Economic implications of a SARS/Coronavirus outbreak

[Knobby22]

So what is the actual cost of testing? Anyone aware?

Also need cost of an ICU bed if anyone knows.

 

[qldfrog]

Also need cost of an ICU bed if anyone knows.

Indeed how much icu per days etc

 

[basilio]

A Liberal Premiers perspective on Dan Andrews.

Former New South Wales Liberal premier, Mike Baird, has written in support of Victoria’s Daniel Andrews (who is Labor).

“The political badge you wear should mean very little during this moment,” he said in a blog post titled ‘Perspective’.

We are living through history, and there is no playbook they give you when you become PM, Premier or Minister on how to respond.

Leaders are making dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of big decisions every day. And not all of them will be correct in hindsight. Every leader around the world is learning on the run, and the stakes are impossibly high. Every leader is making mistakes, which is not surprising as they are human.”

...Let's support him as he tries to do the impossible.

I’ll finish with the famous words of Teddy Roosevelt. Words that Dan, and all our leaders, probably need right now:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood… who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The full post is here.

 

[over9k]

Jesus christ can we give the political bull**** a rest? Nobody cares what you or I or anyone else thinks should happen. We're here to discuss what will happen.

I reckon vic will remain in hard lockdown for quite a while, will very slowly ease. NSW will continue its whack-a-mole approach.

I also reckon NSW/VIC/ACT are going to remain closed off to both the rest of the country and each other, the rest of the country will go into a travel bubble, NZ might end up in a travel bubble with the rest of the country (50/50 shot).

I have a few bucks in web, qan, and aia in the hopes that this happens.

 

[wayneL]

Jesus christ can we give the political bull**** a rest? Nobody cares what you or I or anyone else thinks should happen. We're here to discuss what will happen.

I reckon vic will remain in hard lockdown for quite a while, will very slowly ease. NSW will continue its whack-a-mole approach.

I also reckon NSW/VIC/ACT are going to remain closed off to both the rest of the country and each other, the rest of the country will go into a travel bubble, NZ might end up in a travel bubble with the rest of the country (50/50 shot).

I have a few bucks in web, qan, and aia in the hopes that this happens.

Quite right.

I'm long PMs, cryptos, private gulags and manufacturers of brownshirts and armbands..... and waiting for the moment to short the crap out of everything else.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Jesus christ can we give the political bull**** a rest? Nobody cares what you or I or anyone else thinks should happen. We're here to discuss what will happen.

I reckon vic will remain in hard lockdown for quite a while, will very slowly ease. NSW will continue its whack-a-mole approach.

I also reckon NSW/VIC/ACT are going to remain closed off to both the rest of the country and each other, the rest of the country will go into a travel bubble, NZ might end up in a travel bubble with the rest of the country (50/50 shot).

I have a few bucks in web, qan, and aia in the hopes that this happens.

I'm tending to agree.

Unless we get some significant medium term and long term effects from the virus on those already infected and "recovered", it would be reasonable to call a bottom atm., economically speaking.

What the market or society does is moot.

gg

 

[satanoperca]

it would be reasonable to call a bottom atm., economically speaking.

Based on what, we have not even seen the ramifications of lockdowns yet in the economy, the data is delayed depending on industry sector and has been prompt up by govnuts cash, wait until that dries up.

Then you might see a bottom or two.

 

[over9k]

I'm tending to agree.

Unless we get some significant medium term and long term effects from the virus on those already infected and "recovered", it would be reasonable to call a bottom atm., economically speaking.

What the market or society does is moot.

gg

Depends on how long a vaccine etc takes RE: bottom IMO.

Jobkeeper etc being eased in a couple of months isn't such a big deal as we're heading into summer/christmas, so that means biiiig pickup in economic activity.

It's if this continues into next winter that we're really f***ed.

 

[satanoperca]

Jobkeeper etc being eased in a couple of months isn't such a big deal as we're heading into summer/christmas, so that means biiiig pickup in economic activity.

Don't understand this statement.

So jobkeep and seeker are reduced in September, but somehow because we are moving into summer, all those on these govnuts assisted packages will go out and spent with reduced income and reduced opportunities for employment.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Don't understand this statement.

So jobkeep and seeker are reduced in September, but somehow because we are moving into summer, all those on these govnuts assisted packages will go out and spent with reduced income and reduced opportunities for employment.

It's what they do, mate.

gg

 

[over9k]

Don't understand this statement.

So jobkeep and seeker are reduced in September, but somehow because we are moving into summer, all those on these govnuts assisted packages will go out and spent with reduced income and reduced opportunities for employment.

No it means that all the seasonal jobs which only exist in summer (or things which see a big surge in summer) will exist and there won't be as many people unemployed.

Tons of economic activity picks up/exists in summer that does not in winter.

 

[Smurf1976]

Jesus christ can we give the political bull**** a rest? Nobody cares what you or I or anyone else thinks should happen. We're here to discuss what will happen.

Agreed with the sentiment but in the case of Victoria, politics may well determine what happens if it goes too far indeed the public's "tribal" approach to politics and seeing everything in political terms is arguably at least part of the reason the state's in lockdown right now.

If it wasn't for the public seeing it politically and ignoring directions then very likely the current severity of the situation and resultant second lockdown wouldn't exist.

To the extent the public and a certain "news" organisation sees it in political terms and plays games, the economic cost goes up so whilst we're not here to argue how it should be, it's wise to keep an eye on how it's actually going politically.

 

[Smurf1976]

Tons of economic activity picks up/exists in summer that does not in winter.

Agreed it does but to what extent will that go ahead this year?

To my understanding at least some major events etc that would normally take place over summer are already cancelled and it's too late now to get them up and running.

Even things like workplace Christmas functions seem to be very doubtful.

 

[IFocus]

"The Economy"

Letting old people die for the economy is not only abhorrent / morally bankrupt but is not going to get a political party in Australia elected so it wont happen god knows why some keep harping on about it.

Based on the economy another favourite Sweden (god knows why the conservatives suddenly praise this socialist country go figure?) seemed to preformed well early but now has been brought back to the pack with a thud. The jury is well and truly out whether this will be a success.

Taiwan seems to have been passed over and yet this below the numbers are stunning unlike Sweden.

"Taiwan was able to maintain an average growth rate of 1.5% in the first five months of 2020.

Even more surprising, in April, Taiwan’s export orders rose more than 2% compared to last year, marking the second consecutive month of a year-on-year increase, even though the global economy was hurt badly by the pandemic."

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/orde...-economic-outlook-in-asia-following-covid-19/

Why?

 

[IFocus]

Please read the wiki on Sweden (best I have seen for summary at this stage its very good) it will give insight as to why the model wont fly in Australia or most other counties.

For starters the pandemic is run by a Gov department not politicians

COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden

 

[macca]

"The Economy"

Letting old people die for the economy is not only abhorrent / morally bankrupt but is not going to get a political party in Australia elected so it wont happen god knows why some keep harping on about it.

Based on the economy another favourite Sweden (god knows why the conservatives suddenly praise this socialist country go figure?) seemed to preformed well early but now has been brought back to the pack with a thud. The jury is well and truly out whether this will be a success.

Taiwan seems to have been passed over and yet this below the numbers are stunning unlike Sweden.

"Taiwan was able to maintain an average growth rate of 1.5% in the first five months of 2020.

Even more surprising, in April, Taiwan’s export orders rose more than 2% compared to last year, marking the second consecutive month of a year-on-year increase, even though the global economy was hurt badly by the pandemic."

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/orde...-economic-outlook-in-asia-following-covid-19/

Why?

Why ?
Because they have had great experience at coping with China's experiments, from day one I have been advocating "get advice from the experts, give Taiwan a call"

 

[Sdajii]

For that to be true, Sweden would need to have been experiencing this as an ongoing issue since at least 2005.

If that's the case then they've kept it awfully quiet until now.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately trying to misrepresent things or if you just haven't bothered looking at the situation, but their death rate has obviously not been constant through the entire thing (or since 2005 or whatever silly figure you may want to bring up for the sake of a disingenuous argument). Obviously at some point months ago it was zero, they let it run through the community relatively unchecked (some mitigation measures but no lockdowns, just let it run). Because they didn't try to contain it or have spotfire lockdown strategies like the Australian nonsense, it is there, it exists at a stable level, and has stabilised. At that stable level it is killing a negligible number of people (with one exceptional day on Friday where 5 deaths were recorded, but zero death days are not unusual now).

By contrast, attempting to play an eternally ongoing cat and mouse strategy where you lock everyone down in response to outbreaks then open back up when the disease is at an 'acceptable level' means no heard immunity happens, you never get a particularly big problem anyway, but you probably have more virus deaths overall and you have a perpetually retarded economy, social problems, etc.

It's funny that I get accused of being off topic, but I actually try to relate it back to the topic and when I don't post all weekend I come back to pages of posts where people don't make that attempt.

Here is a link to Sweden's figures: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

Compare it to Australia's: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/

Compare the graphs (or numbers if you prefer) of active cases and daily death count. When you look at these pictures it's clear that Sweden's model, that is, not locking down, accepting that the virus will spread, allowing it to spread and come to a trivial level disease which never needs to have a noteworthy economic impact at all, is superior. Not just economically (which is the topic of this thread) but socially, etc, and I would strongly argue that not forcefully removing human liberty and agency has an extreme value in itself.

We keep seeing personal anecdotes of people with elderly relatives. No one is saying a 97 year old woman's life means nothing, but we need to accept that the lives and wellbeing of the entire country has value too! Even if we weren't worried about the economy it makes no sense to remove liberty and agency and human rights (and lives!) from millions of humans beings for the sake of a small number of old people. That small number of old people may be important *but so are all the other people*

 

[Sdajii]

You keep talking about Sweden, why don't you talk about New Zealand ?

Initial total lockdown virtually eliminated the virus there.

New Zealand is made up of small, isolated islands, is one of the most remote countries on the planet and has a small population. Other than perhaps Greenland and Iceland it is perhaps the country with the easiest job in the world of *virtually* eliminating the virus. That being said, even they are now forced into playing the eternal lockdown game, where outbreaks will occur and lockdowns must result periodically until they adopt a Sweden model, but since they have a sparse population divided over small islands, it will always be easy (or if they don't bother it'll never be much of a problem anyway). They still face the problem of having the country having a ban on international travel of citizens, or foreign tourism, which is going to be a severe economic problem for as long as these measures are enforced.

Sooner or later, we will accept that this is not a serious issue and stop worrying about it. This extreme economic destruction is not preventing something worse. Not in Australia, not in New Zealand, and Sweden hasn't had anything all that drastic. If everyone had taken a business as usual approach we'd very obviously still have a business as usual world.

 

[over9k]

Not a snowball's chance in hell that will happen. To do so would be to admit that everything we've been through so far, all the lockdowns etc, were pointless/all for nothing. That will NEVER happen.

 

[wayneL]

Not a snowball's chance in hell that will happen. To do so would be to admit that everything we've been through so far, all the lockdowns etc, were pointless/all for nothing. That will NEVER happen.

...and our leaders are getting aroused with their new power and finding the proles easily frightened and programmable.

Economy be damned.