As I am still working, there is no social distancing and no extra cleaning of classrooms or work areas – they don’t clean at all. So I have Pine O Clean disinfectant to clean my desk and the two desks near mine.

I then go up and clean the classroom before class, there should be people cleaning all the door handles, hand-rails and other shared areas. Unfortunately, there wasn’t so I had to do myself during the day. They pretty much aren’t cleaning, the rooms are not even cleaned at night as I notice the students leave their books and papers on their desks overnight and they are in the exact same position in the morning.

Then that all changed, the education unions met with the state government and they called an end to classes in the lead up to Easter and school holidays. This was a good move and not unexpected, hence why I rushed to finish my class early, it was final year apprentices and now they are ready to be signed off as they come out of contract.

I have no issues with working through the coronavirus pandemic. All I ask is the management procure the required safety equipment, create proper procedures for running classes and ensure the required products like hand sanitiser is available to everyone. Don’t forget the cleaning, that means getting out of their offices and walking around to see how everything is working. This is the role of management, they cannot offload their responsibilities anymore.

The Australian National Cabinet is a governing body devised at federal level to provide bipartisan leadership to address the national emergency of COVID-19 consisting of the seven state Premiers, two territory Chief Ministers and Prime Minister as chairman.

There is a saying I have just learnt working for a Chinese company, never trust the Chinese and based upon my personal experiences, I have to agree. I would like to add to that definition, the Chinese are devoid of ethics, values and integrity.

You only have to look at their trademark infringements, counterfeiting of products, theft of intellectual property, currency manipulation, forced transfer of technology, lack of access to Chinese markets and lack of safety standards for counterfeit products. So where does this leave me? I have Chinese friends so I can’t be accused of hating on Chinese, I certainly distrust Chinese corporations and Chinese managers in general. When it comes to Chinese corporate ethics, I have no respect for Chinese corporations and the people in charge of them.

It’s hard for me to purchase TWG Tea in Perth, usually my best option is to make my acquisition at Singapore’s Changi Airport where I was a frequent traveler, they have boutiques in Terminals 1, 2 and 3.

I am able to purchase a narrow selection of TWG Tea from the David Jones department store in the city, although this is a fairly expensive way to purchase an expensive product. This doesn’t mean it will break the bank, I just don’t like paying way over the expected retail price for what is basically a cup of tea. I was able to purchase TWG Tea from David Jones at Karrinyup shopping centre, whilst that was a limited range it was convenient. That all changed when they took the product off the shelf and I was left with going to the city as my only option.

Due to their limited range I had to try Red Balloon tea, not a first choice for me but since Red of Africa and Eternal Summer tea was not available I wasn’t left with too many choices. Red Balloon comes in a rather strange container, a light blue box with of course a red balloon as the design feature. Red Balloon tea is made from red rooibos tea, an African tea blended with blueberry, you can actually see the blue pieces in the mix. Naturally, this accounts for the blue container although I am a little unsure where the balloon comes from but is pretty good for a change.

I had heard rumours on Chinese social media that they were holding the US responsible for the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan a number of weeks before the story broke. The story goes that a US military team spread the virus during the Military World Games in Wuhan in September 2019.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General Zhao Lijian had tweeted an article authored by Canadian writer Larry Romanoff that the Americans were responsible, so this sparked my interest, I now follow him on Twitter.

The Montreal based group named Global Research claims to be a think tank, but appears to be nothing more than a conspiracy theory webside. Based on some basic internet research, Romanoff appears to not be as well credentialed as he claims to be. No long after, The New York Times ran an article co-authored by Julian E. Barnes, Matthew Rosenburg and Edward Wong regarding Chinese and Russian disinformation. Rosenburg had been awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2018, Wong was awarded a Livingstone Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, so they are all well credentialed journalists.

I read an article on Singapore’s The Straights Times that the residents of Wuhan were starting to emerge from lockdown and the general feeling was happiness. They have endured a long two months; however, their attitude seems very blasé and indifferent about the effects of this disease on the rest of the world. So I decided to comment on the article, I had planned to write a post about this very issue and the replies (if any) would form part of my response. Boy, did my comment cause some aggressive replies, whilst I wanted to gauge responses, this was certainly an eye opener.

As a duty of disclosure so people can form their own opinions, my initial comment was “Pride? That’s a new take on national pride… Pride that they infected the whole world with the coronavirus from their unsanitary wet markets but they are doing ok now because Italy and Spain are losing lives on an unprecedented scale.”  I responded to the first comments with this response before shutting down the notifications. “There are horrible rates of infection and death in developed nations. What is looking likely will be truly horrific rates in the undeveloped areas of Africa, Central Asia and South America.”

I had read that Chinese trolls were attacking individuals commenting about China’s culpability in regards to the coronavirus outbreak, subsequent mismanagement and poorly executed cover-up, so I decided to see for myself. Known as the 50 cent party, as it is claimed these online trolls are paid fifty cents for each online comment. There is also chatter they are just government employees seeking to gain influence within their department for promotion.

I am glad I take these responders as fools, these responses are certainly acidic using fake accounts and personal attacks to push their agenda. Fortunately they don’t bother me, I could well understand why a person who is a little fragile could really come apart with disastrous consequences. After an hour or so, I had turned off the notices linked to this article, I wasn’t engaging these angry, nasty people although I wanted to read their responses at a later date. The individuals interviewed were proud of their country and how their superior system was better than the west.

Responding to these people is like stepping in dog shit, you can choose to walk around or you can step right in it. They are all angry and bothered and I am laughing at them, they provide some of the research to the theories I am following up. So the early responses were along the lines of these countries should have followed WHO advice so they will get what they deserve. The Italians were the source of the virus and brought it to China, Italian doctor Giuseppe Remuzzi states he was misquoted in a textbook example of propaganda.

When they worked out I was from Australia, they started on the indigenous angle not knowing my personal background. What these idiots clearly do not know is indigenous communities in central Australia are being heavily locked down to protect these vulnerable people, they are at greater risk than mainstream Australia and this virus could devastate these communities.

There was of course the race based comments, there is no such thing as reverse racism, this will be the topic of a later post. After my initial scan of the comment section, there were no comments about being an ang mo – let’s see if this changed when I check on the weekend. I need a good laugh and the angrier these fools get the better.

People are dying in Italy and Spain, the UK is looking in serious trouble along with France and Germany. The rest of Europe is the new epicentre of the virus outbreak and the US could eclipse them all. How could they be so callous, instead inciting national pride in a disaster of their creation, at time of publishing, there are more than 1 million infections and 50,000 deaths.

I worked in Africa in 2019 so I feel some affinity with the plight of the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is a harsh life for these people. My concern is the medical systems of developed countries can’t cope with the sheer number of patients, people living in developing countries. This time last year I was riding my mountain bike through their villages so I have a bit of an idea of what life is like for them there, these people were my colleagues and friends. Fortunately I am able to keep in contact with them on Linkedin.

Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party is a nasty piece of work. I cannot believe the bullshit he tried to pull at the G20 meeting, give it a rest dickhead – you caused this mess.

China is not the world power they proclaim to be, this pandemic sweeping the world is a result of lax standards, poor hygiene and a totalitarian society that cannot even enforce their own markets. This is not the first time the deplorable conditions of Chinese wet markets have spurred toxic diseases, this is a common occurrence. What a bunch of losers, they are either a mob of incompetent idiots unable to run their own country or they are so corrupt they only survive due to their insistence on the reprehensible behaviour they encourage.

Had China been proactive instead of implementing their usual pathetic communist policies of secrecy and denial, this world pandemic would not have occurred. Don’t you ever lecture us on how this pandemic could be contained, Xi Jinping and his bunch of bumbling incompetent fools are the cause of this mess – this is on Xi Jinping.

There is no shut down for me yet, we are one of the areas required to stay open and I am ok with that. Within our office, the complaining is incredible, I wished the volume control on my computer was working so I can drown out the whining by putting on headphones – my attitude is just get on with it. I wish they had the same idea, the volume is starting to make my ears ring.

At this point, it is all about personal leadership so I clean my own desk with disinfectant that I brought in from home, I clean the desks of the guys close to me and then I move to the tutorial room I am using. My employer states there is hand sanitiser for people to use – there isn’t. The storeman is playing around mixing methylated spirits with moisturiser for hand sanitiser, this isn’t a winning formula but at least he is giving it a crack. Due to poor planning, we did not order hand sanitiser when we should of, the people responsible for ordering felt we didn’t need any more – difficult to fathom.

Despite what they publish, there is no extra cleaning of areas like hand-rails, door handles or anything. I clean the students desks for them as I noticed in the mornings, if they left their books on the desks the night before, they were unmoved. I clean the door handles, light switch and fan control every morning with spray cleaner.

I try not to respond to Facebook comments anymore, I shouldn’t even be reading these comments as I sometimes feel part of my intelligence is being eroded by some of these opinions.

This occurred when the Morrison government announced increased spending due to the economic shocks of the east coast bushfires closely followed by the impacts of the Coronavirus. We have a long-term situation of low economic growth, albeit positive followed by low wage growth due minimal productivity increases.

The surplus was gone, you can forget about that now, so now the federal government needs to work on stabalising the economy. So when I read a comment on how we all know how trickle down economics never works, I was compelled to reply.

Lindy is describing Gerry (Gerry Harvey Executive Chairman of Harvey Norman) who was asking the government to support local manufacturers (not retailers) in the form of  interest free loans to stimulate economic activity.

The trouble is Gerry when you and your ilk get any money hand outs from the government it just goes to your shareholders or into your pockets….none of you ever employ any extra staff. You just take the money then run and hide. It’s know as the trickledown effect and has been proven never to work.

The term trickle down economics was first coined by comedian Will Rogers describing Hoover\’s stimulus package in the depression. If you are referring to supply-side economics, the Laffer Curve was used to plot the relationship between tax rates and receipts to maximise revenue. This may also be known as Reaganomics. Supply-side economics may also be known as Reaganomics.

Adding to that, supply-side theory originated from the Chicago Booth School of Economics, but really dates back to the Nixon era when stagflation heralded the end of Keynesian demand-side policies. I had to keep my reply short, no point long answers of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr.

Not that I am necessarily endorsing supply-side economic theory, I am arguing the terminology trickle-down economics, this is not is what is taught during economics classes. Macro-economic theory should explore both demand-side and supply-side theories analysing strengths and weaknesses of both approaches with the intention of generating new ideas and theories.

Keynesian economic theory pulled the world out of depression, that worked up until the 1970s until simultaneous inflation and unemployment peaked in what became known as stagflation, a situation Keynes stated wouldn’t occur. We need new and updated theories, what worked then doesn’t necessarily work now and I agree with Gerry, the government needs to support local manufacturers.

President Trump is getting some flack from reporters calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus, I prefer the term Chinavirus, it just rolls off the tongue easier. All jokes aside, what he is saying is really unhelpful, this is not diplomacy, he needed to handle this better.

I am no fan of Trump, but on this occasion, he is right to call out the Chinese government for their lack of action in closing down this discussion. Let’s face it, they run a command and control structure, they limit social media and they employ state paid trolls to distribute misinformation so if they want to shut this down – they could.

Based on discussions with friends, Chinese social media has been talking up the start of the virus blaming this on US military personnel introducing this virus to China. For fuck’s sake, just own the problem that you created and start to distribute the vast wealth China has accumulated from western countries to address the worldwide problems you created.

Am I personally concerned that I will contract Coronavirus, well not that much actually. Am I trying to do everything possible to not contract Coronavirus? You bet I am as we have obligations to others.

I expect to get sick for a short period and recover, hopefully without too many health complications. To lower the risk, I have adapted the practices requested by authorities of social distancing, I clean my work area with disinfectant, I could only purchase Pine O Cleen floor cleaner as that is antibacterial disinfectant to wipe down my work area and that of my colleagues.

I have hand sanitiser and wash and disinfect my hands regularly, the hardest mannerism for me was to stop touching and scratching my face. I expect to work through this as long as possible, as I am employed in training, I am in contact with a large volume of people so social distancing is difficult. For me, the issues are not spreading this virus – sure, I expect to be ok but there are many in my family and community that are vulnerable. It is my obligation to not pass this virus onto community members and I take this obligation very seriously.