mike carey

I don't know about this system of registering contacts, but the one used by an app being rolled out in Australia requires the two phones to be in contact for 15 minutes before it becomes a contact of interest.

Victoria Police are managing to maintain their sense of humour. [MEDIA=twitter]1258303611097890816[/MEDIA]

Slightly deviating from grocery shopping, but related, I went to a different shopping centre today, catching the bus rather than walking. Three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon and I was the only person on the bus. They aren't taking cash fares (only travel cards or tickets from one of the rare ticket machines), and they aren't using the front doors. Crowds are small, as you'd expect, if 'crowd' is the right word, but the place was active. One shop had a 'stand behind' line 1m from the counter (only come closer than that to pay) and all either requested or insisted on card payment. I went to our equivalent of AAA, they were in the office but the door was closed. I had to ring them from just outside the door to do the business I wanted to do, but a staffer had to come to the door to clarify one point because the shopping centre muzak was too loud. Bus home had a total of three passengers. It was a beautiful autumn day out, and I did have some walking around in the sun between the places I needed to go. And it's officially become 'cold', although here in Canberra that is marked by a below zero (Celsius) overnight minimum, not freezing days, and we've had -1.4 degrees and a couple that were 0 on the news bulletin but rounded down from 0.2 or 0.3.

I agree with all of that, and although it may be unusual the order of magnitude difference in the percentage in the MO numbers makes little difference to your thesis. We are about to see in both hemispheres whether the change in weather has an effect. Here, the PM seems to be rushing the relaxation of precautions, but not by much. Oh, and don't fret about the percentage, it's incredibly easy to mess up converting a fraction into a percentage, and I speak from experience!

I think that's just over 4%. You are, of course correct that the actual rate is certain to have been far lower if wider testing had taken place.

I was sure I read in another thread that there was a shortage.

I have no empirical data but I suspect sourdough is trending here. But yes, that is the story of the year so far!

I certainly have, and even though most of the calls he responds to are from straight listeners, more often than not they are about relationship issues rather than the purely sexual. I really like it, and have been a subscriber for a few years. I haven't listened for a few weeks, I need to catch up!

I posted an Australian TV documentary here that included coverage of medical people who had come to NYC to help, some of whom had been forced to resign from their jobs at home to do so. Here it is again.

I read PK's almost daily accounts with a mixture of horror and trepidation. Horror that this disease is having such a terrible effect in New Jersey and New York, as it has in Italy and the UK (amongst other places). I yield to no-one in my admiration of the work he and his colleagues are doing. Trepidation that those of us who are doing better than the US could so easily face the same situation that America does today if we aren't vigilant in our responses to the pandemic.

I think they're great. My usual radio station has discussion/documentary/narrative/interview programs usually running 30 or 60 minutes. They post all of them as podcasts as well. So I'm used to listening to the format of a podcast. I also usually do something else while I'm listening, so sometimes concentrating too much on the other thing means I miss what is being said in the radio program or podcast. (That also happens when I'm driving if my required level of concentration on the road and traffic conditions increases, although most of my driving is of the open highway cruise control variety.) If it's a podcast I can rewind it a bit and listen to the segment again. I've found quite a few I like so I don't catch every episode of many if any. The Ezra Klein Show is one example. One thing I really like about them is that they can do a deep dive into a subject or an interview of 60 to 90 minutes in a way that broadcast radio often can't or won't.

Yep, for some longer term members their join date is Time Zero of the system, not when they actually joined, and that is 0000h 1 Jan 1970, but it's GMT, not local. So for me, Charlie shows as being a member since 1 Jan 1970 (Time Zero is 1000h my local time), and for Charlie and other members in the Americas, it's 31 Dec 1969 as Time Zero is 1700 PDT on that date.

Yep, for some longer term members their join date is Time Zero of the system, not when they actually joined, and that is 0000h 1 Jan 1970, but it's GMT, not local. So for me, Charlie shows as being a member since 1 Jan 1970 (Time Zero is 1000h my local time), and for Charlie and other members in the Americas, it's 31 Dec 1969 as Time Zero is 1700 PDT on that date.

This morning there was an item on the news that Australia had suffered one more Covid-19 death, taking the total to 93. It was just reported in a matter of fact way, not as a way to make some other point about the pandemic. It was remarkable in a few ways. There was no tone of celebration that it was good. When numbers in other countries are so horrifying, even a single death was being dignified by being reported. The fact that people are still dying [and catching the disease] even though in small numbers, and it's being acknowledged helps emphasise that we are not at the stage of 'mission accomplished' yet.

Some of those sort of things had already been addressed here when it became clear that the epidemic wasn't overwhelming the health care system. Elective surgery has resumed (joint replacement, cataracts and other eye surgery, even IVF) as have things like chemotherapy, mammograms and colonoscopy. Phone and video consultations by GPs and some specialists, previously 'impossible' were authorised and funded by our public health system within days. Messaging to the public is now stressing that people should definitely see their doctors for any conditions, not just respiratory ones. We had never formally been told otherwise, but people had been refraining from doing so anyway, and are now being told that they shouldn't wait. Despite indications yesterday, restrictions that prevented travel to see family have been eased, and shopping for non-essential items is now explicitly allowed.

Yes, in concept, but it's different. DC is the core of a much larger metropolitan agglomeration, the ACT is much more self-contained. As a 'metropolitan area' there is only a New South Wales city of 35,000, about 10% the size of Canberra that is linked to it, and effectively part of the city of Canberra. The ACT has a rural area, a large area that is a national park, and the water catchment that supplies the city. Although not a state, to all intents and purposes it is. It has a government that looks like and functions like a state government, including a parliament. Unlike anywhere else in the country, there is no local government, and no mayor, so the territory government performs all the functions that local councils do in the states, streets, parks, rubbish collection and the like. There is a central area with all the ceremonial spaces (but where nobody lives) that is run by a federal government agency, the National Capital Authority. So it was the NCA that made an incredibly popular 5km running circuit around part of the lake in the centre of the city one way (clockwise) for the duration of the Covid-19 restrictions.

I continue to be rather incredulous at the mixture of luck and timely government action that has enabled us to do so well. Restrictions on personal life and business activity have been extensive and there has only been a little timid loosening of the controls even with that level of success. Even with no remaining cases, the ACT isn't relaxing anything, probably for the next two weeks (at least). That said, controls here weren't as strict as they were in some states, for example, although non-essential travel was discouraged, it was never banned here and there was no legal enforcement to restrict travel within the territory.

An interesting milestone today, although not yet the time to claim any sort of victory, but the ACT is Covid-19 free today, with the last couple of patients having recovered. That doesn't mean that there won't be more cases in the coming days, and we have an open border with NSW, one that it's not feasible to close. The Territory hadn't recorded any new cases for a week. There have been nine new cases nation wide in the last 24 hours (numbers aren't in for Tasmania yet and it's had a bad few days, but still single figures each day). Several other jurisdictions have had no new cases over recent days. Australia's national death toll is now 91. Of those 20 were from one cruise liner, 12 in a rural area in NW Tasmania (most likely originating from that cruise liner) and 12 in an aged-care home in western Sydney. *Edited to say nine rather than none (which didn't actually make sense anyway).

I recently followed Mike on twitter, and when I commented on something he replied calling me an 'old friend' or some such. I had only met him once. That is a measure of the man.

I would say that yes, it does. Regardless of previous connotations of 'toilet', the meanings of toilet, WC, lavatory, bathroom, and even more colourful terms have merged. I don't attribute any genteel meaning to the word 'toilet'; if someone says 'toilet water', I think in terms of a dog drinking the toilet water, not a spray bottle used to freshen up. Maybe Australian English has moved in a different direction on this than other Englishes.

'Toilet water' carries a whole different weight of meaning to 'Eau de Toilette'.

I saw that tweet a couple of days ago, and had a belly laugh at it.

Yes, it was certainly conspicuous in the news coverage.

I'm not a big movie goer, and my usual manner of watching them is one that is not available at the moment (See the 'Foreign Travel this Year' thread in the Lounge), so I have missed more of his films than I have seen. I did see him in the 1980s TV series Riley Ace of Spies, and I think that was the first of his roles I had seen. Still, he is such an iconic actor in both of these two counties at the bottom of the world, I looked forward to last night's Australian Story episode that featured him. He tweeted this today after the program aired: [MEDIA=twitter]1254914433098190848[/MEDIA] It's an interesting self-deprecatory note that his twitter bio is 'Proprietor of TwoPaddocks - in the cheering up business since 1993. Also seen acting on occasion', he refers to his Otago winery first rather than his acting career.