Politics is a dirty word

I agree with Professor Raina MacIntyre, Head of biosecurity at the Kirby Institute in New South Wales that by not implementing a complete lockdown in Australia early in the COVID19 pandemic, our Government is responsible for prolonging the outbreak. Weeks ago, everything should have been closed down except essential services such as health care, police and emergency services as well as the power industry.Everyone else should have been required to stay home. Federal politicians may be about to implement tighter measures - but the horse has bolted!

Politicians in Australia and elsewhere are more concerned about the political and financial implications of Covid19 rather than the health of people. Fears resulting from the latest pandemic go back centuries and demonstrate that we are largely incapable of dealing with reality. Sacred texts revealed the panic experienced during the plagues of Egypt in the old Testament book of Exodus. The Plague of Athens from 430 to 426 BC during the war with Sparta killed off more people than the war itself. Plague in medieval Europe took millions of lives when travel was very restricted. National populations were decimated in the 14th century. Across millennia, cholera, smallpox, typhus and other diseases have changed history. leprosy, measles and malaria have been followed by swine flu, avian flu. Sars and Ebola. Now we are confronted with Covid19. As a race, we don’t seem to have learned much, recent examples of selfishness and panic epitomises the human condition.It seems that most people ha...

At last politicians in Australia are taking seriously the threat of novelcononvirus. State Premiers have declared states of emergency and there have been calls to bring in the army. Does that mean SAS troops will patrol supermarkets and treat panic buyers as looters?

Australian doctors have called on Governments to implement strict quarantine procedures in response to COVID-19. The doctors are demanding state and federal governments enforce strict lockdown and social distancing, and increase funding for health resources to cope with a surge in critically ill patients. The demands are outlined in an open letter which has circulated to doctors and attracted 4000 signatures.. According to the letter,"On current growth rates, the 300 cases in Australia today will be 10,000 by the 4th of April." Dr Norman Swan, presenter of the ABC's Health Report put the same view rather more succinctly in an interview when said that if governments were serious, they should stop"dicking around."

The novelcoronavirus, now known as Covid19, is the latest in a long line of microbes fighting back against efforts by humans to erradicate them. Viruses are the smallest of all microbes. They are so small that 500 million rhinoviruses (which cause the common cold) could fit on the head of a pin. They are unique because they are only alive and able to multiply inside the cells of other living things. In New South Wales, 1668 potential Covid19 cases are being investigated while more than 18,700 people have been tested and cleared. Viral diseases cause a third of the world's deaths every year. Worldwide there have been 150,000 confirmed cases of Covid19 infections and 5,800 deaths. A top US legal expert, Dr. Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Act has acknowledged that the Novel Coronavirus is a Biological Warfare Weapon. Dr.Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation fo...

There is growing speculation about the origin of the Covid19 virus now sweeping the world. Some conspiracy theorists claim it is a biological weapon developed by the United States to cause chaos in China and weaken the country’s economy. If true, the results have not gone to plan as the US and European economies are being as badly affected as China.

In Australia, we have seen the inability of our politicians to make decisions to protect the community from the Covid 19 pandemic. And we have witnessed the spectacle of incomprehensible community paranoia involving stripping supermarket shelves of toilet paper. Covid19’s economic threat is greater than health risks to the public. If the virus does directly affect lives, it is ikely to be through stopping people going to work, forcing redundancies, or bankrupting businesses. The trillions of dollars wiped from financial markets in recent week is just the beginning. Panic buying does nothing but reinforce the view that Australians (and some others) lack a rational thought process.Covid 19 is a strain of Coronavirus which includes influenza. To put it in perspective.The Centres for Disease Control estimate that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, and up to 61,000 deaths every year since 2010.

The Italian Government is restricting the movement of people within the country but Australia has allowed the whole Ferrari team to enter Australia to compete in the Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix. All of Italy is being locked down as the coronavirus death toll soars in the country. 463 people have died as a result of infection. Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, announced sweeping new measures designed to slow the virus. The whole country will operate under the same rules that have been restricting movement in Northern Italy. The Prime Minister has urged citizens not to leave their homes, except to go to work and in emergencies. All public gatherings have been banned and all sports events cancelled.

The days of Australia being known as ‘the lucky country’ are long gone, now the world sees us as a ‘stupid bunch’ with headlines everywhere about Australians panic buying toilet rolls because of corona virus fears. But no-one should really be surprised because Australians have demonstrated apathy and a complete disregard for reality. Our political leaders squandered successive budget surpluses as we rode on the sheeps’ back and various mineral booms. If thoses surpluses had been retained in a future fund, we would have been able to ride out out any global financial storm. Instead our citizens are panicked into irrational behaviour – clearing supermarket shelves of toilet paper. If they expect some cataclysm. it would more sense for them to stockpile food. What a bunch of turkeys!