This is the second in what will probably end up being a series of lists providing a brief overview (with links to more detailed explanations) of the corruption of the…
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Some people seem to think that Scott Morrison is doing ‘a good job’ dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. How can we tell? We only have other countries with which to…
The curve has become flatter. It needs to be like this so it doesn’t overtax our health system. We have made model observations. We’re now at about reproduction factor 1 … that is an average of one person infecting another one. If we get to the point where everybody infects 1.1 people, then by October, we will reach the capacity level of our health system with the assumed numbers of intensive care beds. If we get to 1.2 people, so everyone is infecting 20 percent more. Out of 5 people, one infects two and the rest one, then we will reach the limit of our health care system in July. And if it’s up to 1.3 people, then in June we will reach the limits of our health system. So, that’s where you can see how small the margin is, and the whole evolution is based on the fact that we assume that we have an infection figure that we can monitor; that we can track. But it is this ice … or a fragile situation or really a situation where caution is the order of the day, and not overconfidence.
Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all.
Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over 800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts [serial killer] Whitman’s rifle and [serial killer] Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
If this is true here at home, so it is true elsewhere in world.
Two months on, that anxiety has not gone, although it’s also been joined by a sense of sadness. It’s now clear that so many people have died, and so many more are desperately ill, simply because our politicians refused to listen to and act on advice. Scientists like us said lock down earlier; we said test, trace, isolate. But they decided they knew better.
Now that the Australian coronavirus ‘curve’ seems to be flattening1, we run the risk of becoming complacent, or even worse, having disgraceful ignoramuses like Alan Jones2, assorted other Murdoch hacks3,…
Weird drivel is expected from some of the far right in the US, and in this pandemic, microphone bully Glen Beck did not disappoint, when he said that old people…
Yesterday, I saw someone on television stating that out in public, people do not need to wear face masks, something that has been in the media for some time1. This…
Now with the numbers of COVID-19 cases in Australia well over 5,300, and despite the rate of growth of recorded cases starting to ease off, the number of new cases…