Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) outbreak discussion

Will the "Corona Virus" turn into a worldwide epidemic or fizzle out?

  • Yes

    Votes: 37 49.3%
  • No

    Votes: 9 12.0%
  • Bigger than SARS, but not worldwide epidemic (Black Death/bubonic plague)

    Votes: 25 33.3%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 4 5.3%

  • Total voters
    75
The fact is whether you agree with it or not, this is the course taken by the government.
So we should all do our best.

Politically long term it can't be repeated.
Political decision or not , i will not be injected with crap just to please a local Paluchet.
But i wear masks and grossly obey sensible laws etc
 
Political decision or not , i will not be injected with crap just to please a local Paluchet.
But i wear masks and grossly obey sensible laws etc
You should judge whether it's crap at the time. You don't know for sure. The British one being tested was developed by the CSIRO and was already in pre development before this occurred.

The University of Queensland vaccine was being developed to cure the common cold before this occurred.

I agree many are crap, the new Russian one is very likely no good and if all those USA companies were on the right path the USA wouldn't be trying to buy in overseas.

I think it is us that have the technology to solve this at least partially.

In any case it doesn't matter. This is what we are doing for now. If it doesn't work long term then our leaders look bad. If it does work they will be heroes and some countries will be very angry with their leaders.

The gods roll the dice, they don't ask if you want to be in the game or not.
 
Are any of these wondrous vaccines, likely to have sufficient potency, for the resurrection of, those that have needlessly died consequent to Victoria's lockdown lunacy?
 
In the news, more positive research which will be ignored, wonder why?

Note that again, Zinc is part of a treatment getting results

<<Professor Thomas Borody, a gastroenterologist credited with developing a world-first cure for peptic ulcers, saving countless lives, has stepped up his advocacy for what he believes is the “answer to Australia’s COVID-19 crisis”.

Taken together, Ivermectin – a treatment for head lice that costs as little as $2 – combined with zinc and the antibiotic Doxycycline, could be a “potential lifesaver right now”, Professor Borody said.>>
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...w/news-story/24b930fcec5e4ef33127b13d4356b0aa
 
The fact is whether you agree with it or not, this is the course taken by the government.
So we should all do our best.

Politically long term it can't be repeated.

And I don't call it sheepie everyone working to do their best. I call it civil society. You only need to look to the USA to see what the opposite is.
Good point.

There is nothing wrong with us as a civil society practising good common sense measures to avoid infection. I really do think that a government program to promote good common sense measures based on science would have been extremely warranted.

Chocking down chicks because they don't have a mask on is fekin bulshit (notwithstanding that she gave the copper the finger), and I think will have the opposite effect, ie creating distrust in the government, their agents and their motives.

As I am moving through my clientele the main topic of discussion is, of course, covid-19.

I see two camps based broadly on either fight or flight.

1/ the flight camp basically recoils in horror, recedes in to their homes and wants the government to impose totalitarian and draconian lockdowns to ensure their own safety (and disregards the well-being of everybody else on all levels)

These people disregard the importance of a functioning economy and regard their short-term safety as paramount, ignoring long-term consequences.

2/ The fight camp, who quite rightly is suspect of the overall agenda, is willing to examine the data dispassionately and face up to the reality of what is not a very dangerous virus, except for those few people who do have comorbidities.

These people understand the importance of a functioning economy and the importance of mitigating long-term consequences.

This matches my observations of lower order mammals which I am intimately acquainted with, vis-a-vis, equines.

Life is better for those equines who do not succumb to the flight response, their lives being more harmonious with their situation and consequently their life span longer and more congruent with their goal of avoiding stress and achieving happiness

The flight camp only creates injury for itself but also creates a stress response, excess cortisol. But only does this increase the opportunity for physical injury but also metabolic and physiological malaise.

The fearful are unhealthy by an order of several magnitudes.

I think fox like Benjamin Franklin understood this when he (and others) devised their great quotations viz, "those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither"
 
I sort of agree but people who are in the lockdown like me think they are sacrificing short term liberty to gain long term liberty and look to South Korea, New Zealand, WA and QLD as examples.

Short term pain for long term gain.
Maybe there will be no vaccine so long term might end up as pain also but we shall see.

Even Sweden though will have plenty of long term pain as only s small fraction of the people have caught it so far though if s vaccine is not found their overall pain will be a little less.
 
There is nothing wrong with us as a civil society practising good common sense measures to avoid infection. I really do think that a government program to promote good common sense measures based on science would have been extremely warranted.

I respect your views wayne, as long as you say the same if you or a member if your family, elderly or not , contracts this virus and dies. Joe Blow said not to bring family members into this discussion, fair enough, but this is really what it comes down to for many families who have lost their loved ones. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen to you or anyone else here, but why should we be exempt from the illness that a lot of others are suffering from ?
 
upload_2020-8-12_17-4-58.png

In comparison:
There were 1.2 million hospitalisations where cardiovascular disease (CVD) was recorded as the principal or additional diagnosis in 2017–18, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) National Hospital Morbidity Database. This represents 11% of all hospitalisations in Australia. Note that hospitalisation data presented here are based on admitted patient episodes of care, including multiple events experienced by the same individual.
 
I respect your views wayne, as long as you say the same if you or a member if your family, elderly or not , contracts this virus and dies. Joe Blow said not to bring family members into this discussion, fair enough, but this is really what it comes down to for many families who have lost their loved ones. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen to you or anyone else here, but why should we be exempt from the illness that a lot of others are suffering from ?

Sorry, but in the grand scheme of things or relevant to Aus population, 23,000 is not a lot.

Again, you being over dramatic again.
 
Are any of these wondrous vaccines, likely to have sufficient potency, for the resurrection of, those that have needlessly died consequent to Victoria's lockdown lunacy?
Its all numbers. Numbers lost vs numbers gained. Less car accidents, more suicides, less flu deaths, more covid deaths.

In the news, more positive research which will be ignored, wonder why?

Note that again, Zinc is part of a treatment getting results

<<Professor Thomas Borody, a gastroenterologist credited with developing a world-first cure for peptic ulcers, saving countless lives, has stepped up his advocacy for what he believes is the “answer to Australia’s COVID-19 crisis”.

Taken together, Ivermectin – a treatment for head lice that costs as little as $2 – combined with zinc and the antibiotic Doxycycline, could be a “potential lifesaver right now”, Professor Borody said.>>
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...w/news-story/24b930fcec5e4ef33127b13d4356b0aa

Sounds good. don't think anything is being ignored. Billions of dollars are being thrown around in desperation particularly from the USA. If the cure comes from left field the result is the same, heaps of lives saved from lockdown.

He didn't invent the cure for peptic ulcurs though, Barry Marshall did. Barry is a Bluddy genius.
Secondly he has got funding for testing despite other specialists (in the same article) poo pooing him, thirdly I don't know why he thinks an antibiotic would help against a virus ?. He sounds very suss to me, he is making money though.
 
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Great article

Moderna Wants to Transform the Body
Into a Vaccine-Making Machine

Almost every antiviral vaccine ever sold works in a similar way: A dead or weakened virus, or a piece of one, is introduced into a healthy person. The weakened virus stimulates the immune system to generate antibodies, protecting the person when the real pathogen threatens to infect them.

Over the decades, this tried-and-true approach has vanquished polio, eradicated smallpox, and reined in chicken pox, measles, and mumps. But vaccine production has never been simple or fast. Many flu vaccines are still grown in chicken eggs. Newer approaches draw on genetic engineering to eliminate the need for whole viruses, but their viral proteins are still grown inside live cells.

The coronavirus vaccines from Moderna Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., and its German rival mR, and its German rival BioNTech SE propose to immunize people in a radically different way: by harnessing human cells to become miniature vaccine factories in their own right. Instead of virus proteins, the vaccines contain genetic instructions that prompt the body to produce them. Those instructions are carried via messenger RNA, or mRNA.

Moderna’s mRNA-1273 consists of a strand of mRNA that tells the body to produce the spike protein the coronavirus uses to latch onto human cells. The strand is like one side of a zipper; the “teeth” are a sequence of chemical letters that cells read to produce the 1,273 amino acids that make up the spike protein. If the vaccine works as intended, the body will start producing the proteins soon after injection, prompting the immune system to react and build up protective antibodies against them.

The great advantages of mRNA vaccines are speed and flexibility. No finicky live cells or hard-to-handle viruses are needed, and the basic chemistry is straightforward. Moderna’s vaccine reached Phase I human trials on March 16, only 63 days after the company began developing it. And at 6:43 a.m. on July 27, the first volunteer in Moderna’s 30,000-person, final-stage efficacy trial in the U.S. received an injection. Less than 12 hours later, BioNTech and its partner, late-stage trial, a study that will be conducted in the U.S., Brazil, and several other countries. They took advantage of mRNA’s rapid-response capability to create four slightly different vaccines, which they compared in initial trials before selecting the best one for large-scale testing.

In Phase I trials, both the Moderna and BioNTech-Pfizer vaccines stimulated people’s immune systems to produce antibodies that neutralized the virus in lab experiments, a positive initial sign. “This is a relatively new platform, but it is looking quite good,” $955 million from the U.S. government to support its coronavirus trials.

How well mRNA vaccines will actually prevent Covid-19 remains unknown. No vaccine based on messenger RNA has ever been approved for any disease, or even entered final-stage trials until now, so there’s little published human data to compare how mRNA stacks up against older technologies. And the vaccines have hardly been free of side effects: In Moderna’s Phase I trial, all 15 of the patients who received the median of three dose sizes reported at least one side effect, though none were severe. Three of the 15 patients at the highest dose had temporary severe reactions. That dosage won’t be tested further.

Still, the accumulating data has some mRNA skeptics warming to the technology. “I don’t see the reason for focusing on mRNA vaccines. I don’t get that,” Peter Jay Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in an interview in early June. “The old-fashioned vaccines may do a better job.” In late July he said his opinion had shifted based on encouraging monkey and human trial results. Moderna’s vaccine “is showing promise,” he said. “There is enough of a glimmer to warrant continuing its clinical development and progressing to larger clinical trials.”

The possibility of a Covid-19 shot has led investors to more than triple the value of Moderna’s shares this year, giving the company a market capitalization of about $28 billion, an astonishing number for a company with no products. BioNTech shares have more than doubled. A third company with an mRNA-based Covid-19 shot, CureVac AG, has said it’s considering an initial public offering. Both Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s chief executive officer, and Ugur Sahin, his less flashy counterpart at BioNTech, have become multibillionaires.​


More on link below...

 
Do you believe a vaccine is possible in a short term aka 2y?
If this is a case, i can ..not always but mostly, believe some of the opinions here from @Smurf1976 ,@Knobby22 @SirRumpole and basically the lockdown etc option taken here.
Summarising my thoughts in brief since I've been mentioned:

1. The virus is not of itself a good thing. Nobody anywhere actually wanted it. I think we can all agree on that - nobody 12 months ago was saying we really need a pandemic.

2. From a purely medical perspective elimination is the ideal outcome. See point above - nobody actually wants to have it and nobody's arguing that it's a desirable thing as such.

3. In theory elimination is possible so long as the virus is something which is carried by humans and lives for relatively short periods, days at most, on other surfaces. Keep the humans away from other humans, make sure they don't touch things which other humans touch, and it should die out. In theory.

4. It is inevitable that there will be another pandemic. This one seems to be mild in terms of the death rate and so on but the next one may well be drastically worse. As such, if it turns out that we cannot in practice eliminate this one then it would be foolish in the extreme to return to "business as usual" without heeding the message that we're sitting ducks for future pandemics with no means to contain them. Doing so would be essentially gambling with the very existence of the species and outright negligent in view of the present situation.

5. Noted that the long term effects are unknown. They may or may not be of significance but nobody can say for sure that there are not serious implications. For example not one child has yet been born to a mother who was infected during pregnancy and lived long enough to determine any ill effects on that child. We're flying blind.

Putting all that together, my basic thought is that there's a large cost either way. A lockdown and elimination means a big cost right now. Not eliminating and accepting that we can't contain a pandemic means permanent change which will bring permanent economic costs.

There's no "free" option but elimination is the only outcome which enables an actual return to 2019 business as usual. Anything less rationally means permanent change and that isn't cheap. :2twocents
 
Summarising my thoughts in brief since I've been mentioned:

1. The virus is not of itself a good thing. Nobody anywhere actually wanted it. I think we can all agree on that - nobody 12 months ago was saying we really need a pandemic.

2. From a purely medical perspective elimination is the ideal outcome. See point above - nobody actually wants to have it and nobody's arguing that it's a desirable thing as such.

3. In theory elimination is possible so long as the virus is something which is carried by humans and lives for relatively short periods, days at most, on other surfaces. Keep the humans away from other humans, make sure they don't touch things which other humans touch, and it should die out. In theory.

4. It is inevitable that there will be another pandemic. This one seems to be mild in terms of the death rate and so on but the next one may well be drastically worse. As such, if it turns out that we cannot in practice eliminate this one then it would be foolish in the extreme to return to "business as usual" without heeding the message that we're sitting ducks for future pandemics with no means to contain them. Doing so would be essentially gambling with the very existence of the species and outright negligent in view of the present situation.

5. Noted that the long term effects are unknown. They may or may not be of significance but nobody can say for sure that there are not serious implications. For example not one child has yet been born to a mother who was infected during pregnancy and lived long enough to determine any ill effects on that child. We're flying blind.

Putting all that together, my basic thought is that there's a large cost either way. A lockdown and elimination means a big cost right now. Not eliminating and accepting that we can't contain a pandemic means permanent change which will bring permanent economic costs.

There's no "free" option but elimination is the only outcome which enables an actual return to 2019 business as usual. Anything less rationally means permanent change and that isn't cheap. :2twocents
If the world was Australia maybe, but we are not the world.there are suggestions that the NZ resurgence came from OS imports...
Elimination is a pipe dream or are we suggesting we do not export import anything and have no boat or plane landing here..?
If so i should rush to get out quickly, there are a limited number of aircraft boats available here...
People are raising emotions against facts.that is the issue and the cause of so much manipulation.
Of course we do not want it, of course it is nasty but whether we like it or not, it is here spreading all across the planet and i do not wish to see 10k aussies dying in aged care, but sadly they will.next month next year in 2years.unless you believe in a vaccine
People believe in gods so why not!
When treatments exists, they are bypassed and prevention is neglected..aka boost in vitD ,warmer is better, airflow in buildings etc
What hope do we have...
 
If the world was Australia maybe, but we are not the world.there are suggestions that the NZ resurgence came from OS imports...
Elimination is a pipe dream or are we suggesting we do not export import anything and have no boat or plane landing here..?

If we're saying that elimination isn't possible then realistically we're in for permanent change in the way things are done and ultimately that's global not simply Australian.

That's the logical step since the recent past approach did rely upon the notion that anything which came up with disease would be able to be suppressed. If that idea is shattered well then it has some pretty significant consequences.

International travel looks somewhat stuffed either way really. I think that's the point being missed - no option offers a prompt return to 2019, the question's what happens in the long term?

Prove we can eradicate and go back to "normal"?

Accept that we can't eradicate and permanently change now that the rug's been pulled from under that assumption?

For the record I think the latter's far more likely so in that sense I am agreeing with you - it probably won't be eradicated.

No eradication however rationally means no return to the 2019 version of "normal". We'll have people traveling, but not without greatly increased cost, medical checks and so on and that'll be permanent with the end result of vastly lower travel volumes in practice due to higher costs and the taking on of an unisurable risk that will deter many.

Just my thoughts, I do acknowledge I could be wrong. :2twocents
 
That is the whole point smurf, if we are to island ourselves, what do we really lose other than overseas travellers money? Very little.
We as a country have in reality very little income from overseas money, I would be very surprised if more money isn't spent by Australian's going overseas, than tourists coming here.
So if people could just pull their heads in and contain the outbreak here, then businesses could get back to some sort of normal operation and the economy could open up more.
Take for example W.A, businesses in country W.A are having the best year ever, because everyone is holidaying at home.
If Victorians hadn't been such dicks, they would no doubt be up in Queensland, why everyone is making it out to be such an economic disaster is BS.
If they can turn the outbreak down to minimal and quarantine people coming in, the economy should open up, just overseas travellers will be minimal.
 
We as a country have in reality very little income from overseas money, I would be very surprised if more money isn't spent by Australian's going overseas, than tourists coming here.

Most recent pre-pandemic statistics I could find show that yes, tourism is a net loss in that imports (Australians traveling overseas) exceed exports.

It's a valuable 'export' only in the context that it's better to have people coming here than not coming if we assume that Australians traveling overseas would continue regardless. Stop it in both directions and that changes.

Obviously I'd rather have everything back to normal most certainly but a fully functional domestic economy where people could at least go about their normal day to day lives, move around the country and so on would sure beat what we've got right now.

From a tourism perspective, well I'm sure there's plenty of people in Australia who haven't even visited each state, at all, and they certainly haven't been to every place that has something worth seeing.

Australians' knowledge of their own country isn't particularly great. Many would struggle to name anywhere in WA that isn't Perth or a mining town for example and many wouldn't recognise a photo of the Adelaide skyline if they were shown it. They'd be shocked to find that Bourke has sealed roads and shops and so on.

That's not saying that international travel isn't a desirable thing, it's just being pragmatic as I see it under the circumstances. :2twocents
 
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Most recent pre-pandemic statistics I could find show that yes, tourism is a net loss in that imports (Australians traveling overseas) exceed exports.

It's a valuable 'export' only in the context that it's better to have people coming here than not coming if we assume that Australians traveling overseas would continue regardless. Stop it on both directions and that changes.

Obviously I'd rather have everything back to normal most certainly but a fully functional domestic economy where people could at least go about their normal day to day lives, move around the country and so on would sure beat what we've got right now.

From a tourism perspective, well I'm sure there's plenty of people in Australia who haven't even visited each state, at all, and they certainly haven't been to every place that has something worth seeing.

Australians' knowledge of their own country isn't particularly great. Many would struggle to name anywhere in WA that isn't Perth or a mining town for example and many wouldn't recognise a photo of the Adelaide skyline if they were shown it. They'd be shocked to find that Bourke has sealed roads and shops and so on.

That's not saying that international travel isn't a desirable thing, it's just being pragmatic as I see it under the circumstances. :2twocents
Precisely.
 
Most recent pre-pandemic statistics I could find show that yes, tourism is a net loss in that imports (Australians traveling overseas) exceed exports.

It's a valuable 'export' only in the context that it's better to have people coming here than not coming if we assume that Australians traveling overseas would continue regardless. Stop it in both directions and that changes.

Obviously I'd rather have everything back to normal most certainly but a fully functional domestic economy where people could at least go about their normal day to day lives, move around the country and so on would sure beat what we've got right now.

From a tourism perspective, well I'm sure there's plenty of people in Australia who haven't even visited each state, at all, and they certainly haven't been to every place that has something worth seeing.

Australians' knowledge of their own country isn't particularly great. Many would struggle to name anywhere in WA that isn't Perth or a mining town for example and many wouldn't recognise a photo of the Adelaide skyline if they were shown it. They'd be shocked to find that Bourke has sealed roads and shops and so on.

That's not saying that international travel isn't a desirable thing, it's just being pragmatic as I see it under the circumstances. :2twocents
Sadly, this is a picture of hell for me, I usually get hitchy feet if I spend more than 2 y wo O/S travel..well past the due time now, not so much for the landscape, but history/culture/language/food..
Are we going to end up like a USA but in worse?
I can not realistically and willingly live the rest of my life in that future if I have the choice, nor should any 20 or 30y old who will not even feel any effect of the covid.
Imagine the brain drain if this happens
note that I have traveled very widely in Australia, probably only part missing is f WA and Northern/western side of NT. Trip planned to North of Cairns based on personal circumstances
 
As for tourism import weight, let's be honest: we should add the so called education sector (fee paying foreign students in our unis and barista courses) and backpacker economic input;
all that would vanish
 
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