Comments by "John Woodrow" (@johnwoodrow8769) on "Channel Nine and the ABC ‘wouldn’t dare mention’ the total recovered COVID-19 patients" video.

The longer this goes the more it starts to resemble the recent Australian bushfires. A well above average but still fairly regular event that the 24/7 media news cycle get hold of and hype it up to the max forcing politician to overreact on emotion rather than solid facts. It's becoming pretty clear the world has overreacted to the virus compared to previous equally bad Influenza outbreaks. Fair enough, it was new and unknown. But time to acknowledge the world isn't going to end, we've been through all this before in quite recent times without shutting down the world's economy, and its now time to get back to work with a few targeted controls in place such as close monitoring of vulnerable populations e.g. aged care facilities.
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Question: How come you know the mortality rate for Australia and no health professional any in the world knows it for their country, including Australia? If you don't know what percentage of the population has, or has had, the virus you can't possibly calculate it. And South Africa is doing WAY better than us, so is Thailand, Hong Kong, even Botswana. We are doing just slightly better than Mexico and The Philippines.
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@theotherphil As little as two weeks ago an Australian couldn't get tested, no matter what symptoms they had, unless they met two narrow criteria. Returned for overseas, or in contact with someone proved to be positive. We have no idea of how many Australian have or have had Covid-19. Even the line that our health officials are currently pushing makes zero sense, that children basically can't catch Covid-19. Kids catch every other bug easy enough, and the 20-29 year age group are by FAR the age group with the highest infection rate. So by some supposed magic the virus isn't interested in a 15 year old, but as soon as they turn 20 its open slather. Surely total nonsense. Children have reported low infection rates because they suffer next to no effects when they get it so we aren't testing them. The Bonn University in Germany is one of the first to do broad community random testing. Early results suggest a death rate of 0.37%. That would be consistent with how the virus seems to be panning out, like a VERY bad Influenza season. And that is not downplaying it, Influenza is a dangerous virus and can claim an estimated 360,00 - 500,000 lives each year. With current deaths from the virus of 154,000 I doubt the final number will significantly exceed the deaths from a very bad Influenza season. To do so would require it to take strong hold in a heavily populated country like India or Africa. So far that isn't happening. At present it's basically confined to traditional winter Influenza regions of the world.
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@theotherphil A couple more examples of how the media distorts or doesn't understand basic statistics. ABC interviewing some public health official in WA this morning, suggesting WA is best placed to open first due to lowest case numbers in Australia. On a per population basis WA is actually marginally higher in the number of cases than both Queensland and Victoria. In the 2014/15 Influenza season in England 34,300 people died from Influenza. This is just England. At present the death rate from the whole of the UK from Covid-19 stands at 14,576. That is the WHOLE of the UK. Yet for some reason the media report this as "unprecedented", the most over used word of modern times
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@theotherphil You've just highlighted my exact point. When did the world last come to a standstill to the estimated 360,000 to 600,000 people (depending of the severity of the outbreak) who die each and every year from Influenza. While initially projections for Covit-19 were MANY times that of a bad Influenza season, any reasonable objective analysis is now showing those projections to have been completely wrong. At worst Covid-19 is on track to be no worse that a very bad Influenza season. Even that may be an overstatement as there are yet a quarter of the deaths and the trend in most countries is now downward. That's the reason you can't even start to reply to this on a factual basis, because you can't. If you have just ONE piece of solid statistically evidence that Covid-19 is on track to significantly exceed the number of deaths from the 2014/15 or 2017/18 global Influenza pandemics please post them up. I'd be genuinely most interested to read it. You are aware the globe had immense loss of life in those years from Influenza, especially Italy? The 2017 Influenza pandemic completely overwhelmed Italy's hospital system. Same think happens every winter in New York's Hospital emergency departments. Probably not, it wasn't something the 24/7 news cycle are interested in. P.S. I have no idea how often New York buries in mass graves many of the sick 60,000 homeless who live on the streets and die each and every winter. You think every one of them gets an individual 'first class' state sponsored burial?
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@theotherphil You have no idea of the global mortality rate for Covid-19. You can't because no one currently does. That is the whole reason for the push to develop antibody testing, so they can actually figure out the true mortality rate. And your figure of 145,000 is totally 'cherry-picked' and irrelevant. The issue was BAD Influenza years. FFS the UK alone records up to 45,000 ADDITIONAL deaths in a bad Influenza season. That's on TOP of the normal rate of Influenza deaths True statistics ....... Global Influenza cases per year 350 million to 1 Billion, current Covid-19 cases 2.2 million Sever Illness from Influenza 3-5 Million people, 440,000 currently for Covid-19 Annual deaths from Influenza 290-650 thousand, Covid-19 currently 154 thousand. If you truly think Covi9 is 137 times more deadly than Influenza you really know little about the subject, and are living in a state of uninformed paranoia. The reality is if a person is under 60 years of age, has truly looked after their health and fitness, neither Influenza or Covid-19 represent a significant health risk. In both cases at worst an unpleasant experience, and a decent chance of just a minor to few if any real symptoms. You are likely to catch it, get used to the idea. P.S. 1 to 4 Million people are estimated to have died in the 1968 Hong Kong Flu pandemic. That included 100,000 in the United States. I would draw your attention to the fact Japan experienced minor impact where the USA suffered badly, just like the current situation. Consider why this may be .... https://www.britannica.com/event/Hong-Kong-flu-of-1968
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@theotherphil I've never quite understood what motivates 'doom and gloom' merchants like yourself. But seeing you work in 'health care' and recognizing just how unhealthy the average health care worker is, many of them morbidly obese and smoke, perhaps that explains your desire to hype up the issue as much as possible. P.S. Perhaps the WHO has no idea that up to 650,000 people die a year from Influenza induced illness. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/14-12-2017-up-to-650-000-people-die-of-respiratory-diseases-linked-to-seasonal-flu-each-year If you don't understand the difference between Influenza reported numbers, and the true rate of Influenza deaths than you know NOTHING about the subject. Australian's reported Influenza deaths per year are around 1500. The true rate is around 3500. The difference is called 'pneumonia'.
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@theotherphil You don't know what an insult is. People like you running around spreading false fear and panic. Seemingly wanting the hopes and dreams of MILLIONS of Australian's destroyed because you or your family are fat, smoke, or live on a diet of McDonalds and Coke. You have no idea what I think of people like you who have contributed to the destruction of the hopes of members of my family. And all for NOTHING.
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That would require personal responsibility, and that's no longer needed as we now have governments to look after us.
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Our numbers are low for the same reason as just about every other country in the Southern Hemisphere and the tropics.
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