Originally Posted by
John Citizen
Not the same thing.
Coronavirus has a 4% mortality rate. Very contagious, hidden, and spreading exponentially at an alarming phenomenal rate.
Sure only a small proportion of the population actually have the virus, but soon it could be many more of us. Do we just let it spread so that most of us get the virus?
Are road deaths increasing at such an exponential rate as the coronavirus?
Being on the road....no doubt less than 0.1%, mortality counting every vehicle, bicycle, pedestrian, motorcycle or even people on the footpath.
Road deaths can be controlled most of the time as long as you follow the rules.
These 25 road deaths, many might be due to speeding, wreckless driving, stupidity or driving under the influence and can easily be avoided.
Death from the coronavirus is not as easy to avoid.
Sure there might only 6 deaths now but soon it could be hundreds if not thousands and well exceed the road toll.
Just take a look at Italy.
Most of that is sensible but people should take note of the fact that Italy, even with it's borders closed has a contiguous border with Switzerland, France, Slovenia and Austria, i.e. it is directly connected to Europe. With borders closed, we are not connected to anything... we have thousands of miles of ocean between us and the next populated land mass.
In addition, the mortality rate is 4% of the KNOWN infections. It is admitted by quite a few experts that there may be many people infected that will show little or no symptoms so we will never know and that might reduce the mortality rate to 1% or lower. Yes, that's still high but there's every chance that this is not going to be as monumental as everyone thinks. Enough measures have been put in place to limit its spread, it is hard not to look at the current situation without thinking there might just be a tiny modicum of hysteria involved here.
Qantas won't go broke, Virgin won't go broke because the government will either bail them out or provide support and in the case of Qantas, may even purchase equity so they can realise a return when things return to normal. They've already given 100bn to the banks, does anyone seriously think that even an LNP government would balk at a few billion to purchase 51% of Qantas... in fact, there's an argument that now is a perfect time to buy 75% as when things recover, which they will, they could (if they wanted to), retain 51% and sell 24% for more than what they would pay right now for the whole 75%. Virgin is a little more challenging as it has the overwhelming amount of its issued stock tied up with big investors (only about 10% being available so the government might have to offer some sort of tax concessions to it's cornerstone investors to contribute capital.
Let's hope it doesn't get to that.