Trump's final strategy: discord and divisiveness

Trump's poll numbers have drifted down to dangerous levels, due in no small part to his lack of leadership on COVID-19.  In fact, from mid-April he had deliberately pushed full responsibility to the States (see this report from the Guardian and this timeline).

With his hallmark rally plans in tatters due to COVID and spoilers, I estimate his ultimate strategy to win re-election is to fall back on pure divisiveness, in a two-pronged approach:

External bellicosity: ramp up the discord with China.  I see the forced shutdown of China's Houston consulate as part of this strategy.  It may well be true that there espionage activities have emanated from there, but the White House deliberately chose to take action at this particular juncture.  Trump may have hoped China's retaliation would go as far as closure of the US consulate in Honk Kong, but China's leaders are clearly going to strategise well above Trump's level

Internal friction: fan the flames of chaos by sending federal troops to US cities, ostensibly to quell violence.  My friend Bill in Portland told me protesters there "made a mistake attacking the federal building" - that's what gave the White House an excuse to move in to Portland; what followed was not just good tabloid fodder, but also summary policing, including unidentifiable agents beating protestors and arresting them without charge.  Four days ago, Trump intended to send them to Chicago too, but in the face of resistance from Chicago's mayor, it hasn't happened - yet.  Several news services report it as being "unclear" what the federal officers would do there - the biggest shooting reported there was intergang violence at a funeral (no deaths), which is a State matter in the first instance.

But chaos is good for business, when you're someone like Trump.  Expect more before November.

COVID: NSW spreads inside (Shape of an emerging outbreak, part 2)

The original outbreaks in Sydney eventually died down, as specific public warnings, testing, tracing, monitoring, restrictions and quarantining incoming travellers slowly did the job.

But Sydney remains on the cusp of a renewed outbreak due to infection leakage from Melbourne, and it's still too hard for me to get a sense of whether new infections will settle down or not.  The recent Victoria mass outbreak breeds pessimism; yet the non-explosion in new infections plus the record amount of testing (see bottom of this article) gives room for optimism.

Over the past week or so, with intensive testing and contact tracing, the shape of the clusters is known.  New infections still hover around ten per day, with nearly all infections traceable to an existing cluster.

Despite the graphic given in the previous post, the actual defined clusters are slightly more nuanced.  If you read the news daily, you learn the immediate source of the infection, the source behind that (which is apparently what is represented in that graphic), and the warnings of locations those newly infected have attended and thus who should now get tested/isolate.

At this early stage, it would seem that nearly all new infections are due to prolonged exposure indoors.  That is, more than a few minutes spend indoors in the same space as someone who is infected.  That could mean a pub, a restaurant, a workplace, a gym, a church.  That's it, so far.  The implication, which is understandably not reported, is that outdoors exposure, brief exposure, public transport and shopping centre exposure, is not currently causing infections.


But it's early days in this second outbreak, and that could change.  Complacency is dangerous.  I warn my late teenagers to be cautious at shops, bus stops, public transport.  Masks - of any sort - fully recommended.

A major reason this virus has been so hard - and a good reason for all the above precautions - is that an estimated 40% of infectious people are asymptomatic.  Did you attend that funeral or this restaurant?  Then the official line is that you are urged to get tested and self-isolate. 

COVID: The shape of an emerging outbreak?

The current situation:

Australia nearly had the virus fully under control, with little to no community spreading left.  Until.

Unfortunately, returning travellers were isolated for 14 days in hotels.  Not a problem in itself, but in Melbourne hotel-based enforcement was contracted out to major security companies, who subcontracted it to subcontractors, etc, resulting in non-professionals being recruited by WhatsApp, told little about the gig, and put on at short notice with scant training.  Everything went to pot from there.

Melbourne is now trying to tamp down a full-fledged outbreak, where new infections are hovering around 400 per day.  Despite the border closure between Victoria and New South Wales, infections have leaked through to Sydney, mainly via the road transport industry and Sydney pubs.  Yes, the border is a little too porous, and Sydney social distancing enforcement too lax.  Sydney infections today: 19.  We do contact tracing, and nearly all those 19 are traceable to one of the clusters.  So far, with a handful still under investigation.


In that context, ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has in the middle of their daily coronavirus briefing included an interesting graphic of the cluster origins:

It's not easy to fathom the cause of the differential in cluster origins.  Melbourne's pattern may be due to a more mature spread pattern, and Sydney's pattern's possibly reflect the way the outbreak is emerging (Sydney's clusters include a gym across the road from one of the pubs).

But I haven't been able to fathom why Melbourne's clusters don't include pubs and restaurants.  The regulatory environment seems to be rather similar, and Melbourne people are by all accounts behaving as incautiously as those in Sydney.  Pubs in particular are great disinhibitors, so why is it not so in Melbourne?  Answers, please on a postcard, letter or emails.

I recommend the above ABC daily briefing.  Meaningful insights often emerge.

Update 28-Jul-2020
Five days later, the cluster picture is not significantly different, apart from some relabelling:

For Victoria, Retail remains a minor source, while pubs and restaurants still don't figure - that will not change, since they are now in lockdown.  The Hotel source in Victoria was the location at which overseas returnees were isolated, but contamination spread via security guards.
It must be stressed that this represents identified clusters, and doesn't include single or unidentified sources.  However, Victoria has hundreds of cases per day dating back a full three weeks whose source is still labelled "under investigation".  NSW is still hovering around 10 - 20 new infections per day, most of which are traced to source.  Because our tracers currently have a manageable load.

COVID: for too many people, it's too hard

From the ABC today:

"Biosecurity expert Professor Raina MacIntyre said she was still noticing a worrying level of complacency in NSW despite the recent increase in cases."I have noticed it myself that nobody's keeping a physical distance, nobody's wearing a mask, and unless we do things, we may lose the freedoms that we have at the moment in Sydney," she said.
"I think people should think about it as a social contract, that if we want to retain those freedoms to do the things we want to do, then in return we need to also do the right thing, maintain that physical distance of 1.5m, download the COVIDSafe app and wear a mask."

The New South Wales government is doing a precarious balancing act.  They are saying that people will react poorly to efforts to tell them what to do (I'm paraphrasing), and that it's best to encourage the right thing.

This explains why mandating and enforcement has been particularly weak.  I've seen especially egregious flouting of laws: the Royal Randwick Hotel on the day of the Big Fight last weekend allowed the punters to pack in tightly in the sports bar; staff were equivocal, and said to me they relied on management to enforce - which is fair.  Why put it on the workers?

But pubs are the worst things to keep open.  As the SMH said, alcohol weakens resolve.  And people have to talk louder when it gets noisy and crowded - so spit is more vociferous.

The long goodbye is the big hangover.  But so is the economic depression, for years to come.

New Zealand locked down hard.  And early enough.