The Doherty Institute modelling, which showed how intensive care units would be quickly overwhelmed if social distancing measures were not implemented, made no reference to a potential 150,000 deaths or of 60 per cent of the population becoming infected.
While the Doherty Institute's modelling warned 70 per cent of patients needing an ICU bed could be turned away without social distancing measures, on Wednesday just 30 COVID-19 patients were in hospital, with six in intensive care and only three on ventilators - while the government has more than doubled the nation's ventilator capacity to 7500.
Professor Jodie McVernon from the Doherty Institute said the modelling was based on the assumption that "only fairly modest levels of social restriction to reduce transmission would be achievable in Australia".
Why does everyone have to criticize everything? They needed a model. What were they going to base it on? Not experience, that’s for sure.
I am really annoyed with all these. The answer is we don't know. stop using UK Spain Italy as example, population density, healthcare system adequancy and population size is comparing chalk with cheese. the world is doing monkey see monkey do and no one wants to do anything diff
To say the model is wrong, it's cheap, nasty, impossible to prove and a reflection that the accuser has no understanding of risk modeling.
Dr Brenden Murphy is a fking hero!...his nsight and guts has us where we are today! appreciate the experts and leadership during this crisis, we are an incredible country.
Amazing just how illogical & full of rubbish these journalist 'reports' are. If we didn't lockdown we'd have that of deaths bloody braniacs. We'd have US figures here ffs. It's not a difficult correlation to make 🙄
Or the policies were right.
The Age is sounding more like newscorp every day.
Australia has done amazingly well! How can decisions be called flawed when a country has really pulled together and exceeded expectations. Some “experts” are full of bullshit!
And the $60b budget... makes you wonder
There's always 2 side of the coins .
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. But. The modelling was significantly incorrect. The deviation is too great. That means there has been a somewhat unnecessary impact on people’s mental health, livelihood, wealth and general social fabric. Time to move on now.
This is an absurd joke... the reason Australian lives have been saved is because people have followed the public orders and physically distanced.
Except for a dozen right wing fuckwits in Melbourne, Australia has done very well. Thank you.
Unbelievable.... we’re successful in managing this virus with lower mortality rates than expected and we still got it ‘wrong’? Take your negativity and stuff it!
Lies, Damned Lies and Computer Models. GarbageInGarbageOut.
It wasn't flawed we acted quick and saved thousands of lives
It’s good to be wrong sometimes don’t you think
Stop it. This is a good thing, can’t you see that.
I'm not going to read this article because the headline is very silly.
They should be held accountable. It has been a major cluster .... . I hate hearing every life is important, you can't put a price on a life. That's bull.... ! We place a $ on every life. If not free health insurance for all, free nursing homes for all, no homeless, free medicine
Yet another misleading and shitheadline
Can’t make some people happy. Rather this than the reverse. Thankful I didn’t need to manage this crisis!!
Typical exaggeration - more deaths on the roads - scamdemic !
Thank you for the lock down. Look at the UK, didn’t lock down. Look at the US? We’ve still got winter to come so let’s not get too complacent.
Quite disgraceful when you think about it if they said would be 100 deaths they wouldn’t have shut down and caused all this damage
Oh here we go again....nothing better than suddenly hearing from the “Monday Experts”.....
Don't be stupid. It's called success!!
What a dumb article. Trying to phrase success as some ones fault.
Idiotic peace of editorial, the Age is behaving like Trump. The forecasts were assuming social distancing might fail - get over it Covid-19 obesssed unimaginative hack editors. Post a story as to how space watch Albanese is going to over ride the Army Chief re the VC farce
JoshKaplan
The experts for this pandemic died 85 years ago!
Everyone is clever at the end but the Government has the courage to bite the bullet and achieve excellent results at the end. Congrats to Morrison and advisers.
Only 'some' experts say that? Any person who says otherwise is disqualified as an expert. Bad models, bad data, bad advice, all terribly damaging to Australia. Heads should roll.
The ‘experts’
It’s great to hear there are experts willing to challenge the status quo. Critical thinking appears to be lacking for many. Don’t want the ‘conspiracy theorist’ label after all.
wow how can some 'experts' think people not dying is a bad thing we live in age where everyone is a fcking expert on everything
So why is this an issue? Move on with life.
Fairfax Media taking a hit in sales and you’re now trying to rustle up outrage to help your cause. Watch out or you’ll be going down the same route as News Media papers.
Due to the rapid response of All States we averted the 1000's of deaths. Well Done Australians
My house didn't burn down in the bushfire that destroyed my neighbours houses, I wasted my insurance premiums, fml!
Like Australia is some magical country where we wouldn’t have had 1000s of deaths if we hadn’t taken precautionary measures and good planning.
You should be embarrassed by this headline.
Would prefer to be here than US, UK, Sweden or Brazil
There’s a reason why the toll is so low, because the steps were taken to make it so. Have a look at the data from the countries that didn’t take the required steps. What a silly argument.
Unfortunately your headline is flawed the people quoted in the article are demonstrably NOT experts. Check out Gigi Foster's unfounded assertions in yesterday's AFR as just one example. This is irresponsible reporting on a so far successful response
The great con of the 21st Century.
OK, great job all involved. Let's get the country up and going again - drop all border restrictions, open up businesses. Take care social distancing & personal hygiene. Do it now. auspol
I drove from home to work with my seatbelt on, I didn't get into an accident and wasn't hurt, such an over reaction. See how silly it sounds
I’m old enough to remember a time when mass mortality was regarded as a ‘bad’ thing. I guess I’m not hip and ‘with it’ anymore. Kids these days 😏
,'Flawed?. Obviously they were using the same Computer Programme they use for Climate Change predictions.!
All these experts who had no idea at the start and still have no idea. It’s governments have done a great job
🤦♀️OMG it's like Y2K all over. it didn't happen so it wasn't bad, but they didn't see all the work put in to stop. WE'VE ALL SEEN THE WORK PUT IN so that's why its not as bad. FFS that's literally what we're trying to do! if deaths were more you be complaining we didn't do enough!
It was clearly the response. Have a look around at other countries. Stop posting rubbish
There you go ..... Nine Media working to change the thinking about the lock down. Face it - the lock down worked and we dodged a bullet. If modelling had of played out, it would be a very different country today. A very scared suspicious and angry country. Thanks State Govts 👍
Humanity is flawed
Poor headline results in adverse comments. Text of article is very supportive of what we did to reduce the spread of the virus.
Uhm, what is this absolute BS? With that logic vaccinations don't make sense, since people don't die of smallpox anymore, or a whole bunch of other deadly viruses. It obviously proves that the measurements worked in avoiding 150000 deaths... Seriously, SMH
This story is argghhh! This is not news. We used an ‘estimate’ deaths based on best available info at the time. We did well at the time. I don’t want more deaths. This story feeds right wing ideology and false news.
Economies that managed Spanish Flu with fewer deaths i.e. lower social toll, recovered much faster and grew ahead of economies that were hit harder. Our success should mean that Australia's economy is about to be the envy of the world...unless of course it's being run by monkeys
Very easy for the armchair experts when they have hindsight. A little lockdown is better than a little dead.
The implication being that not enough people died to justify the amount of money Angus Taylor et. al. didn't get to steal. Is what I'm getting from The Age, which is owned in part by channel 9, of which former Treasurer Peter Costello is now chairman.
Better to err on the side of caution. The only reason we don't have that many deaths is because of the measures we took. Let's see what happens now.
More great Australian “journalism” 🙄... seriously 🤦♂️
Ask Sweden you nitwit
'UNSW Business School professor of economics' Fucking economists! They'd kill people to save a few bucks.
So more people have to die to make the modelling not flawed?
Precautions that were taken worked. Potentially 150k deaths prevented. How many deaths would you have preferred?
This is the Age media experts. Just goes to show what a difference going faster and harder makes. Many other countries high death rates have shown their incompetence in managing the spread.
*whisper* don’t mention the other countries
The death rate forecast is approximately correct. The rate of growth in infections would (if unchecked) would have quickly resulted in the level of infection forecast. But the costs of over/under estimating are not symmetric so the response taken was warranted
Hindsight is always super, the government did the right thing
All modelling is inaccurate. Climate modelling is another example.
Those 'experts' are wrong. Be prepared, I say.
Only 103 dead?! Only 103 families and all those friends grieving? So over people being reduced to statistics.
and the 149,897 people who didn't die say thank you. the economy? well, now you know how it feels for so many struggling people. suck it up!
Who is that idiot expert?
Oh ffs
Not flawed, very smart. Those experts should be praising the response. The preventative measures work.
Was a model based on worst case. Shutdown put in to prevent such an occurrence. Doubt would have reached those heights but still would have been lot more
Or we ALL did an amazing job!
Or, and bear with me here, measures the states and enforced had a real impact on hospitalisation and death rates.
You don’t say! Of course it was frigging flawed, and at some stage someone high up is going to have to pay the price for this lunacy at shutting down a whole economy and the mess that we’re left with (Morrison)
We knew the 150,000 figure was always an absolute worst case scenario. There was nothing wrong with the model they used.
Most economists disagree with economist Gigi Foster. She would have allowed thousands to die. I wonder what she thinks of the huge numbers of deaths in America. The sacrificing of lives young and old hasn’t saved the US economy.
Living here in the US is vastly different, you should count your lucky stars. Certainly not enough was done over here.
Better this than 150,000 death. Love the back seat driving 'experts'
I'm very rarely willing to pat a Polly on the back, but after a shaky start, our state and federal governments did a pretty good job of initiating the lockdown without it becoming tyrannical, and people did a pretty good job of adhering to it for the most part. Well done Aus.
As if having immense success is something to criticise. You don't ask a sports player how many championships they're going to win and then criticise them for being wrong when they wildly surpass their estimates. Humans that fear uncertainty are weak and worthless to progress.
It was clearly very flawed. The goal was to flatten the curve. Rather it flattened the livelihoods of millions.
If you do something right, no one will know you have done anything at all. (Overheard on Futurama - early 2000’s)
Was always going too be exaggerated. A virus doing what viruses do, looking for a host, & the host mostly surviving
Yeah, we should have done nothing, allowed 20000 ppl to die just to prove it’s serious. Or we could just look at the UK, US, Italy, Spain, Brazil etc.
By some experts you mean economists
Thanks for over estimating and ruining the economy. I'm sure we will all believe the modelling the next time something like this happens.
Cherry pick the expert comments then come up with a headline that promotes the neocon/IPA agenda. Floggers. Australia's response was appropriate and it worked. auspol
This is bullshit. Better to overestimate than underestimate- just ask the USA. Federal & state government should be thanked for doing a good job.
Why do you want to become The Australian? Only Peter Costello reads it ...
Come on this is BS. Prepare for the worst to make sure it doesn’t happen!
Like a lot of theory put into practice. Flawed and misleading.
Pathetic hoax plandemic!!!!!!!! You ruined our economy and more lives!!!!! No new normal for fake virus!!!!!!
Come to the Uk - not enough was done and we still have mote than the Australian total of deaths - DAILY. Just how is that magnificent success flawed?
Look at other countries like UK and IS... That could have been us. Maybe just maybe the restrictions worked and thats why our numbers are lower... These 'experts' are morons
It is positive thing that the survival rates were kept to as low as possible
SOME experts say the modelling was flawed? Which experts still say the modelling was accurate?
Worst-case scenario modelling is ‘if you do nothing’ 🤦♂️ The luxury of being too successful, and the benefit of hindsight. Once this is off the chain you have limited-to-no options. As we have seen elsewhere.
Join the climate change modelling club
Better overcautious than this
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. If their predictions were right and we had 1000s dead, you would be writing that they didn't do enough.
Easy to start doubting now- would rather be safe than lose any lives. Every life is precious
Kinda like their JobKeeper estimates, these guys are a joke
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