Tag Ramesh Thakur
By Professor Ramesh Thakur: Australian National University. Illustrated with paintings by Franz Marc. As Western forces beat a hasty retreat from Afghanistan, all exit and no strategy, it’s worth highlighting uncomfortable parallels between the coronavirus policies using military metaphors and… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur: Pearls and Irritations The blanket and punitive travel ban for Australians returning from India is neither justified, nor does it make much sense in the efforts to curb the spreading of the virus. The Indian Coronavirus… Continue Reading →
By Ramesh Thakur: Australian Strategic Policy Institute. In 2009, as I gazed at the gaping hillside holes in Bamiyan where once two imposing Buddha statues had stood as silent sentinels for more than 1,500 years, two emotions were dominant. The… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur This is not an article I had expected, intended or wanted to write. I have politely declined requests to write on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in relation to the current crisis in Myanmar and the climbing civilian… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur Early assumptions of extraordinary SARS-CoV-2 infectiousness and lethality have proven fallacious. Some are already calling the coronavirus lockdown “the Greatest Mistake in History.” The seductive numerical precision of the Imperial College London (ICL) March 16 model, with grim forecasts of… Continue Reading →
The Great Barrington Declaration Some of the world’s most distinguished doctors and public health scientists have called on governments to stop the lockdowns which have had such a devastating impact on Australia. A public statement, known as The Great Barrington… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton Do No harm. So goes the most basic maxim of medical practice. Yet many hundreds of Australian practitioners have done exactly that, with senior health bureaucrats standing side by side with the nation’s grandstanding politicians as they… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur On 8 October, I delivered a lecture on ‘Covid-19: A Data Driven Reality Check’ via Zoom to the World Bank-affiliated Global Development Learning Network. The webinar attracted 55 participants from five African and Asian countries, many… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur On 15 September, India had over 5.1 million COVID-19 infections, behind only the United States; and 83,000 deaths, behind the United States and Brazil. The country recorded a mortality rate of 60 deaths per million, compared to… Continue Reading →
Professor Ramesh Thakur: The Interview Australia is in chaos from one end to the other, borders closed and the economy tanking, with millions of people in Melbourne under some of the world’s most draconian lockdowns and those who dare to… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur There has been a remarkable lack of observed statistical difference in the rates of death for countries, and for US states, that have and have not locked down. An assessment of the models used to project… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur If ever there was justification for a Royal Commission, this is it. Its primary term of reference should not be to apportion blame, but to identify how we can prepare better for the next big one. With 102… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur On 5 May, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health published an important report on Norway’s experience of dealing with the Coronavirus crisis. The text that follows is a verbatim extract of the equivalent of the executive… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur On 26 May, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said if Australia’s mortality rate matched the UK’s, we’d have had 14,000 Covid-19 deaths. This is just tautological rubbish. It would be just as true and equally pointless to… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur The average seasonal flu has a fatality rate of 0.1%. On 5 March, based on the early data from Wuhan in China which had the first cluster of infections and deaths, the World Health Organisation (WHO)… Continue Reading →
By Ramesh Thakur Cockwomble: A person, usually male, prone to making outrageously stupid statements and/or engaging in inappropriate behaviour while generally having a very high opinion of their own wisdom and importance. Presently exemplified by Agent Orange who dwells in… Continue Reading →
By Ramesh Thakur with Pearls and Irritations When did the world’s media and politicians become collective versions of Lance Corporal Jones in the British comedy series Dad’s Army, screaming: Don’t panic! Don’t panic!? Colour me contrarian, but since the 2003 Iraq… Continue Reading →