HARRIS (LAWYER): These figures are nonsense.
SANDERSON (METALLURGIST): What figures?
HARRIS: These numbers in the paper. People who have it.
SANDERSON: Have what?
HARRIS: Don't be an idiot. You haven't been under a rock for the last month.
SANDERSON: I studied archaeology. Never use that analogy with me.
HARRIS: It is not an analogy. It is a literalism taken to an absurdly exaggerated degree. You should know that by your very admission of having studied archaeology. You might well have been under a rock at some time.
SANDERSON: Get to the point. You were talking about figures.
HARRIS: Today's figure: 71,000 tested.
SANDERSON: Tested?
HARRIS: Tested, for 1291 cases. But the 71,000 tests are carried out only, as we discussed last week, on people who fit one of two categories: they have been overseas or have been in contact with a confirmed case. So why test them? Why test anyone?
SANDERSON: To find out who's got it.
HARRIS: Why?
SANDERSON: Isn't that obvious?
HARRIS: No. Au contraire, it is an absurdity. It's needle in haystack irrational. It goes nowhere, achieves nothing.
SANDERSON: But it finds people who have it.
HARRIS: Why do you want to do that? Would it not be better to find people who have had it already – some random antibody test – and map it nationally to establish infection patterns?
SANDERSON: Is there such a test?
HARRIS: I don't know. I'm not a scientist or a doctor or a microbiologist or whoever knows these things. You studied science. You'd know more than me. I'm just a lawyer.
SANDERSON: Yes, a sanctimonious argumentative one. And no, I don't know. That wasn't my field of science.
HARRIS: The point is – and this should be pretty clear – that listing daily numbers of tested people is, statistically, utterly worthless and completely misleading. It means nothing. The only useful statistic is deaths and even they are being massaged.
SANDERSON: What?
HARRIS: The death figures. Spun. Look, we've been through all this before. Some countries have changed their definitions. Where once respiratory illness might have finished off a terminal patient with cancer 24 hours before his death, the death was still put down to cancer. That was his underlying disease. That's what led to the death. My own father died of lung cancer, but his heart stopped on the morning of his death. The death certificate didn't say heart disease, it said cancer. But some nations are adding all of these to the list totals of the current epidemic – rightly or wrongly I don't know. But with infection figures dropping by the day, any government testing for the virus is, as I said, looking for needles in haystacks. And they are still only testing people who fulfil narrow criteria!
SANDERSON: Maybe you should have been a doctor.
HARRIS: I hate sick people. All that whingeing.
SANDERSON: And your criminal clients don't complain?
HARRIS: Only when I don't get them off, so it's within my control.
SANDERSON: You hard-hearted bastard. Has anyone done testing of that nature? Antibodies or immunity or something?
HARRIS: I don't know: that's what I'm asking. And if they were, they could establish a kind of ratio of people who had had the virus – including those who had been unaware of any symptoms – and how old they were, and where they lived, and other demographic information. This would also help to establish a more accurate death rate instead of the scare figures being bandied around by bureaucrats who seem to have NFI.
SANDERSON: Yeah. What about that Canberra dickhead, what's his name?
HARRIS: I don't know, they're all called Brett or Brent or Brendan or something. Must be some kind of public service initiation rite.
SANDERSON: Murphy's his name. The Australian Chief Medical officer. No Irish jokes please.
HARRIS: A chief health officer walks into a bar and then walks right out again because of the virus.
SANDERSON: Exactly. Brendan Murphy has been forced to apologise after stating a rumour as fact, that hospital staff in Tasmania attended an illegal dinner party, contributing to a massive rise in infections. Here's what he said:
(OPENS MORNING NEWSPAPER) 'Yesterday, Professor Brendan Murphy ... told NZ MPs that of 49 hospital-linked over the weekend, most of them attended an "illegal" party of medical workers.' Then it said he issued a 'clarification'.
HARRIS: Oxford definition, grovelling apology.
SANDERSON: Indeed. He said, "I am now informed that the contact tracing has not confirmed that the dinner party occurred." The health union wants him to apologise for circulating "vicious rumours".
HARRIS: I'd want him to do more than apologise. This not some journalist. It is the chief medical officer of the nation. He should resign. No one in that role should be retailing rumours. Meanwhile they're fining people for visiting their grandmother in a cemetery.
SANDERSON: No shortage of immunity there. Another scotch?
SANDERSON (METALLURGIST): What figures?
HARRIS: These numbers in the paper. People who have it.
SANDERSON: Have what?
HARRIS: Don't be an idiot. You haven't been under a rock for the last month.
SANDERSON: I studied archaeology. Never use that analogy with me.
HARRIS: It is not an analogy. It is a literalism taken to an absurdly exaggerated degree. You should know that by your very admission of having studied archaeology. You might well have been under a rock at some time.
SANDERSON: Get to the point. You were talking about figures.
HARRIS: Today's figure: 71,000 tested.
SANDERSON: Tested?
HARRIS: Tested, for 1291 cases. But the 71,000 tests are carried out only, as we discussed last week, on people who fit one of two categories: they have been overseas or have been in contact with a confirmed case. So why test them? Why test anyone?
SANDERSON: To find out who's got it.
HARRIS: Why?
SANDERSON: Isn't that obvious?
HARRIS: No. Au contraire, it is an absurdity. It's needle in haystack irrational. It goes nowhere, achieves nothing.
SANDERSON: But it finds people who have it.
HARRIS: Why do you want to do that? Would it not be better to find people who have had it already – some random antibody test – and map it nationally to establish infection patterns?
SANDERSON: Is there such a test?
HARRIS: I don't know. I'm not a scientist or a doctor or a microbiologist or whoever knows these things. You studied science. You'd know more than me. I'm just a lawyer.
SANDERSON: Yes, a sanctimonious argumentative one. And no, I don't know. That wasn't my field of science.
HARRIS: The point is – and this should be pretty clear – that listing daily numbers of tested people is, statistically, utterly worthless and completely misleading. It means nothing. The only useful statistic is deaths and even they are being massaged.
SANDERSON: What?
HARRIS: The death figures. Spun. Look, we've been through all this before. Some countries have changed their definitions. Where once respiratory illness might have finished off a terminal patient with cancer 24 hours before his death, the death was still put down to cancer. That was his underlying disease. That's what led to the death. My own father died of lung cancer, but his heart stopped on the morning of his death. The death certificate didn't say heart disease, it said cancer. But some nations are adding all of these to the list totals of the current epidemic – rightly or wrongly I don't know. But with infection figures dropping by the day, any government testing for the virus is, as I said, looking for needles in haystacks. And they are still only testing people who fulfil narrow criteria!
SANDERSON: Maybe you should have been a doctor.
HARRIS: I hate sick people. All that whingeing.
SANDERSON: And your criminal clients don't complain?
HARRIS: Only when I don't get them off, so it's within my control.
SANDERSON: You hard-hearted bastard. Has anyone done testing of that nature? Antibodies or immunity or something?
HARRIS: I don't know: that's what I'm asking. And if they were, they could establish a kind of ratio of people who had had the virus – including those who had been unaware of any symptoms – and how old they were, and where they lived, and other demographic information. This would also help to establish a more accurate death rate instead of the scare figures being bandied around by bureaucrats who seem to have NFI.
SANDERSON: Yeah. What about that Canberra dickhead, what's his name?
HARRIS: I don't know, they're all called Brett or Brent or Brendan or something. Must be some kind of public service initiation rite.
SANDERSON: Murphy's his name. The Australian Chief Medical officer. No Irish jokes please.
HARRIS: A chief health officer walks into a bar and then walks right out again because of the virus.
SANDERSON: Exactly. Brendan Murphy has been forced to apologise after stating a rumour as fact, that hospital staff in Tasmania attended an illegal dinner party, contributing to a massive rise in infections. Here's what he said:
(OPENS MORNING NEWSPAPER) 'Yesterday, Professor Brendan Murphy ... told NZ MPs that of 49 hospital-linked over the weekend, most of them attended an "illegal" party of medical workers.' Then it said he issued a 'clarification'.
HARRIS: Oxford definition, grovelling apology.
SANDERSON: Indeed. He said, "I am now informed that the contact tracing has not confirmed that the dinner party occurred." The health union wants him to apologise for circulating "vicious rumours".
HARRIS: I'd want him to do more than apologise. This not some journalist. It is the chief medical officer of the nation. He should resign. No one in that role should be retailing rumours. Meanwhile they're fining people for visiting their grandmother in a cemetery.
SANDERSON: No shortage of immunity there. Another scotch?
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