There has to be the first canary down the mine shaft.
When it comes to providing a how-to on moving from lockdowns to opening public spaces and economies, it’s the United States which will make the most fascinating viewing. With the end of the presidential stay at home order ending last week, states are now allowed to make their own decisions.
No one could say the US has handled the pandemic well thus far. It has broadened the already vast political divide in the country with gun-toting protesters in the Michigan Capitol building in Detroit all the way to shoulder to shoulder rallies in the US homes of progressivism, California and Massachusetts.
It is in these weird times one has to look for satire wherever it comes.
Brent Terhune is an American comedian who sports a MAGA hat and among other things demands his constitutional right to open carry an AR-15 assault rifle at a Build-A-Bear down at the mall.
“It’s what the founding fathers would have wanted,” he says deadpan.
The best satire is barely distinguishable from reality and so it is with the short videos Terhune routinely posts on social media.
Amusingly, many of those on the left think Terhune’s southern drawl, ferocious demeanour and ersatz COVID-19 dry cough that he intersperses throughout his rants, are a fervent call to arms against the stay at home orders. Terhune gleefully reposts his many progressive critics whose sense of humour left them long before the pandemic struck.
To those who have misplaced their capacity to laugh, here’s a hint: when someone kicks off a sentence, “The Constitution of these United States, which I haven’t read …” or “It got me to thinkin’ which I very rarely do …” he is probably not being serious.
Meanwhile, that most seismic of shock jocks, Alex Jones, is battling with the nutritional shortcomings from stay at home orders.
As far as I can tell Jones isn’t a satirist but might have a real talent for the caper. He has been eyeing off his neighbours to see which one he will eat first. His superpower is truth telling or so he says, and so Alex went off tap last week, pondering how he was going to gut, slice and dice his neighbours none of whom, unsurprisingly, were invited to comment.
I get the sense that Jones is comfortable in front of the broiler and may be only looking at choice cuts. At least Wisconsin serial killer, Ed Gein knew how to make a stew.
In the midst of this craziness, the US has begun to do away with state-based stay at home orders with 24 of the fifty states opening businesses including restaurants, entertainment and retail centres, generally with some form of mandated social distancing in place.
President Trump has signalled the Coronavirus Task Force headed by Vice-President Mike Pence will soon be shut down and replaced with “something in a different form”.
Some in the US refer to this as preparation for a second wave of infection but that is erroneous. The US remains deeply immersed in a first wave of COVID-19 infection that continues to spread across the continent.
Take New York State out of the statistics — where there has been a plateau in deaths and a decline in recorded cases — and there is growth in infection and death rates across the US.
Most alarming is epidemiological analysis that infection and death rates are rising more in rural America than in its urban centres.
The Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit, apolitical reporter on health care issues in the US determined that in rural counties in the US, “both cases and deaths are growing at a faster rate compared to metro counties. In the two-week period between April 13 and April 27, non-metro counties saw a 125 per cent increase in coronavirus cases (from 51 cases per 100,000 people to 115), on average, and a 169 per cent increase in deaths (from 1.6 deaths per 100,000 people to 4.4). Meanwhile, metro counties saw a 68 per cent increase in cases (from 195 cases per 100,000 people to 328) and a 113 per cent increase in deaths (from 8.0 deaths per 100,000 people to 17.0).”
The county with the highest death rate per capita in the US is Terrell County, Georgia a rural county 300 kilometres from Atlanta.
While areas of small population and low population density won’t provide the appalling death tolls seen in New York City, the lack of health care resources and logistics in rural areas mean higher death rates per capita.
Meanwhile Metro Atlanta continues to report sharp increases in recorded cases.
The real impact of opening up economies in terms of infection rates and deaths won’t be properly understood for four to six weeks. Those who scan the statistics now looking for evidence will not find much at present. It is later this month and into June when the data and then judgment will come.
One thing we should not expect is wholesale infection. There is something very odd about the way infections occur with SARS-COV-2. The Italian example is instructive. The south of the country has barely been touched by COVID-19 while infection and death rates in the north have exploded. We might put this down to population density but overall deaths due to respiratory illness which include influenza and COVID-19 and pneumonia unrelated to COVID-19 infection, have increased in Rome by only two per cent. Rome has a greater population density than that of Italy’s COVID-19 ground zero, Milan.
We could also examine Sweden’s attempts at fighting COVID-19 transmission which include no mandated lockdown. Sweden’s death rates are high, much more so than their other Scandinavian neighbours. In sheer number of deaths, Sweden sits between Turkey and Mexico.
Nevertheless, Sweden has a better idea of community infection rates than most other countries. It will be worth watching and offer lessons to policy makers in Australia.
But it is the US which will provide the most compelling case for how other countries, including this one, should go about the how and most critically the when on opening up their economies. It may very well be that what the US offers the rest of the world is a comprehensive template on how not to go about it.
This column was first published in The Australian on 6 May 2020
Dr Fauci must be relieved he has a valid reason to self-isolate and avoid having to share the stage with Donald!
I don’t usually follow the online comments on articles in The Australian. But there was a great one a few days ago when an article claimed that when Jacinda Ardern joined in the meeting of the National Cabinet it was the first time a New Zealander had been part of the Australian Cabinet. Some particularly bright spark pointed out that Barnaby beat her to it.
There was 19th Australian PM, John Grey Gorton before that. Gorton was born in NZ. He entered parliament before the changes to Australian citizenship in I think 1984 so there were no S.44 problems.
Last Liberal PM that was worth a knob of goat shit too.
Other than Howard and Morrison and to a degree Abbott I agree Triv
Spare us
Disturbing to see civil unrest emerging as people across the world feel the economic repercussions and lose patience. Not unexpected really in a world that is driven by materialism. What will the post corona world look like?
I’m wondering how the state premiers are going to adapt to relinquishing their current autocratic powers!
Boa, regarding the emerging civil unrest, it’s possibly a delayed reaction to the “lock-down”, especially by those in our community whose latent rebelliousness is now emerging as a result of distant genetic convict connections. There’s no doubt the more enlightened folk among us would regard the restrictions as simply a thoughtfully calibrated temporary domestic hibernation impost for the eventual well-being of the whole community.
On the matter of “materialism”, its a menace. According to Mihalyi Csikszentmihaly, there’s no real correlation between wealth and happiness.
Definitely Carl. I know a few people who have made a lot of money – but it certainly did not buy them happiness. Whereas some of the happiest people I know have very little money.
After the first whisper of lifting some restrictions here, the people of South East Queensland have lost the plot.
Driving to the fruit market yesterday I’m passing a Westfield shopping centre where entrances from both directions were gridlocked so I just went home. No masks or gloves can deal with that & keep safe.
Without social distancing these places will bring a second wave I have no doubt.
Is there anything consumers essentially ‘need’ from Kmart?
Materialism is madness over common sense Boa. 😪
Yes, I’ve noticed that a number of folk have been critical of the formation of the National Cabinet and its modus operandi regarding management of Cov-19. I suppose being nit-picky is natural for some, but overall I reckon the decision makers (note plural) have done a bloody good job so far, vis a vis a number of other countries where they’ve been dropping like flies.
I for one am fairly relaxed about being “restricted” to residence, rather than respirator.
So sad to hear of yet another resident of the Newmarch nursing home died today. It’s hard to take in the loss of sixteen aged residents from the same care home.
Why hasn’t this place been shut down & all residents been moved to hospitals under a watch & act situation? No-one seems to do anything & they deserve a fighting chance.
According to her daughter, she had recovered from the virus–and she died from being isolated.
Found out a elderly friend of mine just died–from cancer he’d been battling for years. Irascible old East German who actually escaped by swimming. *laugh* Used to sing with me at the bar–and tell dirty jokes in German.
I do not think you can shut it down Bella- where do you send potentially infected old people to.
Also ripping them out if the environment that they know would not be real pleasant either.
I think it is the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Great anti-lockdown protest going on right now (Sunday arvo) outside Parliament House, Melbourne, (where we presume only security guards are present), apparently chanting to lock up Bill Gates. This is slightly mystifying to me but I’m told that he is an anti-vaxxer target, this apart from being the devil incarnate, which we knew already. Not sure what Daniel Andrews can do about this, but they live in hope. I see one report that half the crowd is laughing and taking pictures of the protesters.
Well, that’s Wednesday’s column half written.
🙂
You have made it JTI – a ghost writer to take the pressure off 🙂
Vaccine, nanobots and 5G, if you can believe that. This from CDC surveys in the US:
Anti-vaxxers are often described as middle- and upper-class women who breast-feed their children, shop at Whole Foods, endlessly scour the web for vaccine-related conversation, and believe that their thinking supersedes that of doctors.
Children’s Health Defense chaired by Robert F Kennedy Jr, is one of the leading sources of anti-vaccine theories and has expanded recently to spreading misinformation about electromagnetic radiation.
Avoid those websites, they make our friend’s “moon landing never happened” conspiracies look completely rational.
Yes, young Bobby needs a good hard slapping.
I used to shop at Whole Foods. It was bloody great. They even had cheese that wasn’t orange. As for breast feeding – how antediluvian.
Not too sure I would be taking a vaccine that came out of China Dwight.
Quality issues come to the fore.
I actually checked where out current flu vaccine comes from and was relieved to find it had US origins.
Not to sure what I would have done if it had originated in China though given the choices.
Trivalve I’m fairly sure the anti-Bill Gates protests would be linked to the latest ‘theory’ that has been doing the rounds.
Gates is ‘apparently’ developing a Covid19 vaccine for citizens around the globe which will include a secret microchip as a control measure.
This is from the same folks who believe the 5G tower installations happening during this shutdown are for surveillance and will make us very sick, hence Covid19.
Please don’t shoot the messenger.
Hi Bella, Yep, it’s the downside of the internet isn’t it? Gives every nutjob & scallywag on the planet a voice, whereas before they would write letters to the editor etc, which probably were tossed into the nearest round file (bin).
Who’s the messenger Bella? That crowd of numpties?
No mate, I meant me..😘
Ah, sorry! Didn’t cross my mind.
Anti-vaxxers are strange. Gates is on the record warning about a pandemic years ago, and that”s all they can come up with. He is almost 100% correct in his theory of something like SARS to cause a pandemic. Then again, if he is the devil incarnate, he sure played it smart.
Oh, my computer is working much better with Windows 10 Pro installed rather than the Home version.
Don’t forget the Illuminati Triv. Never forget the Illuminati……..
Of course. They’re in Serie A arent they?
This is a comment I put up at The Oz. I’d be especially interested in what Jack in Honkers thinks about this, given his legal knowledge and experience:
“The federal government should NEVER have gotten involved in concerning itself with which high street businesses were allowed to operate, how people behaved on suburban streets and in their own homes and telling the state governments what to do. The Prime Minister concerning himself with how long a hair-dressing appointment can last before it becomes an illegal activity is the very dictionary definition of Commonwealth over-reach.
The Liberals had a chance to lead a reset of federal-state relations and operations, but instead doubled-down on the now-routine interference and micro-management by Canberra that has wrecked the federation.”
TBLS
He acted totally within the law under the Biosecurity Act of 2015 which came into force by a proclamation of the GG on the 18th March 2020.
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2020/March/COVID-19_Biosecurity_Emergency_Declaration
It gives the Federal Minister of Health quite extraordinary powers
We in Australia are very fortunate they acted they way they did as we did not have the experience with Sars that HK, Taiwan and Singapore had. They very quickly slipped into those protocols while we were still trying to organise. For instance, companies immediately divided their work place into 3 with no personal contact between each group, started to work from home and a whole bunch of other things that they had learned from the Sars experience . (if Sars was found in a building, the whole building was locked down immediately, so nobody even thought twice about quickly working from home this time around.
I thought the National Cabinet worked very well and proved that a Federation in a country the size of Australia works as there were totally different conditions in each state.
I’ve spoken to some journos who’ve looked into this in depth. There response was that Home affairs/Border Security could have been more active but the fault lies with NSW Health.
Are you talking about the Ruby Princess Jack?
Yes I was.
It is all really murky and full of obfuscation .
The enquiry results will be really interesting as I think that certain interests might have been put before the rules.
The way things seem to be going, JL, I think he’ll come up with ”divide the blame by 3” result!!
Agreed they (probably) behaved lawfully, John. But the primary point is that if you have all levels of government involved in everything, everywhere, all the time, the federation is more notional than actual. If federal ministers concern themselves with every aspect of governance down to a molecular level (as they now routinely do) it’s like putting a trifle into a blender – instead of discrete layers you just end up with an undifferentiated, unidentifiable mess. No wonder people are confused about who is responsible for what.
I accept that I’m whistling into the wind with this stuff. It’s been decades since any federal government of any stripe showed a sign that they had inclinations to accept that any constitutional or practical limits to their powers exist. But I’m going to keep banging on about it, because someone has to. Our governments know the whole arrangement is dysfunctional; it’s just that none of them have any motivation to change it.
As for us being “fortunate” in our plague response, I doubt we’ll ever agree on that.
“trifle into a blender”
Well that’s dessert covered.
Or smothered.
Cannot but agree.
The duplication at the Federal level of constitutionally stated State responsibilities is never ending and extremely costly and unnecessary.
Covid-19 has shown that there is a need for the states as the conditions in each state varied widely. I could think of nothing worse than a country of this size being totally governed from Canberra with large local governments toeing the line.
Then there is the current problem with local Government which keeps getting lumbered with the costs of the bright ideas from the State and Federal level.
Superimposed on all of this is our “zero” attitude to injuries and deaths.
One person falls off a rock and dies and then the herd instinct of the media picks it up and demands that all rocks be fenced. The social media picks it up. The government of the day announces an enquiry. Years later local governments are told to remove all rocks.
The argument that .01% of people fatally fell off of rocks is expressed by the more rational people in society but is totally ignored .
The same principal has been applied to Covid-19.
Look at London and New York TBLS. That could have been us. There were plans prepared for mass graves just like in New York. I know. I’ve read them.
Now our health system is set to cater for a sudden increase in infections we can now ease restrictions. Quite frankly I am very happy the reserve grade state pollies had guidance from the Feds in tackling this, otherwise we would have had Ruby Princesses everywhere.
Talent in poitics in this country is very thin on the ground.
In my view, it comes from decades of abusing them for trivialities
I don’t agree that our state politicians or governments are in any way, shape or form “reserve grade” to our national ones. In fact I’d be surprised if our federal governance was being presided over by people who are, in any meaningful way, of a better quality or higher intelligence or competence than the average primary school parent-teacher board.
Having access to vast quantities of taxpayer money and the resources of an army of public servants sometimes gives them the appearance of being so.
I think Morrisson has done a good job TBLS. Having the states fiddle around independently would have been messy.
However I don’t envy them when they have to remove the Jobkeeper/Seeker allowances. Especially the latter. All hell will break loose . It has been a great lifesaver – especially for those on Jobkeeper who suddenly found themselves earning far more than they ever did! I think they have no option other than to raise Newstart though.
Looks like he is hinting that it may end sooner than the original plan too.
A fundamentally lazy bloke finally doing his job for the first time since he became PM, but the states were quite clear that the were going to look to their own individual requirements and they still need to do that
As usual Morrison (especially in the early days) was reactive rather than proactive and I bet dishing out that money hurt like hell and he’ll try to grab it back as quickly as possible
Well said Tracy. he’s finally done what any PM should – listen. And act on advice. So performing as expected of the position. Showed his true colours at Cobargo.
Actually Cobargo was media bullshit. The ABC did a live presentation from there and poor old Fran couldn’t find anyone to criticise the PM. She was beside herself.
I also blame Morrison’s advisers for throwing him into particularly green partisan places without a proper briefing.
You’re not well informed on that one Razor
I see Morrison has started to show his true colours again Tracy. I think he is doing a terrific job with the pandemic, he is inclusive and for the first time has showed compassion…..well a bit.
He’s getting raggedy with journalists again though which means he does not enjoy being under scrutiny again as some of the old issues (like sports rorts) are popping up again.
Sports rorts is so yesterdays stuff. Who gives a hoot?
The smirk is definitely back and any good will from voters will be quickly squandered
I note our local MP the totally useless Jason Falinski has opined that the payouts should cease as quickly as possible
Starting to sound like a Cyndi Lauper record there for a minute…
Not me Carl, the sports rorts are an issue that is yesterday’s stuff. I just noted that he’s getting raggedy with journalists who aren’t sticking to the script. Tracy, I agree the smirk is back and it is incredibly annoying.
Razor, we were still living overseas when the Cobargo thing went down and it came up on CNN and the BBC…it wasn’t a good look, but again not important in the scheme of things. I hope Australia comes out of this better than other nations and I don’t care who leads us out of it, so long as our children and grandchildren have a future.
One piece of excellent news is that the pubs, clubs and restaurants are allowed to open in the NT today. Have a look at the front page of the NT News if you can…..very amusing.
Radio National were quite scathing about us apparently
Scott Morrison and his colleagues have done a terrific job as a Labor government; not so much as the kind of government they promised to be. And that’s become a habit for the Coalition.
Brent Terhune may be my new hero 😀
JTI would you be able to pass on my email addy to Voltaire please. We have all things wine to discuss.
Will do this evening, Razor.
Trump certainly hasn’t covered himself in glory during this crisis. You once called the US just a loose conglomeration of self interested states and I think this is playing out for all to see.
Testing aside the efficacy of individual health systems across the western world also doesn’t seem to have made much difference. What seems to have made the difference is early identification of the first cases and the subsequent degree of cooperation between public health authorities and the citizenry.
Hey Razor:-didn’t Trumper (and his mate The Parrot) say that the virus was not much more than the common cold sniffle and a hoax along the scale of climate change?
On another matter remember my old band mate Rodent who used to blog here and give us lots of laughs? His wife has just been diagnosed with a stage IV glioblastoma brain tumour. They got it all bar the roots and the prognosis is not good. Both of them are health and exercise freaks eating all of the correct foods. Sad Cafe.
Sad news, Bassy
He Bassy that is very sad hear about Rodent. Could you please say gidday to him for me.
Sorry about Mrs Rodent Bassy. Tell him so from me. As for the Parrot, well, you will know by now that we’ll be shot of him soon. Although, like an ex-PM, no doubt he’ll pop up consistently.
Sad to hear about Mrs. Rodent, Bassy. Say hi to him for me.
Hey Jack, do you agree with a piece I read that opined that Newscorp were fighting hard to get Trump reelected by promoting his crusade on the Wuhan laboratory mishap?
Silly stuff. Trump labelled the Wall Street Journal “fake news” recently. A bold statement overwhelmed by his other odd remarks. Let’s be honest, all media benefits from Trump because no matter what you think of him, it’s almost impossible to look the away. That doesn’t mean media is cheering him on. All right. Maybe Fox News but they are only playing to their audience.