Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Hughes, Distinguished Professor, James Cook University

The Australian summer just gone will be remembered as the moment when human-caused climate change struck hard. First came drought, then deadly bushfires, and now a bout of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef – the third in just five years. Tragically, the 2020 bleaching is severe and the most widespread we have ever recorded.

Coral bleaching at regional scales is caused by spikes in sea temperatures during unusually hot summers. The first recorded mass bleaching event along Great Barrier Reef occurred in 1998, then the hottest year on record.

Read more: ‘This situation brings me to despair’: two reef scientists share their climate grief

Since then we’ve seen four more mass bleaching events – and more temperature records broken – in 2002, 2016, 2017, and again in 2020.

This year, February had the highest monthly sea surface temperatures ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef since the Bureau of Meteorology’s records began in 1900.

Not a pretty picture

We surveyed 1,036 reefs from the air during the last two weeks in March, to measure the extent and severity of coral bleaching throughout the Great Barrier Reef region. Two observers, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, scored each reef visually, repeating the same procedures developed during early bleaching events.

The accuracy of the aerial scores is verified by underwater surveys on reefs that are lightly and heavily bleached. While underwater, we also measure how bleaching changes between shallow and deeper reefs.

Read more: Attention United Nations: don’t be fooled by Australia’s latest report on the Great Barrier Reef

Of the reefs we surveyed from the air, 39.8% had little or no bleaching (the green reefs in the map). However, 25.1% of reefs were severely affected (red reefs) – that is, on each reef more than 60% of corals were bleached. A further 35% had more modest levels of bleaching.

Bleaching isn’t necessarily fatal for coral, and it affects some species more than others. A pale or lightly bleached coral typically regains its colour within a few weeks or months and survives.

But when bleaching is severe, many corals die. In 2016, half of the shallow water corals died on the northern region of the Great Barrier Reef between March and November. Later this year, we’ll go underwater to assess the losses of corals during this most recent event.

Compared to the four previous bleaching events, there are fewer unbleached or lightly bleached reefs in 2020 than in 1998, 2002 and 2017, but more than in 2016. Similarly, the proportion of severely bleached reefs in 2020 is exceeded only by 2016. By both of these metrics, 2020 is the second-worst mass bleaching event of the five experienced by the Great Barrier Reef since 1998.

The unbleached and lightly bleached (green) reefs in 2020 are predominantly offshore, mostly close to the edge of the continental shelf in the northern and southern Great Barrier Reef. However, offshore reefs in the central region were severely bleached again. Coastal reefs are also badly bleached at almost all locations, stretching from the Torres Strait in the north to the southern boundary of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

For the first time, severe bleaching has struck all three regions of the Great Barrier Reef – the northern, central and now large parts of the southern sectors. The north was the worst affected region in 2016, followed by the centre in 2017.

In 2020, the cumulative footprint of bleaching has expanded further, to include the south. The distinctive footprint of each bleaching event closely matches the location of hotter and cooler conditions in different years.

Poor prognosis

Of the five mass bleaching events we’ve seen so far, only 1998 and 2016 occurred during an El Niño – a weather pattern that spurs warmer air temperatures in Australia.

But as summers grow hotter under climate change, we no longer need an El Niño to trigger mass bleaching at the scale of the Great Barrier Reef. We’ve already seen the first example of back-to-back bleaching, in the consecutive summers of 2016 and 2017. The gap between recurrent bleaching events is shrinking, hindering a full recovery.

After five bleaching events, the number of reefs that have escaped severe bleaching continues to dwindle. Those reefs are located offshore, in the far north and in remote parts of the south.

The Great Barrier Reef will continue to lose corals from heat stress, until global emissions of greenhouse gasses are reduced to net zero, and sea temperatures stabilise. Without urgent action to achieve this outcome, it’s clear our coral reefs will not survive business-as-usual emissions.

Read more: I studied what happens to reef fish after coral bleaching. What I saw still makes me nauseous

– ref. We just spent two weeks surveying the Great Barrier Reef. What we saw was an utter tragedy – https://theconversation.com/we-just-spent-two-weeks-surveying-the-great-barrier-reef-what-we-saw-was-an-utter-tragedy-135197

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Morris, Professor, University of Technology Sydney

About half of international students in Australia are private renters and more than half of them rely on paid work to pay the rent, but most of the casual jobs they depend on have been lost in the coronavirus pandemic. The results of our recent survey (conducted pre-COVID-19) of international students living in private rental accommodation suggest up to half of them may now be unable to pay their rent. Many also live in quite crowded conditions, so will struggle to self-isolate even if they don’t lose their current housing.

Our survey covered all three post-secondary sectors – universities, vocational education and training, and English language (ELICOS) – and we received over 7,000 valid responses from students in the private rental sector in Melbourne and Sydney. Although the survey closed in mid-December and we have yet to finalise the report, the data suggest the knock-on effects of COVID-19 will have profound impacts on international students. About 565,000 are in Australia now, the government estimates.

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

Working to pay the rent

Paying the rent was a major worry for many international students even before the pandemic. Just over one in three respondents agreed or strongly agreed they “worry about paying the rent each week”.

A staggering 22% said they “quite often go without necessities like food, so I can pay for my accommodation”. In response to the question, “In the last year, have you ever felt that you could become homeless?”, 17% said, “Yes”.

A critical finding is that just under half (46%) said they had to have a paid job to be able to pay the rent. Of the 43% who had a paid job (which suggests most of those who had to work to pay the rent had found a job), 44% worked in food services or hospitality. It is likely almost all employed international students are in casual jobs and thus have minimal job security.

The scale of recent job lay-offs in the hospitality industry suggests almost all these students will have lost their jobs. Most of the 16% who worked in retail and the 9% in health care and social assistance are probably also now jobless, along with those employed in other sectors.

When we asked students whether losing their job would mean they would not be able to pay the rent, 57% agreed or strongly agreed. Only a quarter disagreed or strongly disagreed. The results suggest 40-50% of the international students renting privately – about 150,000 people – may now be unable to pay their rent.

Although recent measures to prevent landlords evicting tenants who are in financial distress due to COVID-19 will help in some cases, the moratorium does not appear to prevent landlords evicting tenants for other reasons. “No grounds” evictions are seemingly still in place.

A spike in instances of discrimination related to COVID-19 could add to the risk of these students losing their accommodation.

Read more: Homelessness and overcrowding expose us all to coronavirus. Here’s what we can do to stop the spread

To add to their vulnerability, international students are not eligible for sick leave or any of the recently announced government benefits. They will not be able to apply for the increased unemployment benefit or youth allowance. They are also not eligible for the recently announced wage subsidy.

The lack of any income support could encourage an international student to continue working while ill. They might then infect fellow workers, housemates and the general public.

Living in crowded share housing

The survey indicated half of the international students in the private rental sector had at least three housemates and 19% had five or more. One in four respondents shared their bedroom with someone other than a partner. About one in five shared their bedroom with two or more people.

What the data indicate is that the housing conditions of a large proportion of international students provide fertile ground for the coronavirus to spread. If an international student tests positive for COVID-19, they will probably not have a space where they can self-isolate.

Read more: Tracking the rise of room sharing and overcrowding, and what it means for housing in Australia

Ignorant of rights as tenants

Only one in four students disagreed or strongly disagreed that it was “difficult to find out what my rights are as a renter”. Just over half strongly agreed or agreed they “understand [their] rights as a renter”.

As well as not knowing their rights, another factor that could make students more vulnerable is only 60% said they were renting from a landlord or real estate agent. The rest are renting from a flatmate, families they may or may not know, their educational institutions, or student accommodation (Iglu, Urbanest, etc).

The rights of tenants in these situations are complex. Many would not have written agreements and are not necessarily covered by residential tenancy law.

Sector must stand up for students

Clearly, the situation of many international students in private rental accommodation is extremely precarious. COVID-19 could be a tipping point for many. Not only will they have no income, but they could find themselves homeless with no possibility of flying home to their families.

They might also not be able to pay their fees – around A$20,000 a semester for university students. This could result in their “confirmation of enrolment” being cancelled and their student visa being withdrawn. Students will then be in Australia illegally and could find themselves in immigration detention.

The post-secondary education sector has long depended on the revenue international students provide. There were 758,154 full-fee-paying international students in 2019. The situation demands that educational institutions urgently insist that government extend a helping hand to these students. They desperately need the same protections that local students and workers enjoy.

– ref. Why coronavirus impacts are devastating for international students in private rental housing – https://theconversation.com/why-coronavirus-impacts-are-devastating-for-international-students-in-private-rental-housing-134792

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

Many temporary Australian residents will be excluded from the JobSeeker Payment and Coronavirus Supplement to be provided to permanent residents. In this open letter to the prime minister, 40 leading Australian experts on public policy argue this is in no-one’s interests.

Dear Mr Morrison,

The Australian government has achieved a great deal with its far-reaching responses to the risks to the Australian people and the economy as a result of the Covid19 pandemic.

The temporary increases to social security benefits through the introduction of the Coronavirus Supplement and the introduction of the JobKeeper Payment have done much to boost public confidence as Australia along with the rest of the world faces the most challenging economic environment in 100 years.

The combination of these two payments should provide a robust safety net for those who qualify for one or other of the payments.

However, there is a serious gap in the government’s response that needs to be filled as soon as possible. This is the situation facing temporary visa holders in the workforce who are not currently eligible to access the COVID-19 crisis measures.

On April 4, the acting minister for immigration announced announced that most temporary visa holders with work rights will now be able to access their Australian superannuation to help support themselves during the crisis, but that others would be encouraged to return to their home country.

The Minister’s Statement sets out the scale of this issue:

• there are 2.17 million people presently in Australia on a temporary visa

• of these, there are more than 672,000 New Zealanders in Australia on a subclass 444 visa

• there are 565,000 international students in Australia, mainly studying in the higher education or vocational education sector

• There are around 139,000 temporary skilled visa holders, on either a 2 year or 4 year visa

• There are about 118,000 people in Australia on a Working Holiday visa (or backpacker visa)

• There are another 185,000 other temporary visa holders in Australia, about half of them temporary graduate visa holders

The minister has acknowledged the crucial role that these temporary visa holders play in the Australian economy.

For example, his statement points out that international students “are an important contributor to our tertiary sector and economy, supporting 240,000 Australian jobs.”

Many of those on working holiday visas are working in “the critical sectors of heath, aged and disability care, agriculture and food processing, and childcare”.

Temporary skilled visa holders “were provided the visa to fill a skills shortage – a shortage that may still be present when the crisis has passed”.

Also on April 4, a joint statement from the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Immigration announced temporary changes to visa arrangements to help farmers access the workforce they need to secure Australia’s food and produce supply during COVID-19.

Pointing out that “these visa holders fill a critical workforce gap in this sector,” the government announced that, before moving to other parts of the country, working holiday makers will need to self-isolate for 14 days.

The JobKeeper and the JobSeeker Payments will cover some temporary visa holders, but not all.

For example, it appears that New Zealanders in Australia will be eligible for the JobKeeper Payment, but only if they have been with the same employer for 12 months or more. They will only be entitled to the JobSeeker Payment and the Coronavirus Supplement if they have been in Australia for 10 years or more.

Read more: Coronavirus supplement: your guide to the Australian payments that will go to the extra million on welfare

Non-New Zealanders will have only their super to rely on (which may have plummeted in value), a wholly inadequate solution.

The government has already made the very positive move of extending access to social security benefits to permanent residents who previously were not eligible for many payments for up to four years.

Refusing income support to temporary migrants who lose their jobs poses risks to public health and their own welfare, will create shortages of workers in vital sectors now and when the economy restarts, and breach Australia’s global responsibilities.

These workers have all been making valuable contributions to the Australian economy.

Read more: Why closing our borders to foreign workers could see fruit and vegetable prices spike

Many will not be able to, and should not have to, return “home”.

If temporary migrants find themselves without income and unlawfully resident here, Australia will face a humanitarian crisis and an even worse health situation for us all.

Such migrants may be made homeless or will be forced to live in crowded situations and may be forced into illegal work.

We believe that as a matter of urgency that entitlement to the JobSeeker Payment and the Coronavirus Supplement should be extended to these workers for the period of the current health emergency.

The minister for families and social services has wide-ranging discretionary powers to make regulations to achieve this, but the sitting of parliament this week provides the opportunity for the government to make a firm commitment to fill this gap in their response to this unprecedented crisis.

Yours sincerely,

Associate Professor Laurie Berg, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney

Professor Sharon Bessel, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Associate Professor Anna Boucher, The University of Sydney

Associate Professor Bruce Bradbury, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW

Dr Stephen Clibborn, The University of Sydney Business School

Professor Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney

Professor Rae Cooper, The University of Sydney Business School

Professor Jean-Philippe Deranty, Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University

Dr Norbert Ebert, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Associate Professor Bassina Farbenblum, Director UNSW Human Rights Clinic, UNSW Law

Professor Karen R Fisher, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW

Professor Susan Goodwin, The University of Sydney

Professor Matthew Gray, Centre for Social Research and Methods, The Australian National University

Associate Professor Dimitria Groutsis, The University of Sydney Business School

Dr Nicholas Harrigan, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Professor Paul Henman School of Social Science, The University of Queensland

Associate Professor in Law Joanna Howe, University of Adelaide

Dr Evan Jones, Department of Political Economy, The University of Sydney

Peter Mares, Adjunct Fellow, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University

Professor Greg Marston, Professor of Social Policy, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland

Professor Gabrielle Meagher, Honorary Professor, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Professor Alan Morris, University of Technology Sydney

Associate Professor Gaby Ramia, The University of Sydney

Professor Alex Reilly, Law School, University of Adelaide

Associate Professor Shanthi Robertson, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University

Professor Nicholas Smith, Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University

Dr Ben Spies-Butcher, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Dr. Adam Stebbing, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Professor Miranda Stewart, Tax Group, University of Melbourne Law School

Professor Joo-Cheong Tham, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne

Scientia Professor Carla Treloar, Centre for Social Research in Health; Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales

Associate Professor kylie valentine, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales

Associate Professor Diane Van Den Broek, The University of Sydney Business School

Associate Professor Selvaraj Velayutham, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Professor Ariadne Vromen, Department of Government and International Relations, The University of Sydney

Professor Peter Whiteford, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Associate Professor Shaun Wilson, Macquarie University

Professor Amanda Wise, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Associate Professor Chris F Wright, The University of Sydney

Associate Professor Kyoung-Hee Yu, University of Technology Sydney

– ref. Open letter to the prime minister: extend coronavirus support to temporary workers – https://theconversation.com/open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-extend-coronavirus-support-to-temporary-workers-135691

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew McLachlan, Head of School and Dean of Pharmacy, University of Sydney

Researchers testing the head lice drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19 have seen promising results in lab studies.

But the research is in its early stages and the drug is yet to be tested on people with COVID-19. There’s so much we don’t know, including the right dose and delivery method for people with coronavirus infection.

So if you’re thinking of buying some just in case, think again.

Read more: Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

What is Ivermectin currently used for?

Ivermectin is an antiparasitic agent that was isolated in the 1970s from the fermented broth of a species of bacteria called Streptomyces avermitilis.

The drug has been used since the 1980s to treat and prevent diseases related to parasites in humans, pets and livestock, and works by paralysing invertebrate parasites.

In Australia, Ivermectin is mainly used topically in creams and lotions for head lice.

It’s also used in tablet form to treat roundworm infection and as a second-line treatment for scabies and rosacea, a skin condition that causes redness and visible blood vessels in your face.

The pharmaceutical company that makes Ivermectin, MSD, has also been donating the drug to developing countries to treat the parasitic diseases river blindness and elephantiasis for the past 30 years.

Read more: How 2015 Nobel Prize drug might rid Africa of ancient scourges

What are the side effects and potential harms?

When used at the recommended dose, Ivermectin is generally well tolerated. Some of the common side effects include diarrhoea, nausea, dizziness and drowsiness.

Less common is a lack of energy, abdominal pain, constipation, vomiting, tremors, rashes and itching.

Ivermectin may also interact with some medicines, such as the blood-thinning drug warfarin, or worsen some conditions such as asthma.

Ingesting Ivermectin found in topical products for head lice is dangerous. If this occurs, contact the Poison Information Hotline.

How might Ivermectin treat COVID-19?

Recent laboratory data from scientists at Monash University and the Doherty Institute suggests Ivermectin is able to stop SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from replicating.

Ivermectin has also been shown to stop other viruses (such as HIV, dengue, influenza and Zika) replicating, at least in the laboratory.

The researchers found Ivermectin had an effect on SARS-CoV-2 after one exposure to the drug. Viral replication was shut down within 24 to 48 hours.

It’s still not clear exactly how Ivermectin works. But it appears to stop the processes that allow proteins to move within the virus. These proteins would normally dampen the body’s antiviral response, allowing the virus to replicate and enhance the infection.

Where is the research on Ivermectin for coronavirus up to?

This research on Ivermectin has been conducted in cell culture (cells grown in a laboratory) and is very preliminary. It provides some promise, but not evidence of an effective treatment in people (yet).

Rigorous clinical trials in people with or exposed to COVID-19 infection are needed to establish the drug works and is safe to use, and in what doses. The laboratory studies of Ivermectin suggest higher concentrations of the drug may be needed beyond a standard dose to have an antiviral impact. So safety monitoring will be important.

If Ivermectin is found to work on people with COVID-19, it needs to be studied as a potential treatment. So researchers need to know: does it prevent COVID-19 infection, reduce the severity of the associated illness, or improve the time to recovery? These are important questions to be answered before it becomes a treatment for COVID-19.

On a positive note, re-purposing drugs such as Ivermectin as a potential treatment for COVID-19 is ideal because development can move quickly to clinical trial testing because we already know it’s safe to use in humans at currently recommended doses.

Read more: In the fight against coronavirus, antivirals are as important as a vaccine. Here’s where the science is up to

Should I buy some just in case?

No. It’s too soon to know if the promising laboratory test results will translate into a safe and effective drug for COVID-19 patients. The researchers were very clear Ivermectin should not be used to treat COVID-19 until further testing is complete.

We certainly shouldn’t be stockpiling the drug to use later, especially since we don’t yet know the best way to take Ivermectin, including the right dose. And it could lead to unintended medicine shortages for people who need the drug to treat serious diseases caused by parasites.

– ref. Head lice drug Ivermectin is being tested as a possible coronavirus treatment, but that’s no reason to buy it – https://theconversation.com/head-lice-drug-ivermectin-is-being-tested-as-a-possible-coronavirus-treatment-but-thats-no-reason-to-buy-it-135683

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

This week’s Newspoll, conducted April 1-3 from a sample of 1,508 people, showed a huge boost in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s approval rating based on his leadership thus far in the coronavirus crisis.

Nearly two-thirds of people (61%) were satisfied with Morrison’s performance (up a massive 20 points) and 35% were dissatisfied (down 18), for a net approval of +26, up 38 points.

Anthony Albanese also improved his net approval by nine points to +9. Morrison led Albanese as better PM by 53-29%, another large improvement from the last Newspoll, which was a closer 42-38%.

Analyst Kevin Bonham says these are the biggest poll-to-poll jumps for a PM in Newspoll history on both net approval and better PM. His tweet shows the largest net approval rises for PMs, and when they occurred.

The Newspoll also gave the Coalition a 51-49% lead over Labor in the two-party preferred question, a two-point gain for the Coalition since the last Newspoll three weeks ago.

Primary votes were 42% Coalition (up two points), 34% Labor (down two), 13% Greens (up one) and 5% One Nation (up one).

Major crises tend to produce a “rally round the flag” effect for incumbents, though it doesn’t always last.

An example of a major crisis that produced an initial rally-round-the-flag effect, but nothing else, is the Queensland floods in December 2010 to January 2011, which affected over three-quarters of the state.

From October to December 2010, the Labor state government was trailing the opposition LNP by a landslide 59-41% margin. Based on Premier Anna Bligh’s handling of the floods, Labor surged ahead by 52-48% in the January to March 2011 polling, but then fell back immediately to a 60-40% deficit in April to June 2011.

Labor never recovered and was reduced to just seven of 89 seats at the March 2012 state election.

Read more: Thanks to coronavirus, Scott Morrison will become a significant prime minister

There are currently far fewer coronavirus cases and deaths in Australia than in European countries and the US. If the crisis is resolved relatively painlessly in Australia, I believe Morrison’s ratings will stay high during the crisis, but then drop back after it ends.

In other Newspoll questions, 84% of respondents were worried and 14% confident about the economic impact of coronavirus (76-20% previously). On the preparedness of the health system, 57% were worried, compared to 41% confident.

An overwhelming majority (86%) supported the JobKeeper scheme. While 64% thought the $1,500-per-fortnight payment for qualifying workers was about right, 16% thought it was too much and 14% not enough.

Some 67% were worried about catching the virus, 38% about higher government debt, 36% about losing their jobs and 35% about their superannuation balance.

Is Trump’s modest ratings boost sustainable?

In the FiveThirtyEight polling aggregate, US President Donald Trump’s current ratings across all polls are 45.8% approve, 50.0% disapprove (net -4.2%).

In polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 45.6% approve, 50.9% disapprove (net -5.3%). Trump’s net approval has improved five to six points in the last three weeks and is at its highest since early in his term.

Despite the rise in Trump’s approval, the RealClearPolitics average of national polls gave virtually certain Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden a 5.9% lead over Trump in the November 2020 election, down modestly from 8.5% three weeks ago.

A recent Fox News national poll gave Trump a 51-48% disapproval rating. However, 53% thought a quicker response from the federal government could have slowed the spread of coronavirus, while 34% said it was so contagious nothing could stop it spreading.

Read more: Our politicians are not fit to oversee the coronavirus response. It’s time they got out of the way

Despite the higher rating for Trump, the same poll gave Biden a 49-40% lead in the presidential election.

Trump’s gains so far are dwarfed by then US President George W. Bush’s gains in approval of over 30 points after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001.

Other current leaders and governing parties have had far bigger bounces in their ratings than Trump, including Morrison.

In Britain, two recent polls gave the Conservatives 54%, up from the mid-to-high 40s. In Germany, the conservative Union parties are in the mid-30s, up from the mid-20s before the crisis. A recent French poll gave President Emmanuel Macron a -8 net approval, up 26 points.

Even in the US, Trump’s bounce is far less than the bounce for New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo’s net favourable rating improved from -6 to +48 in a New York Siena College poll. New York has the most coronavirus cases in the US so far.

If the coronavirus crisis is resolved relatively quickly, people will likely be more focused on other factors by the November presidential election. In that case, how much damage the economy takes and whether it is clearly recovering are likely to be the most important factors.

The more likely scenario is that coronavirus will damage the US both economically and in health terms for a long time. The US already has far more cases than any other country. I do not believe Trump’s ratings gains will be sustained if the US falls into a massive health and economic crisis.

The crisis has already had an economic impact: in the week ending March 21, almost 3.3 million new jobless claims were submitted, far exceeding the previous record of 695,000. In the week ending March 28, jobless claims jumped massively again to over 6.6 million. Weekly jobless claims are published every Thursday.

In March, the US unemployment rate rose 0.9% to 4.4%. The survey period was in mid-March, before the massive late-March losses.

In the household survey, employment was down almost 3 million people, compared to a mere 701,000 in the headline establishment survey. While average hourly wages rose 11 cents, this probably reflects the shedding of lower-paying jobs.
As average weekly working hours fell, average weekly wages dropped almost US$2 from February.

– ref. Morrison sees massive ratings surge in Newspoll over coronavirus crisis; Trump also improves – https://theconversation.com/morrison-sees-massive-ratings-surge-in-newspoll-over-coronavirus-crisis-trump-also-improves-135693

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Komesaroff, Professor of Medicine, Monash University

Although recent encouraging news suggests the rate of new coronavirus cases in Australia is slowing, our medical facilities could still be overwhelmed at some point.

One modelling study has suggested that, if public health measures are not observed or do not work, demand for the existing 2,200 intensive care unit (ICU) beds in Australia will be exceeded within a few weeks. More optimistic views of our achievable ICU capacity would merely delay this event for a few weeks.

Critical shortages of ICU beds and other medical resources overseas have resulted in large numbers of deaths. In these countries there have been vigorous debates about which of many eligible patients should be given access to care facilities in short supply.

This discussion is now underway in Australia.

For many clinicians, the question of who has access to limited ICU beds presents disturbing challenges, especially in view of a widely disseminated proposal that has gained particular support in Italy. This bases decisions about who is granted access to ICU beds on calculations of the future years of life that could potentially be achieved through treatment (or, in some proposals, “quality adjusted” years of life).

This would deny access to people above a certain age as well as to people with disabilities and certain medical conditions.

Read more: People with a disability are more likely to die from coronavirus – but we can reduce this risk

What is a person worth?

This approach is deeply problematic.

It has taken many years for us to move away from judging the value or worth of a person by their age, race, sexual preference, physical ability, religion or other personal characteristics.

The worst outrages of the 20th century resulted directly from such approaches, which were often claimed at the time to be supported by “ethical” justifications.

There has also never been a public discussion, and certainly there is no agreement, about whether the “ethical value” of a person can be calculated mathematically on the basis of the total number of years he or she might live.

Read more: The coronavirus pandemic is forcing us to ask some very hard questions. But are we ready for the answers?

The alternative, which has been developed and routinely employed in hospitals around Australia for years, applies a process of rigorous discussion about the potential benefits and burdens of treatments proposed for every individual patient, taking into account all relevant clinical features and whether acute problems can be overcome.

It entails a detailed analysis of technical issues and results. It involves open discussion with the patient, medical carers, family members, and expert ICU staff, about medical, social, emotional and ethical issues.

It embraces flexibility and a readiness to adapt and change protocols with changing circumstances. It takes into account the specific circumstances of individual patients’ lives, including their personal preferences and religious and cultural beliefs.

It leaves aside personal characteristics not relevant to the medical decision at hand, such as race, gender, sexual preference and ethnicity.

Age can be relevant

This is not to say that age can never be a relevant consideration. Indeed, in some conditions, advanced age is closely linked with the likelihood of a poorer response to a treatment.

Sometimes this is because increasing age is directly linked to age-related diseases that reduce the likelihood of a successful outcome from treatment, such as certain types of cancer.

At other times, for reasons that are much less clear, age itself appears to predict poor outcomes of treatment, leading to its inclusion in many scoring systems for predicting outcomes of treatment, including in intensive care and cancer care.

In both cases it is valid that age be taken into account in decision-making. It is also possible that age may be relevant to more philosophical considerations, for example, whether older people consider themselves to have already lived a “fair innings” or whether young people should be given the opportunity to live a life and gain their potential.

Read more: The ‘dreaded duo’: Australia will likely hit a peak in coronavirus cases around flu season

While these may also be relevant considerations, and be accepted by many, including sometimes by older people themselves, they are much less clear and much more contested, and require ongoing debate.

The key point is that, even in these cases, age is never taken as a defining quality or characteristic of a person but rather as a potential signifier of other relevant characteristics or risk factors. Its relevance is linked to what it implies for the particular person, not to an assumption that old people have diminished value and are less worthy of treatment.

In extreme settings, time and resource constraints may add greatly to pressures on the decision-making process but the same principles still apply. In fact, it is exactly in these contexts that it is most important to resist resorting to criteria that are not founded on evidence or valid ethical arguments.

How do we respond?

The ethical strength of a society is revealed in how it responds to serious challenges. If we have values worth defending, this is the time to fight for them.

Most of us do not want to move to a society based on the arbitrary imposition of measures that discriminate against people on the basis of ethically or medically irrelevant personal characteristics.

Future generations will judge us on how we respond to this crisis and whether we have been able to defend our core values. This is the time, perhaps more than any other, when we have to keep our ethical nerve.

Read more: How we’ll avoid Australia’s hospitals being crippled by coronavirus

– ref. A coronavirus spike may put ICU beds in short supply. But that doesn’t mean the elderly shouldn’t get them – https://theconversation.com/a-coronavirus-spike-may-put-icu-beds-in-short-supply-but-that-doesnt-mean-the-elderly-shouldnt-get-them-134782

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Noy, Professor and Chair in the Economics of Disasters, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Governments across the world have rolled out extensive financial packages to support individuals, businesses and large corporations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Equally, central banks have decreased their lending rates to almost zero, and have announced extensive and previously untested direct lending to private corporations and financial companies.

In many wealthy countries, the support packages are record-breaking in their size and scope, such as the US$2.2 trillion stimulus package for the US economy.

The US and Australian stimulus packages each represent about 10% of GDP. New Zealand’s program is about 5% of GDP, but each country is experiencing the economic shock differently, has different existing safety nets and priorities, and different mechanisms to deliver this assistance.

These support packages will play a significant role in shaping our world for many years, and we should not allow the clear emergency of the situation to stop us questioning their design.

Read more: New Zealand outstrips Australia, UK and US with $12 billion coronavirus package for business and people in isolation

Goals for financial support

Our work on economic recovery following natural hazards and disasters defines a set of build-back-better goals, and how they should be assessed.

This kind of thinking applies equally to our current predicament. We argue that globally, the purpose of COVID-19 stimulus packages should be threefold, and we should assess them against these three goals:

1. make sure people’s basic needs are satisfied

2. make it possible for the economy to spring back into action once the necessary social distancing measures are relaxed

3. use these funds to create positive change, and rebuild areas we previously neglected (in many countries, this will mean investing in public health systems).

Read more: Five principles to follow if your job is to lead your staff through the coronavirus crisis

To achieve the first goal of making sure people can meet their basic needs, many high-income countries – including the US, Greece, the UK and France – are either providing direct payments to all citizens (as in the US) or targeted support to those who lost income or jobs.

These payments are sometimes a fixed proportion of each recipient’s previous income, up to a cap (as in the UK), or are identical for everyone who has lost income (as in New Zealand).

From an economic perspective, it is clearly more efficient to provide support only to the people who really need it – those who have lost income and would not be able to support themselves and their dependants.

But these programs are also shaped by politics and ethics, and different countries chose different ways to distribute this assistance, not always based on need.

Restarting economies

Even better are programs that provide the wage subsidies through existing employers, such as Germany’s famed Kurzarbeit program (which translates to “work with shorter hours”) which was implemented during the 2008 global financial crisis.

New Zealand’s wage subsidy package is a similar program. It supports businesses to continue paying their staff even if they are unable to work.

Details of payments to businesses are posted online, to make sure employers comply and transfer these funds to their employees. This initiative was trialled after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

Read more: Three reasons why Jacinda Ardern’s coronavirus response has been a masterclass in crisis leadership

A similar support was also implemented in Australia.

Generally, wage subsidies allow for continued employment of individuals who would otherwise be let go, and they will also assist in achieving the second goal of resuming economic activity once restrictions are relaxed.

Such programs have been shown to be effective in Germany and New Zealand in ameliorating unexpected shocks.

While employees need support, directly or indirectly, it is also important that small and medium-sized businesses are propped up so they are ready to forge ahead once it is possible to do so. They should receive grants and subsidised loans to pay their costs, other than wages. Otherwise many businesses will fail, and the recovery will be slow and hard.

Global impacts

Whether large corporations need to receive support depends partly on the longer-term importance of their sector. It is easier to justify support for national airlines, which are an important linchpin in many countries’ global ties, than to support fossil fuel producers, for example.

Nor are there many reasons why taxpayers (present and future) should bail out wealthy individual owners of large businesses, when these businesses could be restructured in bankruptcy proceedings that should not lead to their shutdown.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has impacts well beyond individual countries and their economies and may require global support mechanisms.

Most low- and middle-income countries have either not yet announced any assistance or their packages are less than 1% of GDP. They typically cannot afford more with their existing debt levels.

It is therefore incumbent on high-income countries that can afford larger fiscal support packages to help countries that cannot. But so far only a handful of high-income countries, including Finland and Norway, have provided such support.

The international institutions supported by the rich world, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, should pull out all the stops and lend enough, and at concessionary rates, to low-income countries so they can, at the very least, provide for their people’s basic needs.

Without that support, the virus will continue to spread in low-income countries and defeat the draconian social distancing measures that almost every country is implementing now.

Finally, it is important that we scrutinise these programs carefully now, rather than only once the public health emergency has passed and they have been entrenched. The sums involved are incredibly large and we will be remiss if we mis-spend what we are now borrowing from our children and grandchildren.

* Stay in touch with The Conversation’s coverage from New Zealand experts by signing up for our weekly newsletter – delivered to you each Wednesday morning.

– ref. Coronavirus support packages will reshape the future economy, and that presents an opportunity – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-support-packages-will-reshape-the-future-economy-and-that-presents-an-opportunity-135296

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Wylie, Adjunct Associate Professor, Murdoch University

Viruses are little more than parasitic fragments of RNA or DNA. Despite this, they are astonishingly abundant in number and genetic diversity. We don’t know how many virus species there are, but there could be trillions.

Past viral epidemics have influenced the evolution of all life. In fact, about 8% of the humane genome consists of retrovirus fragments. These genetic “fossils” are leftover from viral epidemics our ancestors survived.

COVID-19 reminds us of the devastating impact viruses can have, not only on humans, but also animals and crops. Now for the first time, the disease has been confirmed in a tiger at New York’s Bronx Zoo, believed to have been infected by an employee. Six other tigers and lions were also reported “showing symptoms”.

According to the BBC, conservation experts think COVID-19 could also threaten animals such as wild gorillas, chimps and orangutans.

While virologists are intensely interested in how viruses mutate and transmit between species – and understand this process to an extent – many gaps in knowledge remain.

Skilled in their craft

Most viruses are specialists. They establish long associations with preferred host species. In these relationships, the virus may not induce disease symptoms. In fact, the virus and host may benefit each other in symbiosis.

Occasionally, viruses will “emerge” or “spillover” from their original host to a new host. When this happens, the risk of disease increases. Most infectious diseases that affect humans and our food supply are the result of spillovers from wild organisms.

The new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that emerged from Wuhan in November isn’t actually “new”. The virus evolved over a long period, probably millions of years, in other species where it still exists. We know the virus has close relatives in Chinese rufous horseshoe bats, intermediate horseshoe bats, and pangolins – which are considered a delicacy in China.

Past coronaviruses, including the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), have jumped from bats to humans via an intermediary mammal. Some experts propose Malayan pangolins provided SARS-CoV-2 this link.

Read more: Coronavirus origins: genome analysis suggests two viruses may have combined

Although the original host of the SARS-CoV-2 virus hasn’t been identified, we needn’t be surprised if the creature appears perfectly healthy. Many other coronaviruses exist naturally in wild mammal and bird populations around the world.

Where do they keep coming from?

Human activity drives the emergence of new pathogenic (disease-causing) viruses. As we push back the boundaries of the last wild places on Earth – felling the bush for farms and plantations – viruses from wildlife interact with crops, farm animals and people.

Species that evolved separately are now mixing. Global markets allow the free trade of live animals (including their eggs, semen and meat), vegetables, flowers, bulbs and seeds – and viruses come along for the ride.

Read more: The new coronavirus emerged from the global wildlife trade – and may be devastating enough to end it

Humans are also warming the climate. This allows certain species to expand their geographical range into zones that were previously too cold to inhabit. As a result, many viruses are meeting new hosts for the first time.

How do they make the jump?

Virus spillover is a complex process and not fully understood. In nature, most viruses are confined to particular hosts because of specific protein “lock and key” interactions. These are needed for successful replication, movement within the host, and transmission between hosts.

For a virus to infect a new host, some or all protein “keys” may need to be modified. These modifications, called “mutations”, can occur within the old host, the new one, or both.

For instance, a virus can jump from host A to host B, but it won’t replicate well or transmit between individuals unless multiple protein keys mutate either simultaneously, or consecutively. The low probability of this happening makes spillovers uncommon.

To better understand how spillovers occur, imagine a virus is a short story printed on a piece of paper. The story describes:

1. how to live in a specific cell type, inside a specific host
2. how to move to the cell next door
3. how to transmit to a new individual of the same species.

The short story also has instructions on how to make a virus photocopying machine. This machine, an enzyme called a polymerase, is supposed to churn out endless identical copies of the story. However, the polymerase occasionally makes mistakes.

It may miss a word, or add a new word or phrase to the story, subtly changing it. These changed virus stories are called “mutants”. Very occasionally, a mutant story will describe how the virus can live inside a totally new host species. If the mutant and this new host meet, a spillover can happen.

We can’t predict virus spillovers to humans, so developing vaccines preemptively isn’t an option. There has been ongoing discussions of a “universal flu vaccine” which would provide immunity against all influenza virus mutants. But so far this hasn’t been possible.

Let wildlife be wildlife

Despite how many viruses exist, relatively few threaten us, and the plants and animals we rely on.

Nonetheless, some creatures are especially dangerous on this front. For instance, coronaviruses, Ebola and Marburg viruses, Hendra and Nipah viruses, rabies-like lyssaviruses, and mumps/measles-like paramyxoviruses all originate from bats.

Given the enormous number of viruses that exist, and our willingness to provide them global transport, future spillovers are inevitable. We can reduce the chances of this by practising better virus surveillance in hospitals and on farms.

We should also recognise wildlife, not only for its intrinsic value, but as a potential source of disease-causing viruses. So let’s maintain a “social distance” and leave wildlife in the wild.

– ref. How do viruses mutate and jump species? And why are ‘spillovers’ becoming more common? – https://theconversation.com/how-do-viruses-mutate-and-jump-species-and-why-are-spillovers-becoming-more-common-134656

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Deakin University

Some weeks ago, I got an email from a student who had returned to Northern Italy over Christmas to see family.

Unable to return to Australia, they were in lockdown. The hospitals were filling up fast, as COVID-19 began to spiral out of control. Sales of Albert Camus’ 1947 novel The Plague (La Peste) were spiking. Everyone was buying it.

Rereading The Plague over these past weeks has been an uncanny experience. Its fictive chronicle of the measures taken in the city of Oran against a death-dealing disease that strikes in 1940 sometimes seemed to blur into the government announcements reshaping our lives.

Oran is a city like anywhere else, Camus’ narrator tells us:

Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, ‘doing business’.

Like people anywhere else, the Oranians are completely unprepared when rats begin emerging from the sewers to die in droves in streets and laneways. Then, men, women and children start to fall ill with high fever, difficulties breathing and fatal buboes.

The people of Oran initially “disbelieved in pestilences”, outside of the pages of history books. So, like many nations in 2020, they are slow to accept the enormity of what is occurring. As our narrator comments drily: “In this respect they were wrong, and their views obviously called for revision.”

The numbers of afflicted rise. First slowly, then exponentially. By the time the plague-bearing spring gives way to a sweltering summer, over 100 deaths daily is the new normal.

Read more: Coronavirus weekly: as the world stays at home, where is the pandemic heading?

Emergency measures are rushed in. The city gates are shut, and martial law declared. Oran’s commercial harbour is closed to sea traffic. Sporting competitions cease. Beach bathing is prohibited.

Soon, food shortages emerge (toilet paper, thankfully, is not mentioned). Some Oranians turn plague-profiteers, preying on the desperation of their fellows. Rationing is brought in for basic necessities, including petrol.

Meanwhile, anyone showing symptoms of the disease is isolated. Houses, then entire suburbs, are locked down. The hospitals become overwhelmed. Schools and public buildings are converted into makeshift plague hospitals.

Our key protagonists, Dr Rieux and his friends Tarrou, Grand and Rambert, set up teams of voluntary workers to administer serums and ensure the sick are quickly diagnosed and hospitalised, often amongst harrowing scenes.

In these circumstances, fear and suspicion descend “dewlike, from the greyly shining sky” on the population. Everyone realises that anyone – even those they love – could be a carrier.

Come to think of it, so could each person themselves.

The failure of the governors to consistently impose “social distancing” is shown up spectacularly in the novel’s most picturesque scene. The lead actor in a rendition of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice collapses onstage, “his arms and legs splayed out under his antique robe”.

Terrified patrons flee the darkened underworld of the opera house, “wedged together in the bottlenecks, and pouring out into the street in a confused mass, with shrill cries of dismay”.

Arguably the most telling passages in The Plague today are Camus’ beautifully crafted meditative observations of the social and psychological effects of the epidemic on the townspeople.

Epidemics make exiles of people in their own countries, our narrator stresses. Separation, isolation, loneliness, boredom and repetition become the shared fate of all.

In Oran, as in Australia, places of worship go empty. Funerals are banned for fear of contagion. The living can no longer even farewell the many dead.

Camus’ narrator pays especial attention to the damages visited by the plague upon separated lovers. Outsiders like the journalist Rambert who, by chance, are marooned inside Oran when the gates shut are “in the general exile […] the most exiled”.

Today’s world knows many such “travellers caught by the plague and forced to stay where they were, […] cut off both from the person(s) with whom they wanted to be and from their homes as well”.

Multiple allegories

Camus’ prescient account of life under conditions of an epidemic works on different levels. The Plague is a transparent allegory of the Nazi occupation of France beginning in spring 1940. The sanitary teams reflect Camus’ experiences in, and admiration for, the resistance against the “brown plague” of fascism.

Camus’ title also evokes the ways the Nazis characterised those they targeted for extermination as a pestilence. The shadow of the then-still-recent Holocaust darkens The Plague’s pages.

When death rates become so great that individual burials are no longer possible – as in scenes we are already seeing – the Oranaise dig collective graves into which:

the naked, somewhat contorted bodies were slid into a pit almost side by side, then covered with a layer of quicklime and another of earth […] so as to leave space for subsequent consignments.

When this measure fails to keep up with the weight of these “consignments”, as with the genocidal actions of the Einzatsgruppen, “the old crematorium east of the town” is repurposed. Closed streetcars filled with the dead are soon rattling along the old coastal tramline:

Thereafter, […] when a strong wind was blowing […] a faint, sickly odour coming from the east remind[ed] them that they were living under a new order and that the plague fires were taking their nightly toll.

Camus’ plague is also a metaphor for the force of what Dr Rieux calls “abstraction” in our lives: all those impersonal rules and processes which can make human beings statistics to be treated by governments with all the inhumanity characterising epidemics.

For this reason, the enigmatic character Tarrou identifies the plague with people’s propensity to rationalise killing others for philosophical, religious or ideological causes. It is with this sense of plague in mind that the final words of the novel warn:

that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.

Ordinary hope

There is nevertheless truth in the description of Camus’ masterwork as a “sermon of hope”. In the end, the plague dissipates as unaccountably as it had begun. Quarantine is lifted. Oran’s gates are reopened. Families and lovers reunite. The chronicle closes amid scenes of festival and jubilation.

Camus’ narrator concludes that confronting the plague has taught him that, for all of the horrors he has witnessed, “there are more things to admire in men than to despise”.

Unlike some philosophers, Camus became increasingly sceptical about glorious ideals of superhumanity, heroism or sainthood. It is the capacity of ordinary people to do extraordinary things that The Plague lauds. “There’s one thing I must tell you,” Dr Rieux at one point specifies:

there’s no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is common decency.

It is such ordinary virtue, people each doing what they can to serve and look after each other, that Camus’ novel suggests alone preserves peoples from the worst ravages of epidemics, whether visited upon them by natural causes or tyrannical governments.

It is therefore worth underlining that the unheroic heroes of Camus’ novel are people we call healthcare workers. Men and women, in many cases volunteers, who despite great risks step up, simply because “plague is here and we’ve got to make a stand”.

It is also to these people’s examples, The Plague suggests, that we should look when we consider what kind of world we want to rebuild after the gates of our cities are again thrown open and COVID-19 has become a troubled memory.

– ref. Guide to the Classics: Albert Camus’ The Plague – https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-albert-camus-the-plague-134244

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hewson, Professor and Chair, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Climate deniers have been hanging out for the United Nations’ next big summit to fail. In a sense, the coronavirus and its induced policy responses have more than satisfied their wildest dreams, precipitating a global recession that they no doubt hope has pushed the issue of the low-carbon transition well down the political and policy agenda.

The next round of international climate negotiations – the so-called COP26 in Scotland – has been delayed until 2021. Presumably, climate sceptics hope governments and policy authorities will now be consumed by, in the words of our prime minister, the need to “cushion” the impact of the recession and ensure “a bounce back on the other side”.

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

Deniers argue that further disruption to economies and societies will be avoided at all costs.

Sorry to be the harbinger of denier disappointment, but there is every reason to expect that the virus crisis will strengthen and accelerate the imperative to transition to a low-carbon world by mid-century.

Time is of the essence

As Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, states in her recent book:

“We are in the critical decade. It is no exaggeration to say that what we do regarding emissions reductions between now and 2030 will determine the quality of human life on this planet for hundreds of years to come, if not more.”

This will require about a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030 – way more than is contemplated in the Paris agreement – to achieve even net zero emissions by 2050 .

Read more: Coronavirus is a wake-up call: our war with the environment is leading to pandemics

There are a few “pluses” from the experience of coronavirus. Emissions are falling (although clearly no one would advocate a global recession as a climate strategy). And the response of governments to the crisis has seen decisive domestic action – working individually, but together, in meeting what is a global challenge.

Individual governments have demonstrated how quickly they can move once they accept the reality of a crisis. We’ve also seen just how far they’re prepared to go in terms of policy responses – lockdowns, social distancing, testing, rapid and historically significant fiscal expansions, and massive liquidity injections.

It’s noteworthy that issues that in “normal times” could not have been ignored – such as civil liberties and concerns about intrusive governments and effective competition – have so easily been set aside as part of emergency responses.

The global picture

The lowered emissions provide an opportunity to “reset” the base for the climate transition. Any effective bounce back from recession should involve strategic thinking and planning as to what industrial and trading structures, and social norms, will be appropriate.

The climate transition offers opportunities to develop and exploit new technologies, and generate new businesses, new industries, new jobs and sustainable growth.

Some nations may use the cover of coronavirus to sneak out of even their low-ambition Paris commitments. Japan, for example, last week reaffirmed its 2015 Paris goal, despite the UN urging much tougher action.

But I suspect the major nations will continue to lead the way in transition. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has led a global call to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Presumably, Johnson saw the UK’s hosting of COP26 as a chance to substantiate his position as a leader on climate. Europe and China will also undoubtedly seize the opportunity to lead.

Read more: Here’s what the coronavirus pandemic can teach us about tackling climate change

It’s significant that their governments remain committed to what was a pre-COP bilateral meeting later this year. I suspect they will work towards pulling each other up on their coat tails.

The US situation is harder to judge. If President Donald Trump survives to a second term, expect more chaotic, negative rhetoric and action on climate, even from the depths of what is shaping as the biggest US economic slump since the Great Depression.

But if Trump loses – an increasingly likely proposition as his irresponsible and destructive manoeuvring around coronavirus hurts him politically – the US would probably seek to assume more of a leadership role on climate.

Not only did Trump pull out of the Paris agreement, but he embarked on a campaign to weaken environmental obligations on industry, weaken the Environmental Protection Authority, and reverse vehicle emissions reduction standards. However, Trump’s campaigns were offset somewhat as key cities, states and industries pushed ahead on the transition anyway.

On the home front

Unfortunately, there are similarly low expectations of the Coalition government’s future positions on climate. This is clearly a test of Morrison’s leadership.

He made a mess of his bushfire response, on top of a mediocre handling of the drought, so has sought to reestablish credibility with his response to COVID-19.

The jury is still out on this, especially given his inconsistency of message, and attempts to reduce scrutiny by limiting Parliament, delaying the federal budget and resisting the release of medical and economic modelling.

However, Morrison will come to recognise that it will take more than his “bounce back” slogan to recover from what could be a very long period of depressed economic activity.

Pre-virus, Australia had a weak and weakening economy, with many serious structural challenges. The government now faces a very significant financing and debt management task, with limited capacity to restrain spending, and a political reluctance to raise taxes.

My hope is that Morrison will recognise the imperative, and the development opportunities, of an effective transition to a low-carbon Australia over the next three decades.

– ref. Sorry to disappoint climate deniers, but coronavirus makes the low-carbon transition more urgent – https://theconversation.com/sorry-to-disappoint-climate-deniers-but-coronavirus-makes-the-low-carbon-transition-more-urgent-135419

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Giancaspro, Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide

You’ve lost income because of the coronavirus crisis and finding it hard to pay the bills. What if you can’t pay your rent?

The short answer, if you live in Australia, is that rules changes give you more time – at least six months – before you face eviction.

But that’s all. Nothing else has changed. As Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said, the moratorium on evictions “doesn’t mean there’s a moratorium on rents”.

Read more: The insecurity of private renters – how do they manage it?

Whatever rent you don’t pay you will still owe, with consequences eventually.

There’s unlikely to be any other national assistance for residential tenants along the lines the commercial tenancy market might get.

But there may be other assistance on offer according to your state and territory. In Queensland, for example, you may be eligible for a one-off rental payment.

So this is how your options stand.

Eviction moratorium

The National Cabinet – incorporating the federal cabinet and state and territory leaders – announced the eviction moratorium on March 29. Rental law is a state and territory matter, so legal enforcement depends on these governments enacting legislation.

Tasmania was the first to do so, pre-empting the National Cabinet decision with a four-month ban on evictions. It’s likely a good indication of what other states and territories will do.

The Tasmanian legislation prohibits commercial and residential landlords from serving notice to vacate for rent arrears for the duration of the “emergency period”, unless:

• the lease is non-fixed term and property is being sold (with notice being served before April 3)
• the Residential Tenancy Commissioner orders termination because of “severe hardship” to either party.

Severe hardship is an established part of tenancy law. It allows parties to apply for a fixed-term lease to be terminated without penalty. It is possible a landlord could argue financial hardship based on needing rent to cover their own debts, but commissioners (or tribunals in other jurisdictions) are likely to scrutinise such applications closely.

(Severe hardship is discussed further below, under “What if I want to break the lease?”).

What if I don’t pay my rent?

If you don’t pay your rent, your debt will keep accruing. Once the moratorium ends, you face eviction.

Your landlord will have the right to keep your bond to cover the rent. If you owe more, they can chase it up through debt collectors or file court proceedings. If this happens, your personal credit rating could take a hit, and costs may be added to any judgment against you.

So take the Prime Minister’s advice: negotiate with your landlord or agent.

Try to work out an arrangement both sides can live with. Remember, many private landlords rely on rent to pay the mortgage. Even with the major banks offering mortgage relief during coronavirus crisis, the interest on that debt will keep accruing.

Can I get any rent assistance?

There are generally no special provisions for rent assistance during the coronavirus crisis.

So far only Queensland is offering any form of special rental assistance – a one-off payment of up to $2,000, paid directly to your lessor. To be eligible, you must have lost your job due to the pandemic and have applied to Centrelink for income support.

In other states the usual rules for rent assistance apply. You need to first qualify for Centrelink income support, such as the JobSeeker payment, Youth Allowance or the Parenting Payment. Centrelink provides up to A$139 a fortnight if you’re single, and A$164 for a couple with two children.

What about a rent reduction?

As mentioned, there’s no sign there’ll be direct subsidies for residential tenants, though there may be a national package to reduce commercial rents.

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The closest thing so far announced is the Australian Capital Territory’s encouragement to residential landlords to lower rents by at least 25% through direct tax relief equal to half the discount (up about $100 a week). The scheme is voluntary, so it remains to be seen how effective it will be.

What if I want to break the lease?

If you’re not on a fixed-term lease, but a monthly or weekly tenancy, you simply have to give the required notice to the landlord (usually 21 days).

If you’re on fixed-term lease, state and territory laws allow both tenants and owners to apply to break the lease without penalty if its continuation causes “severe hardship”.

But this option “should be seen as a last resort,” advises the Tasmanian government. “It is best to maintain a positive relationship between owners and tenants. The best way to do this is for owners and tenants to discuss their concerns.”

It is possible your lease may contain a force majeure clause providing for suspension or termination when unforeseeable events (for which neither party is responsible) occur. Unfortunately, such clauses are extremely rare in leases, and unlikely to cover pandemics.

Is there anything else to consider?

Any time you miss a rent payment, you risk going on a “black list” – a privately owned tenancy database that real estate agents use to screen tenants. Any bad payment history can mean a black mark on a future rental application.

So the bottom line: talk with your landlord.

– ref. What if I can’t pay my rent? These are the options for rent relief in Australia – https://theconversation.com/what-if-i-cant-pay-my-rent-these-are-the-options-for-rent-relief-in-australia-135312

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Burton, Lecturer in Media Arts, University of Wollongong

Being in isolation might be a great time to try something new. In this series, we get the basics on hobbies and activities to start while you’re spending more time at home.

Isolation is a common theme in cinema: stranded on an island (Cast Away), in space (Gravity or The Martian), on a boat (Life of Pi), stuck in the desert (127 hours), or simply confined to an apartment (Rear Window). But what about when the filmmakers themselves are stranded?

Luckily, most of us are carrying sophisticated cameras in our pockets and have easy access to online film libraries and creative collaborators.

As psychoanalytic approaches to filmmaking reveal, our screens have a unique ability to see beyond reality. Our screens reach into the deepest depths of our desires, fantasies, and emotional landscapes.

Here are five approaches to filmmaking that can challenge our perception of the world, from the (dis)comfort of your own home:

1. Video diary

I’m not referring to the kind of YouTube vlogging that made Jenna Marbles a millionaire, nor the diary room confessional of Big Brother, but a visual rendition of expressive journal keeping.

Avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas pioneered the film diary in the 1960s by experimenting with the camera’s limits – incorrect exposure, disorderly movement, re-arranging time, and injecting a poetic voice. The challenge here is to portray your inner experience and not let the recording device simply “capture” it.

If diaristic wanderings prove difficult, Gillian Leahy’s My Life Without Steve is a beautiful example of what can be achieved in a single apartment. The reflective narration from protagonist Liz guides us through emotional turmoil, memory, and theories of lost love.

Additionally, the meticulous still-life compositions by cinematographer Erika Addis, entirely restricted to the apartment space, offer an intimacy and familiarity beyond words: streetlights dancing on the water, a steaming kettle, floral wallpaper …

2. Location home

Sometimes the location can be more significant than the person. This is certainly the case in films documenting imprisonment such as Berhouz Boochani’s experience of Manus Island detention centre in Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time, or Jafar Panahi’s discrete autobiography This Is Not A Film recorded under house arrest in Iran. In 2015, The Wolfpack told the unusual tale of seven brothers confined to a New York apartment with Hollywood movies as their window onto the world.

Isolation offers an opportunity to interrogate the politics of home. The 1970s feminist movement gave rise to scathing critiques of gender-based domestic roles. Martha Rosler’s video art performance Semiotics of the Kitchen has inspired generations of classroom appropriations. The crude infomercial inspired performance undermine both the authority of the camera and the kitchen as a space of domination.

Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, also released in 1975, offers a less obvious subversion of domesticity. The protagonist is a single mother undertaking sex work as part of her daily routine to provide for her child. Rather than sensationalising prostitution, the camera respectfully captures the subtle gestures and emotions of the working mother.

3. Online collaboration

Collaborative media comes in many forms: participatory video, citizen media, user-generated and crowd-sourced content.

Collaborative approaches to filmmaking were pioneered by visual anthropologists attempting to accurately and ethically record foreign cultures. Handing the camera over was seen as a way to access insider knowledge. YouTube and Instagram could be considered large-scale collaborative media projects. More coherent and meaningful projects focus on a particular theme or creative parameter.

User-generated content (UGC) and fan-based creations have since become common to the genre, such as The Johnny Cash Project, Shrek Retold, and Man With A Movie Camera: The Global Remake.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s HitRecord is one of the most innovative UGC platforms with more than 750,000 contributors and the opportunity to get paid if the production makes money. By investing in personal contributions, the audience gains a sense of proprietorship over the project and boost distribution through their social networks.

The best examples of collaborative media are highly curated and elaborately produced. The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and Katerina Cizek have produced a series of ambitious multimedia compilations under the Highrise projects. Of these projects, Out My Window is perhaps the most relevant to our current experience, featuring 13 participants from around the globe sharing personal stories from their highrise homes.

Collaborative media offers a multitude of voices to common themes and experiences. The trick to maintaining cohesion and continuity is to formulate detailed instructions for how to contribute.

4. Found footage

Found footage documentaries are composed entirely from existing media. The recent surge in this genre such as Apollo 11, Maradona, Amy, and The Final Quarter about footballer Adam Goodes, all demonstrate that filmmakers need not touch a camera to produce a cinematic masterpiece.

While we may not individually be able to acquire rights to copyrighted material, most of us are unwittingly accumulating extensive media archives of our lives. The popular 1 Second Everyday app demonstrates how existing phone footage can be transformed into a revealing and enthralling sequence through rhythm-based montage.

5. Machinima

Machinima (machine-cinema) is an innovative alternative to animation, in which detailed 3D graphics engines of computer games are used as cinematic stages. Most of the productions in this genre mimic mainstream comedy and action movies but there are a few examples of how the artform can interrogate our relationship to virtual worlds.

Nominated for the “Weird” category of the Webby Awards for online excellence, the narrator of Grand Theft Auto Pacifist navigates the ultra-violent game world, understood as an extension of our lived society, in a hilarious experiment to see if he can exist peacefully.

But be warned, the first person I knew to go down the machinima path disappeared without a trace for two months, lost to the World of Warcraft.

The ½ – since it’s not for everyone

Lastly, my half recommendation. While not something I can recommend to students, during this difficult period of social distancing those of us fortunate enough to be isolated with loved ones might use the opportunity to master the elusive art of sexual desire … erotica.

Again, the camera need not be enslaved as a witness but can be recruited to explore the psychological and physical playing field of our desires.

And not all of your filmmaking need be shared around.

– ref. Great time to try: 5½ ways to make movie masterpieces at home – https://theconversation.com/great-time-to-try-5-ways-to-make-movie-masterpieces-at-home-134907

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Deery, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, University of Melbourne

“Stupid coronavirus!” I heard my six-year-old mumble while talking in her sleep.

Earlier that day her swimming and basketball lessons were cancelled, a birthday party postponed, and she had to race with me between several meetings before the university campus shut down. “Stupid coronavirus indeed!”

Hearing this reminded me these are strange and worrying times for young children. While we need to look after ourselves and others, we also need to consider how all this is affecting our kids, and how we can help them through it.

Read more: Kids at home because of coronavirus? Here are 4 ways to keep them happy (without resorting to Netflix)

Kids and anxiety

Australian research found child anxiety diagnoses almost doubled from 2008 to 2013. It’s difficult to say whether this is due to a true increase or we’re simply recognising anxiety better in children.

Feeling anxious or worried sometimes is a part of healthy development. But at times, children may feel more anxious or worried than usual.

Climate change, the bushfires, and COVID-19 may have contributed to and continue to fuel increased anxiety. We need research to better understand the effects these crises have had on children’s well-being.

We can support children during these times and also keep an eye out for when they might need more help than we can give. If their anxiety is interfering with typical childhood activities or family life, it could be time to see a GP, paediatrician or psychologist.

But there are many things you can do as a parent or caregiver.

Mindfulness for children?

Mindfulness is the regular and repeated act of directing our attention to the present moment. Mostly, our attention follows whatever is most interesting; mindfulness helps us to focus without judging ourselves when we can’t.

It’s commonly used to reduce stress, improve well-being, and address mental health, which it does reasonably well. In a broader sense, the goal of mindfulness is to help us to sit with our experiences whether they are pleasant, unpleasant, or somewhere in between.

Read more: 6 strategies to juggle work and young kids at home: it’s about flexibility and boundaries

Mindfulness practices have become more popular over recent years. Many people practise mindfulness in their day-to-day lives, often using apps (though we need more research to explore the benefits of these). Mindfulness programs are also run in workplaces and other settings.

Large numbers of parents, teachers, and entire schools are also turning to mindfulness.

But what does the evidence say about mindfulness for children?

The evidence is mixed

A recent review of over 60 studies of school-based mindfulness programs involving preschool to secondary students suggested gains in social-emotional and cognitive skills.

The researchers didn’t observe similar gains in academic achievement or student behaviour. They noted the quality of research, much like that in adults, was not strong enough to make the claims many would like to make about the widespread benefits of mindfulness.

Short-term early childhood mindfulness programs and those delivered using audio-guided tracks have so far provided questionable results at best.

One small but promising study used classroom mindfulness activities (for example, listening to sounds), emotion coping skills (like “where in my body do I feel anger?”), and breathing techniques (such as breathing with a soft toy on the tummy).

At the end of the first year of this program, pre-schoolers displayed better learning skills. After two years, children displayed higher vocabularies and reading scores.

Read more: What is mindfulness? Nobody really knows, and that’s a problem

Our own pilot work teaching pre-schoolers about mindfulness found benefits too. While there was little difference immediately after the intervention, three months later, children who learned mindfulness showed significant benefits to their mental well-being compared with those who didn’t.

Adapting mindfulness activities

Obviously, you can’t ask a five-year-old to sit still and focus on their breath for 45 minutes. Techniques commonly used in adults just won’t work with kids.

Mindfulness for children should be interactive, play-based, and focused on sensory and body awareness. It should use emotional vocabulary and sensory language (for example, talking about sounds, taste, textures and smells), be hands-on where possible, and most importantly, it should be fun.

Given the lack of strong empirical evidence for mindfulness on its own for young children just yet, we should integrate aspects of mindfulness-based activities with other components.

Think playful learning about emotions, like colouring in where we notice certain feelings in our bodies, or drawing how music makes us feel. These activities take from other well-known psychological approaches called cognitive behaviour therapy and psycho-education.

3 mindfulness activities for kids

1. Belly breathing with a “buddy”

• find a favourite soft toy (with some weight is good), a plastic bath boat, or similar
• have your child lie down and place the object on their tummy
• get them to pay attention to it by looking and touching
• encourage them to focus on how the object moves up and down as they breathe (you can suggest calm and slow breathing might even put the toy or people in the boat to sleep)
• this activity can be great as part of bath time or getting ready for bed.

2. “Robot” child

• ask your child to pretend they are a robot lying on the ground
• use a remote control (you can make one from cereal box) and pretend to “shut-down” your child/robot’s body
• begin with their feet/legs, move up the body to arms/hands, before getting to the face/brain
• ask “robot” if they can still feel any “electricity” in that body part after it’s been shut down
• as your child gets better with this activity, you can get more detailed with robot body parts (for example, toes, fingers, noses, ears)
• a variation is to get your robot-child to tense and relax (and reset) each body part as you control it with your remote.

3. A mindful walk or “sensory countdown”

• go for a walk outside and try to notice or find: five different sounds, four matching colours, three different textures, two different smells
• add different sounds, sights, shapes, and textures to tick off on a bingo-style checklist
• this activity can be adapted for inside play.

Read more: 8 tips on what to tell your kids about coronavirus

Play School will air a special episode “Mindfully Me” on Monday April 6 at 9am AEST on ABC Kids and the ABC Kids app. The program is accompanied by family and educator notes online.

– ref. ‘Stupid coronavirus!’ In uncertain times, we can help children through mindfulness and play – https://theconversation.com/stupid-coronavirus-in-uncertain-times-we-can-help-children-through-mindfulness-and-play-135317

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

“Zoombombing” in case you haven’t heard, is the unsavoury practice of posting distressing comments, pictures or videos after gatecrashing virtual meetings hosted by the videoconferencing app Zoom.

With hundreds of millions around the world now reliant on the app for work, this unfortunate trend is becoming more common, often involving a bombardment of pornographic imagery.

In some cases, online trolls have crashed alcohol support group meetings held via the app. “Alcohol is soooo good,” the trolls reportedly said to one group of recovering alcoholics.

In another incident, a Massachusetts-based high school teacher conducting an online class had someone enter the virtual classroom and shout profanities, before revealing the teacher’s home address.

Easy targets

The problem is that Zoom meetings lack password protection. Joining one simply requires a standard Zoom URL, with an automatically generated nine-digit code at the end. A Zoom URL looks something like this: https://zoom.us/j/xxxxxxxxx

Read more: Working from home risks online security and privacy – how to stay protected

Gatecrashers may only have to try a handful of code combinations before successfully landing a victim. The meeting’s host doesn’t need to grant permission for others to join. And while hosts can disable the screen share function, they’d have to be quick. Too slow, and the damage is done.

Last week, Zoom upgraded security on its default settings, but only for education accounts. The rest of the world needs to do this manually.

Video conferencing is incredibly valuable

Video conferencing technology has matured in recent years, driven by massive demand even before COVID-19.

With social distancing restriction, virtual meetings are now the norm everywhere. Platforms like Zoom, Microsoft’s Skype and others have stepped up to meet demand.

Zoom is a cloud-based service that allows users to freely talk to and share video (if bandwidth allows) with others online. Notes, images and diagrams can also be shared to collaborate on projects. And meetings can have up to hundreds, even thousands, of participants.

How to stop the trolls

Zoom is primarily a corporate collaboration tool that allows people to collaborate without hindrance. Unlike social media platforms, it was not a service that had to engineer ways to manage the bad behaviour of users – until now.

In January, Zoom issued a raft of security patches to fix some problems. If you get a prompt from Zoom to install updates, you should – but only if these updates are from Zoom’s own app and website, or via updates from Google Play or Apple’s App Store. Third-party downloads may contain malware (software designed to cause harm).

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

While up-to-date software is your first line of defence, another is to keep your meeting URL away from public forums such as Twitter. Anyone with meeting’s URL can join, after which they’re free to post comments, pictures and videos at will. If you’re hosting a meeting that gets Zoombombed, disable the “screen sharing” option as quickly as possible.

Another option for more security is to use the “waiting room” function. This makes people wanting to join visible to the host, but keeps them out of the main meeting until they’re allowed in. This option is turned off by default. You can enable it by signing-in to your Zoom account at https://zoom.us/ and clicking “Settings”.

Other tips:

• ensure screen sharing is possible for the host only

• turn off the function that allows file transfer

• turn off the “allow removed participants to rejoin” setting

• turn off the “join before host” setting

• turn on the “require a password” setting for meetings.

Who are the trolls?

With many Zoomombing attacks being on educational institutions, it’s likely a large number of these trolls are simply mischievous students who obtain meeting URLs from other students or chatrooms.

But zoombombing is by no means restricted to the classroom. With the world in lockdown, extremists of all kinds are finding ways to relieve their confinement frustration. We’ve known for some time that being able to operate anonymously on the web does not bring out the best in people.

Read more: Dark web, not dark alley: why drug sellers see the internet as a lucrative safe haven

At present, it doesn’t appear Zoombombing is an organised criminal activity. That said, it’s probably only a matter of time before someone finds a way to leverage financial reward from the practice. This could take the form of business intelligence gleaned from listening in to the meetings of rivals and competitors, in a similar fashion to planting a “bug” in the room.

Similarly, we could see a black market for Zoom URLs emerge among professional hackers, who would have new incentives to hack various systems to obtain valuable URLs.

Cybersecurity experts, privacy advocates, lawmakers and law enforcement are all concerned Zoom’s default privacy settings don’t do enough to protect users from malicious actors.

The bottom line

As the COVID-19 pandemic leads the world to do their work online in isolation, the technology that allows this freedom must come under close scrutiny.

Zoombombing is progressing from a student prank to more serious incidents of racist, sexist and anti-semitic hate speech.

Fortunately, safeguards aren’t difficult to build into such videoconferencing technologies. This just requires a willingness to do so, and needs to be done as a matter of urgency.

– ref. ‘Zoombombers’ want to troll your online meetings. Here’s how to stop them – https://theconversation.com/zoombombers-want-to-troll-your-online-meetings-heres-how-to-stop-them-135311

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from the NT government, the Tasmanian government and the federal government.

This article adds to the information we’ve published for New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, on South Australia and the ACT and Western Australia. We will bring you more information as we collect it.

According to Google Trends, some of the top coronavirus searches nationally in the past few days include “can I visit my parents coronavirus Australia?”, “can I go fishing during coronavirus?” and “can I go for a drive during coronavirus Australia?”

“Can I visit my boyfriend during coronavirus Australia?” was also a common one.

Read more: Sleep won’t cure the coronavirus but it can help our bodies fight it

We asked legal experts Ros Vickers at Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory and Brendan Gogarty at the University of Tasmania to help shed some light on what the new rules might mean for residents of their state and territory.

Can I visit my parents?

Ros Vickers, NT: The short answer is yes, provided you comply with the social distancing being less than 10 people inside or outside with 4m² available to each.

The answer differs if your parents are in an aged care facility. If you classify as, “a person providing care and support to a resident of the facility” you can visit for up to two hours per day.

But you must meet the other criteria of health and non-exposure to COVID-19.

Brendan Gogarty, Tas: It depends.

If they live in their own home, the policy answer is no; there is a stay at home declaration. However, this has been written on the fly and there are some significant gaps in it that suggest maybe you can.

The exceptions are to provide social support, which is not defined. The other exception is provision of care to attend to another person’s compassionate needs – well, care is a really broad word; it could mean a lot of different things.

If you are going to your parents house to provide “social support” and “care” you can probably do it.

If they live in a care facility, the owner of the facility is under strict public health rules so it depends on the facility. That includes, at the least, restricting the number of visitors in a room, the distance between them, and other measures intended to stop the transmission of COVID-19. These override a family member’s right to visit the relative.

The general policy is don’t do it.

Read more: Can I still go to the dentist? How coronavirus is changing the way we look after our teeth

Can I go bushwalking/fishing?

Ros Vickers, NT: Most national parks are now closed, although you can still go bushwalking on local trails provided you practise social distancing.

Campgrounds, multi-day walks, swimming spots and high-use day areas are closed.

The NT chief minister Michael Gunner said you can go fishing with your family or your housemates and maintain social distancing with other people.

Fishing in remote communities is not allowed as you are not able to get a permit to enter Remote communities in the NT. The following places are open for fishing:

• Darwin Harbour
• Dundee
• Leeders Creek
• Bynoe Harbour
• Channel Point
• Adelaide River (mouth)
• Cox Peninsula
• Shoal Bay

Brendan Gogarty, Tas: No and no. But also maybe yes.

All national parks and state reserves are closed by law in Tasmania. That means no camping, walking, or any recreational activity – some research and volunteering exceptions exist, but these are limited – and all gates and access points are shut. Some smaller parks do fall under local council authority and those may be on a case-by-case basis.

Fishing is not an exception to the stay at home declaration, so technically this is not permitted (unless you count it as “exercise”).

However, there is conflicting policy (not law) advice from the department that regulates recreational fishing in Tasmania, which says you can do it so long as you respect social distancing rules. Of course, departmental websites aren’t law, but it could be seen as a “reasonable excuse” under the present stay at home declaration.

For the minute, it is better not to do it, although you probably could make an excuse to do it.

Read more: Can mosquitoes spread coronavirus?

Can I go for a drive?

Ros Vickers, NT: Essential travel is allowed, being travel to work, education, grocery shops or medical help.

At present there are no police checks regarding movement, and no indication that this will be monitored by police. You can ride a bike within certain restrictions.

Border restrictions apply at the NT borders.

Brendan Gogarty, Tas: You can drive to and from whatever essential service you need to get to like work, going to the vet or to get food. But no recreational driving.

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

Can I visit my girlfriend/boyfriend?

Ros Vickers, NT: Yes, you can visit their private residence or exercise with them.

Essential travel does not clearly include visiting partners, but visiting others and allowing guests in your house is allowed while practising social distancing.

Brendan Gogarty, Tas: That’s the same as your parents. The policy is you shouldn’t do it. You should both stay in your homes for the period of the crisis. But you have the same exceptions – provision of social support and care and attending to a person’s compassionate needs.

Again, I don’t think the police would necessarily stop you but its contrary to the policy behind the law – reducing people’s movement outside of their “primary” residence to only those journeys which are absolutely essential to sustaining life and health.

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

Can I go for a walk around my neighbourhood or sit on a park bench?

Ros Vickers, NT: Yes, as long as you maintain social distancing of 1.5m with those who are not part of your household.

You can also go for a bike ride alone or with one other person, or with the people that you live with. (See Michael Gunner, chief minister of NT’s Facebook page.)

Brendan Gogarty, Tas: Yes, you can go for a walk if it is exercise. Sitting on a park bench is not exercise so I’d avoid doing it.

Read more: Coronavirus: tiny moments of pleasure really can help us through this stressful time

– ref. Can I visit my boyfriend or my parents? Go fishing or bushwalking? Coronavirus rules in the Northern Territory and Tasmania – https://theconversation.com/can-i-visit-my-boyfriend-or-my-parents-go-fishing-or-bushwalking-coronavirus-rules-in-the-northern-territory-and-tasmania-135549

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation

Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government.

This article adds to the information we’ve published for New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria and on South Australia and the ACT. We will bring you more information on other states as we collect it.

According to Google Trends, some of the top coronavirus searches nationally in the past few days include “can I visit my parents coronavirus Australia?”, “can I go fishing during coronavirus?” and “can I go for a drive during coronavirus Australia?”

“Can I visit my boyfriend during coronavirus Australia?” was also a common one.

Read more: Can I visit my boyfriend? My parents? Can I go fishing or bushwalking? Coronavirus rules in NSW, Queensland and Victoria explained

We asked legal experts in Western Australia – Natalie Skead and Michael Douglas from the University of Western Australia – to help shed some light on what the new rules might mean for residents of their state.

Can I visit my parents?

It depends.

If you’re a child with parents who live apart, and you move between each of your parent’s homes, then you can keep doing that.

Aside from that, you can’t organise a prohibited gathering, which includes more than two people in “a single undivided indoor space” like a room or even a patio, unless you maintain 4m² distancing.

So, yes, you can visit your parents if you each stay sufficiently far from one another, but you can’t hug mum! Sunday family dinner is off the cards for now.

There is an exception “for the purposes of providing care or assistance … to a vulnerable person or providing emergency assistance”. The terms “care” and “vulnerable person” are not defined. If one of your parents has a disability or a health condition, and you want to look after them, then visiting them is okay.

It also depends on where your parents live. The parents of one of the authors (Michael) live down south, while he lives in Perth. It was his dad’s birthday on Wednesday. The intra-state travel restrictions meant he could not visit the elder Douglas. They all had a FaceTime birthday dinner instead.

The Prohibition on Regional Travel Directions say you cannot enter another “region” in WA unless certain exceptions apply. “Regions” are defined in the Planning Act.

But there’s an exemption for “compassionate grounds” — like one of your parents is seriously ill, or an immediate family member has died. Visiting a parent on their birthday is not enough.

If your parents live in certain parts of the Kimberley, or a remote Aboriginal community, visiting may require quarantine under restrictions made by both the state and federal governments, if it is permissible at all under the Prohibited Regional Travel Directions. The situation there is not good and by the time you read this, visiting may be prohibited.

If your parents are interstate and you are in WA, then the answer is more complicated. Seek legal advice.

Read more: Can I still go to the dentist? How coronavirus is changing the way we look after our teeth

Can I go fishing or bushwalking?

The Preventative Restriction of Activities Directions do not specifically address fishing or bushwalking. But doing either with more than two people would be a prohibited gathering. That means you can only walk in the bush with the people who you are currently living with or one other person you don’t live with, but even then stay appropriately socially distanced.

Fishing is a bit murkier. Western Australia appears to have taken some guidance from a since deleted Facebook post, by the Queensland Minister for Transport and Main Roads, Mark Bailey, who attempted to clarify the boating and fishing rules as permitting boaters to fish for food to travel locally in their community.

The latest advice from the WA government is the social distancing rules for gatherings of no more than two in public places apply on the land and the sea, meaning they apply to both boat- and land-based fishing.

So, you can fish for food with one friend, or those you live with. If you’re going out on a boat, though, it will need to be a biggish one to accommodate the 1.5m/4m² distancing rule.

It also depends on where you propose to fish or bushwalk. You can’t do either outside your “region”.

Read more: Can mosquitoes spread coronavirus?

Can I go for a drive?

The Australian government’s Department of Health says “all Australians are required to stay home unless it is absolutely necessary to go outside”.

This means you can only go for a drive to buy essential food, to attend to health needs (visiting a doctor or a pharmacy), or on compassionate grounds (for example, to care for a vulnerable person). So you should not go for a leisurely drive just to get out the house.

You can’t drive outside your region.

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

Can I visit my boyfriend/girlfriend?

Under the directions, a gathering of two people indoors is not permitted “where there is not at least 4m² of space for each person at the gathering”.

This means you can visit your girlfriend or boyfriend provided the room you’re in is big enough, but you cannot touch them!

One might argue spending time with the girlfriend or boyfriend falls under the “care for vulnerable person” exception. That’s a weak argument.

An important exception applies where the “gathering” is with a member of the same household, meaning two or more persons who usually reside at the same place, irrespective of whether those persons are related to each other.

So if you immediately move in to your partner’s place, and then stay there, you may be okay to touch them, legally speaking. But you may be putting each other at unnecessary risk.

If your partner lives in another “region”, then you cannot visit them (even to move in).

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

Can I go for a walk around my neighbourhood or sit on a park bench?

A walk around your neighbourhood — or on the beach — to get some fresh air or catch up with a friend, is not currently covered by state restrictions provided you limit it to a walk with only one friend or those with whom you live.

That said, given your walk would flout the federal Department of Health requirement we all “stay home unless it is absolutely necessary to go outside”, we suggest you think twice before heading out.

Sitting outdoors on a park bench or other public space with members of your household or one other person observing the social distancing rules, is not prohibited by WA’s restrictions against public gatherings. But, again, the federal government cautions strongly against hanging out in public, so you probably shouldn’t.

Read more: Coronavirus: tiny moments of pleasure really can help us through this stressful time

– ref. Can I visit my boyfriend or my parents? Go fishing or bushwalking? Coronavirus rules in Western Australia – https://theconversation.com/can-i-visit-my-boyfriend-or-my-parents-go-fishing-or-bushwalking-coronavirus-rules-in-western-australia-135544

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

What does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like?

For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over the world to open up the voice recorder on their phones and record a two minute report from the field about their city.

Many of those who responded to the call are struggling, just like us, to make sense of their experience in the COVID-19 city.

The resulting stories reflect on hygiene, disease, quarantine, social control and the urban environment from cities around the world.

If you want to hear all the stories in full, you can find them here, and read more about the project here.

Contributors

Roger Keil (@rkeil), Professor at York University

Jason Byrne (@CityByrne), Professor at the University of Tasmania

Kurt Iveson (@kurtiveson), Associate Professor at the University of Sydney

Tanja Dreher (@TanjaDreher), Associate Professor at the University of NSW

Carolyn Whitzman (@CWhitzman), Professor and Bank of Montreal Women’s Studies Scholar at the University of Ottawa

Tooran Alizadeh (@DrTooran), Associate Professor at the University of Sydney

Eugene McCann (@EJMcCann), Professor at Simon Fraser University

Beth Watts (@BethWatts494), a Senior Research Fellow at Heriot-Watt University

Amanda Kass (@Amanda_Kass), PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Elle Davidson, Aboriginal Planning Lecturer at the University of Sydney

Creighton Connolly (@Creighton88), Senior Lecturer at the University of Lincoln

Kelly Dombroski (@DombroskiKelly), Senior Lecturer at the University of Canterbury

Kate Murray (@katiemelbourne), Connected Cities Lab at the University of Melbourne

Em Dale (@carnivoresetal), at Oxford University

Matt Novacevski (@places_calling), PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne

Mirjam Büdenbender (@MBuedenbender), advisor to the chair of the social-democratic parliamentary group in Berlin

Natalie Osborne (@DrNatOsborne), Lecturer at Griffith University

Ash Alam (@urbanmargin), Lecturer at University of Otago

Cameron Murray (@DrCameronMurray), Post-doctoral fellow at the University of Sydney

Deepti Prasad (@Deepti_Prasad_), PhD candidate at the University of Sydney

Madeleine Pill (@pillmad), Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield

Matt Wade, (@geminidluxe), Post-doctoral Fellow at the National University of Singapore is with Renae Johnson, an independent artist, in Singapore

Susan Caldis (@SusanCaldis), PhD candidate at Macquarie University

Paul Maginn (@Planographer), Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia

Music Credits

Crop circles by Craft Case, Inspri8ion by Pulsed, The city below by Marten Moses, Someone else’s memories by So Vea. https://www.epidemicsound.com/

Theme beats by Unkle Ho from Elefant Traks.

Production credits

Project coordinated by Dallas Rogers.

Audio edited by Miles P. Herbert, with additional audio editing by Wes Mountain.

Lead image

AAP/EPA/ANDY RAIN

Read more: Coronavirus is stressful. Here are some ways to cope with the anxiety

– ref. What does the coronavirus pandemic sound like? The voices of people struggling, secluding and surviving around the world – https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-coronavirus-pandemic-sound-like-the-voices-of-people-struggling-secluding-and-surviving-around-the-world-135539

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Gallasch, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,” wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), “but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

With the coronavirus crisis, though, Australia’s competition watchdog has decided a little more conversation is in the public interest.

Read more: Morrison tells big business to show ‘patriotism’ as COVID-19 threatens to hit harder than GFC

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is lightening up on its normal competition rules by giving interim authorisation for competitors to cooperate.

On Wednesday the regulator authorised the NBN Co and the five biggest telcos (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone Hutchison, TPG and Vocus) to “work together to take measures necessary to keep Australia’s telecommunications networks operating effectively”.

On Tuesday it authorised wholesalers of medicines “to co-operate to facilitate distribution of essential medication and pharmacy products.

On Monday it authorised banks “to co-operate to provide supplementary relief packages for individuals and businesses”.

And last week it authorised the major supermarket chains (Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and IGA/Metcash) to coordinate their activities to ensure the supply of retail products, particularly those in short supply.

What is cartel conduct

Normally a competition watchdog guards against any collaboration or collusion between competitors. There are hefty fines and even criminal penalties to deter competitors talking to each other.

Cartel conduct – agreements to fix prices, share markets, rid bids or control the amount of goods and services available to buyers – is arguably the biggest threat to a well-functioning competitive market.

Rather than competing on product quality, price and service, cartels maximise profits by agreeing to charge consumers more, pay suppliers less and putting the squeeze on other competitors. Competition officials have described cartels as “cancers on the open market economy”.

Read more: Cartels caught ripping off Australian consumers should be hit with bigger fines

But these are not normal times. The normal behaviour that allows markets to function has been thrown into flux. Panic buying of toilet paper, hand sanitiser, pasta and other staples has led to significant supply shortages. Video conferencing and streaming has led to a surge in broadband data use.

In these “unprecedented circumstances”, the watchdog has decided the benefits of permitting competitors to cooperate to secure the supply of essentials goods outweigh the risks.

Different times, different conditions

History shows cartel conduct is tempting to companies in hard economic times. In fact, it’s even tempting to regulators.

In 1933 the United States legalised cartel conduct with the National Industrial Recovery Act. The intention was to assist recovery from the Great Depression. Agreements to restrict output and fix prices were seen as a short-term solution to keep businesses afloat. It has since been argued the US law actually slowed the recovery by converting “otherwise competitive industries into highly regulated, cartelised, and often inefficient industries”.

The US government’s mistake is not one the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is making.

Its interim authorisations allow officials from the regulator and the federal government to monitor discussions. Every arrangement must be approved by the regulator. Everything is “out in the open”, eliminating a key feature for any cartel arrangement to succeed – secrecy.

Conditions now are also very different to those in 1930s America.

Then the issue was over-supply. Now it’s mostly a problem of undersupply, due to demand surges.

Read more: There’s plenty of toilet paper – so why are people hoarding it?

This is not a situation in which supermarkets, pharmaceutical companies and broadband providers have anything to gain through restricting supply.

They might have an interest in increasing prices. But the competition watchdog has expressly forbidden talk about retail prices.

A tight leash needed

European regulators are taking a similar approach to Australia. The European Commission has declared it will not actively intervene against “necessary and temporary measures” to avoid supply shortage:

“Considering the current circumstances, such measures are unlikely to be problematic, since they would either not amount to a restriction of competition […] or generate efficiencies that would most likely outweigh any such restriction.”

Even so, there are risks. There are anti-cartel laws for good reason. The longer competitors spend working together, as Adam Smith noted, the greater the risk of conspiracy.

The competition watchdog will need to keep talks on a tight leash. Apart from price, it needs to ensure companies do not share information about operations and processes that would allow them to act independently in a mutually beneficial manner. This would give us exactly what cartel laws are meant to stop – higher prices.

Australia’s competition watchdog is arguably better equipped for this task than its European counterparts. But with more industry requests for competitors to cooperate likely, it will need to stay vigilant, making full use of its powers to monitor talks and ensure cooperation only goes on for as much, and as long, as absolutely necessary.

– ref. Look who’s talking: Australia’s telcos, banks and supermarkets granted exemption to cartel laws – https://theconversation.com/look-whos-talking-australias-telcos-banks-and-supermarkets-granted-exemption-to-cartel-laws-135303

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Pattinson, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times. But it can be even harder when you’re anxious or have something on your mind – a global pandemic, for example.

Right now though, getting a good night’s sleep could be more important than ever.

Sleep is essential for maintaining our health and mood. Sleep can also boost our immune function and help us deal with stress.

Read more: Can’t sleep and feeling anxious about coronavirus? You’re not alone

How much do we need?

Social distancing has many of us spending more time at home. This may mean more sleep for some people – suddenly you’ve got time to sleep in and even have a nap in the afternoon.

For others, falling out of your usual routine may mean less sleep. Instead of going to bed when you normally would, you might be staying up late watching Netflix, scrolling social media or glued to coronavirus news.

For adults, achieving between seven and nine hours of sleep per night is the goal. If you know you’re a person who needs more or less, finding that perfect amount of sleep for you and aiming to achieve that consistently is key.

Sleep and our circadian system (or internal body clock) are essential for regulating our mood, hunger, recovery from illness or injury, and our cognitive and physical functioning.

Shifting our bed or wake times from day-to-day may affect all of these functions. For example, higher variability in night-to-night sleep duration has been linked to increased depression and anxiety symptoms.

Long-term consequences of sleep problems can include obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.

Sleep and immune function

Declines in the quality and/or quantity of sleep can affect our immunity, leaving us more susceptible to illnesses including viruses.

During sleep, the immune system releases proteins called cytokines. Certain cytokines are important for fighting infections and inflammation, and help us respond to stress. But when we don’t get enough sleep or our sleep is disrupted, our bodies produce fewer of these important cytokines.

Read more: Coronavirus: Social distancing may be a rare chance to get our sleep patterns closer to what nature intended

In one study, participants were exposed to the common cold (rhinovirus). Those who slept less than seven hours per night were almost three times more likely to develop a cold than those who slept eight hours per night or more.

Another study indicated that a single night of no sleep may delay our immune response, slowing our body’s ability to recover.

While we don’t have any research yet on the relationship between sleep and the coronavirus, we could expect to see a similar pattern.

Sleep and stress: a vicious cycle

You’ve probably heard the phrase “to lose sleep over” something. We have this saying because stress can negatively affect sleep quality and quantity.

Lack of sleep also causes a biological stress response, boosting levels of stress hormones such as cortisol in our bodies the next day.

Cortisol levels typically peak in the morning and evenings. Following a poor night’s sleep, you might feel more stressed, have trouble focusing, be more emotional, and potentially have trouble falling asleep the next night.

Prolonged sleep loss can make us more vulnerable to experiencing stress and less resilient at managing daily stressors.

Read more: Why our brain needs sleep, and what happens if we don’t get enough of it

Think of sleep as your “shield” against stress. A lack of sleep can damage the shield. When you don’t get enough sleep the shield cracks and you are more susceptible to stress. But when you get enough sleep the shield is restored.

It’s important to stop this cycle by learning to manage stress and prioritising sleep.

Tips for healthy sleep

To allow yourself the opportunity to get enough sleep, plan to go to bed about eight to nine hours before your usual wake-up time.

This may not be possible every night. But trying to stick to a consistent wake-up time, no matter how long you slept the night before, will help improve your sleep quality and quantity on subsequent nights.

Think about your environment. If you’re spending a lot of time at home, keep your bed as a space for sex and sleep only. You can also enhance your sleep environment by:

• keeping your lights dim in the evening, especially in the hour before sleep time
• minimising noise (you might try using earplugs or white noise if your bedroom gets a lot of noise from outside)
• optimising the temperature in your room by using a fan, or setting a timer on your air conditioning to ensure you’re comfortable.

Create a routine before bedtime to mentally relax and prepare for sleep. This could include:

• setting an alarm one hour before bed to signal it’s time to start getting ready
• taking a warm shower or bath
• turning off screens or putting phones on airplane mode an hour before bed
• winding down with a book, stretching exercises, or gentle music.

Read more: Explainer: how much sleep do we need?

Some other good ways to reduce stress and improve sleep include:

• exercising daily. To maximise the benefits for sleep, exercise in the morning in natural light
• incorporating relaxation into your daily life
• limiting caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes, particularly in the hours before bed.

Some nights will be better than others. But to boost your immunity and maintain your sanity during this unprecedented time, make sleep a priority.

– ref. Sleep won’t cure the coronavirus but it can help our bodies fight it – https://theconversation.com/sleep-wont-cure-the-coronavirus-but-it-can-help-our-bodies-fight-it-134674

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney

Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young.

There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species either lay eggs or have live births. However, as is often the case in biology, things aren’t as simple as they first appear, and there are a handful of vertebrate animals that do both.

One of these is the three-toed skink (Saiphos equalis). Our recent research suggests the egg-laying S. equalis may currently be in the process of transitioning from egg-laying to giving live birth.

Studying them gives us a unique opportunity to watch evolution in action.

From eggs to babies, and back again?

There are two main reproductive strategies in vertebrates.

Animals that lay eggs are called “oviparous”. For instance, many fish species spawn eggs that are fertilised externally. In other oviparous species, including birds and some lizards and snakes, eggs are fertilised inside the mother, an eggshell is added, and then eggs are laid.

Depending on the species, much or all of the nutrition needed to grow a healthy baby is supplied in the egg yolk.

In contrast, “viviparous” animals carry embryos internally until they are fully developed. The embryos can rely entirely on yolk for nutrition, or the parents can provide supplementary nutrition, sometimes via a placenta (as in humans).

There is strong evidence that egg-laying is ancestral to live birth, meaning it came first. Many physiological changes were necessary for live birth to have evolved from egg-laying. With this transition, some structures were lost, including the hard outer eggshell. Other mechanisms were gained to ensure embryonic survival within the parent, including the supply of adequate oxygen and water during development.

The evolution of live birth has occurred frequently, including at least 121 times in independent groups of reptiles.

Evolutionary “reversals” to egg-laying are much rarer, probably because regaining the physiological machinery for producing eggshells would be exceptionally difficult.

¿Por que no los dos?

Despite the vast differences between egg-laying and live birth, some species can do both. This phenomenon called “bimodal reproduction” is exceptionally rare. There are more than 6500 species of lizards worldwide, but only three exhibit bimodal reproduction.

Read more: Lizards help us find out which came first: the baby or the egg?

We’re lucky enough to have two of these in Australia. Our research group at the University of Sydney studies the bimodally reproductive three-toed skink, in the hope of understanding how live birth evolved.

In northern NSW, the three-toed skink gives birth to live young, but near Sydney, they lay eggs. Even though they reproduce differently, previous research has shown these lizards are a single species.

Even the egg-laying members of the species are odd, as the eggs are retained within the mother for a relatively long time. After being laid, ordinary skink eggs are incubated for at least 35 days before they hatch, but some three-toed skink eggs hatch in as few as five days after being laid.

One female even laid eggs and gave birth to a live baby in the same litter.

Read more: The first known case of eggs plus live birth from one pregnancy in a tiny lizard

The genetics behind different reproductive modes

Most aspects of an animal’s development are controlled by its genes, but not every gene is always active. Genes can be expressed (switched on) to different degrees, and gene expression can stop when not needed.

An egg-laying skink uterus undergoes only a couple of genetic changes between being empty and holding an egg.

A live-bearing skink uterus is different. It undergoes thousands of genetic changes to help support the developing baby, including genes that probably help provide oxygen and water, and regulate the mother’s immune system to keep the baby safe from immunological attack.

Unexpected similarities between the egg-laying and the live-bearing

Our research measured changes in gene expression between egg-laying and live-birth in the three-toed skink. We investigated how the expression of all genes in the uterus differed between when the uterus was empty and when it held an egg or embryo.

As expected, live-bearing S. equalis, undergo thousands of genetic changes during pregnancy to produce a healthy baby.

But surprisingly, when we looked at the uterus of the egg-laying S. equalis, we found these also undergo thousands of genetic changes, many of which are similar to those in their live-bearing counterparts.

Some of the most important genetic changes in gene expression in egg-laying S. equalis allow embryos to develop within the mother for a long time. These genes also seem to allow the uterus to remodel to accommodate a growing embryo, and drive the same kinds of functions required for the embryonic development in live-birthing three-toed skinks.

Are ‘reversals’ to egg-laying easier than previously thought?

Our findings are important because they demonstrate that egg-laying three-toed skinks are an evolutionary intermediate between “true” egg-laying and live birth.

We now know that uterine gene expression in egg-laying S. equalis mirrors live-bearing skinks much more closely than true egg-laying skinks. These results may explain why it’s possible for a female three-toed skink to lay eggs and give birth to a live baby in a single pregnancy.

The similarities in gene expression between egg-laying and live-bearing three-toed skink uteri might also mean “reversals” from live birth back to egg-laying could be be easier than previously thought. However, this may be restricted to species in which live-birth has evolved recently, such as the three-toed skink.

Read more: Why we’re not giving up the search for mainland Australia’s ‘first extinct lizard’

– ref. This lizard lays eggs and gives live birth. We think it’s undergoing a major evolutionary transition – https://theconversation.com/this-lizard-lays-eggs-and-gives-live-birth-we-think-its-undergoing-a-major-evolutionary-transition-133630

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney

Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young.

There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species either lay eggs or have live births. However, as is often the case in biology, things aren’t as simple as they first appear, and there are a handful of vertebrate animals that do both.

One of these is the three-toed skink (Saiphos equalis). Our recent research suggests the egg-laying S. equalis may currently be in the process of transitioning from egg-laying to giving live birth.

Studying them gives us a unique opportunity to watch evolution in action.

From eggs to babies, and back again?

There are two main reproductive strategies in vertebrates.

Animals that lay eggs are called “oviparous”. For instance, many fish species spawn eggs that are fertilised externally. In other oviparous species, including birds and some lizards and snakes, eggs are fertilised inside the mother, an eggshell is added, and then eggs are laid.

Depending on the species, much or all of the nutrition needed to grow a healthy baby is supplied in the egg yolk.

In contrast, “viviparous” animals carry embryos internally until they are fully developed. The embryos can rely entirely on yolk for nutrition, or the parents can provide supplementary nutrition, sometimes via a placenta (as in humans).

There is strong evidence that egg-laying is ancestral to live birth, meaning it came first. Many physiological changes were necessary for live birth to have evolved from egg-laying. With this transition, some structures were lost, including the hard outer eggshell. Other mechanisms were gained to ensure embryonic survival within the parent, including the supply of adequate oxygen and water during development.

The evolution of live birth has occurred frequently, including at least 121 times in independent groups of reptiles.

Evolutionary “reversals” to egg-laying are much rarer, probably because regaining the physiological machinery for producing eggshells would be exceptionally difficult.

¿Por que no los dos?

Despite the vast differences between egg-laying and live birth, some species can do both. This phenomenon called “bimodal reproduction” is exceptionally rare. There are more than 6500 species of lizards worldwide, but only three exhibit bimodal reproduction.

Read more: Lizards help us find out which came first: the baby or the egg?

We’re lucky enough to have two of these in Australia. Our research group at the University of Sydney studies the bimodally reproductive three-toed skink, in the hope of understanding how live birth evolved.

In northern NSW, the three-toed skink gives birth to live young, but near Sydney, they lay eggs. Even though they reproduce differently, previous research has shown these lizards are a single species.

Even the egg-laying members of the species are odd, as the eggs are retained within the mother for a relatively long time. After being laid, ordinary skink eggs are incubated for at least 35 days before they hatch, but some three-toed skink eggs hatch in as few as five days after being laid.

One female even laid eggs and gave birth to a live baby in the same litter.

Read more: The first known case of eggs plus live birth from one pregnancy in a tiny lizard

The genetics behind different reproductive modes

Most aspects of an animal’s development are controlled by its genes, but not every gene is always active. Genes can be expressed (switched on) to different degrees, and gene expression can stop when not needed.

An egg-laying skink uterus undergoes only a couple of genetic changes between being empty and holding an egg.

A live-bearing skink uterus is different. It undergoes thousands of genetic changes to help support the developing baby, including genes that probably help provide oxygen and water, and regulate the mother’s immune system to keep the baby safe from immunological attack.

Unexpected similarities between the egg-laying and the live-bearing

Our research measured changes in gene expression between egg-laying and live-birth in the three-toed skink. We investigated how the expression of all genes in the uterus differed between when the uterus was empty and when it held an egg or embryo.

As expected, live-bearing S. equalis, undergo thousands of genetic changes during pregnancy to produce a healthy baby.

But surprisingly, when we looked at the uterus of the egg-laying S. equalis, we found these also undergo thousands of genetic changes, many of which are similar to those in their live-bearing counterparts.

Some of the most important genetic changes in gene expression in egg-laying S. equalis allow embryos to develop within the mother for a long time. These genes also seem to allow the uterus to remodel to accommodate a growing embryo, and drive the same kinds of functions required for the embryonic development in live-birthing three-toed skinks.

Are ‘reversals’ to egg-laying easier than previously thought?

Our findings are important because they demonstrate that egg-laying three-toed skinks are an evolutionary intermediate between “true” egg-laying and live birth.

We now know that uterine gene expression in egg-laying S. equalis mirrors live-bearing skinks much more closely than true egg-laying skinks. These results may explain why it’s possible for a female three-toed skink to lay eggs and give birth to a live baby in a single pregnancy.

The similarities in gene expression between egg-laying and live-bearing three-toed skink uteri might also mean “reversals” from live birth back to egg-laying could be be easier than previously thought. However, this may be restricted to species in which live-birth has evolved recently, such as the three-toed skink.

Read more: Why we’re not giving up the search for mainland Australia’s ‘first extinct lizard’

– ref. This lizard lays eggs and gives live birth. We think it’s undergoing major evolutionary transition – https://theconversation.com/this-lizard-lays-eggs-and-gives-live-birth-we-think-its-undergoing-major-evolutionary-transition-133630