Larry Marshall MD of CSIRO on Australian Innovation

Australian Innovation playing its part in helping fight this virus

How do we go back to work without causing a resurgence of Covid-19 infections - and get R to be less than 1?

 Uri Alon, Ron Milo professors of computational and systems biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and Mr. Yashiv is a professor of economics at Tel Aviv University and at the London School of Economics Center for Macroeconomics , suggest 10-4 To Exploit the Coronavirus’s Weak Spot

People can work in two-week cycles, on the job for four days then, by the time they might become infectious, 10 days at home in lockdown.

This 10-4 cycle could suppress the epidemic while allowing sustainable economic activity.

We can exploit a key property of the virus: its latent period — the three-day delay on average between the time a person is infected and the time he or she can infect others.

People can work in two-week cycles, on the job for four days then, by the time they might become infectious, 10 days at home in lockdown. 

The strategy works even better when the population is split into two groups of households working alternating weeks.

Models created at the Weizmann Institute in Israel predict that this two-week cycle can reduce the virus’s reproduction number — the average number of people infected by each infected person — below one. 

Even if someone is infected, and without symptoms, he or she would be in contact with people outside their household for only four days every two weeks, not 10 days, as with a normal schedule. 

This strategy packs another punch: It reduces the density of people at work and school, thus curtailing the transmission of the virus.

Schools could have students attend for four consecutive days every two weeks, in two alternating groups, and use distance-learning methods on the other school days. Children would go to school on the same days as their parents go to work.

Businesses would work almost continuously, alternating between two groups of workers, for regular and predictable production. This would increase consumer confidence, shoring up supply and demand simultaneously.

A 10-4 routine provides at least part-time employment for millions who have been fired or sent on leave without pay. These jobs prevent the devastating, and often long-lasting, mental and physical impacts of unemployment. 

The cyclic strategy is easy to explain and to enforce. It is equitable in terms of who gets to go back to work. It applies at any scale: a school, a firm, a town, a state. A region that uses the cyclic strategy is protected: Infections coming from the outside cannot spread widely if the reproduction number is less than one. It is also compatible with all other countermeasures being developed.

Workers can, and should still, use masks and distancing while at work. 

It can be started as soon as a steady decline of cases indicates that lockdown has been effective.

The cyclic strategy should be part of a comprehensive exit strategy, including self-quarantine by those with symptoms, contact tracing and isolation, and protection of risk groups. 

The cyclic strategy can be tested in limited regions for specific trial periods, even a month. If infections rates grow, it can be adjusted to fewer work days. 

Conversely, if things are going well, additional work days can be added. In certain scenarios, only four or five lockdown days in each two-week cycle could still prevent resurgence.

The coronavirus epidemic is a formidable foe, but it is not unbeatable. By scheduling our activities intelligently, in a way that accounts for the virus’s intrinsic dynamics, we can defeat it more rapidly, and accelerate a full return to work, school and other activities.

Of course the basic 7 needs to be adhered to 

Article information sourced from NewYork Times 

A Case Study of how an organisation is creating a new blueprint for their future of work

Heather McGowan shares a brilliant case study of an Australian Client - a fast growing financial services firm who has been disrupted and has  to look at changing its 150 year old blueprint - fast! 

Their 500+ employees largely consist of millennials, they 100% work in an office, the company has large CBD-located overheads, over 73% of their teams travel more than 2 hours on public transport every day, and their clients are Sydney-based.

Covid-19 happenned - people worked from home - and the clients were still being looked after! Employees were relieved of not having to spend a large portion of their day travelling to work! 

All employees were engaged in remodelling the 150 year old blueprint - to focus on the people -  the customer and the employees 

Using SCAMPER – a Novel Thinking approach where potential solutions are elicited from questioning how we might Substitute, Combine, Adjust, Modify (magnify, minify), Put to other uses, Eliminate and/or Reverse, Rearrange the current working reality into something new - 

the team has come up with an adjusted blueprint for the workplace going forward 

The Proposed new blueprint 

1. trial 3 days at home and 2 at the office (rostered). 

2. Outreach to clients (site visits) had never been a part of organisational practice but to be put to clients as an option.

3. regional markets to be tested - employees expressed an interest to move regional - . establish cells within each location where team members worked in an office together 2 days a week. People still want to work together. 

4. pursuing market specialisation in growth verticals within regions (for example agriculture, aquaculture, viticulture, mining)

The business has a great chance of thriving and surviving post Covid-19 say Heather - because 

“The principals of the business were agile AND flexible. They acted and they acted fast. They are willing to fail because with failure comes learning and with learning growth" 

The key success factor will be to place humans at the centre of the workplace and empower them to help rewrite the 150 year old business blueprint! 

Read here the full article

You may also be interested in this article http://australianinnovation.blogspot.com/2018/09/having-specific-skill-does-not-cut.html?m=1

Interesting Trends

I came across an economist called Leonard Kiefer , Deputy Chief Economist at Freddie Mac, who has a knack of isnf data to create simple graphs - enabling one time for Nd Etsy and trends with  clarity . 

Below are a few 

Jobless rates since 1970 to today - one way to flatten the curve is to blow it out the water! 

Mortgage Rates 

Graphs of positive and negative words used in reports - which correlate to market ... the chances are is that the trend will turn to blue again! 

Retail trends - is this just a blip? 

Taiwan - no lockdowns - no WHO and relatively unaffected by COVID-19

Brian Shilhavy - Editor, Health Impact News 

reports that Johns Hopkins University had predicted that Taiwan would have the second most COVID-19 cases in the world, due to its close proximity to Mainland China.

But astonishingly, in spite of being only 80 miles from the coast of China with over 400,000 of its 24 million citizens working in China, as of mid-April, the country only had 400 cases of COVID-19, and only 6 deaths. And the vast majority of their 400 cases came into the country from abroad.

All of this has happened without shutting down the country with lock downs, and with almost all of its businesses continuing to operate. Is Taiwan doing something else the rest of the world is largely missing?

This video explains why.....

- Taiwan created a central monitoring station, social distancing and travel restrictions as soon as it heard of the potential outbreak in January. They were badly affected by SARS outbreak and took precautions immediately, treating the outbreak seriously.

- people where masks outside 

- all people coming in and out were tested at the airport and monitored for 14 days to show that they were isolating

- there people trust their government

- they used technology to monitor positive cases movement (similar to Australia’s Covid App) 

About Taiwan 

The island may be small, but the country is a regional and worldwide powerhouse. It’s the 21st largest economy in the world (19th if counting by PPP), despite having a population of just 24 million. It ranks 11th in GDP per capita, comparable to Denmark and Sweden.

It’s also an important partner with Communist China as one of the leading investors, trading partners and bankers for the PRC. Consequently, Taiwan hosts quite a bit of contact with the PRC.

For comparison sake, the United Sates saw about 3 million visitors from China in 2018, while Taiwan hosted 2.6 million visitors from China in 2018.

That’s why the results from Taiwan in fighting China’s Wuhan flu—as they call it in Taiwan—is so extraordinary.

Source https://healthimpactnews.com/2020/taiwan-no-lockdowns-no-closed-businesses-non-who-member-and-relatively-unaffected-by-covid-19/