Blog Day 199 - 10 October 2020

A deer was sitting at a bar it had no eyes and no legs, what was it's name?.......Still no idea!

Commiserations to the many St Kilda supporters who are dedicated and regular readers of this blog over your team's loss to Richmond last night.  You always have next year to look forward.  Can the Tigers go all the way again this year?

Yesterday I received my voting pack in the mail for the local council elections.  Has there ever been a bigger waste of time in the history of wasting time.  There are 10 candidates running for three seats in my ward.  These are ten people I have never heard of before, even the sitting councillors, and some of these candidates will be dummy candidates as part of a preference gathering deal.

I love the motherhood statements the candidates make in their candidate statements, like the following;

• to meet the vast under served needs of middle adulthood
• became acquainted with the community's thinkers at the library
• collecting my sister from the kindergarten and meeting the inspiring agents of change who affectionately cared for our youth 
• must leverage the voices and insights of our community
• my personal background and heritage well equips me to represent the many diverse cultures in our community.

Well you get the idea.  The one I really like is a candidate who proudly proclaims that "as a former candidate........", he is reminding us that he didn't get elected last time.

And of course we are reminded that if we don't vote we can be fined (seems like we can get fined for lots of things around here at the moment).

Some articles in the press today about the collapse of the Westgate bridge.  The bridge collapsed during construction on 15 October 1970, killing 35 workers and injuring many others.  It is hard to imagine the city of Melbourne without the Westgate bridge and its construction certainly opened up the western suburbs to both industry and residential development.  Prior to the bridge opening in November 1978 we had to drive through Maribyrnong and Footscray to get onto the Geelong Road and even in the days of less traffic that was a real pain in the backside.

When the bridge first opened it was a toll bridge.  Tolls on bridges and roads was a bit of a novelty in those days not like today and having to pay to use the bridge was not a popular move.  Unlike today there were no electronic tolls. The toll booths were located on the eastern side, near where the service stations are now, you paid your toll to go across the bridge.  The tolls were discontinued by the Cain labor government sometime in the 80's I think.

Today's figures are a bit higher than the last couple of days.  Victoria reported 14 new cases in the last 24 hours an increase from the 11 the day before and 11 the day before that.  These figures are starting to look a bit stubborn and are proving difficult to move.  There is a new cluster based around the Box Hill Hospital, this has grown to 10 an increase of 6 in the last 24 hours with 5 of the 6 belonging to one family.  They are telling us that the contact tracing is working well with this cluster, lets hope so.

No further deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours and this means that we haven't had any corona virus related deaths for the last 3 days.  That is good news at least.  The number of Victorians in hospital has increased from 17 to 21 in the last 24 hours and there is still on person in ICU.

Judging by the comments being made by the premier in his media conferences I think that we are being softened up for some bad news on 19/10 and the relaxation of the lockdown won't be as great as what we have been expecting.  There will be some unhappy people around if this is the case particularly in the hospitality and business communities.

Rolling 14 Day Figures;

9/10: Metro 9.4, Regional .5, Total 9.9

10/10: Metro 9.5, Regional .4, Total 9.9  (14 Day mystery cases 10)

The worldwide figures are particularly bad with 360,000 new infections reported in the last 24 hours.  This is the largest number of daily infections worldwide since the pandemic began.  There were 6,000 deaths reported in the last 24 hours.  

Corona Virus Daily Stats – Stage 4 Lockdown – 2^nd Step Restrictions – Day 13

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	Aus Death	Vic Death	Aus Hospl	Vic Hospital	Aus ICU	Vic ICU
27/09	27,033	17	20,145	16	872	784	68	51	12	9
28/09	27,045	5	20,150	5	875	787	65	49	12	8
29/09	27,056	12	20,159	10	882	794	63	46	11	5
30/09	27,076	20	20,171	13	886	798	60	44	8	6
01/10	27,096	18	20,183	15	888	800	55	38	9	6
02/10	27,110	13	20,190	7	890	802	50	38	9	4
03/10	27,122	9	20,199	8	893	805	50	34	9	4
04/10	27,133	11	20209	12	894	806	49	34	9	4
05/10	27,144	10	20,206	9	894	806	49	30	9	3
06/10	27,163	15	20,234	15	895	807	46	21	6	1
07/10	27,183	9	20,239	6	924	809	37	16	5	2
08/10	27,204	23	20,247	11	897	809	32	17	6	1
09/10	27,227	21	20,258	11	897	809	31	17	3	1
10/10	27,244	17	20,271	14	897	809	31	21	3	1

Date	World Infection	Daily Increase	World Deaths	Daily Increase
27/09	33,053,144	294,804	998,716	5,303
28/09	33,303,226	250,082	1,002,385	3,669
29/09	33,541,701	238,475	1,006,072	3,687
30/09	33,843,973	302,272	1,012,657	6,585
01/10	34,147,215	303,242	1,018,209	5,552
02/10	34,471,182	323,967	1,027,525	9,316
03/10	34,824,101	352,919	1,033,195	5,670
04/10	35,122,298	298,197	1,037,524	4,329
05/10	35,388,157	265,859	1,041,537	4,013
06/10	35,695,406	307,249	1,045,892	4,355
07/10	36,037,992	342,596	1,054,514	8,622
08/10	36,380,841	342,849	1,059,972	5,458
09/10	36,738,690	357,849	1,066,412	6,440
10/10	37,099,134	360,444	1,072,605	6,193

And now the stage 4 lockdown 2nd step restrictions remembers.

Remember: if you are doing anything wrong don't get caught, it could cost you $5,000!; you gotta wear a face mask no more face shields - thems the rules; somebody somewhere is testing your poo!; do not under any circumstances annoy a Cassowary; if you need a boost to your morale watch Zulu; keep to your 5km zone and if that doesn't include a beach don't go to the beach; try not to commit perjury (allegedly); to vote if you don't want a fine.