I agree there seems little point in prolonging a discussion about who has the worst situation, although you must admit that countries like Italy and Spain were slow to introduce lockdown and the virus raged uncontrolled until they did. Interesting reading about herd immunity from epidemiologists by the way. It seems to be a bit of a fallacy since it requires 70 percent of the population to be infected, with 10 percent requiring hospitalisation and a 1 to 2 percent death rate depending on who you believe. This sort of scenario in any country would bring it to its knees and destroy the economy more than any lockdown. Imagine 70 percent of people in Australia on sick leave....

really hope I can book a trip sometime early next year, not expecting sco mo letting us out till then.

Any re-opening of anything is always going to be strictly monitored with the government ready to pull the curtain down again at a moments notice.

The lack of news reporting on Covid-19 lately, especially when compared to the tidal wave of news when it first occurred, is leading people to believe that it has somehow gone away or is somehow less dangerous or less of an issue than it was. I'd even go so far as to say that it's leading many people to think that the initial response was simply a mistaken over-reaction.

There are numerous cases around the world of countries easing their lock-downs only for cases to immediately start spiking again.

I know people just want things to get back to normal but it isn't going to happen any time soon if you ask me. Nobody can be sure quite why Cambodia has seemingly escaped the worst of it up until now, but whatever it is, nobody can argue that it seems to be working, and nobody is going to be in any hurry to fix what doesn't (at the moment) seem to be broken.

Sorry to say but I think we're a long way off from any ending in sight right now.

lagrange wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 3:55 pm I agree there seems little point in prolonging a discussion about who has the worst situation, although you must admit that countries like Italy and Spain were slow to introduce lockdown and the virus raged uncontrolled until they did. Interesting reading about herd immunity from epidemiologists by the way. It seems to be a bit of a fallacy since it requires 70 percent of the population to be infected, with 10 percent requiring hospitalisation and a 1 to 2 percent death rate depending on who you believe. This sort of scenario in any country would bring it to its knees and destroy the economy more than any lockdown. Imagine 70 percent of people in Australia on sick leave....

Spain and Japan have the oldest populations but Japan’s healthcare is much better plus they were more prepared.

Anyway. As I said it’s not possible for countries to remain locked down like they are. It will bankrupt them.
People, media, governments all get bored and in six months this’ll all be a distance memory and they’ll be a lot of questions but not about China but about why it was such a fuck up.