Back again with another Monday Message Board.
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John Quiggin 
Packaging factory wrap.
“Network Status
Lumi is aggregating data from thousands of packaging factories to provide up to date information about supply chain disruptions.
March 23, 2020
covid-19
“Over 2,000 factories received our latest survey, with hundreds of factories reporting so far. Results will be updated throughout the day as more factories report.
US manufacturing
2 factories so far have reported closures or severely limited availability. Both are independent manufacturers in the New York area. This could extended lead times by 3-4 weeks or more. We recommend that companies relying on New York packaging manufacturing contact us to set up load balancing in Lumi to prepare for any further shut downs.
Over 99% of factories across the US are still operating at full capacity, however there is still uncertainty about further shutdowns.
China manufacturing
– Factories continue to make their gradual recovery with 1-2 delays still common.
– Air freight shortage has persisted, so we recommend ocean freight whenever possible.”
https://www.lumi.com/status
Via https://nayafia.substack.com/p/20-mannequins
Annastacia Palaszczuk has pressed ahead with the local government elections in Queensland today. This is an absolute disgrace. The Queensland COVID-19 rate will certainly go up because of this decision; a which goes against all epidemiological wisdom. The elections (being only council elections) were legally able to be postponed. She can only be running this out of political calculation. That’s a tawdry reason to risk lives.
After the Adani decision and now this one we have to wonder at Annastacia’s complete lack of wisdom. and foresight. In contrast to the dithering of Scott Morrison and Annastacia Palaszczuk, we see the N.Z. Prime Minster, Jacinda Ardern being well-informed, rational and decisive as she implements the strong measures necessary to control the virus. The N.Z. population are buying into her program as they know they are being decisively and well led and what they need to do is being made clear to them without hedging, waffling, grey areas and changes every second day.
Regarding the local elections in Queensland, people have been urged to vote early to avoid crowds on election day. I don’t think this worked out for them.
According to the ABC, 1.2 million people voted early and 750,000 voted on election day. Brisbane LGA has about a quarter of the state’s population, so the corresponding figures for Brisbane LGA are presumably around 300,000 voting early and 187,500 voting on the day.
By my count, there were 213 booths open for ten hours on election day in Brisbane LGA, giving 88 voters per booth per hour. There were 27 early voting centres each open for a total of 107 hours (over 11 days), giving 104 voters per centre per hour.
As someone who voted on election day, I’d like to thank the early voters for their sacrifice. I went to vote early, but there was a long line-up when I got there so I went home.
I refused to vote on principle. It was an idiotic decision to still hold the election. The state government had the power to postpone the council elections. What a mixed message to say “isolate and by the way go and vote”. If it had been a state or federal election, the still moderate risks (though still leading to more exponential spread) just might have been worth it. But for a mere council election it was decidedly not worth it.. Annastacia Palaszczuk stands politically condemned for this decision. She also supported the Adani mine and the last Cowboys match in Townsville when the dangers of COVID-19 and exponential spread were fully known from empirical examples like Italy. Annastacia is on the wrong side of history. Who will I vote for next time? The other mob are even worse.
I should note that since the prevalence of COVID-19 has increased a lot over the past two weeks, those who pre-poll voted early enough would still have reduced their exposure. But voting in the last days before the election (as people were encouraged to do by the Chief Health Officer) probably turned out to be a bad idea, especially since daily voter numbers were substantially above those for the entire early voting period.
Of the 1.2 million early votes, 550,000 were cast in the last four days of early voting. This would have amounted to 121 voters per hour in Brisbane LGA early voting centres, 38% higher than on election day (550,000/4/4 days/27 centres/10.5 hours = 121.3). By comparison, Queensland’s cumulative number of COVID-19 cases increased 34% between Wednesday/Thursday and Saturday.