My new piece is on Australia, New Zealand, COVID-19, and why it's nonsense to say that it's just luck (or geography) that has put us where we are todayhttps://gidmk.medium.com/australia-and-new-zealand-were-not-just-lucky-64e098ea8226 …
-
-
Replying to @GidMK
You make some good points in this, but you imply that Australia and the UK had a similar number of cases in early March and that is way off. Australia had a massive heart start.pic.twitter.com/VKkdqbIlSF
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
Replying to @cjsnowdon
At the start of March/end of Feb they were very similar based at least on confirmed cases and inferring backwards from deaths. Probably diverged in the first week or two of the month, but I didn't say that they stayed the same
2 replies 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @GidMK @cjsnowdon
To an extent, this does depend on the lag of death reporting - possible that they diverged a bit earlier (maybe sometime in mid/late Feb) - but I don't think it's unfair to argue that the initial conditions were not vastly different at least insofar as seeding of cases
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @GidMK
Come off it! Australia’s first fatality was some dude on the Diamond Princess. The UK was riddled with it by then. We had people from Italy and everywhere with the virus pouring in from xmas 2019 onwards. It was a totally different kettle of fish.pic.twitter.com/V8cGZDEJbg
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @cjsnowdon
Hmmm that's not a bad point. I'll have a think about the language. I don't agree that it was a totally different kettle of fish, but at least by the start of March you're probably right that the situations had diverged
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @GidMK @cjsnowdon
From what I can see Australia locked down a week after the UK. By which time it was not a difficult decision. Geography meant it had far less cases even though it locked down later. The lockdown of Victoria was a difficult decision which seems to have been proven right.
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
It varied a bit from state to state, but it was very similarly timed in terms of lockdown. The lockdowns were quite different tho - we implemented far stricter border control immediately, and reopened much more gradually
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.