COVID-19 Trends in QLD, Australia, UPDATED Sat 4th April , 1st post March 21 2020

UPDATED 4/2 2 weeks ago we were at a few hundred cases and the trends suggested we would be at 1000 cases today. in Qld . Well were are actually at 900 cases, which is a bit better than expected. It seems the social distancing has worked. We have hit a new challenge now though, there are cases in the community now with no identifiable source, meaning there are others out there as well. So we move to containment phase…lets hope complacency doesn’t sink in

1/4 Creeping up on two weeks since first post…/5 and nudging the prediction of 1000 cases by then too 🙁

One the bright side the rate of new cases is steady

29/5

The growth in news cases has held steady for the past week …maybe its even dropping? Well done Qld!

27/5 Is growth slowing with the contain policies of the STAte Government…only the weeks ahead will tell. Can we keep our cases to 1000, rather than 5000?

25/5 There are likely ~5000 cases in the Qld community (assuming a 2 week delay until its measured). With a population of 5M in Qld, that’s 1 in 1000 cases. So any time you are coming into contact with surfaces that have close to this volume of people you are likely exposed. If the numbers are smaller eg your corner shop only has 200 customers a day, then thats a 20% chance.

24/4 See https://sabelconsult.com/c19/ for local information resources(its a bit draft at the moment) .

23/3 Qld Cases Updated 23/3. current trend suggests ~1000cases by 1st April. See comments section for a post from a friend in Germany (22/3) and what life is like there (sorry can’t make a link directly to her facebook post)

A post I shared to facebook Saturday 21 March early afternoon (as it will date pretty quickly). If our thinking (and behaviour) can move faster than the virus, we have a chance!. I’m putting it here so it has traceable references to the author, to avoid fake news accusations etc….

DISCLAIMER:

  1. Before you read my rant don’t trust me, instead see my bio and publications to decide if it’s reasonable or not, as this is well outside my primary areas of expertise

2. This is a useful article on the guardian on digesting information https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/22/coronavirus-overload-five-ways-to-fight-misinformation-and-fear

3. This is the primary source of Australian information on stats and epidemiology (updated weekly) https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/novel_coronavirus_2019_ncov_weekly_epidemiology_reports_australia_2020.htm

4. ABC News articles and infographics on cases and sources. Some state by state analysis too (It looks like its going to be updated beyond original publication date too). https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704

Deprecated graph 21st March (see top of page for latest..included here only for traceback purposes)

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Hi Everyone, 

I’ve been tracking the Corona cases in Queensland (not Australia, not Italy, not China) but right here where we live and plotted them up. I have plotted them on something called a log scale (because this lets you see exponential data a bit more easily). On the data I have plotted lines for trends since the start, the last 2 weeks and the last week.

It is pretty clear we will hit 1000 detected cases in two weeks or less. 

When something is detected in 2 weeks time, it means it is likely already in the community RIGHT NOW, but symptoms are not showing yet, but spreading is likely. So taking steps right now to isolate and prevent spread is pretty important. As a community we are only going to be as strong as the most unhygienic amongst us, that we come into contact with, so limiting contact and upping our standard of hygiene is pretty important.

So look I am just a  guy in your street and not a medical person or epidemiologist (though they are saying similar things), but I have also been a research scientist for 30 years and my PhD is in Physics. Argument by authority is all things considered a weak form of argument, so am sticking to the data (except for trend lines)

 I encourage you to look at the data (actual confirmed data)  and the trend lines i drew (decide which one you like) and make up your own mind for the sake of your own family as well as for those in the community you might become a spreader for. I am all for listening to authority but I think that guy, Scotty from marketing is moving too slowly and more concerned about the economy and toilet paper sales (this is actually a slightly unfair emotive statement to make…apologies for that)

Some back of the envelope calculation that helped me decide to keep my oldest home from school this week. Population of Qld is 5, 000, 000, so assuming there are 1, 000 cases that is about 1 in 5000 in the population overall (this isn’t completely tru as the detected ones are isolated). His school is 3, 000 kids so thats almost unity odds that he will be exposed (through desk, chair, hand rail etc… when combined with his not great personal hygiene).

I am hoping the data is wrong, I would love it to be wrong…….

best to all ,

Dan

Triple bottom line Politics.

triplebottomline1There is a real nice idea in accounting called the triple bottom line. The idea here is that you measure in three areas financial, social and environmental and try to achieve a good outcome for all three. Its a really nice idea and gets back to what ‘accounting’ is all about, that is to account for all things, whereas mostly its used as a bit of a dirty work because its most often associated with financial matters only. 

I guess finances are the easiest thing to measure …how much have you got? and you get a nice round number. Measuring social and environmental indicators is a bit tougher. There are some indicators such as Bhutan’s happiness index (rather than GDP) but thats another story. 

So onto the political area and in Australia anyway we might easily pigeon hole the LNP, Labour and Greens into each of the triple bottom line areas of  financial, social and environmental respectively. Whats interesting is that each party might over time seek to reach the triple bottom line of balancing all areas ( and ultimately snag more voters ) by steadily iterating towards the centre. We certainly see this with the LNP and Labour parties, with at times, their policies at times being almost indistinguishable. The Greens however, maintaining a somewhat more evangelical stance on the environment, seem less interested in persuing a triple bottom line approach.

For example when we look a compromise agreements around carbon emissions we can certainly LNP and Labour have put forth remarkably similar policies with the Greens  steadfast in not supporting anything that has the remotest sniff of compromise. Sadly as a result carbon emissions are a work in progress…

Interestingly as majors (LNP/Labour) drift slowly to a more balanced perspective, it seems to allow space for more room for the purists focusing on the core areas of financial and social. This room has left opportunities and the rise of the the alt right/ alt left movements, advocacy groups and parties seem to be a direct response to this.

Anyways thats about all the political analysis this swinging voter has in him for the moment.