What's Your Thought on The Current Covid-19 Economic Situation?

ThisUniverse on 26/04/2020 - 12:43

With the current news stating that the unemployemnt rate will rise upto 10% in end of June, what do you think when the economy will start to get better again?

The Jokkeeper salary will be terminated on Sep 2020 and that's when the Jobseeker payment will be cut as well.

With all these things happening, the new rental properties are redicing their advertised rent by 10% now and there is a marginal amount of drop in property selling price. When do you think the economy will start to pick up again and the house prices will start to go up?

Financial

Comments

    • JimmyF on 26/04/2020 - 14:57
      +76

      The sooner the covid cases spike and the sooner the health system is overloaded? Cool.

        • JimmyF on 26/04/2020 - 15:34
          +89

          A disease isn’t going to go away just because people stay at home

          Ummm no it has been 'going away' because people have been staying at home. Infection rates are down, cases are down. The longer people stay at home the more chance we have at finding all cases. Once Australia is covid-19 case free, everyone can return to work etc, go to the movies etc.

          It takes 1 case in the wild for it to start spreading again.

          The longer people are forced to stay at home the worse it will get.

          Poor things, take one for the team….. Have you not read the news overseas? If this goes unchecked, it'll blow up with cases everywhere and dead people everywhere as well.

          You really want to be like new york or italy?

          We’ve plenty of beds for those that need them.

          WOW we have 30k beds… Cool. So enough for the current caseload.

          But there are 25m people in australia, lets say 10% get it, so thats 2.5M people, of them say 10% of them need a bed, so thats 250k beds…. How many did we have again?

          • whooah1979 on 26/04/2020 - 16:23
            +10

            @JimmyF:

            Once Australia is covid-19 case free,

            This may never happen without a vaccine or a cure. It may show up from time to time until there is a vaccine.

            • JimmyF on 26/04/2020 - 18:52
              +4

              @whooah1979:

              This may never happen without a vaccine or a cure

              While we have a infect rate stays under 1, it means the virus is spreading less than the infected rate, so over time it should hit no case.

              • mrvaluepack on 27/04/2020 - 16:37
                +13

                @frewer: Virus are not living things. Just a bit of dna encapsulated in protein.

                • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 00:39
                  +5

                  @mrvaluepack: RNA in this case ;)

                • belongsinforums on 28/04/2020 - 22:41

                  @mrvaluepack: if it's a case of living or non living, thats arguable and depends on the definition of living

                  • mrvaluepack on 29/04/2020 - 11:27
                    +2

                    @belongsinforums: Its pretty black and white actually, all living things require energy or sustanance to survive or reproduce. A virus requires neither, in the right conditions it can "live" forever just like a rock sitting there.

                    • AnophthalmiaCervidae on 29/04/2020 - 15:11
                      -1

                      @mrvaluepack: Not really so black and white, the question of viruses being alive being distinctly in the gray area.

                      None of the three references you quote above actually conclusively state that virusus are not alive.

                      The first reference:

                      it depends on what your definition of "alive" is

                      The second reference:

                      Taking opposing views, two microbiologists discuss how viruses fit with the concept of being ‘alive’ and how they should be defined.

                      One guy here argues that they are not alive, one argues that they are alive.

                      First line in the third reference:

                      Scientists are not sure whether viruses are living or non-living.

                      The way I see it, the definition of "kill" is to cause the death of a living thing.

                      So if the medical experts tell us that hand sanitiser with 70% alcohol will "kill" the virus it must be alive to begin with.

                      • mrvaluepack on 30/04/2020 - 11:54
                        +1

                        @AnophthalmiaCervidae: People use kill because its easier to say that than destroy, removed or deactivated. So when my virus protection program on my computer says it has found and killed some viruses, were those virus alive?

                • Thaal Sinestro on 30/04/2020 - 10:16
                  -1

                  @mrvaluepack: I would argue that they are alive since they reproduce, unlike rocks. They can also evolve (ie via mutation). They are a type of parasite, like bacteria that are classed as "obligate pathogens": "Obligate pathogens are those bacteria that must cause disease in order to be transmitted from one host to another. These bacteria must also infect a host in order to survive, in contrast to other bacteria that are capable of survival outside of a host."

                  • mrvaluepack on 30/04/2020 - 12:04
                    +1

                    @Thaal Sinestro: They dont really reproduce, its more replicating itself. There is no "offspring" as such and no growth phase/cycle, just an exact same replica. They also dont need energy or water to sustain itself. Those obligate bacteria you mentioned does the opposite of all of the above.

                  • trapper on 01/05/2020 - 00:13
                    -1

                    @Thaal Sinestro:

                    I would argue that they are alive since they reproduce, unlike rocks.

                    Is a 3D printer alive if it can print a copy of itself and 'reproduce'?

                    • AnophthalmiaCervidae on 01/05/2020 - 12:26
                      -1

                      @trapper:

                      Is a 3D printer alive if it can print a copy of itself and 'reproduce'?

                      If a 3D printer was programmed with set of instructions that could tell it how to keep going and how to reproduce itself, and was able to "parasite" from somewhere the energy and material required to print copies of itself on its own and continue spreading then I would argue that it would be pretty damn close.

                      Again it depends on your definition of "alive".

                      What if the 3D printer could then mutate/evolve?
                      What if it became self aware?
                      What if decendents of this 3D printer travel back in time to kill a woman in a bid to stop her future son from waging war against 3D printers of the future unless the course of history is altered?

                      Sounds like an good idea for a movie…

          • DingoBilly on 26/04/2020 - 17:37
            +7

            @JimmyF: Waiting for it to disappear completely means either a vaccine or maybe a year of isolation and maintaining no international travel for even longer than that.

            Economy is unsustainable to be kept closed for that long and people's lives would be significantly adversely affected mores than treating the issues as they arise and controlling it while lifting restrictions.

            • JimmyF on 26/04/2020 - 19:02
              +12

              @DingoBilly:

              maybe a year of isolation and maintaining no international travel for even longer than that.

              News flash….. international travel won't be happening this year and maybe well into next year. As you said, this isn't going to disappear completely worldwide until a vaccine is found.

              Australia has a very good chance ATM, along with NZ of getting its cases down to near zero, so we can resume 'normal' life and leave the borders closed. Either way the borders will remain closed until this is resolved worldwide.

              Economy is unsustainable to be kept closed for that long and people's lives would be significantly adversely affected

              The economy is stuffed either way, you leave it locked down or you let everyone out and it goes wild. You think new york or italy's economy are roaring along during this outbreak? They have ground to a halt as well.

              If left unchecked, people's lives would be significantly adversely affected by having family members die as well, so which one is less 'evil?

              • DingoBilly on 27/04/2020 - 15:07
                -7

                @JimmyF: You said it yourself -> "Down to near zero", which means not zero. That means until a vaccine is found effectively we can't really start lifting restrictions because you don't want people to die/hospital beds taken up etc.

                So we could live in quarantine forever and never have to deal with COVID… which is not possible. The alternative is to start lifting restrictions and start dealing with it appropriately. People will die, but that's ok. It won't be a large number and yes, the evils of a few people dying are much worse than having to live with restrictions for many years.

                • ozboygsl on 28/04/2020 - 07:46
                  -8

                  @DingoBilly: yeah….total garbage. AS THE "ORDINARY" FLU CAUSES ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT OF DEATHS AND WE DONT DESTROY THE WORLD ECONOMY FOR THAT THERES NO POINT DOING IT NOW. ALSO, STAYING INSIDE/ISOLATED , OTHER THAN FOR A VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION IS THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO. { TAKING SWEDEN AS AN EXAMPLE}.

            • ozboygsl on 28/04/2020 - 07:47
              -3

              @DingoBilly: Yeah…a vaccine will make this disappear just like it makes the ordinary flu disappear.

              • gromit on 28/04/2020 - 08:41
                +2

                @ozboygsl: No such thing as ordinary flu (that's like saying you have ordinary cancer), The Flu is a generic term for a hundreds of Virus variants. hence why it is virtually impossible to get rid of it. You can be vaccinated for 1 or 5 or 10, but that still leaves hundreds. Each year they try to target the most prevalent with vacinations. Very different scenario to Covid 19.

              • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 12:29

                @ozboygsl: The flu is nothing compared to C19.

                But if we did do a similar global lock-down and quarantines for ordinary flu it might well disappear, especially when considering we have the vaccine.

        • GG57 on 26/04/2020 - 15:36
          +4

          We have sufficient beds, because of the restrictions and the effect that has in minimising the peaks in case numbers.
          Correct that the virus will not go away; but if patient numbers are at manageable levels then the rate of deaths is lessened.

          • JimmyF on 26/04/2020 - 19:12
            +6

            @bigticket:

            unlikely development of a vaccine

            I do agree this is going to be unlikely as well, but there are some promising trials underway but the harsh fact is, we haven't created a successful vaccine to a coronavirus yet.

            The faster this happens without overloading the heath care system the sooner the virus can be defeated and some form of normality return.

            So your viewpoint is we kill 200k+ people, because you can't wait a few months?

            How long do you think your plan would take to happen?

            We currently have only 1,089 active cases, and seeing under 20 new cases a day for the entire country, with the current transmission rate average under 1, it means more people are getting better (or dying) than new infections occurring.

            The path out of this is to sit tight and squash those last infections out, rather than let it go wild and infect millions.

              • JimmyF on 26/04/2020 - 20:54
                +3

                @bigticket:

                Siting tight to squash the pandemic shows a lack of understanding of what we as a society are facing.

                Not at all, we are at a crossroad. Extremely low cases, we can squash it if we want to.

                As a 'society' that means sitting tight longer and that means keeping our borders closed.

                Either path, squashing it or letting it run wild, will mean the economy is stuffed for 6 months or more.

                I think a lack of understanding is people thinking it is magically going to return to normal in a few weeks once we let it go wild.

                The pandemic will infect the majority of the population no matter what steps are taken.

                That is not true. There are other paths. We are an island, so controlling the border is easy compared to other places, once we have it under control.

                The problem is, covid-19 is so new, the long term effects getting having it are unknown. There is lots of concerns about the damage done to people who get it, scarring on the lungs for example.

                • bigticket on 26/04/2020 - 21:29
                  -1

                  @JimmyF: I understand and sympathise your concerns. The untold costs that will unfold are real. I am afraid to say that this is not how a pandemic works. It is not quashed by any measures. It will remain in the wild until the virus spreads and herd immunity is reached and this is by definition of what a pandemic is.

                  • JimmyF on 26/04/2020 - 22:11
                    +4

                    @bigticket:

                    herd immunity is reached

                    Things they don't even know if are true. There is lots of debate if this will even work, as they don't know how long the antibodies last for in the body. For example influenza antibodies don't last very long in the body, hence why it comes around each year.

                    this is by definition of what a pandemic is.

                    We are in a pandemic state correct, but your logic on solving it is flawed. There is more than one path. "everyone must get it" to get out of this isn't the only path.

                    The untold costs that will unfold are real.

                    These untold costs will happen regardless of the path taken. There is no 'cheap' path here.

                    • bigticket on 26/04/2020 - 22:57
                      -2

                      @JimmyF: There are only two known paths. Vaccine or herd immunity. It was herd immunity that ended the spanish flu. Squashing it is impossible. Don't take my word for it, do your own research.

                      What other paths are you taking about?

                      • edwardye on 27/04/2020 - 01:33
                        +1

                        @bigticket: Before the Vaccine is available.

                        keep the additional case at zero for 2 weeks. then australis is covid-19 free.
                        with restricted border control. we will have a good chance to keep everyone healthy.

                        on the other hand, if we decide to give up those old or illness population then we could just act normal and boost the economy.
                        I think this is what USA plans to do. Potentially it will be better for the Economy.

                      • od810 on 27/04/2020 - 07:29
                        +5

                        @bigticket: I am so sick of this argument. HIV never had vaccine but it is pretty much cured. The total number of death is not a constant; better preparedness, better treatments will help a long the track. If CoVid-19 is like common cold, you will never have herd immunity nor vaccine. So don't pretend like you know everything.

                        • bigticket on 27/04/2020 - 13:29

                          @od810: What argument. I have not seen it bandied about in this forum.

                          "cured"

                          Depends on your definition of cured. If its getting infected and taking drugs the rest of your life, then ok. Not my definition. There is still no cure and its been ~40 years since the first case and HIV is continues to be transmitted. Its taken decades to develop treatments. Don't hold your breath on some form of miracle cure any time soon for HIV or covid19.

                          How do you think the spread of the virus is going to be stopped?
                          Herd immunity is inevitable. Thats from the experts, not me.

                          At our current state of treatment, the mortality rate is a real and is a number that accounts for the current deaths around the world. Have a look at the USA and eastern europe.

                          • od810 on 27/04/2020 - 15:46

                            @bigticket: HIV patients now live with the disease for the rest of their life, which like many other diseases. It doesn't affect their life style, compared to many year ago when you have HIV, that's a death sentence. So that's the evidence for 2 things, with certain viruses, you don't the herd immunity and better treatments will emerge. The lockdown is to buy time for better treatments and understanding of the virus. All these herd immunity advocates don't even bother to go to the hospitals or yet try to build their immunity by getting infected. Again, herd immunity usually achieved by vaccine not by infecting the mass population. Have you heard people trying to get herd immunity with Ebola? Good luck with that.

                            • bigticket on 27/04/2020 - 17:35

                              @od810: Don't know why you are harping on about HIV as an example. It took decades to develop the said treatments. We don't have decades up our sleeves for treatments/vaccines. By then its too late.

                              Again, herd immunity usually achieved by vaccine not by infecting the mass population.

                              There is no vaccine available. Again, there is a misconception that the spread of the virus can halted by the measures taken by our governments. This is false. The measures can slow down the spread but eventually the spread is unstoppable.

                              Have you heard people trying to get herd immunity with Ebola? Good luck with that.

                              Ebola is a epidemic. Totally different kettle of fish to a pandemic.
                              You need to know the difference between epidemic and pandemic before making statements like that.

                      • ripesashimi on 27/04/2020 - 11:15
                        +1

                        @bigticket:

                        It was herd immunity that ended the spanish flu

                        Very irrelevant to be honest. There is no intervention study on herd immunity for Covid 19 on people until today, unless we are willing to use people as test subjects. So far there are only politicians and armchair experts throwing around medical terms acting like they are virologists. Many suggestions but no proof of any kind.

                        • bigticket on 27/04/2020 - 13:50

                          @ripesashimi: There are plenty of human studies.

                          Historically: Spanish flu is totally relevant.
                          Current: The Diamond Princess and the Ruby Princess.

                          These ships ended up been unintentional test labs where the subjects have and continue to be studied extensively.

                          The world: Its currently the biggest experiment of all time.

                          • od810 on 27/04/2020 - 15:49

                            @bigticket: I agree, everyone is running experiment right now. It's hard to conclude which one is better. But it's irresponsible to say "let's do herd immunity" and see what it is like. With that kind of mentality, Vaccine doesn't need to take that long to develop, they can just test on you straight away, death or alive it's the same as running this herd immunity experiment.

                            • Chang1992 on 27/04/2020 - 17:11

                              @od810: All you guys should watch this video

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVIGhz3uwuQ

                              • od810 on 27/04/2020 - 20:01

                                @Chang1992: Oh, i am all for lockdown to mitigate the risk of covid-19. People like bigticket keep advocate for this crazy herd immunity which effectively is natural selection. They do have a point on economy, but we don't even know the model like Sweden would work out better. I.e when the infection surges what they are going to do. The pro-herd immunity only cherry picks the one country with social distancing culture, and even then Sweden does bad in every single metric compared to "comparable" countries. Then they argue that the total sum of death is constant so does matter whether it is now or later. Such argument is so terrible.

                            • bigticket on 28/04/2020 - 00:47

                              @od810: Where did I say "let's do herd immunity"?
                              Totally different to my argument and again I have been misquoted. If you reread my comments I'm suggesting herd immunity is going to happen and is out of our control.

                              Vaccine doesn't need to take that long to develop, they can just test on you straight away, death or alive

                              Vaccine is not a cure, its a preventative. Vaccines don't work on the infected. The development of a covid19 vaccine is not going to occur in time to save us.

                          • od810 on 28/04/2020 - 18:45

                            @bigticket: Do you know that everyone in Diamond Princess has immunity or it just happens after they lockdown the whole ship, the spread stop? FYI, death rate of Diamond Princess is 2%. Stop spewing junk argument without anything backing up

                • Zachary on 27/04/2020 - 23:25

                  @JimmyF:

                  We are an island, so controlling the border is easy compared to other places, once we have it under control.

                  Unless you have guards covering the entirety of the coastal shores to make sure no unintended guests dock and unload itself, then no making sure nothing gets out and nothing gets in is pretty hard… And that's just for sea, what about flights? What if someone flies here (or from here) on their private jet, helicopter, plane or whatever? How are you gonna control that? The larger the island, the harder it is to lock it down unless you have enough manpower to do so…

                  • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 00:59

                    @Zachary:

                    The larger the island, the harder it is to lock it down unless you have enough manpower to do so…

                    You put the best controls and monitoring in place that money can buy. Then if some random illegal still brings in the virus we firefight that cluster until we wipe it out, quarantine the effected area or whatever is necessary.

          • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 00:52

            @bigticket: You couldn't be more wrong man, we are going to clean this virus out of Australia and keep the borders tightly controlled with quarantine.

            If you want to get things back to 'normal' any time soon the only hope we have is elimination.

        • HoracePinker on 27/04/2020 - 23:23
          +1

          Everyone always assumes they're not going to die from it. But ask yourself what would you do if you knew you would die when you got it ?

        • berry580 on 28/04/2020 - 00:34

          Got owned…

      • mrvaluepack on 27/04/2020 - 08:30
        +4

        Look at south korea, no lockdown ever. Just mass testing and contact tracing.

        • Wilmotlose on 27/04/2020 - 16:11
          +10

          I'm living in Taiwan and have been since February 14 of this year. Everything has remained open and most things are running as usual including gyms, school and sport. The difference here is that the entire population are committed to preventing the spread of the virus. Everyone wears a face mask whenever in public (except for exercise) and hand sanitizer is everywhere. Thermal cameras are also at most major shopping centers and supermarkets.

          I will say that having a sufficient supply of masks for the entire population does help drastically, as does extremely thorough contact tracing. The borders are also closed here too, which is fundamentally important to keeping active cases at a minimum. Life is good here and hasn't changed too much in the time i've been here, but the continuance of a relatively normal lifestyle relies on the population working together in unity.

          • mrvaluepack on 27/04/2020 - 16:34
            +8

            @Wilmotlose: It also helps when taiwan and mainland china hate each other and China barred its citizens to visit taiwan from mid 2019.

          • od810 on 27/04/2020 - 20:03

            @Wilmotlose: They did contact tracing from the very early day, being on an island helps too. I guess that would be the model Australia will follow once we control the number of cases. Our border will be strictly monitored. That is the only way i can see Australia go back to semi normal

            • brendanm on 28/04/2020 - 07:27
              +1

              @od810: Not only being an island, have you checked our population density? They should have shut down areas of Sydney and Melbourne with high density living, and let others actually live their lives.

              • od810 on 28/04/2020 - 09:42

                @brendanm: If you look at the case distribution in Melbourne for example, there are plenty of cases in "sparse" areas. You can only effectively lockdown certain parts IF you have good contact tracing. The reason they have to lock down the whole thing was because they have many community transmissions without knowing the sources. Taiwan and Singapore (at the early day) can let normal life happen because they did extremely well with contact tracing. Australia missed that opportunity at the beginning and is now trying to fix it by squashing the number down to very low level and re-establish contact tracing with CovidSafe.

          • berry580 on 28/04/2020 - 00:41

            @Wilmotlose: Australians are not recommended to wear face masks by the government, and it became gospel.

            But the government did clarify, if there's mass local transmission, they'll then review the recommendation. How nice!

          • postform on 28/04/2020 - 12:07

            @Wilmotlose: Meanwhile in AusTRSYAYAYYA! "mask are not effective" — March 25

            .. Mid April — HUGE BACKTRACK — "Masks are effective"

            • SlavOz on 01/05/2020 - 11:09

              @postform: Sheesh people need to give the government a break. You're forgetting that they need to manage the behaviour of millions of uncivilised , dependant, and childish people. We didn't have enough face masks to go around and to get them to people living in remote areas would be near impossible. If they declared masks as essential people would've began rioting over them. It was safer to simply focus on other prevention measures instead.

              If you don't believe me, just look at how our people reacted at toilet paper shortages.

              • postform on 01/05/2020 - 12:23

                @SlavOz: No. They are getting top dollar. Of course, they deserve it.

                On one hand, I can applaud Australia for banning Chinese flights early. What I don't is the massive misinformation they've sent even though there was a lot of evidence to the contrary. It's one thing to not know and try something new, it's a whole another to see evidence that it works and just say Nah we're not going to do that.

                Also, one thing that I don't like what the government did earlier on that caused a lot of the behaviour you have said in your comment is the lack of transparency. If they had been more transparent about earlier on and gave more direct information about the virus, what they were going to do (Rather than confusing weird no answers) they would have more Australian behave better. (Disclaimer - I'll give them credit, where it's due. They did get better at it)

        • berry580 on 28/04/2020 - 00:37

          Ok, and is Australia mass testing?

          No did sure we have enough kits.

    • afah0447 on 27/04/2020 - 12:44
      +2

      Thanks Donald.

    • p1 ama on 27/04/2020 - 14:17
      +6

      The sooner the states lifts the lockdowns the sooner businesses can reopen and people can go back to work.

      This is fundamentally true. I don't understand why everyone jumps on and attacks a true statement.

      The conclusion from this is that we should continue to work hard and stay at home over the next few weeks as we're really close to a stage where we can all go back to living a somewhat normal life. The harder we try to stay home and apart now, the likelier it is that we will be able to resume normal life sooner and see an economic recovery sooner.

      It seems everyone is stuck in one of two camps - either (1) the world is going to end and we should stay like this forever, or (2) we should all go back to living a normal life tomorrow. Is it really that hard to understand that the reason why we're currently sacrificing living a normal life is so that we can go back to living a normal life sooner?

      • DingoBilly on 27/04/2020 - 15:09
        +3

        The problem is that in all likelihood, we can't hit zero cases - so we need to start thinking how to appropriately deal with the cases that linger and maintain outbreaks.

        We may get to zero cases, but it seems unlikely unless we stay at home for another good 6 months or so. That would be the death of many businesses and in certain cases people as well.

        • p1 ama on 27/04/2020 - 19:30
          +2

          We may get to zero cases, but it seems unlikely unless we stay at home for another good 6 months or so. That would be the death of many businesses and in certain cases people as well.

          You would be surprised. We're actually getting really close now. Some states have not had any new cases for the past few days. The number of active cases in Australia has been falling for over a month and we're almost below 1,000 active cases in the whole of Australia.

          It's actually very likely that within 2 weeks we'll start seeing more things open, e.g. schools and small social gatherings. It is true that restaurants and bars will probably be takeaway only for a few more months, but we're getting really close.

          • whooah1979 on 27/04/2020 - 20:49

            @p1 ama: This is great news for the NT, WA and QLD.

            https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-lockdown-restr…

          • Kangal on 27/04/2020 - 23:33
            +7

            @p1 ama: TL;DR - It's complex.

            I agree, but want to make a clarification.
            No cases =/= No infection. Many infections are "silent" in that, the symptoms are mild and sufferers do not take care of it. Usually it leads to more spreading until the immune system kicks in, and usually clears it. This takes about a week. So having a week plus a few days post and a few days prior, essentially two weeks, is critical for isolation IN MOST SCENARIOS. Some people are weak, or stressed, or immunocompromised, and it can take much much longer.

            One good analogy is bush fires. Usually an area that was burnt, will not catch fire again. And if you manage to extinguish all the fires, the rest of the forest is free. However, you can extinguish 80% of the fire, but might get spot fires occurring in unburnt areas. And small fires can quickly turn into big ones. Sometimes the best thing to do, is to allow the fire to burn the forest… and that's true for infections too (think "pox parties").

            It all depends on the "details":
            - how much deadwood you have (Aka how infectious it is, or Ro)
            - how dry/strong the conditions/fires are (Aka how bad the symptoms are, or CFR)

            Now it is not true that a life is priceless. One life is not worth all the resources in the world. In fact, all human life combined is not worth all the resources in the world, we have to share it with other animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, viruses, muck and mud. So if an infection is going to cause 1 death, we shouldn't hurt our economy (much) for it. If it is going to cause 2.5 Million deaths (10% of the population), we should hurt our economy to curb it. So the sensible rate lies somewhere in-between these two extremes. And it is sensible to use both the population% and populationQuantity when discussing it. This sounds robotic, but it is not, it's the most human and humane way to tackle such difficult dilemmas.

            We also need to be mindful about intrinsic factors, or knock-on effects. A cure can be worse than the disease, as many amputee and cancer patients and doctors can attest to it. So the disease might only kill 1,000 people directly but indirectly it might cause another 1,000 deaths through violence, suicide, and hunger. Not to mention, it can "kill" by decreasing people's life-expectancy (for simplicity, reducing someone's expected death at 100yo down to 90yo, and when multiplied over 1000 affected people, it has effectively "killed" 100 persons). Besides the quantity of death, there is also the quality of death life, where it could have mild-to-devastating effects both directly and indirectly.

            So all this requires a lot of quality data and information. That requires time. It usually takes 6 months (minimum) to get a clear understanding. We have only seriously started looking into it in Feb March, so its only been 2 months. We do have some data based on the collected data, previous infection studies, and our imagination-postulation.

            There is an argument to be made that we say "stuff it" and allow it to kill as many old people as possible. We can say this helps relieve the strain they have on the economy. It also spreads their concentrated wealth down to the working class / next generation. This phenomenon happens in nature all the time, termed "cull the herd". This is totally logical. It might be right. I do not think so, and many people don't think so. Some leaders past and present do think this though: I am prepared to sacrifice 300 million lives for the victory of the world revolution.

            I guess most of the Westernised Countries are lucky there isn't a plague out there, which is highly infectious and targets mostly the young demographic. From what we've observed Covid19 is the opposite, where it is highly infectious with young people, yet as far as illness and death it affects the elderly in much higher rates. Since, most of these nations have an "ageing population", that means having a contagion that can infect old people yet not harm them much, whilst killing the young, would be a much much worse scenario. It could be a case of old people seeing their children and grandkids very ill, leading to mass depression or "loss of hope". And since it targets the minority, reducing what was already low, has a much larger affect. Imagine a nation with no people younger than 40… there won't be a nation soon, as the old will get older and die but no new generation will succeed them. Or even a plague that causes sterilisation would achieve the same thing. These are morbid things to ponder, but they are not out of the realm of possibility.

            In Conclusion, it is complicated.
            We didn't know much about the virus, its transmission, infectivity rates, mortality rates, knock-on effects etc etc. The less assumptions we need to make, the better we can gauge how serious it is, and how serious our response needs to be. And even now, it's too early to draw much resolution. The most powerful tool we have is to share as much good information around, yet that concept seems to be disregarded by people from certain classes or even certain nation states which leads to slower reaction and elongated disaster period.

            • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 01:10
              -2

              @Kangal: If symptomatic cases are no longer spreading with our current restrictions then neither are any 'silent' cases.

              • Kangal on 28/04/2020 - 07:11
                +1

                @trapper: That's simply false.
                Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

                • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 11:04
                  -1

                  @Kangal: The only absence of evidence is for your argument.

                  We have plenty of evidence the virus spread is being eliminated -> a lot of testing and very-very few new cases begin detected.

                  Where the evidence for your imagined 'silent' spread? You have none.

            • OzCheapo on 28/04/2020 - 08:08

              @Kangal: You plan on writing a thesis about this? :)

              • Kangal on 28/04/2020 - 10:51
                +1

                @OzCheapo: The above comment is so long it is a thesis XD

            • postform on 28/04/2020 - 11:39

              @Kangal: This is going to be super heartless and I apologize for anyone who is affected by COVID-19, not my intent … I genuinely feel for those affected.

              But let's do a devil's advocate approach… logically.. if 10% of our population disppear.. a large majority being those aged over 60… It may actually benefit our world economy.

              How?

              1. Those pass on their wealth to the younger generation, who are more productive and can use it to consume.
              2. Our health system has to spend less tax money on aged care.
              3. People in our society especially the younger generation (Who will contribute more tax for the next 50 years) will be able to fill up higher positions.

              HOWEVER.. disclaimer.. I hope this doesn't happen. But.. just a counter-argument or some thoughts to think about. — It's not about the population or people disappearing it's about who is disappearing. If this affect people between 20-30 the most… then I would say this virus would have HUGE permanent damage to the economy.

              • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 12:34

                @postform:

                Our health system has to spend less tax money on aged care.

                You don't think hospitalising five million people until half of them die will be free do you?

                Unless you were planning to leave them to die in the streets.

                • postform on 28/04/2020 - 12:51
                  +1

                  @trapper: Oh.. Never said its a popular opinion or ethically correct. But… it's not wrong either.

                  And personally I would never like to see this happen in Australia.

                  edit… Talking about long term benefits. Short term sure it costs us. But the long term - Healthcare system is NOT just hospitals you know. A large amount goes into the care of the elderly.
                  Personal note: I love my grandparents so. I do not want to see this.

                  • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 15:18

                    @postform:

                    Oh.. Never said its a popular opinion or ethically correct. But… it's not wrong either.

                    It is wrong though. The cost of millions of critically ill patients would be astronomical.

                  • Thaal Sinestro on 30/04/2020 - 10:25

                    @postform: It would make sense for a leftist government to let Sharonavirus run rampant, but not for conservatives since most of their voters are oldies. In any case, in 20 years time it will be impossible for conservatives to win in a Western country since younger people (Milennial, Gen Z) are skewing increasingly to the left and seem unlikely to embrace conservativism at a later age.

              • S2 on 28/04/2020 - 12:47

                @postform: According to wikipedia, Colonel Sanders attempted to franchise KFC at age 65. I couldn't imagine a world where he was sacrificed for having lower future value and we miss out on KFC.

                • postform on 28/04/2020 - 12:52
                  +1

                  @S2: Hahaha true! But just saying! Also, Colonel Sanders didn't make much. Some other capital ventures took his brand and made billions leaving him with nothing.

  • [Deactivated] on 26/04/2020 - 12:50
    +4

    I think your first question is when borders will be opened again. Australia and NZ may be self sufficient quite early, but the economy will be shot until things open up internationally. Exporting will be quite difficult, too, with the cost of freight going through the roof and huge delays. Australia and NZ will also be more prone than other countries to later lockdowns due to our low current infection rate. We might be taking our medicine well after the rest of the world has adjusted.

    • oztite on 27/04/2020 - 10:20
      +16

      I disagree about the border and economy. I think borders can be shut for long term. Majority of people travelling overseas let's be honest are for holiday purpose. Even the "business trips" are, let's face it, mostly for holiday purposes. Unless your physical hands are required at a foreign location to conduct a business, you don't need to take business travel. Now the executives that attend Davos would say their physical presence is essential - it's not.

      For the rest of the travel - family reasons, immigration etc. these can be quarantined for 2 weeks on arrival with vigorous PCR testing.

      Now, if most of us travel within Australia and New Zealand then we can keep our border shut and stimulate local economy. The people that cannot survive without going to Aspen however will argue that "economy will collapse with borders shut". I would very much like these people to back this up with an example. Importing and exporting goods there is no issue - again leave the content in quarantine for 3 days and we are good.

      • Nebargains on 27/04/2020 - 13:53
        +4

        I disagree about the border and economy. I think borders can be shut for long term.

        What about all the tourism TO Australia? Tourism industry cannot survive on local tourism alone, many jobs will simply be lost, the contribution to the economy that those tourists make also shouldn't just be dismissed.

        It all takes its toll.

        • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 01:15
          +4

          What about all the tourism TO Australia? Tourism industry cannot survive on local tourism alone, many jobs will simply be lost, the contribution to the economy that those tourists make also shouldn't just be dismissed.

          Yeah well you can forget about any international tourism (aside from maybe NZ) for the foreseeable future.

          If those jobs can't survive on the domestic market they are gone, nothing can be done about this unfortunately. We will have a lot more domestic tourists though, people will still want to go holiday somewhere, and the only choice is home.

          • Ievgen on 28/04/2020 - 19:03
            +1

            @trapper: Makes sense to me. International tourism can be considered as gone for a while. On the plus side I think more Ozzie’s would travel domestically. Luckily we’ve got very beautiful country with places to visit for a lot of tastes. I really feel for those international destinations where Australians used to go and where the majority of income was from tourism. That’s where it will be really tough (and likely already is).

            • trapper on 29/04/2020 - 13:01

              @Ievgen: I'll definitely be travelling more domestically.

              I mean there are loads of domestic holidays on my to-do list which are all at the top now that I can't go overseas.

  • dcep on 26/04/2020 - 13:34
    +3

    the house prices will start to go up?

    i think this is your main question ?

    house price = credit availability (how much ppl can borrow)

    if banks loosen mortgage lending = house price up

    if banks tighten mortgage lending = house price stagnant / down

    if everyone can get a homeloan, house price will still go up no matter how shit the economy is

    • mskeggs on 26/04/2020 - 15:04
      +8

      So very unlikely to see house price rises in the next few years in my opinion.

      • dcep on 26/04/2020 - 19:09
        +6

        money printer goes brrrrrr~~~

        https://i.redd.it/h7bdffj8gqr41.png

        stocks go up and defies gravity despite earnings down the drain, who are we to say they can't do the same to housing

        • mskeggs on 26/04/2020 - 19:40
          +2

          You don't need a job to buy stocks. Very hard to get financing when you are stood down.

        • bawdygeorge on 27/04/2020 - 08:04

          No, not a money printer. Most of that increase in the RBA’s balance sheet is just sitting in banks’ ES accounts at the RBA. You should learn the difference between money supply and monetary base.

          And sure, the equity market in Australia is up around 15% from its low point… but it’s still 25% down from its peak.

      • trapper on 28/04/2020 - 01:17
        +4

        Practically zero immigration will have a massive impact imho.

        • Ievgen on 28/04/2020 - 19:12

          Well, I’d argue that it is highly unlikely to be zero or close to it. If we are doing really well fighting Coronavirus (and we are compared to a lot of other countries) and manage to restart the economy and create lots of new jobs then nothing wrong with skilled immigration provided 14 days quarantine and testing is done for new arrivals.

          • trapper on 29/04/2020 - 13:03

            @Ievgen: There may still be some, but two weeks of quarantine is not going to come cheap for foreigners.

            The government certainly wont be paying it. (I hope…)

            • Ievgen on 29/04/2020 - 16:42

              @trapper: Sure, that’s on condition the foreigners pay for it. I suppose in some cases companies hiring them may be willing to sponsor and cover some of the relocation costs. Definitely should not be paid by the Government. I think there will still be quite a few willing to immigrate that way providing the jobs are there.

              • trapper on 29/04/2020 - 18:22

                @Ievgen: I am sure there will be quite a few willing.

                But that is still practically zero compared to the 232,100 net overseas migration we had last year for example.

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