We keep getting new cases of coronavirus, which is proving very stubborn. But it’s down to just 230 more in the past 24 hours for a growth rate of 4.4 per cent, after going as high as 35 per cent. The death toll still stands at 28. Models used by experts to predict we could run out of emergency beds by tomorrow now seem very wrong.
The ABC this week published this fake headline, just as the High Court may rule George Pell innocent of rape: “Two new accusers say George Pell abused them when they were boys.” ABC staff joined the pile on, but Quadrant now quotes one “new” accuser: “[In] 2005,… Mr Clarke… said he loved growing up in the boy’s orphanage. ‘It was great fun.’”
It wouldn’t matter what race people called themselves – unless politicians were mad enough to say it did: “A bitter feud… has split the traditional owners of north east Victoria, with a prominent elder accused of fabricating his Indigenous ancestry and rival First Nations squaring off in the Supreme Court over a $33.7 million land dispute.”
It’s bizarre. Hundreds of thousands of Australians are losing their jobs, yet we still need to change rules to get foreigners to pick our fruit: “Overseas employees working in agriculture will be able to extend their visas to keep living and working in Australia during the coronavirus pandemic.” What happened to mutual obligation in this crisis?
Bob Carr on the coronavirus crisis: “If capitalism is so good, why does it need socialism to save it every decade?” Actually, if socialism is so good, why does capitalism keep replacing it? And Carr confuses temporary with permanent: “It’s conservatives themselves junking Bill Clinton’s 1996 observation that ‘the era of big government is over’.”
Will this be the winner in the race for a vaccine?: “Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have developed a potential vaccine administered by a fingertip-sized patch to neutralize the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19.” The hitch: like all potential vaccines, it’s probably 12-18 months away.
I’ve backed bans on gatherings and restaurants, and want tougher quarantine rules. But some newer bans seem a wild overreaction that will undermine faith in the social distancing rules we need. Why has Victoria banned fishing as a health hazard on one side of the Murray, while NSW thinks it’s healthy on the other? We debated it on The Bolt Report.
Good news. We’ve slowed the spread of the coronavirus to (on Friday) just 4 per cent. That’s had the Prime Minister dropping hints that some bans could be eased sooner than six months. But I repeat: we can’t ease them before we step up quarantine, protection of the elderly and isolation of Aboriginal communities. My editorial from The Bolt Report.
Tell us the news. Good news especially.
On The Bolt Report on Sky at 7pm: No fishing? Fines for being alone in your car in the country? Do bans like that really “save lives” or have officials gone too far? Plus the first hint from Scott Morrison that the draconian restrictions may not have to last six months. Plus whisky with a famous mate who sure has been buggered around.
Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/journalists/andrew-bolt/page/168