Blog Day 300 - Thursday 21 January 2021

 Here we are at blog day 300 and who would have thought it.  I acknowledge that I have missed a few days here and there but I still think that my humble little effort is still worth a self congratulatory pat on the back.

Did I mention yesterday that it sounded like the premier was using weasel words when he said that the Victorian government wouldn't be contributing to TA's quarantine accommodation costs.  He has said today "We are not paying for hotel quarantine.  There are some other costs that we are assisting in the meeting of (it) because of the rescheduling of it and the specific COVID nature of the tournament, it's obviously very different".  

So we are not contributing directly to the TA's cost of the quarantine program but at the end of the tournament the state government will hand over a cheque for many millions of dollars to assist with the costs of the tournament.  How stupid are we that we put up with this premier and government and their stupid word games.  (I wonder if they will have a big novelty cheque to hand over in a public ceremony so that it gets on the news.  I wouldn't put it past them given the arrogance displayed to date).

And meanwhile in the real world people are still dying in their thousands from the virus.

In Victoria in the last 24 hours we recorded one new infection who is a ROTs, if this one case is a AO related person is anybody's guess given the conflicting messages circulating yesterday.  Victoria has now gone 15 days without a community transmission.  NSW reported 5 new cases and Qld 1, all ROTs.

In the last 24 hours Victoria received 20,000 test results; NSW 12,200 (although this has been affected by an IT glitch) and Qld 7,400 tests.

Victoria currently has 34 active cases 32 of which are ROTs or tennis players, NSW has 87 active cases, excluding 76 ROTs and Qld has 23 active cases, all ROTs.  There are currently 172 active cases Australia wide 83 of whom are ROTs excluding the 76 the NSW ROTs.

Worldwide there were 658,284 new infections reported in the last 24 hours bringing the total number of infections for the pandemic to 97,300,000.  There were nearly 16,000 deaths reported worldwide in the last 24 hours bringing the worldwide death toll for the pandemic to 2,082,000.

Overall for the past week there were 4.5 million new infections worldwide compared to 5.1 million the previous week.  There were 96,000 new deaths in the past week compared to 94,500 the week before.  So new infections for the week are down, but deaths are up. Due to the way the virus works deaths up and down will tend to lag behind the infections figures.  Therefore if this drop in infections is the start of a pattern and not just an aberration we can look forward to a drop in death rates in due course.

Meanwhile our favourite countries have experienced mixed results over the last week.  Figures are as below with last week's figures in brackets;

USA - 1,381,000 (1,759,000) new infections and 21,901 (24,000) deaths for the week.  Both infection and death rates are down on previous weeks and the infection rate is the lowest since the middle of December.

Brazil - 382,000 (383,000) new infections and 6,900 (7,000) deaths for the week.  No meaningful movement in the new infection or death rates over the last couple of weeks.

Mexico - 112,000 (76,000) new infections and 7,000 (5,7000) deaths for the week.  A large and sudden increase in the infections as reported by Mexico is cause for concern.  If it is correct it means that the virus is out of control, if it is not correct it means that there are problems with the recording and reporting processes.  

India - 99,000 (117,000) new infections and 1,100 (1,393) deaths for the week.  India would appear to be the only country in this groups that has the virus under control and is continuing to report meaningful declines in infection and death figures.

These four countries account for 44% (46%) of the total weekly worldwide infections and 39% of (40%) of the total weekly worldwide deaths.

UK - 294,000 (375,000) new infections for the week and 8,500 (7,400) deaths for the week.  A significant decrease in the number of new infections for the week in the UK, however an increase in the number of deaths.  Hopefully the stricter lockdown regime in the UK is having some effect and a decrease in the death numbers should follow.

Spain - 236,000 (194,000) new infections for the week and 1,800 (1,400) deaths for the week.  A significant increase in new infections and an increase in deaths. Spain has experienced significant increases in both new infections and deaths for the last two weeks.

Italy - 95,000 (117,000) new infections for the week and 3,400 (3,500) deaths for the week.  A significant decrease in new infections and a slight decrease in the number of deaths.

France - 135,000 (125,000) new infections for the week and 2,600 deaths (2,500).  New infections continuing to rise, however France introduced tougher lockdown restrictions through the week including a 6.00pm to 6.00am curfew.  It will be interesting to see what effect this has over the coming weeks.

These four countries account for 17% (16%) of the worldwide new infections for the week and 17% (16%) of the worldwide deaths for the week.

Overall these eight countries account for 61% (62%) of the weekly new infections and 56% (56%) of the weekly deaths.

I have listed below the top countries by death per million of population with last weeks ranking in brackets. (As usual I have excluded the micro countries and included Australia and New Zealand for comparison purposes.

1. Belgium 1,769 (1)
2. Slovenia 1,567 (2)
3. Italy 1,385 (3)
4. Bosnia 1,383 (3)
5. Czechia 1,382 (6)
6. UK 1,370 (7)
7. North Macedonia 1,315 (5)
8. USA 1,252 (9)
9. Bulgaria 1,250 (8)
10. Montenegro 1,207 (10)
11. Hungary 1,204 (12)
12. Peru 1,179 (11)
13. Spain 1,168 (13)
14. Croatia 1,152 (14)
15. Mexico 1,101 (16)
16. France 1,096 (15)
17. Sweden 1,065 (19)
18. Switzerland 1,027 (18)
19. Argentina 1,017 (19)
20. Brazil 998 (20)

• Australia 35
• New Zealand 05

A bit of a shuffle around in the deaths per million some countries have moved up or down one spot or remained stable.  The UK has gone from number 9 to number 6 in 3 weeks and the USA has gone from number 11 to number 8 in the same period.  The Balkan countries are conspicuous by their presence in the upper levels of the table.  

Corona Virus Daily Stats – Day 21 – New Year 2021 – Covid Normal (as much as possible)

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	Aus Death	Vic Death	Aus Hospl	Vic Hospital	Aus ICU	Vic ICU
01/01	28,421	13	20,376	8	909	820	21	0	0	0
02/01	28,441	13	20,388	12	909	820	19	0	0	0
03/01	28,483	14	20,391	3	909	820	26	0	0	0
04/01	28,499	16	20,395	4	909	820	30	0	0	0
05/01	28,518	14	20,399	4	909	820	26	0	0	0
06/01	28,533	10	20,402	3	909	820	36	0	0	0
07/01	28,544	8	20,402	0	909	820	35	0	0	0
08/01	28,658	21	20,403	1	909	820	40	0	0	0
09/01	28,582	12	20,404	1	909	820	40	0	0	0
10/01	28,595	13	20,410	6	909	820	41	0	0	0
11/01	28,611	16	20,411	1	909	820	47	0	1	0
12/01	28,633	19	20,411	0	909	820	43	0	1	0
13/01	28,647	13	20,414	3	909	820	45	0	1	0
14/01	28,658	8	20,414	0	909	820	47	0	1	0
15/01	28,665	7	20,414	2	909	820	47	0	1	0
16/01	28,689	20	20,417	3	909	820	48	0	1	0
17/01	28,707	18	20,424	7	909	820	47	0	2	0
18/01	28,721	13	20,428	4	909	820	36	0	2	0
19/01	28,730	9	20,432	4	909	820	33	0	1	0
20/01	28,740	10	20,433	3	909	820	32	0	1	0
21/01	28,747	7	20,433	1	909	820	33	0	1	0

Country	Population	Infected No	Infected Increase	Deaths No	Deaths Increase No	Deaths per Million Population
Belgium	11,500,000	681,250	13,928	20,544	350	1786
UK	68,000,000	3,505,754	294,178	93,290	8,523	1372
Spain	47,000,000	2,412,318	236,229	54,637	1,759	1162
Italy	60,000,000	2,414,166	95,130	83,681	3,355	1395
Sweden	10,000,000	537,967	25,764	10,797	963	1080
France	65,000,000	2,965,117	134,675	71,652	2,621	1102
USA	331,000,000	24,997,255	1,380,910	415,829	21,901	1256
Brazil	213,000,000	8,639,868	382,409	212,893	6,884	999
Mexico	129,000,000	1,668,396	112,368	142,832	7,150	1107
South Africa	59,000,000	1,369,426	91,123	38,854	3,714	659
Russia	146,000,000	3,633,952	162,899	67,220	3,850	460
World	7,800,000,000	97,279,743	4,531,839	2,081,541	96,136	267
India	1,300,000,000	10,611,719	98,888	152,906	1,141	118
Australia	25,000,000	28,740	93	909	0	36
New Zealand	5,000,000	2,267	39	25	0	5

Corona Virus International Stats as at 21/01/2021

I have been looking at infection and death rates in some of the states of the USA however given the large differences in populations of the various states it is difficult to come up with any meaningful figures.  Some of the states with the highest death and infection rates per million of population are only there because of their incredibly small populations.  For example North Dakota with 96,000 cases has the highest infection rate per million people in the USA of 126,00, however it only has a population of 762,000.  California with 3.1 million infections only has an infection rate per million of 78,000 due to having a population of 39,000,000.