All borders to reopen.

[Turnleft080]

Originally Posted by Agent_86

633 in SYD today....

Gladys still saying we have the harshest lockdown, well us Vics have 24 cases today with curfew, Bunnings closed, and the cops monitoring those very naughty 5 year olds playing on the swings.

[Max Tow]

Originally Posted by Chronic Snoozer

Good to see QANTAS has a plan.

Well done QF for positive leadership. Shame that on such an important issue so many employees didn't consider the issue worthy of a response.
I trust that the silent minority will accept the will of those who engaged.

"....a survey sent to 22,000 people to seek their views on vaccination. The 12,000 responses received..."

[Gnadenburg]

Originally Posted by Xeptu

I don't have any issue with the vaccine, but that's only because I'm old and it probably isn't going to matter either way. I'm more concerned about the virus itself and it's impact upon my grandchildren. We haven't really been introduced to it yet, only the corona its trojan horse. We don't know anything about it other than it's very long and complex. That surely has to mean lots of capabilities. It really does have us by the short and curlies, so I don't think we should be judging anyone for anything just yet.

Yes, who knows the effects of home schooling and an already retarded Australian education system, when your grandkids have to compete with the world that saw COVID in a different light? They'll inherit debt and higher taxes too and have seen politicians cowering to extract voter support instead of a genuine way out of COVID.

If our COVID response was genuinely about our children and their futures, we would have had a better response from all.

[43Inches]

Yes, who knows the effects of home schooling and an already retarded Australian education system, when your grandkids have to compete with the world that saw COVID in a different light? They'll inherit debt and higher taxes too and have seen politicians cowering to extract voter support instead of a genuine way out of COVID.

If our COVID response was genuinely about our children and their futures, we would have had a better response from all.

USA $6 trillion in covid stimulus funding, all debt, another $2-$4 trillion slated to get around $10 trillion USD in debt directly due to covid economic stimulus. That equates to $22,000 to $28,000 USD per capita.

Australia $250 billion AUD in direct economic stimulus, no significant more debt due in forward estimates(due to stimulus that is). That's about $8000 USD per capita. Pretty clear who's kids will deal with more debt.

Those figures don't even factor in direct covid costs such as loss of economic activity and the general cost of health care issues spread out over time, especially for long covid.

The UK meanwhile, is going to be screwed paying for the NHS for the next decade at least, unless they unwind some benefits.

Who has the best balance of trade of those 3 to pay off the debt it incurs?

[Capn Rex Havoc]

43Inc - The US is coming out of this economically - Everything is open--- Aus - well cranking up the debt- A billion per week? I don''t know the numbers but that per capita spread you mentioned is gonna close pretty quickly.

(Oh and for my eyes can you every time you type "dieing" can you please change it to "dying")

[Gnadenburg]

We have a completely different economy to the USA. Comparing the two is borderline irrelevant. We have different challenges and vulnerabilities going ahead. How responsible you think the COVID fiscal response is for this country, is dependant upon your view of how quickly these challenges and vulnerabilities can present. Soft, selfish and lacking national cohesion. Not great for future generations.

[43Inches]

Everything is open--- Aus - well cranking up the debt- A billion per week? I don''t know the numbers but that per capita spread you mentioned is gonna close pretty quickly.

Not entirely true, USA is still down 30% closure on SMEs. Some result of permanent closure, some closed by choice to avoid the virus and others waiting for the economy to pick up. While things may be open, there is a general fear of the virus subduing travel and trade among some populations. This will continue for a while. The reason the US economy is doing ok at the moment is that Biden pumped a few thousand bucks into every household 3-4 months ago. If something is not done relatively soon about the financial situation in the US there is going to be some severe pain for them coming.

Britain opened and growth has since stalled slightly due to similar reasons. A big drag on the UK economy is isolation of affected workers not being able to be productive. You still can't work while infected, which means all those positive cases, plus their families and close contacts are non productive, effectively like a lockdown.

We have a completely different economy to the USA. Comparing the two is borderline irrelevant. We have different challenges and vulnerabilities going ahead. How responsible you think the COVID fiscal response is for this country, is dependant upon your view of how quickly these challenges and vulnerabilities can present. Soft, selfish and lacking national cohesion. Not great for future generations.

Balance of trade is all that matters, how the economy produces it, who cares, if you spend more than you make like the UK and US, you eventually have to face your debtors. US is already seeing inflation creep up, this is not ideal. Your claim is that our children will be worse off than the rest of the world. There's absolutely no proof of that, in fact the complete opposite is true. And if you think we lack social cohesion, well you need to look at the rest of the world more closely.

[43Inches]

Dont worry about the economy guys, the Chinese will bail us out!

Australia is on the nose with China at the moment, very little investment from them coming our way any time soon. However they are still buying our stuff on a massive scale, so there is that.

But hey, ScoMo signed a deal to sell Tim Tams and Vegemite to the UK.

[Capn Rex Havoc]

This is from Chris Uhlmann - The Sydney Morning Herald -

You might call it a form of Stockholm syndrome, except that Sweden chose another path. Here, of course, the cognoscenti decried it as a failure because over 14,000 died of the disease. But how are we defining success? In worldwide mortality charts Sweden does no worse than some nations that enforced swingeing restrictions, while our pursuit of the fool’s errand of COVID Zero has seen us level every liberty, destroy educations and livelihoods and shut ourselves off from the world.

As noted here before, it took us 230 years, but we finally managed to perfect the prison colony. We have even invented a perverse new “Covese” lexicon where “freedoms” are not rights, but gifts bestowed by premiers and where the police complain of “illegal family gatherings”.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/scot...17-p58jdy.html

[Xeptu]

Speaking of China, given apparently their vaccine doesn't work all that well. Their containment and eradication policy must work pretty well since they are doing the best by far than anyone else in the world.

[43Inches]

Swedish GDP growth rate.

Australian GDP growth.

So Sweden sacrificed 14,000 people to be about the same as Australia, sounds like a good trade . They have also spent Billions in Covid stimulus, so not much different in that respect either.

[KRviator]

Originally Posted by 43Inches

So Sweden sacrificed 14,000 people to be about the same as Australia, sounds like a good trade .

Except they are out working, visiting family, travelling, and - begad! - going to the playground without getting arrested! Yep, that does sound like a pretty good trade to me.

Originally Posted by 43I

They have also spent Billions in Covid stimulus, so not much different in that respect either.

Except....They are out working, visiting family, travelling and - begad! - going to the playground without getting arrested! That still sounds like a pretty good trade to me....

14,000 (their deaths) * 2.5 (our pop over theirs) = 35,000 Aussie deaths. 35,000 * 5.0M AUD = $175B AUD in 'statistical lives lost', without considering anything else. Still seems like a pretty good trade to me...

[Turnleft080]

Originally Posted by Xeptu

Speaking of China, given apparently their vaccine doesn't work all that well. Their containment and eradication policy must work pretty well since they are doing the best by far than anyone else in the world.

Yep, they gave shipments to India did they not. India in a few months have gone from 500,000 cases down to a managable 25,000 cases in a few months. Whatever **** is in that injection I want some baby.

[43Inches]

https://www.berlin.de/corona/en/measures/

That is the current list of restrictions in Berlin, a lot of activities such as going to a restaurant, require either proof of vaccination or proof of negative covid test.

Germany lost 90,000 to the virus, if you applied Swedens death rate to Germany they would have lost 125,000. But that's not even a fair comparison as Germanys population density is way higher than Swedens by a significant factor and it's smack bang in teh middle of the EU meaning lots of traffic through it. At a guess you could double that 125,000 for Germany quite easily in adjusting for density had they let it rip.

https://www.government.se/articles/2...-restrictions/

BTW, if Sweden was so open why are they lifting restrictions progressively?

And here they are;

https://www.krisinformation.se/en/ha...ecommendations

[43Inches]

But nobody has been factoring death data due to lockdown restrictions. Also, people not being able to visit a hospital due to 'other' health conditions.

So mostly, the data is flawed.

Already done that earlier, suicide rates are actually lower for 2020/21 than 2019, seems life pressures from work and travel exceed lock down pressures. Who would've thought it was more relaxing to stay at home and watch tv with the family. Pretty sure mortality rates for stupid activities also took a dive during lockdown, so it had positive outcomes for a lot of things as a side effect.

The only real argument is that we are sacrificing rights during the lockdown, and how far do you go.

[43Inches]

I agree it's all part and parcel, the stats are just that, numbers assigned to a chart. Now suicide rate might be stable but yeah there might be 50% are due to lockdown. The key really is, how much does locking down cost vs staying open, how many would suicide because they lose a family member to covid and feel lost and alone, what mental health effects would that have on the survivors if they knew they could have done more?. How many will blame themselves for bringing covid into their family and causing the death of a loved one.

It's not as though you let everyone die and suddenly everyone is going to be happy, pretty sure those affected will have grief, regret and anger. So the mental health issue applies to both cases of lockdown or not.

So far all indicators are it saves lives and in the long run you are no worse off than other countries economically that have had to deal with covid. Yes we sacrifice active freedoms, but, part of the community in affected countries cant leave home due to fear. Which is better? time might give us an answer, or maybe not...

[turbantime]

Originally Posted by Blackout

43Logic,

Did you take into account people not being able to access normal medical treatment, or the people that should off received normal medical treatment but were too scared of covid to get the medical treatment?

What makes you think that these same people would come forward for treatment if we let the virus rip through the population?

The rest I agree with.

[SOPS]

If you know anyone from WA that is currently in NSW and they want to
go home.. tell them to leave today.

I am pretty sure that the border will be shut to everyone from NSW as from tomorrow. No exceptions. Nil, nada, no way. And unless The Golden Girl can get the cases down, it could remain like that for the rest of the year.

I don’t want to know how you think this is a good/ bad/ terrible idea. I’m just warning people what I am pretty sure is about to happen.

[Turnleft080]

Originally Posted by Blackout

Turban,

Like I said, get rid of the testing and the lockdowns and lets see how bad this 'virus' really is.

Every day, I watch the media conferences. The fear campaign is incredible.

Plus the higher the cases per day, the more fear they will express. Gladys and Chant almost look like they are about to have a heart attack. Would be interesting to check their blood pressure during the conference. You are ruining my chances of re-election. That's what happens when you run with the science solutions with having total disrespect for common sense ones. To put that another way, we need to live with the planet not against it.

[ruprecht]

Originally Posted by SOPS

If you know anyone from WA that is currently in NSW and they want to
go home.. tell them to leave today.

I am pretty sure that the border will be shut to everyone from NSW as from tomorrow. No exceptions. Nil, nada, no way. And unless The Golden Girl can get the cases down, it could remain like that for the rest of the year.

I don’t want to know how you think this is a good/ bad/ terrible idea. I’m just warning people what I am pretty sure is about to happen.

So WA is going “Full McGowan”?