Day 23 Monday 13th April

We have been experiencing the flow and ebb of COVID-19 contagion, a gush then a trickle. Comparisons are made with the plight of other nations. The world coroner will later judge what role timely preparedness or ignorant delay played in their respective fortunes. 6,359 cases now for Australia, 46 new overnight and 61 deaths. There have been 362,000 tests for the virus. NSW had 9 new cases added for 2,863 cases and 26 deaths. It seems America the Great will finish first in deaths.

UK PM Boris Johnson is out of hospital and apparently very grateful for his care. US President Donald seems inclined to sack his government’s top infectious diseases advisor Dr Anthony Fauci (after all, he knows how to do “you’re fired!” from TV’s The Apprentice). Apparently Dr Fauci was foolish enough to suggest that many lives may not have been wasted if the Commander-in-Chief hadn’t been so slow to respond while he was busy denying.

Government initiatives have today focused on support for research institutes. A grim warning was also issued for NSW about going to work sick, especially workers in aged care. Tasmania has closed two hospitals in the north-west. Queensland schools will be contactless for the first 5 weeks of term two. We all stayed home over Easter. Staying home and social distancing seems to be effective.

Writing in the March 2020 issue of The Monthly, Shane Danielsen quoted Bertrand Russell’s observation about how the staunchest advocates for capitalism always harp on about liberty, yet ultimately that belief boils down to a single proposition: “The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.” Will the distribution of power change in the post-pandemic world we create?

Day 22 Sunday 12th April

The Easter bunny managed to make it to my bunker in Woonona to ensure a calorific breakfast. Another puppy walk and beach romp was arranged. The number of new coronavirus positive tests continues its daily decline in double digits. Now there is a resurgence of unbridled joy coupled with devious plans for a return to a normal existence, despite the voice of reason dampening such optimism.

So, not so fast! Remember, there was a lot wrong about how things used to be. We need a sufficient interregnum so we lose touch with the old for long enough to drive us towards a new normal, a re-set, a new paradigm. We will have a new take on what we can afford so the whine of we can’t afford it will not wash. We may appreciate that public policy decisions with funding outlays are choices we make to meet the needs of all. The future will test if liberalism is capable of a greater inclusiveness. Less talking, more listening perhaps?

A relief package for higher education has been announced to encourage those whose jobs have been lost to re-skill for alternative career options. This would be fine if anyone knew what is meant by the anachronistic term “career” in 2020. Casual workers have been left out in the cold by the much-touted job-keeper provision of $1,500 per fortnight. Perhaps in the post-virus world we will re-visit the nobbled tax debate and establish the policy drivers away from sectional interests to governing for all. The clamour for accountability can only increase.

Australia’s primary threat remains returning Aussies who have been overseas but the rate of in-community contagion is expected to increase as a proportion of total cases confirmed. The US (over half a million cases) and Italy are both heading towards 20,000 deaths, the UK has about half that number. Globally there have been 1,777,666 reported COVID-19 cases and 108,883 deaths. Australia now has 6,314 cases, 21 new today, and 60 deaths. The NSW share of these is 2,854 cases 7 only today (attributable to many fewer tests on Easter Sunday) and 24 deaths.

As for prospects for a wind-back of community constraints, now commonly referred to in the media as a snap-back, let’s watch that curve a little longer before any snap judgements are made.

Day 21 Saturday 11th April

Day 21 Saturday 11th April

Keep the lid on for 2 more weeks. Plan, but don’t anticipate. Dream, but don’t gamble. Hope, but don’t relax your vigil. Let’s batten down until at least Anzac Day. As the WHO chief reminded us today, “the way down can be as dangerous as the way up if not managed properly.” This is borne out by the history of the “Spanish” flu 101 years ago. So suck in the big ones and stay the course.

NSW Government State Archives & Records have prepared a summary of pneumonic influenza or Spanish Flu, which killed 6,387 people in NSW between January and September 1919. Sydney alone had 290,000 infections. Now have regard for the sinister parallels with today’s coronavirus pandemic.

With wartime censorship lingering among nations, news of the outbreak did not escape Spain until September 1918. The spreading agent again was boat people, this time service men and women returning home from European battlefields. By late January 1919 at least 326 cases and 49 deaths were reported by the North Head quarantine station.

State Government acted by way of proclamation on 28 January, starting with the closure of “libraries, schools, churches, theatres, public halls, and places of indoor resort for public entertainment.” Two days later, three further proclamations issued: wearing of masks to cover mouth and nose, no public congregating, and no crossing the border from Victoria to NSW. However, outdoor activity was encouraged away from crowds. February saw closure of racecourses and hotels, along with a ban on public meetings. Fines of 20 pounds were imposed for breaches.

Relief depots were established with a majority volunteer workforce, augmented by 1,200 metropolitan Sydney school teachers plus nurses and doctors and late year medical students. Financial support was provided post-hoc through a system of compensation.

For all those pleading an early return to life before coronavirus, the sequence of waves is instructive:

  • First or outbreak wave, 27 January to 18 March, was mild, with about 50 deaths.
  • Second or high mortality wave, 19 March to 27 May, killed 1,542.
  • Third or highest mortality wave, 28 May to 30 September, killed 4,302.

In response to falling mortality in the first wave, most of the restrictions were relaxed in March, but were reinstated in April as the second wave took hold. In May, again, almost all State-wide restrictions were cancelled. Younger, poorer males were most at risk on this occasion. Over 12,000 Australians died, half from NSW.

While your eye is on the curve, watch out for the wave, it’s a dumper.

The stats today:

United Kingdom suffered nearly 1,000 deaths overnight. New York alone lost 777 in the last 24 hours. 1.67 million cases have been reported world-wide with 101,500 deaths. Australia added 86 new cases to 6,238 with 56 deaths. Of those, NSW has 35 more today for 2,857 and 23 deaths.

Day 20 Friday 10th April

Bulletin points for Today, Good Friday:

  • Don Harwin resigns NSW Arts ministry after copping a $1,000 fine for going to his holiday home on the central coast ahead of the Easter holidays, in contravention of a public health order to stay home to prevent virus spread.
  • Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister, has been released from an Intensive Care Unit but remains in hospital recovering from COVID-19.
  • President Trump plans economy turnaround in May while number of deaths keep climbing. He can’t fake empathy. 16,500 deaths in the US. 16.8 million Americans have lost their jobs in the last three weeks. He is also dispensing pharmaceutical advice, recommending dosages of hydroxychloroquine in contradiction of US public health advisers. As he hasn’t put in the 10,000 hours to develop this expertise I’m inclined not to trust him on this.
  • Italy reported the death of 100 doctors.
  • Australians are told that, as our virus growth factor is below 1.0 at 0.84, we are on the cusp of COVID-19 dying out. For the present, we are strenuously urged not to venture from our homes over the Easter holiday break.
  • Today the stats news is 100 new cases nationally, totaling 6,204, with 54 deaths. For NSW, 49 extra for a total of 2,822 cases and 22 deaths. The grim global totals are more than 1.6 million cases and over 95,700 deaths. It may well be that many nations’ incidence are under-reported.

Day 19 Thursday 9th April

A relatively slow news day today, but with persistent ruminations about the road out of this mess. What to do next with this wishful thinking? Rugby League putting dates on a resumption. Press articles taking stock of costs and opportunities. The language of breaking and reframing cannot be far away. Spain has signaled its intention to adopt a Universal Basic Income. Is the right in retreat or grasping at straws to defend business as usual that can never be usual again? The virus should represent at least a semi-colon, a breath pause, in the continuity of our faulty economic model embedded in western civilization.

Maybe the job-keeper funding injection will shore up dignity and personal viability. Justice Higgins, mentioned yesterday in relation to the 1907 origins of the basic wage, regarded the standard sought as “the normal needs of the average employee, regarded as a human being living in a civilized community” and in “a condition of frugal comfort estimated by current human standards.”

Perhaps we should move to the metaphor of lego reconstruction? It lies in rubble around us. Some pieces left behind, new ones coupled in novel ways, an edifice to meet human needs, not thrown into the maw of the machine. Can we now see the invisible people and care about their life chances? Let’s have less ownership and more stewardship. As ethicist Matthew Beard said recently:

“This is the pivot that our moral imagination requires of us. We shouldn’t see the social distancing, isolation, quarantine, travel bans and the host of other impositions on our behavior as frustrations or burdens to be resented and worked around where possible. We should see it as an opportunity to rescue people. To save their lives.”

Are we beginning to see beyond disruption and confinement to imagine a new social and economic order for Australia?

The numbers today have advanced by 90 for Australia to a total of 6,103. For NSW there have been 39 additional cases for a total of 2,773. Deaths for Australia are now 51, with 21 from NSW. The global incidence of infection is over 1.5 million (one week after it reached 1 million) and there have been over 88,000 deaths (14,800 from the US).

Day 18 Wednesday 8th April

Why do we still have no toilet paper on supermarket shelves for our regular, non-hoarding shop? Will we ever have an adequate answer to the question “why toilet paper”? Coronavirus is not a disease of the bowels.

NSW recorded the smallest daily increase in COVID-19 cases since 19 March. Forty eight new cases for a state total of 2,734 and still 21 deaths. The national total increased by 102 to 6010 with now 50 deaths. World figures show 1,433,553 cases and 82,184 deaths. Trump is blaming WHO, announcing a withdrawal of financial support for the international health agency and forgetting when he began to listen to their expert advice.

Parliament returned today specifically to pass legislation for the government’s AUD 130 billion Job-keeper funding package. Ideology was said to be set aside in the interests of protecting our nation’s sovereignty. Trawling through the media static provokes two questions:

What is an essential worker? If ScoMo says it is anyone with a job then what is the value of the defining and distinguishable label of essential?

How much do you need to live on? Need we revisit the 1907 Harvester Judgement that led to the basic wage and determine, with fresh 2020 vision, how much is needed for two parents and two or more children to live an adequate existence? Or do we just redefine poverty?

Day 17 Tuesday 7th April

Today there is concern over possible complacency, now that the numbers look better, and with the Easter holidays coming at the end of the week. The government released modelling on which it based decisions to control the virus spread, including border closures and strict enforcement of social distancing.

For the first time since the crisis began, another news item pushed it off the opening story slot: the High Court overturned George Pell’s conviction on sexual abuse charges. But surely TV journalists could do better than provide us with endless footage of a non-descript vehicle travelling along a non-descript road with a barely visible Cardinal inside. Media Watch has also pointed to the overuse of the petri dish metaphor for describing anywhere the virus might find the welcome mat out.

Boats have been sent away with their sick cargo and potential virus spreaders. This is a whole new strange episode of “stop the boats”. Decisions have been made in favour of pressing on with a 2020 Matriculation, rather than cancelling year 12 for a catch up year 13 next year. Media, both social and old school, suggest a pause in the outrage and indignation industry.

Progress on WordPress is being made thanks to a patient sister and Brian Magee’s Confessions of a Philosopher has been read.

Australia now has 5,908 cases (113 new) and 45 deaths. NSW has 49 new cases for a total of 2,637 and 21 deaths. Global totals are more than 1.3 million cases and over 74,800 deaths.

Day 16 Monday 6th April

“Despite the unforeseen change in circumstances for us all; despite the pain, the difficulties, the fear, the stress, the social problems and financial ruin we must persist. We must change ourselves quickly – both as individuals and as a society – if we want to stay afloat.” (Zan Boag, Editor, New Philosopher, March 28, 2020)

Media reports now suggest there is a future we must plan for. No matter how long the tail, this will end and see us putting back in place the segments of life we put in the deep freeze. There is already an undercurrent of purposeful activity not related to the virus. How are you going designing your future and how mindful is it of the needs of others? As Peter Mares put it a few days ago in Crikey (April 3, 2020):
“If insecurity is new and unwelcome in our lives, then we can assume that its pervasive presence was never welcome in the lives of others. It should give us pause to consider the levels of inequality and disadvantage that we allowed to build up during Australia’s long boom.”

Commentators have drawn attention to the opportunity afforded by the crisis to move on emissions reduction and invest in clean technology to drive reconstruction (SMH News Review, April 4-5, 2020, pp24-25). We lost a decade of mouths saying yes while feet said no on carbon abatement. The next decade has to be fair dinkum (see Decarbonisation Futures by Climate Works).

Finding myself solo this evening, I watched Zulu. For Australia, totals today are 5,795 cases (106 new cases) and 40 deaths. NSW has 2,637 cases (57 new) and 18 deaths. World-wide totals are now over 1.278 million and 69,550 deaths.

Day 15 Sunday 5th April

Let’s unscramble the rhetoric a little, fellow Aussies. Media coverage talks about the curve flattening. This is a pervasive misunderstanding. The number of cases remains on the increase, it is just the rate of increase that is slowing. The curve is heading north-east and that trajectory is not flat. We need a new metaphor, perhaps turgid and flaccid. We want to let the air out of its tyres.

It is ironic that petrol can now be purchased at 87.9 cpl when we are not able to go anywhere. We endure home detention without an ankle bracelet, trapped but still nominally free. The Ruby Princess own goal fiasco is now under investigation. In chirpier news it seems more people are inspired to learn Auslan after watching signers on TV. They have been ever-present during this virus crisis and before that during our bushfire season.

It must surely rankle with the US President that China has donated 1,000 masks in a subtle show of soft power. Caught unprepared, the US needs to accept them and show gratitude – ouch!

Australia has 139 new cases for a total of 5,689 and 35 deaths. Of these, NSW have 37 new cases for a total of 2,580 with 16 deaths. The world now has over 1.2 million cases and over 64,000 deaths.

Day 14 Saturday 4th April

There it was again when I turned on the TV news: President Trump reading a laundry list of protective equipment items and how clever he was acquiring them. It came with reminders of how great and well-resourced the US is, shockproof apparently. I’m not hearing empathy.

While still thrashing out business rental provisions, our government announced extended visas for backpackers to maintain a workforce for essential industries and repatriation flights to get Aussies home. The childcare commitment of the other day will cost AUD 1.6 billion. Oh, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has salted away a cool USD one trillion for the rainy day coming.

Remember all the hand wringing over the exorbitant cost of the ALP broadband fiber to the home proposal? Now it looks both cheap and necessary. Has anyone out there in general public land remembered that an Intergenerational Report is due to be delivered in June? Its purpose is to show us what Australia will be like in five years’ time. All those bureaucrats who have been feverishly preparing it will have to toss the draft and start again with AUD 320 billion less in the kitty. This will require some elliptical or over the horizon projections, imaginative not linear progression. Indeed, we may have to redefine progress.

Recall that slavery was a baked-in essential to a plantation economy and its abolition the great disruptor. Coal needs to see itself as a sunset industry and fall on its sword. Once mainstream opinion supported slavery, even Christians regarding it as normative, but public opinion was wrong. Public opinion on climate change has been allowed to drift along a continuum from hostility to equivocation, the real or perceived threat too far away to concern us. We have now a great opportunity for the new normal to abandon the moribund carbon caper and accelerate development of sustainable technology industry and the jobs that go with it.

To channel ScoMo, how good is the ABC? It has had quite a summer and autumn. Fund it properly in the post-corona world, it’s our palette. See how when we slow down frenetic movement we begin to reflect and contemplate and know with clarity what we value most?

I have now issued two challenges in consecutive days:

  • Which are the sufficient principles for designing the new normal?
  • Which trends should be reflected in the next intergenerational report?

Australia has 198 new cases for a total 5,548 and 30 deaths. 287,000 tests have been conducted. NSW share of the burden is 104 new cases to a total of 2,493 with 12 deaths. The world now has 1,118,221 cases and 59,200 deaths.