Australia watch
While new daily case numbers are back below 300 for yesterday, aged care continues as the epicentre of the outbreak in Melbourne. There were 295 new cases confirmed this morning, but another nine deaths — seven of whom are connected to aged care homes.
Victoria is desperately trying to get people out of aged care facilities, and has enlisted the help of the Australian medical assistance team, dubbed the “SAS of the medical world” by Health Minister Greg Hunt.
But the crisis is starting to upend the entire health system in Victoria — yesterday Premier Daniel Andrews suspended most elective surgery as part of a plan to free up hospital beds.
In New South Wales, community transmission remains low: 19 new cases were recorded yesterday. Two were in hotel quarantine, and the rest were linked to known outbreaks.
But there are concerns about clusters emerging in higher density areas. The virus has now made it to the affluent inner-east locale of Potts Point, as NSW Health links cases at its Thai Rock and Apollo restaurants.
The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia — home of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race — in Rushcutters Bay has also been closed for cleaning after a board member, vice-commodore Noel Cornish, tested positive. He’d dined with his partner at the Thai Rock and Apollo.
Germans told to mask up
Europeans treating themselves to summer holidays have, unsurprisingly, coincided with a rise in cases across the continent.
Now health officials in Germany, one of Europe’s success stories, are alarmed by a rise in cases: more than 3000 in the past week. Germans are being asked to wear masks where they cannot physically distance.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has extended a state of emergency until October. Eastern Europe and the Balkans are faring badly after avoiding the worst of the spring wave — Romania is recording more than 1000 new cases a day.
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America is a hellscape
But nowhere is truly as cursed as America.
Here are a collection of anecdotes that highlight the hellishly dystopian state of things:
- Despite recording more than 60,000 new coronavirus cases a day, President Donald Trump falsely claims much of the country is “corona-free”. Meanwhile his campaigning continues like the pandemic isn’t happening
- A federal report urged 21 “red zone” states — where the numbers are growing — to impose more restrictions. In Texas the virus is ripping through communities, leaving funeral homes swamped
- Trump, who has consistently undermined health officials, is praising the work of a “doctor” who believes endometriosis is caused by people having sex with demons and witches in their sleep, and that alien DNA is being used in medical treatments. Unfortunately every word in that sentence is true. But never fear, at least Disney World is open for business.
How COVID attacks
Why is COVID-19 so nasty? New research from Nature Communications sheds some light on how it is so effective at invading cells.
The virus is a master of disguise — it’s able to mimic a human cell’s messenger RNA, so our cells can’t distinguish between it and the virus’s RNA.
It’s that deception that makes the virus so difficult to beat back. But according to the researchers uncovering this feature could be crucial in developing potential antiviral treatments.
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“In New South Wales, community transmission remains low: 19 new cases were recorded yesterday. Two were in hotel quarantine, and the rest were linked to known outbreaks.” According to the numbers presented, then, community transmission was zero, as all reported cases were traced back to a source.
We need to be careful about the language we use, even if a term like “community transmission” sounds sexy, and will make an article sound learned.
Does “community transmission” mean “of unknown source” or does it mean caught locally, not brought in from interstate or overseas?
My interpretation of that quote is that 17 cases are community transmission. “Known outbreaks” that are in the community are still community transmission, but because they are readily identified, MAY mean that it is easier to control, and that contact tracing probably only needs to start from the time that the outbreak was encountered.
Wow; amazing! I estimate the value from Crikey this week at something like $20 for my 0.99c and its only Wednesday. Special thanks to that link to ‘nature’.
Actually, Paul, the Ro (transmission factor) is actually quite high (at a tad over 2.5) but with all high ‘Ro’ the virus is not lethal (comparatively) and the recovery is in the high nineties of a percent – with a bit of permanent damage (scaring for a few).
The point to note in regard to the Trump Administration is that the statement is not a lie if the statement is genuinely believed and the principle is not unknown within government in Australia.
Lastly, if you can cope with a pointer from a typo-infested contributor the grammar is virus’ RNA and
NOT virus’s RNA. The expression : ‘RNA of the virus’ would be preferred.
Agree with your points about Ro, Eras, but I must challenge you on your use of the apostrophe. Ever heard of St James’s Palace in London?
It is a valid alternative spelling. Using two s’s was the usual way to denote the possessive of a word ending in s (just like every other letter!); up until quite recently, when the results of poor education in grammar led to an absence of understanding in most people as to how it all fits together. The confusion about the apopstrophe and the letter s was mainly caused by the way plurals (as opposed to words just ending in s) appeared: thus ” viruses’ ” for possession by a plurality of viruses. You can, today, write it either way. Still sounds the same.
My generation was strapped shitless in primary school by both young and matronly school teachers for making errors in grammar or for mis-congugating verbs. The same had happened to them. There was never any confusion by those who had been taught the use of the apostrophe correctly.
Mr James’ dog is correct or James’ Hardware store is correct. Mr James’s dog is INCORRECT. Ergo, St James’s Palace is not correct (but I accept that the cancer is making progress). As an aside, the abbreviations Mr or Dr are correct; Mr. or
Dr. are incorrect. The rule on the matter is quite clear.
I recall working (in fact I was more or less fired – I got hand-balled to another section) for endeavouring to teach grammar to the management at the end of the 80s. They didn’t seem to mind their financial mathematics being corrected but they got “uppity” over their near-illiterate report writing being corrected.
[long story] but I spent about 45 minutes with the PR section of the New York Childrens’ hospital (they got it wrong too – in terms of possessives – the hospital being a service for ALL NY children) providing a crash-course on punctuation.
Later, in Starbucks, I beckoned two elderly ladies to a table where I happened to be when the cafe was rater full. We got talking. The two ladies had been teachers in Wisconsin and they shook their heads at my story.
Returning to NY some years later (2016 to be precise) everywhere that I looked (metro, bus, shop signage etc) I fond at least one mistake of either punctuation or grammar (often both) at a glance.
Even at university lecturers and deans are oblivious to errors that would not have occurred half a century ago. You might recall an exchange between an Attorney General and the [then] Solicitor General. I use this [disgusting] example of correspondence, of about five years ago, when teaching business English to Asian businessmen. We analyse the letters paragraph by paragraph.
We are agreed on one point Mercurial: the standard of even business English is well below that of Dickens or Wolf or Forster or Hardy who wrote for the masses!
Decades ago, the editorial of the Australian was in English but it is conveyed in street-gibrish nowadays. Ditto for the ABC; xyx “fronts” Court (or some such expression).