Blog Day 132 - Monday 03 August 2020

Well, here we go again.  Stage four lockdown for the next six weeks.  The limitations and restrictions are pretty much as I described in yesterday's blog.  We are still waiting on today's figures.  The premier is also going to announce the business and commercial lockdown rules today at his media conference which is scheduled for sometime this arvo.  More to come on this after the media conference.

As mentioned yesterday I went out looking to buy a new PC which I eventually bought from Harvey Norman.  During my shopping trip I went to Officeworks to see what they had.  I point out that availability was fairly limited at both HN & OW.  Anyway OW had 4 HP "all in one" PCs on display.  A nice young lady asked me if I needed any assistance, I asked her if these 4 PCs were the only "all in ones" that they had and she replied to the affirmative.  I asked if they had the one I wanted in stock, she checked on her tablet and said 'no'.  I asked if they had the next one in stock, once again she checked and said 'no'.  The last two I wasn't really interested in but for the sake of completeness I asked "what about these two, are these in stock" she checked again and replied to the negative.  She also indicated that they didn't know if and when they would ever have them in stock again.  I then asked her what the point was in having these PCs on display if they didn't have any and were most unlikely to have any.  She looked at me with a little smile shrugged her shoulders and went on to "assist" somebody else.  Remind anybody of Monty Python's cheese shop.

We have received the latest figures as well as details of the lockdown of the commercial and business enterprises in the state.  Victoria recorded 429 new infections in the last 24 hours. This is one of the lowest figures recorded over the last few days, but we now know not to get too excited over one day's figures.  We recorded 13 deaths making a total number of deaths in Victoria at 136.  Five of these 13 were in their 90's and 8 were in aged care.

The premier has announced the level 4 restrictions on commerce and business.  In its simplest form there are 3 levels to be applied as follows;

Level 1. These businesses can remain open, supermarkets, bottleshops, pharmacies, service stations, butchers, banks and post offices etc.

Level 2. From midnight Wednesday the following must close; all retail businesses, some manufacturing, some admin.  Apparently there is a list around somewhere that provides more detail on this.

Level 3. Businesses that must scale back or reduce operations, open but reduced capacity eg; meatworks can only operate at 2/3rd production, commercial building sites can operate at less than 25% employees on site, domestic home builders can have no more than 5 people on site at one time. 

And so on and so on.  As I am typing this I can hear people ringing the radio station with all sorts of questions about what can open and what can't.  The loop hole Larrys and Lorraines will be out in force, lets hope this is strictly enforced, if it doesn't work what next?

Corona Virus Daily Stats – Stage 4 Lockdown – Day 1

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	Aus Death	Vic Death	Aus Hospl	Vic Hospital	Aus ICU	Vic ICU
02/08	17,920	685	11,557	671	208	123	366	385	44	38
03/08	18,318	444	11,937	429	221	136	408	416	46	35
04/08
05/08

Date	World Infection	Daily Increase	World Deaths	Daily Increase
28/07	16,648,616	236,354	656,621	4,588
29/07	16,895,202	246,586	663,476	6,855
30/07	17,184,770	289,568	670,152	6,676
31/07	17,473,538	288,768	676,702	6,550
01/08	17,754,190	280,652	682,885	6,183
02/08	18,023,357	269,167	688,939	6,054
03/08	18,234,936	211,579	692,794	3,855
04/08

Remember: to ask "are you OK"?, to work from home when you can, keep your vodka in the freezer, wash your hands, keep your distance, keep your mask on, sneeze into your elbow (yuk), don't sneeze with your mask on (yuk), don't touch your face, press the traffic light button with your foot, eat your vegies, don't ride your bike on the footpath, sanitize often, keep your glasses unfogged, obey the police at roadblocks, don't put your hat on the counter at the bakery (cause the lady will shout at you), don't go to work if you are crook, the lime in your V & T is a good source of vitamin C, don't go to a day spa and then boast about it on FB, pay with a card, don't use cash (because you are wearing a mask you could run away without paying) and be kind.

And now the State of Disaster remembers;

Remember: to stay indoors between 8.00pm and 5.00am, stay safe & stay strong and be kind.