Blog Day 97: Sunday 28 June 2020 As I may be returning to work in the CBD this week I decided to buy some facemasks to wear on the train. Twelve dollars for 10 disposable masks or $44 for 50, I bought 10 to start with and see if I need them or not. I was thinking about wearing my patented prototype underpant facemask (a la Captain Edmund Blackadder) but decided that people might point and laugh, particularly if I was wearing my baggy y-fronts. The only good thing about the underpant facemask would be that I wouldn't have to worry about anybody sitting or standing anywhere near me on the train. DD and his merry band of cronies have done another backflip. Yesterday Dr vD was telling us that 30% of the people leaving hotel quarantine without being tested wasn't a problem and the state couldn't do anything about it anyway. Twenty four hours later DD has changed his mind and decided it is a problem and Victoria will be copying NSW so that anybody who refu...
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Blog Day 96: Saturday 27 June 2020 Was anybody else surprised to learn that it wasn't compulsory to be tested for the corona virus prior to leaving the enforced quarantine at the hotels and in fact at least 30% of the people quarantined refused to do so. The good Doctor Van Diemen (Dr vD) seemed to be surprised that anybody thought that was a bit of an issue and seemed to discount any concerns. I think that this policy will be changed fairly shortly. Is this strike two for Dr vD. As you can see from the figures below Victoria's infections continue to rise. The increase of 41 in the last 24 hours is the largest daily increase in more than 2 months. 19 of these infections are under investigation and 15 are community transmissions with no known source. All the new infections are located around the Northern and North Western suburbs clusters. I wonder how many of these infections could be traced back to the Cedar Meats stuff up....
Blog Day 95: Friday 26 June 2020 First the good news, it has been confirmed that the Shrine is reopening on Wednesday 1st July albeit with pretty strict conditions. Admission will be limited to 20 visitors at a time with visitor details to be recorded. Visitors will have to follow a one way path starting in the visitor centre and exiting via the Sanctuary. Access to the galleries will only be available to pre-booked groups of up to 10 visitors. Apparently there are some school groups that have booked to visit the Shrine in term three, however while the number of school groups are low the school tours will be handled by the education staff, not volunteers. There is no timeframe given for the return of the volunteers. I daresay that the expected number of visitors and school groups doesn't warrant the extra layer of complexity that the return of the volunteers would create. Remember, most of the volunteers are of the older g...
Blog Day 94: Thursday 25 June 2020 Twenty four hours after DD told us that we didn't need assistance from the military, guess what, the military is coming to town, about a thousand of them. Maybe DD has to forget about his branch stacking and corruption and union problems in the Labor party and start running the state again as he did early in the virus crisis. The military is going to bolster the security in the quarantine hotels where there has been a number of breaches caused by security staff catching the virus either through ignorance, lack of training or lack of PPE. These security staff have then circulated in the community passing the virus on to people that they have come in contact with. To date Victoria is the only state to have the virus transmitted from people in hotel quarantine. The recent family transmissions have come from large family groups celebrating the end of Ramadan. This has also been the source of some of the infected children attend...
Blog Day 93: Wednesday 24 June 2020 Victoria is still in a bit of strife reporting 20 new infections in the last 24 hours. These new infections came from a variety of sources including the known family clusters, the clusters that have developed as a result of the poor management of the hotel quarantine process, public testing and unknown sources. The national total for new infections was 30 with the other 10 being reported by NSW which were all quarantined overseas travelers. The Victorian and Federal governments had discussions yesterday about diverting international repatriation flights to other states as Victoria seemed to be battling to manage quarantining of returning international travelers properly. No other state has reported a single transmission into the general community out of the quarantine of returned overseas travelers. The Feds also offered assistance from the military. The Victorian government has declined both of these offers of ass...
Blog Day 92: Tuesday 23 June 2020 Well, here we go again. Already there are stories circulating of panic buying in supermarkets with the usual culprit of toilet paper being one of the targets. It will be interesting when one day somebody tries to explain how and why this is happening. Luckily I haven't broken into my corona virus iron rations of tinned corned mutton, delicious Croatian Hungarian goulash, and stash of vodka. There are also reports of 3 to 4 hour waits at drive in testing centres in shopping centre car parks. Some testing centres are also closing due to the queues creating a traffic hazard on the roads around the centre. Of course if you play footy for a team in the AFL you can get tested immediately and the result back within hours. Easy to see where the priorities lie in this state. Another bad day for Victoria. Of the 18 new cases reported Australia wide 17 came from Victoria. This is the 7th day of double digit increa...
Blog Day 91: Monday 22 June 2020 What the? I can hear you all say, wasn't I supposed to be at work today? Yes I was supposed to be at work today but last night when I heard the latest virus infection transmission figures I decided to give it a miss. I didn't like the idea of travelling to the office by public transport or parking in a public car park, catching elevators and working in an office in reasonably close proximity to people for 8 or so hours. The CBD is still one of the virus hot spots so I am going to avoid it for at least this week. The situation will be reviewed next weekend and hopefully if I decide to go to work the job is still there for a few weeks. Brazil has topped the table for number of deaths over the last week with 7,270 the USA and India had 4,394 and 4,183 deaths respectively. Next week's figures will be interesting for Brazil and India to see if they are going to get on top things. The US is still seeing significant increase...
Blog Day 90: Sunday 21 June 2020 The Victorian authorities are now more than nervous, at least 44 new infections have been recorded in the last 48 hours with 25 of those in the last 24 hours. Of concern is that a number of these infections are as a result of community transmissions with tracing and tracking of contacts now being undertaken. I hope everybody has downloaded the Corona Virus app. The lifting of restrictions that was supposed to take place tomorrow have now been put on hold and some restrictions that had been relaxed have been tightened up again. Hotels, restaurants etc that were to have the limits on the number of patrons lifted to 50 tomorrow have been told that the 20 patron limit will continue to apply until at least 12 July. Family gatherings have been reduced from 20 back to 5. This is as a result of the large number of infections being caused by transmission between some family groupings. The transmission of the virus from the Rydge...
Blog Day 88: Friday 19 June 2020 Just a quick update on the virus stats today. The authorities in Victoria are getting a bit nervous about the increasing rate of infection in the state. They are concerned that this may be the harbinger of the dreaded "second wave", I certainly hope not. In the last 3 days Victoria has recorded 52 new infections of these 8 are untraceable community transmissions. The head of the Captain Cook fan club and Victoria's deputy chief health officer - Annaliese van Diemen - has suggested that if this rate of new infection continues the state may not go ahead with the scheduled further lifting of restrictions on Monday. Maybe letting 10,000 people all out on the street at one time wasn't such a good idea after all. Has anybody else noticed the irony that Captain Cook's chief critic herself carries the surname of an early Dutch colonial explorer. I wonder if the original indigenous inhabitants of Australia would have been better ...
Blog Day 87: Thursday 18 June 2020 Yesterday I went into the city for the first time in probably three months. Given how the suburbs and shopping centres have come back to life I was amazed at how quiet the city was. I caught a peak hour train (8.45am) from Caulfield to Flagstaff station and the train was nearly empty. Probably no more than a dozen passengers in the carriage that I was in and all other carriages were similar. It was the same for the return journey at 5.30 that afternoon. Hardly anybody on the trains were wearing face masks. (Remember that sometimes in normal times I can't even get on these trains due to overcrowding). At 8.15am the city streets were almost deserted of both traffic and people. I was expecting more activity around the place but it wasn't to be. It was the same when I went out at lunchtime and even looking up and down William & Bourke streets from our 30th floor office through the day they were emp...
Blog Day 85: Tuesday 16 June 2020 Another government minister has resigned today making three in two days. This is over the branch stacking allegations and the use of taxpayer funded staff to facilitate the branch stacking and other naughty things they shouldn't be doing. In other words the taxpayer funded staff were being used to carry out party political activities instead of their public service roles, similar to what the government got away with in the "Red Shirts" scandal. Give em an inch and they will take a mile! If the opposition can't make something big of this we need a new opposition, unfortunately I am not confident that the opposition is up to it. We shall see. I went to Southland this morning, my first trip there in 3 months. I bought my Coldplay CD/DVD combination album. Listening to it now as I type. There were signs to a mobile virus testing station in one of the car parks but I didn't see it where I parked. The...
Blog Day 84: Monday 15 June 2020 I doubt that DD (Dangerous Dan) will too much concerned with the virus issues today given the recent disclosures on the branch stacking, power plays and corruption within the ALP. These disclosures were made last night on 60 minutes and detailed in today's Age and to say that they are explosive is an understatement. The funniest thing to come out of this so far is DD saying on the radio this morning that he wasn't aware of any branch stacking in the ALP........ What the???? I reckon there might be a bit more to report on the ALP travails in the days to come. Can hardly wait. The rankings in the deaths per million have remained the same as last week with poor little Belgium (a TGW reference) still in the lead with the UK coming second. Spain and New Zealand reported no further deaths in the last week. The USA had nearly 5,000 deaths which I think is a good result for them. The death rates are declining ...
Blog Day 82: Saturday 13 June 2020 On my daily walk I often walk past a new business in the little shopping centre near Tucker Road. The business is called Rejuven8 and offers cryotherapy and I have wondered "what is that all about"? When I was walking past the other day there was a van parked out the front and the van man was decanting liquid nitrogen into a very scientific and very cold looking container with liquid nitrogen vapour spreading across the footpath like a scene out of The Phantom of the Opera. Apparently cryotherapy is used to treat some sports injuries and arthritis, it involves the patient sitting in a chamber at about -120 to -150 degrees for 3 minutes. My usual in depth research (Wikipedia) revealed that this treatment does not have the wholehearted support of the legitimate medical community. I was a little disappointed as I had visions of freezing bodies for unfreezing sometime in the future when a cure has been discovered fo...
Blog Day 81: Friday 12 June 2020 As you are aware after a bit of a hiatus the first game of the second round of the footy was played last night. Collingwood drew with Richmond with both scoring 5 goals 6 for 36 points (sounds like an AFLW score). Although not terribly interested in the footy I flicked over to watch it on the telly a couple of times. Of course the game was being played in an empty MCG which was incredibly strange in itself but the broadcast had fake crowd noises which made it even stranger. I must admit for the very short periods of time that I watched it the crowd noises sounded very authentic, although there was no swearing or booing of the umpires. One of my many erudite readers (my sister Lyn) has pointed out that one of the benefits of the corona virus is that the number of reported flu cases so far this year has been incredibly small. I suppose isolation to stop the spread of one virus works on other viruses, well done corona vi...
Blog Day 80: Thursday 11 June 2020 Well, all you footy fans out there the footy, Aussie rules that is, (the real footy) is back in town tonight with a clash of traditional rivals at the MCG. Collingwood and Richmond are lining up in a spectatorless (is that a word?) stadium. And horror of horrors the clubs are being made to operate with a football department of only 30! I wonder if that includes the boot studder. This week is round 2 of an 18 round series, remember round 1 being played way back in March, seems so long ago. The government has announced today the driver's licence testing will recommence shortly. Testing was suspended on 25 March. Apparently there is a backlog of 55,000 learner drivers waiting to be tested. Won't it be great when we have 55,000 red P platers on the road all at once. Only 5,254 deaths worldwide in the last 24 hours, I am pleased that the local church is praying for an end to the pandemic, just imagine how man...
Blog Day 79: Wednesday 10 June 2020 Just waiting to join a Zoom meeting with the Shrine. One of the Shrine curators is going to be talking about his new exhibition on the sinking of the hospital ship Centaur by a Japanese submarine in the second world war. Neil, the Shrine curator has just finished his talk about the new Centaur exhibition. It is another exhibition centred around contemporary art and is designed to attract visitors to the Shrine outside of the usual military, remembrance and commemoration cohort. The art for this exhibition is by a Melbourne artist, Dean Bowen, and comprises some charcoal drawings based on the Centaur disaster plus other items of interest including paintings, posters and artefacts. (The term charcoal drawing sounds very simplistic but they are far more complex than how they sound). 2/3 Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off the Qld coast during the night of 14 May 1943. The ship was ...
Blog Day 78: Tuesday 09 June 2020 I am back from my sojourn to Dromana. Andrew and Katie rented an AirBnB property in Dromana for the long weekend and being a large house various family and friends visited, some stayed overnight, others visited for varying lengths of time. Saturday afternoon and evening was mainly grazing on local cold meats, cheeses and delicacies and included a wine tasting. The wine tasting was mainly local wines which meant the white wines were all chardonnays and the reds were all pinots, neither of which are my favourites, but being the trooper that I am I battled on through and ensured that I drank my share. Sunday was a roast pork lunch which in true Phillips/Kidd tradition was eaten at about 3.00pm. Naturally enough lunch was accompanied by the appropriate drinks although some of the attendees were a little subdued, possibly due to being a little tired after the Saturday festivities. It was a great weekend and it was g...
Blog Day 74: Friday 05 June 2020 I know that this will come as a big disappointment to my legion of dedicated readers but there probably won't be any blog entries for the next few days as I am going away for the long weekend. I anticipate being so busy with social (read drinking and eating) activities that I won't have the time or inclination to be blogging unless of course I get bored with the company and the activities. I can hear your sighs of disappointment from here. But never fear I will be back, probably next Tuesday. Won't that be a bumper edition! You would all be aware of the proposed rallies in Melbourne and other parts of the country tomorrow. Three weeks ago Dangerous Dan was telling us that we were all going to die if more than five people attended a mother's day lunch, last week he told us we were all going to die if more than twenty people attended a restaurant at the same time. I think he said something along the lines of "if these r...
Blog Day 73: Thursday 07 June 2020 As I have been feeling unwell now for some two weeks with a dry cough, runny nose, headaches and high temperature I decided today that I had better visit the doctor...……...only kidding folk, although I did go to the doctor today but only to get my blood pressure tablet prescription renewed and to have my blood taken for my annual blood test. Going to the doctor in this day and age is a different experience than it used to be. When you pull into the car park there is a sign telling you to stay in the car and ring reception. So I did that and the receptionist told me to stay in the car and the doctor would ring me when he was ready to see me. The doctor rang me and I went inside and met him in the now empty waiting room and went into his rooms. After having my blood pressure checked and receiving my new prescription I went to the pathology area to have my blood taken. The pathology nurse gave me a number and told...
Blog Day 72: Wednesday 06 June 2020 I am writing this waiting for a Shrine zoom session to start at 11.00am. One of the curatorial staff is going to be talking about a new temporary exhibition called "Between Two Worlds". The exhibition is of the art of three military veterans and the stories of the veterans themselves. The three veterans are Sean Burton, Rory Cushnahan and Ben Pullin. All three are veterans of various overseas deployments and have used art to deal with some of the issues in their lives as result of their service. I have finished the Shrine zoom session. The new exhibition sounds fantastic with the art of these three ex servicemen. The Shrine is taking a different path with some of the temporary exhibitions, moving away from the more traditional military history type exhibitions and moving towards a more contemporary exhibition with an appeal to a wider cross section of society but maintaining a leaning to remembrance and commemorati...
Blog Day 71: Tuesday 02 June 2020 Observation: Cafes and coffee shops open but not busy; nail salon open and frantic! Do you realise it is almost impossible to not flush the toilet. I have the water cut off here for a few hours today while they do some work to the mains out in the street, obviously if you flush the toilet while the water is disconnected the cistern doesn't refill, so one tries not to flush if not necessary, therefore saving the water for when it is necessary. So, there I was standing there doing my business, chanting to myself "do not flush, do not flush...…", and what did I do once I had finished and zipped up.....of course I flushed. Tasmania has declared a significant relaxation of virus restrictions from this Friday just in time for the long weekend. The premier has advised that Tasmania has not had any new cases for 17 days. The death of the young man in Blackwater Qld has now been declared to be not as result of the corona v...
Blog Day 70: Monday 01 June 2020 On my walk today I noticed that the cafes and coffee shops were getting organised for trading under the new relaxed rules however they did not appear to be inundated with customers eager for their serving of smashed avo. Maybe the weather has something to do with this as it is raining and cold. The only place that appeared to be really busy was the nail salon which was chockers and didn't appear to be making much effort at the required level of social distancing. I see that some museums and galleries in Victoria have announced that they are reopening on Saturday 27 June, some with controlled and timed admissions. The AWM in Canberra have announced that they are opening on 1 July with booked and timed admissions. I am looking forward to seeing what the Shrine intends to do. Selected world corona virus stats as at today in the table below: Corona Virus International Stats as at 01/06/2020 ...