Blog Day 329 - Friday 19 February 2021

"What do you call a girl with two toilets on her head?  Lulu".

Currently the news seems to be dominated by this Facebook (FB) business.  As I don't use FB I don't really understand what the fuss is about, but lack of knowledge of a matter hasn't stopped me having an opinion in the past.  For the record I think that FB is the "devil's work" and/or a total waste of time appealing to people who have nothing better to do with their time.

As I understand it the current fuss is that FB obtains news and information from other sources and then displays it on its own FB pages and in this process currently doesn't pay for the new items it obtains.  For example FB pulls news items from the Age web page and then displays these items on FB or feeds them directly to FB users.  In this process it doesn't pay the Age for this information but makes money from advertisers on its own sites plus data gathering from its own users.

So why doesn't FB have to pay for this information it is sweeping from other sites and why should FB users expect to get this information for free.  I have to pay for my subscription to the Age.

I also don't understand why the usual copyright laws don't apply in this instance.  Surely the Age owns the copyright on the news items it publishes and can only be republished with its permission.  Why don't these news sources pursue FB for breach of copyright?  (Hmmmmm maybe there is a retirement gig here as a IP lawyer, might have to buy a copy of IP Law for Dummies, or maybe it is available for free on FB).

Moving right along, Victoria has reported 3 new cases of community transmission in the last 24 hours.  The 3 are close contacts in the Holiday Inn cluster and were already in isolation, so far there hasn't been any community transmissions into the broader community from this cluster.

Apparently the people who were infected at the restaurant/function centre were attending a traditional Rice Feeding Ceremony which is a tradition in certain ethnic groups.  I am blaming those damn Irish again, we know how much they like their rice.

Apparently traces of the virus have popped up again in Melbourne's sewage or wastewater as it is described in polite company.  The official statement is that there has been "unexpected wastewater detection" and they have "stepped up the granularity of the sampling".  I will let you muse on that while you are eating your lunch.

There were 5 new cases detected Australia wide in the last 24 hours, three of which were in Victoria as noted above and 2 ROTs in NSW.

Victoria received the results of over 21,000 test in the last 24 hours, NSW nearly 17,000 and Qld 9,300.

There are currently 41 active cases Australia wide including 23 ROTs plus 28 ROTs in NSW.  Victoria has 27 active cases, including 9 ROTs, NSW has only the 28 ROTs and Qld has 6 cases also all ROTs.

Rather optimistically my data source has set up a new table for recording vaccinations by state and Australia wide, currently showing zero.

Notwithstanding daily fluctuations the daily worldwide figures for both new infections and deaths are continuing their downward trend.  In the last 24 hours worldwide there were 413,000 new infections and 12,000 deaths.  Two weeks ago there was 533,000 new daily infections and 16,700 daily deaths.

Similarly the US and UK figures are continuing their downward trend although subject to daily fluctuations.  In the last 24 hours the US reported 68,000 new infections and 2,400 deaths, two weeks ago these figures were 119,000 and 3,800 respectively.

In the last 24 hours the UK reported 12,800 new infections and 738 deaths, two weeks ago these figures were 19,200 and 1,322 respectively.

Corona Virus Daily Stats – February 2021 – Covid Normal (as much as possible)

*Please note that the “Aus Active & Aus ROTs columns do not include the NSW ROTs.  (ROTs = Returned Overseas Travellers)

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Aus ROTs Increase	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	Vic ROTS Increase	*Aus Active Infection	*Aus ROTs	Vic Active Infection	Vic ROTs
01/02	28,817	7	7	20,449	1	1	61	44	21	21
02/02	28,820	2	2	20,450	1	1	61	43	22	22
03/02	28,830	6	6	20,450	0	0	57	42	21	21
04/02	28,835	6	5	20,452	3	2	51	39	21	21
05/02	28,839	4	4	20,455	3	3	53	40	24	23
06/02	28,848	6	6	20,456	0	0	52	41	22	23
07/02	20,850	2	2	20,456	0	0	52	41	21	20
08/02	28,856	6	4	20,456	1	0	53	41	20	18
09/02	28,860	2	2	20,456	0	0	46	34	15	13
10/02	28,867	7	5	20,458	2	0	46	31	16	11
11/02	28,878	7	5	20,460	2	0	48	31	17	10
12/02	28,887	7	2	20,465	5	0	45	34	19	12
13/02	28,892	5	4	20,466	1	0	40	32	20	13
14/02	28,898	6	4	20,469	3	1	42	34	21	14
15/02	28,900	2	1	20,471	2	1	44	33	21	14
16/02	28,905	5	3	20,475	4	2	45	37	25	18
17/02	28,909	4	4	20,475	0	0	42	25	25	9
18/02	28,912	1	1	20,476	1	1	41	25	25	9
19/02	28,918	5	2	20,479	3	0	41	23	27	9

Date	World Infection	Daily Increase	World Deaths	Daily Increase
01/02/21	103,514,297	412,018	2,237,252	9,577
02/02/21	103,892,731	378,434	2,246,435	9,183
03/02/21	104,378,657	485,926	2,262,084	15,649
04/02/21	104,861,308	482,651	2,275,840	13,756
05/02/21	105,394,460	533,152	2,292,538	16,698
06/02/21	105,879,863	485,403	2,307,031	14,493
07/02/21	106,329,652	449,789	2,318,949	11,918
08/02/21	106,677,372	347,720	2,326,819	7,870
09/02/21	106,983,743	306,371	2,335,265	8,446
10/02/21	107,377,125	438,382	2,348,700	13,435
11/02/21	107,849,724	472,599	2,364,864	16,164
12/02/21	108,280,120	430,396	2,377,223	12,359
13/02/21	108,726,332	446,212	2,394,005	16,782
14/02/21	109,085,416	359,084	2,403,982	9,917
15/02/21	109,382,123	296,707	2,411,000	7,018
16/02/21	109,664,689	283,566	2,418,025	7,025
17/02/21	110,018,939	354,250	2,428,135	10,110
18/02/21	110,405,233	386,294	2,439,103	10,968
19/02/21	110,818,188	412,955	2,451,955	12,021

	US & UK Daily New Infections & Death Numbers
Date	US New Infections	US Daily Deaths	UK New Infections	UK Daily Deaths
31/01/21	136,252	2,640	23,400	1,205
01/02/21	110,470	1,789	21,190	590
02/02/21	130,759	1,881	18,668	407
03/02/21	110,679	3,389	16,906	1,451
04/02/21	119,235	3,796	19,215	1,322
05/02/21	119,931	4,941	20,374	915
06/02/21	128,114	3,522	19,204	1,015
07/02/21	102,420	2,618	18,363	828
08/02/21	86,928	1,268	15,904	376
09/02/21	86,646	1,465	14,138	333
10/02/21	92,666	3,031	12,441	1,052
11/02/21	93,166	3,219	13,077	1,002
12/02/21	103,306	3,724	13,543	680
13/02/21	99,511	5,443	15,198	759
14/02/21	82,178	3,313	13,355	621
15/02/21	64,194	1,084	10,991	289
16/02/21	52,685	985	9,776	235
17/02/21	59,598	1,602	10,636	799
18/02/21	68,419	2,366	12,760	738

Covid Normal Reminders;

Remember: to think carefully before mucking around with spreadsheets and tables in Blogger; to keep up your Covid era exercise regime; if you put your mask on when you enter a shop you can take it of again when you leave ( I seem to get home and realise I still have my mask on); to laugh at my jokes; it is a beautiful day out there, get out and enjoy it; keep your corporate governance up to date; bring yourself up to date with the stage 4 lockdown rules; to buy your valentine day flowers before lockdown; those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones; even in lockdown look both ways before you cross the road; to enjoy our refound freedoms, while they last; if you are Irish be careful attending your traditional rice feeding ceremony.