Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Elphinstone, Lecturer in psychology., Swinburne University of Technology

The same week social distancing measures were announced in Australia (March 16 – March 22), sales of game consoles leaped 285.6%. Prior to this, sales were declining month on month.

We’ve also seen a 278.5% spike in physical game sales, spurred by the release of Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. COVID-19 is clearly having an impact on our shopping habits beyond toilet paper.

Looking at the games leaping up the UK charts in late March, the top five (which all enjoyed a 200%+ bump in sales) provide robust multiplayer experiences. Apart from Doom and Animal Crossing, we see the latest releases from Call of Duty, FIFA, and Mario Kart. These games aren’t simply about escaping reality, but about going somewhere together.

Yet, to those who aren’t already avid players, video games might be viewed as juvenile – a waste of time lacking redemptive qualities. In the era of the quantified self, where we’re pushed to use technology to track and “optimise” ourselves endlessly, even those who do enjoy games may feel guilty for not being more “productive”.

On the contrary, we have found video games help satisfy fundamental psychological needs, and therefore have enormous value for all ages.

What people need

According to Self-Determination Theory, people have three psychological needs:

• autonomy is about feeling you have choices, can act in accordance with your values, and pursue meaningful goals
• competence is about feeling effective and capable of overcoming problems
• relatedness is about feeling connected to others.

The satisfaction of these basic psychological needs leads to greater well-being and motivation. If being stuck at home is reducing your happiness and well-being, this could be due to reduced satisfaction of one or more of these needs. For instance, your sense of autonomy may be undermined when forced to self-isolate, as you can’t partake in many of your usual activities.

Read more: Video games could help uncover your hidden talents – and make you happier

Your sense of competence might have also taken a hit, by missing out on the daily “wins” that can come through leisure pursuits or problem-solving at work. You also likely can’t see your colleagues, neighbours, friends, and family as often, which can undermine feelings of relatedness.

Feeling powerless is also common during pandemics.

Fortunately, many of us have found other ways of satisfying these needs through technology, such as using webcams and microphones to have online interactions. It’s not the same as a face-to-face meeting, but it helps maintain connection and satisfies our desire for relatedness.

What games provide

Video games can also satisfy these needs and may be a great way to spend some time during this crisis.

Research shows games help facilitate a sense of autonomy by giving players freedom of choice and, depending on the game, a meaningful narrative for completing tasks. Well-designed games also facilitate a feeling of competence by presenting challenges that aren’t too hard or too easy and feel rewarding to overcome.

They offer a clearly defined “sense of progress and achievability”, as Jennifer Scheurle explains. This is especially valuable during lockdown when your days may feel monotonous.

Games also offer a sense of relatedness. This could be through playing with friends, or even connecting with a stranger online (with whom you may be battling a common enemy).

Humans are hardwired for connection. Plenty of literature has established a link between loneliness and early death, and increased risk of disease for older people.

Research suggests gamers can also feel a sense of relatedness with virtual characters and the game world itself, adding to the overall enjoyment of playing. Caring about a character and their plight (relatedness) motivates players to help them (autonomy), and enhances their sense of competence when they succeed.

Read more: Social distancing can make you lonely. Here’s how to stay connected when you’re in lockdown

All good things in moderation

While playing games is psychologically valuable, it’s important to do so in moderation. The Child Mind Institute recommends about one to two (maximum) hours per day of gaming for children. For kids older than six, they encourage parents to “determine the appropriate amount of time”.

While there is no universal consensus on how much gaming is “too much” for adults, the answer is likely less to do with hours of play, and more to do with being aware of one’s susceptibility to video game addiction. That said, research suggests only about 1-3% of gamers are at risk of addiction. If you are concerned, you can try this test that was trialled in a paper published by the International Journal of Health and Addiction.

Eating healthy, minimising alcohol consumption, exercising, and getting about seven to nine hours of sleep are also important for maintaining physical and mental health.

In the virtual world, do virtually anything

If life in lockdown is creating a sense of ennui for you, consider playing video games to keep your basic psychological needs satisfied. If you’re already playing, keep doing it (in moderation) without feeling guilty.

And if you see yourself as “not much of a gamer”, still consider giving it a try. The range of digital games is enormously broad, and there are many online guides for beginners wanting to get in on the action.

Whether you enjoy chess, want to explore the ocean, or live the island life while working for a Japanese raccoon dog – there’s something out there for you.

– ref. Time well spent, not wasted: video games are boosting well-being during the coronavirus lockdown – https://theconversation.com/time-well-spent-not-wasted-video-games-are-boosting-well-being-during-the-coronavirus-lockdown-135642

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Harris, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, UNSW

As part of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, all elective surgeries across Australia have been temporarily cancelled.

Elective surgery is non-urgent surgery people choose (elect) to have: things like cataract surgery, joint replacement, tonsillectomy, hernia repair and cosmetic surgery.

There are more than two million hospital admissions involving elective surgery in Australia each year; two-thirds in private hospitals and one-third in public hospitals. Accordingly, elective surgeries make up a huge part of overall health expenditure.

So when they stop all of a sudden, it’s a big deal.

Read more: Private hospitals get grace period before freeze on non-urgent elective surgery

What does this mean for patients?

People who were booked in for surgery will simply have to wait. Because their surgery was deemed non-urgent, this might not be too bad if the shutdown lasts for six weeks. But what if it lasts for six months?

Private patients will face delays that are probably less than the usual waiting lists in public hospitals (up to 12 months for elective surgery), but public patients may have to wait even longer.

This large scale halt on elective surgeries is unprecedented, so we don’t have any data on what kinds of consequences we might expect. But research suggests people who wait for surgery can deteriorate proportional to the length of time they wait. So a few risks come to mind.

Patients may need to rely on strong pain medications for a longer time, and could be more likely to become dependent on these.

Older people in particular may have to cope for longer with restricted mobility while waiting for a hip replacement. Or they may be at increased risk of falls due to poor eyesight while waiting to have their cataracts fixed.

So while this move has been designed to reduce pressure on our hospitals, we may end up with more acute presentations to emergency departments.

It’s not all bad news

Some people, however, might find their condition improves. While cataracts won’t clear up on their own, many elective procedures are done for conditions that can improve without surgery.

My area of specialty is orthopaedics, the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system.

In all recent studies where researchers have tested common elective orthopaedic surgical procedures against a placebo (just an incision, for example), the improvement in symptoms has been quite good, regardless of whether or not participants had the surgery or the placebo.

My colleagues and I currently have a review in press looking at studies where patients have been randomised to surgery or no surgery for chronic musculoskeletal pain. These procedures include spine fusions and decompressions for back and leg pain, carpal tunnel decompression, arthroscopic surgery for shoulder and knee pain, and joint replacement surgery.

We found only 14% of the studies showed surgery was clearly better than not doing the surgery. In most studies it was a toss-up, or the patients who had surgery fared worse.

Read more: Surgery isn’t always the best option, and the decision shouldn’t just lie with the doctor

Even elective procedures we know to be effective, such as knee replacements, have alternatives. One study compared patients who underwent knee replacement surgery to patients who didn’t, where both groups were given a 12-week physiotherapy program.

While the surgery group demonstrated better results, those treated without surgery also improved. And two-thirds had avoided surgery up to two years later.

Maximising patient education about the risks and benefits of treatment options using specially designed “decision aids” is another technique that has reduced the uptake of elective surgery.

In New South Wales, education and non-surgical treatment for people on waiting lists for knee replacements has resulted in more than 10% of patients coming off the waiting list because of improved symptoms. (Weight loss alone can significantly reduce symptoms from knee arthritis.)

Decision aids are not not commonly used for elective surgery in Australia but could be taken up more widely.

What will happen after the pandemic?

We will obviously see an increase in elective surgery once the ban is lifted, but I predict the increase will not equate to the decline during this shutdown.

First, the demand for surgery is generated during surgical consultations, and these have declined considerably.

Second, financial strain will mean people will be less likely to agree to any out of pocket costs, and possibly fewer people will be insured.

Finally, people will realise they might not need the surgery. In effect, we may be “flattening the curve” of post-virus elective surgery partly by realising much of it can be avoided.

Read more: What steps hospitals can take if coronavirus leads to a shortage of beds

But unless the forces that dictate our usual rates of elective surgery change, the rates will eventually return to normal. This is because we have a health system that drives specific, quantifiable treatments for diagnosed conditions.

For example, the system is geared at providing and reimbursing knee replacements, not the education, weight loss and exercise programs that might reduce the need for them.

There is considerable room to lower the rates of many common elective procedures, even without a forced shutdown.

Read more: Why do we wait so long in hospital emergency departments and for elective surgery?

– ref. The coronavirus ban on elective surgeries might show us many people can avoid going under the knife – https://theconversation.com/the-coronavirus-ban-on-elective-surgeries-might-show-us-many-people-can-avoid-going-under-the-knife-135325

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Jenkins, Professor, Respiratory Medicine, UNSW Sydney and Clinical Professor at the University of Sydney, George Institute for Global Health

The new respiratory coronavirus COVID-19 is particularly worrying for the 2.7 million Australians who already suffer from asthma. That’s roughly one in nine people.

Viral respiratory infections, in particular those that cause the common cold, typically trigger flareups of asthma. They are the main reason for asthma episodes in both children and adults during autumn and winter.

So it’s natural for asthmatics to fear they may be more at risk during the coronavirus pandemic.

We don’t yet know if people with asthma are more susceptible to serious outcomes if they get COVID-19.

But there’s plenty asthmatics can do to minimise the impact of any viral infection, whether it’s the common cold or coronavirus.

Good asthma control

Asthma is characterised by inflammation in the lining of the lung’s air passages. For most asthmatic adults and some asthmatic children, the condition is long-term.

Asthmatic airway inflammation persists over time, even between acute attacks, and contributes significantly to day-to-day symptoms for some people.

If this airway inflammation is not treated, it can result in progressive narrowing of the airways. Normal lung function may never return.

Having “good asthma control” is the key starting point to reducing your risk.

That includes:

• having minimal or no day-to-day symptoms
• no night-time waking
• no asthma attacks and
• good lung function, such that you can do all your normal daily activities without any limitation.

Good asthma control is eminently achievable with regular medication (both relievers and preventers).

Read more: Explainer: what is thunderstorm asthma?

Relievers and preventers

Relievers are bronchodilators, meaning they act rapidly to relax the muscle in the airways and open the breathing passages to enable normal breathing.

Salbutamol (Ventolin or Asmol) is by far the best known and widely used, typically as an aerosol inhaler (often referred to as a puffer).

Preventers include Breo, Symbicort, Flutiform, Seretide and Flixotide.

The most commonly used preventer asthma medications in Australia contain an inhaled corticosteroid (which is anti-inflammatory) and a long-acting bronchodilator, which is a symptom controller – an ideal combination.

Proper preventer use may result in so few symptoms you might not need to take reliever medications for many weeks or even months.

People who are prescribed regular asthma preventer medications should continue to take them throughout the COVID-19 season to maximise their chances of staying well. Stopping these medications may increase the risk of having poorly controlled asthma and risk a severe attack or even hospital admission.

Stop panic-buying medications

Sadly, there has been a recent run on the reliever salbutamol in Australian pharmacies. While it’s vital people check the expiry date on their salbutamol canister, there is no need to stockpile these inhalers.

The less we panic-buy, the more likely there will be plenty of salbutamol available for those who need it.

Stay healthy, minimise the risk

To minimise your risk of a flare-up with any respiratory virus, including coronavirus, you should:

1. take your preventer medication every day as prescribed
2. make sure you know where your salbutamol inhaler is and that it hasn’t expired
3. check in with your doctor to make sure your asthma control is as good as it can be, and that your current medications and doses are appropriate
4. make sure you have an up to date written asthma action plan, and keep it handy
5. remember to have your flu shot.

Written action plans mean you can step up your treatment if symptoms worsen. They provide guidance about when to start additional treatments such as a course of the anti-inflammatory corticosteroid prednisone or when to contact a doctor.

Your GP can help you recognise early symptoms of an asthma attack or flare-up, write a new plan and discuss the best way manage your attacks so you know exactly what to do if your symptoms increase.

Your action plan should include advice to use a puffer and spacer during a flare-up of asthma, but not a nebuliser.

During the first SARS epidemic in 2003, health-care workers reportedly became ill due to exposure to aerosol-producing procedures such as nebulising bronchodilator medications.

We know that SARS CoV-2, the current pandemic virus, can spread rapidly this way and so nebulisers should not be used to treat asthma attacks at home or in hospital.

Good asthma control maximises the chances that if you do get coronavirus, it will have minimal impact. It doesn’t, however, remove the risk of a serious episode completely.

Patients, families and carers can get more information at Asthma Australia and health professionals can go to the National Asthma Council.

If your usual asthma medications are not working for you, seek medical advice promptly. Meanwhile, keep doing all you can to reduce your risk of catching coronavirus in the first place by social distancing and washing hands frequently.

Read more: What causes asthma? What we know, don’t know and suspect

– ref. I’m an asthmatic: what should I do during the coronavirus pandemic? – https://theconversation.com/im-an-asthmatic-what-should-i-do-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-135309

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa O’Donnell, Senior Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

Tackling a health crisis such as COVID-19, with society in lockdown can’t help but place families under strain.

It’s been reported family violence notifications to police nearly tripled in some areas of China’s Hubei province (where SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 originated) during the lockdown in February.

Some family violence organisations in Australia are already reporting a rise in demand for services.

The federal government recently announced A$1.1 billion for mental health services, domestic violence support and Medicare assistance for people at home, and emergency food relief. This support is welcome but more practical and creative measures are also required to protect vulnerable families.

COVID-19 and vulnerable children

Prior to the pandemic, in 2018-19, about 170,000 children aged up to 17 years (around 30 out of 1,000) received child protection services. These services include investigations, which may or may not lead to substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect, care and protection orders, or out-of-home care placements.

Most of these children remain in their families of origin with social workers from government and community agencies, as well as teaching, medical and other professionals supporting these families and monitoring children’s safety.

But the social structures and services which normally support children and families – such as schools, parenting or mother’s groups, and family services – have been removed or are operating at reduced capacity.

Read more: Coronavirus and ‘domestic terrorism’: how to stop family violence under lockdown

Reduced service provision will amplify the pre-existing and COVID-19 related challenges that impact children’s safety. These include parental substance misuse, mental health problems and neglect.

Hard-to-detect types of abuse, such as child sexual abuse, are likely to increase. Studies show social isolation increases the risk for vulnerable children, allowing perpetrators greater ability to employ grooming strategies.

Read more: Grooming: what parents should know and what schools should do if they suspect it

Existing family stress will be magnified through widespread job and income loss, food security issues in regional areas and medication shortages. The need for families to spend extended periods of time together in confined spaces will only add to the pressure, testing relationships and potentially exacerbating mental-health issues and aggressive behaviours.

One concern is that as families become more isolated due to the pandemic, children already at risk will be hidden at the same time that they are facing heightened danger from violence, abuse and neglect in their homes.

A recently released Canadian review of the literature on child welfare issues during pandemics found a number of challenges will confront welfare, family and community services. These include:

• a decrease in in-home family support services, which reduces chances to detect and respond to health and care concerns

• limits on substance abuse and addiction services

• reduced visitation and reunification processes with parents, for children in out-of-home care

• substantial court delays, including with child protection orders to determine if a child will return home or remain in out-of-home care

• a decreased capacity among the major agencies who report child maltreatment and domestic violence, such as education and health, resulting in decreased detection of serious safety threats

• a reduction in the capacity of police and child protection services to investigate and respond to serious safety threats.

At June 2019, there were 44,900 children in out-of-home care. Most of these children were in home-based care, with just over half cared for by relatives, such as grandparents, who are at higher risk of more severe effects of COVID-19.

Around 30% of children in out-of-home care also live with a disability or mental health issue. These children require high levels of support, which places extra pressure on carers who may be homeschooling while coping with reduced childcare and respite support.

What needs to be done

Government and community agencies are facing unprecedented and significant challenges. There is a real risk of some services and supports, that are essential to child safety, being overlooked as our attention is focused on COVID-19.

Read more: The coronavirus lockdown could test your relationship. Here’s how to keep it intact (and even improve it)

Governments can employ a number of strategies to minimise the risk of further exacerbating issues in vulnerable families. These include:

• continued and sustained financial support for families who suffer income and job loss, through timely access to unemployment benefits. This support must be enabled as soon as possible to reduce heightened individual and family stress

• online consultations for mental health and addiction, so service provision is broader than just tele-health but includes community based support services. This can assist families in self-isolation to reduce symptom escalation and enable triaging of in-person support for those who need it

• provide urgent support to service providers to develop policy on how to safely sustain service provision in the event of a community “lockdown”. Like health services, social services are essential for maintaining child and community safety.

• use creative strategies to provide refuges and emergency accommodation for those seeking safety. Empty hotels and Airbnb rooms could be used for women and children at-risk. Regional community strategies will also be required to address this need with restricted travel being imposed

• restrict alcohol sales, such as in Western Australia, which has imposed limits on how much alcohol a person can buy.

• create flexible, innovative strategies, such as respite services and child care provisions for in-home support for families and carers who are vulnerable or who have children with high care needs.

• extend care this year for young people turning 18 so they can remain in out-of-home care placements with foster and relative carers. Currently children in out-of-home care are required to leave their placements when they turn 18.

• increase the workforce capacity for welfare and community agencies – downturns in other sectors may enable a boost in this workforce. For example people working in youth recreation who have lost their jobs could assist in youth support agencies as they have working with children checks and youth experience. Training will be challenging but not impossible.

• encourage everyone who can to provide support to neighbours and friends who may be struggling. A phone call, virtual chat or a food delivery can make a huge difference.

This is a challenging time for everyone, but especially so for those already vulnerable. Australia can employ innovative strategies to address the health and safety concerns for our most vulnerable children and families.

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

– ref. What governments can do about the increase in family violence due to coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/what-governments-can-do-about-the-increase-in-family-violence-due-to-coronavirus-135674

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bekessy, Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning, Leader, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University

Intriguing things sometimes happen in places deserted by people. Plants creep back, animals return, and slowly, birdsong fills the air.

The coronavirus pandemic means public spaces the world over have been temporarily abandoned. Major roads are all but empty and public squares are eerily quiet.

In response, nature is in some cases “taking over towns”. Some reports – such as dolphins spotted in Venice – are fake news. But others are legitimate.

Read more: Sorry to disappoint climate deniers, but coronavirus makes the low-carbon transition more urgent

A puma has been spotted roaming the streets of Santiago and wild turkeys are gallivanting in Oakland, California. Monkeys have reclaimed city streets in Thailand and deer are wandering through train stations and down roads in Japan.

Of course, COVID-19 has taken a devastating toll on humanity, and this is nothing to be celebrated. But as Australians stay at home and our streets fall quiet, let’s consider how wildlife might respond.

The resilience of nature

Throughout history, nature has shown a propensity for reclaiming land once humans have departed.

At Chernobyl for instance, radiation has not been enough to suppress populations of gray wolves, raccoon dogs, Eurasian boar and red fox.

Likewise the Korean demilitarised zone has become a refugia for numerous threatened species, including red-crowned cranes.

Ecological succession can occur when humans abandon cities. This is where short-lived “pioneer” species initially occupy sites and are replaced over time by shrubs and trees, ultimately supporting more diverse wildlife.

It’s hard to predict exactly how healthy and biodiverse these systems can become, but they will almost certainly be examples of “novel ecosystems”, having crossed irreversible thresholds due to human impact, such as vegetation reclaiming an abandoned building.“

Quieter, darker, greener cities

Cities can be hostile places for urban wildlife due to fragmented habitat, pollution, road collisions and disturbance from and conflict with people. But under a coronavirus lockdown, these threats are greatly reduced.

For example, decreases in economic activity in Europe and China have led to improvements in air pollution, which is known to badly affect urban birds. However this effect might not last long enough to allow for recovery of sensitive bird species; emissions in China are already back on the rise.

Light pollution may also fall in cities as a result of coronavirus – such as if office buildings turn off overnight lighting and sportsgrounds are empty.

This would benefit nocturnal species such as moths and bats. Artificial light can interfere with reproduction, predator and prey interactions, and migration.

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

At the end of March, traffic congestion in Sydney and Melbourne was reportedly down more than 30% on last year. Fewer cars and trams would benefit species that communicate acoustically (such as frogs and birds).

Fewer people actively using city spaces may mean less disturbance of urban bird nesting sites, especially those that are routinely removed from commercial properties.

Depending on whether authorities see weed control as an “essential service”, streets may soon look a bit greener.

Weeds often get a bad rap for taking over gardens and roadsides. However some, such as dandelions, provide excellent flowering resources for native bees, butterflies and birds.

Deserted roads could potentially add to existing wildlife “corridors” or strips of vegetation along rivers and streams. This would allow species to move from one place to another – potentially recolonising areas.

What next?

Once traffic returns to levels observed before the pandemic, we should preserve observed animal movements using safe passage strategies such as vegetated overpasses that connect bisected habitat or adequately sized underpasses to allow wildlife to safely cross under large, busy roads.

In the longer term, this crisis may bring innovation in business communication and human behavioural change – including reduced work travel. This could influence land use changes in cities, potentially giving space back to nature.

The current need for people to stay at home might be triggering a human disconnection from nature. In some cases, this can lead people to become emotionally distanced from what happens to their natural environment. This could be ameliorated by exercising in local parks or other natural environments.

You can also use your time at home to positively contribute to wildlife in your urban area. If you’re looking to keep kids entertained, try developing a “re-naturing” plan that aims to care for, or bring back, a species or ecosystems.

There are also many ways to retrofit your home, garden or balcony to help plants and animals.

Or discover the incredible species living alongside us by simply paying attention to nature near your home.

Read more: Safe passage: we can help save koalas through urban design

– ref. Where the wild things are: how nature might respond as coronavirus keeps humans indoors – https://theconversation.com/where-the-wild-things-are-how-nature-might-respond-as-coronavirus-keeps-humans-indoors-134543

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Martin, Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW

The National Cabinet announced a moratorium on evictions just over a week ago in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As government ministers and commentators have tried to make clear, it’s intended only to stop evictions – not rent payments. But the sudden losses of jobs and incomes mean many households cannot continue to pay pre-crisis rents.

Tenants are seeking rent reductions or waivers from their landlords, with disturbingly mixed results. It is time for governments to step in and resolve the issue, by legally mandating rent reductions across the board.

Read more: Why housing evictions must be suspended to defend us against coronavirus

Recent analysis of renter and landlord household finances clearly shows the latter group are much better placed to take a financial hit from this pandemic.

Up to now the prime minister has encouraged tenants and landlords to make individual arrangements. In the absence of any government guidance, agents’ and tenants’ representatives agree on this much: the situation is a mess.

Some landlords and agents are responding sympathetically. Others are hesitant, apparently wary voluntary reductions may void their insurance. Some are insisting on full payment, or even increasing rents. And some were advising tenants to draw on their superannuation to pay rent – until ASIC warned them off.

Why should government step in?

Yesterday the National Cabinet addressed commercial tenancies, but again left aside residential tenancies. It is within the power of state and territory governments to sort this mess out. They could legislate to reduce rents to some fraction of current rents or to zero – a complete suspension of rent liabilities for the declared duration of the pandemic.

With federal government co-operation, mortgage interest could receive the same treatment: mandatorily reduced or suspended for the pandemic, with principal repayments deferred.

This is the appropriate response to the peculiar nature of this crisis. The key point here is that government is deliberately suppressing economic activity to prevent transmission of the virus. With household incomes much reduced – and governments trying to top them up with new payments – it makes sense also to reduce household outflows.

A look at renter and landlord finances

The biggest household expenses to reduce are rent and interest. Here’s a quick sketch of incomes and outflows in the Australian private rental sector, using the latest available figures from the ABS, the ATO, the Productivity Commission and detailed analysis of previous rounds of data last year by Kath Hulse, Margaret Reynolds and me.

About 2.5 million Australian households rent privately. Just over half are in the bottom 40% of households by income. About one-third are low-income households paying more than 30% of their income in rent – and that’s before the COVID-19 income losses.

Read more: Why coronavirus impacts are devastating for international students in private rental housing

Private renters pay about A$43 billion a year in rent to another, smaller group of households: Australia’s 1.3 million landlord households.

A little more than half of that rental income, A$22 billion, flows right out again to banks, as interest payments on investment loans. For 60% of landlords the interest outflow, plus other property-related expenses, is greater than their rental income: they are negatively geared. For them, rental income is not about putting food on the table; it is part-funding their investment or speculation in property.

This negatively geared group receives high incomes from work and other sources. Leaving aside their net rental losses, they have an average annual taxable income of about A$94,000, versus A$54,000 for non-landlords. Landlords’ other incomes may have taken a COVID-19 hit, but the most common occupations for this group – general managers, registered nurses and accountants – have probably fared better than the casual and gig workers.

Read more: Coronavirus puts casual workers at risk of homelessness unless they get more support

Landlords who derive a net positive rental income mostly receive other income too. Their average annual taxable income is A$66,000 before net rent is added.

A relative few landlords, 16%, are post-retirement age. They may well rely on rental income for consumption, but, on average, they are rich, with almost A$3 million in net wealth.

A final point about landlords: they are more likely to have a partner than non-landlords. Presumably, then, they have access to shared resources when times are tough. The average disposable household income for landlords is A$135,000 a year, versus A$82,000 for non-landlords.

So, were tenants’ rental outflows reduced, landlord households are relatively well-positioned to bear a reduction in their rental incomes.

How to ease the burden on landlords

Landlords would, of course, also want to reduce their own outflows. They have probably already done so, because the pandemic has closed so many discretionary spending opportunities.

Another outflow – the A$3 billion a year they spend on real estate agents – would also be reduced, because agent fees are mostly calculated as a proportion of rent. This would cause pain for agents, but many of their activities – inspecting properties, handling eviction proceedings, conducting marketing campaigns – are not needed in a pandemic. JobKeeper payments could support their businesses.

Read more: JobKeeper payment: how will it work, who will miss out and how to get it?

The biggest pain would be the interest outflow. But let’s reduce or suspend interest too, for both owner-occupiers and landlords. This would reduce income for banks, which would have a problem when their own liabilities to whole funders come due.

And at that point a really useful negotiation could take place between banks and the Australian government. They could “sit down, talk to each other and work this out” – as the PM has suggested to millions of individuals – to keep finance operating, in return for reformed service and a public equity stake.

In ordinary times, rents and interest have a controversial role in the economy. They extract value from productive actors in the economy for the benefit of owners of property and financial assets, and are the object of speculation. But, as the political economist David Harvey observes, they also have a co-ordinating role that drives competition and future production.

But these are not ordinary times. For the moment, at least, we don’t need rent to co-ordinate what the economy must do. We need to produce the essentials and whatever else can be safely done at home, with the rest of production in hibernation. And we need to ensure households retain enough income for the essentials, with reductions in income equitably shared.

– ref. Rents can and should be reduced or suspended for the coronavirus pandemic – https://theconversation.com/rents-can-and-should-be-reduced-or-suspended-for-the-coronavirus-pandemic-135929

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geetanjali Saluja, Lecturer, University of Technology Sydney

Governments everywhere face the challenge of getting people to stay home so they can limit the spread of coronavirus. In order to make their messages more effective, governments must ensure these appeals resonate with the cultural values of their audience.

Not all Australians have taken Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s pleas for them to stay at home and practice social distancing seriously.

We have seen people head to the beach with their friends, or host BBQs in their backyards.

One explanation for this might be mixed messages coming from government. But our research explored another explanation: when appeals don’t tally closely with our cultural values, we are less inclined to listen.

Read more: We’ve known about pandemic health messaging since 1918. So when it comes to coronavirus, what has Australia learnt?

Individual freedoms

Australians, along with US and UK citizens, tend to fit within what is known as an individualist culture. This is one that values independence, individual freedom and the pursuit of personal goals more than social relationships.

In contrast, the collectivist cultures in countries like China and Japan value interdependence and social relationships more than individual freedoms and goals. This framework for cross-cultural communication was developed by Geert Hofstede, an academic and researcher for IBM.

A government appeal asking people to practice social distancing because it will protect everyone in the community may work very well in collectivist cultures, but may not be as effective in individualist cultures. This might explain those Australians ignoring the message that “we’re all in this together”.

We tested this effect recently by showing two types of appeals to an online panel of 200 American study participants recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform. Both appeals requested citizens to stay home and practice social distancing to contain the COVID-19 crisis. But one asked them to do this in order to protect and preserve the freedom of the public. And the other focused on doing this in order to keep their community safe.

The responses showed that participants were more willing to comply with the appeal that asked them to practice social distancing to preserve their long-term personal freedom rather than an appeal which focused on keeping their community safe.

Australians, like Americans, tend to be individualists. So the results of our study extend to Australians, who would also place greater value on their personal freedoms and individual goals.

Power may not persuade

Another aspect of culture that can impact effectiveness of communication is deference to authority, also known as power distance. Power distance describes how much the less powerful members of a community or organisation accept that power is distributed unequally. Typically, Western cultures are low in their power distance belief and tend to emphasise equal distribution of power. This is not the case for Asian cultures, which are high in power distance and thus have greater respect for authority and hierarchy.

As a result of this difference, a message from an authority figure is expected to be more impactful in a country such as Japan. But this is less likely in a country like Australia, where deference to authority is lower. Message source (such as Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s blunt directive to stop panic buying) is unlikely to be a critical factor to its success in this context.

Data from several studies shows that individuals from high power distance cultures (those who accept authority) find marketing messages from CEOs to be more believable and authentic compared to regular brand messages. Such differences are not noted in consumers from low power distance cultures.

In Australia, a one-size-fits-all approach is also not appropriate. Indigenous Australian’s have been recognised as at higher risk of coronavirus infection and complications. Yet they present unique challenges for health communication given differences in language, historical relationship to authority, and nonverbal communication styles. Specific strategies for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples and other cultural groups are needed.

Tailor the message

Culture plays a critical role in effective communication. Message content that takes into account the cultural values of its audience should be more effective compared to one that does not.

In the current situation, appeals need to remind the public to take the lockdown measures seriously so the spread of COVID-19 can be contained but also so people can get back their freedoms and return to their Australian way of life sooner rather than later. And this message need not necessarily come from the top.

– ref. We’re not all in this together. Messages about social distancing need the right cultural fit – https://theconversation.com/were-not-all-in-this-together-messages-about-social-distancing-need-the-right-cultural-fit-135427

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Blakely, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Melbourne

Australia is on track to flatten the curve of coronavirus cases, which will allow our health system to cope with increasing demand for intensive care unit (ICU) beds, recently released modelling confirms.

The modelling, produced by the Doherty Institute, was delivered to government in February but only released publicly yesterday.

Read more: Coronavirus modelling shows the government is getting the balance right – if our aim is to flatten the curve

In a press conference before the release, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy emphasised the modelling was theoretical and used international data.

International data is still useful – the public health advice on tobacco, for example, is derived mostly from non-Australian studies.

But the way an epidemic plays out is context-specific. The way Australians hang out together, for instance, is different from the way Chinese people socialise. This changes fundamental parameters, such as how many people someone with COVID-19 can be expected to infect.

So what does the modelling tell us and what are we yet to determine?

What scenarios were modelled?

The more applicable of the two papers released yesterday aimed to estimate how much ICU and hospital capacity would be exceeded (in both percentage terms, and number of days) for various scenarios of how the epidemic unfolds.

The three scenarios were:

• unmitigated spread (just “let the epidemic rip”). Peak daily ICU demand would be 35,000 a day, greatly exceeding Australia’s expanded ICU capacity of 7,000 beds

• quarantine and isolation of cases scenario. The number of ICU beds needed during the peak would be 17,000 a day, still exceeding Australia’s expanded capacity

• a quarantine and isolation scenario, plus social distancing at two levels of intensity. Daily ICU bed demand would peak at below 5,000.

Australia was never going to allow unmitigated spread and has implemented quarantine and isolation of cases. And in terms of social distancing, Australia has already exceeded the measures in the paper’s more intense scenario.

What do we learn from the modelling?

As we’ve learnt over the past month from simpler models and back-of-the-envelope calculations, ICU capacity is under grave threat of overload for anything other than a carefully designed, tested and monitored package of case isolation, quarantine and physical distancing.

Physical distancing is essential to flatten the curve enough to avoid ICU overload if we elect to let this epidemic wash through society to achieve herd immunity.

Read more: Coronavirus: can herd immunity really protect us?

Importantly, in all scenarios primary care and general hospital ward capacity were never (even remotely) threatened.

Accordingly, and correctly, the chief medical officer emphasised it’s important that people with existing chronic diseases (such as heart and respiratory disease) keep getting routine medical check-ups, so their conditions don’t deteriorate and require hospitalisation down the track.

If someone experiences sudden shortness of breath or chest pain, they still should be ringing 000 and getting assessed.

Life goes on, as do the vast array of other threats to our health that we can mitigate. And we have the capacity to keep doing this.

Read more: If coronavirus cases don’t grow any faster, our health system will probably cope

What do we do next?

The bigger question is what comes next, and this wasn’t addressed in the modelling papers.

The prime minister and chief medical officer urged Australians not to relax their current social distancing actions.

But Morrison noted there was a financial and societal limit to endless mitigation. In other words, we need to get through this, but within sensible resource limits.

Read more: Scott Morrison indicates ‘eliminating’ COVID-19 would come at too high a cost

The government wants to use this position of “relative calm” to make decisions about where to next. As Brendan Murphy said:

We are on a life raft. We now have to chart the course of where we take that life raft. The National Cabinet wants considered advice on all the directions. We don’t have those answers yet.

How can modelling help us decide?

Essentially, we need different, better and more models than we saw yesterday. Some of this work for the government is underway and will be released in coming weeks. But we also need two things:

1. Agent-based modelling

This is modelling of individuals bouncing around society like balls in a pin ball machine.

Yesterday’s model used equations applied to groups of people. But it can’t easily model the impact of separate interventions, such as school closures versus reducing gathering sizes.

Agent-based models offer more options. If we know, for example, that citizen A reduces their social contacts with people from 15 contacts a day of more than five minutes duration within 1.5 metres, to two such contacts while working from home, then we can (and should) model that.

We need many different agent-based models from many different research groups. Australians aren’t going to stay in lockdown indefinitely so the more models and sources of information, the better.

Read more: Coronavirus: there’s no one perfect model of the disease

2. To broaden the scope of modelling

We need models that include more than just the COVID-19 transmission dynamics. We need models that weigh up the consequences of both the epidemic, and our potential societal cures to the epidemic.

There is a real risk the societal cure we choose may do more harm. Lockdowns, for example, cause drops in GDP and increases in unemployment. That feeds back on to changes in suicide and heart disease. We need to quantify that, and weigh it up.

What are the options going forward?

My team and many others around the country are building simple but useful models to help Australia decide on the way forward. There are three main options:

1. should we go all-in and aim for elimination (with the fall back of option 2 or 3 if this fails)?

2. should we keep squashing the curve, as we are doing successfully now, and wait 18 months for a vaccine?

3. should we meticulously plan for a relaxation of distancing measures (while protecting our elderly and those with chronic conditions), let the case numbers rise so our ICU can cope, and ride this flattened curve out to herd immunity within, say, the next six months?

This is what we need to work our way through.

Read more: Now we’re in lockdown, how can we get out? 4 scenarios to prevent a second wave

– ref. Yes, we’re flattening the coronavirus curve but modelling needs to inform how we start easing restrictions – https://theconversation.com/yes-were-flattening-the-coronavirus-curve-but-modelling-needs-to-inform-how-we-start-easing-restrictions-135832

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meredith Rossner, Professor of Criminology, Australian National University

In the past, the courts were ideal breeding grounds for spreading disease. In what became known as the “Black Assize”, a deadly fever that swept through prisons and courts in England in 1586, 11 of 12 jurors in one trial died. So did a number of judges and constables.

In the current coronavirus pandemic, Australian courts are taking no chances, with NSW, Victoria and other states announcing there will be no new jury trials until further notice.

But many courts are rapidly increasing the use of video for other essential hearings. States and territories are also developing new protocols for how to use video in their courtrooms.

Read more: Coronavirus: Will courts continue to operate, preserving the rule of law?

In a sense, the courts have been preparing for an outbreak like this for some time. Witnesses and defendants routinely appear in court via video link, as do judicial officers in Northern Territory and South Australia courts. Tribunals have been using video for even longer.

Our research, however, suggests that attempts to translate courtroom interactions to a video-mediated process do not always work. Introducing monitors into the courtroom requires a reimagining of courtroom spaces, social cues, symbols and performances.

Does appearing remotely hurt defendants?

In the case of vulnerable witnesses like sexual assault victims and children, there is little to no evidence that testimony via video (from a special room located in the court building) impacts a jury’s verdict, though users themselves report challenges with such a set-up.

In one of our studies, we simulated a criminal trial in which mock jurors were randomly assigned to different configurations, including:

• a defendant sitting in the dock in the courtroom,

• a defendant sitting beside their lawyer in the courtroom,

• a defendant appearing remotely on their own (as they would in most standard remote hearings),

• or a defendant appearing with their lawyer in a video hearing, with the prosecutor also appearing on video.

We found defendants appearing via video were no more likely to be found guilty than if they were sitting beside their lawyers in court.

However, if the defendant was isolated in a dock – the normal situation in most courts – he was significantly more likely to be considered guilty. It seems that isolation in the dock is worse for defendants than isolation on a screen.

Other research, however, points to different issues with video hearings. In criminal matters, defendants who appear remotely from police custody or jail are more likely to have a higher bail set, plead guilty and receive longer sentences than those who appear in person.

Similarly, asylum seekers appearing remotely from detention are less likely to actively participate in their tribunal hearing and more likely to be deported .

Read more: Halting jury trials may impact a defendant’s right to a fair trial

Some defendants have reported feeling disorientated, not being able to hear or understand the proceedings and lacking confidence in the fairness of the hearing.

One reason is the design of a remote criminal hearing is inherently imbalanced. The judge, prosecutor and often defence counsel, as well as court staff and members of the public, are all grouped together in the actual courtroom, while the defendant is alone on a screen.

In this lopsided configuration, it may be hard for the defendant to feel as if they are a part of the proceedings or for those in the courtroom to feel the defendant’s presence.

How different designs and protocols can help

In a 2013 study on remote participation in court, we produced a set of guidelines to help address some of the shortcomings of video technology.

These included putting the remote participant in a room with a window or piece of artwork, which helps to reduce their stress levels. Additionally, making introductions at the start of the hearing and ensuring everyone can see and hear can also make people feel more at ease.

Now, with coronavirus making it impossible for physical gatherings of any kind, we need to reimagine courtrooms as a completely virtual space where all parties meet on the same plane.

This has already been piloted in some instances. In 2018, the UK Ministry of Justice trialled the country’s first-ever “video hearings” in the tax tribunal, where appellants and representatives from the tax office attended remotely from their home or office.

As an independent evaluator of this pilot, we found participants were able to access their hearings easily, understood the proceedings and considered the format to be appropriately formal. This was despite the fact they experienced frequent technical disruptions.

Read more: Explainer: how will the emergency release of NSW prisoners due to coronavirus work?

In particular, participants benefited from a “dry run” before the hearing to iron out issues with sound or video, and by the judge making introductions and getting the parties ready at the start.

There were also important design elements that improved the experience for participants, including the introduction of a virtual “waiting room” where they were kept informed about the timing of their case.

The immersive virtual courtroom

In the future, technology will allow us to create an immersive courtroom experience.

Working with a range of justice partners, we developed a proof of concept of such a virtual courtroom at the Queensland Supreme Court in 2016, showing judges and other stakeholders how could work.

In this set-up, all the participants – the judge, defendant, lawyers, witnesses and jurors – were seated in pods or video suites surrounded by screens with the other participants around them.

Of course, once the world returns to a semblance of normalcy after the pandemic, courts will go back to places where people meet together in a room. But the lessons learned from this time are vital.

We can reimagine courts in a virtual space. Paying attention to key design principles and modifying the way we conduct court rituals on video will allow for effective participation in the courts of the future.

– ref. Courts are moving to video during coronavirus, but research shows it’s hard to get a fair trial remotely – https://theconversation.com/courts-are-moving-to-video-during-coronavirus-but-research-shows-its-hard-to-get-a-fair-trial-remotely-134386

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Trauer, Senior Research Fellow, Monash University

Australia is effectively in lockdown. Public gatherings of more than two people are banned and people are only permitted to leave home for a limited set of reasons.

The recent tough measures appear to be having some effect and the daily growth rate of new cases is now slowing.

Although this is an encouraging indication we may be starting to reverse the epidemic, we need now to start thinking about if, when and how we relax our current aggressive control measures.

Read more: If coronavirus cases don’t grow any faster, our health system will probably cope

What are our options for coming out of lockdown?

Achieving control buys time and allows us to learn more about the virus and the successes and failures of other countries.

But until an effective vaccine arrives, the majority of the population will still lack immunity to COVID-19. This is essentially identical to the position we were in when the first imported cases of the coronavirus arrived in Australia.

While there has been debate about the speed at which restrictions have been introduced, there has been less discussion about how and when these measures can be relaxed without causing another spike in infections.

We outline four broad options available for coming out of lockdown once we have gained initial control:

• option 1: we could relax lockdown measures completely, prioritising a return to normal social and economic freedoms over suppressing infection

• option 2: we could limit community transmission and ensure case rates remain very low until a vaccine is developed

• option 3: we could push to completely eradicate the virus and avoid rebound when social distancing measures are relaxed, as long as borders remain closed

• option 4: we could relax some measures and allow infection to continue in a very controlled manner, while protecting the vulnerable.

Each of these four approaches is associated with huge risks.

Read more: Regaining control: the case for a short, sharp lockdown (rather than the slow trickle we’ve had so far)

The lockdown trap

The first option would see a resurgence of the virus, with similar consequences to those of an unchecked epidemic.

The second option involves keeping case numbers to a trickle until a vaccine arrives – squashing the curve to a flat line but not eliminating transmission completely. This appears to be the path we are now pursuing, but it is not yet clear whether we will be able to reopen businesses, restaurants and even schools while still allowing low-level transmission to continue.

If we continue this path, we should recognise that some form of lockdown is likely. We could gradually release the brakes, but any suggestion of an upswing would be met with renewed suppression efforts. We could continually be putting out spot-fires and intermittently returning to strict lockdown until a vaccine arrives.

Read more: Coronavirus modelling shows the government is getting the balance right – if our aim is to flatten the curve

The third option involves an attempt to completely eradicate all circulating virus. Although we may be able to return to our previous lives, we would remain highly vulnerable to recurrence through importation if we were to reopen our borders.

If we were to pursue this path, extensive public engagement would be essential. We would need to remain in lockdown for many weeks after the last case has been reported and the rationale for pushing through towards eradication needs to be communicated clearly.

It is unclear if this is the strategy pursued by China, but its promising case numbers demonstrate the value of strict and prolonged lockdown. The rebound risk of this strategy will only be tested once strict lockdown measures are released.

Read more: Where are we at with developing a vaccine for coronavirus?

Herd immunity

The fourth option may include carefully controlled transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in select low-risk groups, which is an extremely dangerous path.

However, the almost complete absence of mortality in children and young adults may allow us to consider ways by which we can increase population-wide immunity, while protecting the vulnerable to avoid the huge rates of death seen in the elderly.

The term “herd immunity” has generated considerable controversy since the start of this pandemic. But ensuring a significant proportion of the population develop natural immunity to the virus – in a controlled manner – could be the only way to slow its spread while returning to our previous lifestyles, in the absence of an effective vaccine.

Read more: Coronavirus: can herd immunity really protect us?

We still need to understand better the risks posed to young people from natural infection, as well as the strength and duration of natural immunity. But current indications are the disease is relatively benign in healthy, young people and that they do acquire immunity. This very distinctive pattern may provide a key to coming out of lockdown while minimising risks – if an effective vaccine fails to materialise in the near future.

This option would need to be carefully controlled to ensure the virus cannot spread to the elderly and the vulnerable. How this could be achieved remains to be considered, but could involve the creation of environments in which transmission can be carefully facilitated among healthy young volunteers, without any risk of spread to the general community.

Read more: To get on top of the coronavirus, we also need to test people without symptoms

Natural immunity in a substantial proportion of the younger generation would allow those individuals to get on with their lives without putting others at risk. It would also slow any recurrent outbreaks that may occur once lockdown restrictions are relaxed.

Although there are no easy answers, we need to actively debate our exit strategy now, and collect the necessary information to guide our decision making. We may have to consider different solutions in different environments, but with an overarching strategy that is nationally coordinated.

Read more: Coronavirus: can herd immunity really protect us?

– ref. Now we’re in lockdown, how can we get out? 4 scenarios to prevent a second wave – https://theconversation.com/now-were-in-lockdown-how-can-we-get-out-4-scenarios-to-prevent-a-second-wave-135246

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meead Saberi, Senior lecturer, UNSW

Traffic jams may have disappeared from our roads as people stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we can be confident they will be back. Scientists have studied traffic and congestion for decades.

We know a lot about how traffic jams form, how they spill from one road to another, and also how can we stop them happening and help cities recover.

Our research shows that traffic congestion spreads through a city like a disease. Using this insight we have created a simple model based on a contagion model often used to predict the spread of illness, which produces results quickly and can help traffic controllers respond in real time to traffic jams.

The study, carried out with colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins University, is published in Nature Communications today.

Read more: The maths of congestion: springs, strings and traffic jams

Traffic history

The first simple description of traffic flow based on observations was published in 1933 by the American researcher Bruce Greenshields. This was only 25 years after the production of the first Ford Model T in 1908.

Greenshields used a movie camera to take consecutive pictures with a constant time interval to measure traffic. Since then, numerous data collection and modelling techniques have been developed.

Today, the most advanced method to measure and monitor traffic in cities uses anonymous location data from mobile phones with sophisticated mathematical and computer simulation models. The most recent example of such powerful data sources and analysis techniques are the community mobility reports recently released by Google, which show changes in mobility in cities around the world due to the spread of COVID-19.

Big traffic, big computing

Many existing models describe traffic well but require so much computational power that it is difficult to use them in real time for traffic control. In a large metropolitan area, these models often take tens of minutes or hours to run, even using cloud-based and other high-performance computing technologies.

While this may not sound like a big deal for transport planning purposes, it is actually one of the biggest hurdles for their use in practice for traffic operations and control. To overcome this challenge, scientists have more recently started searching for simpler ways of describing and predicting urban traffic congestion.

Traffic jams are contagious

Scientists use contagion models to describe the spread of an infectious disease in a population, as well as things like the spread of a computer or mobile phone virus through the internet and the spread of news or misinformation on social media.

We have shown that a similar modelling framework can be used to describe how traffic jams spread in cities. We adopted what is called the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model, commonly used in epidemics, and applied it to traffic jams in Sydney, Melbourne, New York, Chicago, Montreal and Paris.

In the traditional model, epidemiologists divide a population into groups of people who are susceptible to a disease, people who are infected, and people who have recovered. In ours, we divide a road network into free-flowing roads, congested roads, and recovered roads.

Read more: Traffic is complex, but modelling using deceptively simple rules can help unravel what’s going on

Every road in the network belongs to one of these categories, and the state of traffic on each one can change over time. A free flow link might become congested and a congested link could become recovered as time passes.

Our new model shows that the spread of traffic congestion can be characterised with a universal measure similar to the basic reproduction number, known as R₀ in the epidemic models. This number represents how quickly congestion spreads through a city, independent of the topology, urban form and network structure of the city.

We empirically verified our results with traffic data from Google and a computer simulation model of the Melbourne metropolitan area.

How the contagion model can help

The new findings can be used for adaptive and predictive control of congestion in cities. While the model does not specify which streets are congested, it provides aggregate information on what percentage of links in the network are congested.

This information can be used to develop control strategies to cut down how long the congestion lasts or to keep the number of congested roads below an acceptable threshold.

Potential congestion mitigation strategies that could benefit from these findings include perimeter traffic control of city centres, improving signal timing and removal of bottlenecks.

– ref. Traffic jams are contagious. Understanding how they spread can help make them less common – https://theconversation.com/traffic-jams-are-contagious-understanding-how-they-spread-can-help-make-them-less-common-135551

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, University of Melbourne

Almost no one thinks Indonesia is handling the COVID-19 pandemic well.

Until early March, the government claimed it had no cases of infection, something the eccentric health minister, Terawan Agus Putranto, attributed to prayer. The home affairs minister urged the public to eat more bean sprouts and broccoli, while President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) sang the praises of jamu, traditional herbal remedies.

The government had been in denial. Terawan dismissed as “insulting” a report by Harvard University researchers saying Indonesia must have unreported cases. As recently as last Friday, another minister was still arguing the virus cannot survive in tropical climates.

Jokowi was apparently more concerned about the threat the virus posed to trade, investment and tourism. In February, when many countries were imposing tough travel restrictions, he planned to offer discounts of up to 30% to attract tourists. His government even allocated almost A$8 million to pay social media influencers for tourism promotions.

Read more: 3 overlooked facts behind Indonesia’s high COVID-19 death rate

On March 2, Indonesia finally acknowledged COVID-19 had reached the archipelago. Jokowi admitted, as many suspected, his government had withheld information from the public “to avoid panic”.

And then it finally began to act. The government banned mass gatherings, imposed so-called “large-scale social restrictions” and barred foreigners from entering the country. It announced it will release 30,000 prisoners from the country’s notoriously overcrowded and unhealthy prisons and will spend an additional A$40 billion on medical needs, social support and relief for small and medium businesses

Last week, Jokowi even toyed with the idea of declaring a civil emergency (similar to martial law) before quickly backtracking.

Just how bad is the situation?

It is not hard to see why Jokowi finally admitted what most Indonesians guessed long ago, but we still don’t have all the facts.

Indonesia has recorded more than 2,400 infections and 209 deaths, but these figures are based on just 11,500 tests, a tiny sample in a nation of nearly 270 million.

There are indications many cases and deaths are going undetected. Reuters examined data from Jakarta’s Department of Parks and Cemeteries and found 4,400 burials were conducted in the province in March, an increase of 40% above normal levels.

But even by the conservative official figures, the mortality rate of 9% is one of the highest in the world, although this could be because of insufficient testing.

Read more: No work, no money: how self-isolation due to COVID-19 pandemic punishes the poor in Indonesia

In any case, scientists at the University of Indonesia have predicted that if stricter measures do not start immediately, the situation could spin out of control, with up to 240,000 deaths by the end of April.

Tragically, widespread testing, proper treatment and tough and effective social isolation measures are unlikely to happen soon.

The government is scrambling to prepare its health system to cope, but this looks like an impossible task. Indonesia has just four doctors and 12 hospital beds per 1,000 people, and less than three intensive care beds per 100,000. These levels are way below World Health Organisation or Asia-Pacific standards.

An extreme shortage of ventilators will likely result in many avoidable deaths, especially in regional areas.

A specialist COVID-19 hospital has been opened in Jakarta, and the old Vietnamese refugee camp on Galang Island is being refurbished to create another.

But it will take a lot more than this if hundreds of thousands are infected – not least because Indonesia is a respiratory disease tinderbox. It has one of the highest proportions of male smokers in the world, and its five leading causes of death are all tobacco-related. The bad relations between the Ministry of Health and doctors won’t help either.

There is also a serious lack of protective equipment for health care workers. Some have been told they can turn up to work in raincoats. At least 24 doctors have died so far, about 11% of all recorded deaths.

Even social isolation will be extraordinarily difficult in such a densely populated country with a laissez-faire attitude to rules and a tradition of bribing police. Moreover, [up to 70% of the workforce] is employed in the informal sector and many live hand-to-mouth. Working from home may simply not be an option for them.

To make matters worse, millions have been preparing for mudik, the traditional visit home for Muslims in the lead-up to the Idul Fitri (Eid) celebration on May 23. Last year, more than 18 million Indonesians travelled during this time. It is hard to imagine an event more likely to trigger a catastrophic outbreak.

Jokowi’s many balancing acts

Jokowi has warned of the dangers of mudik, but seems reluctant to take tough measures to prevent it.

He is in no-win situation. If he does ban mudik he will be a target for criticism from political enemies who like to portray him as an insincere Muslim. If he doesn’t, he will be attacked for exposing millions to the virus.

Already, Anies Baswedan, the high-profile governor of Jakarta, has criticised Jokowi’s handling of the crisis, calling for much tougher measures to reduce the spread of the virus.

Read more: Joko Widodo looks set to win the Indonesia election. Now, the real power struggle begins

But Jokowi appears to have again put economic considerations before public health, opting instead for “large-scale social restrictions” rather than quarantines or banning mudik outright.

Stricter regional quarantines or lockdowns would undoubtedly depress economic activity. What’s more, under the 2018 Health Quarantine Law, the government would then incur the huge costs of being responsible for all the basic needs of citizens in those areas.

It would also concern Jokowi that the virus has triggered an outburst of anti-Chinese hate speech, never far below the surface in Indonesia. Online trolls are accusing the Chinese of introducing the virus to Indonesia and wealthier Chinese of fleeing to the safety of Singapore. There have already been violent protests against Chinese workers in a number of locations.

Jokowi’s close association with former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian, coupled with the president’s determined courting of Chinese investment, will make Jokowi vulnerable if anti-Chinese sentiment escalates further.

Jokowi has now brought in the police, armed forces and national intelligence agency to help manage the crisis. This is in line with the creeping securitisation that has marked Jokowi’s rule, and these agencies will take any opportunity to gain a greater foothold.

But it also suggests Jokowi is aware of the political dangers COVID-19 may create for him. Worryingly, the police seem more concerned with chasing down the president’s online critics than taking actions that might help to prevent the spread of the virus.

The Indonesian government has a mess on its hands – one largely of its own making. Sadly, its people will likely pay a very high price for the months its leaders spent denying the obvious.

– ref. Indonesia was in denial over coronavirus. Now it may be facing a looming disaster – https://theconversation.com/indonesia-was-in-denial-over-coronavirus-now-it-may-be-facing-a-looming-disaster-135436

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rod Lamberts, Deputy Director, Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University

Good news: COVID-19 is not the only thing going on right now!

Bad news: while we’ve all been deep in the corona-hole, the climate crisis has been ticking along in the background, and there are many things you may have missed.

Fair enough – it’s what people do. When we are faced with immediate, unambiguous threats, we all focus on what’s confronting us right now. The loss of winter snow in five or ten years looks trivial against images of hospitals pushed to breaking point now.

Read more: While we fixate on coronavirus, Earth is hurtling towards a catastrophe worse than the dinosaur extinction

As humans, we also tend to prefer smaller, short-term rewards over larger long-term ones. It’s why some people would risk illness and possible prosecution (or worse, public shaming) to go to the beach with their friends even weeks after social distancing messages have become ubiquitous.

But while we might need to ignore climate change right now if only to save our sanity, it certainly hasn’t been ignoring us.

So here’s what you may have missed while coronavirus dominates the news cycle.

Heatwave in Antarctica

On February 6 this year, the northernmost part of Antarctica set a new maximum temperature record of 18.4℃. That’s a pleasant temperature for an early autumn day in Canberra, but a record for Antarctica, beating the old record by nearly 1℃.

That’s alarming, but not as alarming as the 20.75℃ reported just three days later to the east of the Antarctic Peninsula at Marambio station on Seymour Island.

Read more: Anatomy of a heatwave: how Antarctica recorded a 20.75°C day last month

Bleaching the reef

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned a global average temperature rise of 1.5℃ could wipe out 90% of the world’s coral.

As the world looks less likely to keep temperature rises to 1.5℃, in 2019 the five-year outlook for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was downgraded from “poor” to “very poor”. The downgrading came in the wake of two mass bleaching events, one in 2016 and another in 2017, damaging two-thirds of the reef.

And now, in 2020, it has just experienced its third in five years.

Of course, extreme Antarctic temperatures and reef bleaching are the products of human-induced climate change writ large.

But in the short time since the COVID-19 crisis began, several examples of environmental vandalism have been deliberately and specifically set in motion as well.

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

Coal mining under a Sydney water reservoir

The Berejiklian government in New South Wales has just approved the extension of coal mining by Peabody Energy – a significant funder of climate change denial – under one of Greater Sydney’s reservoirs. This is the first time such an approval has been granted in two decades.

While environmental groups have pointed to significant local environmental impacts – arguing mining like this can cause subsidence in the reservoir up to 25 years after the mining is finished – the mine also means more fossil carbon will be spewed into our atmosphere.

Peabody Energy argues this coal will be used in steel-making rather than energy production. But it’s still more coal that should be left in the ground. And despite what many argue, you don’t need to use coal to make steel.

Read more: Albanese says we can’t replace steelmaking coal. But we already have green alternatives

Victoria green-lights onshore gas exploration

In Victoria, the Andrews government has announced it will introduce new laws into Parliament for what it calls the “orderly restart” of onshore gas exploration. In this legislation, conventional gas exploration will be permitted, but an existing temporary ban on fracking and coal seam gas drilling will be made permanent.

The announcement followed a three-year investigation led by Victoria’s lead scientist, Amanda Caples. It found gas reserves in Victoria “could be extracted without harming the environment”.

Sure, you could probably do that (though the word “could” is working pretty hard there, what with local environmental impacts and the problem of fugitive emissions). But extraction is only a fraction of the problem of natural gas. It’s the subsequent burning that matters.

Read more: Victoria quietly lifted its gas exploration pause but banned fracking for good. It’s bad news for the climate

Trump rolls back environmental rules

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Trump administration is taking the axe to some key pieces of environmental legislation.

One is an Obama-era car pollution standard, which required an average 5% reduction in greenhouse emissions annually from cars and light truck fleets. Instead, the Trump administration’s “Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient Vehicles” requires just 1.5%.

The health impact of this will be stark. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, the shift will mean 18,500 premature deaths, 250,000 more asthma attacks, 350,000 more other respiratory problems, and US$190 billion in additional health costs between now and 2050.

And then there are the climate costs: if manufacturers followed the Trump administration’s new looser guidelines it would add 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the equivalent of 17 additional coal-fired power plants.

Read more: When it comes to climate change, Australia’s mining giants are an accessory to the crime

And so…

The challenges COVID-19 presents right now are huge. But they will pass.

The challenges of climate change are not being met with anything like COVID-19 intensity. For now, that makes perfect sense. COVID-19 is unambiguously today. Against this imperative, climate change is still tomorrow.

But like hangovers after a large celebration, tomorrows come sooner than we expect, and they never forgive us for yesterday’s behaviour.

– ref. 5 big environment stories you probably missed while you’ve been watching coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/5-big-environment-stories-you-probably-missed-while-youve-been-watching-coronavirus-135364

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Loosemore, Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology Sydney

Local governments are not eligible for the JobKeeper Payment, while major industries like construction are. Although the JobKeeper scheme has been broadly welcomed, it is a mystery to business why Australia’s 537 local councils, which provide vital support for industries like construction, are not eligible. The failure to include local councils (and their wholly owned corporations) will undermine the economic and social impact these policies are meant to have.

This just doesn’t make sense to business or local government. Business and industry are depending on their partnerships with local government to get through the coronavirus crisis. But local councils, which employ almost 200,000 people, are already laying off thousands.

Read more: JobKeeper payment: how will it work, who will miss out and how to get it?

Since construction directly employs about 1.2 million people (9.2% of the workforce) and indirectly many more, construction sites remain “exempt” as the government closes down all non-essential businesses to combat coronavirus. As Urban Taskforce chief executive Tom Forrest said:

The building and construction industry will be a critical player in driving the economy through this crisis.

The federal government’s A$130 billion wage subsidy will cover businesses paying their employees A$1,500 a fortnight each for up to six months. Private businesses (including not-for-profits) will be eligible for the subsidy if they meet the criteria.

Self-employed individuals will similarly be eligible to receive the JobKeeper Payment.

Registered charities will be eligible if their turnover has fallen or will likely fall by 15% or more relative to a comparable period.

Non-government schools and private vocational education providers are also eligible.

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

What is happening to local government?

Local government misses out. Yet revenues have been hit extremely hard since local government raises only 3.6% of its income from taxation and 90% from its own sources. These include rates and fees for services – many of which have had to close.

As a result, city council revenues have plummeted. For example, Blacktown City Council in Sydney estimates its monthly revenue has fallen by about A$1.7 million. The council employs around 2,300 people who serve a population of 400,000 people.

Like all local governments, it is responsible for a wide range of critical local services that support industries like construction that are exempt from current shutdowns. Councils provide planning and development approvals, childcare centres (26 in Blacktown’s case), waste management, infrastructure (such as roads and footpaths, parks, sporting grounds and swimming pools), housing, community amenities, transport and communications, recreation and culture and general public services.

The majority of freight tasks, which are central to keeping the economy going, start and finish on local government-controlled roads. These roads add up to about 662,000km in length – about 75% of the total national road length. Of 251.2 billion kilometres travelled in 2016, 142.1 billion occurred in capital cities.

Local councils also fund and support major construction projects. To return to the example of Blacktown, the A$76.5 million Warrick Lane development is part of the city centre transformation, which will provide major economic and social benefits for the people of Blacktown.

Another Blacktown City project is the International Centre of Training Excellence, a multisport high-performance education, sports medicine and accelerated recovery facility. It’s due to open in 2022.

Nationwide, local government owns and manages non-financial assets with an estimated written-down value of A$408 billion in 2015-16. Operational spending by councils totalled about A$35 billion in that year.

Read more: Australian cities pay the price for blocking council input to projects that shape them

A partner of industry and business

Local government spending goes into providing industry support and services across the nation. If you take these services and supports away you undermine government efforts to stimulate industries like construction to get us through this crisis and recover from it.

You also introduce the risk that development approvals are granted without thorough assessments. That’s likely to lead to new problems down the line.

As the federal government says, keeping people in work and businesses open will lay the foundations for a stronger economic recovery once the coronavirus crisis passes. But local government support is key to this strategy. Most people would be concerned to know their local councils are not being supported in the same way as private businesses – some of which have accumulated millions in profits and are incorporated overseas.

The federal government rightly talks about partnership, collaboration and collective responsibility to get through this crisis. Local council activities are critical to the productivity, well-being and liveability of local communities and cumulatively to the nation at this time.

Disaster management experience and guidelines tell us the response to any crisis must be bottom-up as well as top-down. This means local government’s role is crucial. How can this be achieved without a functioning local government supporting industry and communities to get through this pandemic?

Read more: Rebuilding from the ashes of disaster: this is what Australia can learn from India

– ref. Lack of help for local councils in coronavirus package undercuts industry support – https://theconversation.com/lack-of-help-for-local-councils-in-coronavirus-package-undercuts-industry-support-135700

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Waters-Lynch, Lecturer Entrepreneurship and Innovation, RMIT University

If you’re working from home for the first time, you might be asking yourself why you didn’t get to do this years ago.

The benefits of remote work have been discussed for nearly half a century. Many thinkers predicted a near future where work moves to the worker, rather than the worker to the work.

In 1969, Alan Kiron, a staff scientist at the US Patent Office, wrote in The Washington Post about how computers and new communication tools could change life and work. He called this “dominetics” – a combination of domicile, connections and electronics. The term never caught on, but the idea did.

Amid the 1973 OPEC oil crisis and skyrocketing fuel prices, a University of Southern California research group led by Jack Nilles conducted one of the first major studies of what Nilles would call “telecommuting”.

Nilles’s team studied a Los Angeles-based insurance company with more than 2,000 employees. Each worker travelled 34.4 kilometres a day on average, at a total cost (in 1974 prices) of US$2.73 million a year.

Their study, published in 1976, concluded technology would soon make it more economical for organisations to decentralise using telecommuting. But Nilles also came to understand that “technology was not the limiting factor in the acceptance of telecommuting”.

Satellite work

Still, technology was a factor. This was a time when telephones and telefax machines were the only telecommunications equipment most people knew. Very few homes had personal computers, let alone access to the early internet. So the book focused more on redesigning work to let employees commute to local satellite offices.

Nilles illustrated the idea with the diagrams below.

The principles were similar to the early architecture of the internet, whose designers were also interested in system resilience (notably a communications network that could survive nuclear attack).

Home telecommuting became more viable as the personal computer market exploded in the late 1970s. Apple’s breakthrough Apple II, for example, was released in 1977.

In 1980 futurist Alvin Toffler, author of the 1970 book Future Shock, predicted in his sequel, The Third Wave, that the home would “assume a startling new importance” in the information age, becoming “a central unit in the society of tomorrow – a unit with enhanced rather than diminished economic, medical, educational and social functions”.

Here comes the internet

Toffler accurately saw technology’s potential, but it would be some time before remote working became relatively easy. Consider what sending an email involved in 1984:

But with the growth in the internet, management guru Peter Drucker felt confident enough by 1993 to declare commuting to the office obsolete:

It is now infinitely easier, cheaper and faster to do what the 19th century could not do: move information, and with it office work, to where the people are. The tools to do so are already here: the telephone, two-way video, electronic mail, the fax machine, the personal computer, the modem, and so on.

Vision versus reality

Despite the technology, the growth in working from home has been slow. A large survey of Anglo countries by IBM in 2014 found just 9% of employees teleworked at least some of the time, with about half of those doing it full-time or most of the time. Data from Australia and US suggest the proportion was still less than 20% at the end of 2019.

Australian statistics state almost a third of people do some work from home. But this inflates the number by including all those who work at home to catch up on work from the office.

There are have been two main barriers to greater uptake.

One, as Nilles himself acknowledged, is organisational culture.

How we organise often lags behind what technology permits. Many organisations still cling to traditional ideas about managing people. If managers can’t see their employees working, they assume they won’t be.

The second problem is more intractable.

People actually like to be around each other. We’re social creatures. Indeed, a direct consequence of remote work is the the co-working movement, a response to the psychological and social challenges of working alone from home.

Read more: Remote workers would rather be watched than ignored and forgotten

Even the technology companies that make teleworking and electronic cottages possible remain wedded to central offices. In 2013 Yahoo’s new chief executive, Marissa Mayer, discouraged employees from working from home, because “people are more collaborative and innovative when they’re together face to face”.

Read more: Marissa Mayer is right: your company needs you (in the office)

Apple founder Steve Job was also apparently obsessed with having physical office space that encouraged staff mingling. This reportedly including stressing over details like bathroom locations so personal encounters would occur.

What about the future?

These challenges remain.

But circumstances should assist at least with the organisational and cultural barriers. Home working is simply, for now, the new reality. Businesses have no choice but to make it work.

After at least six months, it’s easy to imagine some of this will stick.

Read more: Coronavirus could spark a revolution in working from home. Are we ready?

The issue of social needs will be thornier. As Toffler himself said, “it would be a mistake to underestimate the need for direct face-to-face contact in business, and all the subliminal and nonverbal communication that accompanies that contact”.

Perhaps the future will look a bit more like Nilles’s idea, with the growth of local co-working spaces, designed not overcome the limits of technology but to meet our needs as social beings.

– ref. 50 years of bold predictions about remote work: it isn’t all about technology – https://theconversation.com/50-years-of-bold-predictions-about-remote-work-it-isnt-all-about-technology-135034

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roslyn Petelin, Course coordinator, The University of Queensland

When a literary luminary such as Thomas Kenneally declares so early in 2020 that he is certain a “more original” novel “will not be published this year”, the reviewer faces a challenge. The book in question is The Dictionary of Lost Words, the debut novel by South Australian writer Pip Williams.

Occasionally, I finish a book that I want to immediately read again, such as Alan Bennett’s delectably quirky book, The Uncommon Reader, which I have re-read several times.

I have now read Williams’s book twice. I raced through it the first time to see how it would turn out and needed to read it a second time to pick up what I had missed the first time round. In its 383 pages it covers a timespan of more than 100 years: 1882–1989.

Truth in fiction

The novel is set mainly in Oxford, but events occur in Bath, Shropshire, and Adelaide, Australia.

It is based on true events, the central one being the compilation of Oxford University Press’s New English Dictionary (now the Oxford English Dictionary) by a team of lexicographers led by Sir James Murray, and helped by all of his 11 children.

Murray began compiling the dictionary in 1879. It was unfinished at his death in 1915 and completed by his fellow editors in 1928. The second edition appeared in 1989; it is currently being completely revised.

Other historical figures who play key roles in the novel are printer Horace Hart and lexicographer Henry Bradley, who succeeded Murray.

Women’s words

Williams’s fictional central character, Esme Nicoll, born in 1882, lives with her father Harry, a lexicographer who works on the dictionary in a corrugated iron shed, grandly called the Scriptorium. It sits in the garden of Murray’s house, Sunnyside, at 78 Banbury Road in Oxford. Esme has lost her mother at a very young age.

She spends her days beneath the sorting table in the “scrippy”, where the lexicographers sort and assess the potential contributions sent to Murray by volunteers following his worldwide appeal for words to be included in the new dictionary.

One day, a lexicographer drops off a slip of paper. It falls under the table and Esme rescues it. She places it inside a small wooden suitcase kept under the bed of the Murrays’ housemaid Lizzie. The word is “bondmaid”, which is exactly what Lizzie is. Lizzie supplies her own entry: “Bonded for life by love, devotion or obligation. I’ve been a bondmaid to you since you were small, Essymay, and I’ve been glad for every day of it”. The word is not discovered to be missing until 1901.

Over several years, Esme secretes a trunkful of words:

My case is like the Dictionary, I thought. Except it’s full of words that no one wants or understands, words that would be lost if I hadn’t found them.

Esme and Lizzie also collect words from stallholders in Oxford’s Covered Market, many of them “vulgar”.

Esme‘s gathered words comprise the book published many years later, titled in the novel as Women’s Words and Their Meanings, after Lizzie passes Esme’s collection on to a compositor at the Press. However, when Esme subsequently presents a copy of the volume to an editor who takes over after Murray’s death, he rejects it as unscholarly and not a “topic of importance”, confirming Esme’s experience that “all words are not equal”.

She responds to him: “you are not the arbiter of knowledge, sir. It is not for you to judge the importance of these words, simply allow others to do so”.

Williams grafts an emotional story onto other historical figures and interweaves the themes of women’s equality and the suffrage movement. The suffragist-suffragette divide is layered into the narrative when Esme’s actor friend, Tilda, heeds Emmeline Pankhurst’s “deeds, not words” call to action and ends up committing arson.

A minor character is Esme’s godmother Edith, whose earnest epistles to Esme and her Dad move the plot along, including a painful episode when Esme is treated harshly at a Scottish boarding school. Esme undergoes many changes in fortune, finding some happiness as the story unfolds.

Judge the book

Reviewing this book, I’m reminded of a quote in Putnam’s Monthly magazine of American literature, science and art from April 1855:

I proclaim to all the inhabitants of the land that they cannot trust to what our periodicals say of a new book. Instead of being able by reading the criticism to judge the book, it is now necessary to read the book in order to judge the criticism.

My advice to readers is similar: experience The Dictionary of Lost Words for yourselves rather than getting swept away by the hype. Don’t gobble it, as I did the first time round – savour its heart-wrenching detail.

Unfortunately, a close read does reveal the need for a tighter copy edit. “Radcliffe” is spelt two different ways on opposite pages; “braille” is misspelt; the main street in Oxford is known as “the High” rather than “High Street”. I circled (in pencil) dozens of instances of my pet peeve “different to”.

Regardless, it has had an astonishing pickup by international publishers, who clearly expect it to be a commercial success. It will certainly be a popular book-club choice. Time will tell whether it takes its place beside literary classics.

– ref. Book review: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams – https://theconversation.com/book-review-the-dictionary-of-lost-words-by-pip-williams-132503

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

Scott Morrison has made clear his view that any attempt to eliminate COVID-19 entirely in Australia would carry too high an economic cost, while Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy says such an aim would require “very aggressive” long-term border control.

The national cabinet will soon receive advice from its medical experts on various scenarios for the way ahead, but the Prime Minister, speaking at a joint news conference with Murphy on Tuesday, effectively ruled out the most ambitious.

New Zealand is trying for elimination, but has had to go into a stringent lockdown to pursue it. Elimination was the policy adopted in the source of the virus – Wuhan in China.

Morrison has been focused throughout on achieving a balance between health and economic considerations, summed up in his mantra that it is all about “saving lives and saving livelihoods”.

Murphy was asked, in light of Australia so far having a relatively limited number of cases, what would be the advantages of trying to eliminate the virus altogether.

He said that was one of the options available but the issue was “then you don’t have any immunity in the population and you really have to control your borders in a very aggressive way and that might be for a long time.”

“What is clear about the way countries are responding to this virus is that there is no clear right answer. There are lots of potential paths.”

He said national cabinet had asked its advisers, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, to produce a range of scenarios. “The good thing is that we can do that now in a position of relative calm,” he said.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Imagine if we could extract a permanent vaccine against hyper-partisanship from COVID-19

Currently, the strategy was to identify, control and isolate all cases.

“That may be the long-term strategy. But we have to look at all of those potential options. There is no clear path.

“Unlike pandemic influenza, where the strategy was to control and contain until the vaccine came, because we knew the vaccine would come, we don’t know if and when a vaccine will come with this virus. If it does, that’s a beautiful way out. So, we have to look at a range of different potential scenarios. … But there is no single right answer.”

Morrison added to Murphy’s answer, stressing the national cabinet “has to also consider the ability to actually continue to run the country under such a scenario”.

He said “the economic lifeline” of measures being provided had “a finite life”.

Obviously if a scenario involved a timeline beyond all the governments’ capacity to support it, “that would render such an option not workable”.

Asked what proportion of the population would need to have developed immunity before the situation could start returning to normal, Murphy said there was no benchmark.

“Some people believe you need over 50% immunity, to up to 60%.

“To be clear, we are not pursuing a path of ‘herd immunity’, we are pursuing a path of control and suppression. But if you did want to get that sort of level of immunity to prevent transmission, it’s probably at that level.

“But we don’t know yet, that’s modelled on other viruses, there’s no community in the world that has very high immunity as yet.”

The national cabinet released modelling, done by the Doherty Institute, but it was theoretical and did not include Australian data.

Now that there is a cohort of approaching 6000 Australian cases, modelling on the Australian position will be done in coming weeks and the government says it will be released.

According to the material released: “The initial modelling shows a scenario of an uncontrolled outbreak. In that scenario, peak daily Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed demand is 35,000, which would greatly exceed Australia’s expanded capacity of 7,000 ICU beds.

“With isolation and quarantine, demand is reduced to 17,000 ICU beds at its peak, still well above expanded capacity. With isolation, quarantine and social isolation daily demand is reduced to below 5,000.”

The government has been much encouraged by the flattening of the curve of new COVID-19 cases but the next few weeks remain critical, and both Morrison and Murphy implored Australians to abide by the distancing and stay-at-home rules over the Easter holidays.

Read more: Government says Australia’s coronavirus curve may be flattening

Although the growth in case numbers has been lowered and most cases have come from overseas or are linked to arrivals, Murphy said “the thing that worries us most of all is the more than 500 people who have acquired this virus from someone in the community that doesn’t know they’ve had it.

“That means that there are people walking around in our communities who can be transmitting this virus without knowing they’ve had it. That is why we cannot relax what we’ve been doing” or “”it could all come undone”.

Morrison said that easing of restrictions – when that happened – could be at a different pace in different parts of the country, with some states watching trials in others.

Tuesday’s national cabinet meeting ticked off on a code for commercial tenancies, which will be legislated at the state and territory level. It applies for small and medium sized businesses.

It provides for rent reductions “based on the tenant’s decline in turnover to ensure that the burden is shared between landlords and tenants.

“The code provides a proportionate and measured burden share between the two parties while still allowing tenants and landlords to agree to tailored, bespoke and appropriate temporary arrangements that take account of their particular circumstances.”

The federal government is waiving rents for small and medium enterprises and not-for-profit tenants in its properties.

Morrison said residential tenancies will be dealt with directly by each state and territory.

On Wednesday parliament – with much reduced numbers – meets to pass the government’s $130 billion wage subsidy package. The government has made some minor changes after representations from the ACTU but has not given any substantial ground.

During the one-day sitting, Labor will move to establish a Senate committee to inquire into all aspects of the government’s response to Covid-19 .

Labor senator Katy Gallagher tweeted: “Australians need the committee to provide transparency, scrutiny and accountability over the huge expenditure of public money as well as significant changes to the way that we’re all living as a requirement of this pandemic and the Government’s response to it”.

Meanwhile it has been confirmed Year 12 will go ahead for students.

Education Minister Dan Tehan said after a meeting with state counterparts that “we agreed that Year 12 students will get a leaving certificate for 2020. There will be no Year 13. There will be no mass repeating of Year 12.

“We want Year 12 students to finish their education and next year go to university, undertake vocational training or enter the workforce.” The ministers will discuss more details on Thursday.

– ref. Scott Morrison indicates ‘eliminating’ COVID-19 would come at too high a cost – https://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-indicates-eliminating-covid-19-would-come-at-too-high-a-cost-135857

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stanley Shanapinda, Research Fellow, La Trobe University

A conspiracy theory claiming 5G can spread the coronavirus is making the rounds on social media. The myth supposedly gained traction when a Belgian doctor linked the “dangers” of 5G technology to the virus during an interview in January.

Closer to home, Facebook group Stop5G Australia (with more than 31,700 members) has various posts linking the disease’s spread to 5G technology.

Peddling such misinformation is not only wrong, it’s destructive.

The Guardian reported that since Thursday at least 20 mobile phone masts across the UK have been torched or otherwise vandalised. Mobile network representative MobileUK published an open letter stating:

We have experienced cases of vandals setting fire to mobile masts, disrupting critical infrastructure and spreading false information suggesting a connection between 5G and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Celebrities – stick to what you know

Many outlets and people have rushed to debunk this myth, including federal minister for communications, cyber safety and the arts Paul Fletcher. But myriad groups and public figures continue to perpetuate it.

Actor Woody Harrelson and singer Keri Hilson have both shared content with fans suggesting a link between 5G and COVID-19.

Stop5G Australia members have claimed the Ruby Princess cruiseliner’s link to 600 reported infections and 11 deaths is because cruises are “radiation saturated”. That’s wrong.

While cruise passengers can access roaming wifi services on board, these are not 5G services. Maritime cruises have yet to implement 5G technology.

One petition is calling on the Australia government to stop 5G’s rollout because the technology can supposedly “negatively affect your immune system” (a claim for which there is exactly zero evidence). It has received more than 27,000 signatures.

How 5G radio signals (radiation) work

The difference between 5G and previous generations of mobile services (4G, 3G) is that the latter uses lower radio frequencies (in the 6 gigahertz range), whereas 5G uses frequencies in the 30–300 gigahertz range.

In the 30-300 gigahertz range, there’s not enough energy to break chemical bonds or remove electrons when in contact with human tissue. Thus, this range is referred to as “non-ionising” electromagnetic radiation.

It’s approved by the federal government’s Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency as not having the negative health effects of more intense radiation.

Read more: There’s no evidence 5G is going to harm our health, so let’s stop worrying about it

Radiation can come into contact with the skin, for example, when we put a 5G mobile to our ear to make a call. This is when we’re most exposed to non-ionising radiation. But this exposure is well below the recommended safety level.

5G radiation can’t penetrate skin, or allow a virus to penetrate skin. There is no evidence 5G radio frequencies cause or exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus.

Also, the protein shell of the virus is incapable of hijacking 5G radio signals. This is because radiation and viruses exist in different forms that do not interact. One is a biological phenomenon and the other exists on the electromagnetic spectrum.

5G radio waves are called millimetre waves, because their wavelength is measured in millimetres. Because these waves are short, 5G cell towers need to be relatively close together – about 250 metres apart. They are organised as a collection of small cells (a cell is an area covered by radio signals).

For 5G to cover a larger geographic area, more base stations are needed in comparison to 4G. This increase in the number of base stations, and their proximity to humans, is one factor that may stir unfounded fears about 5G’s potential health impacts.

Your phone may be dangerous, but its radiation isn’t

COVID-19 spreads through small droplets released from the nose or mouth of an infected person when they cough, spit, sneeze, talk or exhale. Transmission occurs when the droplets come into contact with the nose, eyes or mouth of a healthy person.

So if an infectious person speaks through a phone held near their mouth, enough infectious droplets may land on its surface to make it capable of spreading the virus. This is why it’s not advisable to share mobiles during a pandemic. You should also regularly disinfect your mobile.

Read more: Can I get coronavirus from mail or package deliveries? Should I disinfect my phone?

Why are we having this discussion?

To many of us, it’s obvious a human virus can’t spread via radio signals, and such a conspiracy may be linked to a wider distrust of the government in general.

Addressing this myth is critical as property is now being damaged, and individuals attacked. Physical and verbal threats to broadband engineers can be added to a long list of assaults on health workers.

At a time when millions are relying on fast internet to work and study from home, vital telecommunications infrastructure is at risk of being destroyed. Conspiracy theories have motivated arson attacks on 5G towers in Belfast, Liverpool and Birmingham.

Youtube has announced it will devote resources to removing content linking 5G technology to COVID-19.

The announcement came after fingers were pointed at one video, published on March 18 (and viewed more than 668,000 times), in which an American doctor claims incorrectly that Africa is less affected by COVID-19 because it’s not a 5G region. The video remained online at the time of publishing this article.

– ref. No, 5G radiation doesn’t cause or spread the coronavirus. Saying it does is destructive – https://theconversation.com/no-5g-radiation-doesnt-cause-or-spread-the-coronavirus-saying-it-does-is-destructive-135695

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

The High Court today quashed the conviction of Cardinal George Pell, who had originally been found guilty on a number of charges by a jury of 12 people.

His defence counsel, Bret Walker SC, had argued before the High Court that the convictions in 2018 were unsound because it was not open to the jury to find Pell guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

Read more: How George Pell won in the High Court on a legal technicality

He argued to the High Court the “sheer unlikelihood” of events and times aligning in the way that had been put forth by the prosecution to the trial judge and jury. He argued the story of the complainant could not be credible.

The High Court has now agreed.

A jury decides, but then …

Remember that, prior to the verdict, a jury of a dozen men and women had deliberated for almost five days before returning their verdicts of guilty on all five charges.

How is it that a jury’s decision, after hearing all the evidence (with the exception of Pell himself) and deliberating for a considerable period of time, can be subverted by the opinion of an appeal court 16 months later?

To answer this question we need to look briefly at the appeal grounds that apply in the higher criminal courts. There are two broad grounds of appeal against conviction. Each is found in both the common law and legislation that pertains to these matters.

The first, and far more common, is that there has been an error of law (or fact) in the way that the trial has been conducted, the way evidence has been wrongly admitted, or the way the judge has incorrectly summed up to the jury.

The less common basis of appeal is the verdict of the jury is unreasonable, or cannot be supported, given the evidence. The Pell appeal proceeded on this basis, and succeeded.

Reluctance to overturn juries

Appeal judges have traditionally shown a marked reluctance to overturn jury verdicts. The failed High Court appeal by Michael and Lindy Chamberlain in 1984 against their convictions for murdering their daughter comes quickly to mind. (They were later exonerated.)

Judges of the High Court have long wrestled with the difficulty of subverting the important role of the jury. In 1997, then Chief Justice Gerard Brennan put the position thus:

… the courts accept the jury as the possessor of both the skills and the advantages that are required to reach a proper verdict. In my respectful opinion, any contrary approach denies the importance of trial by jury and is inconsistent with the constitutional function which the jury performs.

Nevertheless, there may be exceptional cases where it appears that, despite its skills and advantages and the due observance of all relevant rules of law and procedure, the jury must have fallen into error.

There has long been a tradition of upholding the existence of the jury as the fundamental underpinning of the value, strength and reliability of our system of criminal justice.

I have always thought this a slightly odd observation given that magistrates, not juries, determine the vast majority of criminal cases that arrive for trial in Australia’s courts.

But in the higher courts judgment by one’s peers has always been a bulwark against the idea of a star chamber where decisions about an accused person’s guilt or innocence are made unfairly and capriciously.

A jury of your peers

The stability of the jury as an integral part of the justice system has never been seriously questioned. Advocates for the retention of the jury often recite the well-known case of Bushell in England in 1670 when two Quakers, William Penn and William Mead, were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly.

The jury stood steadfastly against the wishes of the judge who wanted to convict the two preachers. The judge was ultimately rebuffed. The jury was vindicated and its place in the criminal justice process was cemented.

But in cases such as Pell, the High Court has reinforced the notion that, despite the jury having the primary responsibility of determining the guilt or innocence of a person on trial, its responsibility can be subject to a higher order.

Read more: All about juries: why do we actually need them and can they get it ‘wrong’?

This is because, ultimately, the appeal courts have been given an overriding responsibility of determining for themselves whether a jury decision is a safe decision that has not been infected with the hue and cry or matters outside the evidence that was put to them.

Whatever one may think of the Pell decision, it is appropriate there be such a final arbiter in the justice process.

But one victim of this appeal result may be a loss of public confidence in the jury system. At the other end of the spectrum, others may lose confidence in the justice system itself.

I trust that neither is the outcome. But one could be excused for feeling a general uneasiness about the fact that, for all the store we place on juries in determining issues of guilt and innocence, their role can be dispensed with so easily.

– ref. The jury may be out on the jury system after George Pell’s successful appeal – https://theconversation.com/the-jury-may-be-out-on-the-jury-system-after-george-pells-successful-appeal-135814

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Climie, Exercise Physiologist and Research Fellow, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute

Fitbit recently released data showing a global decrease in physical activity levels among users of its activity trackers compared to the same time last year.

As we navigate the coronavirus pandemic, this is not altogether surprising. We’re getting less of the “incidental exercise” we normally get from going about our day-to-day activities, and many of our routine exercise options have been curtailed.

While we don’t know for sure how long our lifestyles will be affected in this way, we do know periods of reduced physical activity can affect our health.

Older people and those with chronic conditions are particularly at risk.

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

Cardiorespiratory fitness

To understand why the consequences of inactivity could be worse for some people, it’s first important to understand the concept of cardiorespiratory fitness.

Cardiorespiratory fitness provides an indication of our overall health. It tells us how effectively different systems in our body are working together, for example how the lungs and heart transport oxygen to the muscles during activity.

The amount of physical activity we do influences our cardiorespiratory fitness, along with our age. Cardiorespiratory fitness generally peaks in our 20s and then steadily declines as we get older. If we’re inactive, our cardiorespiratory fitness will decline more quickly.

One study looked at five young healthy men who were confined to bed rest for three weeks. On average, their cardiorespiratory fitness decreased 27% over this relatively short period.

These same men were tested 30 years later. Notably, three decades of normal ageing had less effect on cardiorespiratory fitness (11% reduction) than three weeks of bed rest.

This study demonstrates even relatively short periods of inactivity can rapidly age the cardiorespiratory system.

Read more: 5 ways nutrition could help your immune system fight off the coronavirus

But the news isn’t all bad. Resuming physical activity after periods of inactivity can restore cardiorespiratory fitness, while being physically active can slow the decline in cardiorespiratory fitness associated with normal ageing.

Staying active at home

Generally, we know older adults and people with chronic health conditions (such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes) have lower cardiorespiratory fitness compared to younger active adults.

This can heighten the risk of health issues like another heart disease event or stroke, and admission to hospital.

While many older people and those with chronic health conditions have been encouraged to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s still possible for this group to remain physically active. Here are some tips:

1. set a regular time to exercise each day, such as when you wake up or before having lunch, so it becomes routine

2. aim to accumulate 30 minutes of exercise on most if not all days. This doesn’t have to all be done at once but could be spread across the day (for example, in three ten-minute sessions)

3. use your phone to track your activity. See how many steps you do in a “typical” day during social distancing, then try to increase that number by 100 steps per day. You should aim for at least 5,000 steps a day

4. take any opportunity to get in some activity throughout the day. Take the stairs if you can, or walk around the house while talking on the phone

5. try to minimise prolonged periods of sedentary time by getting up and moving at least every 30 minutes, for example during the TV ad breaks

6. incorporate additional activity into your day through housework and gardening.

Read more: Why are older people more at risk of coronavirus?

A sample home exercise program

First, put on appropriate footwear (runners) to minimise any potential knee, ankle or foot injuries. Also ensure you have a water bottle close by to stay hydrated.

It may be useful to have a chair or bench nearby in case you run into any balance issues during the exercises.

• Start with five minutes of gentle warm up such as a leisurely walk around the back garden or walking up and down the hallway or stairs

• then pick up the pace a little for another ten minutes of cardio – such as brisk walking, or skipping or marching on the spot if space is limited. You should work at an intensity that makes you huff and puff, but at which you could still hold a short conversation with someone next to you

• next, complete a circuit program. This means doing one set of six to eight exercises (such as squats, push ups, step ups, bicep curls or calf raises) and then repeating the circuit three times

  • these exercises can be done mainly using your own body weight, or for some exercises you can use dumbbells or substitutes such as bottles of water or cans of soup
  • start with as many repetitions as you can manage and work up to 10-15 repetitions of each exercise
  • perform each exercise at a controlled tempo (for example, take two seconds to squat down and two seconds to stand up again)

• finish with five minutes of gentle cool down similar to your warm up.

Read more: Every cancer patient should be prescribed exercise medicine

If you have diabetes, check your blood sugar levels before, during and after you exercise, and avoid injecting insulin into exercising limbs.

If you have a heart condition, it’s important to warm up and cool down properly and take adequate rests (about 45 seconds) after you complete the total repetitions for each exercise.

For people with cancer, consider your current health status before you start exercising, as cancers and associated treatments may affect your ability to perform some activities.

– ref. For older people and those with chronic health conditions, staying active at home is extra important – here’s how – https://theconversation.com/for-older-people-and-those-with-chronic-health-conditions-staying-active-at-home-is-extra-important-heres-how-135322

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Indigo Holcombe-James, Sessional academic, School of Media and Communications, RMIT University

Museums, galleries and artist collectives around the world are shutting their doors and moving online in response to coronavirus. But engaging with audiences online requires access, skills and investment.

My research with remote Aboriginal art centres in the Northern Territory and community museums in Victoria shows moving to digital can widen the gap between urban and regional organisations.

Local spaces are vital. They ensure our national story is about more than the metropolitan, allowing artists to create – and audiences to engage with – local art and history. These art centres and museums bring communities together.

This cannot be replicated online.

Australia’s digital divide influences the ability of museums and galleries to move online, and the ability of audiences to find them there.

Cultural organisations that cannot produce digital content risk getting left behind. If we don’t support regional and rural organisations in their move online – or relieve them from this pressure entirely – we run the risk of losing them.

More than metropolitan

Community museums are critical in collecting, preserving and enabling access to local history. Across Victoria, these community organisations hold around 10 million items.

Aboriginal art centres produce some of Australia’s best contemporary art, generating A$53 million in sales between 2008 and 2012.

Read more: The other Indigenous coronavirus crisis: disappearing income from art

Digital platforms can make these contributions to our cultural life more accessible – particularly in these times of physical distancing. But artists in remote Aboriginal art centres and volunteer retirees running community museums are the most likely to experience digital disadvantage and the most likely to be left behind.

A digital divide

Australians are more likely to be digitally excluded when Indigenous, living in remote areas, or over the age of 65.

Community collecting is under-resourced and so regional museums rely on retiree volunteers.

Over 30% of Indigenous artists practising out of art centres are over 55, and are most likely to be earning from their art over 65. These remote centres have poor access to web-capable devices and have low-quality internet connections.

Read more: Australia’s digital divide is not going away

The digital divide also exists for local audiences with access issues of their own.

Although most art centres and community museums have active websites and social media accounts, these are unlikely to be truly engaging or interactive.

Art centres tend to focus their digital platforms outside the community on commercial sales. Community museums focus on information about opening hours and events. They rarely have the expertise or capacity to create detailed online catalogues for audiences.

Exclusionary consequences

Cultural participation is fragmented along demographic and geographic lines. Cities house the majority of our major institutions, with city dwellers dominating visitation.

Digital inequality ensures barriers remain even for online collections. Regional and rural organisations are unlikely to have the specific skills, resourcing and devices to move fully online.

Under social distancing, cultural organisations that cannot produce digital content risk being left behind. This will disproportionately impact regional and rural organisations.

These organisations are critical for preserving the diversity of Australian stories. Aboriginal art centres and community museums provide spaces where the local is solidified. Communities are formed, documented, responded to and shared.

If these organisations cannot host the same web presence as major metropolitan institutions, even local audiences could divert their attention to the cities. Our local cultural organisations might go the way of our disappearing regional newspapers.

To survive the coming months, these organisations need targeted support to move online. Or a reprieve from the pressure to be completely digitally accessible: not all cultural consumption can happen online.

These physical community spaces will be more important than ever once social isolation rules are lifted.

– ref. Coronavirus: as culture moves online, regional organisations need help bridging the digital divide – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-as-culture-moves-online-regional-organisations-need-help-bridging-the-digital-divide-135050

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

No Australian government has ever spent A$130 billion so quickly.

Last Tuesday, when the Prime Minister announced the government would subsidise six million jobs for six months to the tune of $1,500 a fortnight, the nation’s economists were left speechless.

Today, the government unveiled the legislation to be considered by the parliament tomorrow.

In ordinary times, there wouldn’t be a lot of support for a $130 billion wage subsidy. But these aren’t ordinary times.

Whole sectors of the economy have shut down, either directly as part of the health response to the pandemic, or indirectly as part of a wave of knock-on effects.

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

The JobKeeper wage subsidies will give direct support to the worst-affected businesses and jobs, helping to keep the economic damage to a minimum. The package isn’t perfect. But it’s a far better response than had been feared.

It will help keep the Australian economy afloat over the next six months, putting it in a position to bounce back when health officials deem it safe to reopen parts of the economy for business.

It has three key features:

• businesses get $1,500 per fortnight per worker (only for those workers who were employed on March 1. Short-term casuals with the business and some visa holders are excluded)

• the employer has to keep those workers on the books and pay them at least $1,500 per fortnight

• it only applies to businesses whose revenue has collapsed by at least 30% (15% for charities and not-for-profits, 50% for the largest businesses, with banks excluded).

To be effective, it has to deliver on three goals:

• to support workers’ incomes through the crisis

• to keep workers attached to firms, preserving as many job-specific skills and as much know-how as possible

• to prevent wide-scale business failures which could turn a short and sharp recession into a long and painful depression.

Importantly, this means if it’s working well, both workers and employers will get something out of the deal.

At firms that would otherwise have shut down, workers will benefit considerably.

Many workers will get paid more

The $1,500 payment will give them much more than the Newstart payment they would have received if laid off, even the doubled Newstart (now called JobSeeker) which for six months has been paired with a Coronavirus supplement lifting it from $565.70 to $1,115.60 per fortnight.

And for the one third of workers otherwise earning less than $1,500 per fortnight, the JobKeeper payment will be a pay rise. If the subsidy keeps their firm afloat, they’ll keep their job and be paid even more than before for the next six months.

It’s possible those earning more than $1,500 per fortnight will earn less than they did before in pay and benefits, depending on what the government does with the Fair Work Act.

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

Exactly how it works out for workers who get JobKeeper will depend on the labour market. On one hand, they will be more attractive to employers because their employment comes with a big subsidy that new hires don’t bring with them. On the other hand, they might have few alternative employers to turn to. Jobs might be hard to find.

They’ll get to keep their jobs

Regardless, even if their pay is reduced, their situation will be much better than under the renamed Newstart. And to the extent that cutting their pay helps to keep the firm viable, it will secure a job for them on the other side.

Employers will also benefit. If a business stays open, it will get the benefit of its workers’ labour for free or at a big discount. It might look like corporate welfare, but it’s a feature, not a bug.

Read more: Open letter to the prime minister: extend coronavirus support to temporary workers

A key objective of the scheme is to plug the hole in firms’ revenues to prevent them going under. Most would have been viable if it weren’t for the necessary public health measures governments have taken. Allowing them to fail would mean a pointless destruction of valuable resources.

The wage subsidy is somewhat crude and inevitably there will be some waste. Some firms will be given more money than they need, some workers will be given more, some less.

It was never going to be perfect

Given more time, the treasury could have designed something better targeted, less wasteful. It didn’t have it. The economy has never experienced so sudden a collapse.

But there are a few simple things the government could do to make it better.

It could include short-term casuals and visa holders, and it should take care not to weaken the Fair Work Act.

JobKeeper won’t prevent a serious contraction in the Australian economy, but it should give us a very good chance to bounce back on the other side.

We would like to thank Jeff Borland for his comments on a draft version of this article.

– ref. JobKeeper is quick, dirty and effective: there was no time to make it perfect – https://theconversation.com/jobkeeper-is-quick-dirty-and-effective-there-was-no-time-to-make-it-perfect-135195

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Perkiss, Senior Lecturer, University of Wollongong

The coronavirus might make Easter celebrations a little subdued this year, but that doesn’t mean going without chocolate eggs. In fact, South Australia’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier reportedly said people should partake in the Easter treats “to cheer ourselves up … I’ve certainly got a good supply of chocolate eggs already”.

But before you fill your shopping trolley (online or virtual) with chocolate, we urge you to think twice about whether it’s ethically produced.

Read more: Is ‘chocapocalypse’ looming? Why we need to understand what’s at stake

Most chocolate consumed globally, including in Australia, comes from the Ivory Coast and Ghana in West Africa – which together account for about 60% of global cocoa supply.

Cocoa farming is a major driver of deforestation in the region. Despite growing global demand for chocolate, farmers live in poverty, and child labour continues to plague the industry.

Spotlight on Nestlé

The US Department of Labor has estimated that 2 million children carry out hazardous work on cocoa farms in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

Our research has examined Nestlé, which claims its chocolate produced for specific markets is sustainably sourced and produced. A number of its chocolate products are certified through the UTZ and Fairtrade schemes.

Nestlé has adopted the Fair Labor Association (FLA) code of conduct that forbids child or forced child labour, and requires certain health and safety standards, reasonable hours of work and fair pay. Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan also outlines the company’s commitment to sustainability in its Ivory Coast cocoa supply chain.

Read more: Ghana’s cocoa farmers are trapped by the chocolate industry

But a 2016 FLA report said 80% of Nestlé’s cocoa procurement took place outside this plan. Of this part of the supply chain, just 30% was monitored by certification systems.

For the 70% of Nestlé cocoa farms outside certification programs, there was no evidence of training on labour standards or monitoring of working conditions. Assessors also found issues such as child labour, and health and safety issues.

More recently, Nestlé has stated its cocoa plan now covers 44% of its global cocoa supply, and the company is committed to sourcing 100% of cocoa under the plan by 2025.

On the issue of child labour, Nestlé last year reported it was “not proud” to have found more than 18,000 children doing hazardous work since a monitoring and remediation system began in 2012.

However the company would continue trying to eradicate the practice, including “helping children to stop doing unacceptable activities and, where needed, helping them to access quality education.”

Sweet sorrow: an industry problem

Other big chocolate players, such as Mars, Cadbury (owned by Mondelēz International), Hershey and Ferrero are also exposed to problems facing cocoa farming.

Many are taking action. Mars recently supported Ghana and the Ivory Coast in setting a floor price for cocoa, to increase the money paid to farmers.

In 2012, Ferrero promised to remove slavery from its cocoa supply by 2020.

Others have made moves towards better certification, including Hershey, which says it pays certification premiums to farmer groups who meet labour standards.

But despite years of pledges, progress across the sector is slow. The Washington Post last year reported major chocolate companies had missed deadlines to remove child labour from their cocoa supply chains in 2005, 2008 and 2010. It said brands such as Hershey, Mars and Nestlé could still not guarantee their chocolates were produced without child labour.

Bad for the planet

Cocoa farming is a major driver of deforestation as farmers cut down trees to clear farmland. For example in 2017, the Guardian reported cocoa traders selling to Mars, Nestlé, Mondelez and other big brands had sourced beans grown illegally inside protected rainforest areas in the Ivory Coast.

Rising demand for chocolate – particularly in India and China – also encourages farmers to increase cocoa yield by using fertilisers and pesticides.

A 2018 study found the chocolate industry in the UK produces the equivalent of more than 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. It took into account chocolate’s ingredients, manufacturing, packaging and waste.

And research last year by the CSIRO showed it takes 21 litres of water to produce a small chocolate bar.

Read more: Tips to reduce your waste this Easter (but don’t worry, you can still eat chocolate)

In response to the problem, Mars and Nestlé have pledged to make their cocoa supply chain sustainable by 2025. Ferrero has committed to source 100% sustainable cocoa beans by 2020, and Mondelēz intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10% by 2025, based on 2018 levels.

But pledges do not necessarily transform into action. At a United Nations climate change conference in November 2017, big chocolate producers and the governments of Ghana and the Ivory Coast committed to stopping deforestation for cocoa production. A year later, satellite mapping reportedly revealed thousands more hectares of rainforest in West Africa had been razed.

What’s a chocolate lover to do?

Given the above, you might be tempted to stop buying chocolate brands that source cocoa from West Africa. But this would cut off the incomes of poor cocoa farmers.

Instead, choose chocolate independently certified by the Rainforest Alliance, UTZ or Fairtrade. This increases the chance that the cocoa was produced with minimal environmental damage, and workers are treated well.

If you can, check if the company has direct connections with producers, which means farmers are more likely to be fairly paid.

If all this sounds too hard to work out yourself, websites such as The Good Shopping guide, Ethical Consumer or Shop ethical! can help you find Easter eggs that are both ethically made, and delicious.

Read more: It takes 21 litres of water to produce a small chocolate bar. How water-wise is your diet?

– ref. Turning to Easter eggs to get through these dark times? Here’s the bitter truth about chocolate – https://theconversation.com/turning-to-easter-eggs-to-get-through-these-dark-times-heres-the-bitter-truth-about-chocolate-130295

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

The centerpiece of the Commonwealth government’s COVID-19 economic stimulus program is JobKeeper. Priced at A$130 billion, it will pay eligible employers $1,500 per fortnight for each eligible employee for up to six months.

The aim, according to the government fact sheet, is to

support employers to maintain their connection to their employees (as) these connections will enable business to reactivate their operations quickly – without having to rehire staff – when the crisis is over

But excluded from the scheme are workers on temporary visas (except for New Zealand citizens on Special Category Subclass 444 visas – they’re included).

This exclusion is wrong for four reasons.

1. It penalises the businesses that employ temporary workers

The exclusion of temporary visa holders discriminates against the businesses that employ them.

Given there are close to 900,000 temporary visa holders with work rights (excluding New Zealand citizens) the discrimination will have a serious impact.

It will be particularly severe in industries that significantly rely on temporary migrants: among them hospitality (international students), agriculture (working holiday makers), health and aged care (workers on Temporary Skill Shortage visas).

The exclusion of temporary visa holders from JobKeeper will bring about distortions within and between industries. It will likely result in the closure of businesses that rely upon temporary migrants.

2. It breaches fundamental rights

Equal rights at work – regardless of migrant status – is a key principle of

This principle underpins Australia’s Fair Work Act which treats migrant workers as within its scope.

JobKeeper, which provides a workplace benefit through wage subsidies, departs from this principle.

Not only does it set a dangerous precedent, it is a particularly egregious breach.

Denial of the JobKeeper payment will mean the loss of jobs and livelihoods for many or most temporary visa holders.

Some will be forced to attempt to return to their countries of origin, which in some cases are less safe than Australia.

Among them are Italian working holiday visa holders.

3. Many of those affected are members of the community

Temporary visa holders are only temporary in the sense that they have a limited right to stay.

Swinburne University’s Peter Mares has characterised Australia’s shift to temporary migration as “permanent” in two senses: it is an enduring change, and it has resulted in temporary visa holders residing in Australia for extended periods of time.

Philosopher Joseph Carens has rightly argued that such extended periods of residence provide a basis for community membership, given the contributions given and connections made, regardless of migration status.

Asking temporary visa holders to “go home” not only fails to recognise membership of the Australian community but also misses the fundamental point that Australia is home to many of these temporary visa holders.

Read more: Open letter to the prime minister: extend coronavirus support to temporary workers

This ought not be hard to understand: most overseas Australians would consider their country of residence to be their home.

The position of overseas Australians (of which there are hundreds of thousands) suggests another important perspective: the Golden Rule.

How would we view the actions of foreign governments that insisted that overseas Australians “go home” if they had insufficient funds due to COVID-19 restrictions imposed by these very governments?

4. It undermines the fight against COVID-19

The hardship resulting from the temporary visa holder exclusion will undermine public health measures.

Temporary visa holders will increasingly swell the number of homelessness.

It is hard to “stay at home” if you don’t have one. Financial desperation will drive some to continue working even if unwell.

Other adverse consequences are likely. Desperate temporary visa holders will become exposed wage theft of the kind exposed by the 7-Eleven scandal, slowing Australia’s labour market recovery.

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

The recovery of higher education will be slowed down if international students are impoverished and unable to pay the fees necessary to continue their studies.

Temporary migrant workers ought to be part of JobKeeper, just as are other Australian residents and New Zealanders on temporary visas.

Excluding them breaches their fundamental rights, fails to recognise the community membership of many of them, and it will undermine Australia’s efforts to fight COVID-19.

– ref. Why temporary migrants need JobKeeper – https://theconversation.com/why-temporary-migrants-need-jobkeeper-135688

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology

The High Court today granted Cardinal George Pell special leave to appeal, and unanimously allowed the appeal. In other words, Pell won. His convictions were quashed and he will be released from prison.

Pell’s prosecution has been socially explosive and legally complex. The cardinal’s convictions by unanimous jury verdicts were a landmark event in Australian history. The High Court’s decision will be, too – both for the legal world and for society more broadly.

For many, it will be impossible to understand how the unanimous jury verdicts of guilty, further supported by a Court of Appeal majority of two judges, can now be overturned.

The High Court decision may undermine confidence in the legal system, especially in child sexual abuse prosecutions.

Civil legal actions against Pell are ongoing, so his legal battles aren’t over yet. More civil lawsuits may well follow, especially after the release of the Royal Commission’s findings about his conduct in Ballarat.

This case is exceptionally complex. It is important for the public to understand the legal process and key issues.

This High Court appeal did not ask whether Pell committed the offences. It asked whether the two majority judges in the Victorian Court of Appeal, in dismissing Pell’s earlier appeal, made an error about the nature of the correct legal principles, or their application.

Here is a summary of the key events.

The jury decision

In 2018, a jury unanimously found Pell guilty “beyond reasonable doubt” of five child sexual offences. This standard of proof is high, but does not require absolute proof. The jury believed the complainant, and rejected Pell’s defence.

The Court of Appeal decision

Pell argued the verdicts “could not be supported on the whole of the evidence”. The question for the court was not whether it thought Pell was guilty, but whether (in its opinion after reviewing all the evidence) it was “open to the jury” to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the accused was guilty.

As discussed elsewhere, to show the verdict was “not open”, Pell had to meet a very high legal threshold.

Read more: What did the High Court decide in the Pell case? And what happens now?

Jury decisions cannot be undermined without exceptional circumstances. Pell had to show more than the jury “might have” had a reasonable doubt. He had to show the evidence “precluded” a guilty verdict.

When a complainant is credible, and their account is detailed, plausible, and consistent, it is difficult to show a jury must have had a reasonable doubt.

To meet the standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”, evidence is assessed as a whole. Every piece of evidence does not itself have to be proved to that standard. It is “open to the jury” to convict even if aspects of the evidence are “imperfect”.

All three Court of Appeal judges thoroughly and independently considered all the evidence. Two judges thought the verdict was open to the jury, and one did not.

In other words, two judges thought it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the accused was guilty – and one did not.

Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal.

The case goes to the High Court

The High Court allowed “special leave to appeal”. This is unusual, as special leave applications arguing an unreasonable verdict are frequently refused, including in child sexual offence cases.

It can only grant leave if the case involves a question of legal principle, or if – as found here – there’s a question of the administration of justice.

Pell claimed the Court of Appeal misapplied the legal test, causing a miscarriage of justice.

The question for the High Court in whether to give special leave was not whether Pell was guilty, or whether the jury was right.

It was whether the case involved an issue engaging the interests of the administration of justice.

The High Court found the interests of the administration of justice required their involvement. This does not itself indicate any view about Pell’s guilt.

What did Pell argue in the High Court?

Pell argued the Victorian majority judgment’s application of the “open to the jury” test was wrong.

He argued they effectively required him to prove it was impossible for the offending to occur, reversing the onus and standard of proof. He argued the majority’s belief in the complainant was not enough to overcome evidence about lack of opportunity to commit the offences.

Read more: We knew George Pell was guilty of child sex abuse. Why couldn’t we say it until now?

He also argued there was sufficient doubt about whether the offending was possible, as the complainant’s account required them to be alone in the sacristy for five to six minutes.

There was enough doubt about this, his legal team argued, the majority on the Court of Appeal incorrectly found it was open to the jury to find the offending occurred during this period.

The Crown rejected these claims. They argued there was no reversal of the onus of proof, and the majority judges were justified in concluding the evidence about lack of opportunity was not persuasive enough to create a doubt that “obliged” the jury to find him not guilty.

Pell won today on a legal technicality

Based on their summary reasons, the High Court found the Court of Appeal majority judgment did not apply sufficiently cogent reasoning when it assessed the evidence.

In their full reasons, the High Court concluded an independent assessment of the evidence by the Court of Appeal should have concluded there ought to have been sufficient doubt in the jury’s minds to preclude the verdict from being open.

They found the majority’s judgment failed to consider whether there was a reasonable possibility the offending had not taken place, such that there ought to have been a reasonable doubt as to Pell’s guilt.

They also found that despite the complainant’s credibility and reliability, the evidence of the witnesses required the jury, acting rationally, to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to Pell’s guilt.

Read more: Victims of child sex abuse still face significant legal barriers suing churches – here’s why

It is difficult to reconcile this outcome with the fact this is exactly the conclusion the jury did make. The jury’s conclusion was further supported by the Appeal Court majority judgment’s careful and extensive evaluation of that same evidence.

The High Court has given claims about lack of opportunity an elevated technical legal status that outweighs the jury’s belief in Pell’s testimony and their evident discounting of Pell’s claimed lack of opportunity. This appears perilously close to re-trial by the court.

A jury found the cardinal guilty beyond reasonable doubt of five offences.

In doing so, the jury assessed the testimony and credibility of the complainant. They also considered the strength of the claims made by the cardinal about the timing of his whereabouts, who was with him at the relevant times and whether the offences could have happened.

The jury saw and heard all the evidence, in the context of the trial. It was their legal function to make this decision.

Careful analysis of the full reasoning of the High Court is required to fully assess it. But for now, this extraordinary outcome is strange justice indeed.

Pell has won today on a legal technicality, but he will continue to be assailed by multiple lawsuits.

In contrast, the complainant has been believed by a jury, by a majority judgment, and by a substantial body of public opinion.

– ref. How George Pell won in the High Court on a legal technicality – https://theconversation.com/how-george-pell-won-in-the-high-court-on-a-legal-technicality-133156

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilana Finefter-Rosenbluh, Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Monash University

The unfolding COVID-19 situation has brought many changes to school education. NAPLAN tests have been cancelled for 2020 and most children are learning online.

Education minister Dan Tehan is meeting with the states on what to do with year 12 exams and criteria for university entry. One option flagged is for universities to look at a mixture of students’ year 11 and year 12 assessments to date.

With regards to the end of school qualification in New South Wales, the Higher School Certificate (HSC), the state’s education board has already given

principals or system authorities the power to make decisions about the number and weighting of HSC formal assessment tasks for their school in 2020.

The board went on to say it “affirms its complete trust in principals and teachers”.

This is similar to what was done in the UK. Their GCSE and A-level exams have been cancelled and replaced with teacher assessment, based on low-stakes testing, coursework and class performance.

While Australia should be looking at creative solutions for assessing students’ end of school results and criteria for university entry, a focus on teacher assessments may be problematic.

Teachers can be prone to a phenomenon known as grade inflation. This is essentially where students are awarded higher marks without demonstrating higher levels of mastery.

Our research showed teachers in private schools are more likely to inflate grades due to pressure from students and parents.

Read more: COVID-19 has thrown year 12 students’ lives into chaos. So what can we do?

External exams and internal assessments

Grade inflation is a worldwide problem, both in schools and universities. As the Atlantic reports, a US study of the history of college grading found, in the early 1960s, an A grade was awarded in colleges nationwide 15% of the time. But today, an A is the most common grade given in college – the percentage of A grades has tripled, to 45% nationwide.

The United States has borne the brunt of the criticism towards grade inflation in schools, due to its grading system.

In Australia, year 12 exams – which are weighted heavily in the total score for a student’s school certificate – are marked externally. But in the US, all grades are given to students by their teachers. For extra credit, students may take external Advanced Placement (AP) exams.

Read more: Educators must commit now to tackle grade inflation

At the end of their final school year, or year 12 equivalent, US students’ grades are averaged out to provide a Grade Point Average (GPA).

Students who wish to apply to a college or university will most likely have to take an external Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or an American College Test (ACT) – general tests to evaluate their written, verbal and mathematical and/or scientific reasoning skills. While these tests are used as criteria for admission to most US colleges or universities, many institutions are now test-optional, meaning they don’t require such tests at all.

While every institution balances and counts the “absolute merit” of GPA and test scores in its own way, admissions offices seem to question the grading system and search for other metrics. They acknowledge the average US teacher experiences a great deal of pressure from students and parents anxious about college admissions.

Such pressures are more prevalent in wealthier, white and private schools.

Teachers facing pressure

Our research showed how inflated expectations of students and parents led to teachers’ ethical grading dilemmas in one private prestigious school in the US. We found teachers engaged in “grade massaging” due to either an “ethic of care” toward their students (due to concern about their students’ motivation, psychology or life prospects) or due to extensive school or parent pressures.

One science teacher told us parents feel “they are paying and they deserve for their kids to get As”. As a result, she noted, there is substantial

pressure on teachers to inflate grades, to give do-overs and all that kind of thing.

Another math teacher admitted to “overlooking” a struggling student’s missing work and shoddy study habits, giving her a B+ so she “could just finish the year”.

And another English teacher lamented

there is a moral thing that I need to figure out with myself […] We just take part in this thing […] I am a partner in crime […]

These cases are not unique. Another study showed highly-ranked US public schools, which served mainly middle and upper-middle class students, advanced those they initially identified as having the most privileged background by marking others’ work harsher.

The latter students had a disadvantage when trying to enter elite universities, compared to equivalent students in less prestigious schools.

What could happen in Australia?

Educational inequality is alive and kicking in Australia. Inequitable funding settlements continue to entrench privilege in private elite schools that advance their students to accrue further advantage.

Research shows Australian low socioeconomic schools offer students less access to the core academic curriculum subjects that are important for university entry. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to complete year 12, and are increasingly locked out of competitive education and job markets.

Read more: Aussie parents are under pressure to buy their kids academic advantage too

Unethical practices can also be found in our schools. A study that explored Australian private schools’ strategies of self promotion revealed how they have taken certain statistics or results out of a larger context (“partial reporting”) to give themselves a successful image. Another study discussed how schools manipulating NAPLAN data to secure a good image.

A petition to cancel year 12 exams this year has received thousands of signatures. While weighing up the prospects of this, governments must consider the implications to society, and particularly how this might affect more disadvantaged students.

Although pressing times are calling, teachers should not be left to their own devices to deal with parents, community and other school pressures. Social inequality is already here. Do we really want to take the risk of increasing it?

– ref. US private schools often inflate student grades. This could happen in Australia if we cancel year 12 exams – https://theconversation.com/us-private-schools-often-inflate-student-grades-this-could-happen-in-australia-if-we-cancel-year-12-exams-135051

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Berto Pandolfo, Senior Lecturer Product Design, University of Technology Sydney

Around the world, people are racing to design and manufacture much-needed ventilators to address a global lack of supply. One New York hospital has reportedly attempted treating two patients per ventilator out of desperation.

On March 26, a joint statement published by the American Society of Anaesthesiologists advised in regards to COVID-19 patients that:

… sharing mechanical ventilators should not be attempted because it cannot be done safely with current equipment.

Ventilators help a patient breathe by assisting the lungs to inhale and exhale air. These machines are used to treat patients suffering from conditions including pneumonia, brain injury and stroke.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes the COVID-19 disease) attacks the respiratory system. When infected, a patient’s ability to breathe is compromised. In mild cases, breathing or respiratory support can be provided using noninvasive means, such as delivering oxygen-rich air through a face mask.

In more severe cases, when a patient suffers acute respiratory distress, an invasive form of respiratory support is required. This is provided through an artificial airway. A tube attached to a ventilator is inserted into the patient’s the mouth or nose (and down the windpipe), or via a surgically-made hole in the neck.

Read more: What steps hospitals can take if coronavirus leads to a shortage of beds

Breathe in, breathe out

The principle function of a ventilator is to pump or blow oxygen-rich air into the lungs; this is referred to as “oxygenation”. Ventilators also assist in the removal of carbon dioxide from the lungs, and this is referred to as “ventilation”.

One basic type of ventilator is the Bag Valve Mask (BVM). The BVM, also known as the Ambu Bag, is operated manually by a person squeezing a self-inflating bladder. This is an essential tool for ambulance crews, first responders and critical care units. It is light, compact and easy to use.

However, in situations where a steady and controlled air exchange (oxygen in, carbon dioxide out) is needed, mechanical ventilators are required. These look like a quintessential medical product.

A mechanical ventilator comprises a computerised box that sits on top of a mobile trolley. There is an array of screens, dials, data cables, power cords and gas tubes. Modern mechanical ventilators are highly complex and sophisticated pieces of equipment. Their increased complexity in comparison with the Ambu Bag allows a superior level of care.

The extra features and control measures of mechanical ventilators allow adjustments such as:

• how long inhalation for a patient lasts
• how much air is received
• how often air is received
• the concentration of oxygen within the air (air is about 21% oxygen, but in some cases the percentage of oxygen is increased)
• how much pressure the patient’s lungs are inflated to
• the temperature and humidity of the air.

Ventilators – a DIY project?

Making a mechanical ventilator requires considerable expertise in research, design and manufacturing. To make a commercial mechanical ventilator means ensuring reliability, serviceability and adherence to strict regulatory standards.

All of this is vital, as mechanical ventilators are often used in life and death situations. And this is why, like other specialist medical devices, they are not cheap. One mechanical ventilator can cost up to US$50,000 (about A$82,000).

Read more: How are the most serious COVID-19 cases treated, and does the coronavirus cause lasting damage?

Responding to a global need in mechanical ventilators, various groups from around the world have emerged with alternative ventilator designs, each claiming their design works and can be manufactured quickly and cheaply.

A number of these DIY mechanical ventilators are based on the Ambu Bag design, including open lung ventilation and proposals from Triple 8 Racing, Richard Branson’s aerospace company Virgin Orbit and British home and garden appliance company Gtech.

However, instead of relying on manual activation like the Ambu Bag bladder, these designs use mechanical automation to press and release the bladder at desired intervals. Some basic controls are available, but the most significant advantage is their inherent simplicity.

Big players join the race

More complex ventilator proposals have also appeared. The Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM) was inspired by a 1960s design and uses the pressurised medical oxygen available in hospitals to drive the ventilator. This simplifies the unit considerably, as it doesn’t need a motor.

The MVM was designed by more than one hundred academics and researchers from around the world. It even features a control system enabled through wifi connectivity.

One proposal that more closely mirrors existing ventilators was developed by Dyson, following an urgent request from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was moved to ICU last night as he battles COVID-19. The Dyson ventilator, unsurprisingly, incorporates a motor from one of its iconic vacuum cleaners.

Read more: Who needs to be in an ICU? It’s hard for doctors to tell

Dyson is an internationally recognised design and manufacturing company. Pivoting its resources to a mechanical ventilator is not as difficult as it would be for other companies. After all, managing the movement of air is a core function of Dyson’s products (mainly vacuum cleaners, fans and hair dryers).

Importantly, Dyson will only release its ventilator once it meets British health authority specifications.

But while the race to design and manufacture much-needed ventilators continues, health workers on the front lines must make do with what they have. Let’s hope these collective efforts can soon alleviate some of their stress.

– ref. ICU ventilators: what they are, how they work and why it’s hard to make more – https://theconversation.com/icu-ventilators-what-they-are-how-they-work-and-why-its-hard-to-make-more-135423