Blog Day 343 - Saturday 06 March 2021

A Times New Roman walked into a bar and the barman said "we don't serve your type around here".

A beautiful warm early autumn day here in Melbourne a bit warmer tomorrow but no humidity.  The sort of day my readers in northern climes would be hanging out for.  I can nearly smell the aroma of the autumn leaves being burnt in the gutters in Camberwell, until that was banned probably 30 years ago. 

Apart from the greenies/new puritans banning anything that looked like a bit of fun one of the reasons burning leaves in the gutters was banned was that a street sweeping machine, in Camberwell, swept up a pile of burning leaves one day and set the machine on fire, destroying it.  So that tradition has gone along with, home fireworks, backyard incinerators, bottles of beer left out for the garbos at christmas, twice daily mail deliveries and people getting dressed up to travel.

It looks like the feds are putting a bit of pressure on the state government to start taking ROTs into Victoria again.  The word around town is that international flights will start arriving with ROTs from next Saturday 13/03. 

Victoria has recorded zero new local infections however there has been one new infection in hotel quarantine, confirmed as a crew member from one of the international flights still coming into Tullamarine, probably a freight flight.  Apart from that one in Victoria NSW & Qld have both reported three new cases each, all of which are ROTs for a total of 7 new cases Australia wide.

Victoria received the results of 14,800 test in the last 24 hours, NSW 11,600 and Qld 6,400.  Testing numbers are down however given the zero new local infections being reported in all states this is understandable.

Currently Australia wide there are 95 active virus cases including 90 ROTs.  Victoria has 6 active cases including the aircrew member referred to above, NSW has 56 active cases all ROTs and Qld has 24 active cases, also all ROTs.

To date Victoria has jabbed 12,800 of it's good citizens, NSW leads the field with 19,000 and Qld has done 8,000.  Including 20,000 inoculations carried out by the Federal government in aged care facilities there has been a total of 76,000 inoculations carried out Australia wide.

Worldwide the infections and deaths are creeping back up a bit with 441,570 new infections in the last 24 hours and 10,200 deaths in the same period.

The US and UK are still reporting promising figures with both new infections and deaths continuing a downward trend.  In the 24 hours of 5/03 the US reported 65,000 new infections compared to 77,000 a week ago and 69,000 two weeks ago.  The US reported 1,775 deaths in the same period and 2,331 a week ago and 2,446 two weeks ago.

The UK reported 6,600 new infections in the 24 hours of 05/03 and 242 deaths for the same period.  For comparison the UK reported 10,000 new infections a week ago and 12,000 a fortnight ago.  The UK reported 324 deaths a week ago and 455 a fortnight ago.

Unfortunately the same good news doesn't apply to countries like Brazil.  Brazil has exceeded the US daily infection figures for the first time with 75,000 infections reported in the 24 hours of 05/03, this has seen a steady increase from 66,000 a week ago and 52,000 two weeks ago.  Similarly Brazil reported 1,699 deaths for 05/03 an increase from 1,541 last week and 1,367 the week before.

This is obviously of concern particularly if this trend is being reflected in other South American countries.  It is a bit hard to tell with extensive daily fluctuations but Argentina appears to be trending upwards again also.

Corona Virus Daily Stats – March 2021 – Covid Normal (for the time being)

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
01/03	28,978	8	8	20,481	0	0	71	61	11	1
02/03	28,986	9	9	20,481	0	0	72	63	10	1
03/03	28,992	6	6	20,481	0	0	72	64	8	0
04/03	29,007	14	14	20,481	0	0	83	78	5	0
05/03	29,021	13	13	20,481	0	0	83	78	5	0
06/03	29,027	7	7	20,482	1	1	95	89	6	1
07/03

Date	World Infection	Daily Increase	World Deaths	Daily Increase
01/03/21	114,686,978	321,386	2,543,285	6,582
02/03/21	114,993,503	306,525	2,550,245	6,960
03/03/21	115,281,061	287,558	2,559,210	8,965
04/03/21	115,760,899	479,838	2,570,837	11,627
05/03/21	116,206,172	445,273	2,580,784	9,947
06/03/21	116,647,742	441,570	2,590,967	10,183
07/03/21

	US & UK Daily New Infections & Death Numbers
Date	US New Infections	US Daily Deaths	UK New Infections	UK Daily Deaths
01/03/21	51,204	1,097	6,055	144
02/03/21	57,439	1,431	5,462	104
03/03/21	56,758	1,924	6,411	343
04/03/21	65,909	2,360	6,420	487
05/03/21	65,447	1,775	6,644	242
06/03/21

Covid Normal Reminders;

Remember: not to look for naked ladies in every ink blot; to collect your Frequent Flyer points, you might be able to use them one day; don't burn your leaves in the gutter.