what about other avoidable deaths

 John Quiggin has written about this today.  highly recommended. Remember all those people dying frorm the flu. We fixed that. We can fix other ways as well!

Lockdown proving a problem now at home

To much serious stuff so let be be light hearted today.

 I have said previously I do like lockdowns however in my household it is proving a problem.

My wife is a school teacher indeed a very good one and is teaching via zoom as well as having meetings as well. My youngest son works in the city but has to work from home. He has regular monday meetings ( doesn't everyone) and has to use the phone a lot.

My oldest son works in the social welfare field and when he has to work at home ( not a lot) he has to use the phone quite a bit as well.

We have a virtual home office downstairs which my youngest son claims most of the time. My wife therefore has to do most of her teaching upstairs. 

This means we have to know when people have meetings and phone calls. Sometimes these times clash. This is usually resolved by the person having a short call going outside but it is becoming a problem.

On the positive side costs are well down and we all have dinner at a very reasonable time.

moar on the National plan

 Still trying to work out the National plan.

From the superb the conversation site here are some pertinent articles all from a different perspective.

• what-is-life-going-to-look-like-once-we-hit-70-vaccination
  
• living-with-covid-looks-very-different-for-front-line-health-workers-who-are-already-exhausted
  
• explainer-do-the-states-have-to-obey-the-covid-national-plan
  

The National plan examined plus a bit more

 How many times have you heard about the national plan? Do you understand the assumptions behind it?

I am here to help.

• The Australia Institute
• The Health Report

The Doherty report assumes vaccinations and test trace isolate and quarantine play an equal role in ' living with the virus.' However the TTIQ takes no account of the new delta variant. Quite clearly Delta moves so fast TTIQ is very problematic. Just look at NSW in a lockdown Moreover there will be a lot of pressure on hospitals as we also know in NSW ( in a lockdown).. It is easy to convert wards into ICU wards BUT ICU wards need one nurse per patient and the nurses are highly trained and this takes a lot of time to take effect.

I am unsure some politicians have actually read through the 'national plan'. This is not a criticism of the model because all models are hostage to the assumptions made

Related to this is Andrew Gelman on there-are-no-equal-opportunity-infectors-epidemiological-modelers-must-rethink-our-approach-to-inequality-in-infection-risk

Also related is this on Vox wonk mask-mandates-save-lives

the rolling bones live

 The rolling bones were a vastly over rated group ( the Beatles more so.) The Yardbirds, the Jeff Becck group, the Who were much better groups to name but three however there are times when they can rock and this is one.

They are going to tour again and some are 80. Embarrassing. Even here most of them are anything but chick magnets. Okay they re ugly as my wife attests.

Around the Traps 3/9/21

 It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Ausssie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Ricardian Ambivalence on the-q3-retail-crash, q2-gdp-a-bit-better-than-it-looked
• Tim Nelson on as-the-world-battles-to-slash-carbon-emissions-australia-considers-paying-dirty-coal-stations-to-stay-open-longer
• Laura Schuijers on bushfire-survivors-just-won-a-crucial-case-against-the-nsw-environmental-watchdog-putting-other-states-on-notice
• Claire Higgins on theres-a-way-to-get-refugees-out-of-afghanistan-after-this-weeks-deadline-if-the-taliban-agrees
• Stephen Duckett and Anika Stobart on national-cabinet-leaves-us-in-the-dark-about-reopening-the-nation-so-were-left-joining-the-dots
• Ben Scott on sharpening-deterrence
• Ross Gittins on smaller-government-push-explains-much-of-our-pandemic-fumbling, if-you-want-to-shop-in-competitive-markets-you-will-have-to-fight-for-it
• Kevin Bonham on a-record-begging-to-be-broken
• Greg Jericho in sydneys-covid-outbreak-and-job-losses-muddy-the-political-waters-for-scott-morrison, australias-economy-looks-better-than-a-year-ago-but-sadly-we-arent-out-of-the-covid-woods-yet
• Croaking Cassandra on reading-michael-cullen, borders
• Scott Hamilton and Stuart Kells on robber-barons-and-high-speed-traders-dominate-australias-water-market
• Ann Kavanagh et al on opening-up-when-80-of-eligible-adults-are-vaccinated-wont-be-safe-for-all-australians
• renew economy on sun-cable-worlds-biggest-solar-and-battery-project-is-about-to-get-a-lot-bigger, aemos-improved-reliability-forecast-is-damming-indictment-of-taylors-coalkeeper-push, offshore-wind-set-for-take-off-in-australia-as-legislation-tabled-in-parliament, turf-wars-in-the-energy-transition-over-who-gets-to-own-battery-storage
• Peter Martin on my-super-fund-just-failed-the-apra-performance-test-whats-next
• Emma Shortis on the-anzus-treaty-does-not-make-australia-safer-rather-it-fuels-a-fear-of-perpetual-military-threat
• Dennis Muller on how-ghost-train-fire-exposed-remarkable-police-corruption-yet-also-failed-abcs-high-journalistic-standards
• Shaun Carney on albaneses-small-target-strategy-may-give-labor-a-remarkable-victory-or-yet-more-heartbreak
• Peter Martin on four-gdp-graphs-that-show-how-well-australia-was-doing-before-delta-hit
• John Quiggin on do-vaccination-passports-take-away-freedoms-it-depends-on-how-you-frame-the-question
• Sam Roggeveen on will-anzus-make-it-80
• Institutional Economics on australian-stocks-for-the-long-run
• Paul Williams on the-george-christensen-formula-how-do-maverick-mps-succeed-in-australian-politics
• Michelle Gratten on the-transition-to-living-with-endemic-covid-could-be-rough
• James Bowen on australia-s-potential-green-hydrogen-superpower
• James Goldrick on australia-s-essential-need-not-seaborne-trade-seaborne-supply
• Matt Saunders and Rchard Dennis on Doherty-modelling-TTIQ-assumption

Northern America

• Geoffrey Skelley on bidens-declining-approval-rating-is-not-just-about-afghanistan
• Calculated Risk on housing-inventory-is-key-metric-in-2021
• Mary Radcliffe et al on vaccine-hesitancy-is-still-strong-in-many-covid-19-battered-states
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-jackson-roe-wade-greg-abbott, supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-whole-womans-health-jackson-roe-wade
• Mark Stern on supreme-court-texas-roe-wade-silence
• David Frum on responsible-gun-ownership-is-a-lie
• Allahpundit on mccarthy-threatens-telecoms-republicans-will-remember-if-you-turn-over-records-to-the-january-6-committee
• Jon Anderson on is-the-us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-the-end-of-the-american-empire
• noahopinion on why-is-the-squad-attacking-jerome-powell
• Laura Brunner on which-senators-and-representatives-vote-in-favor-of-democracy
• Eric Posner on decline-of-conservative-free-market-economics Thanks Brad
• Jet Heer on the-establishments-afghanistan-myths , madison-cawthorns-threatThanks Brad
• the conversable economist on a-medicare-funding-warning-from-the-trustees

Europe

• Ian Hill on lukashenko-running-empty

Asia

• Tony Walker on kabul-bombings-a-dark-day-for-afghanistan-and-joe-biden-and-a-harbinger-of-worse-to-come
• Amira Jadoon and Andrew Mines on what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban
• Jahannes Nugroho on will-jokowi-pull-three-peat
• noahopinion on revolution-afghanistan-asia, chinas-profound-transformation-is-not-so-profound
• Craig Keating on thai-lives-matter-too
• Aristyo Darmawan on deliberate-ambiguity-china-s-new-territorial-waters-declaration
• Yara Hawari on palestinian-authority-crackdown-protest-israeli
• Loro Horta on europe-and-south-china-sea
• Sayed Kashua on my-palestinian-diaspora
• Daron Acemoglu on afghanistan-top-down-state-building-failed-again Thanks Brad

Wonk

• Seamus Coffey on the-us-keeps-dodging-the-reputational-bullets
• run 75441 on why-washing-your-hands-and-social-distancing-works
• the conversable economist on harold-demsetz-dissecting-the-nirvana-viewpoint, chesterton-the-old-man-is-always-wrong-and-the-young-people-are-always-wrong-about-what-is-wrong-with-him
• noahopinion on towards-the-abolition-of-animal-farming
• Menzie Chinn on do-central-banks-rebalance-their-currency-shares-2
• Mainly Macro on is-it-true-that-anything-we-can-afford
• Uneasy Money on the-walras-marshall-divide-in-neoclassical-economics-part-ii

General

• Tim Harford on resist-the-temptation-to-overachieve-on-holiday
• Lorenzo Spina on a-quarter-of-sun-like-stars-eat-their-own-planets-according-to-new-research
• Hannah Schunker and David Pontin on curious-kids-why-is-the-suns-atmosphere-hotter-than-its-surface
• Julien Louys et al on research-reveals-humans-ventured-out-of-africa-repeatedly-as-early-as-400-000-years-ago-to-visit-the-rolling-grasslands-of-arabia

Climate

• Open Mind on 3-graphs, hurricane-ida-climate-change-makes-a-monster-storm
• Stoat on the-problem-with-nordhaus
• and Then Theres Physics on a-methane-emergency, implications-for-mitigating-methane-emissions-in-agriculture
• Climate Citizen on Australias-deception-about-its-lulucf
• Marisa Stone et al on rotting-forest-wood-releases-a-whopping-10-9-billion-tonnes-of-carbon-each-year-this-will-increase-under-climate-change
• Skeptical Science on here is what makes a new Amazon study so unnnerving
• Desmog on academics-electric-vehicles-petrol-diesel-cars
• Xubin Zeng on is-climate-change-to-blame-for-extreme-weather-events-attribution-science-says-yes-for-some-heres-how-it-works

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

• instead-of-comparing-two-posterior-distributions-just-fit-one-model-including-both-possible-explanations-of-the-data
  
• a-study-comparing-young-and-middle-aged-adults-who-got-covid-to-similarly-aged-people-who-were-vaccinated
  
• more-on-elites-and-outsiders
  
• he-was-fooled-by-randomness-until-he-replicated-his-study-and-put-it-in-a-multilevel-framework-then-he-saw-what-was-not-going-on
  
• adjusting-for-stratification-and-clustering-in-coronavirus-surveys
  
• martin-modraks-tutorial-on-simulation-based-calibration
  
• there-are-no-equal-opportunity-infectors-epidemiological-modelers-must-rethink-our-approach-to-inequality-in-infection-risk
  
• simulation-based-calibration-some-challenges-and-directions-for-future-research
  
• losing-one-nights-sleep-may-increase-risk-factor-for-alzheimers-study-says
  
• statschat on up-or-down-2, a-step-forward-for-genomic-based-medicine

Econometrics

• No Hesitations on extreme-weather-and-macroeconomy

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• heroines-of-science
  
• governing-badly-in-a-crisis
  
• a-most-unhappy-soap-opera
  
• Andrew Gelman on counterfactual-history-and-historical-fiction
• Tyler Cowen on what-ive-been-reading

Vox Wonk

• impact-covid-19-firms-and-role-vaccines-recovery-expectations
  
• declining-capital-formation-japan-and-role-intangibles
  
• platform-regulation-lessons-utility-industries
  
• global-weather-disruptions-food-commodity-prices-and-economic-activity
  
• labour-adjustment-and-productivity-dynamics
  
• reduced-rd-investments-potential-flip-side-immigration
  
• immigration-and-natives-exposure-covid-related-risks-eu
  
• ecb-strategy-2021-review-and-its-future
  
• mask-mandates-save-lives
  

What happened to the flu season

 In Australia we have had now two years without flu having any effect on the population.

What is the reason for this?

It seems there are three reasons for this one external and two internal.

1. Social distancing has meant most people are comfortably away from anyone having the flu infecting the,
2. People working are either at home or told by employers do not come to work even if you have a sniffle.
3. No immigration means flu is not imported into Australia as it normally is.

Going forward  I believe both internal reasons will continue however as we open up flu will be brought in, I have seen few articles n on this topic thus I will predict with absolutely no knowledge what so ever the flu season from now on will be far lass deadly and infect a  much smaller proportion of the population than it di in the past.

Ironically this all occurred because of covid.