Blog Day 149 - Tuesday 01 December 2020

 The Victorian government has just announced that the current Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) will be split into two.  There will be a Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) and a Department of Health (DoH).  There has been constant criticism of the old DHHS, mainly that it was too large and its range of responsibility was to broad to be effective.  The medical people including the Chief Health Officer didn't have enough influence in the broad based DHHS, whereas, hopefully medical people will have more influence in a dedicated DoH.

One of the "F's" in DFFH stands for "Fairness".  How on earth can you have a ministry of Fairness?  Just when we think the government is trying to do something sensible with a practical basis we get a wiff of the old looney left sticking their bib in.  

The restructuring of the Hotel Quarantine system has been announced and on paper it sounds like the lessons of the previous fiasco have been taken on board with stronger management and lines of authority.  Lisa Neville is the minister in charge and she hasn't been particularly impressive in anything else that she has been in charge of but lets hope she has some good people working for her and she doesn't have to make any important decisions.

The police and ADF will have greater roles in this round of hotel quarantine although the government is still skating around how many ADF will be used and in what roles.  All staff, except cleaners, will be direct employees of the state government, so no sub contractors of sub contractors of contractors will be employed.

All employees in the quarantine system will be subject to regular and routine testing and all detainees will be subject to regular testing.  There will be no outdoor exercise for detainees and certainly no trips across the road to the shops to get an ice cream.

How much of this sounds like common sense and the question has to be asked as to why this level and management and control wasn't part of the first hotel quarantine program.

Still no decision has been made as to when and if the Australian Open will be held next year.

No new infections or deaths in Victoria in the last 24 hours.  Australia wide there were eight new infections, five in NSW and 3 in WA, all returning overseas travellers.  Victoria received the results of 6,900 tests in the last 24 hours, NSW 6,600, Qld 3,700 and SA 6,500.  These numbers are still down a bit.  In Victoria we are still only testing people who have symptoms so maybe there are less of them in the community.

Victoria currently has zero active cases, NSW 4, Qld 10, WA 21 and SA 11. Total active cases Australia wide is 55 with 37 of these are returned overseas travellers.

Back up over 500,000 new infections worldwide in the last 24 hours and 8,600 deaths.  

Corona Virus Daily Stats – Towards Covid Normal – 2^nd 14 day stage – Day 8

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	Aus Death	Vic Death	Aus Hospl	Vic Hospital	Aus ICU	Vic ICU
22/11	27,819	12	20,345	0	907	819	22	1	0	0
23/11	27,828	8	20,345	0	907	819	22	1	0	0
24/11	27,843	8	20,345	0	907	819	21	0	0	0
25/11	27,853	4	20,345	0	907	819	22	0	0	0
26/11	27,857	1	20,345	0	907	819	27	0	0	0
27/11	27,872	5	20,345	0	907	819	23	0	0	0
28/11	27,885	13	20,345	0	907	819	22	0	0	0
29/11	27,892	7	20,345	0	907	819	22	0	0	0
30/11	27,902	9	20,345	0	908	820	21	0	0	0
01/12	27,912	8	20,345	0	908	820	19	0	0	0

Date	World Infection	Daily Increase	World Deaths	Daily Increase
23/11	58,970,438	494,689	1,393,227	7,452
24/11	59,501,552	531,114	1,401,567	8,340
25/11	60,076,607	575,055	1,413,704	12,137
26/11	60,700,994	624,387	1,425,387	12,139
27/11	61,308,161	607,167	1,437,835	12,448
28/11
29/11	62,573,188	1,264326	1,458,305	20,470
30/11	63,056,956	483,768	1,464,824	6,519
01/12	63,569,400	512,444	1,473,405	8,581

Remember: Wear your mask when you are buying your Bunnings sausage; no holidays in Britain for a while yet; be careful planning your computer upgrades (my most recent upgrade cost me $1,400); somebody is probably checking your poo.