Amen - in Grafton our schools have been shut for three days, apparently to deal with a 5.7m flood, an event far from uncommon in this area. Shutting schools from Tweed Heads to Taree was a huge policy reaction to a very moderate risk level that is a worrying sign for handling future events.
Perhaps we are used to the convenience of shopping everyday rather than stocking up? Maybe many homes just don't have the room to keep the Costco 6 month supply of toilet paper (as I have). Anecdotally I hear that people don't even cook most of their meals so they are not going to have a stock of staples or know what a stock of staples is. The risk of running out of provisions has changed due to changes in housing and lifestyle? Also, because many people live so far away from their places of employment, employers have to consider the risks their employees' are taking getting to and from work in events like a cyclone. Were permanent employees who were told not to turn up to work on Thursday and Friday paid or were they forced to take unpaid leave? When you are being paid to not turn up to work there must be a great incentive to think it is risky to venture out of the house. Also, WFH is now acceptable for many places of employment and a potential cyclone is a really good reason to not to take the risk of going into the office. That slows down economic activity. Finally we have so much more information about the cyclone through the BOM and private weather providers than we used to have. On the Wednesday before the cyclone the BOM was prediciting that my suburb would get 100km/h winds by Friday. I have never considered the windspeed of a storm before but now I can access that information. It was alarming but maybe my house is often getting those winds during severe storms and I just didn't know before? I am currently contemplating what the risk my house is exposed to from different wind speeds, something I haven't considered before. I understand the point you are making and was also alarmed how quickly things were shut down but maybe issues related to technology (WFH, ready availablility of information), where people now live and work and the type of housing they live in contributed influences individual risk analysis. Also, people have to make risk assessments not just for themselves but for their employees and also not just for where they live but where they and their family travel in their day to day lives. Thank you for discussing this.
Well, for me with a young family in Brisbane right now dealing with a 28 hour power outage, the cost of being prepared far outweighs the cost of being not prepared.
I think it's pretty unfair to suggest that those who prepare for these things are some how buying into some kind of irrational 'mania'. It's being a responsible adult.
I'm sure you would have prepared appropriately if you were given simple weather information based on your knowledge of your local situation and risks. Instead of informing and allowing local responses, we did a blanket response of school closures and other closures across a huge area and panicked a lot of people whose local conditions did not warrant it.
But surely differential risk varies somewhat subjectively? i.e what I consider 'risky' might be different for others.
For example, my local daycare is closed, meaning I cannot send my child there - but the reason it is closed is because others involved in the running of the daycare cannot attend (e.g staff). Therefore, my own ideal choice is constrained by the impact the storm has had on others.
How do we coordinate all these choices and risks en masse? Surely the government has to step in here to provide clarity and make the choices easier.
Also, one other thing - we've assumed 'shortages at supermarket' are due to 'panic buying', but we save no criticism for supply chain. Was it a case of a group of people buying ridiculous amount of toilet paper or simply the supermarkets not being prepared with enough supply?
You’ve hit the nail on the head. ‘Risk’ is felt subjectively. The problem is that any Govt response must be based on an assessment of risk, and that given the political economy of disasters, Govts will always be heavily risk averse.
This means that when Govt steps in, they will always, always overreact, so policy will inevitably align to the risk profile of the most fearful.
Far better that Government’s role be to inform, and to allow citizens to act on that information according to their preferences and appetite for risk.
imagine thinking the coronavirus was low risk given the data now in after 5 years and the mass disabling that has occurred due to long Covid -circa 400 million people, and vaccine injury. Keep catching the coronavirus Cameron, see how that works out for your long term health
I suspect your information is skewed. 400 million is about 1 in 20 people. Given the distribution of actually catching COVID globally, you are suggesting that perhaps 1 in 5 people who had COVID is now disabled? This is the point about risk and understanding the appropriate scale of it. Yes, COVID was bad for SOME people. But the scale matters for our public policy reactions.
once all the unusual, sudden and ‘dumbfounding’ deaths that aren’t currently linked to organ damage across the population spectrum, caused by multiple c19 infections, ARE linked, you’ll understand. Another few years of zero mitigation should do it for you.
Amen - in Grafton our schools have been shut for three days, apparently to deal with a 5.7m flood, an event far from uncommon in this area. Shutting schools from Tweed Heads to Taree was a huge policy reaction to a very moderate risk level that is a worrying sign for handling future events.
Perhaps we are used to the convenience of shopping everyday rather than stocking up? Maybe many homes just don't have the room to keep the Costco 6 month supply of toilet paper (as I have). Anecdotally I hear that people don't even cook most of their meals so they are not going to have a stock of staples or know what a stock of staples is. The risk of running out of provisions has changed due to changes in housing and lifestyle? Also, because many people live so far away from their places of employment, employers have to consider the risks their employees' are taking getting to and from work in events like a cyclone. Were permanent employees who were told not to turn up to work on Thursday and Friday paid or were they forced to take unpaid leave? When you are being paid to not turn up to work there must be a great incentive to think it is risky to venture out of the house. Also, WFH is now acceptable for many places of employment and a potential cyclone is a really good reason to not to take the risk of going into the office. That slows down economic activity. Finally we have so much more information about the cyclone through the BOM and private weather providers than we used to have. On the Wednesday before the cyclone the BOM was prediciting that my suburb would get 100km/h winds by Friday. I have never considered the windspeed of a storm before but now I can access that information. It was alarming but maybe my house is often getting those winds during severe storms and I just didn't know before? I am currently contemplating what the risk my house is exposed to from different wind speeds, something I haven't considered before. I understand the point you are making and was also alarmed how quickly things were shut down but maybe issues related to technology (WFH, ready availablility of information), where people now live and work and the type of housing they live in contributed influences individual risk analysis. Also, people have to make risk assessments not just for themselves but for their employees and also not just for where they live but where they and their family travel in their day to day lives. Thank you for discussing this.
Well, for me with a young family in Brisbane right now dealing with a 28 hour power outage, the cost of being prepared far outweighs the cost of being not prepared.
I think it's pretty unfair to suggest that those who prepare for these things are some how buying into some kind of irrational 'mania'. It's being a responsible adult.
Differential risk is an important point here.
I'm sure you would have prepared appropriately if you were given simple weather information based on your knowledge of your local situation and risks. Instead of informing and allowing local responses, we did a blanket response of school closures and other closures across a huge area and panicked a lot of people whose local conditions did not warrant it.
But surely differential risk varies somewhat subjectively? i.e what I consider 'risky' might be different for others.
For example, my local daycare is closed, meaning I cannot send my child there - but the reason it is closed is because others involved in the running of the daycare cannot attend (e.g staff). Therefore, my own ideal choice is constrained by the impact the storm has had on others.
How do we coordinate all these choices and risks en masse? Surely the government has to step in here to provide clarity and make the choices easier.
Also, one other thing - we've assumed 'shortages at supermarket' are due to 'panic buying', but we save no criticism for supply chain. Was it a case of a group of people buying ridiculous amount of toilet paper or simply the supermarkets not being prepared with enough supply?
You’ve hit the nail on the head. ‘Risk’ is felt subjectively. The problem is that any Govt response must be based on an assessment of risk, and that given the political economy of disasters, Govts will always be heavily risk averse.
This means that when Govt steps in, they will always, always overreact, so policy will inevitably align to the risk profile of the most fearful.
Far better that Government’s role be to inform, and to allow citizens to act on that information according to their preferences and appetite for risk.
imagine thinking the coronavirus was low risk given the data now in after 5 years and the mass disabling that has occurred due to long Covid -circa 400 million people, and vaccine injury. Keep catching the coronavirus Cameron, see how that works out for your long term health
I suspect your information is skewed. 400 million is about 1 in 20 people. Given the distribution of actually catching COVID globally, you are suggesting that perhaps 1 in 5 people who had COVID is now disabled? This is the point about risk and understanding the appropriate scale of it. Yes, COVID was bad for SOME people. But the scale matters for our public policy reactions.
here you go ‘Dr’ fake science I guess
https://www.bloomberg.com/explainers/does-covid-lead-to-dementia-how-the-coronavirus-affects-your-brain
once all the unusual, sudden and ‘dumbfounding’ deaths that aren’t currently linked to organ damage across the population spectrum, caused by multiple c19 infections, ARE linked, you’ll understand. Another few years of zero mitigation should do it for you.