Thus it seems is the once reliable Australian before the lefty lads took over.

Earlier today The Australian carried a story on a study, published in the Lancet, which concluded that full lockdown for protection against Covid-19 essentially is a waste of time. When I went back to review the story it was gone. Nowhere to be found. (Fortunately, my good friends at Powerline had covered the study.) Ironically the headline in the Oz appeared alongside another headline announcing Victoria’s dingbat Premier is considering full lockdown right up until Christmas.

You’d wonder why the story was pulled. The study and its authors appeared to be reputable but it suffered from flowing against the torrent of panic pervading Australia’s eastern states. This panic is being stoked by daily media outpourings about ‘the number of new cases’ as though somehow these are a disaster. (You will struggle to find reliable data on the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 but it is likely to be far exceeded by the national road toll. Here’s today’s latest:- Victoria records 403, third worst daily tally) They are not but they give the impression that the disastrous economic damage inflicted upon Australians by politicians from both sides of the aisle was justified. It was not.

The study spells out why.

“Increasing COVID-19 caseloads were associated with countries with higher obesity, median population age and longer time to border closures from the first reported case“………

……..“Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people. “………

………..”However, full lockdowns and reduced country vulnerability to biological threats (i.e. high scores on the global health security scale for risk environment) were significantly associated with increased patient recovery rates.“

In other words, lockdown had minimal effect on the number of fatalities but significant effect on the rate of recovery of those who survived.

It is a sad day indeed when a once reliable newspaper pulls a story which would be highly embarrassing for the idiot Victoria Premier – DanDemic Andrews.

Update

From this afternoon’s online edition:-

Early lockdown fails to stop case surge

One Melbourne local government area has recorded a net increase of 122 coronavirus cases in just two days, despite being home to three postcodes which were part of the early Stage Three lockdown three weeks ago.

Brimbank, in Melbourne’s outer west, had 49 active cases when it went into Stage Three lockdown on July 2.

A week later, by July 9, this had risen to 75, before more than doubling to 180 by July 16 – a week ago.

Funny, ain’t it? That’s what the story they spiked was telling them would happen.