Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Thursday, April 02, 2020

The Macro View – Health, Economics, and Politics and the Big Picture. What I Am Watching Here And Abroad.

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Again COVID-19 totally dominates the news – while some other topics are being sadly ignored – think the wars in Yemen and Syria among others.
In the US the catastrophe in cases and deaths has arrived and sadly the USA has become a world beater in the worst possible ways. Trump has seriously underestimated this issue to say the least.
In the UK a full lockdown is now underway – led by an infected PM! A week of two yet before we know if it will make a real difference.
It is becoming clear we are facing a full blown calamity in the developing world – which may come back to bite us as we just manage to regain control a few months from now!
In OZ the incremental approach to control continues and we remain to see if it will work. Another week or two at least.
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Major Issues.

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Fund managers shocked by equity market's collapse

Tom Richardson Markets reporter and commentator
Mar 23, 2020 – 4.05pm
Shocked fund managers are busy planning how to navigate the sharemarket's historic collapse, while wondering how a supposedly efficient market got so wrong footed by COVID-19.
Ben Clark, a portfolio manager at TMS Capital, said the market had made the mistake of extrapolating prior health crises such as Ebola, Swine Flu, and SARS as a likely outcome for the approximate impact of COVID-19.
According to the fund manager, prior infectious outbreaks proved great buying opportunities – on the contrary to COVID-19.
"I don't think anyone expected it to be nearly as bad as it has been. The way governments are dealing with it has rapidly changed from even a week or two ago," he said.
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Lifeboats not ready for drowning ASX firms

Corporations watching revenue go to zero can't access capital from the usual places. It may be time to consider how the government steps in.
Mar 24, 2020 – 12.00am
It took only a few hours of trading on the ASX on Monday to suggest the government’s $66 billion stimulus package will not be enough to prevent the loss of a large numbers of jobs, very quickly.
A flood of announcements revealed that Sky City had shut its Adelaide casino and Village Roadshow its cinemas and theme parks. The Star Entertainment Group called for a trading halt, as the government shut its casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Health insurer NIB yanked its profit guidance. Flight Centre suspended its shares from trade and suspended its dividend.
It was little wonder the ASX 200 fell 5.6 per cent, and now sits 36 per cent below its February 20 peak. Investors are being forced to reassess just how far-reaching the pandemic shutdown is. And even if they can work that out, trying to estimate how long it lasts is impossible.
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Avoid irrational decisions that will cost your SMSF

If you have enough cash flow to pay for living expenses over the short to medium term, current investment prices become irrelevant, because you're not selling.
Ben Smythe Contributor
Mar 24, 2020 – 8.38am
Self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) members in accumulation and pension phase have found themselves on opposite sides of the table in terms of the impact of sharemarket plunges on their personal member balance. But what they do next should be quite similar.
Let’s first look at those in pension phase as they are most susceptible to making irrational and emotional decisions in these uncertain times, given the insecurity that comes from seeing retirement savings plunge in value. The first thing to address is what can be controlled – how much cash is available to fund living expenses.
Funding living expenses is the most important thing for most SMSF pension members, and having a clear line of sight of what that looks like in respect of your portfolio is critical.
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Super funds lose billions as crisis hits

The nation’s biggest investors, including AustralianSuper, IFM Investors, SunSuper and UniSuper, have booked billions of dollars in losses across their unlisted assets as the coronavirus crisis extends beyond equities and bond markets to wreak havoc on infrastructure.
The slide in infrastructure portfolio values, in the wake of a 30 per cent crash in equities markets and turmoil across bond and fixed income markets, further places pressure on the $3 trillion retirement savings sector, which is confronting a potential liquidity squeeze.
This includes a cash hit as customers switch retirement savings out of balanced options and into cash, and the prospect of lower inflows as workers are laid off and contributions dry up.
At the same time, funds face an expected $30bn in early drawdowns as part of the government’s hardship measures outlined on Sunday that influential consultancy SuperRatings has warned could result in some funds “freezing” assets.
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Four things you need to know now about the economy and markets

A very tough path lies ahead, and it will inevitably lead to more economic and financial damage.
Mohamed A. El-Erian
Mar 27, 2020 – 5.47am
With the announcement of sweeping monetary and fiscal emergency measures, the US economy and global markets have avoided - at least for now - racing to a truly nasty place.
That's the good news. But neither is out of the woods.
A very tough path lies ahead, and it will inevitably lead to more economic and financial damage and require constant policy vigilance and responsive agility.
Here are the four main things you need to know at this stage of what is a generation-defining economic and financial shock caused by the coronavirus:
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Gold shows its worth as fear stalks markets

Robert Guy Senior Writer
Mar 27, 2020 – 3.43pm
Gold's haven status has been burnished amid heightened economic and market uncertainty, and as budget deficits deepen as trillions of dollars are thrown at the hole ripped into global growth by the coronavirus.
The precious metal rallied 8 per cent this week as the budgetary cost rose rapidly and the US Senate approved a $US2.2 trillion ($3.6 trillion) stimulus package that will add to its growing fiscal black hole. The US Federal Reserve went nuclear by committing to unlimited quantitative easing and a range of programs aimed at keeping credit flowing.
In Australia, the coronavirus bill stands at $189 billion between government spending and central bank action. There's more to come. And the worst of the recession hasn't even arrived.
Investors bunkered down as the gathering economic storm descended on companies, forcing them into survival mode by shutting up shop, laying off employees, and delaying dividends and buybacks.
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Super has suddenly been hit by a lot more than declining prices

In a week no investor is bound to forget, it’s not just that your super savings have taken a hit. The super system virtually every Australian has used for long-term savings has been rapidly redesigned and it will never be the same again.
Three key developments have taken place. First, the concept of super money locked away until retirement is broken. The government decision to allow “early access” to super on a universal basis breaks a long-standing pact that this would never happen. As a generation of younger workers are going to find out when it comes to compounding returns — you can’t get the “time in market” back if you cash out early.
Second, the investment scenario has swung back hugely in favour of self-managed super funds. Petrified by the global financial crisis, many of these SMSFs hoarded cash and missed out as the market moved higher. Now this army of more than one million accidental “value investors” have the markets at their feet.
Third, the union-linked industry funds are going to be tested well beyond the predictable hurdles of liquidity or hedging that a major market crisis will invariably trigger.
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Bushfire Crisis And Climate Policy

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There are no entries in this section.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.

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Australia: We have a couple of weeks

Too much has been made of Australia managing well in relative terms. In absolute terms we are facing a national catastrophe.
Grant Wilson Contributor
Mar 22, 2020 – 3.57pm
A critical moment in the life of our nation is approaching. Australians need to react.
Last week we introduced the grim logic that we must now face collectively. On current trends of the COVID outbreak, Australia's medical infrastructure will be overwhelmed. This will happen soon.
Too much has been made of Australia managing well in relative terms. In absolute terms we are facing a national catastrophe.
There have also been too many words, and not enough numbers.
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The mistakes that shaped COVID-19 strategy

The Australian government's approach is a strategy akin to what market traders call catching a falling knife.
Neil Chenoweth Senior writer
Mar 23, 2020 – 12.00am
Two major miscalculations about COVID-19 have had cascading effects in shaping how governments around the world grapple with a once-in-a-century pandemic.
The first mistake was to underestimate the number of younger people who will die from the novel coronavirus; the second, discovered by the Imperial College research team in the UK, was to underestimate the number of COVID-19 patients who will need to be hospitalised.
The first mistake was to underestimate the number of younger people who will die from coronavirus; the second mistake, discovered by the Imperial College research team in the UK, was to underestimate the number of patients who will need to be hospitalised.  
The policy considerations that flow from these mistakes are complex. It is the difference between the UK’s initial mitigation policy, that sought to protect the elderly but let the virus sweep through the rest of the population – “a nice big epidemic” as UK government’s scientific adviser Professor Graham Medley put it; and more drastic steps for immediate containment, which the Imperial College team advocates in a hastily reworked report released last Monday.
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This time, small guys should get the bailouts

If we want capitalism and liberal democracy to survive COVID-19, we cannot afford to repeat the mistaken 'socialise the losses, privatise the gains' approach used a decade ago.
Rana Foroohar Columnist
Updated Mar 23, 2020 – 10.44am, first published at 10.23am
In the previous crisis, Washington bailed out banks. Today, it’s about to bail out big business.
The corporate sector looks a lot like the financial sector did pre-2008: debt-laden, with some sectors highly leveraged, and most of them reliant on financial engineering to create the illusion of growth and innovation.
American companies used to reinvest their earnings to boost productive capacity. Now, they mostly generate “value” by downsizing and distributing money to the richest in the US.
The question, now that the entire economy is collapsing at once, is who will be first in line to get bailed out?
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Finally, the end of complacency

The fundamental problem all along has been that Canberra and its medical advisers have been reacting to an "evolving" situation without looking ahead to what was inevitably coming.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Mar 22, 2020 – 6.05pm
Australian governments and their medical advisers are finally realising this extraordinary health crisis requires far more extraordinary measures than they were contemplating even last Friday.
The overdue change of approach means that not only is the Morrison government’s latest emergency $66 billion economic package massive relative to anything that has gone before.
It is still only another modest downpayment on the required financial support to come to manage a public health disaster.
Particularly given the imminent shutdown of other than non-essential retail services in Australia's two largest economies, the package is already out of date.
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Home-schooling might seem daunting. These are some tools parents can use

By Jodie Torrington
March 22, 2020 — 8.00pm
Having to home-school your young child is a daunting prospect for many parents. Thoughts of “How do I keep them busy? Are they going to be glued to a computer all day?” will be common as parents monitor their children's learning during coronavirus-related school closures.
The need for parents to come up with learning activities should be minimal. Teachers can make instructional videos that students can find on Google Classroom, Office365 and Edmodo and live video chats allow teachers to check in with students and clarify information.
This could, however, become a rare opportunity to have close input into your child’s learning. Learning using technology doesn’t mean sticking your kid in front of a computer all day. Helping your child self-regulate their learning at home is crucial.
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Medibank boss warns of big challenges for health system but Australia 'well-placed'

By Patrick Hatch
March 23, 2020 — 12.00am
Medibank chief executive Craig Drummond says reform of the private health sector will have to wait as all parts of the health system mobilise to confront an unprecedented crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The nation's largest private health insurer has been battered in recent times by the industry-wide trends of rising hospital claim costs and an exodus of young members - twin forces some warn have put the sector in a "death spiral".
Drummond was preparing to spend 2020 tackling these challenges by pushing for regulatory reform while evolving his own business from a simple payer of bills to being a provider of medical services.
But he says much of his reform agenda will now take a back seat. "There will be challenges, depending on the numbers, around [intensive care unit] capacity, ventilator capacity and all those types of issues," says Drummond, who has lead the $7 billion ASX listed health fund since 2016.
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Real-time data show virus hit to global economic activity

To make up for the lack of official information, the FT has compiled a set of alternative, high-frequency measures for different sectors which give an early indication of what to expect when official data start to become available in the coming weeks.
Valentina Romei and John Burn-Murdoch
Updated Mar 23, 2020 – 11.26am, first published at 11.24am
Restaurants, cinemas and shops around the world have emptied, while flights, road traffic and energy use have fallen steeply, according to an FT analysis which gives a first glimpse of the impact of coronavirus on the global economy.
A group of former IMF chief economists warned last weekend that a global recession had already begun, but although economic activity is slowing sharply, much official data are out of date before they are even published, given the time they take to collate.
To make up for the lack of official information, the FT has compiled a set of alternative, high-frequency measures of economic activity for different sectors which give an early indication of what to expect when official data start to become available in the coming weeks.
They show that vehicular traffic has at least halved in many of the world’s largest cities, spending in restaurants has halted and cinemas sales have collapsed. The effects began to be felt even before nationwide lockdowns were implemented across parts of Europe and the US.
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Coronavirus Australia: Doctors' desperate plea over 'out of control' virus

A group of doctors have warned Aussies the coronavirus is already “out of control” and to start isolating themselves or face serious consequences.
news.com.auMarch 23, 20201:51pm
A group of leading doctors has warned Aussies the coronavirus is already “out of control” and to start isolating themselves or face serious consequences.
Medical leaders including the Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Journal of Australia and the president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) have pleaded for Australians to urgently self-isolate to stop more deaths from the coronavirus in a video shared online yesterday.
Dr Andrew Miller, the president and federal councillor of the AMA said he was calling on the government and people of Australia to “jump on the brakes”.
“This virus is out of control and we’ve really got to stop it to avoid a lot of unnecessary deaths,” Dr Miller said on Sunday.
He warned that people in the community and health care workers are all at risk of being killed by the virus. He urged a comprehensive lockdown imposed by the government until the virus can be brought under control.
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Coronavirus: funds to take more of our wages? tell ’em they’re dreaming

 “This is the people’s money and this is the time they need it most,” Josh Frydenberg declared last weekend, signalling the government would allow households severely affected by the recession to access up to $20,000 of superannuation.
The super sector, expecting a much smaller sum, was blind­sided. Treasury estimates up to $27bn of the $3 trillion savings stockpile could be withdrawn to help people meet their expenses.
The Treasurer has made the right decision — leaning on super is better than resorting to yet more debt and, later, taxation to help prop up the economy in a crisis. And a brave one, too, given the sector, especially the union-backed industry funds, is probably the most powerful vested interest in the country.
He should go further and consider asking businesses to pay super contributions as wages until the end of the year. Super payments are remitted quarterly rather than monthly or fortnightly, but the payroll transformation is surely manageable, and definitely worth it.
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Why the over 60s should self-isolate

At the risk of infuriating every aged person in Australia, asking them to self-isolate at home for a few months could go a long way to reducing the strain on hospitals.
David Bassanese Columnist
Mar 23, 2020 – 4.21pm
The main focus of economists around the world at present is to assess the efficacy of fiscal and monetary policies in trying to limit the economic damage brought about by the COVID-19 virus (CV19).
Yet this focus is misplaced. Worrying about macro-stimulus now seems irrelevant given we are deliberately destroying our economy to slow the spread of CVI9.
As an economist, the real focus today should be whether the policies to mitigate the CV19 risks are as efficient as they could be. How can we “flatten the curve” without flattening the economy?
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National cabinet shows multiple failings at all levels

Behind the facade of high-level consultations among state and federal leaders, there are growing disagreements on everything from schools to travel bans. No wonder the public is confused.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Mar 23, 2020 – 5.09pm
Scott Morrison can no doubt ignore the NSW Premier’s “strong advice” for parents to keep their children at home if possible, given the Prime Minister’s belief that going to school remains the best and safest option. But that dispute is just one aspect of much deeper divisions between the states and the federal government behind the facade of the national cabinet.
The decisions by the Andrews government in Victoria and the Berejiklian government in NSW to make their own announcements on Sunday about the shutdown of non-essential services was a remarkably public example of the extent of disagreement. In private, the division is starkest in the constant arguments the NSW Coalition government is having with Canberra about how best to respond to the coronavirus.
It wasn’t until the national cabinet meeting on Sunday evening that an alarmed Prime Minister, backed by the other states, was able to persuade Glady Berejiklian and Daniel Andrews to agree to a more limited and nationally uniform approach on business closures. This was to apply the new restrictions to specific parts of the retail economy like bars, restaurants, cinemas and gyms, rather than an undefined ban on all “non- essential” services.
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'The pandemic is accelerating': World Health Organisation

Timothy Moore Online editor
Mar 24, 2020 – 3.15am
The coronavirus outbreak has reached a new level and ever more "aggressive" tactics are required to combat it, the head of the World Health Organisation said.
"More than 300,000 cases of #COVID19 have now been reported to WHO, from almost every country in the world. The pandemic is accelerating.
"It took 67 days from the 1st reported case to reach the first 100K cases, 11 days for the second 100K & just 4 days for the third 100K."
In a series of tweets, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his daily briefing that asking people to stay at home and other social distancing measures are important to slow the spread of the virus, however these are defensive.
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Younger people critically ill with coronavirus in Sydney hospitals

By Kate Aubusson
March 24, 2020 — 12.00am
Patients in their 40s and 50s are among those seriously ill in Sydney's COVID-19 intensive care units, increasing fears from health professionals that younger Australians are not heeding the health warnings that could protect them and the most vulnerable.
To individuals ignoring public health directives, the plight of these patients and their families is a sobering reminder that the coronavirus does not spare the relatively young, as the NSW government shuts down "non-essential" services and asks parents to keep children at home.
New South Wales parents are being urged to keep their children at home, even though schools will remain open.
On Tuesday morning Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant reported 149 new confirmed coronavirus cases within the previous 24 hours, the biggest jump to date, that took the state's total to 818.
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US finally gets a reality check thanks to COVID-19

Nicole Hemmer
Columnist and visiting research associate at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
March 23, 2020 — 12.20pm
It takes a pandemic to break a fever.
The US is slowly shutting down, while its government is slowly – much too slowly – ramping up. For 40 years, the message that government is the problem, not the solution, has been etched on the soul of both major parties. But as COVID-19 kneecaps social and economic life, the need for urgent, massive government action has become painfully clear to Democrats and Republicans alike.
Driving through iconic New York City reveals empty sidewalks Monday as resident and tourists alike heed the state order to stay home amid COVID-19.
While it's not yet certain whether the lessons of this crisis will stick – federal politicians spent the last decade deregulating finance again once the global financial crisis passed – the lessons themselves are clear. A nation where half the populace has rejected social safety nets, expertise and reality-based information has buckled under the pandemic threat. The only way out is to jettison that mode of politics and the quicker, the better.
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Australia's virus tally pushes 2000

Australia is on the brink of hitting 2000 coronavirus cases, amid dire international warnings that the pandemic is accelerating and more testing must be done.
Tracey Ferrier
Australian Associated Press March 24, 202010:02am
Australia's coronavirus tally could hit 2000 cases by the end of the day as authorities develop new rules about who can get tested.
NSW and Victoria reported 205 new cases on Tuesday morning, taking the national tally to 1914. Australia's death toll stands at seven, all but one in NSW.
Other states are yet to add their new cases. They include Queensland which recorded 60 fresh positive results on Monday - it's highest daily increase so far.
The World Health Organisation warned overnight that the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating, with more than 300,000 cases now confirmed and thousand upon thousands of deaths.
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Coronavirus: Hidden sign you might be infected

If you suddenly lose your sense of smell, you may be showing an early sign of coronavirus, according to medical specialists.
Ear, nose and throat surgeons say the virus causes swelling in the olfactory mucosa, which causes a loss of smell. The sign could be used as a key clinical indicator in otherwise symptom-free carriers of COVID-19.
As cases in Australia rose to 1887, with a rise of 149 in NSW alone, early detection, and detection in otherwise symptom free carriers is becoming increasingly urgent.
 “It is these silent carriers who may remain undetected by current screening procedures, which may explain why the disease has progressed so rapidly in so many countries around the world,” Flinders University professor and ENT specialist Simon Carney said.
“While further research is required, loss of smell, or anosmia, has been reported in as many as one in three patients in South Korea and in Germany, this figure was as high as one in two.”
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Coronavirus: ‘Appropriate’ curbs could slow rate within a month

Australian medical experts say the rate of new coronavirus infections should begin to slow within a month after the federal and state governments ordered the closure of clubs, pubs, gyms and cinemas.
The stage one restrictions introduced from midday on Monday were endorsed as “entirely appropriate” and “proportionate” to the rapidly increasing number of coronavirus cases across the country.
Indoor sporting and entertainment venues, casinos and nightclubs were closed, while restaurants and cafes can only do takeaway or home delivery.
 “My current belief is we will see increasing numbers over the next few weeks, mainly because of return (overseas traveller) numbers,” Australian National University medical school professor Peter Collignon said.
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Millions count the cost of delayed action

The only hope for limiting the duration and intensity of inevitable economic disaster is stopping all unnecessary activity sooner rather than later.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Mar 24, 2020 – 4.18pm
The long lines outside Centrelink offices offer one grim benefit. They have galvanised the entire country into registering the sudden financial devastation facing hundreds of thousands of people, soon to be millions, all over Australia.
That puts into dismal perspective the inadequacy of the government’s economic support packages, no matter how unprecedented, as well as its preparation for the scale of a spiralling health crisis that is inevitably producing a runaway economic emergency.
It is only now, for example, the government has decided it is no longer necessary for new applicants for financial support to initially present themselves in person at Centrelink to verify their identities. Only now that the Minister for Government Services, Stuart Robert, has realised it was necessary to so dramatically increase the ability of the technology to cope with the unprecedented numbers of people trying to go online to get help.
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Lives at risk from both virus and economic ruin: PM

Phillip Coorey Political Editor
Mar 24, 2020 – 7.00pm
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the ruinous economic impact of the coronavirus, as well as the virus itself, was now putting lives at risk as he reluctantly ordered the closure of more businesses and public gatherings, throwing thousands more workers onto the dole queue.
Businesses and activities which must close or cease from midnight Wednesday range from house auctions and open inspections, to nail salons and almost every other personal service provider except hairdressers and barbers.
Following a meeting of the national cabinet on Tuesday night, Mr Morrison also announced an official ban on travelling overseas other than for essential reasons such as work, delivering aid or compassionate grounds.
Weddings will be restricted to five people - the couple, the celebrant and witnesses - and a maximum of 10 people per funeral will be permitted.
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The COVID-19 storm will soon hit Australia

Mar 24, 2020 – 6.47pm
Australia is following in the COVID-19 footsteps of the UK and experts are warning the floodgates are likely to open soon.
While a surge in case numbers is widely expected, some say Australia will also suffer as many severe cases and deaths as the UK. But others say current numbers suggest the death rate could be significantly lower.
"I believe we are in the lull before the storm," said Associate Professor David Heslop from the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of NSW.
"Compared to the UK, we are comparatively earlier in the epidemic curve and there is delay between case diagnosis and deaths. This is in the order of weeks and our mortality data is yet to catch up with our case counts.
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Virus wipes 15 per cent of superannuation savings

New analysis has for the first time quantified the COVID-19 toll on Australia's retirement balances, but for many the losses are relatively modest.
Mar 25, 2020 – 12.01am
Superannuation investors face losing between 10 and 15 per cent of their savings as $290 billion was wiped off the value of balances in the first weeks of the coronavirus downturn.
Further losses are expected from members raiding their savings under the government’s early access scheme.
And Australia's largest superannuation fund, AustralianSuper, has done an ad hoc revaluation of its unlisted assets downwards by 7.5 per cent, wiping 2 per cent off the value of its flagship balanced fund.
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Nationalism is a side effect of coronavirus

The pandemic-driven pushback against globalisation will come initially from protectionists and national-security hawks. But it will gather force as it merges with other political currents that were gaining strength before.
Gideon Rachman Columnist
Updated Mar 24, 2020 – 10.43am, first published at 10.42am
Kenichi Ohmae’s book The Borderless World was published in 1990, the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It became one of the classic texts of the globalisation era. But borders are now returning with a vengeance – driven by coronavirus.
When the pandemic passes, the most extreme barriers to travel will be lifted. But it is unlikely that there will be a full restoration of the globalised world, as it existed before COVID-19. The nation-state is making a comeback, fuelled by this extraordinary crisis.
There are three main reasons for this. First, the pandemic is demonstrating that in times of emergency people fall back on the nation-state – which has financial, organisational and emotional strengths that global institutions lack. Second, the disease is revealing the fragility of global supply chains.
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The worst is probably not over for sharemarkets

Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
March 25, 2020 — 11.58am
The US sharemarket soared overnight, the biggest one-day surge in more than a decade. Does that mean that the worst, for markets at least, is over?
It is worth noting that the big bounce that provides the reference point for what happened on Wall Street on Tuesday occurred in October 2008 – about a month after Lehman brothers collapsed an precipitated the global financial crisis.
The market subsequently fell another 40 per cent or so before it bottomed in March 2009 and began the remarkable bull run that ended last month as the coronavirus emerged and created havoc.
The US market, and the other overseas markets that also soared, were responding to the news that the $US2 trillion ($3.4 trillion) "stimulus" package that had been stalled within Congress appeared to be on the verge of approval.
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Britain's Prince Charles tests positive for coronavirus

Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Updated Mar 26, 2020 – 2.00am, first published at Mar 25, 2020 – 11.09pm
London | Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, has tested positive for the coronavirus and is self-isolating at the royal family's Scottish estate Balmoral.
The 71-year-old is showing mild symptoms of COVID-19, though his wife Camilla is asymptomatic and the Queen, whom he last saw on March 12, "remains in good health", according to statements from the royals.
It's unclear how he got the virus or how many people he may have passed it onto, given what his officials described as "the high number of engagements he carried out in his public roles during recent weeks".
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'No perfect answer to COVID-19', says chair of panel which had advice rejected

By Fergus Hunter
March 25, 2020 — 7.33pm
The chair of an academic advisory group which had its recommended strategy to curb COVID-19 rejected by the federal government says there is no perfect solution to the pandemic and those in power should be trusted to make hard decisions during the unprecedented crisis.
A 22-member team from the Group of Eight universities called for a rapid, sweeping and costly lockdown to pave the way for a national recovery once the crisis abates, having been convened following a request from Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy.
Senior medical academic Shitij Kapur says government decision makers face a complex and unprecedented task.
The government has been criticised for resisting the more hardline lockdown and on Tuesday Professor Murphy said the Group of Eight advice was "very seriously considered" but noted the conclusions were not unanimous and the government wanted measures that would be sustainable long-term. He said "harder measures" might be required if community transmission increased.
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Retail carnage: Hundreds of stores close as 30,000 workers stood down

By Dominic Powell
March 26, 2020 — 10.06am
Huge numbers of Australian retailers will shut their doors this week as pressures from the coronavirus on their businesses continue to mount, with a raft of major companies announcing mass store closures on Thursday.
Retail veteran Solomon Lew's Premier Investments told investors it had "no choice" but to temporarily close all of its retail stores until April 22, standing down over 9000 staff worldwide bar a small number of head office employees.
The company will also stand down its entire executive team, which will work from home during the period for either no pay or reduced leave entitlements.
Premier intends to pay no rent across any of its stores during the period, continuing the company's hardline stance against landlords. Seventy per cent of its store leases either expire this year or are in holdover, providing the company with "extraordinary" flexibility.
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Leaders can still build our trust to fight the virus - here's how

By Julie Leask
March 26, 2020 — 10.16am
To get through this pandemic with deaths prevented and civil society intact, the government will need an unprecedented level of trust and co-operation. Right now, trust is on a knife edge caused by early communication problems and opaque decision processes, along with the uncertainty of the pandemic.
There is still time to build public trust. Any leader communicating about COVID-19 can adopt some concrete strategies that will help to bring people along.
First, competent and skilled communicators show and model empathy. This is largely missing from the Prime Minister’s media conferences dominated by a castigating tone. On Sunday this escalated into him presenting ramped-up social-distancing measures as punishment instead of as contributions to public health.
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‘Eerie similarities’ between Depression, virus crisis

In the second quarter of this year, output is expected to contract by 10 per cent — the same as it did in 1931, the first year of The Great Depression.
There are some eerie similarities between our grim economic outlook and the Great Depression of the 1930s.
JPMorgan reckons output will contract 10 per cent in the second quarter this year, about the same as it did in 1931 — the first year of the Depression.
In October 1929, equity prices fell about 40 per cent in a couple of months, not too much more than key indices have dropped globally in recent weeks.
That’s where the similarities end. The Depression was much worse than the serious trial we face today. It emerged as a result of the vicissitudes of the business cycle, a sudden collapse in global demand.
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Don't 'squander' chance to control virus

Countries that have locked down their populations to prevent the spread of coronavirus need to put a premium on finding new cases and doing everything they can "to suppress and control" the virus, the World Health Organisation says.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said US President Donald Trump had displayed "political commitment" and "leadership" to fight the growing epidemic in the United States.
The WHO had warned on Tuesday the United States could become the global epicentre of the pandemic, as India announced a full 24-hour, nationwide lockdown in the world's second-most populous country.
Tedros, speaking at a news conference, also praised the "difficult but wise decision" taken on Tuesday to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, saying it aimed to safeguard the health of athletes and spectators.
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Health authorities sweat 115 mystery cases

Mar 26, 2020 – 6.43pm
At least 115 confirmed coronavirus cases acquired in Australia have no known source, leaving health authorities around the country scrambling to identify carriers who could be unknowingly transmitting the deadly infection.
This group, while only 4.4 per cent of Australia's 2613 confirmed cases as of 6.30am AEDT on Thursday, is currently the top concern for federal and state health departments. (This figure from early on Thursday provides a breakdown of the source of infections by state and territory cases.)
The sources of a further 432 confirmed cases were also under urgent investigation. The detailed contact tracing of this 16.5 per cent of cases is attempting to stop what Deputy Commonwealth chief medical officer Paul Kelly called "a disaster situation".
Professor Kelly said the infectiousness of COVID-19 is such that one sick person has the potential to lead to as many as 400 more people contracting the disease within a month, with strict social distancing, self-isolation and quarantine measures the only way to stop the spread.
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Coronavirus Australia: Shopping strips mauled as retailers turn out the lights

In the blackest 24 hours for the ­retail sector in living memory, some of the biggest shopping mall chains in the country — including The Athlete’s Foot, Lovisa, Portmans, Just Jeans and Smiggle — have shut up shop, putting more than 15,000 staff out of work as the coronavirus pandemic swings like a wrecking ball through one of the economy’s biggest workforses.
Not waiting for the shopping centres and malls to go into lockdown, and wanting to preserve as much cash as possible to brave what could be months of ­ hibernation as consumers are confined to their homes, shop owners have decided to turn once-vibrant shopping strips into wastelands.
The coronavirus pandemic is now a full-blown catastrophe for the nation’s $320bn retail industry and the 1.3 million Australians it employs — making it the second ­biggest pool of jobs in the nation after the healthcare sector.
Billionaire ragtrader Solomon Lew says he has never seen anything like it, and he has been a fixture of the Australian retail scene for 50 years. His Premier Investments owns fashion chains such as Smiggle, Portmans, Just Jeans and Peter Alexander.
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This virus recession is complicated

Share markets turned bullish this week despite cascading news of increased measures to lock down the economy. The recovery could be complicated by Australia's record household debt.
Mar 28, 2020 – 12.00am
The combination of a health crisis and an economic crisis at the same time makes the coronavirus-induced recession unlike any other experienced in Australia over the past 100 years.
A myriad uncertainties about what will happen next as well as the weaknesses in critical infrastructure, particularly health and social security systems, mean the pathway to recovery is likely to be slow and painful.
There is far too much optimism in financial markets about the pace of the recovery in business profits despite the Prime Minister Scott Morrison warning the economy will be "frozen" for six months.
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The six charts showing an economy going into hibernation

Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Mar 27, 2020 – 4.45pm
Daily metrics on energy use, traffic congestion, consumer spending and unemployment are showing a dramatic contraction of economic activity in Australia as social distancing restrictions take effect.
Daily consumption of energy tapered off on Thursday, traffic congestion in Sydney and Melbourne this week is down more than 30 per cent on last year's average, and site traffic to Centrelink has surged 500 per cent in five days, with the key search phrase being "Jobseeker payment".
"All this real-time data is becoming much more valuable to policymakers and investors because things are moving so quickly that the usual data from the ABS and – even weekly data – is now looking dated," ANZ head of economics David Plank said.
WattClarity energy analyst Paul McArdle said that just over Thursday, Australia's aggregate energy usage had dipped below 500,000 megawatt hours and "might" be indicative of the movement restrictions starting to work.
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Lives v livelihoods: a tragic trade-off

Go easy on governments that hesitated to shut down economic life while weighing whether mitigation or suppression was the best weapon against COVID-19.
Clive Crook Contributor
Mar 27, 2020 – 12.49pm
The coronavirus crisis is terrifying not just for its potentially staggering scale, but also for its resistance to rational analysis. It's forcing governments to make enormously consequential decisions without knowing what the results will be, or how alternative courses of action might have played out.
This state of affairs is so unsettling to the rational mind that one longs for rules of thumb that suspend doubt, set complications and trade-offs aside, and offer some clarity. "Just do everything, and worry later about having overreacted" seems to be trending. It sounds reassuring and purposeful, but only so long as you don't think about it too much.
With millions of lives and colossal economic losses on the line, COVID-19 is still in the realm of radical uncertainty. At the moment, there's too little information even to calculate usable probabilities.
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In managing this crisis, Australia is tracking mid-pack

Whether climate change, inequality, education, economic growth or the current coronavirus outbreak, the English-speaking countries are being outperformed.
Andrew Wear
Mar 28, 2020 – 12.00am
Although it seems a long way off, the COVID-19 pandemic will eventually end. As we dissect the experience – perhaps at a future coronavirus royal commission – it's important we learn from our experience and the lessons of other countries.
At this stage, it appears that Iran, the US and several European countries have struggled to contain the spread of the virus. Conversely, the East Asian "Tiger" countries (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea) seem to have been particularly effective, after learning from the SARS epidemic of 2003. As usual, Australia is mid-pack – not the worst, but not the best either. It remains to be seen whether Australia remains there when this is all over.
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore have largely succeeded in slowing the spread of the virus. They instituted a comprehensive testing regime and quickly identified early cases, locking them down, limiting transmission. With impressive speed, they have been able to rapidly deploy innovative technology to identify patients at high risk to ensure they were contained. For example, Taiwan rapidly cross-matched the immigration and customs database with the national health insurance database to enable doctors to be alerted to patients’ recent overseas travel.
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A fractured nation faces its greatest foe

Peter Hartcher
March 27, 2020 — 8.36pm
The early national unity has fallen apart. The corona consensus has turned into an outbreak of argument. On three levels. The most consequential is the breakdown of broad unity that existed between the states and the federal government until just over a week ago.
Leaders have maintained their civility. And a semblance of co-ordination between the state and federal leaders continues through the so-called national cabinet. This is better than uncivil leaders and no co-ordination.
But by their actions it's plain that the premiers are frustrated with Scott Morrison past any point of patience and have started to exert their own powers. The states are now wielding sovereign controls, independently of the federal government, more decisively than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s, according to Anne Twomey.
"To the best of my knowledge," says the Sydney University constitutional scholar, "the last time would have been NSW in the 1932 financial crisis."
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Morrison's $1.1b boost to Medicare, charities

Phillip Coorey Political Editor
Mar 28, 2020 – 10.30pm
The Morrison government has announced another $1.1 billion in health and social support amid disturbing signs domestic violence is already on the rise as the coronavirus wreaks economic havoc.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt will unveil on Sunday a series of initiatives including an initial $150 million help victims of domestic violence.
"Google is seeing the highest magnitude of searches for domestic violence help that they have seen in the past five years with an increase of 75 per cent and some services are already reporting an increase in demand,'' the government said in a statement.
The funding will be used for counselling and education programs, an information campaign to help victims, as well as support programs for women and children experiencing violence to protect themselves to stay in their homes, or a home of their choice, when it is safe to do so.
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$1 billion boost for Medicare telehealth, domestic violence services

By
All Australians will be able to have doctors' appointments at home through Medicare as the government pumps $669 million into telehealth services to avoid queues turning up in person at their GPs.
The measure is part of a $1.1 billion package that will also see $150 million provided to support Australians experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence due to the fallout from coronavirus.
The Prime Minister's Office has been briefed by Google on an alarming spike in domestic violence searches since the crisis began in Australia a month ago.
The internet giant is seeing the highest magnitude of searches for domestic violence help in five years with an increase of 75 per cent. The number of cases are expected to surge as Australians are told to stay at home as much as possible for the next six months and domestic violence services struggle to keep up with demand.
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'Imminent' fix to welfare gap for up to 400,000 unemployed

By
Federal cabinet will move to plug a hole in the welfare system that would have seen up to 400,000 Australians laid off during the coronavirus crisis miss out on Centrelink benefits.
The imminent move, to be delivered without Parliament sitting, will see changes to the "benefit cliff," a hard threshold that would have left families struggling to keep up with the cost of living.
Police are tonight cracking down on Queenslanders ignoring coronavirus isolation laws.
Under the current arrangements, sacked or stood-down workers would not have been eligible for either the coronavirus supplement of $550, the Jobseeker payment of $550, or other Centrelink measures such as rent assistance if their employed partner earned more than $1850 a fortnight. The threshold would have hit the partners of critical front-line workers such as teachers or nurses and forced households to survive on $48,000 a year.
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Government to pay workers' wages for coronavirus

John Kehoe Senior Writer
Updated Mar 28, 2020 – 8.16pm, first published at 7.49pm
The federal government is planning to pay a generous share of wages for closed and hobbled businesses that retain their employees during the coronavirus recession.
The payments, being worked on by Treasury, will be similar to wage subsidies of 75 per cent to 80 per cent introduced by Canada, Denmark and the United Kingdom in response to the virus shutting down large parts of the economy.
Sources said Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg were finalising government-funded wage payments, which are set to be capped at middle income earner levels.
The emergency wage payments are expected to be announced in the next few days, possibly as early as Sunday.
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Australia, a nation snap-frozen by the coronavirus pandemic

By
The irresistible force of the coronavirus collided with the immovable object of the federation this week, revealing both the limits of prime ministerial authority, and the fragility of our very system of governance.
The tension was laid bare on Tuesday as Scott Morrison made policy on the run to keep hairdressers open while Western Australia became the first of the mainland states to close its borders to the rest of the country. A prime minister mired in the weeds of regulation while premiers and chief ministers exercised the equivalent of wartime powers offers a telling example of the power of COVID-19 to shatter political hierarchies as it shuts down the economy. On that same Tuesday, March 24, the New South Wales government confirmed that one of the first passengers from the Ruby Princess cruise to test positive for the virus, a woman in her 70s, died.
Neither level of government would have anticipated this particular shock when they first met to co-ordinate a national response to the health crisis a fortnight ago. A unity of purpose, with a clear chain of command was taken for granted because leaders assumed the combination of the Commonwealth chequebook, respect for expert advice and a whatever-it-takes spending for state hospitals would help Australia avoid an American, British or Italian-style catastrophe. "All too often we squabble about health, not at this [meeting]," Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews assured the public at a joint press conference with the Prime Minister and fellow premiers and chief ministers on March 13. "We are all united."
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Royal Commissions And The Like.

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There are no entries in this category.
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National Budget Issues.

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'Supercharging our safety net': Scott Morrison unveils $189 billion rescue package

By Jennifer Duke
Updated March 22, 2020 — 11.39amfirst published at 11.28am
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has revealed another $66 billion in spending to help the Australian economy through the coronavirus pandemic.
The second package brings the total spend to $189 billion, including $90 billion from the Reserve Bank, worth about 10 per cent of the size of the Australian economy. It includes giving workers early access to $20,000 worth of superannuation funds if they fall into hardship due to the virus.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for Australians to cancel all non-essential travel.
"We will be focusing on those in the front line, those who will be feeling the first blows of the economic impact of the coronavirus," Mr Morrison said on Sunday.
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It’s Modern Monetary Theory time as the state steps in

It hardly seems sensible to be putting numbers on how much the Morrison government will spend to support the economy, whether it’s the first effort of $17.6bn, the RBA’s $90bn last Thursday, or Sunday’s latest number of $66.1bn.
Moreover the precision of $66.1bn is meaningless, beyond being a number big enough that everybody might feel better for five minutes and the Prime Minister can have another one of those grave pep-talky press conferences.
And adding them all up to $189bn (rounded up from $188.7bn) is even more meaningless, since RBA quantitative easing, cash off the budget to pensioners and businesses, permission to withdraw from superannuation and the various other parts of the packages are not just apples and oranges, but a whole basket of fruit.
The economy is likely to be entirely shut down within a few days apart from essential services, in which case government support for businesses and jobs will have to be unlimited, as it is in other ­countries. It’s likely that most, if not all, developed economies will soon be shut down, apart from essential businesses.
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Consumer confidence falls to lowest level since last recession

By Shane Wright
March 24, 2020 — 10.37am
Consumer confidence has plummeted to its lowest level since Australia's last recession as shoppers become panicked by the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
The ANZ/Roy Morgan weekly measure of consumer sentiment tumbled 27.8 per cent through the past seven days to sit now just above its all-time low recorded in 1990.
It is 17 per cent below the bottom reached during the global financial crisis in October 2008.
All measures, including current financial conditions and current economic conditions, stumbled. The biggest fall was on the question of whether it is a good time to buy a major household item which dropped by 37.2 per cent.
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Economy facing record contraction, budget heading for $160b deficit: Westpac

By Shane Wright
March 24, 2020 — 7.45pm
The budget deficit could blow out to $160 billion next financial year, Westpac believes, as stimulus measures and a collapse in tax revenues due to the coronavirus pandemic wreak havoc on the Morrison government's fiscal strategy.
The bank also predicted the unemployment rate would jump to 11.1 per cent over the next three months, pushing up to 814,000 people onto the jobless queue, and the economy was headed for its biggest short-term contraction on record.
Those who've lost their jobs because of the coronavirus shutdowns aren't eligible for the new Centrelink benefits if they have a partner earning over $48,000 a year but the Social Services Minister says she's working to change that.
Consumer confidence on Tuesday slumped to its lowest level since Australia's last recession in 1990-91 and more firms announced store closures as the economic damage from efforts to control the virus continued to grow.
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Lessons in (il)liquidity from the crisis

The virus induced meltdown has offered important insights about risk and liquidity across all asset classes.
Christopher Joye Columnist
Mar 27, 2020 – 1.02pm
March has been a record-setting month for both humanity and financial markets that has rendered important insights in relation to risk and liquidity.
To recap, in late February it was clear that the world was about to experience a liquidity shock that would rapidly morph into a solvency crisis because investors were not able to properly price the distribution of risks around what is the first global pathogenic pandemic with dire real economic consequences in over 100 years.
It was also clear that central banks and treasuries needed to immediately act in their lender of last resort capacity to provide unconditional catastrophe insurance to the global economy in the form of guarantees of liquidity (and hence solvency) to governments and the core banking systems that serve as the essential arteries intermediating savings and loans. Failure to do so would precipitate extreme catastrophes the likes of which we had not seen in a century.
Policymakers and politicians did not embrace or receive this message, and ultimately had to be coerced into action by the worst market declines – and the poorest liquidity conditions – observed since the great depression.
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Health Issues.

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Prostate cancer's new standard of care

Jill Margo Health Editor
Mar 23, 2020 – 5.30am
Australian researchers have provided the world with what is likely to become a new standard of care for men with prostate cancer.
It is for men who have been diagnosed and are not sure what to do next. Specifically, it is for those with localised prostate cancer with aggressive features.
The researchers, from 10 sites across the country, have demonstrated definitively how a form of molecular scanning can provide far more information than conventional scanning.
This extra information can be very important in deciding on a treatment plan. For many, it can save unnecessary surgery or radiation.
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23 Mar 2020 8:53 AM

COVID-19: is it time for Australians to make future medical decisions? 

National Advance Care Planning Week kicks off today encouraging Australians to plan their future care. But it prompts the questions - what does this mean in a time of COVID-19 and is now the right time?
In early March nearly 200 organisations and community groups across Australia had opted to host an awareness-raising event to encourage people to consider their future medical treatment preferences.  However many events have been cancelled in the past week due to concerns around coronavirus.
“When we set the date for this initiative back in November 2019, little did we know that the world would be gripped by a disruptive global pandemic.  It’s disappointing but understandable that so many events have been cancelled,” said Dr Karen Detering, Medical Director of Advance Care Planning Australia (ACPA).
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Research news in brief: COVID-19 edition

From the New England Journal of Medicine
A trial of lopinavir–ritonavir in adults hospitalized with severe COVID-19: A total of 199 patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection underwent randomisation; 99 were assigned to the lopinavir–ritonavir group, and 100 to the standard-care group. Treatment with lopinavir–ritonavir was not associated with a difference from standard care in the time to clinical improvement (hazard ratio [HR] for clinical improvement, 1.24; 95% CI, 0.90–1.72). Mortality at 28 days was similar in the lopinavir–ritonavir group and the standard care group (19.2% v 25.0%; difference, −5.8 percentage points; 95% CI, −17.3 to 5.7). The percentages of patients with detectable viral RNA at various time points were similar. In a modified intention-to-treat analysis, lopinavir–ritonavir led to a median time to clinical improvement that was shorter by one day than that observed with standard care (HR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.00–1.91). Gastrointestinal adverse events were more common in the lopinavir–ritonavir group, but serious adverse events were more common in the standard care group. Lopinavir–ritonavir treatment was stopped early in 13 patients (13.8%) because of adverse events. Conclusion: in hospitalised adult patients with severe COVID-19, no benefit was observed with lopinavir–ritonavir treatment beyond standard care. Future trials in patients with severe illness may help to confirm or exclude the possibility of a treatment benefit. OPEN ACCESS at https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001282
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International Issues.

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Boris Johnson finally puts Britain into three-week lockdown

Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Mar 24, 2020 – 7.58am
London | British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has bowed to the inevitable and sent his country into COVID-19 lockdown, restricting outdoor movement to essential shopping, medical needs, solitary exercise and unavoidable travel to work.
Police will have the powers to break up gatherings of more than two people (excepting families), and penalise transgressors. All shops and institutions apart from essentials such as food and chemists will close. The measures will last at least three weeks.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a highly unusual televised "statement to the country" Downing Street.
"If your friends ask you to meet, you should say no. You should not be meeting family members who do not live in your home," Mr Johnson told his nation in a sombre televised address on Monday night (Tuesday morning AEDT)
"No prime minister wants to enact measures like this. I know the damage that this disruption is doing and will do to people's lives, to their businesses and to their jobs.
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Trump, New York governor agree US must reopen

Jacob Greber United States Correspondent
Updated Mar 24, 2020 – 3.20pm, first published at 12.49pm
Washington | Donald Trump indicated he's chomping at the bit to reopen the US economy as early as possible to avoid creating a downturn worse than the damage inflicted by COVID-19.
Declaring that it was possible to do "two things at once", Mr Trump said the virus was "gonna be bad" but that "we can't have the cure be worse than the problem".
In a near two-hour White House press briefing on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), the US President addressed and stoked a growing debate about whether the instantaneous recession now slamming the US and global economies was justified given the common flu results in 50,000 deaths a year.
While critics of Mr Trump have been quick to condemn his stance as heartless, it was supported by Andrew Cuomo, the Democrat governor of New York state who is overseeing the nation's worst-hit region.
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Donald Trump wants the US economy open and 'raring to go' by Easter

Jacob Greber United States Correspondent
Mar 25, 2020 – 5.53am
Washington | Having put the US economy into an induced coma to save lives, President Donald Trump says he wants it reopened by Easter lest the business and consumer slump result in even more deaths.
In an extraordinary move that put a hard date on when the President expects America to get back to work, Mr Trump indicated he will soon begin ordering a wind down of social distancing guidelines.
"I would love to have it open by Easter," Mr Trump told Fox News in an extended "town hall" meeting filmed in the Rose Garden on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT). "I would love to have it opened up and just raring to go by Easter."
"Wouldn't it be great to have all the churches full?," Mr Trump said in a second interview with Fox that aired after the Rose Garden event. He suggested the April 12 deadline because "Easter's a very special day for me".
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Trump wants US economy to re-open by Easter as coronavirus cases grow

By Matthew Knott
March 25, 2020 — 5.37am
Washington: US President Donald Trump has set a goal for his country to be operating normally again by Easter, saying he believes more people will die from suicides caused by a faltering economy than the coronavirus.
Projecting an optimism at odds with most public health experts and the leader of virtually every other country in the world, Trump said he would love to have the US "opened up and just raring to go" by Easter on April 12.
 “I’d love to have it open by Easter,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall on Tuesday. "It’s such an important day for other reasons, but I’ll make it an important day for this too."
His comments came as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths in the US accelerate rapidly and the World Health Organisation warns that the country could become the next centre of the pandemic.
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Coronavirus: People leaving New York should self-quarantine amid COVID-19 spike

The White House has advised that due to spike in infections, people who have recently left New York City should self-quarantine for 14 days.
The city’s governor Andrew Cuomo warned New York could become the next centre of the coronavirus pandemic. The number of cases in the city is doubling every three days.
New York State has recorded more than 200 deaths, or one-third of the US total.
An angry Governor Cuomo slammed the US Federal Emergency Management Agency for not sending enough ventilators, saying New York was in desperately short supply.
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US now leads world in confirmed coronavirus cases

A series of missteps and lost opportunities has dogged America's response to COVID-19.
Donald G. McNeil Jr.
Mar 27, 2020 – 9.51am
New York | Scientists warned that the United States would someday become the country hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. That moment arrived Thursday (Friday AEDT).
At least 81,321 people in the US are known to have been infected with the coronavirus, including more than 1000 deaths – more cases than China, Italy or any other country has seen, according to data gathered by The New York Times.
With 330 million residents, the US is the world's third-most populous nation, meaning it provides a vast pool of people who can potentially get COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
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US jobless claims soar to record-breaking 3.3m

Mar 27, 2020 – 12.29am
Washington DC | Nearly 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week - more than quadruple the previous record set in 1982 - amid a widespread economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus.
The surge in weekly applications was a stunning reflection of the damage the viral outbreak is doing to the economy. Filings for unemployment aid generally reflect the pace of layoffs.
The pace of layoffs is sure to accelerate as the US economy sinks into a recession. Revenue has collapsed at restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, gyms, and airlines. Auto sales are plummeting, and car makers have close factories. Most such employers face loan payments and other fixed costs, so they're cutting jobs to save money.
As job losses mount, some economists say the nation's unemployment rate could approach 13 per cent by May. By comparison, the highest jobless rate during the Great Recession, which ended in 2009, was 10 per cent.
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A massive disaster is unfolding in Spain

By Bevan Shields
March 26, 2020 — 1.13pm
London: Spain risks becoming the new epicentre of the global coronavirus crisis, with the country's death toll soaring to overtake China in a rapidly worsening outbreak that even threatens to eclipse the tragedy in Italy.
On Wednesday 738 deaths brought total fatalities in Spain to nearly 3500 - about 300 more than the official tally in China, where the deadly pandemic began late last year. There are so many victims in the capital Madrid that an ice skating rink has been transformed into a temporary morgue.
Of the 20,499 coronavirus-related deaths worldwide, more than half are now in Spain and Italy.
"People are bored and they are frustrated because they don't know what is going to happen in the weeks ahead," said Helen Stasa, an Australian living in Spain.
"But I would say they are also scared. I live with my husband and father-in-law and my father-in-law has been watching a lot of TV and he is petrified. It's horrible."
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Trump signs $3.2 trillion rescue bill into law

Paul Kane, Mike DeBonis and Erica Werner
Mar 28, 2020 – 8.15am
Washington | President Donald Trump on Friday (Saturday AEDT) signed a massive $US2 trillion ($3.2 trillion) emergency spending bill into law, which policy makers hope will blunt some of the coronavirus epidemic's economic fallout.
His signature came just hours after the House of Representatives passed the measure by a voice vote, and less than 48 hours after it received unanimous approval from the Senate.
"I want to thank Democrats and Republicans for coming together and putting America first," Trump said.
Now, the White House, Treasury Department, Small Business Administration and other agencies must rush to try and flood the economy with money under the new law.
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Trump considering quarantine for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut

March 29, 2020 — 8.12am
President Donald Trump said he was considering a quarantine as early as Saturday for coronavirus hotspots in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, though it wasn't clear whether he had the power to order state residents to stay put.
Trump told reporters that he had spoken with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, among others, and that "a lot of the states that are infected but don't have a big problem, they've asked me if I'll look at it so we're going to look at it."
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who criticised the federal government's response as his state became the country's virus epicentre, said the issue had not come up in a conversation he had with Trump earlier Saturday.
"I don't even know what that means," the Democrat said at a briefing in New York. "I don't know how that could be legally enforceable, and from a medical point of view, I don't know what you would be accomplishing. ... I don't like the sound of it."

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Sorry, some will die: Brazil's Bolsonaro

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has cast doubt on Sao Paulo's death toll from the coronavirus outbreak and accused the state governor of manipulating the numbers for political ends.
Bolsonaro's accusations were the latest broadside in an ugly battle with Brazil's governors, who have differed from the president's view that protecting the economy takes priority over social distancing measures to combat the spread of the highly contagious virus.
Following the advice of public health experts, the vast majority of the country's 26 governors banned non-essential commercial activities and public services to contain the outbreak in their states.
"I'm sorry, some people will die, they will die, that's life," Bolsonaro said in a television interview on Friday night. "You can't stop a car factory because of traffic deaths."
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Saudis look for way out of Yemen after five years of failure

By Richard Spencer
The Times
12:56AM March 29, 2020
Saudi Arabia is suing for peace in Yemen after a humiliating defeat for its allied forces in the north of the country, five years after intervening in the civil war.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of the UN-recognised government said last week that it would accept a ceasefire call made by the United Nations in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, its statement followed the capture by Houthi rebels of an entire province in the north of the country. The rebels are within 30km of the city of Marib, the centre of the Saudi zone of influence.
The Houthis swept through al-Jawf in a matter of weeks, overwhelming troops from the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.

It Seems The ADHA Is Going To Try Again To Develop Interest In #myHealthRecord Apps.

This appeared last week:

More My Health Record apps to help Australians manage their health

26 March, 2020: The Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency) has today enabled more mobile apps to connect to the My Health Record so that consumers have more choices about the ways they get real time access to their health information.
Australia’s need for a connected healthcare system is now greater than ever. One that’s accessible, progressive and – importantly – secure.
The My Health Record allows consumers and their healthcare providers to access information about their medicines, pathology test results, imaging reports, hospital visits, and summaries of their health status. Consumers can currently access their My Health Record through four mobile apps available through app stores, or through MyGov.
Over 22.7 million Australians now have a My Health Record and these records contain over 1.8 billion documents which are increasing every day. The Agency paused new apps from connecting to the My Health Record during its expansion of the My Health Record to opt-out. At the time, there was significant interest from innovators to offer apps that connected to the My Health Record.

Steven Issa, the Agency’s Chief Digital Officer, said “The security and safety of people’s health information is our priority. We have undertaken a comprehensive review of how apps – and the organisations that offer them – should use the latest security and privacy measures to achieve our confidence that this precious information will be protected. We have now implemented all changes arising from that review.
Australians put their trust in us to use the highest standards to operate the My Health Record, and we are at a point where we are confident that sufficient controls are in place for any new connecting mobile apps.
The ‘Mobile Gateway’ allows a consumer to authenticate to the My Health Record and view the information in their My Health Record, along with other services the app provides.
Mobile apps can provide consumers with new ways to understand and use the information in their My Health Record, and ultimately, to make better informed decisions about staying well or managing their health conditions.”
In reopening the Mobile Gateway, the Agency has added a range of new requirements to connecting apps. This includes clauses in the legal agreement signed by app operators to more explicitly prohibit them from making a copy of system data and using data for any other secondary purpose. This is backed up by civil penalties of up to $315,000, or up to $1.575 million for a body corporate, for an unauthorised collection, use or disclosure of My Health Record information, per offence. Criminal penalties may also apply under the My Health Records Act 2012.
Under the Act, it is also a requirement that any servers and infrastructure used to connect to the system be located within Australia.
The Agency has also put additional obligations on app providers relating to their commercial model, quality processes, company ownership and management, and requirements for independent audit.
The Agency will continue to log and analyse access to the My Health Record system, to ensure those operating apps are remaining compliant with their obligations under the Act and legal agreement with the Agency.
“We appreciate the patience of innovators while we completed our security and privacy review, then implemented additional requirements to even more stringently safeguard Australians’ health information. We’re looking forward to seeing fantastic new apps for consumers to get the full benefits from having a My Health Record. The need to manage our health and receive health services remotely is highlighting the incredibly important role technology can play in meeting the challenge posed by this global pandemic. We are fortunate in Australia that governments and the private sector have invested in health technology and we are now able to use it to get the best outcomes for the country,” Mr Issa said. Register here to receive updates on future collaboration opportunities, to connect to the Mobile Gateway visit the ADHA Developer Centre.
Here is the link:
At present according to this page there are 3 providers of apps to access the myHealthRecord.
See:
This assumes each of these has signed up to the new rules and strictions that have been applied. (It is not clear this page has been updated as it is not dated as it should be.)
These are HealthEngine, Telstra Health and Chamonix.
Tyde used to be in the mix but they relied on the ADHA for their business model and went broke when things changed.
You can read about the debacle here:

Start-up investors slam roll out of 'My Health Record'



Carrie LaFrenz Senior Reporter
Updated
Leading start-up investors have criticised the federal government's "disastrous" rollout of the My Health Record system aimed at digitising medical records, saying the policy instability is crushing innovation.
Australian health IT start-up Tyde is the creator of the first consumer-focused app – a single point to access and manage records and appointments that can join the entire family's health records together – for the federal government's My Health Record that is being rolled out by the Australian Digital Health Agency.
All Australians will have a My Health Record created automatically unless they opt out by November 15, which has sparked fears over privacy and safety of health information.

Tyde is now mulling its future after proposed legislative changes to the My Health Record Act, which was highlighted by the Morrison government last week following a Senate inquiry.

In April, Tyde co-founder Romain Bonjean was upbeat about the two-year-old company's future, but things have turned quickly as the government backflipped on allowing Tyde and other third party developers access to personal data with the consent of the individual. The government has also reneged on allowing heath insurers access to personal data with consent, which Mr Bonjean says, is a "disaster" since private health insurers are driving innovation in care coordination.
Mr Bonjean, who holds a 30 per cent stake in Tyde, said the company's future is at stake following the poor handling by the government. A shareholder meeting is due to take place this week to determine whether Tyde will be wound up.

More here:
The two obvious points are for those who are thinking of investing in an app:
First, don’t rely on Government to play straight and fair.
Second, make sure you have a diversified business model where the Government is only a manageable component.
While all the rules etc. around access seem clear enough can some-one advise us how it is possible to display information in an app without it being able to be captured / recorded – if you really want to and are clever enough?
It will be interesting to see what the demand looks like and if any money can be made by providing access, given that access via myGov is free and you can print information out to take it away!
Of course there is still yet to be an evaluation of just what positive difference having a #myHealthRecord has on your care!
David.

Wednesday, April 01, 2020

Digital Health In Australia Will Feel A Significant Impact From The COVID-19 Emergency.

I have been a little slow in noticing the intensity of the impact of the present emergency on both the Digital Health Start-Up Community And In The Event / Conference organising groups.
The penny should have really have dropped when the huge annual conference in the US (HIMSS) was cancelled.
Here is the announcement:

Coronavirus forces cancellation of HIMSS20

After monitoring the situation for weeks, CEO Hal Wolf says the 2020 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition will not proceed as hoped, given the health risks posed to attendees.
March 05, 2020 01:17 PM


For the first time in 58 years, the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition – which was scheduled to take place March 9-13 in Orlando, Florida – has been canceled.
HIMSS has been keeping a close eye on the fast-changing worldwide coronavirus situation for weeks, and said the decision to cancel comes in light of recent reports from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It was decided that the potential to spread the virus – especially given HIMSS' audience of healthcare professionals – was too great.
"We recognize all the hard work that so many have put into preparing for their presentations and panels that accompany every HIMSS conference," said Hal Wolf, president and CEO of HIMSS, in a statement.
"Based on evaluation of evolving circumstances and coordination with an external advisory panel of medical professionals to support evidence-based decision making, it is clear that it would be an unacceptable risk to bring so many thousands of people together in Orlando next week."
Here is the link:
In Australia we have seen significant deferrals in the last week or so.

The Australasian Institute of Digital Health is deferring its conference programme until later in the year as a response to COVID-19

Australia’s largest digital health and health informatics scientific conference HIC 2020 will be the pinnacle of a combined digital health series in Brisbane from 17 to 21 October 2020.
The Nursing Informatics international congress (NI2020), which was to be held in conjunction with HIC in July, will be postponed and held alongside the international medical informatics congress MedInfo 2021, to be held in Sydney 21-25 August 2021.
The Australian Telehealth Conference (ATC2020), due to be held in Melbourne from 29-30 April, will also move to the combined digital health event series in Brisbane in October. Speakers, delegates and sponsors are being contacted to advise them of the new arrangements.
The series will also feature Health Data Analytics 2020, 17-18 October, rounding out the events with a technical health data program.
Institute CEO Dr Louise Schaper said: “Digital health has never been more needed, and digital health workforce skills more in demand, than right now during the COVID-19 health crisis. Everyone in the health sector is intensively focused on managing in this challenging environment and getting on with the job.
Our members, with their extensive digital health knowledge, are among those at the forefront of telehealth policy, governance and delivery and they are needed in the community right now,” Dr Schaper said.
We are receiving many enquiries about Fellowship of the Institute, and we are seeing strong growth in the national certification program CHIA which is one of our key programs for building digital health workforce capacity,” she said. “We are ramping up our efforts to release other workforce-based programs that can be delivered virtually in order to assist the health sector build digital health capability”.
We will continue to monitor and follow government advice, including the need for social distancing. Given the pressures on the health sector at present, we have made the decision not to hold in-person events for the time being. Our smaller professional development events hosted by our state committees will be delivered virtually where possible.
Here is the link:
Additionally we have seen a process of the Digital Health entities going virtual.

ANDHEALTH NEWS

A Note From Our CEO

The past few weeks have seen the world turned on its head, and organisations and people challenged in innumerable ways. As a flexible working organisation with existing video and remote working technology in place, ANDHealth has been extremely fortunate in being able to adapt to our “new normal” with relative practical ease, but we are conscious that current measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 will have vast and unprecedented implications.

In the coming weeks we will continue to redesign our upcoming programs for virtual delivery, widening their reach to all who are seeking to deliver innovative digital health and digital medicine technologies to global markets. The first of these will be our scheduled BRIGHT Ideate workshop, now being run over two half-day sessions, with the support of our program partners LaunchVic and Planet Innovation, and our original host partner University of Melbourne. This program is currently open to registrations to applicants Victoria-wide.

We will also be looking to extend new offerings to Australian innovators seeking support as they find ways to survive and thrive in this challenging market. We recognise that the current situation offers both enormous opportunities and enormous risks for our stakeholders, and the ANDHealth team is working hard to find ways to support the broader industry across both policy and program activities.

We would also like to acknowledge the efforts of the Australian government, various state governments, and companies seeking to deliver necessary technologies to our frontline healthcare workforce to address the current scenario. For example, Planet Innovation is working with the Victorian Government to determine the potential of an acute respiratory infection triage tool (see below for the story). In subsequent newsletters, we will be highlighting other instances where  Australian digital health companies are showing initiative, and providing vital information about opportunities where your company can play a role in tackling the COVID-9 crisis, and beyond.

The profound impact at both a personal and professional level, for everyone, of the current pandemic and subsequent response measures, requires everyone to be resilient, innovative and, above all, kind. The far-reaching employment implications of the current shutdown will impact millions of Australians, many of them severely, with their hopes and dreams put on hold at the very least. For those that retain their jobs, remote working can be isolating and motivation can be elusive. For those that are struggling, please use your network, including us, for support.

As always, I would like to personally thank our members and partners for their ongoing support at this time.

Be safe everyone, and #stayathome where you can.

Bronwyn Le Grice
Founder | CEO | Managing Director
ANDHealth
Here is the link:
You can also read about similar activities from the Digital Health CRC from this link:
The following gives a general view on how tough things are becoming:

Start-ups fight to survive COVID-19



Australia's technology start-ups are already feeling the crunch of the COVID-19 economic downturn, with cancelled funding rounds, staff layoffs and founders going without pay, despite stimulus measures designed to help smaller companies.
Founders and investors have told The Australian Financial Review that many companies in the previously booming sector have been forced to press pause on rapid expansion plans in favour of a battle to survive.
Ento co-founder Aulay Macaulay said the workforce management software company had been due to sign on the dotted line for a $4 million capital raise on March 13, but the private equity firm that was set to back them pulled out at the last minute.

"It was a bit of a double whammy for me. I went from the whole executive team working on the due diligence for three months to repurposing the company announcement to one on how we were going to manage the COVID-19 situation," he said.
I was googling how to re-cork the champagne."

More here:
All in all it seems to me there is going to be a lot of pain in the next few months. One has to wonder just how many of these entities will sustain their cash-flow and employees in coming weeks.

Some think it may not be to bad: See here:

https://www.afr.com/technology/start-ups-have-the-agility-to-survive-then-thrive-in-virus-chaos-20200322-p54cqc
Let us all know what you are seeing by way of impact in these area.
David.