Sports stores and bottle shops are the only 2 other retail sectors I can think of that are still doing well.
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You must have jinxed Tasmania - 11 cases reported tonight taking the state total to 58. These could also be the first community spread ones too but not sure, they were all around the state this time. Will be interesting to hear in the morning specifics - one was a health care worker from the Mersey Community Hospital too which was also on the news tonight after a couple of ladies (allegedly!) flogged 6 bottles of hand sanitiser the other night.
EDIT: Just found this article which has more details and thankfully looks like reasonably good news again (as good as it can be)
Eight of the cases were people related to cruise ship passengers and were already in self isolation and two were people who recently travelled overseas. The eleventh was the MCH worker.
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State-wide council elections are going ahead tomorrow in Queensland. Included in the social distancing measures are no how-to-vote cards and ābring your own pencilā. On the radio today virtually any doctor or medial authority interviewed urged people to stay away and not vote, disagreeing with the CHO who said she was more worried about people going to Dan Murphyās than polling places.
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Apparently Harvey Norman 
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If itās ok for an individual then why canāt a family or housemates or couple that live together go together as long as they distance from everyone else?
The majority of the public has responded well going by how dead everything was in my area (Melbourne inner south eastern suburbs) when I went out today to get food from a local cafe. At lunchtime on a Friday on such a sunny day it would normally be buzzing and impossible to park. Today is was completely dead and I parked instantly on a main road which Iāve never done before.
People are being very judgmental and making assumptions. Sure there are some people that arenāt doing the right thing but I think most are pretty conscious by now. Parks are going to be busy because itās the one place people feel like they can get out for a bit if fresh air, walk a dog or exercise. I spent my afternoon in the park cos I live in an apartment and have no backyard. My area has a lot of apartments too so I gather a lot of the people there are the same as me. I go there now most afternoons with my partner. We donāt need to socially distance ourselves from each other in the park cos we live together, however we distance from everyone else.
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What about the courts and the trials, happening in each state ? Are those suspended as well?
Update from a public servant here.
Having never expressed a desire to work from home earlier this week I was told to collect a tablet, this morning IT officer phones and says I need to pick up a monitor for home. So looks like weāll be doing a little less in the office.
In other news, public servants are being seconded into Services Australia to assist with Centrelink claims. My area canāt help at weāre considered essential overtime was offered this week for the first time in a while.
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What many donāt understand is that images compress the distances that people are apart, and thereās every chance that people are 1.5 metres apart. It isnāt a very long way after all.
Now for the updated 7 April Guesstimates. Kind of keep expecting it to blow out at the higher end but NSW seems to have not spiked as many have expected as yet.
NATIONWIDE: 7234-16479
NSW: 3451-4771 (Currently 1405)
VIC: 1168-2488 (574)
QLD: 1237-2557 (555)
WA: 519-1839 (255)
SA: 499-1819 (257)
TAS: 179-1499 (58)
ACT: 161-1481 (62)
NT: 20-25 (14)
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Ikea was crazy, everyone is setting up their temp home office.
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Victoriaās new cases doubled today to 111, compared to 54 yesterday and recent daily daily increases. Today saw the highest of new cases for the state since COVID-19 begun.
Total cases for the state now sits at 685
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Stupidity is the answer you are looking for
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Very interesting.
The daily increase in cases in NSW has remained relatively flat over the last couple of days. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues into today?
How many of these are community transmitted though? Thatās the real number that matters but the media rarely seem to report it. If itās people returning from overseas itās not as big a concern but of itās transmission then it is.
Well thatās a good sign. Hopefully stays that way.
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These numbers are mainly being driven by people returning from overseas. Social distancing is now more important than ever. I do think our authorities are doing an amazing job. And we are learning from overseas countries on what not to do.
To all members on here. Stay Safe
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I agree, the āactiveā number of cases is more important, particularly once we get into the 3rd week of restrictions whereby the number of recoveries (of which there wonāt have been many yet) will hopefully be greater than the new cases.
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Notable development in the UK yesterday:
The headline message is that the
Prof Who Predicted 500K UK Deaths Now Says Under 20K Will Die, Peak In Two Weeks
Imperial College Londonās Neil Ferguson - who originally estimated 500,000 deaths in the UK due to Coronavirus, now says that the virus will peak in just two or three weeks , and that UK deaths from the disease are now unlikely to exceed 20,000, according to NewScientist.
The need for intensive care beds will get very close to capacity in some areas, but wonāt be breached at a national level , said Ferguson. The projections are based on computer simulations of the virus spreading, which take into account the properties of the virus, the reduced transmission between people asked to stay at home and the capacity of hospitals, particularly intensive care units. - NewScientist
Why the change of heart from Ferguson - who himself has contracted COVID-19?
Ferguson - whose āTerrifyingā research from just 10 days ago predicted 2.2 million deaths in the US and that the UK would need to be under quarantine for 18 months or more - now says that coronavirus will not overwhelm the UKās ICU beds, and that over 1/2 of those it will kill would have died by the end of the year anyway because they were so old and sick.
His reasoning is that estimates of the virusās transmissibility are much higher than previously thought - and that many more people have gotten it than we realize, making it less dangerous overall.
New Scientist:
The new prediction hasnāt been well received.
https://twitter.com/seanpeaaa/status/1243136607743590400?s=20
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This site here has all the figures for all countries but includes the number of recovered and active cases and a lot of graphs. Itās what Iāve been referencing since back when the worldwide cases were only around 60000 which was only a few weeks ago, the worldwide growth has been crazy.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/
The death rate worldwide when I started looking was around 18% then went down to 8% but has crept back up with Italy, Spain and the US.
Australiaās figures are quite healthy but can change very quickly as weāve seen in other countries, we only have 1% of active cases listed as critical but that has already gone up as itās been listed as 0% for the whole previous time Iāve been watching.
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Every large business that closes from here on in will put greater pressure on the Government to move to a wage subsidy rather then this stupidity around using Newstart
If we follow New Zealand, they will move to being for for ātradeā only
The cruise ships have skewed the numbers in a couple of states
Minor stuff in NSW is being deferred where possible - alternate arrangements are being put in place for larger, urgent or more serious trials
Diminishing stock on shelves somewhat promotes demand - people see a shortage of stock so they think they need to stock up - we are starting to get into the territory where its a combination of panic buying and a combination of people who need to buy because theyāve run out
It is hard to collect this information - most people who are infected are either asymptomatic or have mild enough symptoms that they donāt need medical intervention so there is no real way to collect that data unless we want to follow up test, ask people to report when their symptoms go or assume that after a certain time period they are free of the virus. These options arenāt great indicators - its either wasteful on resources or simply a guess
Australian numbers tend only to get updated once a day - most state health departments are reporting earlier in the day now (they were reporting in the afternoon at one point) - but because each state reports at a different time the numbers can look better then they are because not all states have reported for that day.
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