What I've been doing and saying
Update for April and May 2022
Hi everyone,
It’s been a while since I posted an update on my activities. Natalie McGregor from UQ, who helped me with a lot of this, was on some long-overdue international travel, but has now given me access to reports reports prepared for UQ’s marketing group.
If you would like to follow what I’ve been doing, I’ve attached a file with lots of links.
Some of the numbers produced in the reports are flattering, if not entirely credible. In May 2022, for example, I was attributed a “potential reach” of up to 1.1 billion people and an advertising equivalent value of $10.3 million. Of course “up to” is a pretty elastic term. Still I imagine these are the kinds of metrics that social media influencers splash around, so it might suggest those metrics need to be taken with a grain of salt.
I mostly avoided election commentary, finding the campaign about as depressing as it could be. I’ve been a bit more optimistic since the unexpected success of Greens and independents, but it remains to be seen how the new Labor government will respond to this.
Check out the articles and please get back to me with comments, praise and (if appropriate) criticism
John
As a general comment, not targeting any individual, international and even intranational travel in the current uncontrolled SARS2 pandemic is highly inadvisable, IMHO. There may be exceptions for essential travel. I won't try to define "essential" here. This pandemic is not under control and indeed is trending further out of control. The dangers are acute.
The Omicron BA.5 variant, rising now in Australia and many places globally, is very dangerous: the most dangerous variant yet. It combines off-the-charts contagiousness with a partial reversion, at least, to the virulence (ability to damage the host) of Delta. Its immune evasion and vaccine evasion properties are the highest ever seen in any variant.
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-ba5-story