COVID-19 / Coronavirus

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Great post, useful numbers.
Just for reference to any interested, hypertension is high blood pressure.
Last figure I saw for the US was 30% of Americans suffer hbp.
Best I could find for Australia was over age 18 (2018/19) 34% suffer hbp.
Would be interesting to go through all those comorbidities and see the rates in the general population for both countries.

The Yanks are going to get smashed here. Their diet has been a ticking time bomb. Why has this not been reported on or discussed?
 

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The Yanks are going to get smashed here. Their diet has been a ticking time bomb. Why has this not been reported on or discussed?
Australian nutrition statistics not much better when you scale for population. Childhood obesity for example Aus is significantly worse than USA.

Crazy times, but strong word that a treatment is not far off. And the vaccination will follow.
Is it trade period or can you share your source???
 
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The Yanks are going to get smashed here. Their diet has been a ticking time bomb. Why has this not been reported on or discussed?

Really not sure diet's the biggest marker to be honest.
I know most like to think of USA as homogenous snorters of fried twinkies, but it's super different state to state and you'll see that when you travel. In NYC (my Dad lives there & I've spent considerable time the last 20 years visiting), people on the street will strike you as looking far more European in body build than you'd first imagine. Most seem pretty slim and wear black/grey/white with pale skin that's been hidden from the sun by skyscrapers for years. Hot dog joints and pizza and bagel stores have largely evaporated - not entirely but hugely over the last 10-15 years. Used to be you'd see plenty of walkers with a slice in their hands wandering and munching, now it looks much more like Oz with salads and prepared meals on bistro tables far more common. Even the pushcarts are more scattered, limited.
Fly to Chicago (I lived there 7 years) and while both NY and Chicago have the same magnificent energy - Chi-town FAAAAR prettier with more extraordinary architecture if you're ever visiting from Oz - and you are struck by how fat the midwest looks. People eat worse, stodgier, midwest constitutions....visit the shores of Lake Michigan in summer and you stuggle to spot a good looking 'bod'.
Keep flying and you end up in Cali, and it changes dramatically again. And I mean dramatically. Healthy eating and organic and walking or enjoying the outsides is a religion. Similar if you head north into Oregon or even further to Washington. It's amazing how much the US feels like a bunch of different countries.
And yet the Virus is hitting and killing pretty proportionately when factoring in for the 2 different strains that are believed to have hit the country. West Coast got much luckier and while receiving the first wave, it was a lighter hitting virus. A ramped up strain hit NY & NJ as well as Chicago and has resulted in higher death rates.

While undeniable that overall health is hugely important in fighting any disease, when you look globally at what the Corona Virus has done in China, Italy, Spain, England, Iran and the USA, it has killed at approx similar percentages irrespective of the hugely different diets and lifestyles enjoyed in each country.
 
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Well, that's great for the kids then..they can just transmit it to every other single person in their 26 in a room class, and then they can all go home and give it to everyone else.

Fantastic solution, opening the schools then. Unless there is CONCLUSIVE PROOF that children do not trasnmit the illness, opening schools is the single dumbest idea I can think of. A good chance of undoing all the containment of the last five weeks.

Surely this is obvious?
Single dumbest idea would be reopening international travel and next dumbest would be mass indoor and outdoor gatherings
 
Really not sure diet's the biggest marker to be honest.

I am making the assumption that some of those co-morbidities were lifestyle-related. Not all the cases of Hypertension, Diabetes, Hyperlipidemia and AF may have been weight-related. The COPD sufferer may not have been tobacco-related. Renal disease, again there is a real good chance lifestyle played a part.

I do not believe in a coincidence of this magnitude. If you can impact these illnesses by changing your lifestyle why wouldn't you?

This flu is killing the economy and our future. Take every step to beat it. Or wait for a magic pill.
 
I am making the assumption that some of those co-morbidities were lifestyle-related. Not all the cases of Hypertension, Diabetes, Hyperlipidemia and AF may have been weight-related. The COPD sufferer may not have been tobacco-related. Renal disease, again there is a real good chance lifestyle played a part.

I do not believe in a coincidence of this magnitude. If you can impact these illnesses by changing your lifestyle why wouldn't you?

This flu is killing the economy and our future. Take every step to beat it. Or wait for a magic pill.
Exercise and diet works to prevent these diseases but not sure you can cure them through lifestyle change.
 
Single dumbest idea would be reopening international travel and next dumbest would be mass indoor and outdoor gatherings

Government has not banned all travel. reduced number of planes are still leaving and arriving daily.

afaik:

australian citizens and residents can come here, just 14 days expenses paid quarantine in a hotel of their choice (not sure where new migrants fit in)

non residents - blocked from all countries but exemptions can be applied for quarantine applies. Yachties? not known
overseas students may be allowed under federal stage 3 lifting

Australian citizens and residents cannot leave except from a very narrow reasons - aid workers etc. Students? the european uni season starts in september 2020: these people are unlikely to return until june 2021 at the earliest - surely a very small risk of importing CV19 soon

non australians? free to leav as long as the destination country is accepting arrivals

Dual citizens? something to find out


Funny how the state premiers are being blasted over details/inconsistencies, but in the federal sphere? not so much.

Our economy will not recover until international travel is resolved - either by bilateral agreements or health passports. NZ will not fix our economy - it may help theirs

I reject the notion that one is being frivolous merely for wanting answers. but its very common in this situation. My requirements = ultra important. your requirements = frivolous
 
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Exercise and diet works to prevent these diseases but not sure you can cure them through lifestyle change.
We tax booze and smokes. Need to tax calories. At the moment we are de facto subsidizing a bad diet.

Orange juice has had its health rating lowered from 5 stars to 1. It got slammed for high sugar. OJ producers are pushing back. Be an interesting one to watch.
 
We tax booze and smokes. Need to tax calories. At the moment we are de facto subsidizing a bad diet.

Orange juice has had its health rating lowered from 5 stars to 1. It got slammed for high sugar. OJ producers are pushing back. Be an interesting one to watch.

How is it cheap lemonade can be sold in supermarkets less than bottled water?
 

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We tax booze and smokes. Need to tax calories. At the moment we are de facto subsidizing a bad diet.

Orange juice has had its health rating lowered from 5 stars to 1. It got slammed for high sugar. OJ producers are pushing back. Be an interesting one to watch.
Yeah I was well into adulthood before I realised premium orange juice was just regular orange juice with more sugar in it 😡😡😡
 
I am making the assumption that some of those co-morbidities were lifestyle-related. Not all the cases of Hypertension, Diabetes, Hyperlipidemia and AF may have been weight-related. The COPD sufferer may not have been tobacco-related. Renal disease, again there is a real good chance lifestyle played a part.

I do not believe in a coincidence of this magnitude. If you can impact these illnesses by changing your lifestyle why wouldn't you?

This flu is killing the economy and our future. Take every step to beat it. Or wait for a magic pill.

I think lifestyle might help at the very very edges....but a corona virus that passes through respiratory aerosolization, that we have zero immunity to - being a novel virus, that is highly effective at binding to our cells....again, this aint flu, it's a SARS virus. It's very effing badass.

I highlighted the countries I did because of the enormous variation not just in diet, but lifestyle.

Your premise of better health lifestyle is absolutely correct as an overall truism for how we should as a species be treating our bodies and maximizing well being, life expectancy, cost to community, etc.

I just don't think that any changes we make midstream right now would make more than a scat of difference. You don't even have universal or overwhelming community support for those changes, as most like their Tim Tams and remote controls more than their kids.
Good luck imposing any substantial change that would be seen and labelled as overreach from freedom to do as I choose constituents. Your best avenue to change is continued financial pain for making the unhealthy choice, such as ten fold increase taxation on ciggies which you could apply to high sugar high salt foods.
Making people take a walk daily or perfect the plank is pie in the sky......which sounds particularly yum to be honest.... o_O
 
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I have all looked with suspicion at the PRC covid-19 figures and that really weird and somewhat unnatural graph of cases that suddenly goes dead flat. - Foreign Policy claims they have obtained a leaked database detailing 600,000+ cases in China
Leaked Chinese Virus Database Covers 230 Cities, 640,000 Updates

It could be disinformation, but I suspect it is closer to the truth than the party line. If true the PRC narrative could really fall apart.

The USA is looking to reduce restrictions, when it really doesn't appear to be ready yet. Could they reach 200,000 deaths? What a disaster.

We should be very proud of our achievement here and we have to be careful not to squander it after the hard work we have put in. Let's hope the easing of restriction go well and we might see footy in June.
 
I have all looked with suspicion at the PRC covid-19 figures and that really weird and somewhat unnatural graph of cases that suddenly goes dead flat. - Foreign Policy claims they have obtained a leaked database detailing 600,000+ cases in China
Leaked Chinese Virus Database Covers 230 Cities, 640,000 Updates

It could be disinformation, but I suspect it is closer to the truth than the party line. If true the PRC narrative could really fall apart.

The USA is looking to reduce restrictions, when it really doesn't appear to be ready yet. Could they reach 200,000 deaths? What a disaster.

We should be very proud of our achievement here and we have to be careful not to squander it after the hard work we have put in. Let's hope the easing of restriction go well and we might see footy in June.
I think there is basically no way to trust any commentary on China, regardless of country of origin but particularly from the US or from China itself. There are huge political agendas playing out in everything we see being published so best to ignore it entirely.

But yes, the political pressure to reduce restrictions in the US could be catastrophic (hope not). Never ever doubt how lucky we are to live in Australia.

EDIT: It should be noted that the US isn't the worst performing country. When we control for the health of the population (using hospital beds per 10 thousand of population under the assumption a nation supplies as many beds as it requires to treat its population, noting that it is also influenced by government policy and national income) we can see there are worse performing nations. The redline indicates the frontier of worst performing countries. The US isn't actually close to the frontier but it is a very big population which distorts the measures. Hotspots like NY would probable look far worse than the national average but I haven't run the numbers. We are absolutely starring.

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I think there is a perception the US should be one of the best in the world, not the worst by total cases and highest number of deaths. It is a terrible indictment of their system, with failures at all level.

Beds per head of population can be a difficult number as what counts as bed varies all over the world. Bed availably is probably a better measure with respect to true capacity issues. We made extra bed availability here by reducing electives and increasing bed stock. I'm not sure if any new beds were commissioned. Luckily we haven't needed most of them.
 
The USA aren't going to be in the top 20 countries for deaths per capita.

Most countries are going to be dramatically under reporting things (some just making it up)

And think of all the countries that are not equipped to deal with a pandemic. Here's one report from this morning:

Hundreds die in Yemen of suspected coronavirus

More than 500 people have died over the past eight days in southern Yemen’s main city, Aden, many with breathing difficulties, raising fears the coronavirus is spreading out of control, feeding off a civil war that has left the country in ruin...

One gravedigger told The Associated Press he'd never seen such a constant flow of dead - in a city that has seen multiple bouts of bloody street battles during more than five years of war. Condolence messages for deaths in Aden have streamed out on Twitter and other social media for days. Some report multiple deaths within a single family.
With little protective equipment, health personnel are terrified of infection. Many medical facilities in Aden have closed as staffers flee. Others turn patients away. No one is answering a hotline set up by UN-trained Rapid Response Teams created to test suspected cases at home, residents and officials say.
 
People wanting to travel from the USA will be refused for years to come.

The USA currently has 1.1 million known active cases. These are people who have been tested. The USA does not have a socialist health system, unlike just about every other western country. So the 1.1 million will be multiplied by 5 to take in those that cannot pay to go to hospital.

At minimum the USA has 7 million people infected.
 
People wanting to travel from the USA will be refused for years to come.

The USA currently has 1.1 million known active cases. These are people who have been tested. The USA does not have a socialist health system, unlike just about every other western country. So the 1.1 million will be multiplied by 5 to take in those that cannot pay to go to hospital.

At minimum the USA has 7 million people infected.
They need to rally more

“Don’t tell me what to do, I’m an American”
 
Lets just hope that sanity will prevail & that both the UK & the USA with highest cases & deaths are not fast tracked to travel to in both directions!
 

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