COVID-19

5 views

Skip to first unread message

Alexander Hayes

unread,

Mar 14, 2020, 2:30:39 AM3/14/20

to TALO

An interesting summary from a very recent brief of a friend of mine...

"Just got a one hour briefing from a cabinet minister after their full day on Covid-19 with the chief medical officers of AUS, UK, USA and Israel and prime minister yesterday.

Summary as follows:

- 60% of Aussies will be infected

- South Korea is testing 15,000 per day. Mortality rate there is 0.6%. This makes it a deadly flu (10X normal flu rate). That’s the expected mortality rate in Australia

- mortality rate grows exponentially from age of 70 as per normal flu however mortality rates there are 10-15%

- so deaths in Australia to be tens if not hundreds of thousands, mainly aged

- not surprisingly mortality is their main concern... it’s a third of the workforce being sick and the ensuing economic impact!

- there is no stopping the virus as masks have limited use...advice is to get it early while there are hospital beds. Masks only useful to stop infected people infecting others. There is one mask factory in Australia which the Australian defence force has now taken over to produce 5m masks per month

- most of our dunny paper is made in Adelaide, so don't worry about that!

- vaccine is up to at least a year away

- Govt response is not to stop the virus but to flatten the peak of the bell curve, so we have only 1-2m infected per month. Worst month expected to be June, easing by September and all done be December

- we will be in full recession next quarter. This is a 1 in 100 year economic event but we are going to manage it much better than in past apparently

- tomorrow the government will announce a whopping 1% of GDP fiscal injection to prop up the economy. This will be focussed on small business investment. This Is biggest Govt spend over our history (to be spent over 90 day period). The banks will come to the party passing on rate cuts

- hospitals are cancelling all elective surgeries to make bed space for the infected

- difference between this and SARS for instance is that China failed to act for 6 weeks. It could have been contained but it has not been

- however China sees the end in sight. Iron etc prices have not dropped. This is because Chinese mills are stockpiling, getting ready for massive production and rebuilding rush later in year.