another excerpt from the Sydney Morning Herald article:
27 May: SMH: While the Doherty Institute’s modelling warned 70 per cent of patients needing an ICU bed could be turned away without social distancing measures, on Wednesday just 30 COVID-19 patients were in hospital, with six in intensive care and only three on ventilators - while the government has more than doubled the nation’s ventilator capacity to 7500.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/thousands-of-predicted-covid-19-deaths-never-eventuated-was-it-poor-modelling-or-our-response-20200527-p54wsn.html
update: now only 2 on ventilators, but we’re getting another 2,000!
29 May: news.com.au: Coronavirus Australia: Just two people left on ventilators
Australia has a remarkably low number of virus victims on ventilators, a long way short of the 7000 authorities catered for in the worst-case scenario.
by Stephanie Bedo
But today chief medical officer Professor Brendan Murphy said there were just two people on ventilators around the country.
“A long way short of the 7000 potential that we catered for in the worse-case scenario,” he said...
Professor Murphy said Australia was seeing less than 20 cases a day among 30,000 tests...
Last month the Government announced 2000 new invasive ventilators would be produced by a consortium of local companies...
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/coronavirus-australia-just-two-people-left-on-ventilators/news-story/c14f3893260034b33d9d8530620bcc76
four States in Australia refuse to open their BORDERS. there are still ridiculous restrictions on almost every kind of behaviour yet, in all but a few Cities, no-one in this vast land has ever come close to a covid case, and nearly 63% of our CASES (meaningless) have been acquired overseas.
why would Australia destroy its economy? why are the people whose fake models helped bring on the lockdown still on FakeNewsMSM daily, giving further orders how we can or can’t do this or that? why haven’t any of them been sacked?
don’t mock, because Dem governors/mayors may still be refusing to re-open when your numbers reduce to something like the Australian figures.
25 May: Australian Financial Review: $60b JobKeeper error caused by pandemic fears
by John Kehoe
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was in Melbourne last Thursday night and received a late phone call from Treasury deputy secretary Jenny Wilkinson in Canberra.
The Treasury fiscal group head had urgent news on the government’s $130 billion JobKeeper wage subsidy that was rushed out eight weeks earlier in reaction to the coronavirus economic crisis.
About three million people had so far been enrolled by employers, less than half the 6.5 million employees the Australian Taxation Office had counted and which the government had stated publicly.
The discovery alerted Treasury that its March forecast of a potential six million enrolments was wrong and it needed to be significantly revised down.
Treasury now expects the $1500 fortnightly wage subsidies to be taken up by 3.5 million workers at a cost of $70 billion - almost half the original cost...
Treasury overestimated the cost of JobKeeper largely because the medical advice upon which it was based and the assumed need for prolonged business shutdowns turned out to be massively pessimistic.
As one senior official observes, chief medical officer Brendan Murphy was “the only voice being listened to in March”.
Treasury was wrong because the epidemiological theoretical models were wrong in projecting a potential 50,000 to 150,000 virus deaths and that daily demand for intensive care beds could hit 5000, 17,000 or 35,000, depending on social distancing restrictions.
The planned six month “hibernation” of the economy that Prime Minister Scott Morrison was preparing for, based on medical advice, was factored in to Treasury’s forecast.
Now, after less than two months, businesses are resuming as states ease restrictions.
Far fewer companies than expected will suffer the required 30 per cent fall in monthly revenue to qualify their staff for JobKeeper...
Treasury happened to be tasked with making the JobKeeper forecasts - more like a blindfolded best guess - at the absolute peak of the panic...
(It turns out about 70 per cent of the cases were imported from returned overseas travellers, with minimal community transmission.)...
Some one million people rushed to pre-register their details (FOR UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS) on Centrelink’s website. Scenes of thousands of jobless people queuing at Centrelink dominated news coverage.
Panic and hysteria were gripping our political leaders, particularly state premiers.
From March 24, the national cabinet advised people to stay at home except for essential activities. Governments halted elective surgery and shut registered and licensed clubs, hotels and pubs, beauty and massage parlours, entertainment venues, cinemas, casinos, nightclubs, indoor sports venues, including gyms, and places of worship...
Restaurants and cafes were allowed to serve only takeaway food and drinks. Public gatherings were soon limited to two people.
The states took other measures, such as closing borders, limiting intrastate travel, banning golf and fishing in Victoria, and closing schools...
Remarkably, the government’s official epidemiology data now shows that weeks before the harsh lockdowns were imposed, the effective reproduction rate (Reff) of the virus had been below one in each state since mid-March...
So far just over 100 people have died and daily intensive care unit demand peaked at below 100, not the best-case scenario of almost 5000...
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/what-caused-the-60b-jobkeeper-blunder-20200522-p54vou
never mind, taxpayer-funded ABC Australia continues to churn out scary COVID stories by the hour:
30 May: ABC: Scott Morrison’s National Cabinet must keep its eyes on JobKeeper as coronavirus damage worsens
It has taken the greatest threat to our health and economic wellbeing to make it happen, but Friday’s decision to make the National Cabinet a permanent feature of the way Australia is governed is potentially one of the most significant outcomes of the crisis...
This is a problem because, if anything, things are going to get worse...
30 May: ABC: Donald Trump breaks US ties with World Health Organization, moves to end Hong Kong privileges
30 May: 3h ago: ABC: The cruise ships have stopped, but now another coronavirus risk is looming off our shores
30 May: 3h ago: ABC: Coronavirus conspiracy theories, false info appearing in mailboxes
30 May: 4h ago: ABC: What coronavirus restrictions ease on June 1? For some states plenty, for others pretty much nothing
30 May: 4h ago: ABC: Did Taiwan’s mistrust of China save it from a potential coronavirus disaster?
29 May: ABC: Just 2 Australians on ventilators for coronavirus, but PM warns ‘risk remains great’
29 May: ABC: ‘The hit is real’: Coronavirus to slash up to $20 billion from NSW economy
https://www.abc.net.au/news/story-streams/coronavirus/
