Blog Day 137 - Thursday 19 November 2020

Going to be warm today, temperature climbing to 33 degrees. I went for my walk a bit earlier when it was only about 27 but my word it is getting difficult to walk in the warmer weather wearing a mask.

A couple of interesting reports out today.  The first was the coroners report on the deaths of the people in Bourke Street run down by the car in 2017.  The second was the report on the Australian special forces (SASR and 2nd Commando) likely war crimes offences in Afghanistan.

In both cases there appears to have been significant deficiencies in command and control at various levels  that allowed these situations to develop and continue to an unsatisfactory conclusion.  

I will discuss both of these further tomorrow once I have had a chance to have a look at the reports in a bit more detail.

A little bit of good news, Victoria has reported another zero - zero day as a result of another day of 17,000 plus tests in the last 24 hours.  All up there were 8 new cases reported nationally in the last 24 hours with 5 new cases in NSW and 3 in Qld, all 8 from returned overseas travellers.  Currently there are 96 active cases Australia wide with 3 in Victoria, 19 in NSW and 35 in SA.  Of the 3 active cases in Victoria 2 are in hospital.  There are 24 Australians in hospital with none in intensive care.

The Victorian premier has just announced that we are going into a 48 'hard' border closure with SA.

Once again the worldwide figures continue to be less than impressive with 611,000 new infections in the last 24 hours and nearly 11,000.  Although not the highest figures reported they are certainly up there with the highest.  So far worldwide there has been 56,500,000 virus infections reported and 1,353,904 deaths reported for the pandemic.  I wonder what the percentage of under reporting would be in these figures.

Lets have a look at the worldwide figures for the last week in some more detail.  First up, USA, Brazil, Mexico and India.  The USA has reported 1,200,000 new infections for the week, an increase from 908,000 the previous week, and 9,000 deaths for the week up from 7,500 the week before.  The USA infection and death rates continue to increase dramatically and given the continued increases in the infections the number of deaths must also continue to increase.  I have no idea what individual states in the US are doing to control their infections and deaths.  Are any of them in any sort of lockdown, are restrictions on crossing borders from state to state and so on?

Brazil has also reported continuing increases in both new infections and virus related deaths with 198,000 new infections for the week compared to 158,000 the week before.  Brazil also reported 4,100 deaths an increase from 2,200 the week before.

Mexico and India reported decreases in the number of infections and deaths for the week with Mexico reporting 33,000 new infections for the week and 3,200 deaths, down from 40,000 and 3,200 respectively.  India reported 274,000 new infections, down from 321,000 the previous week and 3,500 deaths, dwon from 3,800 the previous week.

All up these 4 countries reported 40% of the worldwide infections for the week, up from 36% the week before and 30% of the worldwide deaths up from 29% the previous week.

The UK, Spain, Italy and France have had mixed experiences in the last week.  The UK has reported 174,000 new infections compared to 158,000 last week and 2,900 deaths compared to 2,600 the week before.  Italy has also reported increased infections and deaths with 244,000 new infections compared to 238,000 infections the week before and 4,300 new deaths compared to 3,200 deaths the previous week.

Spain reported 79,000 new infections compared to 106,000 the previous week and 1,900 deaths compared to 2,000 the previous week.  France reported a significant drop in new infections with 200,000 new infections reported a decrease from 322,000 the previous week and 4,200 deaths for the week down from 3,900 deaths the previous week.

So, the new lockdowns seem to be working in Spain and France but not having any significant impact in the UK and Italy.  These 4 countries reported 17% of the worldwide new infections, down from 21% last week and 20% of the new virus related deaths, the same % as last week.

I have listed below the top 10 countries by deaths per million of population.  For the sake of the exercise I have not included the micro countries such as Andorra, but I have included Australia and NZ for comparison purposes.

Belgium    1,278 deaths per million of population

Peru           1,065

Spain            899

Argentina     801

Brazil           786

UK               783

Italy             781

Chile            777

USA            772

Mexico        765

Australia       35

NZ                  5

Tables as below;

Corona Virus Daily Stats – Towards Covid Normal – 14 day stage – Day 11

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	Aus Death	Vic Death	Aus Hospl	Vic Hospital	Aus ICU	Vic ICU
08/11	27,655	3	20,345	0	907	819	19	2	1	0
9/11	27,665	7	20,345	0	907	819	19	2	1	0
10/11	27,678	10	20,345	0	907	819	21	2	0	0
11/11	27,686	8	20,345	0	907	819	21	2	0	0
12/11	27,694	8	20,345	0	907	819	23	2	0	0
13/11	27,702	5	20,345	0	907	819	21	2	0	0
14/11	27,709	6	20,345	0	907	819	26	2	0	0
15/11	27,724	13	20,345	0	907	819	21	2	0	0
16/11	27,745	16	20,345	0	907	818	22	2	0	0
17/11	27,760	10	20345	0	907	819	24	2	0	0
18/11	27,777	17	20,345	0	907	819	23	2	0	0
19/11	27,785	8	20,345	0	907	819	24	2	0	0
20/11

Country	Population	Infected No	Infected Increase	Deaths No	Deaths Increase No	Deaths per Million Population
Belgium	11,500,000	540,605	36,130	14,839	1,278	1290
UK	68,000,000	1,430,341	173,616	53,274	2,909	783
Spain	47,000,000	1,542,467	79,374	42,039	1,934	894
Italy	60,000,000	1,272,352	243,928	47,217	4,264	787
Sweden	10,000,000	196,446	29,739	6,321	239	632
France	65,000,000	2,065,138	199,600	46,698	4,163	718
USA	331,000,000	11,869,362	1,164,420	256,206	8,925	774
Brazil	213,000,000	5,947,403	198,396	167,497	4,091	786
Mexico	129,000,000	1,011,153	32,622	99,026	3,184	768
South Africa	59,000,000	757,144	14,750	20,556	545	348
Russia	146,000,000	1,991,998	155,038	34,387	2,794	236
World	7,800,000,000	56,543,861	4,125,800	1,353,904	65,126	174
India	1,300,000,000	8,958,143	274,104	131,618	3,454	101
Australia	25,000,000	27,777	91	907	0	36
New Zealand	5,000,000	2,008	20	25	0	5

Corona Virus International Stats as at 19/11/2020

And now the Towards Covid Normal remembers;

Remember: Keep wearing your mask!; remember to remember Remembrance Day; the price of corona virus liberty is eternal vigilance; enjoy the new found freedoms but not too much, just yet; don't get your tennis racquet out just yet; don't travel to SA; don't count your chickens before they hatch.