First as a start I am not a Covid-19 denier. It is a serious sickness and problematic due to the easiness of the spread – but it is also not as close as the killer virus the political class is making it.
Unfortunately Australia, and Victoria in particular, is ot a very open or democratic country.
Stats are hard to come by – what I could collect a good of new cases derive from first line healthcare workers and over 50% aged care related. Very far from a widespread issue within the population.
My two biggest gripe are different:
- There is not a clear path out of this – even the dates selected for freedom are conditional to a number of cases (and by the way there is no option that says there are no cases by mid October so you will be free again.
- The model. The paternalistic approach of Premier Andrews really annoys me. You cannot discuss the model? I do and see models for the stock market all the time – from my one to Goldman Sachs, JPM and all the best. They are all as good as the inputs and often a non-considered variable destroys the model.
In this model, even without studying it tehre are some basic errors.
The virus data input are coming from overseas (different hygiene standards, different geography, potential different strands of Covid-19)
The weather impact (various studies show that UV kills the virus and we are going into Australian summer).
There is no testing and tracing.
It considers halving of the cases every 18 days – while other models shows a halving between 10 and 8.9 days.
The 14 days average is a completely arbitrary parameter.
On top of this the current pandemic shows a major constitutional issue for Australia – in emergency the Federal Government has no emergency powers to overrule a State. This should be a critical factor as, aside the virus, in the next decade we will be confronted a range from challenge from China and other situation that require a united nation.
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