Chris Mitchell and Sara Belligoni explore why Italy has a far higher rate of dying from the coronavirus than Australia. Factors: more sociable, more smokers, older, more antibiotic resistance, higher retirement age, more density of living. And the old are more likely to live with their children. Read on: we’re not about to become another Italy.
Tell us the news here, as Australians are confined to home detention: “A limit [has been] imposed of only two people gathering in public spaces, older citizens urged to stay at home and children banned from playgrounds.” Do we really not have the brains to find a better way?
It’s too soon to say if we’ve overreacted to the coronavirus in Australia, yet with just 16 deaths so far, it’s easy to think this virus has caused less suffering than our panicked reaction to it, writes Andrew Bolt.
If we keep our blunderbuss approach of closing business and self-isolating, the suffering from coronavirus will be enormous. So here are five reasons why we can stop forcing millions of fit, young and frustrated Aussies to stay home, writes Andrew Bolt.
Good news: of all countries with more than 1500 confirmed cases of coronavirus, only Israel has a lower mortality rate than Australia. This suggests we are doing a lot that’s right – but, counterintuitively, also suggests it’s now time for an urgent shift to prevent other great suffering.
What police have to put up with is astonishing. Spitting and the new tribalism included.
Forget all those sanitisers. The humble bar of soap, plus hot water, is the potent weapon against the coronavirus. I didn’t realise how good soap was until I read about its molecular structure – and its wicked tail that cracks through the virus’s fat layers that protects the poison inside. Read this and you’ll never take soap for granted again.
Politicians are destroying thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of jobs to stop a virus that has so far killed just 14 people and is less deadly than first thought. It must change tack fast before it leaves our economy a smoking ruin. This virus is dangerous but there is a better way to fight it. My editorial from The Bolt Report.
We must learn from Taiwan – now. It has around our population but has recorded just 235 confirmed cases of coronavirus and two deaths. Even more remarkably, it’s done this without closing shops, offices, restaurants and markets. Mat Carney has just returned and describes its remarkable success – and our astonishing slackness. Watch.
More encouraging news. The rise in new cases of coronavirus in Australia – 406 since 3pm yesterday – is still too high, but the rate of increase is the lowest in weeks: 12.8 per cent. One more death, of a 91-year-old woman, brings our toll to 14. But the death rate among those infected here is about the lowest in the world: under 0.4 per cent.
Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/journalists/andrew-bolt/page/166