COVID-19: Australia turning the corner

Australia's new COVID cases are plummeting:

... and the cumulative number of cases is flattening, per this logarithmic scale:

These charts and others are courtesy of the state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation; they are updated daily.

We're in lockdown, with non-essential business closed, and people working from home where possible.  But in so many ways, the whole word is in a strange place right now - a singularity for which we may never have a similar experience.  The solutions are well known: test, test, test, trace known cases, and isolate.  But testing depends on the number and quality of test kits, which is quite variable around the world - as is both political and social will.

Per the top 30 countries by GDP, our death rate - the number that matters the most - is 20th, one better than China, which implemented faster and more draconian lockdowns.  the 10 worst death rates per million are:

	Country	Deaths/ 1M pop
1	Spain	368
2	Italy	329
3	Belgium	311
4	France	221
5	Netherlands	160
6	UK	156
7	Switzerland	128
8	Sweden	89
9	USA	67
10	Iran	53
	:	:
20	Australia	2

However, I have learnt from reading between the lines on the numbers is that comparisons are fraught.  Australia, for example, shares no borders with other countries, which is a great advantage.  New Zealand: even more isolated.  Numbers of cases and deaths reported is quite variable, depending on the country and how much testing they do.  Sweden is another exception, as they did not lock down, which is something they have come to regret.

My friend Bill says you should look at the US by individual State.  That puts his State, Oregon, way down with only one death per million.  New York is at top, with 32 deaths per million, followed by New Jersey with 17.  Also above Australia and China's 2 deaths per million is: Louisiana, Michigan, Conneticut, then 11 more.


Actual numbers will never be certain.  I expect that a few years after it's over, analysts will get closer to true numbers by interpolating from existing death rates in the previous few years - and we will be surprised to find the countries whose COVID-related deaths are much higher than reported, as not all COVID deaths are known cases.  This will clearly be so for countries like Indonesia, India and Iran, but may also surprise us in countries like USA, China and UK.

I expect that at least in part, the eventual numbers per country will depend on social cohesion, and willingness to heed lockdowns and isolations.  Governments can mandate or recommend, but it's up to the people as a whole whether they do the right thing.  Complacency is literally a killer.  I see it well in evidence in Sydney - although we have done well by and large by clamping down reasonably early.

How will the world look when we come out of this?  I don't know what permanent changes will be wrought, but I'm pretty sure it will take several years for economies to recover, and many already-disadvantaged people will be far, far worse off.  Expect to see a longer tail of mortality from other poverty-related causes, particularly in less developed economies and pockets of the US.

Damned statistics and climate change

A news item in the local Southern Courier discussed the privately-owned train link to Sydney's airport.

• Botany Bay's Mayor Ron Hoenig: "In reality, it was shown to be cost inefficient, and a disaster."
• In response, "Airport Link chief executive Tim Anderson... said there had been a 27 per cent increase in patronage on the airport line over the past two years."

The context was the exhorbitant charge for that particular stretch of rail ($14.80 from central, one way), and the effect on locals who might otherwise use it.

Put aside other issues, such as whether the patronage increase justifies the usage charge, or whether the increase was from such a low base that any change would look like a win.

The question is over the use of the statistic, and how it can mislead. If Anderson looked at the fluctuating usage figures over the past 9 years since opening, he could pick any two years he liked to make his point. Likewise, Hoenig could pick any other years to justify the opposite perspective. For a reality check, read about Airport Link above.

As with a work of fiction, most people don't stop to question figures presented in a news report. There's just not enough time in the day to analyse everything.


Climate change skeptics are particularly guilty of this. As this article details, Steve Fielding, a key balance-of-power Senator, was persuaded that there is no significant issue because global temperatures are not significantly different from those of ten years ago.

And that is a favourite approach of climate change skeptics - near universally, they use this trick (eg The Great Climate Change Swindle). Pick a year that was slightly out of kilter with its neighbours (in this case, 1998, which had a strong El Nino weather pattern) to prove the case. Take that statistic in isolation, without revealing or analysing the sequence of readings over time. Which in this case show that the past ten years have been the hottest decade on record.

(An extension of this argument is the use of long-range figures to show that Earth's climate has always been changing, and has indeed been hotter. True, but a) significant evolutionary change - including much species extinction - accompanies such changes), and b) we are currently inducing one of the fastest periods of climate change in the planet's history.)


It's devilishly hard to read statistics with a critical eye, if you don't have access to the full data set. The best that can be done is to scan for context. (In the case of Fielding, he's known as a conservative who is not fiercely intelligent, and he went fact-finding to the US, hosted by the Heartland Institute, known as conservative and funded by fossil fuel and tobacco interests, amongst others.) Scanning for context includes a healthy degree of questioning, critical analysis, and absorbing information from a variety of credible sources. But you knew that already, didn't you?