Australian governments have kept much of their COVID research and modelling secret. Why?

Tue, 7 Feb 2023 14:29:00 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-07/covid-data-government-secrecy/101827548>

'When SARS-CoV-2 was first discovered, the world's scientific community went
into overdrive, researching this new pathogen, understanding its spread, its
effects, and sprinting toward a vaccine in record time.

It heralded a great era in cooperation, with researchers collaborating across
institutions and borders, sharing their results in real-time.

That work couldn't have been done if all the research was being locked up by
governments. But in Australia, they're doing just that.

One of the researchers involved in producing forecasts for government goes as
far as to call Australia's approach "damaging to our public discourse".

Domestically, epidemiologists and mathematical modellers have been hard at work
for three years and counting.

They produced models to guide us through the emergency period of the pandemic,
to help develop the "national plan" for re-opening, and they're still producing
regular forecasts and assessments of the local pandemic situation.

But Australian governments are — for unclear reasons — keeping their feet on
the brake, slowing the spread of science, by preventing much of that work from
being published.'

Via Violet Blue’s Pandemic Roundup: January 26, 2023
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-77754004

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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