When Gladys Berejiklian lied about nobody beating the Delta variant before, some people pointed this out well before I did. Unfortunately, nobody in the media scrum at the time did1. This is symptomatic of the lack of ability of so many journalists in Australia. As if to emphasise the incapability of those who call themselves journalists, Neil Mitchell has now raised this inability to a level that beggars belief. Mitchell is one of the radio shock-jocks at 3AW in Melbourne and after it was pointed out that Berejiklian’s assertion was a lie, he posted a tweet which should go into the annals of idiocy peopled by such paragons of stupidity as Alan Jones2,3, Caroline Overington4,5, Craig Kelly6, Gerard Rennick7 and others too numerous to mention here. Mitchell’s tweet said:
“Please don’t accept blindly this spin that it is the second time we have beaten delta. The previous challenge was overwhelmingly kappa with a handful of delta that really spread nowhere.”8
He seems to believe that the outbreak of the Delta variant in Victoria was somehow inhibited by the Kappa variant, an assertion at which I am sure many epidemiologists would be surprised. It is difficult to understand what must have been going through Mitchell’s mind, such as it is, beyond pure hatred of Daniel Andrews for the latter’s defeat of two outbreaks of the Delta variant. I find it difficult to understand how someone such as Mitchell can hate someone so much that they will make a complete fool of themselves. All outbreaks of the Delta variant have started with one or two infected people. The outbreak to which Mitchell refers (the first Delta outbreak in Victoria) was detected when four people tested positive for the Delta variant1, whereas the Delta outbreak in New South Wales apparently came from a single limousine driver picking up the virus from international aircrew9. The Delta outbreak in Victoria had been stopped in a little over four weeks1, while the Delta outbreak in New South Wales was detected when the limousine driver tested positive on June 16th. It is now six weeks later and infection numbers still seem to be climbing. The fact that Mitchell interprets the Victorian outbreak as not a real outbreak because it “spread nowhere” is astonishing in its stupidity. Logic is clearly not something with which Mitchell is familiar.
Perhaps the best reply to Mitchell’s idiotic tweet came from David Milner from The Shot10 (which I can highly recommend). He replied with:
“Spreading it nowhere is literally the point. That’s the entire f***ing idea.”11
In pointing out the stupidity of Mitchell’s comment, I think that just about says it all.
Sources
- https://blotreport.com/2021/07/28/worse-than-lies/
- https://blotreport.com/2020/03/17/alan-jones-epidemiologist/
- https://blotreport.com/2017/10/11/alan-jones-climate-scientist/
- https://blotreport.com/2019/04/01/murdoch-ruperter-caroline-overington-is-an-idiot/
- https://blotreport.com/2021/07/17/how-many-dead-are-an-acceptable-cost/
- https://blotreport.com/2020/08/28/as-thick-as-they-come/
- https://blotreport.com/2019/04/24/a-stem-world-or-no-world/
- https://twitter.com/3AWNeilMitchell/status/1419540283142795266
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-07/nsw-covid-19-outbreak-explained/100271128
- https://theshot.net.au/general-news/getting-out-of-lockdown-for-the-fifth-time-isnt-the-same-without-you-sydney/
- https://twitter.com/DaveMilbo/status/1419613006757994497
Mitchell is a deplorable example of what’s essentially wrong with Australia. The blind lead the bland who lead the sheer moronic. The place is chock full of semi-educated, self-important a…ho..es who give them selves congratulations at being able to bleat misinformation and rubbish not based on any logic or knowledge. I cannot believe the abysmal state of the education systems in Australia, which churn out such Know-zilch, narcissistic wankers by the hundreds. Private schooling and particularly the trashy religious schools are at the base of much of the bad that has happened, but underfunded, rundown state schooling is also a source of gross ignorance. Singaporeans have much to guffaw at, as they observe the screamingly crap quality opf our so-called “public leadership”. It’s also due to a terrible lack of questioning critical capacity within the community at large. We cannopt survive the competition at global level in every field with a pack of nongs claiming to be smart. Gladdy and Smirko are the tip of a sadly stupid iceberg.
Russell,
And is a huge iceberg. The stupid are everywhere.
In an episode of Q&A before the mass breakout in Sydney Bill Bowtell and Mary-Louise McLaw suggested Berejiklian should have already locked down and would eventually need to do so. They suggested that every day she delayed would mean longer and larger lockdowns later. Bowtell repeated his comment the next day on morning television shows, but the finger waving Berejiklian was still refusing to bite the bullet and do as the Victorian govt had done twice – having learned from their earlier failures.
Mitchell needs to do some homework, swallow his conservative bile and admit that the Andrews govt got their strategy of a quick lockdown right (after yet another hotel quarantine failure). SO FAR, the Australian experience suggests early, hard lockdowns are the only way to limit the spread of the delta variant so that it doesn’t overwhelm the health system.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-28/epidemiologist-explains-data-on-coronavirus-lockdowns/100326050
Jon,
I must watch that episode of Q&A.