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Bushfire Crisis And Climate Policy
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No entries in this category
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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Prepare for a violent pivot in the coronavirus narrative
The coronavirus is rapidly evolving into a Western crisis with Eastern origins that will stress test economies, markets and Australia's strategic alliances.
Mar 8, 2020 — 4.32pm
In the week ahead there will be a violent pivot in the narrative which has accompanied the coronavirus outbreak so far.
Markets will continue to adjust lower, in an increasingly disorderly fashion, and despite further global rate cuts next week. Glimmers of fiscal support will be provided by governments testing the water, but these will be inadequate, by an order of magnitude in some cases.
Liquidity conditions will continue to deteriorate in market segments where liquidity is needed the most. A credit cycle of unknown proportions will quickly come into view. The global payments system will start being discussed, not in terms of SWIFT failing as a protocol, but in terms of the risk of counter-parties becoming impaired.
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'Anything possible', warns expert as US braces for virus hit
Mar 9, 2020 — 11.51am
Washington | Donald Trump's top coronavirus expert warned "anything is possible" as the world's biggest economy grapples with how to contain the worsening outbreak, including shutting down whole regions.
Speaking as Mr Trump finished a weekend of golf at his Florida resort, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned the country: "We have to be realistic."
"I don't think it would be as draconian as nobody in or nobody out," he said. "But if we continue to get cases like this, particularly at the community level, there will be what we call 'mitigation'."
That, he said, would include doing "social distancing, keep people out of crowded places . . . . do you really need to travel".
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Attempts to contain virus' economic fallout too little, too late
Mar 9, 2020 — 4.55pm
Market volatility is not uncommon at times like this, the Treasurer says reassuringly. But Josh Frydenberg’s attempts to urge calm on Monday sound more like crying into a hurricane.
No one knows how “times like this” will add up or end up. What now seems certain is that these particular times will get worse before they get better – no matter how big the stimulus package proffered up by the federal government this week.
The carnage on global markets is far more serious than the ugly spectacle of Australian shoppers brawling over toilet paper in supermarkets, but it reflects the same self-reinforcing panic. Rational behaviour is what runs out fastest in either panic selling or panic buying.
So the notion of buying the dip looks more like buying into a deep trough as the world’s economies and credit markets start to seize up in a mutually disastrous embrace. It’s alway possible markets might temporarily recover somewhat from their opening swoons this week but wild swings are not a sign of confidence in the immediate future.
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If Scott Morrison cares about the country he will do four key things to save it from recession
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
March 10, 2020 — 12.00am
Australia's Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy, did his bit when he triggered the Biosecurity Act on January 20. That started Australia's health response to the coronavirus pandemic. Australia's central bank governor, Philip Lowe, did his bit a week ago when he cut official interest rates to a record low. That started Australia's economic response.
Now it's Scott Morrison's turn. Australia's first-rate public servants have acted early and decisively to discharge their independent responsibilities to the nation. Now it's over to the politicians to deliver Australia's fiscal response – or how it will use the national budget to address the crisis. The government tells us that we'll see part one this week. It will have the opportunity of a second crack at it in eight weeks' time on budget night.
$120 billion in value has been wiped out in early trade as the Federal Government prepares to roll out a stimulus package to offset the damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
With the population panicking in the supermarkets, investors panicking in the financial markets and firms across the land feeling the pinch of orders cancelled or delayed, which Morrison will we see? Morrison the immigration minister who swung decisively into action to stop the boats, employing innovative policy ideas in a whole-of-government response to fix a difficult problem? Or Morrison the Prime Minimal who spent four months finding excuses to avoid confronting Australia's bushfire crisis, then snuck off on a secret holiday to Hawaii in the final insult to his nation?
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Trump administration bases coronavirus advice on Australian research
March 10, 2020 — 10.33am
Washington: The Trump administration has used work by Australian public health experts as the basis for a new set of guidelines to help Americans protect themselves from the coronavirus.
At a briefing on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases boss Anthony Fauci urged Americans to consult the new guidelines.
"All of this came from a paper that Dr Fauci provided from the Australians," Birx said.
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Scott Morrison warns fallout from coronavirus may be worse than GFC
· March 10, 2020
Scott Morrison has vowed his upcoming stimulus package will not cause long term financial debt for future governments as he warned the economic fallout from the coronavirus could be worse for Australia than the GFC.
Speaking at a business summit in Sydney on Tuesday morning, the Prime Minister called on business leaders to act patriotically as the country faced a “Team Australia moment”.
Ahead of the expected release of the government’s stimulus plan, Mr Morrison noted it required different behaviour from the response to the GFC because the country was facing “a biological contagion, not a financial one”, and because Australia is more geographically and economically reliant on China than it was to America after the GFC.
“The epicentre of this crisis as opposed to that one is much closer to home,” he said.
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Coronavirus wipes out business confidence
· March 10, 2020
Business confidence and conditions fell during February, with the impact of coronavirus expected to further drag down a weakened Australian economy.
According to the latest NAB monthly business survey, confidence fell three points to minus four and business conditions fell 2 points to zero - both well below their long term averages.
Forward orders deteriorated significantly, falling three points to negative four.
But NAB chief economist Alan Oster noted that the indicators didn’t fall as much as anticipated.
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Italy to extend coronavirus lockdown to entire country
By Colleen Barry
March 10, 2020 — 8.02am
Rome: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says travel restrictions and other strict public health measures will be imposed nationwide starting on Tuesday to try to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.
Conte said on Monday night that a new government decree would require people throughout the country of 60 million people to demonstrate a need to work, health conditions or other limited reasons to travel outside the areas where they live.
The restrictions take effect on Tuesday and, like those already in place in northern Italy, will last until April 3, he said.
"There won't be just a red zone," Conte told reporters referring to the quarantine order he signed for a vast swath of northern Italy over the weekend.
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Global virus crisis is a stress test for national health systems
Government must make large investments in public health preparedness to avoid pandemic panics becoming regular events.
Mar 10, 2020 — 11.41am
On January 25, Chatham House and Georgetown University hosted US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin for a discussion about US economic policymaking and the world. Mnuchin had come straight from the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, but the dominant theme of that gathering (“stakeholder capitalism”) had already been eclipsed by broader developments. The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak had become a massive problem for China and would soon threaten the entire world.
As someone whose career has included work on infectious-disease risks, I had some sympathy with Mnuchin’s comments at Davos, where he pointed out that climate change is not the only policy challenge facing the world today. (I do not, however, support his belittling of the Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg on that same occasion.)
According to the United Kingdom’s 2016 Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which I chaired, policymakers around the world need to pursue 29 essential interventions in the medium term in order to avoid a costly and deadly global health crisis. Specifically, we warned that in the absence of concerted action, drug-resistant microbes could take around ten million lives per year by 2050, at a cumulative cost to global GDP of around $100 trillion.
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The stocks to hold during the coronavirus outbreak
Mar 11, 2020 — 12.01am
People may not need new clothes, sofas or mobile phones during the COVID-19 epidemic but they do need to eat and drink – and are also likely to use more water and power if they are forced to work from home.
For those reasons, Coles and Woolworths, along with vitamins maker Blackmores, packaging group Amcor and electric and water utilities are considered some of the most defensive stocks on the market, even if panic hoarding has disrupted supply chains and led to supermarkets being short of stock.
Woolworths' shares have fallen about 2.6 per cent and Coles shares are down 5 per cent since panic selling hit global markets on March 5, while the ASX/S&P index has fallen 9 per cent. Analysts say Coles may prove more defensive than Woolworths in the short to medium term because its stores have been less affected by the bushfires and weaker foot traffic due to the coronavirus.
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Italy grapples with the reality of COVID-19 lockdown
Mar 10, 2020 — 11.20pm
London | The Italian government has moved swiftly into its total coronavirus lockdown , setting up checkpoints and ordering tourists to leave, while scrambling for ways to ease the pain of the extraordinary 3½-week quarantine.
The government late on Tuesday (AEDT) announced that borrowers' mortgage repayments would be suspended, and the European Union wheeled out a €25 billion ($43 billion) investment fund to prop up the Continent's virus-whacked economies.
But the shocking reality of life in lockdown quickly took hold in the world's eighth-largest economy.
UK health minister Nadine Dorries diagnosed with coronavirus
March 11, 2020 — 10.00am
London: British junior health minister Nadine Dorries has been diagnosed with coronavirus after falling ill on Friday, UK time.
Dorries, who is now in isolation and recovering, met hundreds of people in Parliament in the past week.
She also attended a reception with Prime Minster Boris Johnson, the Times of London said.
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The pinch: why it's better to delay coronavirus spread than get it over
March 11, 2020 — 12.00am
Coronavirus will peak in Australia some time between May and July unless it can be rapidly contained and the challenge for authorities is how to avoid being caught in a pinch.
The worst-case scenario for the health system is for a surge of patients to require hospitalisation over a short period of time. In this "pinch" situation, there would not be enough respirators for the patients who needed them and usually treatable conditions would become life-threatening.
ANU epidemiologist Meru Sheel said the purpose of the containment strategy, which involved following up with anyone who had been in contact with an infected patient, was to slow the spread of the virus.
"What we don't want is the whole population to be infected in one go because the health system won't be able to support it," Dr Sheel said.
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Universities face financial crises as enrolment cutoffs loom
March 11, 2020 — 12.00am
Sydney University will have to write off thousands of enrolments if the China travel ban is not lifted this week, while another institution has been forced to slash hundreds of courses to weather the COVID-19 storm facing the higher education sector.
Financial d-day looms for universities across Australia as census dates - the point when deferment is no longer possible for face-to-face degrees - approach, and thousands of students remain in China.
The crisis has also forced one of Australia's oldest institutions, the University of Tasmania, to fast-track a major restructure that will lead to job losses, admitting several serious challenges facing the sector left it unsustainable "even in the short term".
Some students are travelling via third countries to reach campus. Of the 107,000 Chinese students stuck at home when the ban began in early February, more than 25,000 have travelled to Australia after spending their two-week quarantine period elsewhere, Home Affairs Department figures show.
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How low can we go? S&P/ASX 200 could hit 5500 before carnage ends
By Rob Arnott and Mike Aked
March 11, 2020 — 12.05am
The decade-long global rally in stock markets, supported by unprecedented relaxed monetary policy born out of the 2008 recession, is history.
This time, lowering interest rates won’t work to stimulate economic activity.
The shock from conronavirus will be difficult to deal with, even using non-traditional monetary policy tools.
We are still likely to see the emergence of a global recession and sharply lower asset values.
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Coronavirus and markets sink Australian consumer confidence
Consumer confidence crashed to its lowest level in five years in early March under the weight of the coronavirus emergency and associated sharemarket collapse.
The Westpac-MI consumer sentiment index fell 3.8 per cent to 91.9 points, from 95.5 in March, its second lowest level since the GFC, when the index fell as low as 79.
“The survey detail shows consumers are rightly concerned about the near term outlook for the economy but are less perturbed about their finances or the longer term outlook for the economy,” Westpac chief economist Bill Evans said. “That is consistent with the notion that virus-related disruptions will be large but temporary.”
Scott Morrison on Wednesday confirmed his government would announce a much-anticipated package of fiscal support measures to help cushion the economic impact of the global epidemic, which he stressed was “connected to the life cycle of the virus”, and therefore must be considered a temporary phenomenon.
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Market needs more economic confidence, not handouts
The US and Australian economies are facing a confidence hit due to the impact of the coronavirus which is reflected in the extraordinary volatility on global stockmarkets.
The Australian market has gone from arguably being too complacent to being too bearish in a matter of days, and Tuesday’s bounce provides no real comfort to either side of the argument.
Scott Morrison is due to have his package out on Wednesday and while that might not move markets it will be closely watched because the Australian economy went into the crisis of confidence in a weakened state compared to the US.
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If you can work from home, you should. Now.
William Hanage
Mar 11, 2020 — 11.18am
The fire is upon us. By now, the SARS CoV-2 virus is either established or making itself at home in communities across the world. This is a fact. We are all at risk of infection right now, some more than others, depending on where they live or the jobs they do. And it is only going to get worse.
If you don't believe me, just wait for the report of the first case in your neighbourhood. That's coming, if it hasn't happened already. Case counts are going to tick on up across the country.
While we expect the great majority to suffer only mildly, some people will get much sicker, and there will be deaths. COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, doesn't seem to kill quickly, so it might take a while, but they are coming. Less than three weeks ago, Italy was reporting 121 cases. On Monday, authorities there put travel restrictions on the whole country , affecting 60 million people, until April 3.
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Best-case scenario: 3000 Australians dead from COVID-19, says expert
Our mortality rate could be worse than China's because of our ageing population, says Professor Robert Booy
11th March 2020
At least 3000 Australians could die from the COVID-19 outbreak at a conservative estimate, and the elderly are by far the most vulnerable, infectious diseases specialists warn.
Professor Robert Booy, from the University of Sydney, says in a best-case scenario, about 3000 could succumb to the disease with a worst-case estimate likely involving “many thousands”.
Although the WHO has estimated the fatality rate at 3.4% among confirmed cases, the head of the US National Institute of Health suggests the true rate may be as low as 0.1% because many mild cases circulating in the community remain undetected.
Professor Booy says he has based his estimate on the lower number.
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COVID-19 may be more destructive than the Lehman crisis
Coronavirus has triggered a collision of unstable debt and an oil price crash: recession is imminent.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Mar 11, 2020 — 12.44pm
The coronavirus has set off two parallel "doom loops". An oil price crash is colliding with an unstable edifice of corporate debt.
At the same time the closure of Italy's economic heartland is triggering a surge in Italian risk spreads and an intertwined collapse in European bank shares. The twin shocks come just as markets wake up to the grim reality that the US and Europe have missed their chance to control the pandemic.
A global recession of some form is no longer a tail risk. It is imminent and inescapable. That is the screaming verdict of safe-haven bond markets. The collapse in yields on 30-year US Treasuries to historic lows of 0.51 per cent is a red warning of deflation.
In Europe the trap has closed already. Bund yields fell to minus 0.87 per cent on Monday. The Stoxx Euro 600 banks index slid 11 per cent and is now below the depths of the Lehman crisis.
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Confidence cracks under wall of selling
The virus is temporary and perspective is important. But the damage to markets doesn’t make it easier to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Mar 11, 2020 — 6.34pm
It’s the wall of selling that shocks most.
While that was lower than the record daily value of $15.8 billion set the previous day, Wednesday’s trade was almost all one way – south.
According to veteran broker Richard Coppleson, of Bell Potter, who tracks these things closely, 100 blocks of shares were traded on the day, worth more than $905 million.
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Coronavirus declared insurance catastrophe
Mar 11, 2020 — 5.43pm
The Insurance Council of Australia has declared the coronavirus outbreak an insurance catastrophe, mobilising an industry-wide effort to prepare for a flurry of claims.
ICA spokesman Campbell Fuller said the declaration was a response to the largely unknown impact of coronavirus, and would prompt general insurers to share large amounts of information. He said the Insurance Council had launched a special taskforce to deal with the fallout from the outbreak.
"The main purpose is to assist in better understanding the impact of COVID-19 on consumers and business, and to assist government in their responses," Mr Fuller said.
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WHO declares coronavirus a pandemic
Mar 12, 2020 — 3.47am
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said up to 70 per cent of the country's 83 million residents will catch the virus. The top doctor to the US Congress expects between 70 million and 150 million Americans to contract the virus.
In a briefing in Geneva, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said "We have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action. We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear."
Dr Tedros said the WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and "we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction".
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White House told health agency to classify coronavirus talks: sources
By Aram Roston and Marisa Taylor
March 12, 2020 — 10.28am
Washington: The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered the US government’s response to the contagion, according to four Trump administration officials.
The officials said that dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January in a high-security meeting room at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), a key player in the fight against the coronavirus.
Staffers without security clearances, including government experts, were excluded from the interagency meetings, which included video conference calls, the sources said.
“We had some very critical people who did not have security clearances who could not go,” one official said. “These should not be classified meetings. It was unnecessary.”
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The facts have changed - now Morrison and Frydenberg need to change
March 11, 2020 — 10.30pm
Today is the real test of mettle for Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg.
The stakes could not be higher. The stimulus package they outline needs to boost the confidence of consumers and businesses, get them spending in ways they have not for years, find a way to keep people in work and avoid a recession while in the midst of an almighty health crisis.
It needs to be done while abandoning Frydenberg's budget night promise that we would see "the first surplus in 12 years and the first repayment made on Labor's debt".
The government has been forced into this position by events. Less than a month ago, advice from Treasury was the coronavirus outbreak would have a short but sharp impact on the economy and the budget.
Almost daily, the financial impact of the virus has worsened, requiring changes in Treasury's advice and in the size of any package required to stem the economic bleeding.
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At times like these, it’s important to keep a sense of history
Economics writer
March 11, 2020 — 11.06pm
Comparisons are being drawn between the economic challenge posed by the coronavirus and the global financial crisis. Which is fair enough, given estimates from the Reserve Bank that the virus - and the reaction to it - will wipe half a per cent off Australia's economic output this quarter.
But at times like these it's important to keep a sense of history.
I remember the GFC, which began unfolding about 13 years ago, and this ain't it. In case you've forgotten - and it seems many have - the GFC marked the unwinding of a period of rampant greed, excessive risk-taking and lax regulation in the finance sector of the United States.
In a bold bid for profits, US banks had begun lending money to households who simply couldn't afford it. That was bad enough. To make matters worse, investment banker types decided to package up all these loans and on-sell to investors the rights to the incoming stream of mortgage payments.
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Coronavirus: Should Australia close its borders? Warning on Italian path to chaos
· 7:56AM March 12, 2020
Australia could dramatically reduce its death rate from coronavirus if the government acted now to “completely” close borders, cancel mass events and shut down schools and universities, the Grattan Institute says.
Countries that have adopted radical “social distancing” measures, such as Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore, have slowed the spread of the disease within their borders, while countries with less rigorous policies — including Italy and the US — had experienced exponential growth in case numbers and deaths.
The Grattan Institute’s chief executive, John Daley, told The Australian aggressive efforts in some countries to contain the spread of COVID-19 came at a significant economic cost — but appeared to have been largely successful. “Australia has choices and there will be consequences,” Mr Daley said.
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Coronavirus: Don’t panic but it’s time we went into lockdown
· March 12, 2020
Why hasn’t the government moved to close our borders and impose social distancing rules? They had better have information the rest of us don’t to justify the inaction, because from where I stand it’s hard to understand.
We are witnessing first hand how damaging a slow response can be when it comes to this virus as information from Italy comes in. Don’t forget how slow the government was to put a travel ban on people arriving from Italy, even though it has emerged as the nation suffering the most from the coronavirus crisis. That was a clear mistake.
Today the stimulus package was announced, and not a moment too soon. We know conservative governments can be slow to move when splashing taxpayers’ cash, for fear of doing so wastefully. That can be a virtue, but when the money is urgently needed it becomes a vice.
Only time will tell which scenario is the case here.
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Italy’s crisis could end the Euro
· 8:18AM March 12, 2020
Australia is able to undertake a major small business rescue package because we have low government debt and our budget was in surplus. Italy is the reverse: high government debt and a budget deficit.
Italy is much larger than Greece and is said to be too big to fail. In the current environment that may make it too big to save.
In turn, the common European currency is now in grave danger. But worse still, if the Italian mess can’t be contained it will endanger big slabs of the world banking system.
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University revenue now 'severely compromised'
Mar 12, 2020 — 3.54pm
There are new threats to the $38 billion international student market as university staff are barred from travelling to overseas recruitment fairs, putting stress on projected earnings for the second half of the calendar year, according to the Global Reputation Taskforce for higher education which met on Thursday.
The chair of the taskforce, Phil Honeywood, said the higher education sector was disappointed the Prime Minister's relief package did not contain specific assistance for international students and the downstream businesses serving that market.
This included people working for English Language colleges and the training sector.
He said university staff were not able to start overseas recruitment drives for the second semester which meant there was uncertainty over how many students would enrol for the remaining part of 2020.
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Size, speed and scale: government passes the stimulus test
Australia has a solid record of using stimulus to fight off a downturn. With a bit of luck, it may have may have just turned the tide on the economic damage of the coronavirus.
Mar 13, 2020 — 9.22am
This isn’t the first time Australia has used stimulus to fight off a downturn. And the good news is we have a pretty solid record at doing exactly that. Will it be good enough this time too?
The first test is speed: will the money reach people and businesses fast enough? Where stimulus has struggled in times past it has been where the money arrived too late, revving up a recovery rather than defending against a downturn.
That was true of parts of the stimulus that fought off the GFC, as well as for parts of the stimulus that tackled Australia’s last recession.
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We're not ahead of this crisis but behind
The government says it is following the best medical advice on how to deal with the coronavirus. But what if that medical advice is wrong, wrong, wrong?
Mar 12, 2020 — 5.16pm
Scott Morrison confidently reassures Australians there’s no reason not to go to the footy this weekend as he plans to do. That is the health advice to government for the moment, he insists, even if that advice might change "at some point in the future" as the coronavirus evolves.
But what if current health advice turns out to very, very wrong? What if the delay in much more draconian lockdowns and bans , particularly of large gatherings, means Australia is heading down more of an Italian crisis path than countries like Singapore and Taiwan, which have been much tougher in their early responses?
What if not focusing enough resources on “hot spots” like the north of Sydney – at least daily forensic cleaning of public spaces and public transport – broadens the contagion more quickly and widely?
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Worst day since 1987: ASX set to plummet as Wall Street's woes deepen
By Alex Veiga
Updated March 13, 2020 — 7.22am first published at 12.53am
New York: The escalating coronavirus emergency sent the stock market Thursday into its worst slide since the Black Monday crash of 1987, extending a sell-off that has now wiped out most of Wall Street's big gains since President Donald Trump took office.
The S&P 500 plummeted 9.5 per cent, for a total drop of 26.7 per cent from its all-time high, set just last month. That puts it way over the 20 per cent threshold for a bear market, officially ending Wall Street's unprecedented bull-market run of nearly 11 years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 10 per cent, its heaviest loss since its nearly 23 per cent drop on October 19, 1987.
The Australian sharemarket is poised to crumble, with futures at 8am AEDT pointing to a fall of 382 points, or 7.2 per cent, at the open.
The Australian dollar also copped a hammering, falling more than 3 per cent to below 63 US cents. It was fetching US62.42¢ at 8.10am AEDT.
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Coronavirus outbreak reveals cracks in our healthcare system
By Stephen Duckett
March 13, 2020 — 12.01am
When a system is under stress – as our health services are now – cracks and strains become apparent that may otherwise have been easy to overlook. Australia's response to coronavirus is constrained by the fundamentals of our health system, which are hindering management of the pandemic.
Primary care in Australia, which should be the front line of any service response (in contrast to a quarantine or social-distancing response), is delivered via a 1950s-style, GP-centric, fee-for-service model. It is already widely regarded as not fit to respond to the changing epidemiology of the increased prevalence of chronic disease in Australia and our response to coronavirus shows it is not fit to respond to an infectious disease pandemic either.
The initial advice from health authorities in Australia was that people who had travelled to certain countries and exhibited flu-like symptoms should seek testing from their GP. This advice reflects the GP-centricity of primary care in Australia, including that there is no systematic approach to paying for testing by any other provider.
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How do I avoid coronavirus?
What is coronavirus, how deadly is it and what can you do to protect yourself? | All your questions answered
It’s official: the spread of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19 as the World Health Organisation has named it, is a pandemic. But what is this virus, how deadly is it, and what can you do to protect yourself?
How is coronavirus transmitted?
COVID-19 is caused by a virus known as SARS CoV-2. We already have a number of other coronaviruses that circulate in the community and most of them cause common colds. Most of the available evidence indicates that coronavirus is spread via droplets, so if an infected person coughs or sneezes, and their secretions fall on you, you may be infected too. But the most common way of becoming infected is from touching contaminated surfaces. If an infected person coughs or sneezes into their hand, then touches a hard surface such as a doorknob or railing, and you touch that surface, you could also be infected. Some experts believe the virus may also be airborne, but the wider consensus is that it’s droplet-spread. That’s why it’s so important to wash your hands often, and try to avoid touching your face, because your hands can transmit the virus into orifices such as your nose, mouth or eyes.
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Why total lockdown won't work in Australia now, or maybe ever
Mar 13, 2020 — 10.57am
Some say the country should be put into the equivalent of an induced coma for a couple of weeks to try to keep COVID-19 at bay. This would mean borders being sealed, most institutions and businesses closed, streets empty and people working from home.
They say although the economic burden would be substantial, the health benefits would be substantial too. It would put the brakes on transmission and reduce the viral load in the community.
But there are three issues here. First, it’s not known yet whether the virus will resurge once restrictions are relaxed. China is being watched closely on this score.
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13 March 2020
‘We have to change the way we live’
A new hastag is trending on Twitter, alongside #COVID-19, #pandemic and #toiletpapergate.
It’s #flattenthecurve, the idea that while a large volume of cases may be inevitable, the more distributed they are over time, the less likely an epidemic is to catastrophically overload the health system.
Professor Raina MacIntyre, head of biosecurity at the University of NSW’s Kirby Institute, said “flatten the curve” was a good way to communicate what our domestic strategy should be, amid what the WHO has finally called a pandemic.
“It’s a simple way of explaining that non-pharmaceutical measures like social distancing, travel restrictions, contact tracing and case isolation work,” she told TMR
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Trump declares state of emergency to unlock $US50b in extra funding
Mar 14, 2020 – 6.56am
Washington | President Donald Trump declared a national emergency to unlock $US50 billion ($81.3 billion) in additional funds to battle a pandemic that has infected 1678 Americans and killed 41.
Mr Trump began a press conference in the White House Rose Garden on Friday (Saturday AEDT) by reflecting on his government's record on the coronavirus outbreak.
"When you compare what we've done compared to other parts of the world, it's pretty incredible," he said.
"I am officially declaring a national emergency. Two very big words."
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Stopping mass gatherings from Monday 'beyond stupid'
The world is going into lockdown while Australian universities and sporting codes are doing the opposite.
Mar 13, 2020 – 7.09pm
Australia's response to the coronavirus is dangerously insufficient, according to a leading expert, who says a decision to hold off banning mass gatherings until Monday was "reckless and beyond stupid".
"We are now one second to midnight," said Mr Bowtell.
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Europe is epicentre of coronavirus pandemic: WHO
Stephanie Nebehay
Mar 14, 2020 – 9.16am
Geneva | Europe has now become the epicentre of a coronavirus pandemic that has claimed 5000 lives around the world, "a tragic milestone", the World Health Organisation said.
More than 132,000 cases of the virus have been reported in 123 countries since it emerged in December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference.
"Europe has now become the epicentre of the pandemic with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of world combined apart from China," he said in Geneva on Friday (Saturday AEDT).
Tedros announced that the WHO was launching a coronavirus Solidarity Response Fund. This would to allow people and organisations to contribute to help fund masks, gloves, gowns and goggles for heath workers, as well as diagnostic kits and investment in research and development, including for vaccines.
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US approves coronavirus test that's 10 times faster
Tim Loh
Mar 13, 2020 – 10.43pm
New York | Roche said it won emergency approval from the US government for a highly automated coronavirus test, potentially speeding up the ability to test patients by a factor of 10.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted "Emergency Use Authorisation" to the test, which runs on Roche's cobas 6800/8800 systems. The tool also is available in Europe and countries that accept its CE marking for medical devices, Roche said.
The 8800 version is capable of testing 4128 patients a day, and the 6800 can test as many as 1440, the Basel, Switzerland-based company said.
"We are increasing the speed definitely by a factor of 10," Thomas Schinecker, head of Roche's diagnostics unit, said in an interview.
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A lack of credible information is driving panic
Mar 13, 2020 – 12.07pm
Scott Morrison deferred to Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy, who said there was a range of modelling.
"We're looking at scenarios from the most benign through to, you know, some millions of people being infected over a period of several weeks, and we think our health system is well-prepared to cope with that.''
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Who knew Trump was this bad? Everyone did
Four major mistakes in an 11 minute speech simply confirms all the doubts about this President's ability to handle a crisis.
Max Boot
Mar 14, 2020 – 12.00am
On Wednesday morning, Anthony Fauci, an immunologist and director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Congress that the coronavirus outbreak is "going to get worse", and he was immediately proved correct.
That day, the number of confirmed cases in the United States surged past 1000, having more than doubled in just three days. The World Health Organisation declared that COVID-19 is officially a pandemic. The stockmarket's record-setting bull market ended in the crash of 2020. The National Basketball Association suspended its season after a star player for the Utah Jazz, Rudy Gobert, tested positive for coronavirus. And actor Tom Hanks – an American icon – announced from Australia that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, had been struck by COVID-19.
Amid such alarming news, Americans depend on their president to offer reassurance and lay out a realistic plan of action. That is not what President Donald Trump delivered in his Oval Office address on Thursday, Australian time. His speech was a catalogue of errors that only made an already grim situation even worse.
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Australia needs 2000 extra ventilators to cope with 'catastrophic' outbreak
March 14, 2020 — 9.20am
Health authorities are preparing for a hospital surge as the spread of the coronavirus accelerates in Australia, with the peak body for intensive care medicine outlining an ambitious plan to double the number of ICU beds equipped with ventilators to more than 4000 to deal with a spike in demand.
The Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society will on Monday hand new guidelines on critical care for patients with COVID-19, quickly drawn up by a working group of 30 intensive care experts, to Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy, to guide the federal government's planning for a rapid increase in cases.
"If it was a truly catastrophic situation, we could potentially in Australia double the number of ICU beds for a period of time," the society's president Anthony Holley told the Sun-Herald Sunday Age.
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Coronavirus is a global crisis, but there is no global co-ordination; nobody knows what they’re doing
· 8:26PM March 13, 2020
Friday’s remarkable 12 per cent turnaround on the Australian stockmarket was more evidence of the volatility that is besetting investors at the moment, and more importantly the insecurity that now assails us all.
Was that the bottom at 12:36pm Friday the 13th when the ASX 200 was 4873, down 8 per cent? That’s not impossible, but with the crisis still unfolding ruinously and unpredictably, it’s hard to imagine it was.
And a large part of the problem for all countries trying to deal with this emergency is that there is no global leadership.
Donald Trump’s address to the nation on Wednesday night, US time, was disastrous on so many levels, but the most important was to underline that there is a complete absence of coherent leadership in this crisis.
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The US had a pandemic unit. Trump got rid of it
Mar 15, 2020 – 2.51am
Washington DC | Public health and national security experts shake their heads when President Donald Trump says the coronavirus "came out of nowhere" and "blindsided the world."
They've been warning about the next pandemic for years and criticised the Trump administration's decision in 2018 to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation.
"It would be nice if the office was still there," Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Health, told Congress this week. "I wouldn't necessarily characterise it as a mistake [to eliminate the unit]. I would say we worked very well with that office."
The NSC directorate for global health and security and bio-defence survived the transition from President Barack Obama to Mr Trump in 2017.
Mr Trump's elimination of the office suggested, along with his proposed budget cuts for the CDC, that he did not see the threat of pandemics in the same way that many experts in the field did.
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Spain puts entire country on coronavirus lockdown
Mar 15, 2020 – 2.11am
Madrid | Spain's government is set to announce that it is placing tight restrictions on movement and closing restaurants and other establishments in the nation of 46 million people as part of a two-week state of emergency to fight the sharp rise in coronavirus infections.
The Associated Press has access to the draft of the battery of measures that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will announce in a nationally televised address.
According to the draft of the government order, people will only be allowed to leave their homes to buy food and medicine, commute to work, go to medical centres and banks, or take trips related to the care for the young and the elderly. Those limitations will take hold at Monday at 7am Spanish time (6pm AEST).
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Why the banks are being smashed
Banks are being priced for a dramatic downturn where they are hit by rising bad debts and margin-smashing QE. They may be looking cheap, but few investors care.
Mar 13, 2020 — 11.04am
It has to be the strangest bank upgrade ever.
On Friday morning UBS banking analyst Jonathan Mott upgraded ANZ to a buy and Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Bendigo & Adelaide Bank from sell to neutral – and at the same downgraded their earnings for the second time in 10 days , and predicted that the majors will be forced to take bad debt provisions of at least $500 million each.
A week is a long time on markets, and a long time in banking.
It’s not that long ago – 37 days, to be precise – that Mott declared CBA had set a world record for a developed market bank when it was trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.3 times 2020-21 earnings.
But after another torrid morning – CBA’s shares fell a further 4.6 per cent in morning trade – the nation’s biggest bank is now trading on a more reasonable 15 times. The stock is now down a staggering 32 per cent since the market peak on February 20.
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National Budget Issues.
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Westpac’s Bill Evans calls 2020 recession
· March 9, 2020
Respected Westpac economist Bill Evans says Australia will be in a recession by the second half of the year.
In a note to clients, Mr Evans, who is the bank’s chief economist, said the economy would contract during the first half of the year.
“On a quarterly basis we expect the economy will contract in both the first and second quarters by 0.3 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively to be followed by a rebound of 1.4 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively in the third and fourth quarters,” he said. Annual growth was expected to be 1.6 per cent.
But Mr Evans cautioned that even though the two quarters of economic contraction represented a technical recession, Australia’s relatively low unemployment meant it would be different to previous recessions.
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Government faces lifting its own debt cap as virus hits budget
March 10, 2020 — 12.01am
The Morrison government is poised to break its self-imposed $600 billion debt ceiling as the coronavirus-induced global economic slowdown and cost of the planned stimulus package eradicate promised budget surpluses and push more Australians on to welfare.
As the ASX200 suffered its largest one-day drop since the start of the global financial crisis, wiping $136.5 billion from the value of major companies, analysts warned the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak was growing with Australia likely to fall into recession.
One of the biggest hits will be to the federal budget. Ahead of last year's election the government forecast it would show a $7.1 billion surplus, its first surplus in more than a decade.
This was downgraded in the mid-year budget update in December last year but partial figures since then suggest that at the end of January it was $3.7 billion behind where it needed to be to get to surplus with the full impact of the coronavirus yet to be felt.
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RBA has liquidity tap turned on
Mar 10, 2020 — 3.15pm
The Reserve Bank of Australia has emergency multi-billion dollar funding lines on standby and is ready to deploy liquidity to banks if global credit markets remain squeezed by coronavirus fears.
Via its normal daily market operations, the RBA has gradually increased short term lending to banks through "repurchase agreements", whereby commercial banks swap collateral such as bonds, commercial bank paper and residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) in return for RBA cash.
Institutional debt investors who lend to governments, financial institutions and companies have pulled back from buying bonds in global debt markets in recent days due to the coronavirus uncertainty.
The market's immediate concern is among non-bank lenders , highly indebted firms and corporates such as airlines which operate on thin profit margins and need to roll over their debts to stay solvent.
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Morrison boosts virus response by another $2b
Mar 10, 2020 — 10.30pm
The cost to the budget of the coronavirus is escalating with the Morrison government dedicating almost $2 billion more for health services as well as a $30 million information campaign to try to stem panic.
The money was approved by Cabinet on Tuesday and is on top of the $500 million the Commonwealth pledged last week to boost the capacity of hospitals, and the stimulus package which is tipped to cost between $5 billion and $10 billion.
The stimulus package is expected to be announced on Thursday and will contain tax relief, wage subsidies and cash payments to help business and cash bonuses for welfare recipients to stimulate consumption.
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Scott Morrison’s clinical reaction to coronavirus
10:30PM March 10, 2020
Cabinet has approved a $2.4bn medical response to the coronavirus outbreak that will include more than 100 fever clinics rolled out across the country and allow people experiencing symptoms to stay home and charge GP audio and video calls to Medicare.
The government is facing pressure to deliver a significant package to provide an immediate boost to support the economy, which is being buffeted by the coronavirus and financial market volatility.
The Australian understands that a significant part of the medical response will be directed at the aged-care sector, as the elderly are most vulnerable to severe or fatal illness from COVID-19.
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Health Issues.
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See above!
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International Issues.
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US economy is dangerously dependent on Wall Street whims
How much longer can we run an economy driven so disproportionately by financially engineered asset bubbles? The next few weeks and months may give us the answer.
Mar 9, 2020 — 9.39am
Watching the markets these days is like watching the seven stages of grief — shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and, finally, acceptance. We clearly have not reached that last stage yet.
This isn’t really about coronavirus — that was simply a trigger for a correction I have long expected. The US is in the longest economic recovery cycle on record, with mounds of global debt, falling credit quality, and decades of low interest rates driving asset prices to unsustainable levels.
The reluctance of investors, politicians and central bankers to accept that is not just an example of the natural human tendency to put off pain. Rather it is something scarier and more factual. The truth is that the US economy is now dependent on asset bubbles for survival.
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Russian roulette: Moscow's oil price war with Saudi Arabia is a major gamble
By Isabelle Khurshudyan
March 11, 2020 — 10.50am
Moscow: An oil price war between Russia and OPEC giant Saudi Arabia has done more than upend markets amid the wider economic turmoil from the coronavirus outbreak. It has put Moscow into a potentially costly gamble.
The value of the ruble plummeted along with the cost of oil, with the currency hitting its lowest level in more than four years Tuesday. That has stirred fears of a recession in Russia, whose economy was already wobbly from sanctions.
None of this is likely to pose any immediate political pitfalls for President Vladimir Putin. The country is in the middle of major overhaul of the constitution that - one way or another - is likely to keep Putin's grip on Russia after his term ends in four years.
Still, there is "high level of uncertainty in Russia," said Marcel Salikhov, director of economic research at the Institute for Energy and Finance, a Moscow-based think tank.
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No one but Vladimir Putin can lead Russia, says state TV
· By The Times
· The Times
· 8:35AM March 13, 2020
There is no alternative to President Vladimir Putin as Russian leader, state television has announced after the Kremlin strongman engineered a power grab that could extend his rule until 2036.
The Russian parliament approved a package of reforms late on Wednesday that “reset the clock” on the number of terms that Mr Putin, 67, could serve as president.
Kirill Kleimyonov, the presenter of the Vremya news program, said: “Imagine … that you are against Putin. But who are you for? … I don’t even want to think about it.”
Critics say the Kremlin refuses to allow any genuine challengers to emerge against Mr Putin.
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Coronavirus: How the West lost its way in jungle of dragons and snakes
· 12:00AM March 14, 2020
The rapid spread of COVID-19 from the Chinese city of Wuhan has killed thousands (and counting), while imposing massive disruption on international travel networks, integrated economies and globalised supply chains. It highlights the risks that accompany the benefits we all enjoy from the free movement and connectivity we take for granted today, as well as the extraordinary degree to which Western countries now depend on China for critical commodities.
As China’s state news agency, Xinhua, noted on March 4, the US imports most of its surgical masks and more than 90 per cent of its pharmaceuticals from China. Responding to the “unkind” travel ban imposed by Washington after the virus ravaged Wuhan, Xinhua threatened that Beijing could retaliate by imposing strategic control over medical products and banning exports to the US.
Given escalating US-China tensions, trade wars, tariffs and competition for 5G telecommunications networks, the pandemic has not only accelerated the decoupling of the world’s two largest economies, but is also increasingly seen as part of a broader national security issue.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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