remarkable biological features. The sea turtle’s flippers are useful for propelling the animal through water, but recent research has revealed the surprising dexterity of its limbs.
Turtles can use their flippers for a variety of tasks, such as rolling a scallop across the sea floor, tossing their prey into the air to stun it, or even striking the prey in a chopping action. The discovery of the turtle’s ability to “karate chop” prey made international headlines, likely due to comparisons with their comic book avatars.
The word “turtle” generally describes all animals with a bony shell and a backbone, which may locally be referred to as turtles, tortoises, or terrapins. The term “tortoise” generally describes a land-based turtle, and “terrapin” refers to more aquatic species.
There are 360 known species of turtle, including seven species of sea turtle. Turtles have survived and thrived for many millions of years, colonising every continent except Antarctica, and inhabiting every ocean but the Arctic and Antarctic.
The turtle’s distinctive shell provides a kind of natural body-armour. As well as shielding the animals from predators, shells also provide protection from the natural elements. Shells are a living part of the turtle, and can offer a handy store of minerals such as calcium. For some tortoises, the defensive use of the shell is accompanied by an offensive one, used for battling rivals.
Shells are a living part of the turtle.Ricardo Braham/Unsplash
This combination of defensive and more aggressive elements in the turtle’s physiology has likely inspired the animal’s reception in human culture from the earliest time of civilisation.
An ancient attack turtle
The little-known Sumerian myth of Ninurta and the Turtle sees a warrior turtle fight against a legendary hero for the fate of the world. This Mesopotamian myth dates to early in the second millennium BCE.
The eponymous turtle in the narrative is created by the god of wisdom and fresh water, Enki, to retrieve a stolen tablet from the hero, Ninurta, and to teach him humility. The tablet holds special powers that control the path of fate for whomever holds it.
A turtle amulet from Egypt made of ivory or bone, c. 2150–1950 BCE.The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In the ancient story, Ninurta is sent to recover the tablet from a mythical beast, the Anzud Bird (sometimes called the “Thunderbird”). Ninurta is successful and the grateful deities tell him to name his reward. Ninurta feels the best reward is to simply hang on to the tablet and gain control over the whole world – in the style of an ancient super-villian.
So Enki builds an attack turtle from clay, which bites at Ninurta’s ankles. While he temporarily withstands the chomping chelid, the turtle then digs a deep “evil pit”, into which Ninurta falls. The magic tablet is retrieved, the world is saved, and the turtle continues its furious attack, tearing at Ninurta with its claws.
Turtles and Egyptian magic wands
In ancient Egypt, the turtle’s ability to submerge itself beneath the water saw it given the name “the mysterious one”. Turtles were viewed as powerful animals; their images were used for warding off evil.
Images of turtles were a common feature on the wooden and bronze rods used by Egyptian magicians. Often referred to in the modern day as “magic wands”, these rods were held in the left hand of a priest or a magician as they performed magic rites.
This Egyptian rod, c. 1878–1640 BC, is composed of four joining segments, with a turtle taking centre place.The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Images of powerful animals, such as baboons, crocodiles, and lions, and protective symbols such as the Eye of Horus, decorated the sides of the magic wand, while the figure of the turtle was attached to the top end of the rod.
Greek myth
The legendary Greek hero, Theseus, encounters a dangerous turtle on his mythical travels. Theseus is best known for entering the King of Minos’ labyrinth and slaying the monstrous Minotaur. When not wandering through island mazes, Theseus had many adventures involving other local rulers, including the bandit, Sciron.
Sciron lived high on the cliffs. When travellers passed by, he would make them kneel before him and wash his feet. Once they had crouched into a vulnerable posture, Sciron would kick the travellers into the sea, where they would be eaten by a monstrous turtle.
Theseus managed to defeat Sciron, casting him into the same sea patrolled by the giant turtle. This battle is preserved in ancient Greek art, with many works portraying the unhappy bandit’s fall from the cliffs, and the hungry turtle lurking below.
A bronze seal with knob in the shape of a turtle, from China c. 1st-2nd Century.The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Charlotte C. and John C. Weber Collection, Gift of Charlotte C. and John C. Weber, 1994.
In ancient China, depictions of the Taoist deity Zhenwu, whose name means “Perfected Warrior”, show the warrior with a tortoise and a snake. Zhenwu is found from the 3rd century BCE, he is considered capable of powerful magic.
The hidden quality of the turtle, tucked up in its shell, creates a mysterious image that makes a good fit for the “ninja” aspect of the cartoon heroes Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. “Turtle power” is a key element of the team’s success, but their influence reaches beyond the purchase of comic books and action figures.
The popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has drawn greater interest to the study and conservation of turtles and influenced herpetology. For some turtle specialists, the path to a career in the field began by following the adventures of the ninja turtle squad as children.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (henceforth TMNT) first appeared in a comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It shows the four combatants fighting against their arch nemesis, the evil Shredder, and his army, the Foot (an homage to fellow superhero Daredevil’s enemy, The Hand). In the present day, the TMNT have appeared in countless incarnations, from movies to pizza cutters.
Turtles in human warfare
As well as influencing artists and storytellers, the physical qualities of turtles have provided inspiration for human combatants. In Mesoamerica, the Spanish conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo reported sailing along the coast of the New World in 1518 and seeing warriors holding shields made of carefully polished turtle shells.
The turtle’s physical form is referenced in the Roman battle formation, the testudo (“tortoise”), which involved aligning the soldiers’ shields to create a protective barrier.
The turtle’s shape and protective shell has also seen it used as a muse by designers of military crafts. The world’s first armoured boat, the Korean Geobukseon, was called the “Turtle Ship”. Built around 1540 CE, the ship featured cannons fired through the mouth of a dragon carved into bow, and a turtle’s tail, armed with gunports, attached to the stern of the craft.
Another pioneering sea vessel inspired by the turtle is the world’s first submarine. The first known submersible craft with documented use in combat is the American Turtle. This vessel was created by David Bushnell in 1775, for use in the American Revolutionary War.
On September 6 1776, American Turtle was deployed to covertly draw close to the British Navy anchored in New York Harbour, to affix mines to the fleet’s flagship. After several attempts, the mission was aborted, and the Turtle floated away downstream.
The American Turtle was a a one-man submarine, designed to attach bombs to British warships during the American revolutionary war.Library of Congress
The Turtle’s maiden combat mission was also her last, but the craft left a lasting impression on maritime history and the war’s participants. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson dated to 26 September 1785 — shortly before becoming the first president of the United States — George Washington described the turtle-like submarine as “an effort of genius”.
Turtles in Australian naval history
Turtles and submarines were successfully paired in Australian naval history. In 1996, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation developed an underwater, remote-controlled vehicle “Wayamba”. The vehicle’s name comes from the First Nations name for “sea turtle”.
Like the American turtle, the Wayamba is connected to underwater mines — but while the American turtle attempted to deploy mines, the Wayamba works to detect them.
Flippered gardeners of the sea
Given the turtle’s long-lasting cultural symbolism, it is perhaps not surprising to see the creature’s modern-day identification as a kind of ecowarrior among animals. The turtle’s charisma has been harnessed in campaigns to draw public awareness to important conservation issues, such as the impact of plastic and noise pollution in the ocean.
Turtles help maintain healthy reefs — the gardeners of the sea.Vladislav S/Unsplash
For over a hundred million years, turtles have played a crucial part in maintaining healthy marine ecosystems, through transporting nutrients from oceans to beach systems. Research has shown that by grazing on sea-grass and sponges, turtles maintain healthy reefs — like flippered gardeners of the sea.
Turtles have much at stake in the current climate crisis: they are among the most threatened groups of animals in the world.
A landmark 2018 study showed turtles were more threatened than birds, fish, mammals, and even the much besieged amphibians.
The turtle is a fascinating animal whose famous lethargy belies an efficient and enduring creature, admirably adapted to its environment.
By building greater awareness of the cultural and environmental significance of turtles from prehistory to popular culture, we may help these remarkable animals to move (very slowly) towards a more secure and sustainable future.
When he went out to denounce Anthony Albanese’s industrial relations policy on Wednesday, minister Christian Porter claimed it would put a “$20 billion tax burden” on business.
Just in case anyone missed the number, Porter said it 20 times during his doorstop.
Never mind that it was based on the policy going further than Labor says it actually intends (although its wording was imprecise). Porter’s costing was for “extending paid leave and long service leave entitlements to casual employees and independent contractors”.
Exaggerations and scares are the default positions when industrial relations reforms are debated.
So we now have two sets of workplace changes in the political marketplace, complete with two scare campaigns. As a hardened observer put it, “everyone is reverting to their normal battle stands”.
Industrial relations is one of the most complicated policy areas, so the heat and claims and counter claims are particularly confusing for workers and employers, many of them already hit for six by the pandemic.
The government has before parliament a clutch of measures to put more flexibility into workplace arrangements. They are generally seen as favouring employers, despite the inclusion of tougher provisions on “wage theft”.
The most controversial proposal would allow the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) that agreements must satisfy to be put aside in certain circumstances. This would only apply to agreements made in the next two years, although the agreements themselves could run much longer.
Labor says the government’s legislation – now before a Senate inquiry – is simply a plan to cut wages, and declares it will vote against its second reading stage in the Senate. If the bill passed that stage, however, it would re-engage on the detail.
The union movement, after months of tripartite talks organised by the government, is also fighting the legislation, with an advertising campaign that’s being stepped up.
The Coalition’s attitude is that it will try to get what it can of the bill through the Senate – if necessary jettisoning the BOOT part – but won’t invest serious political capital in the effort.
Porter is negotiating with the crossbenchers, who regard the bill as a mixed bag. He needs three of the five non-Green crossbench votes. One Nation (with two votes) will want substantial alteration to the legislation and isn’t keen on the BOOT changes.
Once the upper house has had its say – the vote will be in the week of March 15 after the committee reports on March 12 – that’s it, from the government’s point of view. It is not comfortable defending an industrial relations policy. WorkChoices was a long time ago, but is still a nasty memory in Coalition minds.
It’s a different story for Albanese. Labor regards industrial relations as good campaigning ground, where it wants to have a fight. The IR blueprint is the latest of only a few policies he’s put out – the most notable of the others is on childcare.
The workplace policy is designed to be, and needs to be, one of Albanese’s central planks for the election. He must be able both to sell its positives and defend it from critics. Immediately after its release, the task of defending suddenly became the more pressing.
The policy is centred on extending to people in insecure work more rights and protections, with enhanced rewards and conditions.
A better deal is promised for workers in the “gig” economy, including minimum rates of pay, delivered via the Fair Work Commission. There would be a definition of a “casual” worker; portability-of-entitlements arrangements where practical for those in insecure work; and pay guarantees for labour hire workers.
What the policy doesn’t cover is significant – wage theft and fixing an enterprise bargaining system that is clearly no longer fit for purpose.
If the government gets through its measure on wage theft, Labor won’t have to bother with that. But whatever happens with the proposed changes to enterprise bargaining, one would think this is an area where Labor will need its own policy.
On the face of it, Labor’s proposals around insecure work should be attractive to many voters. The pandemic has highlighted job insecurity. And the gig economy has spread in recent years (of course many gig workers won’t be voters – they are international students and others on visas).
But in practice the policy is likely to be a tough “sell” for Albanese, for several reasons.
First, its announcement has come without a lot of detail and initially with some sloppy drafting. It wasn’t a “clean” launch, which facilitated the “scare”.
Second, even discounting Porter’s figure, the changes would represent a substantial cost to enterprises. Just as the government’s legislation is, broadly, a policy for employers, so the opposition’s plan is a policy for workers. Therefore, as Labor anticipated, there has been a business backlash.
Third, it is nearly impossible for Labor to answer legitimate questions about this cost to business – or indeed the effect on prices of, for example, delivered food.
This is because so much would depend on exactly what the Fair Work Commission decided, how individual businesses responded, and other unknowns.
While it’s worse than petty to complain pizza prices could go up if the delivery person got a decent remuneration, such points will be pushed by opponents.
Labor is deploying various defences against the onslaught from government and business over cost. On the one hand it’s saying that the fundamental issue is fairness to workers and, on the other, insisting the policy has limits.
But uncosted policy is always dangerous for Labor, as we saw so clearly last election with the opposition’s climate change pitch.
Equally, if Labor made a stab at costing, that would carry its own risks.
In the absence of a costing, critics will have free range; if estimates were forthcoming, the debate would bog down in their detail.
Fourth, the preoccupation with COVID – among the public, the politicians and the media – remains nearly all-consuming, so it is very difficult for Labor to cut through with any policies. And that segues to the question of Albanese’s ability to get messages across.
Albanese finds himself caught both ways. He is increasingly under pressure to produce policies. But the COVID fog means their impact will be less than in normal times. How he performs on this one will be watched very closely by nervous colleagues.
Samoa’s prime minister has gone public with his desire to “rehouse” the University of the South Pacific (USP) in his country.
It Is a long-term vision, according to Prime Minister Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, one that has been resurrected by the ongoing saga surrounding the tenure of USP vice-chancellor and president (VCP) Professor Pal Ahluwalia.
In the latest chapter of his fraught presidency at the region’s premier university at the Laucala campus, Professor Ahluwalia and his wife were arrested and deported by Fiji authorities without consulting other regional partner governments.
Tuila’epa said Samoa was “100 percent willing” to make the move from Fiji happen.
“Samoa is revered in the region as a leading player when it comes to national issues benefiting not just our country but the Pacific Forum family as a whole,” he said in a statement.
Samoa did offer political and economic stability when compared with its neighbour to the west.
‘Samoa must take the lead’ The VCP’s forced eviction is the latest in a series of internal issues at the USP which came as no surprise, said Tuila’epa.
“Many big organisations have actually left Fiji in a similar fashion,” he said.
“I think Samoa must take the lead when regional issues surface that will compromise the mutual benefits and interests for all Forum countries and their respective residents,” Tuila’epa added.
USP vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia being deported from Fiji. Image: Nuku’alofa Times
He cited Samoa’s track record in providing a safe environment for regional organisations and international partners, including the WHO and the Pacific environmental agency SPREP, adding that the USP was no different.
Fiji’s unstable political history and perceived military strongman culture is well documented, Tuila’epa continued.
“Evidenced by multiple military coups over the years which has undermined democracy in that country,” he said.
The historical actions are comparable to those committed against Professor Pal Ahluwalia, according to the New Zealand-based Fiji academic Steven Ratuva.
‘Military regime mentality’ “They still have a military regime kind of mentality,” Dr Ratuva said.
“When they run out of options they just go for what they know, which is use force or some semblance of force.”
The actions have drawn widespread criticism from Fijian bodies including the Human Rights Coalition, Law Society and USP staff at the Laucala Campus who have expressed “grave concern and disgust” at the unsolicited presence of police.
With another university semester about to start, they have demanded police cease any further harassment and intimidation, saying the action against Professor Ahluwalia and his wife was “an attack on the right of staff to operate freely, with dignity and safety at the work place”.
The university’s governing body, the USP Council, is investigating the actions against Professor Ahluwalia. The council states that it has not dismissed him and expressed disappointment that it was not advised, as his employer, of the decision by Fiji’s government to deport him.
The council has excluded Fiji government representatives from the subcommittee investigating Professor Ahluwalia’s deportation.
Pal Ahluwalia and Sandra Price in quarantine in Brisbane. Image: Sandra Price/RNZ
Australian citizens Ahluwalia and Price are in quarantine in Brisbane having been declined onward passage to Nauru, at the invitation of its president, by immigration officials.
Professor Ahluwalia told RNZ Pacific he had not been in touch with the subcommittee investigating his deportation but is looking forward to having the situation resolved.
“I’m confident that if and when I’m allowed to return to my position, wherever it is, that we [the USP] will just become stronger and stronger,” Professor Ahluwalia said.
Samoa is home to the USP Campus at Alafua, formerly the USP School of Agriculture and Food Technology. It was recently rebranded the USP Samoa Campus. The Samoa government states its long term vision for the Samoa campus is to broaden its academic curriculum beyond the agricultural sector.
‘Sad day for Fiji’ Meanwhile, the head of Fiji’s opposition National Federation Party has called for the USP to remain at its Fiji home.
Professor Biman Prasad said it would be a sad day for the region and Fiji if the USP headquarters were to move to another regional country because of the actions of the government.
Leader of the National Federation Party Professor Biman Prasad … “sad day”. Image: Daniela Maoate-Cox/NFP
“This university has a history which everyone in the region can be proud of,” Dr Prasad said.
“Hopefully the Fiji government representatives and Fiji government itself comes to its senses and respects the governance structure of the university, which is the council, and the charter.”
He has called on the government to acknowledge its mistake in acting against Professor Ahluwalia, and to correct it.
It still has time to make amends for its actions, Dr Prasad said.
“It is in the interests of Fiji as well as for the whole region for the Fiji government to realise that the deportation of the vice-chancellor was a mistake, it should have never happened and they still have an opportunity to correct that.”
Dr Prasad has also called out the complicity of USP Council members in the deportation of Professor Ahluwalia, saying the actions of Fiji representatives on council were wrong and against the interests of the USP.
He said the arrest and deportation of Professor Ahluwalia was the latest in a series of nefarious actions engineered against him.
Dr Biman Prasad hopes the USP subcommittee investigating his deportation will once again promptly clear the vice-chancellor and send a strong message.
“I hope that the Fiji government reps on the council now understand that what they’ve been doing is wrong, you know, it’s bringing about disunity within the regional organisation among the member countries.”
The Fiji government’s USP Council representative and education minister, Rosy Akbar, has not responded to RNZ Pacific requests for comment.
Further, the USP Council has declined to comment on what it says is a developing issue.
RNZ Pacific has asked the USP chancellor, Nauru president Lionel Aingimea who is chairing the subcommittee, about the scope, time frame and process of the investigation. The status of Professor Ahluwalia and Price’s employment at the USP has also been requested.
The USP is owned by 12 Pacific governments, including the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. It is funded largely through regional partnerships with the Australian and New Zealand governments.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ryan Shannon, Associate Professor, Swinburne University of Technology, Swinburne University of Technology
Fast radio bursts are one of the great mysteries of the universe. Since their discovery, we have learned a great deal about these intense millisecond-duration pulses.
But we still have much to learn, such as what causes them.
We know the intense bursts originate in galaxies billions of light years away. We have also used these bursts (called FRBs) to find missing matter that couldn’t be found otherwise.
With teams of astronomers around the world racing to understand their enigma, how did we get to where we are now?
The first burst
The first FRB was discovered in 2007 by a team led by British-American astronomer Duncan Lorimer using Murriyang, the traditional Indigenous name for the iconic Parkes radio telescope (image, top).
The team found an incredibly bright pulse — so bright that many astronomers did not believe it to be real. But there was yet more intrigue.
Radio pulses provide a tremendous gift to astronomers. By measuring when a burst arrives at the telescope at different frequencies, astronomers can tell the total amount of gas that it passed through on its journey to Earth.
A typical Fast Radio Burst. The burst arrives first at high frequencies and is delayed by as much as several seconds at the lower frequencies. This tell-tale curve is what astronomers are looking for.Ryan Shannon and Vikram Ravi
The Lorimer burst had travelled through far too much gas to have originated in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The team concluded it came from a galaxy billions of light years away.
To be visible from so far away, whatever produced it must have released an enormous amount of energy. In just a millisecond it released as much energy as our Sun would in 80 years.
Lorimer’s team could only guess which galaxy their FRB had come from. Murriyang can’t pinpoint FRB locations very accurately. It would take several years for another team to make the breakthrough.
Locating FRBs
To pinpoint a burst location, we need to detect an FRB with a radio interferometer — an array of antennas spread out over at least a few kilometres.
When signals from the telescopes are combined, they produce an image of an FRB with enough detail not only to see in which galaxy the burst originated, but in some cases to tell where within the galaxy it was produced.
The first FRB localised was from a source that emitted many bursts. The first burst was discovered in 2012 with the giant Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico.
Subsequent bursts were detected by the Very Large Array, in New Mexico, and found to be coming from a tiny galaxy about 3 billion light years away.
Teams including ours have now localised roughly a dozen more bursts from a wide range of galaxies, large and small, young and old. The fact FRBs can come from such a wide range of galaxies remains a puzzle.
A burst from close to home
On April 28, 2020, a flurry of X-rays suddenly bashed into the Swift telescope orbiting Earth.
The satellite telescope dutifully noted the rays had come from a very magnetic and erratic neutron star in our own Milky Way. This star has form: it goes into fits every few years.
Two telescopes, CHIME in Canada and the STARE2 array in the United States, detected a very bright radio burst within milliseconds of the X-rays and in the direction of that star. This demonstrated such neutron stars could be a source of the FRBs we see in galaxies far away.
The simultaneous release of X-rays and radio waves gave astrophysicists important clues to how nature can produce such bright bursts. But we still don’t know for certain if this is the cause of FRBs.
So what’s next?
While 2020 was the year of the local FRB, we expect 2021 will be the year of the the far-flung FRB, even further than already observed.
The CHIME telescope has collected by far the largest sample of bursts and is compiling a meticulous catalogue that should be available to other astronomers soon.
A team at Caltech is building an array specifically dedicated to finding FRBs.
There’s plenty of action in Australia too. We are developing a new burst-detection supercomputer for ASKAP that will find FRBs at a faster rate and find more distant sources.
It will effectively turn ASKAP into a high-speed, high-definition video camera, and make a movie of the universe at 40 trillion pixels per second.
By finding more bursts, and more distant bursts, we will be able to better study and understand what causes these mysteriously intense bursts of energy.
For the localisation of the first ‘one-off’ FRB, our team was awarded the 2020 Newcomb Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Quentin Grafton, Director of the Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Most Australians know all too well how precious water is. Sydney just experienced a severe drought, while towns across New South Wales and Queensland ran out of drinking water. Under climate change, the situation will become more dire, and more common.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. In 2004, federal, state and territory governments signed up to the National Water Initiative. It was meant to secure Australia’s water supplies through better governance and plans for sustainable use across industry, environment and the community.
But a report by the Productivity Commission released today says the policy must be updated. It found the National Water Initiative is not fit for the challenges of climate change, a growing population and our changing perceptions of how we value water.
The report’s findings matter to all Australians, whether you live in a city or a drought-ravaged town. If governments don’t manage water better, on our behalf, then entire communities may disappear. Agriculture will suffer and nature will continue to degrade. It’s time for a change.
A big job ahead
The report acknowledges progress in national water reform, and says Australia’s allocation of water resources has improved. But the commission makes clear there’s still much to be done, including:
making water infrastructure projects a critical part of the National Water Initiative
explicitly recognising how climate change threatens water-sharing agreement between states, users, towns, agriculture and the environment
more meaningful recognition of Indigenous rights to water
delivering adequate drinking water quality to all Australians, including those in regional and remote communities, especially during drought
all states committing to drought management plans.
Why Australia needs National Water Reform.
Busting water illusions
The commission’s proposal to make water infrastructure developments a much larger part of the National Water Initiative is a critical way to keep governments honest.
For example, the federal government last year announced an additional A$2 billion for its “Building 21 Century Water infrastructure” project. This type of funding represents a return to schemes like the discredited Bradfield scheme, a plan to redirect floodwater from Queensland’s north to the south, including to South Australia.
Such megaprojects, even when relabelled or reconceived, perpetuate simplistic myths of the early 20th Century that Australia – the driest inhabited continent on Earth – can be “drought-proofed”.
As the report highlights, when governments in 2004 signed up to the National Water Initiative, they agreed to ensure investments in water infrastructure would be both economically viable and ecologically sustainable. But many proposed water infrastructure projects appear to be neither.
This includes the construction of Dungowan Dam in NSW. For this dam, the commission notes, “any infrastructure that improves reliability for one user will affect water availability for others” and the “prospect of ‘new’ water is illusory”.
A water restrictions sign in Stanthorpe, Queensland, in October 2019 when dam water levels were at just 25%.AAP Image/Dan Peled
The commission warned projects that are not economically viable or ecologically sustainable can “burden taxpayers with ongoing costs, discourage efficient water use and result in long-lived impacts on communities and the environment”.
Equally disturbing is that billions of dollars for water infrastructure are currently targeted primarily for primary industry (such as agriculture and mining) while communities in desperate need of drinking water that meets water quality guidelines miss out. Thousands of Australians in more remote communities still lack access to drinking water most Australians take for granted.
Water scarcity under climate change
Water availability under climate change features prominently in the report. The commission says droughts will likely become more intense and frequent and in many places, water will become scarce.
The report says planning provisions were inadequate to deal with both the Millennium Drought and the recent drought in Eastern Australia.
The commission also said more work is needed to rebalance water use in response to climate change. One need only look to the 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan — one of the key outcomes of the National Water Initiative — which didn’t account for climate change when determining how much water to take from streams and rivers.
Thousands of Australians lack access to drinking water.Shutterstock
Overcoming past failures
As the commission report notes, one key policy failure since the 2004 National Water Initiative was signed was the federal government’s dismantling of the National Water Commission in 2015. It meant Australia no longer had a resourced, well-informed agency to “mark the homework” and make sure the reforms were being implemented as agreed.
The report offers ways to overcome a range of past policy water failures, including strengthening governance architecture for the National Water Initiative.
Importantly, the report also called for better recognition of the rights Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people hold over water.
Aboriginal communities and corporations own just 0.1% of the more than A$26 billion of water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin. Clearly, such gross inequities must be overcome.
The report calls for more meaningful recognition of Indigenous rights to water.Shutterstock
What happens in the Murray-Darling Basin is key to national water reform. There is overwhelming evidence the basin plan needs fixing.
To start, subsidies for irrigation-related water infrastructure should be halted until a comprehensive audit is conducted to determine who gets water, when and how. And an independent, properly funded expert agency should be established to monitor, advise and implement the law for managing the Basin’s water resources.
The 800-page report of the 2019 South Australia Murray-Darling Royal Commission proposes many ways forward. Yet unfortunately, that substantial body of work is not mentioned in the Productivity Commission’s report.
In 2007, the worst year of the Millennium Drought, Prime Minister John Howard said the current trajectory of water use and management in Australia was not sustainable. He said:
In a protracted drought, and with the prospect of long-term climate change, we need radical and permanent change.
We are still waiting for that change. If Australia is to be prosperous and liveable into the future, governments must urgently implement water reform – including adopting recommendations from the Productivity Commission’s report.
If it fails to act, our landscapes will degrade, agriculture will become unsustainable, communities will disintegrate and First Peoples will continue to suffer water injustice.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Quentin Grafton, Director of the Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Most Australians know all too well how precious water is. Sydney just experienced a severe drought, while towns across New South Wales and Queensland ran out of drinking water. Under climate change, the situation will become more dire, and more common.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. In 2004, federal, state and territory governments signed up to the National Water Initiative. It was meant to secure Australia’s water supplies through better governance and plans for sustainable use across industry, environment and the community.
But a report by the Productivity Commission released today says the policy must be updated. It found the National Water Initiative is not fit for the challenges of climate change, a growing population and our changing perceptions of how we value water.
The report’s findings matter to all Australians, whether you live in a city or a drought-ravaged town. If governments don’t manage water better, on our behalf, then entire communities may disappear. Agriculture will suffer and nature will continue to degrade. It’s time for a change.
A big job ahead
The report acknowledges progress in national water reform, and says Australia’s allocation of water resources has improved. But the commission makes clear there’s still much to be done, including:
making water infrastructure projects a critical part of the National Water Initiative
explicitly recognising how climate change threatens water-sharing agreement between states, users, towns, agriculture and the environment
more meaningful recognition of Indigenous rights to water
needing to deliver adequate drinking water quality to all Australians, including those in regional and remote communities, especially during drought
all states committing to drought management plans.
Why Australia needs National Water Reform.
Busting water illusions
The commission’s proposal to make water infrastructure developments a much larger part of the National Water Initiative is a critical way to keep governments honest.
For example, the federal government last year announced an additional A$2 billion for its “Building 21 Century Water infrastructure” project. This type of funding represents a return to schemes like the discredited Bradfield scheme, a plan to redirect floodwater from Queensland’s north to the south, including to South Australia.
Such megaprojects, even when relabelled or reconceived, perpetuate simplistic myths of the early 20th Century that Australia – the driest inhabited continent on Earth – can be “drought-proofed”.
As the report highlights, when governments in 2004 signed up to the National Water Initiative, they agreed to ensure investments in water infrastructure would be both economically viable and ecologically sustainable. But many proposed water infrastructure projects appear to be neither.
This includes the construction of Dungowan Dam in NSW. For this dam, the commission notes, “any infrastructure that improves reliability for one user will affect water availability for others” and the “prospect of ‘new’ water is illusory”.
A water restrictions sign in Stanthorpe, Queensland, in October 2019 when dam water levels were at just 25%.AAP Image/Dan Peled
The commission warned projects that are not economically viable or ecologically sustainable can “burden taxpayers with ongoing costs, discourage efficient water use and result in long-lived impacts on communities and the environment”.
Equally disturbing is that billions of dollars for water infrastructure are currently targeted primarily for the primary industry (such as agriculture and mining) while communities in desperate need of drinking water that meets water quality guidelines miss out. Thousands of Australians in more remote communities still lack access to drinking water most Australians take for granted.
Water scarcity under climate change
Water availability under climate change features prominently in the report. The commission says droughts will likely become more intense and frequent and in many places, water will become scarce.
The report says planning provisions were inadequate to deal with both the Millennium Drought and the recent drought in Eastern Australia.
The commission also said more work is needed to rebalance water use in response to climate change. One need only look to the 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan — one of the key outcomes of the National Water Initiative — which didn’t account for climate change when determining how much water to take from streams and rivers.
Thousands of Australians lack access to drinking water.Shutterstock
Overcoming past failures
As the commission report notes, one key policy failure since the 2004 National Water Initiative was signed was the federal government’s dismantling of the National Water Commission in 2015. It meant Australia no longer had a resourced, well-informed agency to “mark the homework” and make sure the reforms were being implemented as agreed.
The report offers ways to overcome a range of past policy water failures, including strengthening governance architecture for the National Water Initiative.
Importantly, the report also called for better recognition of the rights Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people hold over water.
Aboriginal communities and corporations own just 0.1% of the more than A$26 billion of water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin. Clearly, such gross inequities must be overcome.
The report calls for more meaningful recognition of Indigenous rights to water.Shutterstock
What happens in the Murray-Darling Basin is key to national water reform. There is overwhelming evidence the basin plan needs fixing.
To start, subsidies for irrigation-related water infrastructure should be halted until a comprehensive audit is conducted to determine who gets water, when and how. And an independent, properly funded expert agency should be established to monitor, advise and implement the law for managing the Basin’s water resources.
The 800-page report of the 2019 South Australia Murray-Darling Royal Commission proposes many ways forward. Yet unfortunately, that substantial body of work is not mentioned in the Productivity Commission’s report.
In 2007, the worst year of the Millennium Drought, Prime Minister John Howard said the current trajectory of water use and management in Australia was not sustainable. He said:
In a protracted drought, and with the prospect of long-term climate change, we need radical and permanent change.
We are still waiting for that change. If Australia is to be prosperous and liveable into the future, governments must urgently implement water reform – including adopting recommendations from the Productivity Commission’s report.
If it fails to act, our landscapes will degrade, agriculture will become unsustainable, communities will disintegrate and First Peoples will continue to suffer water injustice.
Every day, in every hospital, doctors and nurses respond to “code blue” situations. This is an emergency alert for when a patient’s heart stops beating, called a cardiac arrest.
To save the patient’s life, medical and nursing staff will often administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). CPR involves repeated chest compressions, artificial breathing, use of medications and an electric shock to jump-start the heart (defibrillation).
The aim is to restore a person’s heartbeat and blood pressure to normal, and in turn to restore life. CPR must be initiated quickly as brain cells rapidly die without blood and oxygen.
Patients admitted to hospital are often surprised when their doctors ask: “If your heart were to stop beating, would you want CPR or not?” But in every code blue doctors need answers to the same two questions. First, whether the clinical team considers CPR would be an effective treatment; and second, whether the patient wants CPR.
First response
If a person has a cardiac arrest outside hospital, it is usual, and expected, that bystanders begin CPR, use a defibrillator if available, and call an ambulance.
CPR is taught in first aid courses and defibrillators are widely available in public places such as airports and sports grounds. Time is of the essence, so having trained community members is important.
In a hospital setting, though, the decision to administer CPR is more nuanced. It’s built on a discussion around the patient’s medical condition and, importantly, takes into account their wishes.
Clinicians in Australia have provided examples of some different perspectives on this discussion:
Some of [the patients’ relatives] are absolutely aghast that we might even suggest not to resuscitate […] they bring their loved one into hospital to get better.
A lot of people […] just say, ‘No, I’ve had a good innings, just let me die.’ […] Often I find it’s families who have the objection.
A bit of background
CPR was developed and initially applied to resuscitate people with specific medical conditions such as an acute myocardial infarction (a heart attack).
When a cardiac arrest occurs because of a heart attack or other heart condition, there’s a reasonable chance CPR will re-start the heart and save the person’s life. A recent Australian study looking at people who had a cardiac arrest in hospital showed 41.5% of people who were admitted due to heart problems survived with good neurological function.
Expanding the use of CPR more broadly to every disease that causes the heart to stop beating seems like common sense. But this is not necessarily the case.
Talking about whether you want to be resuscitated, although difficult, is important.Shutterstock
For older hospitalised patients (aged over 67 years in this research) with chronic diseases — such as heart failure, kidney disease, cancer or diabetes — their chance of surviving a cardiac arrest and leaving the hospital alive is around 11-15%. Chances of survival are slightly better in older patients without a chronic illness (17%).
For patients in the late stage of their life, due to advanced illness or severe frailty, their chance of survival is almost zero.
CPR is not always an appropriate treatment. The decision to perform it needs to be made carefully, especially when it’s highly unlikely to restore a patient’s heartbeat.
Outcomes after CPR
Unlike the popular media portrayal of CPR, not every survivor of cardiac arrest returns to their previous level of functioning.
Patients may survive but with some brain damage. This could range from minor damage with trivial functional effects such as being forgetful; to moderate damage with serious functional effects such as a change in personality and needing help with everyday activities; to severe damage with catastrophic functional impairment eventually leading to death.
CPR may revive a heart that has stopped beating, but it doesn’t always restore a person back to a life they had or want. It may also do harm by reviving a person who does not want to continue living and would have preferred their disease to follow its natural course. When CPR is performed on a patient who doesn’t want it, it disrupts a gentler dying process, transforming it into an impersonal medical event.
When a cardiac arrest happens, there’s no opportunity to ask the patient what they want at that time. In hospital, it’s routine to provide CPR for patients in cardiac arrest unless there is a medical order to withhold it, or if the patient has completed an advance care directive refusing CPR. This is often referred to as a “do not rescusitate” order.
Avoiding harm from inappropriate or unwanted CPR requires planning ahead and being prepared to have a difficult conversation.
We have launched an animated film, The Inappropriate Question, to help people better understand why these conversations are important.
Discussing CPR is upsetting for some patients, because raising the possibility of death is confronting. It’s also harder to discuss this when a person has just been admitted to hospital for treatment and is expecting to recover.
But patients have the right, and usually want, to be involved in their own treatment decisions. The challenge is how we reconcile this wanting to know and wanting to be involved in decisions, with not wanting to be upset by knowing.
CPR is an important treatment. When used appropriately, it saves lives. But when applied injudiciously it can cause distress and avoidable harm.
Advance care planning is one way to start thinking about this long before a person is seriously ill. Particularly if you’re older and have chronic medical conditions, have that discussion with yourself, your loved ones and your medical team.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maximilian de Courten, Professor in Global Public Health and Director of the Mitchell Institute, Victoria University
More than 130 million COVID vaccine doses have been administered worldwide already, according to the University of Oxford’s “Our World in Data” vaccination tracker.
Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and China are leading this huge global effort.
COVID vaccines were initially tested and approved on their ability to reduce the severity of the disease.
However, the long-term goal of vaccination is to decrease infection rates and eliminate the virus.
Excitingly, early signs suggest vaccines are already helping drive down infection rates in some countries, including Israel and the UK.
In saying that, it’s early days, and some preliminary data suggest countries might have to update their vaccine strategies to deal with emerging variants of the virus.
Israel is leading the way
The US (43 million doses), China (40 million) and the UK (13 million) have administered the most doses in total.
However, these numbers don’t take into account population size, so looking at the number of doses injected per 100 people is more meaningful.
Almost 25% of the population are fully vaccinated with both doses. And all this in just five weeks.
Israel aims to vaccinate everyone over the age of 16 and reach at least 80% of its nine million people by May this year.
Reaching at least 70% of the population via vaccination (and/or natural infection) is needed for herd immunity for COVID, according to initial modelling by University of Chicago researchers in May last year.
So far, Israel is solely using the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Interim reports from the country suggest the vaccine rollout is linkedto a fall in infections in people over 60 years old.
But because the fall is most pronounced in older people who were first in line to receive the vaccine, data suggest this is also partly due to the vaccine, and not just the country’s current restrictions. A team of Israeli researchers found larger falls in infections and hospitalisations after the vaccinations than occurred during previous lockdowns.
Only 0.07% of the 750,000 over-60s vaccinated tested positive for COVID, according to Israeli Ministry of Health datareleased last week. And only 38 people, or 0.005%, fell ill and required hospitalisation. The chance of testing positive for COVID two weeks after receiving the first dose was 33% lower than in those not vaccinated.
It’s currently using both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines in its rollout.
The infection rate appears to be decreasing substantially. The current daily infection growth rate is falling by between 2-5%, and the R number is estimated to be between 0.7 and 1 (an R number of less than 1 means daily new cases will decrease over time).
However, it’s difficult to determine whether these numbers are due to the lockdown or vaccinations. It’s too early to tell whether vaccines are slowing transmission, but the signs are encouraging.
According to data from the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine group, released as a preprint with The Lancet last week and yet to be peer reviewed, its vaccine is showing signs of reducing transmission. The shot was associated with a 67% reduction in transmission among vaccinated volunteers in clinical trials in the UK.
It’s early days, but authors of the study suggest the vaccine may have a “substantial” effect on reducing rates of transmission in the future.
In saying that, preliminary data suggest it offers minimal protection against mild or moderate illness caused by the South African variant.
What threatens the successful rollout of vaccines?
There are three main problems that might hinder the success of this global vaccination drive.
1. Vaccine development, manufacturing, distribution and delivery
The world’s population over the age of five is currently estimated at seven billion people. If we need to vaccinate at least 70% of them to achieve herd immunity, we need to reach around five billion people.
This is an enormous undertaking, so vaccine production and availability are crucial. Many countries face the massive challenge of producing or securing enough vaccines to immunise all their citizens.
Generally, wealthier countries that could afford to make advanced purchase agreements with vaccine producers — or who could manufacture a vaccine domestically — have been the first to start COVID vaccinations.
Unfortunately, partial vaccination of the world’s population won’t achieve herd immunity. One modelling study suggests if high-income countries exclusively acquire the first two billion doses without regard for vaccine equity, the number of COVID deaths could double worldwide.
2. Administering, monitoring, and reporting adverse effects
Vaccinating a large number of citizens quickly can’t be done with existing health institutions alone.
It’s urgent we enable alternative sites such as halls and sporting venues to be used as mass vaccination sites. We also need to allow a range of health professions such as medical students, public health officials and pharmacists to administer doses to help speed up the process.
And once vaccines have been administered, it’s crucial we monitor efficacy and report on any adverse effects, which will require additional resources.
The effectiveness of vaccines can be hindered by mutations of the virus. COVID variants originating in Brazil, South Africa, and the UK have triggered huge concern worldwide.
If vaccines become less effective, new vaccines will need to be developed either including a booster dose incorporating the region of the mutated virus, or reformulating existing vaccines to include the mutated strains.
This, however, isn’t uncommon — flu vaccines are required to be updated regularly in order to increase protective capacity against new mutated strains.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Research Fellow, Gender and Women’s Research Centre, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University
Lingerie sales in 2020 surged as pandemic lockdowns saw online shoppers seek to escape the mundanity of sweatpants and spice up their sex lives. Such sales will likely increase ahead of Valentine’s Day, but the gift of intimate apparel is not a modern phenomenon.
In 17th and 18th-century England and France, intimate objects were also gifted during courtship or amorous liaisons as tokens of romantic intention and sexual desire.
The “busk”, a long piece of wood, metal or whalebone, was placed into a stitched channel between layers of fabric in the front of corset bodices or stays.
And garters — more of a novelty item today — were strips of fabric or ribbons tied around a woman’s lower thigh to keep her stocking in place.
Both were often inscribed or embroidered with intimate words of love. They were also charged with erotic connotations due to their intimate position on the female body next to breasts, groins and thighs.
A pair of women’s garters, England or France, early 19th century, made from printed and embroidered silk, metal clasp, and coiled wire.Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Intimate tokens
In 1684, English poet and playwright Aphra Behn imagined a tree that for years had witnessed couples wooing under its branches. Her poem ends when the tree falls to the axe and …
As busks were destined to sit on the body next to the heart, it was only fitting that wood from this tree was used to fashion them.
Several plays and poems refer to men who bought or made busks for their sweethearts. The sheer number of surviving busks that contain inscriptions of love testifies to their popularity.
One 17th-century French busk in The Met Museum’s collection exclaims, “Until Goodbye, My Fire is Pure, Love is United”.
Three engravings correspond with each line: a tear falling onto a barren field, two hearts appearing in that field and finally a house that the couple would share together in marriage with two hearts floating above it.
Similarly, surviving 18th-century garters contain embroidered sayings and verses. One 18th-century French pair proclaims, “same hearts, same thoughts”.
Another states, “My motto is to love you, It will never change”.
In February 1660, meanwhile, Samuel Pepys noted in his diary that he sent his wife “silk stockings and garters, for her Valentines.”
Although busks and garters were commonly given as gifts, even on Valentine’s Day they were not socially ostentatious tokens like jewellery.
Their position within or underneath clothing meant that while giving and receiving could be public, the wearing was a matter of intimacy. This was exploited in erotic literature and on the objects themselves.
17th century French busk inscribed with love poetry. Gift of Mrs. Edward S. Harkness, 1930.Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Some inscriptions found on busks spoke of men’s jealousy of the busks, giving these inanimate objects voices of their own.
A 17th-century French busk, engraved with a man’s portrait declares, “He enjoys sweet sighs, this lover / Who would very much like to take my place.” That “place” being between his lover’s breasts.
Like busks, garters also contained verses acknowledging their intimate place on the female body. A pair of French embroidered silk garters from 1780 proclaims, “United forever / I die where I cling.”
In this context, “where I cling” refers to a woman’s lower thighs, which were only accessible to those most intimate with her. It was also a euphemism for an orgasm.
The busk itself could also take on phallic connotations as it was likened to a lover’s erection in bawdy jokes.
A Girl with a Basket and Birdcage Adjusts Her Garter. Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1785-95.Thomas Rowlandson/Met Museum
By the late 18th century, busks and garters became less personalised and began to be produced on a large scale.
They tell the tales of both fickle human hearts and also of a changing European culture that embraced and then commodified love and desire — much like many Valentine’s gifts today.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is learning more about how to work with (and on) humans. A recent study has shown how AI can learn to identify vulnerabilities in human habits and behaviours and use them to influence human decision-making.
It may seem cliched to say AI is transforming every aspect of the way we live and work, but it’s true. Various forms of AI are at work in fields as diverse as vaccine development, environmental management and office administration. And while AI does not possess human-like intelligence and emotions, its capabilities are powerful and rapidly developing.
There’s no need to worry about a machine takeover just yet, but this recent discovery highlights the power of AI and underscores the need for proper governance to prevent misuse.
How AI can learn to influence human behaviour
A team of researchers at CSIRO’s Data61, the data and digital arm of Australia’s national science agency, devised a systematic method of finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in the ways people make choices, using a kind of AI system called a recurrent neural network and deep reinforcement-learning. To test their model they carried out three experiments in which human participants played games against a computer.
The first experiment involved participants clicking on red or blue coloured boxes to win a fake currency, with the AI learning the participant’s choice patterns and guiding them towards a specific choice. The AI was successful about 70% of the time.
In the second experiment, participants were required to watch a screen and press a button when they are shown a particular symbol (such as an orange triangle) and not press it when they are shown another (say a blue circle). Here, the AI set out to arrange the sequence of symbols so the participants made more mistakes, and achieved an increase of almost 25%.
The third experiment consisted of several rounds in which a participant would pretend to be an investor giving money to a trustee (the AI). The AI would then return an amount of money to the participant, who would then decide how much to invest in the next round. This game was played in two different modes: in one the AI was out to maximise how much money it ended up with, and in the other the AI aimed for a fair distribution of money between itself and the human investor. The AI was highly successful in each mode.
In each experiment, the machine learned from participants’ responses and identified and targeted vulnerabilities in people’s decision-making. The end result was the machine learned to steer participants towards particular actions.
In experiments, an AI system successfully learned to influence human decisions.Shutterstock
What the research means for the future of AI
These findings are still quite abstract and involved limited and unrealistic situations. More research is needed to determine how this approach can be put into action and used to benefit society.
But the research does advance our understanding not only of what AI can do but also of how people make choices. It shows machines can learn to steer human choice-making through their interactions with us.
The research has an enormous range of possible applications, from enhancing behavioural sciences and public policy to improve social welfare, to understanding and influencing how people adopt healthy eating habits or renewable energy. AI and machine learning could be used to recognise people’s vulnerabilities in certain situations and help them to steer away from poor choices.
The method can also be used to defend against influence attacks. Machines could be taught to alert us when we are being influenced online, for example, and help us shape a behaviour to disguise our vulnerability (for example, by not clicking on some pages, or clicking on others to lay a false trail).
What’s next?
Like any technology, AI can be used for good or bad, and proper governance is crucial to ensure it is implemented in a responsible way. Last year CSIRO developed an AI Ethics Framework for the Australian government as an early step in this journey.
AI and machine learning are typically very hungry for data, which means it is crucial to ensure we have effective systems in place for data governance and access. Implementing adequate consent processes and privacy protection when gathering data is essential.
Organisations using and developing AI need to ensure they know what these technologies can and cannot do, and be aware of potential risks as well as benefits.
Scott Morrison has indicated he wants to embrace a 2050 target of net-zero emissions. That, however, requires bringing the Nationals on board, and a vocal group in that party is fighting a fierce rearguard action.
The Nationals deputy leader David Littleproud, who is Minister for Agriculture, is sympathetic to the target – so long as there is a credible path to get there, which won’t disadvantage rural Australians.
In this podcast Littleproud says he believes the pathway could be settled this year.
“That’s not in my remit. But there is a hope to accelerate that and to make sure that we can provide that [pathway] as quickly as we can. The money’s been set aside for a lot of that work and some of that work’s already been completed.”
As for that Nationals, “our position is we want to see the plan first. Our party room hasn’t got to a juncture of dismissing it. We want to see what the plan is and who pays for it.”
Asked whether agriculture would have to be exempted for the Nationals to sign up to the 2050 target, Littleproud says, “Well, with respect to ag, I think it cane be part of the solution”.
On the ANZ’s announcement this week it would stop lending to Australia’s biggest coal port, the Port of Newcastle, Littleproud is scathing:
“Well, they’re a pathetic joke… We had a banking royal commission and here we are, a bank telling the Australian people about how society should run. That is not their role. Their role is to provide capital.”
When Jacinda Ardern consoled members of the Muslim community after the Christchurch mosque attacks, she wore the hijab. Around the world, she was praised for her compassion and cultural sensitivity.
When she went to Buckingham Palace to meet the queen, she wore a kahu huruhuru, a feathered cloak. The press celebrated her choice, noting how regal she looked. The cloak was a visible sign of her mana.
People were proud that our prime minister looked so splendid and felt, by wearing the cloak, she honoured the indigenous culture of Aotearoa New Zealand.
So why have so many people been tied up in knots this week over a heitiki and a missing neck tie?
On Tuesday, parliament’s speaker, Trevor Mallard, expelled Rawiri Waititi from the House because the Māori Party’s co-leader refused to wear a tie, as per the requirements of standing orders.
Waititi likened a tie to a “colonial noose” around his neck. It was an image designed to grab attention, and international headlines.
Cultural meaning: Jacinda Ardern, wearing a kahu huruhuru, meets Queen Elizabeth II in 2018.GettyImages
Political power dressing
The stoush should not have surprised anyone. When he was sworn into the 53rd parliament, Waititi promised to challenge the status quo: “Ka tohe au! Ka tohe au! Ka tohe au!”
What might have puzzled some is that Waititi chose to challenge something so banal. The prime minister was surely right when she said there are far more important things to focus on than what a parliamentarian hangs around their neck.
But, as Ardern knows only too well, clothes and accessories can be a very visible and powerful statement. For Waititi, being forced to wear something he does not consider part of his culture is an act of colonisation that must be resisted.
The colonial claim may be a step too far for some, but it’s clear many agree that neck ties are no longer required business attire and they’re not very comfortable.
End of an era
No matter what knot you favour, ties can be physically restrictive. I never enjoyed wearing one as part of my school uniform. Like Mallard, I’ve never learnt how to tie a tie. Like Waititi, I choose not to wear a tie.
The notion that men in one of the most diverse parliaments in the world should still be required to wear neck ties just seems ridiculous.
And it appears the majority of the Standing Orders Committee now agrees that ties should no longer be a necessity. A decision on Wednesday night meant Waititi and other men in the House will not be required to wear one. Common sense has prevailed. Parliament can focus on more serious matters.
Except, of course, that at a certain level this was a serious matter. As Waititi said, this was about cultural identity, not a tie.
Feminists have long understood this. Women had to fight to wear trousers — in the House, and in the home. They are castigated by some (and objectified by others) if their skirt is “too short” or their top “too tight”.
The sartorial is political
Symbols of white male power: Ronald Reagan often wore a cowboy hat.GettyImages
But many still don’t understand the politics of women’s clothes and so were confused by Waititi’s musings on clothing and cultural identity. If a neck tie is a colonial noose, why did his party co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, very pointedly wear one in the House this week?
And if Waititi is concerned that the legacy of colonisation is suppressing the tangata whenua through clothing, why does he wear a cowboy hat so often that people refer to it as his trademark?
Like neck ties, cowboy hats signify a particular type of white, male power. The most prominent politician associated with wearing a cowboy hat was former US president Ronald Reagan. One might well argue there’s a certain white extremism associated with cowboy hats that also needs to be challenged.
Regardless of where you stand on the neck tie divide, it’s clear that clothes and accessories are political. What we buy, how we choose to wear something, and what we refuse to wear all say something about us.
Waititi has adopted the cowboy hat and imbued it with a very different meaning to those who wore their cowboy hats as they stormed the US Capitol last month. Ngarewa-Packer knotted her tie with irony.
There is nothing wrong with politicians being playful with their clothes or refusing to conform to an outdated sartorial norm. But if that is all they do, their constituents will be very disappointed.
The Māori Party has only two MPs. It would be a shame if their legacy was confined to political sideshows.
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake has struck south-east of New Caledonia’s Loyalty Islands and a tsunnami warning is in place for several countries.
Geoscience Australia said the quake, which struck early this morning, had an epicentre 400 km east of the town of Tadine.
Seismic data indicates the undersea earthquake struck at a depth of 54 km.
Several aftershocks of up to magnitude 6.1 on the Richter scale have occurred.
The US Tsunami Warning System said hazardous tsunami waves up to a level of 1m above the normal tide level are possible for coasts within 1000 km of the epicentre with New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji particularly at risk.
Officials in American Samoa have cancelled a tsunami watch for the territory.
RNZ’s correspondent in Pagopago said officials reported no significant wave had been generated by the earthquake.
New Zealand’s National Emergency Management Agency is warning that coastal areas could experience strong and unusual currents, and unpredictable surges at the shore.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said there is a tsunami threat to offshore Australian islands and territories.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The icy continent has historically been a place for men. First “discovered” in 1820, Antarctica would not be visited by a woman for well over a century.
In 1935, Norwegian Caroline Mikkelsen, a whaler’s wife, became the first woman to do so, some 24 years after her compatriot Roald Amundsen had trekked all the way to the South Pole.
It wasn’t until the 1950s that women were finally allowed to participate in Antarctic science.
How had Antarctica come to be so dominated by men? Where were all the women?
Among the group were 77 women working in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM), who took part in a three-week leadership program. As part of our study of this program, Meredith travelled with the group to Antarctica to gather women’s first-hand accounts of their experiences.
The expedition en route to Antarctica.Author provided
But in terms of unlocking Antarctica’s history, one of the biggest answers came from a surprising source: a map on the wall of the galley, where Meredith looked every morning to see where the ship was headed.
One morning, she spotted Marguerite Bay, on the Western Antarctic peninsula. It turns out there were women here, symbolically at least.
Who was Marguerite?
Marguerite’s name reached the Antarctic because her husband, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, leader of the French Antarctic Expedition in 1909, named a bay after her.
Author and environmentalist Carole Devine has been doing a mapping project to uncover the stories of women like Marguerite – she has found more than 200 places in Antarctica named after women.
The portrayal of Antarctica as a female body that must be mastered and penetrated by men is central to Heroic Era narratives of the continent. Given this framing, it is unsurprising women were long denied access to Antarctica.
Many polar institutes around the world have traditionally justified the exclusion of women by arguing there were no facilities such as toilets for them on stations.
It certainly wasn’t due to a lack of interest. In 1914, three British women named Peggy Pegrine, Valerie Davey and Betty Webster wrote to Ernest Shackleton to apply for his next expedition. They described themselves as “three sporty girls” and offered to wear men’s clothes if there were no suitable female ones available. They added:
…we do not see why men should have all the glory, and women none, especially when there are women just as brave and capable as there are men.
Shackleton’s reply noted his “regrets there are no vacancies for the opposite sex on the expedition”.
Coming in from the cold
Caroline Mikkelsen hoists the Norwegian flag in Antarctica in 1935.
Mikkelsen became the first woman to set foot on Antarctica in 1935. But it was not until 1956 that women began to be properly involved in Antarctic science.
Russian geologist Maria Klenova landed in Antarctica to make the first Soviet Antarctic Atlas. Women were finally charting maps, rather than just having their names written on them.
In 1969, an all-female group of US scientists led by Lois Jones landed in Antarctica. They wanted to collect their own samples from the McMurdo Dry Valleys — something they had so far been prevented from doing.
Pointing to the anxiety and scepticism surrounding the voyage, the New York Times described the expedition as “an incursion of females” into “the largest male sanctuary remaining on this planet”.
From the 1980s, the Australian Antarctic Program and the British Antarctic Survey allowed women to stay on research stations and conduct land-based Antarctic fieldwork.
Yet while women’s participation in the Australian Antarctic Program is increasing, women still comprise only 24% of expeditioners. Women make up 33% and 30% of US and UK Antarctic expeditioners, respectively.
physical barriers, such as field gear not being available in women’s sizes.
Why does this matter?
Antarctica is strategically important to Australia and many other nations. Yet the credibility of Australia’s Antarctic leadership is at risk without a substantial commitment to diversity and inclusivity.
Existing power relations may prevent women and those from other underrepresented groups (such as people of colour and LGBTIQ+ people) from participating, or even considering, the possibility of an Antarctic science career.
Equity and inclusion in Antarctic science will not come about simply by waiting for more women to volunteer to become expeditioners.
Here is how we can proactively promote inclusion:
Change the image of a polar scientist. The “typical” polar scientist is still assumed to be a straight, white man who works for many months away in Antarctica. Yet polar scientists work in a range of settings. In fact, many polar scientists work indoors at a computer!
Grow the leadership pool. National Antarctic Programs must develop targeted recruitment campaigns, gender-neutral hiring practices, awareness of unconscious bias, training to be an “upstander” rather than a bystander, and parental leave policies and flexible work arrangements that can facilitate a woman’s ability to succeed in polar science.
Women are in Antarctica to stay. They play important roles in the scientific, logistical and managerial realms of Antarctic operations.
Making polar research more inclusive will enrich the diversity of the scientific community and have flow-on effects for the quality of Australia’s Antarctic science.
With COVID-19 still running rampant in many parts of the world, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has prepared “playbooks” for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, set to begin in July.
There are four books, each aimed at a specific group: international federations, athletes and officials, press, and broadcasters. The aim of these playbooks is to outline the rules that will ensure a safe and successful event.
Several commentators consider the games going ahead without a guarantee of safety as “irresponsible”. However, the IOC president, Thomas Bach, responded:
Our task is to organise Olympic Games, not to cancel Olympic Games.
Supporting this view is Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori, who insists Japan will hold the Olympic and Paralympic Games regardless of the situation with the pandemic.
As a result, the IOC playbooks outline safety precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Here are the main rules and processes proposed for athletes and officials attending the games.
All athletes must take a COVID-19 test within 72 hours of departing their home country. Athletes are required to provide proof of a negative result before they depart their home country.
Prior to arriving in Japan, athletes must observe the playbook rules for 14 days (this includes, for example, minimising contact with others and practising good personal hygiene).
Athletes must have COVID-19 tests before entering Japan for the Olympics and during their stay in Tokyo.Scott Barbour/AAP
During the stay in Japan
Once in Tokyo, all individuals will require another COVID-19 test. Further regular COVID-19 testing and temperature checks will be done throughout their stay in Japan.
Australian athletes will arrive no earlier than five days before their event and depart a maximum of two days after their event is completed. To adhere to COVID-19 safe practices as outlined in the playbooks, the organisers will cut back on the number of athletes who attend the opening and closing ceremonies.
Athletes are asked to compile a list of all the people they expect to have close contact with during their stay in Tokyo. They must not visit games venues as a spectator nor visit tourist areas, shops, restaurants, bars or gyms.
Test, trace and isolate
Japan has created a “contact confirming app” – COCOA – for health reporting and monitoring COVID-19 test results. All athletes will have restrictions on the activities they can undertake, outlined in an activity plan. The IOC is due to publish these later. Further details are needed to ensure compliance with data protection principles, especially sensitive health information.
To minimise physical interaction, athletes and officials are reminded to: avoid hugs and handshakes; keep at least 2 metres apart from other athletes; avoid enclosed spaces; not use public transport (only use games transport); and follow their activity plan. All team members are required to wear face masks and supply enough masks for the duration of stay in Tokyo.
Athletes and officials will be screened and tested for COVID-19 at different times during their stay. Anyone with symptoms must self-isolate. Details of where and how self-isolation will work have not yet been explained.
Further, it is recommended to have insurance for costs of medical treatment in Japan and repatriation if sent home. Questions arise as to who will cover these costs, and whether such insurance cover is even available in these COVID-disrupted times.
If athletes test positive, they are to self-isolate immediately and will not be allowed to compete in the games. However, to mitigate the likelihood of false positives in testing, athletes will have to have a number of false tests before they are barred from competing, the specifics of which will be revealed in April.
Limited information is available on where those with positive tests would be quarantined and what medical support they would receive.
What about the vaccine?
There is debate about whether nations should vaccinate their athletes prior to attending the games. Several athletes, including Australian swimmer Cate Campbell, believe athletes should be prioritised for vaccinations if it saves the games from being cancelled.
However, Bach declared “we are not in favour of athletes jumping the queue”. Therefore, athletes will not be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to compete at the games.
Athletes will not need to have been vaccinated against COVID-19 to compete at the Tokyo Games.Yomiuri Shimbun/AP/AAP
So will the Olympics go ahead?
The IOC acknowledges that, despite all the care taken, risks and impacts may not be eliminated and therefore athletes agree to participate in the games at their own risk. Shifting the risk to athletes is problematic as it fails to take into account the vulnerability associated with performance-driven motivations and medal aspirations.
And as for local support, you’d be struggling to find a Tokyo resident who wants the games to go ahead, especially considering Japan has had over 400,000 cases and almost 6,500 deaths from COVID-19, with the majority of cases in the greater Tokyo area.
The first iteration of the playbook lacks the specific detail that is warranted when hosting 10,000 athletes at a global sport event. As the World Players Association says:
Comprehensive COVID-19 protections – not rudimentary statements – are essential if a safe and successful Olympiad is to be possible.
Hopefully, the publication of further details in April will ease concerns. In the meantime, if the games are to go on, we all have to wonder at what cost.
In December, Antarctica lost its status as the last continent free of COVID-19 when 36 people at the Chilean Bernardo O’Higgins research station tested positive. The station’s isolation from other bases and fewer researchers in the continent means the outbreak is now likely contained.
However, we know all too well how unpredictable — and pervasive — the virus can be. And while there’s currently less risk for humans in Antarctica, the potential for the COVID-19 virus to jump to Antarctica’s unique and already vulnerable wildlife has scientists extremely concerned.
We’re among a global team of 15 scientists who assessed the risks of the COVID-19 virus to Antarctic wildlife, and the pathways the virus could take into the fragile ecosystem. Antarctic wildlife haven’t yet been tested for the COVID-19 virus, and if it does make its way into these charismatic animals, we don’t know how it could affect them or the continent’s ecosystem stability.
Bernardo O Higgins Station in Antarctica, where 36 people tested positive to COVID-19.Stone Monki/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
Jumping from animals to humans, and back to animals
The COVID-19 virus is one of seven coronaviruses found in people — all have animal origins (dubbed “zoonoses”), and vary in their ability to infect different hosts. The COVID-19 virus is thought to have originated in an animal and spread to people through an unknown intermediate host, while the SARS outbreak of 2002-2004 likely came from raccoon dogs or civets.
Given the general ubiquity of coronaviruses and the rapid saturation of the global environment with the COVID-19 virus, it’s paramount we explore the risk for it to spread from people to other animals, known as “reverse zoonoses”.
The World Organisation for Animal Health is monitoring cases of the COVID-19 virus in animals. To date, only a few species around the globe have been found to be susceptible, including mink, felines (such as lions, tigers and cats), dogs and a ferret.
Whether the animal gets sick and recovers depends on the species. For example, researchers found infected adolescent cats got sick but could fight off the virus, while dogs were much more resistant.
While mink, dogs or cats are not in Antarctica, more than 100 million flying seabirds, 45% of the world’s penguin species, 50% of the world’s seal populations and 17% of the world’s whale and dolphin species inhabit the continent.
Tourists visit penguin roosts in large numbers.Shutterstock
In a 2020 study, researchers ran computer simulations and found cetaceans — whales, dolphins or porpoises — have a high susceptibility of infection from the virus, based on the makeup of their genetic receptors to the virus. Seals and birds had a lower risk of infection.
We concluded that direct contact with people poses the greatest risk for spreading the virus to wildlife, with researchers more likely vectors than tourists. Researchers have closer contact with wildlife: many Antarctic species are found near research stations, and wildlife studies often require direct handling and close proximity to animals.
Tourists, however, are still a concerning vector, as they visit penguin roosts and seal haul-out sites (where seals rest or breed) in large numbers. For instance, a staggering 73,991 tourists travelled to the continent between October 2019 and April 2020, when COVID-19 was just emerging.
Each visitor to Antarctica carries millions of microbial passengers, such as bacteria, and many of these microbes are left behind when the visitors leave. Most are likely benign and probably die off. But if the pandemic has taught us anything, it takes only one powerful organism to jump hosts to cause a pandemic.
How to protect Antarctic wildlife
There are guidelines for visitors to reduce the risk of introducing infectious microbes. This includes cleaning clothes and equipment before heading to Antarctica and between animal colonies, and keeping at least five metres away from animals.
These rules are no longer enough in COVID times, and more measures must be taken.
The first and most crucial step to protect Antarctic wildlife is controlling human-to-human spread, particularly at research stations. Everyone heading to Antarctica should be tested and quarantined prior to travelling, with regular ongoing tests throughout the season. The fewer people with COVID-19 in Antarctica, the less opportunity the virus has to jump to animal hosts.
Cetaceans, such as orcas, are more susceptible to COVID infections than sea birds and seals.Shutterstock
Second, close contact with wildlife should be restricted to essential scientific purposes only. All handling procedures should be re-evaluated, given how much we just don’t know about the virus.
We recommend all scientific personnel wear appropriate protective equipment (including masks) at all times when handling, or in close proximity to, Antarctic wildlife. Similar recommendations are in place for those working with wildlife in Australia.
Migrating animals that may have picked up COVID-19 from other parts of the world could also spread it to other wildlife in Antarctica. Skuas, for example, migrate to Antarctica from the South American coast, where there are enormous cases of COVID-19.
And then there’s the issue of sewage. Around 37% of bases release untreated sewage directly into the Antarctic ecosystem. Meanwhile, an estimated 57,000 to 114,000 litres of sewage per day is dumped from ships into the Southern Ocean.
Fragments of the COVID virus can be found in wastewater, but these fragments aren’t infectious, so sewage isn’t considered a transmission risk. However, there are other potentially dangerous microbes found in sewage that could be spread to animals, such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Ships dump 114,000 litres of sewage into the water, each day.Shutterstock
We can curb the general risk of microbes from sewage if the Antarctic Treaty formally recognises microbes as invasive species and a threat to the Antarctic ecosystem. This would support better biosecurity practices and environmental control of waste.
Taking precautions
In these early stages of the pandemic, scientists are scrambling to understand complexity of COVID-19 and the virus’s characteristics. Meanwhile, the virus continues to evolve.
Until the true risk of cross-species transmission is known, precautions must be taken to reduce the risk of spread to all wildlife. We don’t want to see the human footprint becoming an epidemic among Antarctic wildlife, a scenario that can be mitigated by better processes and behaviours.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Pawson, Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW
Australian governments acted to protect homeless people from COVID-19 in 2020 on an even larger scale than previously thought. In the first six months of the pandemic, the four states that launched emergency programs housed more than 40,000 rough sleepers and others.
The states were anxious about rough sleepers’ extreme vulnerability to virus infection and the resulting public health risk to the wider community. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia acted fast to provide safe temporary housing, mainly in otherwise empty hotels.
Drawing on previously unreleased official statistics, our newly published international comparative research reveals the people these programs helped in Australia outnumbered the 33,000 rough sleepers and others housed in England by the equivalent Everyone In initiative. Australia’s population is less than half that of England.
What happens when emergency housing ends?
The numbers Australia’s emergency housing program needed to shelter showed our homelessness problem is much larger than often imagined. The 8,200 people counted as sleeping rough on census night 2016 were only the tip of the iceberg.
Attempts to transfer people from emergency accommodation to longer-term tenancies have also generally been far less successful than in England. By the end of 2020, England’s local authorities had moved two-thirds of their former rough sleepers from temporary placements to more stable housing. As our research shows, despite determined efforts, Australian state governments managed this for less than a third of rough sleepers departing emergency hotel stays in 2020.
Many will have returned to the streets or to homeless shelters. Rough sleeper numbers once again increased in Adelaide and Sydney after mid-year.
A ‘tent city’ of homeless people in a Fremantle park was dismantled by order of the Western Australian government in late January 2021.Richard Wainwright/AAP
Alongside protecting rough sleepers, Australian government actions to shield vulnerable renters who lost jobs and incomes in the pandemic were also relatively effective. These efforts include federal income protection (JobKeeper and Coronavirus Supplement) and state and territory restrictions on evictions.
The short-term success of these measures is clear. Despite a substantial rise in unemployment, there has been – as yet – no sign of any up-tick in homelessness.
At the same time, though, ministerial advice that tenants with COVID-triggered income losses should negotiate rent reductions with landlords came with few ground rules on how to reach such settlements.
Survey evidence shows many property owners refused to reduce rents. At least one in four renters lost income during the pandemic, but no more than 16% (and possibly as few as 8%) got a rent variation. And many variations were only in the form of rent deferrals, not reductions.
The survey data imply at least 75,000 tenants, and possibly as many as 175,000, have been accumulating deferral-generated arrears. These mounting debts could put some at risk of losing their home when eviction moratoriums end. That’s early in 2021 in most states and territories.
Our research also highlights the unusually small direct contribution of the Australian government to protecting homeless people during the pandemic. Even in other federations – Canada and the United States – national governments played a significant role.
In Australia, the Commonwealth government made no direct input to covering the substantial costs involved. Nor did it play any part in even monitoring, let alone co-ordinating, the remarkable efforts of the active states.
Canberra has also steadfastly rejectedcalls for a social housing stimulus program for national economic recovery. This disengagement fits with a now-familiar refrain from federal ministers. Housing and homelessness, they repeat time and again, are constitutional obligations of state and territory governments.
The Morrison government is subsidising private housing construction and renovations but won’t pitch in for social housing.David Crosling/AAP
Granted, that’s an accurate statement for housing and homelessness service delivery. But, especially given the Commonwealth’s control of the vital policy levers of tax and social security, the two levels of government must in reality share responsibility for housing outcomes.
The Victorian government’s A$5.4 billion Big Housing Build shows states may commit to investment in social rental housing on a scale far beyond what had been thought possible. But the fact remains that state and territory governments have much less financial firepower than our national government. It’s fanciful to imagine significant programs being widely initiated or maintained without hefty federal backing.
For all of these reasons, when the pandemic has finally subsided, it’s only with federal government leadership that we can effectively tackle the fundamental flaws in Australia’s housing system. These have been glaringly exposed by the public health crisis of the past 12 months. Without purposeful re-engagement by our national government, Australia’s housing policy challenges will only continue to intensify.
The agenda seems to have been confined to matters the government and business had already marked for attention.
Whatever potential there might have been for consensus on several important issues has plainly not been realised.
Nevertheless, in a submission to the Senate inquiry into the bill, and with the backing of 18 other labour law academics, we have expressed support for many of its provisions, even though there are details we are disappointed with and elements we strongly oppose, not least for their potentially negative impacts on wage growth and job security.
To be supported are greater penalties for employers who underpay workers, including criminal liability for dishonest and systematic conduct, and a new small claims process that would enable the Fair Work Commission to resolve payment disputes more quickly and cheaply, which we think could be improved.
We concentrate here on three concerns – the changes to agreement-making; to certain forms of employer-driven flexibility; and to the regulation of casual employment.
Enterprise agreement-making
The most contentious proposal is a new exception to the “better off overall test” (BOOT), which ordinarily ensures enterprise agreements cannot set pay and other conditions below award standards.
At present, the Commission can approve agreements that fail the BOOT, but only when they are not contrary to the public interest and only in “exceptional” circumstances.
The new exception would operate much more broadly, with no requirement to show unusual circumstances, pandemic or not. Although the exception would last for only two years, agreements approved under it could operate indefinitely.
We characterise the change as “tearing a gaping hole in the award safety net”.
Even if the Fair Work Commission took a narrow view of the exception, advisers would be lining up to encourage employers to give it a go, dangling the enticing prospect of “simplifying” pay and rostering , and reducing labour costs.
The bill also proposes to “simplify” the agreement-making process and make it harder for unions and others not directly involved to object to their approval.
This would weaken the few procedural safeguards that the Fair Work Act provides for workers, especially since there is no requirement for bargaining or negotiation to take place.
There would be no clear process for ensuring an agreement was genuinely made, and it would be harder to identify substandard deals, or to challenge the approval of agreements approved by small and unrepresentative groups of workers.
The sunsetting of agreements made before the Rudd government’s 2009 Fair Work Act (some of them made under “WorkChoices” is welcome and long overdue.
The bill would also allow “greenfields agreements” of up to eight years in duration – rather than the usual four – for construction work on certain major projects.
Employees engaged during that period would have no say on their pay and conditions and no right to strike – and some of these “agreements” could be made without union consent.
Under International Labour Organisation principles of freedom of association, workers in this position have to be afforded access to timely mediation and arbitration to resolve disputes, something the bill does not do.
New forms of flexibility for employers
Two other worrying proposals would permit certain employers to enter into “simplified additional hours agreements” with permanent part-time employees, and to issue “flexible work directions”.
Part-time workers could be offered extra hours, but without penalties.
Even if some ended up being offered extra hours of work, they would come without the usual compensation for antisocial or irregular hours – and they would most likely be taken from casuals, meaning a net reduction in wage bills.
The proposed “flexible work directions” would extend and expand some of the special powers granted to employers under JobKeeper to redeploy workers.
But they could be used in situations which need have nothing to do with recovery from the pandemic, including by employers who were never eligible for JobKeeper.
While both changes would initially be limited to certain industries, the bill allows them to be extended by regulation to all award-covered workers.
No compelling evidence has been presented to justify they are needed. Nor has the government explained why the Fair Work Commission should not continue to be responsible for managing these issues on an industry by industry basis through awards.
Casual employment
Casual employment fell during the initial stages of the pandemic, but then rebounded strongly. Around one in four Australian employees works as a casual, lacking benefits such as paid annual leave or sick leave, but generally entitled in return to a pay loading of 25%.
In practice, many casuals have long-term engagements, with none of the features usually associated with casual work. Among them are labour hire workers deployed not as “temps”, but to work at host firms alongside (or instead of) directly-hired employees with much higher pay and conditions.
The bill’s provisions respond to recent court decisions which have raised the prospect of billions of dollars in unpaid leave entitlements being due to workers misclassified as casuals.
The bill proposes to determine whether a worker is a casual purely by reference to what their contract says, not the reality of their engagement. And it would allow employers who have misclassified casuals to deduct from what they now owe their employees any loading they have previously paid.
After 12 months in a job, casuals would need to have their employment assessed. In certain circumstances, the employer would have to offer to make them permanent.
We agree on the need for a clear definition of “casual”, but the definition proposed would entrench the practice of “permanent casuals” doing jobs which are not truly casual, without necessarily preventing legal challenges to some of those arrangements.
Long-term casual employment does indeed suit many workers. But their lack of job security may have both individual and societal consequences.
That has been made clear during the pandemic, when workers without paid leave entitlements in “essential” jobs (such as cleaning and security for quarantine hotels, or aged care) have had to keep working with adverse consequences for public health.
We also note that the bill will substantially increase administrative costs for employers, in support of a right to convert to permanent that few long-term casuals are likely to even try to exercise, given the loss of loading typically involved.
In our submission to the Senate inquiry, we have suggested that the bill could be improved in a number of ways, including by making the definition of casual employment genuinely objective, requiring offers of conversion to permanent employment after six months rather than 12, and not shielding an employer from liability if it should have known it was misclassifying a permanent worker as casual.
Getting wages moving in the right direction
Even before the pandemic, it was widely accepted that wage stagnation was sapping the Australian economy. Whatever the reasons, it was clear that something needed to be done to get wages growth back above 3%.
If anything, the need is even greater now as we try to rebuild confidence and boost consumer spending.
Yet at a time when the share of national income going to profits rather than labour is still continuing to rise, the government is proposing changes that would not just suppress wage growth, but actually allow employers to cut some forms of pay and conditions.
The reforms would also entrench casual work – one of the largest forms of insecure employment.
As Labor’s new platform on job security recognises, this is a challenge that business, organised labour and government ought to be working together to tackle rather than exacerbate.
Whatever the positive elements of the new industrial relations bill, its crackdown on “wage theft” among them, its overall effect would be to take Australia even more firmly down the road of low-wages and low-growth.
More than ever as we emerge from the crisis we are going to have to get the most out of our economy.
Swapping stamp duty for land tax as the ACT government is doing (over 20 years) and the NSW government is planning (using an opt-in arrangement), is one of the best ways the tax system can help.
This graph from the federal treasury’s 2015 tax discussion paper makes the point.
It says the “marginal excess burden” (damage) done by real estate stamp duty amounts to 70 cents for each dollar raised.
It discourages people and businesses from changing addresses as often as they should, meaning workers live further away from their work than they would and are reluctant to move to where there is better work.
In contrast, treasury found the marginal excess burden of land tax was negative. Land tax makes sure land was used for its most useful purpose and not left idle.
Efficiency-wise it makes sense to swap one for the other, but as with all changes there will be winners and losers, some of them surprising.
In our just-published study, we use real-world data on living arrangements from the Melbourne Institute’s Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey and data on house prices and stamp duty rates from the Real Estate Institute Australia in an attempt to work out who the winners and losers will be.
Good for the young, and the old
We find that overall the swap should reduce the purchase price for home buyers, increase the sale price for sellers, increase the total number of transactions and reduce the degree of mismatch in housing.
It should also increase the rate of home ownership.
Young adults, particularly those who are currently having difficulty saving for a deposit would be better off.
Current homeowners would generally be worse off.
Renters would benefit because they are currently excluded from home ownership.
Older landlords, perhaps surprisingly, would also benefit. In many cases the increase in the value of their houses would outweigh the cost of the land tax.
In the long run the swap would improve the working of the economy, but in the short run it will hurt many current voters.
A gradual transition – either through a very long phase in (of the kind adopted by the ACT) or by allowing households to select into different tax systems (as NSW is planning) would help make the switch more palatable.
It is 25 years since Australian auteur Baz Luhrmann released his gloriously spectacular version of Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the doomed lovers.
Lurhmann was not presenting us with a reinterpretation of the stage play, but a complete re-imagining of its universe. Gone was the sense of theatre. Gone were the long soliloquies. Gone were the 16th century costumes. Instead of Verona, Italy, we are on Verona Beach, California.
The Capulet and Montague patriarchs do business in adjacent skyscrapers while the younger generation wage a vicious war on the streets. Tattoos, gold chains, loud Hawaiian shirts, leather vests, and silver teeth adorn them. Swords are replaced with Uzis and pistols.
The soundtrack dispenses with classical strings, replaced by 90s bands such as Radiohead and Garbage. Even the “and” in the title was replaced with a + sign. In every way Lurhmann made this film scream “gangsta”. It feels dangerous.
Many critics compared the film to Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. While Zeffirelli’s film is visually sumptuous, it still plays it safe with the material, with few changes in tone or historical period.
Lurhmann, in contrast, plays fast and loose with every element of his production. To me, the films are in different stratospheres in their approach to the material and thus totally incomparable.
Shakespeare adaptations set in different time periods had happened before Lurhmann. As You Like It (1992) was performed in an industrial wasteland. Richard III (1995), was set in 1930s Britain; and Twelfth Night, made in the same year as Luhrmann’s film, was set in Victorian times.
However, Lurhmann didn’t just take the words and characters from the stage play and insert them into new environments. He created a completely stylised pastiche of visuals, dialogue, character and action.
It’s all quite over the top, as exemplified by the scene where a drag-queened Mercutio dances to Young Hearts Run Free. This is really Shakespeare for a specific demographic — youth. Some have argued Luhrmann’s film was beloved by attention deficit teenagers who later regarded it as “embarrassing” in adulthood . But I think this simplifies things.
I can understand why traditionalists, who didn’t mind the other adaptations set in modern times, don’t like this one. Much of the humour is pure slapstick, the acting can be over-exaggerated and lines are over-emphasised. There are large parts of the film which don’t have any dialogue at all, it’s all just visuals and music.
But the onscreen chemistry between Danes and DiCaprio is electric. Their scenes are genuinely emotionally charged, often heightened by the musical accompaniment.
And Lurhmann was making a film that would appeal to those who loved or loathed, or were indifferent, to traditional Shakespeare. A Shakespeare accessible to everyone.
This can be seen in the dialogue delivery of actors such as John Leguizamo, who plays Tybalt. As he venomously spits out, in modern gangsta rap style, lines like, “Now by the stock and honour of my kin, To strike him dead I hold it not a sin”, you actually forget you are listening to words written 500 years ago.
My favourite scene has always been Mercutio’s death. In the minutes leading up to, during and after he dies, Lurhmann dispenses with glitz and glamour, concentrating solely on the engagement between DiCaprio, Harold Perrineau (Mercutio) and Leguizamo. This is raw, visceral acting, no exaggeration, no contrivance.
Fluid works
Some have argued making such radical changes to the text is unnecessary and harms the essence of Shakespearean drama. The nuance and poetry of Shakespeare’s language is lost in all the flash and sparkle.
But pop culture critic Tori Godfree contends that Lurhmann’s incorporation of contemporary jokes, music and pop culture into his film is exactly what Shakespeare did in the original play. Shakespeare’s works should not be treated as sacrosanct icons but as fluid works open to reconstruction and modernisation.
Luhrmann’s approach worked. The film grossed over ten times its $14.5 million dollar budget. No other direct Shakespeare adaptation has come close to this sort of monetary success. Others have since embraced gangsta style violence in their own Shakespeare adaptions, notably Australian director Justin Kurzel, with Macbeth, and David Michod’s The King.
Lurhmann incorporated pop culture into his telling — just as Shakespeare would have done.Bazmark Films
Romeo + Juliet catapulted Luhrmann into the A-list, where he was given free reign on his next film, Moulin Rouge. Unfortunately, I think Lurhmann’s love of visual excess overwhelmed this and his further films, which were much more focused on screen imagery and design than story, character or meaning.
Perhaps the difference with Romeo + Juliet is that Luhrmann had a great script to start with. One can justly say of this lush, loud film, “For I never saw true beauty till this night”.
Romeo + Juliet is being re-released in selected cinemas from February 11 to mark its 25th anniversary.
Beach trips are a traditional part of our summers, but for some Kiwis and their family members living with a disability it can be a limiting experience.
Around 1 in 4 New Zealanders have a disability. Their disability arises not from their impairments but from having to live in world designed by people who think everyone is the same.
It is society, not the individual’s impairment, that is disabling. Thus, it is society that should be enabling.
Examples of enabling measures are seen in efforts to provide beach access for those with disabilities with the installation of beach mats for wheelchairs, or the provision of beach wheelchairs.
But after an able-bodied woman suffered a significant leg injury on a beach mat, there are now concerns that Auckland City Council, and other councils across the country, might review the provision of such such mats.
Disabled rights
Any such decisions must take the rights of people with disabilities into account. These rights are to be found in international human rights law, and New Zealand’s own law.
The rights of people with disabilities are protected by international human rights law generally, which recognises that everyone is born equal and all have to the right to be free from discrimination.
The convention prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, which it describes as the interaction of people with disabilities and attitudinal and environmental barriers.
It also requires countries should take action to ensure accessibility to a range of spaces and services for people with disabilities on an equal basis with those of non-disabled people.
Let’s be reasonable
These rights, like most other rights, must be weighed up with other considerations. A key concept here is reasonable accommodation.
This means that necessary and appropriate changes should be made that allow people with disabilities to enjoy their rights on an equal basis with others. But such changes should not impose a disproportionate or undue burden.
An Optional Protocol to the convention was also adopted in 2006, which means complaints can be made by individuals to the UN. New Zealand accepted this agreement in 2016.
The strategy is informed by the the UN Convention. It is also informed by Te Tiriti o Waitangi, reflecting the cultural importance of whānau and a whānau-centred approach of concepts of family and disability.
These legal obligations and policy measures also extend to local authorities. The decisions of such authorities regarding access to public spaces can have a profound impact on the rights of people with disabilities.
A typical beach mat to help with wheelchair access to the beach.Shutterstock/Tabatha Del Fabbro
The provision of beach mats and/or wheelchairs is one practical example that provides people with disabilities with access to the sand and the sea.
But councils can think bigger by also providing mobility spaces that fits all users, appropriately designed footpaths and kerb ramps that lead to accessible seating, shade areas and picnic areas, as well as public toilets that can be used by those with disabilities and their carers.
There is particular room for improvement with the latter and calls for councils to build fully accessible bathrooms to cater to people with multiple or complex disabilities.
Cost may well be a concern but access to the beach for people with disabilities should not be presented as an optional extra. Ensuring the safety of all beach users will be a paramount consideration, as will the protection of the natural environment.
A diverse and inclusive society means everyone should be treated with dignity and respect at all times. A failure to do so brings its own costs.
New Zealand Herald readers just voted Ōhope beach as New Zealand’s best beach in 2021. One of the reasons given was that everyone — from paddleboarders to kitesurfers to those in wheelchairs — is welcome at Ōhope.
For many New Zealanders, a dip in the ocean on summer days is a simple pleasure but for some, it is simply life-changing.
University of the South Pacific staff unions and students have protested in “disgust” over what they call interference and unsolicited presence by Fiji police on the Laucala campus.
“We demand that this must immediately stop, to allow staff to work and prepare for incoming students and the semester of learning ahead,” said a joint statement today from the Association of USP Staff (AUSPS), USP Staff Union (USPSU) and the USP Student Association (USPSA).
The unions described the police activity as an “attack on the right of staff to operate freely, with dignity and safety at the work place”.
The unions said that police officers had been seen on campus since the “unethical” deportation of the vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia last Thursday.
USP security officials had also reported a number of incidents involving police vehicles that had been refused entry onto the campus.
“This is seen as an attempt to intimidate and harass staff while disrupting preparations for the semester ahead,” the statement said.
Fiji police were reminded that Laucala campus was a place of work and tertiary education for regional Pacific students as well as Fiji students.
“As such, [the police] must respect the right for these students to be facilitated by USP staff in an environment that is free of harassment and intimidation,” said the statement.
The USP is a regional institution with 12 member countries and comparable to the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).
The joint USP unions letter today. Image: APR
The opposition National Federation Party (NFP) said in a statement that Fiji’s credibility as a leading state in the region was at stake over the deportation of Kenyan-born professor Ahluwalia, reports RNZ Pacific.
The opposition walked out of parliament yesterday after the Speaker disallowed urgent questions about the removal of Professor Ahluwalia and his wife, saying the matter wasn’t of public importance.
Indonesia is trying again to “divide and rule my people” by further carving Papua into three new provinces, warns interim president Benny Wenda of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP).
And he says that Jakarta is bringing in another 450 troops in to “violently enforce” its policies.
‘Indonesia has failed the world’ “It is Jakarta’s wish. A referendum and full independence is our wish. Indonesia has failed the world, and failed the people of West Papua,” he said.
To enforce this renewal of Special Autonomy, even more Indonesian troops were flooding into West Papua – 450 in the last month alone.
“Indonesia is turning our land into a war zone, a martial law colony with military check points on every street corner,” Wenda said.
“Civilian rule in Indonesia is a myth: the military still holds power. Retired generals experienced in genocide in East Timor continue to call the shots.
“Indonesia has done this to us many times before. In 1963, they invaded our land. They held the fraudulent Act of No Choice in 1969, against the desires of all West Papuans.
“At every turn, they have treated us like a colonised people, less than human. We are called monkeys, spat at, forced off our land.”
“We are no longer bowing down to Jakarta’s rule. I call on all my people to unite and refuse all Indonesian law. We are establishing our own sovereign government,” said Wenda.
“As the legitimate representative of the people of West Papua, the provisional government is peacefully demanding the following:
1.The withdrawal of all Indonesian troops from West Papua; 2. An end to all forms of racism and discrimination against Melanesian West Papuans; 3. Immediate access to West Papua for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in accordance with the call of 83 international states; 4. Cancellation of ‘Special Autonomy’ and an immediate referendum on independence; and 5. For all international states and multinational corporations to cease any and all funding for Jakarta’s ‘Special Autonomy’.”
Wenda saidf the international community must help to force Indonesia to negotiate by withdrawing all support for the “failed ‘Special Autonomy’ project”.
“The world may be banned from seeing what is happening in West Papua. But we can see it,” Wenda said.
And we are going to peacefully continue our long struggle for freedom until the world finally hears our cry.
New Zealand’s parliamentary Speaker has offered an olive branch to Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi over his refusal to wear a tie in the debating chamber yesterday.
Speaker Trevor Mallard’s office has confirmed he has encouraged the party to submit to the Standing Orders Committee asking that hei-tiki be allowed instead of a tie.
Waititi speaks to RNZ Morning Report‘s Corin Dann:
Speaker Trevor Mallard last year announced he would reconsider the requirement, saying he himself believed the tie rule to be outdated.
He ultimately ruled however that the dress standard would remain as that was the will of the majority of MPs.
On the first sitting day of 2021 today, Waititi arrived without a tie. He argued that he was wearing Māori business attire with a taonga around his neck, but Mallard said he was not convinced by that argument.
Mallard notes no party response “I am therefore going to indicate to the leader of Te Pati Māori that I will not be calling him while he is not wearing a tie and he is not to enter the house again not wearing a tie,” Mallard said.
Mallard noted the Māori Party did not respond to the review of the dress code.
Waititi made several attempts to speak in the debating chamber, despite Mallard’s order, and was ejected from the house.
‘My taonga is my tie,’ says Waititi. Video: RNZ
After being removed from the debating chamber, Waititi said not being able to wear a taonga around his neck instead of a tie was a breach of the rights of indigenous people.
“That is not part of my culture, ties, and it’s forcing the indigenous peoples into wearing what I describe as a colonial noose,” Waititi said.
When asked if he would wear a tie at Parliament tomorrow [Wednesday], Waititi said “you’ll have to wait until tomorrow”.
“Our people have worn these types of ties for generations, thousands of years. And it’s time that Parliament, which was consented by my ancestors through Te Tiriti o Waitangi, recognised our right and freedom to express our own cultural identity, in a place that’s supposed to be a place for democracy,” Waititi told Checkpoint.
‘I dressed … quite smart’ “If you see the way I was dressed it wasn’t disrespectful, it was actually I think quite smart. I own to two consultancy businesses, and also our farming business on our family farm. And I never wear a tie,” he said.
“I will wear a tie when I want to wear a tie. But I will not be forced to wear it.
“I will not be forced to be wearing anything that I shouldn’t be wearing… Why are Pākehā making Māori dress like they want us to dress?”
The enforced dress code is hypocritical and an example colonial ways that suppress tangata whenua, he said.
“Parliament should be a place where we could freely practice our democracy and represent the people that voted us in.
“The majority of the people that voted me in are not business attire people… Let’s cut the myth that everybody must wear ties. I’ve been overseas and met with corporate people all over the world. None of them wear ties, they’re open-collared suit-wearing people, because ties are now outdated.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
There is no saga at the University of the South Pacific, claims Fiji’s Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
“There is no saga, there is no crisis,” said Sayed-Khaiyum when questioned about the deportation last Thursday of the university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia.
Speaking outside Parliament yesterday, he said he could not comment further on the issue, adding that the USP Council had released a statement on the outcome of a special general meeting last Friday.
Opposition spokeswoman on Education Ro Teimumu Kepa said the comment by Sayed-Khaiyum was not true.
“There is a crisis at the university,” she said.
“The regional university is at stake with the recent crisis happening within the institution.
The FijiFirst government, she said, should understand that USP belonged to the region.
‘We do not condone strong tactic’ “We do not condone the strong tactic that was used by government to remove the vice-chancellor.
“Their action was un-Pacific, un-regionalism and I do not know where this attitude came from.
“We are supposed to be like the big brother in the Pacific because we are the most developed.”
The USP Council has appointed Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga as acting VC and a subcommittee formed to look into the legality of the deportation of Prof Ahluwalia and his wife, Sandra Price, to also ascertain if Prof Ahluwalia’s contract was still valid following his deportation.
The committee will be chaired by the President of Nauru, Lionel Aingimea, aho is also university chancellor, including the council representatives of Australia, Tonga, Niue, Solomon Islands, Samoa and two senate representatives to look into the matter.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Oliver, Research Leader in Respiratory cellular and molecular biology at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney
A nebuliser — a medical device that turns a liquid into a fine mist, typically to deliver inhaled medication — may have spread the coronavirus in Melbourne’s hotel quarantine.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said earlier today this was the “working hypothesis” to explain why three people became infected at the airport’s Holiday Inn hotel.
How could this have happened? And what are the implications for people who use nebulisers outside hotel quarantine, such as those with asthma?
A nebuliser creates a fine mist from a liquid, usually using compressed air or oxygen, or via ultrasonic vibration. A nebuliser is different to a vaporiser, which uses heat to produce a mist.
Nebulisers are often used to deliver life-saving drugs. Patients inhale them via a mask they put over their nose and mouth. Sometimes the mist alone is sufficient to provide a treatment. For example, nebulised saline is used to treat the lung condition cystic fibrosis. Sometimes people with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are also treated with drugs via a nebuliser.
How could a nebuliser potentially spread COVID-19?
When we breathe in and out, the very small airways and the air sacs in our lungs open and close. This generates particles. These particles, along with water vapour, are what are commonly referred to as exhaled aerosols. Think back to breathing out on a cold day; the mist was aerosols from your lungs.
When we have a viral respiratory infection, the virus can be contained in the particles we exhale, and this is how aerosol transmission occurs. It is now widely accepted that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can be spread via aerosols, as well as via larger droplets when we cough and sneeze.
Any activity that increases the amount of aerosols, for example singing or exercising, can increase the amount of aerosolised virus, thereby increasing the risk of transmission.
When people use a nebuliser, two things happen. The first is they often take in big breaths and exhale more forcefully than normal. This alone increases the amount of particles generated. The second is they breathe in a fine mist, not all of which is absorbed in the lung. This too is exhaled.
And when a nebuliser is used to loosen mucus in the lungs, this mucus could also be exhaled. This could be as particles or coughed out.
So whatever the mechanism, someone with COVID-19 who uses a nebuliser is at risk of inadvertently spreading the virus to others.
We know that using a nebuliser in COVID-19 patients is not a good idea, especially as many drugs can be delivered in other ways.
For example, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care states:
Nebulisation is NOT recommended in patients with COVID-19 as it may contribute to the spread of the virus.
However, it acknowledges that in some circumstances using a nebuliser is unavoidable, for instance, in children.
Was a nebuliser responsible for the spread at the Holiday Inn?
This question is very difficult to answer definitively without making actual measurements.
For example, some so-called super spreaders are highly contagious.
However, if a COVID-positive person was using a nebuliser, and the spread of the virus was limited to those in relatively close proximity to that person, it is highly likely the nebuliser would have contributed to the spread.
In Sutton’s announcement earlier today, he said that in the case of transmission at the Holiday Inn, the theory that a nebuliser was the route of infection:
…makes sense in terms of the geography and it makes sense in terms of the exposure time.
So what does this mean for people using nebulisers?
People using a nebuliser for medical reasons should not be frightened by these developments. They should talk to their health-care provider about any concerns.
The bigger question relates to the use of nebulisers by people in hotel quarantine, which Western Australia says it will now ban.
However, it is highly likely a person using a nebuliser in hotel quarantine needs it to provide life-saving medication. So it’s not as simple as banning their use altogether. We’re more likely to see more consideration around how they are used in our quarantine hotels. For example, they might be restricted to particular areas or only used when there is no other medical alternative.
Over the past week, three returned travellers — one in New South Wales and two in Victoria — have tested positive to COVID-19 shortly after leaving hotel quarantine.
The cases in Victoria appear almost certainly to have been acquired in hotel quarantine. The individuals had quarantined at the Holiday Inn, where eight staff members and guests have been now infected. Authorities are investigating.
But genomic sequencing has now indicated the NSW case was not picked up in hotel quarantine. So it’s possible either the person was still shedding virus from an earlier infection they contracted overseas, or that they incubated the virus for longer than 14 days.
The incubation period is the time between the point at which someone is exposed to the virus and the onset of symptoms (bearing in mind of course that not everyone who tests positive to COVID-19 will develop symptoms).
Theoretically, it is possible for a person to incubate the virus for longer than 14 days. But how likely is it?
The evidence
Most people who are exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, will not go on to develop an infection. Sometimes the dose is not high enough, and/or the person can mount a successful immune response to prevent the virus establishing itself in their system.
But of those who do develop an infection, the evidence suggests almost all will return a positive test within 14 days of being exposed to the virus. A review summarising data from 21 studies reported only 1% of people incubated the virus beyond two weeks.
It’s important to note this review is a preprint, so it hasn’t received the same scrutiny as other published research.
But it found the average incubation period to be 5.9 days, which aligns with peer-reviewed research indicating the incubation period for COVID-19 is within the range of five to six days.
This is similar to other coronaviruses, notably SARS and MERS. Average incubation periods of other acute respiratory viral infections vary; 1.4 days for influenza A, 0.6 days for influenza B, and 12.5 days for measles.
Different viruses have different incubation periods.Shutterstock
The ‘day 16’ test
For the small minority of people who incubate the virus beyond 14 days, this can be related to underlying conditions, especially those that weaken a person’s immune response.
Over the weekend, NSW began testing returned travellers on day 16 — that is, two days after they finish hotel quarantine. This is how the latest case in NSW was detected.
The test is not compulsory and if the person doesn’t have symptoms, they don’t need to isolate until receiving their result.
This day 16 test is designed to pick up infections that may develop after the expected maximum 14-day incubation period on which Australia’s quarantine period is based.
Other states are reported to be considering implementing this measure too. This is a good safety net because, not only could it pick up the very rare case where a person might incubate the virus for longer, it could also catch missed cases of the virus being contracted in quarantine.
Some places even have a shorter quarantine period than 14 days. The UK, for example, has just started a hotel quarantine program to try to protect against arrival of other new variants. The quarantine period is ten days.
So Australia is erring on the more cautious end of the spectrum.
Could the new variants affect the incubation period?
Most of the data we have on the incubation period for COVID-19 don’t capture the emerging variants of the virus. For example, most of the studies included in the review I mentioned above were conducted in China, and all were carried out in June 2020 or earlier.
If anything, it’s possible the new variants might have a shorter incubation period.
New variants can change the way the virus behaves.Shutterstock
The accelerated rise in case numbers we’ve seen around the world with new variants means a greater proportion of people become infected following an exposure to these new strains, as we know these new variants can be more infectious. But a shortened incubation period could also be contributing.
These new variants are more efficient at establishing infections, we’re told, with the virus better at binding to, and invading, our cells. We might therefore assume a more efficient virus wouldn’t wait 14 days before establishing an infection. It would get on the job of replicating more quickly.
Although we need more information on these new variants before we can draw any conclusions, we can be reassured Australia’s two-week quarantine period should be ample time to detect the vast majority of cases.
This may change once we see what post quarantine testing reveals over the next while, but for now the priority must be making sure any cases within hotel quarantine don’t escape into the wider community.
The “meet cute” is the moment in which two unlikely people encounter each other while going about their ordinary lives, and something extraordinary begins.
In the romantic comedy The Holiday (2006), Arthur (Eli Wallach) describes it thus to Iris (Kate Winslet):
It’s how two characters meet in a movie. Say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in, and they both go to the same men’s pyjama department. And the man says to the salesman, “I just need bottoms”. The woman says, “I just need a top”. They look at each other, and that’s the meet cute.
The meet cute is a magical moment of happenstance. The people involved aren’t looking for love (at least, not right then).
a comic situation contrived entirely for the purpose of bringing a man and a woman together, after which they can work out their destinies for the remainder of the film.
However you describe it, the meet cute is unexpected. It happens when romance is the furthest thing from the characters’ minds. But in real life, in the age of online dating, more Australians meet their partner online than through friends and work (let alone, while buying pyjamas).
So can you have a meet cute when you are looking for love? Is it possible to have a meet cute on a dating app?
Searching for romance
Driven by new year’s resolutions, holiday break-ups, and the desire for a Valentine’s Day date, the “busy” period for dating apps in Australia spans from Christmas Day through to mid-February. Across this period in 2020, Australians sent over 52.8 million messages on dating app Bumble.
In many ways, finding a valentine is easier than ever. But dating apps aren’t conducive to stumbling into just the right person precisely when you weren’t looking for them.
In two months last year, Australians sent 52 million messages on Bumble alone.iam_os/Unsplash
They rely on a logic of active choice: you sign up to the app in pursuit of some form of coupledom. In interviews one of us, (Lisa), conducted with dating app users, many described these apps as pre-meditated and strategic.
When talking about what they might want in a relationship, many participants specifically desired a “Hollywood moment”, but felt this could never happen via a dating app.
Simultaneously, many felt meet cutes weren’t something that could ever happen to them: meet cutes were reserved for “special” people, not ordinary ones.
People seeking romance on dating apps are caught between two opposing forces: they feel apps provide the best opportunity to meet someone, but also that apps close down the possibility of a rom-com-style romance they dream of.
How fictional meet cutes adapted to online dating
In the most famous rom-com featuring online dating, You’ve Got Mail (1998), Joe (Tom Hanks) and Kathleen (Meg Ryan) don’t meet on a dating site. They meet in an over-30s chatroom and pursue a correspondence, not realising they’re business rivals in real life.
They might have met online, but neither was looking for love – and their business rivalry makes them very unlikely lovers.
More recently, Netflix’s Love, Guaranteed (2020) pairs a man suing a dating site for failing to find him love (Damon Wayans Jr) with his lawyer (Rachael Leigh Cook). They meet because of the site — but because they’re suing it, not because they matched on it.
We see similar patterns in popular romance fiction. In Christina Lauren’s My Favorite Half-Night Stand (2018), the heroine finds love via online dating — but with her best friend, who she already knew.
In Kristin Rockaway’s How to Hack a Heartbreak (2019), the heroine creates her own dating app, but her happily ever after is with the guy who sits in the next cubicle.
Some romance novels are beginning to emerge where the protagonists do meet solely because of apps, such as Alisha Rai’s The Right Swipe (2019), where the protagonists meet via an app — and then meet again in the boardroom.
Conflict or compatibility?
Meeting someone via an app might never feel exactly like the Hollywood rom-com meet cute participants in Lisa’s research were looking for — but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Romance narratives are driven by conflict. There’s usually a reason the two people can’t be together, a conflict they spend the whole story overcoming.
In Notting Hill (1999), Will (Hugh Grant) and Anna (Julia Roberts) have a classic meet cute when they bump into each other and he spills his orange juice all over her. But then they have to overcome the obstacles posed by the very different lives they lead in order to be together.
On dating apps, those looking for a relationship are searching for compatibility and chemistry, not conflict — for someone they could build a connection with, not the most unlikely person possible.
In other words: finding a valentine via an app is a lot more likely than running into them on the street or getting trapped in a lift with them.
And if it doesn’t feel quite like a rom-com, it might just be because we haven’t quite worked out how to tell that kind of story yet.
Recent news about New Zealand’s declining position in international educational assessment rankings has been treated as if it is a new phenomenon requiring drastic changes to the school system.
But some suggested solutions, such as the Principals Federation’s call for greater involvement by the Ministry of Education in curriculum decisions, seem simplistic. Problems in education are more complex and relate to the relationship of schooling to society in general.
It’s worth noting that when these international large-scale assessments (e.g. PISA and TIMSS) were first deployed in the 1990s, New Zealand scored in the top five or 10 of all participating countries at year 5, year 8 and year 11. Since then scores have fallen to the middle of the pack, although slightly above average.
This is disappointing, but before we become overly concerned, a number of factors need to be considered.
Being good at tests counts
The international tests can only test those things that are readily evaluated on either paper or a screen with text. Of all the things that are valuable to our children, these tests measure a very narrow, albeit important, slice of the school curriculum.
While the international test agencies do everything they can to ensure test content is valid for every society, it is clear that routinely taking tests makes a small contribution to greater success. Practice always improves performance.
Unfortunately, by the time New Zealand children reach 15 (PISA measurement age) they will have had very little opportunity to take multiple-choice tests at school.
Many schools conduct yearly standardised tests provided by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) or the electronic assessment tools for teaching and learning (e-asTTle) system.
But that is very little compared to children from countries with a heavy use of testing to motivate and select students, such as China, Japan, Korea and India. Most of the world’s children get tested; New Zealand’s not so much.
Expectation and performance
Research shows that when New Zealand students take tests of little personal consequence, they tend not to try very hard. This is true of students in Nordic countries, too.
In contrast, research is showing that students in Shanghai, for example, treat a test that matters to their country’s reputation nearly as seriously as tests with individual consequences.
New Zealand’s lower scores may simply reflect lower effort on a test that doesn’t personally matter to students.
Although international rankings have declined over the past two decades, it was clear from an overview of New Zealand achievement data some 15 years ago that there was a large discrepancy between what the New Zealand curriculum expected of children and their actual performance.
This was most notable for Māori and Pasifika children and for those in lower decile schools. Despite the 2007 curriculum review, little has been done in New Zealand to close this gap before students enter secondary schooling.
Social and educational policies are linked: pupils in Finland receive lunch in their school canteen.GettyImages
Schooling and society
Families’ socio-economic resources heavily influence educational achievement. This has been established since the mid-1960s as an important causal factor in performance.
Families with good jobs, educated parents, warm and dry homes and access to reasonably priced health care produce children who do well at school. Since the 1990s, New Zealand has become a society increasingly unable to ensure such conditions for all children.
This means New Zealand is faced with a choice when looking at higher-scoring societies for possible solutions. A clear-eyed examination of those nations may give us some insight into what we could do.
Among the most successful are the high-testing regions of East Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Korea, Japan, Macau). These jurisdictions regularly test children to rank and sort them even before they enter school.
However, my own research has shown large psychological and emotional consequences for systems that rank and reward the winners. The tragedy is that creating a test-based system is relatively simple and cost-effective, but the human cost is not one I would wish on my own children and grandchildren.
The Finland model
A standout alternative to this approach is offered by Finland, which has decided that solving educational achievement problems cannot be separated from health, welfare, housing and employment policies.
The Finns expect government agencies to co-ordinate with each other to ensure the socio-economic determinants of achievement were put in place for all children, in conjunction with action taken by schools and their education ministry.
This means not blaming schools and teachers for poor student performance when that performance was a consequence of hunger, unemployment, poor health or myriad other social ills that schooling alone cannot solve.
Seeing educational outcomes as a canary in the coalmine of social well-being has meant all government policy works together to ensure educational equity.
Also, it’s perhaps startling from the perspective of New Zealand’s tradition of experience-based teacher education that all Finnish teachers require masters degrees and to be trained in evidence-based practices before being deployed as schoolteachers.
Those teachers are well paid and have became highly regarded professionals in their community.
The challenge for New Zealand is that Finland’s solution is expensive. It requires great political will and constant attention to the changing factors that undermine societal equity.
Nonetheless, Finland has shown it is possible to change educational outcomes in a coherent and meaningful way.
Australia has recently seen SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) escape several times from hotel quarantine, including in Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne.
These incidents have been particularly concerning because they involved people infected with “variants” of the virus.
But what exactly are these variants, and how concerned should we be?
What’s a variant?
Viruses can’t replicate and spread on their own. They need a host, and they need to hijack the cells of the host to replicate. When they replicate in a host, they face the challenge of duplicating their genetic material. For many viruses, this isn’t an exact process and their offspring often contain errors — meaning they’re not exact copies of the original virus.
These errors are referred to as mutations, and viruses with these mutations are called variants. Often, these mutations don’t affect the biological properties of the virus. That is, they don’t have any effect on how the virus replicates or causes disease.
Some mutations can impair the virus’s ability to replicate and/or transmit. Variants with such mutations are quickly lost from the viral population.
Occasionally, however, variants emerge with an advantageous mutation, one that means it’s better at replicating, transmitting, and/or evading our immune system. These variants have a selective advantage (in biological terms, they are “fitter” than other variants) and may rapidly become the dominant viral strain.
There’s some concern we’re seeing a growing number of variants with advantageous mutations, contributing to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here’s a look at the main three variants you might’ve heard about in the media.
The ‘UK variant’ — B.1.1.7
This variant was first detected in the United Kingdom towards the end of 2020. It has a large number of mutations, many of which involve the virus’ spike protein, which helps the virus invade human cells.
It has spread rapidly throughout the UK since it emerged, and to at least 70 other countries, including Australia.
The fact it has spread so rapidly, and quickly replaced other circulating variants, suggests it has some sort of selective advantage over other variants.
After examining the evidence surrounding the new variant, the UK New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) concluded it “had moderate confidence” the variant is substantially more infectious than other variants.
The Queensland government sent Brisbane into a snap lockdown in early January after a cleaner working in hotel quarantine tested positive to the more infectious UK variant.Darren England/AAP
This may be the result of one of the mutations in the spike protein of the variant — a mutation called “N501Y”. One preprint manuscript, uploaded last month and yet to be peer reviewed, found N501Y is associated with increased binding of the virus to a receptor found on the surface on many of our cells, called “ACE2”. This could mean the variant is even more efficient at entering our cells.
Although initially the variant wasn’t associated with more severe COVID symptoms, more recent data have led NERVTAG to conclude there’s “a realistic possibility” that infection with the variant “is associated with an increased risk of death” compared with non B.1.1.7 viruses.
However, the group acknowledged there are limitations of the available data, and this remains an evolving situation.
Similar to the UK variant, it quickly outcompeted other SARS-CoV-2 variants in South Africa. It now accounts for more than 90% of SARS-CoV-2 samples in South Africa that undergo genetic sequencing.
Like the UK variant, it also has the N501Y mutation in the spike protein, meaning it’s more efficient at gaining access to our cells to replicate. This may help to explain its rapid spread.
It also contains several other concerning mutations. Two of these, called “E484K” and “K417N”, are bad news for our immune system. They can reduce how well our antibodies bind to the virus (though this is also based on preprint data awaiting peer review).
But there’s no evidence yet to suggest the South African variant is more deadly than the original variants.
The ‘Brazilian variant’ — P.1
This variant was first detected in Japan in a group of Brazilian travellers in January 2021.
It’s now highly prevalent in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, and has been detected in countries including South Korea and the United States.
The Brazilian variant has sparked a wave of reinfections in the state of Amazonas.Raphael Alves/EPA/AAP
Like the South African variant, the Brazilian variant has the spike protein mutations N501Y, E484K and K417N (as well as numerous other mutations).
While there’s no evidence this variant causes more severe disease, there’s concern it has facilitated a wave of reinfections in Manaus, the largest city in Amazonas, which was thought to have reached “herd immunity” in October last year.
What does this mean for vaccines?
Major vaccine developers are testing the efficacy of their vaccines against these and other variants. Generally, the currently licensed vaccines protect relatively well against the UK variant.
But recent phase 2/3 data from both Novavax and Johnson & Johnson suggest reduced protection against the South African variant. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine group also released data over the weekend suggesting its vaccine offers only minimal protection against mild-moderate disease caused by this variant.
However, it’s important to recognise reduced protection doesn’t mean no protection at all, and that data are still emerging.
What’s more, numerous vaccine manufacturers are now investigating whether tweaks to the vaccines can improve their performance against the emerging variants.
The take-home message is that variants will emerge, and we need to closely monitor their spread. However, there’s every indication we’ll be able to adapt our vaccine strategies to protect against these and future variants.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya Hill, Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museums Victoria
Three new spacecraft are due to arrive at Mars this month, ending their seven-month journey through space.
The first, the United Arab Emirates’ Hope Probe, should have made it to the red planet this week. It will stay in orbit and study its atmosphere for one complete Martian year (687 Earth days).
China’s Taiwen-1 mission also enters orbit this month and will begin scouting the potential landing site for its Mars rover, due to be deployed in May.
If successful, China will become the second country to land a rover on Mars.
These two missions will join six orbiting spacecraft actively studying the red planet from above:
The oldest active probe – Mars Odyssey – has been orbiting the planet for 20 years.
The third spacecraft to reach Mars this month is NASA’s Perseverance rover, scheduled to land on February 18. It will search for signs of ancient microbial life but its mission also looks ahead, testing new technologies that may support humans visiting Mars one day.
Now NASA hopes Perseverance will land on Mars.
Laboratories on wheels
NASA has an impressive track record for landing on Mars. It has operated all eight successful missions to the Martian surface.
Just minutes after landing, Viking 1 captured the first ever photograph taken from the Martian surface.NASA/JPL
Perseverance will be the fifth rover to arrive on Mars that’s capable of venturing across the surface of another planet.
These amazing laboratories on wheels have extended our knowledge of a faraway world. Here’s what they’ve told us so far.
The first rover – Sojourner
Twenty years after Viking 1 & 2 landed stationary probes on Mars, a third spacecraft finally reached the planet, but this one could move.
On July 4, 1997, NASA’s Pathfinder literally bounced onto the Martian surface, safely enclosed in a giant set of airbags. Once stable, the lander released the Sojourner rover.
See the Sojourner probe from Pathfinder’s viewpoint.
The first rover on Mars could move at a maximum speed of 1cm a second and was about as long (63cm) as a skateboard — smaller than some of the boulders it encountered.
Sojourner explored 16 locations near the Pathfinder lander, including the volcanic rock “Yogi”. Pictures of its landing site, Ares Vallis, showed it was littered with rounded pebbles and conglomerate rocks, evidence of ancient flood plains.
The geologists – Spirit and Opportunity
A pair of upsized rovers arrived on Mars in early 2004. Spirit and Opportunity were geologists, searching for minerals within the rocks and soil, hidden clues that dry, cold Mars may once have been wet and warm.
This overhead ‘selfie’ was combined with Spirit’s largest ever panorama – it contains hundreds of individual images of Gusev Crater taken over three Martian days.NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, a 150km-wide crater created billions of years ago when an asteroid crashed into Mars.
Spirit discovered evidence of an ancient volcanic explosion, caused by hot lava meeting water. Small rocks had been thrown skyward but then fell back to Mars. Examination of the impact or “bomb sag” showed the rock had landed on wet soil.
The arrow points to a small crater or bomb sag, just 4cm across, that formed in the soaking wet ground when an ejected rock fell back to Mars.NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS/Cornell
Even when things went wrong, Spirit made new discoveries. While dragging a broken front wheel, Spirit churned up a track of soil revealing a patch of white silica.
This mineral usually exists in hot springs or steam vents, ideal environments where life on Earth tends to flourish.
A 20cm track revealing white silica and a clue that Mars was once wet and warm.NASA/JPL/Cornell
The rover that kept on going
Opportunity arrived on Mars three weeks after Spirit. Its original three-month mission was extended to 14 years as it travelled almost 50km across the Martian terrain.
Landing in the small Eagle Crater, Opportunity went on to visit more than 100 impact craters. It also found a handful of meteorites, the first to be studied on another planet.
Outlined in yellow is Opportunity’s journey from Eagle Crater towards its final resting spot on the rim of Endeavour Crater. The blue outline of Victoria’s Phillip Island is included for scale.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Museums Victoria
The rover was descending into Endeavour Crater when a dust storm ended its mission. But it was along the crater’s edge that Opportunity made its biggest discoveries.
It found signs of ancient water flows and discovered the crater walls are made of clays that can only form where freshwater is available — more evidence that Mars could well have been a place for life.
The chemist – Curiosity
Curiosity landed in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012, and continues to explore the region today. During the coronavirus pandemic, scientists and engineers have been commanding the rover from their homes.
An artist’s impression of Curiosity as it descends from the top of the Martian atmosphere to softly touchdown on the planet’s surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech
In a first for space exploration, NASA’s Curiosity was lowered to the Martian surface using a “sky crane”. After a successful soft landing, the crane’s cables were cut and the spacecraft’s descent stage flew away to crash elsewhere.
Curiosity is a fully equipped chemical laboratory. It can shoot lasers at rocks and also drill into the soil to collect samples. It’s confirmed ancient Mars once had the right chemistry to support microbial life.
Curiosity also found evidence of ancient freshwater rivers and lakes. It seems that water once flowed towards a basin at Mount Sharp, a central peak that rises 5.5km from within Gale Crater.
Curiosity takes a picture of itself, working through the COVID-19 pandemic and drilling holes in a possible ancient riverbed.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
From being on the surface of Mars, we’ve learned it was once very different to the dry, dusty planet it is today.
With flowing water, possible oceans, volcanic activity and an abundance of key ingredients necessary for life, the red planet was once much more Earth-like. What happened to make it change so dramatically?
It’s exciting to consider what the Perseverance and Taiwen-1 rovers may discover as they explore their own patch of Mars. They might even lead us to the day when humans are exploring the red planet for ourselves.
The colours in this image from Gale Crater have been adjusted to match conditions on Earth – this helps geologists interpret the rocks but it also changes the natural pink Martian sky to an Earth-like blue.NASA/JPL-Caltech
As Australian producers scramble to find markets for goods hit by Chinese import restrictions, it might look as though China is winning the diplomatic war.
But the current situation is a diplomacy fail for China as much as for Australia.
China suspended imports from six Australian beef suppliers in 2020.Rick Rycroft/AAP
This has hurt some Australian products, such as wine and barley, which have struggled to find equally lucrative markets. However, some others such as wheat have found new buyers relatively easily.
Overall, Australia’s total exports to China actually increased in December, mainly thanks to iron ore, which China needs too much to restrict.
Restrictions cut both ways
But while these import restrictions hurt Australia, they hurt China too.
In the short term, Chinese consumers miss out on products they enjoyed, such as premium Australian wine and lobsters, which are valued for celebrations.
Chinese manufacturers that used Australian goods might have to pay more or accept lower quality, such as for barley used for brewing, which hurts their productivity and economic growth.
In some sectors, there may not be enough immediate replacements for Australian products.
For example, coal shortages have led to China’s worst power blackouts for a decade. While import restrictions are not the only factor – and the Chinese government has denied any link – widespread blackouts at the same time as more than 70 coal ships are stuck offshore show how restrictions cut both ways.
Wider impact
In the medium term, other countries watch the treatment of Australia and consider how to protect themselves, so as not to suffer the same fate.
When China restricted sales of rare earth minerals to Japan in 2010, this led Japan to invest in other countries, resulting in a significant reduction in China’s market share.
While I don’t think countries will band together to resist Chinese coercion – they are more likely to help their companies capture Australia’s market share – they may try to slow the growth of economic ties with China, such as through restricting investment in some sectors.
This means Chinese investors may find overseas markets less friendly, as has happened in Australia with much of the economy now unavailable.
Unfavourable views of China
In the long term, economic coercion has an impact on China’s international reputation.
China starts to be seen as a less reliable trade partner, and trade starts to be seen not as mutual benefit, but as a potential vulnerability that China can weaponise.
In the short term, Chinese consumers and manufacturers are missing out on Australian products.Olivia Zhang/AP/AAP
Chinese citizens seem to be blissfully unaware of the damage to their country’s reputation. Recent public opinion polling found 78% believe China’s international image has improved in recent years. This is dead wrong.
Comprehensive polling by Pew Research shows China’s international reputation in advanced economies has plummeted over the past decade. China’s assertive diplomacy has been spectacularly unsuccessful as a way of winning hearts and minds.
‘Kill the chicken to warn the monkey’
Chinese thinkers who argue China should show patience and restraint in its foreign policy are not winning the argument in Beijing. National pride and strength is seen as more important than the costs.
Looking forward, China is likely to continue to mete out punishment to Australia for the demonstration effect to other countries. The Chinese have a saying “kill the chicken to warn the monkey”.
But no one should be under any illusion this situation is a good result for China.
It would have been much better for China to have a model relationship with Australia. Australia and China have no historical conflicts, no border disputes and Australia is the one with the trade surplus. If China can’t get along with Australia, who can it get along with?
The unravelling of the relationship in just five years is a terrible result for Chinese diplomacy.
This week, China will celebrate the New Year. China has controlled COVID-19 and emerged with an economy stronger than it was a year ago. China’s rhetoric advocates peaceful coexistence, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. But when it comes to diplomacy, there is room for improvement.
In the words of ancient Chinese scholar Mencius, there are two ways of being a great power: a “big power” that aggressively pursues its interests through force and coercion, or a “great state” that attracts and gains respect by its virtuous character and consideration of others’ interests.
The “floor price” for alcohol introduced by the Northern Territory in 2018 reduced the consumption of cask wine by half, without significantly impacting sales of other types of alcohol, according to our new analysis of the policy’s effectiveness.
On October 1, 2018, the NT introduced a minimum price of A$1.30 per unit (equivalent to 10 grams of pure alcohol or one “standard drink”) on alcohol, in a bid to tackle problem drinking.
The price was chosen to target cheap wines that have historically been an issue throughout the NT, while not influencing other liquor types.
Our study, published today in The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, examined overall alcohol consumption as well as consumption within specific liquor categories, most importantly cask wine. Cask wine represents less than 5% of the liquor consumed in the NT, but because it offers lots of alcohol for a low price, it contributes inordinately to alcohol problems among vulnerable drinkers and disadvantaged communities.
We split our analysis into two regions: the entire NT, and the Darwin/Palmerston area. The Darwin and Palmerston analysis is particularly important, as other regions of the NT were subject to a change in levels of police intervention at the point of sale during the period examined. The impact of these changes in policing could not be fully controlled for, whereas changes in Darwin/Palmerston can be reliably attributed to the effect of the minimum alcohol price.
In the year following the introduction of the minimum unit price, there was a 48.84% reduction in cask wine consumption in Darwin and Palmerston, and a 50.57% reduction across the NT. No significant reduction in non-wine liquor consumption was found in Darwin and Palmerston or across the NT.
This suggests implementing a minimum price on alcohol can help heavy drinkers reduce their consumption, while not adversely affecting moderate or occasional drinkers.
We found no evidence to indicate heavy drinkers had moved from cask wine to other liquor types in response to the floor price. While there was an increase in spirits sales, this trend began before the introduction of the minimum price.
Members of the community had expressed fears the minimum price would negatively impact beer sales. However, full-strength beer, the most consumed liquor type in the NT, saw no significant change in response to the minimum price.
Cask wine consumption decreased by half in the year following the introduction of minimum pricing.Shutterstock
Time for a national rollout?
Considering the effectiveness with which this policy reduced consumption of cask wine in the NT, it is time for other state and federal governments to consider following suit. Internationally, minimum pricing policies have already been implemented in Scotland and Wales, and the Republic of Ireland has also passed legislation to implement a floor price at a later date.
Other potential benefits of a minimum unit price for alcohol include higher tax revenue, and various social benefits from lower alcohol consumption. Both of these could conceivably help Australia recover from the financial burden of COVID-19.
Notably, after the release of the first evaluation of the minimum unit price policy in the NT, industry group Retail Drinks Australia claimed consumption actually increased. Our latest study directly refutes this.
It will be important for policy-makers throughout Australia to discuss the merits of this policy without being unduly influenced by the alcohol industry, which depends on the profits earned from problem drinkers.
Australia is teeming with cats. While cats make great pets, and can bring owners emotional, psychological and health benefits, the animals are a scourge on native wildlife.
Cats kill a staggering 1.7 billion native animals each year, and have played a major role in most of Australia’s 34 mammal extinctions. They continue to pose an extinction threat to at least another 120 species.
The long-nosed potoroo is extremely vulnerable to cats.Shutterstock
A recent parliamentary inquiry into the problem of feral and pet cats in Australia has affirmed the issue is indeed of national significance. The final report, released last week, calls for a heightened, more effective, multi-pronged and coordinated policy, management and research response.
As ecologists, we’ve collectively spent more than 50 years researching Australia’s cat dilemma. We welcome most of the report’s recommendations, but in some areas it doesn’t go far enough, missing major opportunities to make a difference.
Night curfews aren’t good enough
The report recommends Australia’s 3.8 million pet cats be subject to night-time curfews. This measure would benefit native nocturnal mammals, but won’t save birds and reptiles, which are primarily active during the day.
Other strategies for improving pet cat management proposed in the report include pet cat registration, subsidised programs for early age desexing, public education campaigns to promote responsible pet cat ownership, and improving the consistency of rules and legislation nationally.
Indoor cats live longer than cats allowed to roam.Jaana Dielenberg
The report is also unambiguously opposed to “trap-neuter-release” programs, in which un-owned cats in urban areas are desexed and then released. We agree with this finding, as these programs aren’t effective at reducing the population of stray cats, nor preventing those cats from killing wildlife and spreading disease.
We need more wildlife havens
One of the inquiry’s flagship recommendations is a national conservation project dubbed “Project Noah”. This would involve an ambitious expansion of Australia’s existing network of reserves free from introduced predators, both on islands and in mainland fenced areas. The reserves provide havens — or a fleet of “arks” — for vulnerable native wildlife.
This measure is vital. 2019 research found Australia has more than 65 native mammal species and subspecies that can’t persist, or struggle to persist, in places with even very low numbers of cats or foxes. This includes the bilby, numbat, quokka, dibbler and black-footed rock wallaby.
Boodies used to occur across two-thirds of Australia, but now only exist within havens.McGregor/Arid Recovery
Australia already has more than 125 havens, 100 of which are islands. These have prevented 13 mammal species from going extinct, such as boodies and greater stick-nest rats. In total, these havens have protected populations of 40 mammal species susceptible to cats and foxes.
This is a good start, but we need more investment in havens to prevent extinctions. More than 25 species are highly sensitive to cat and fox predation, but aren’t yet protected in the haven network. This includes the central rock-rat, which is more likely than not to become extinct within 20 years without new action.
What’s more, some species, such as the long-nosed potoroo, exist in just one haven. To avoid issues such as inbreeding and to ensure disasters like a fire at any single haven don’t take out an entire species, each species should be represented across several havens, in reasonable population sizes.
The report didn’t specify how the havens network should be expanded. But 2019 research found to get each species needing protection into at least three havens, Australia requires at least 35 new, strategically located islands or mainland fenced areas.
The predator proof fence at the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Newhaven Sanctuary, one of the largest cat- and fox-free havens on mainland Australia.Australian Wildlife Conservancy
What about the rest of the country?
Havens cover less than 1% of Australia. So what we do in the other 99% of the landscape — including across conservation reserves like national parks — is vital.
Yet the parliamentary inquiry report lacks clear recommendations to expand cat control more broadly, including at important conservation sites such as in Kakadu National Park.
The impact of roaming pet cats on Australian wildlife.
The report reaffirms the need to cull feral cats, and to set new targets for culling, without specifying what those targets are. We agree some culling is important, especially at sites with very vulnerable threatened wildlife.
But in many parts of Australia, broad-scale habitat management is a more cost-effective way to reduce cat harm. This involves making habitat less suitable for cats and more suitable for native wildlife, for example, by reducing rabbit numbers, fire frequency and grazing by feral herbivores such as cattle and horses.
Research has shown fewer rabbits leads to fewer cats. Rabbits are a favoured prey of many cats, so they boost feral cat numbers, which then also hunt native wildlife.
And cats gravitate to areas with less vegetation because it’s easier to catch prey. These areas include those with frequent fires, or where feral herbivores have reduced vegetation through grazing and trampling.
Better habitat with more vegetation gives native animals places to hide from predators, and more food and shelter. It’s a bit like giving the last little pig a house of bricks instead of trying to fist-fight the wolf.
Feral horses, such as these in Kakadu National Park, eat and damage vegetation making conditions more favourable for cats to hunt.Jaana Dielenberg
A major step forward
Over the past two decades, Australia has slowly woken up to the damage cats cause to nature. This has led to more research, management and policy to address the problem.
Some state governments, environment groups and scientists have worked hard to develop feral cat control options, and the 2015 Australian Threatened Species Strategy did much to focus national attention and resourcing to the issue.
The parliamentary inquiry is a major step forward, and many recommendations are sound. But overall, its recommendations call for incremental improvement.
Australia’s laws clearly fail to provide a safety net for wildlife. The cat issue is part of a larger problem with how we manage habitat, biodiversity and threats to nature – and fixing that requires wholesale change.
Students across Australia have started the new school year using pencils, pens and keyboards to learn to write.
In workplaces, machines are also learning to write, so effectively that within a few years they may write better than humans.
Sometimes they already do, as apps like Grammarly demonstrate. Certainly, much everyday writing humans now do may soon be done by machines with artificial intelligence (AI).
The predictive text commonly used by phone and email software is a form of AI writing that countless humans use every day.
According to an industry research organisation Gartner, AI and related technology will automate production of 30% of all content found on the internet by 2022.
Some prose, poetry, reports, newsletters, opinion articles, reviews, slogans and scripts are already being written by artificial intelligence.
This means our children should no longer be taught just formulaic writing. Instead, writing education should encompass skills that go beyond the capacities of artificial intelligence.
Back to basics, or further away from them?
After 2019 PISA results (Programme for International Student Assessment) showed Australian students sliding backwards in numeracy and literacy, then Education Minister Dan Tehan called for schools to go back to basics. But computers already have the basics mastered.
In some schools, students write essays with sentences fulfilling specified functions, in specified orders, in specified numbers and arrangements of paragraphs. These can then be marked by computers to demonstrate progress.
This template writing is exactly the kind of standardised practice robot writers can do.
Are you scared yet, human?
In 2019, the New Yorker magazine did an experiment to see if IT company OpenAI’s natural language generator GPT-2 could write an entire article in the magazine’s distinctive style. This attempt had limited success, with the generator making many errors.
But by 2020, GPT-3, the new version of the machine, trained on even more data, wrote an article for The Guardian newspaper with the headline “A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?”
Robots may have a voice, but they have no soul.Shutterstock
This latest much improved generator has implications for the future of journalism, as the Elon Musk-funded OpenAI invests ever more in research and development.
Robots have voice but no soul
Back at school, teachers experience pressure to teach writing for student success in narrowly defined writing tests.
But instead, the prospect of human obsolescence or “technological unemployment” needs to drive urgent curriculum developments based on what humans are learning AI cannot do — especially in relation to creativity and compassion.
Creativity and co-creativity (with machines) should be fostered. Machines are trained on a finite amount of data, to predict and replicate, not to innovate in meaningful and deliberate ways.
Purposeful writing
AI cannot yet plan and does not have a purpose. Students need to hone skills in purposeful writing that achieves their communication goals.
Unfortunately, the NAPLAN regime has hampered teaching writing as a process that involves planning and editing. This is because it favours time-limited exam-style writing for no audience.
Students need to practise writing in which they are invested, that they care about and that they hope will effect change in the world as well as in their genuine, known readers. This is what machines cannot do.
AI is not yet as complex as the human brain. Humans detect humour and satire. They know words can have multiple and subtle meanings. Humans are capable of perception and insight; they can make advanced evaluative judgements about good and bad writing.
There are calls for humans to become expert in sophisticated forms of writing and in editing writing created by robots as vital future skills.
Robots have no morality
Nor does AI have a moral compass. It does not care. OpenAI’s managers originally refused to release GPT-3, ostensibly because they were concerned about the generator being used to create fake material, such as reviews of products or election-related commentary.
AI writing bots have no conscience and may need to be eliminated by humans, as with Microsoft’s racist Twitter prototype, Tay.
Critical, compassionate and nuanced assessment of what AI produces, management and monitoring of content, and decision-making and empathy with readers are all part of the “writing” roles of a democratic future.
Skills for the future
As early as 2011, the Institute for the Future identified social intelligence (“the ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way”), novel and adaptive thinking, cross-cultural competency, transdisciplinarity, virtual collaboration and a design mindset as essential skills for the future workforce.
In 2017, a report by The Foundation for Young Australians found complex problem-solving skills, judgement, creativity and social intelligence would be vital for students’ futures.
This is in stark contrast to parroting irrelevant grammar terms such as “subordinate clauses” and “nominalisations”, being able to spell “quixotic” and “acaulescent” (words my daughter learnt by rote in primary school recently) or writing to a formula.
Teaching and assessment of writing need to catch up to the real world.
